The Blue Qur'an is one of the most mesmerising manuscripts produced in Islam. Today, the most commonly held view is that this manuscript was produced for the early Fāṭimid court, before the conquest of Egypt in 358/969. However, in recent years our knowledge of early Qur'anic manuscripts, their calligraphy and the illumination that adorns their pages has greatly progressed. In the first part of this article, I will argue that the Blue Qur'an is in fact much earlier than has hitherto been recognised and dates to the early ʿAbbāsid period. This will be the occasion to posit some elements of chronology for early Qur'anic scripts. Once this new framework has been set for the manuscript, I will move on to explore the origin of its colour scheme, and its different layers of meaning; between the practical, the temporal and the spiritual.
During the first centuries of Islam, the written notation of the Qur'an underwent a gradual evolution. After an early stage represented by the ‘Ḥijāzī’ tradition, red dots were introduced into ‘Kūfic’ Qur'ans to mark short vowels. This system was soon expanded by assigning more functions to the red dots, sometimes supplemented by yellow, green, and blue dots; and by creating new orthographic signs. These devices were used in different ways by different vocalisers. Few textual sources dealing with this subject survive. By far the most consequential is al-Muḥkam fī naqṭ al-maṣāḥif (lit. ‘The Precise on the Vocalisation of Qur'ans’) by Abū ʿAmr ʿUthmān b. Saʿīd al-Dānī (371–444/982–1053). Following a line of work initiated by Yasin Dutton, the present study, to be published in two parts, will confront the assertions of al-Muḥkam with a sample of key manuscripts in an attempt to gain insights into the regional origins of early Qur'ans.
This article is a historical study of maritime trade between Tang China and early Islamic Iraq, in the seventh to tenth centuries. While the existence, in this period, of merchant communities from the Arab-Persian Gulf in Chinese ports has been known for a long time, the present study seeks to contextualise their emergence, to articulate the socio-economic conditions of their trade, and to consider the extent to which these were conducive to transmissions of ideas. Building upon scholarly findings accumulated in different disciplines, it outlines patterns of exchange that, while limited in scope, were more systemic than has hitherto been assumed.
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