The Sanaa Palimpsest

english.alaraby.co.uk

17 points·smollett··4 comments

Uthman famously collected and burned all copies of the Quran except the variant that he deemed the right one.

It's surprising the article does not mention this. The palimpsest likely shows one of the variants that did not survive the purge.

The canonical source for the Quran is not the written book (which is called a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mus'haf). The Quran itself has always been transmitted orally and it still is. The memorisation is usually done by people called a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafiz_(Quran) and their recitation is treated as the primary source for correctness.

The closest thing to a variant would be one of the ten "readings" or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qira%CA%BCat

Did other “non-canonical” manuscripts exist, and if so, were they carefully eliminated, generation after generation? What is clear is that the Sanaa palimpsest survived because it was hidden – not simply in a false ceiling in a Yemeni mosque, but as a ghostly, partially decipherable version that lies under the canonical text.

Much research remains before scholars will be able to definitively answer these questions. Including a thorough, technologically sophisticated analysis of this special manuscript, half of which is still stored by the Library of Religious Endowments at the Great Mosque of Sanaa and has not been yet properly photographed.

Interesting that we still find versions of old texts that show a richness in variants.

I just discovered my first palimpsest! It’s in the binding of a book “The Mysteries” published by Marsilio Ficino in 1497. Also, an erased message on the cover page—and lots of marginalia. New hobby!

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