"The Grace of God" as Evidence for a Written Uthmanic Archetype: the Importance of Shared Orthographic Idiosyncrasies

"The Grace of God" as Evidence for a Written Uthmanic Archetype: the Importance of Shared Orthographic Idiosyncrasies

Author: 
van Putten, Marijn
Publisher: 
Cambridge University Press
Date published: 
2019
Record type: 
Journal Title: 
Bulletin of the school of Oriental and African studies
Source: 
Bulletin of the school of Oriental and African Studies, Vol. 82, N0. 2, February 2019 pp. 233-244
Abstract: 

This paper takes a novel approach to the question of when and how the text of the Quran was codified into its present form, usually referred to as the Uthmanic text type. In the Quran the phrase ni mat allah/rabbi-ka "the grace of god/your lord" can spell ni mat "grace" either with ta or ta marbu ah. By examining 14 early Quranic manuscripts, it is shown that this phrase is consistently spelled using only one of the two spellings in the same position in all of these different manuscripts. It is argued that such consistency can only be explained by assuming that all these manuscripts come from a single written archetype, meaning there must have been a codification project sometime in the first century. The results also imply that these manuscripts, and by extension, Quran manuscripts in general, were copied from written exemplars since the earliest days.

Language: 

CITATION: van Putten, Marijn. "The Grace of God" as Evidence for a Written Uthmanic Archetype: the Importance of Shared Orthographic Idiosyncrasies . : Cambridge University Press , 2019. Bulletin of the school of Oriental and African Studies, Vol. 82, N0. 2, February 2019 pp. 233-244 - Available at: https://library.au.int/grace-god-evidence-written-uthmanic-archetype-importance-shared-orthographic-idiosyncrasies-0