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Estelle Whelan, 'Writing the Word of God: Some Early Qur' WRITING THE WORD OF GOD: SOME EARLYQUR'AN MANUSCRIPTS AND THEIR MILIEUX, PART I BYESTELLE WHELAN One is left wondering how anyone dares to date a MS. from the cursive scripts of the calligraphers.4 In 1911 Bernhard writing alone. Moritz commented, rather confusingly, "it is impossi- S. -A. Tritton1 ble to avoid the conclusion that the difference between the two types was chiefly due to the nature of the WESrERN SCHOLARSCOMING TO GRIPSWiTH ARABIC MANU- material written on, though at the same time there scripts for the first time after years of striving to master existed a tendency to create a separate monumental the language from printed texts often find the experi- script."5Nabia Abbott attempted to identify some of the ence disheartening. Not only are they cast adrift among early Qur'anic scripts from brief textual descriptions. the idiosyncrasies of individual handwriting, their firm For example, a single phrase in the fourth-/tenth- grasp of grammar sabotaged by scribal ignorance or century Fihrist of Ibn al-Nadlim led to her identifying carelessness and their confidence shaken by violations Uijaz1 script by three rather general traits, none of of the orthographic rules (connection of supposedly them exclusive to it.6 She then defined Kfific by the unconnected letters, for example), but they are also absence of this combinationof traits and went on to unlikely to have received from either their teachers or propose two subcategories-one angular, one round- their books much guidance in how to deal with their ed. Without denying the value ofAbbott's work, it must perplexity. still be admitted that her findings, at least those related After such an initiation, the opportunity to work with to Kulficscript, are too theoretical to be of much help early QuPan manuscripts of the type commonly called in the study of existing early Quran manuscripts. "Klafic"seems to promise refreshment. Here are bold, More recently French scholars in particular have clean letter forms, neatly laid out in spacious lines, revived an inductive approach, based on close exami- uncluttered by ornamentation, and hardly affected by nation of large collections of early Quran manuscripts.8 scribal quirks. Even the vocalizations are of a pattern so The method involves recording minute variations in unfamiliar that they need not distract attention for the letter forms, subsequently grouping manuscripts more than a moment or two. It comes as a shock, then, according to perceived similarities in these letter forms, to discover that at first these folios can hardly be read and finally arranging the groups in a sequence imply- at all, even that a careful search is required to find, on ing chronological development.9 Carefully construct- any given page, recognizable words to help identify the ed as they are, however, such detailed classifications correct Qur'anic passage. Pondering this situation leads have notyet provided a viable framework for analysis of to some unexpected conclusions. QurPns from the earliest period. A primary difficulty in Study by Western scholars of early Arabic script is identifying the main lines of development is the sheer nearly as old as Orientalism itself.2Generations of schol- quantity of surviving material, most of it inadequately ars have struggled to determine conclusively whether published; the vast number of variations in detail even or not it originated in ancient Nabatean or Syriac within single manuscripts tends to blur the picture still writing and to identify specific calligraphic and monu- further. mental types from inadequate and even garbled de- It has long been accepted that, forwriting the Quran, scriptions in earlyArabic texts. Although some progress "Kuific"script was superseded by "broken Kfific"in the has been made, it must be admitted that these issues course of the fourth/tenth century. The prevailing remain shrouded in darkness. Perhaps most frustrat- chronological frameworkfor "KXfic"Queans themselves, ing of all, however, have been the slight results achieved however, is based not on paleography but on organiza- by paleographers who have tried to date the fragmen- tion of ornament; manuscripts lacking ornamental tary earliest Quran manuscripts by comparing individ- divisions between siirahs have been considered the ual letter forms with those found in the handful of earliest, followed by those with purely ornamental inscriptions that survive from the first and second hijrz divisions at the ends of sisrahsand only later by those centuries, on one hand, and a number of early papyri with ornamental headings containing the written titles of no monumental significance on the other.3 of the sirahs.10 Since the formulation of this rather Without recapitulating the entire history of these crude schema earlier in this century scholars have efforts, it is worth noting some of the highlights here. striven to place individual manuscripts in relation to it, The first important distinction recognized was that but they have been largely unsuccessful in refining the between the angular scripts called "Kflfic"and the model itself. The resulting frustration has sometimes 114 ESTELLEWHELAN led to what seem counsels of despair: "There is no connected letters are relatively uniform within a given scientifically defensible position other than to suspend manuscript, much more so than some letter forms and ... alljudgement until there have been made, with the the connecting lines themselves. These spaces thus most minute observations of detail, regroupings by provide a kind of skeleton, which is fleshed out by the families, which comparisons and careful indexing will letter clusters. Several other characteristics of the writ- perhaps enable us to apportion chronologically and ing underscore the importance of this skeleton. geographically."1l First, the letters and connecting lines were written Nevertheless, the author proposes to try another with fairly broad and uniform strokes except for tiny tack, applying classical art-historical methods to the hairline diagonals at the beginning of dasl/dhal,initial paleography of some early Quran manuscripts as a and medial ka/ and initial and isolated 'ayn/ghayn. modest first step toward a more thorough revision of Second, there was considerable flexibility in drawing the framework for study of such monuments. It is the connecting lines and the letter bodies that lent curious that, over many decades, such methods have themselves to horizontal extension (dal/dhal, sad/4ad, not been systematically applied to QurPanicscript but *tFa/, kZff.'3Although this flexibility was not unlimit- only to ornament. After a brief general analysis of the ed, it was sufficient to permit really broad variations script generally labeled "Kufic,"two small but distinct within a single manuscript and even on a single page, groups of QuPan manuscripts, selected from the much sometimes within a single line (e.g., Figs. 8, 11, 15, and larger body of surviving material, will be analyzed in 22). detail; they have been chosen because their paleo- Third, flexibility was greater in the direction of ex- graphic and codicological differences offer a kind of pansion than in that of contraction. Occasionally, the test of the validity of the prevailing chronological expandable letters might be contracted to quite small model. It is hoped that such close analysis of a circum- proportions, particularly at the ends of lines (e.g., Figs. scribed selection of material will provide signposts for 18, 1. 3; and 20,1. 12), but this solution seems to have further, and more productive, exploration of the en- been considered undesirable, for it occurs relatively tire corpus. In a subsequent study the ornament of seldom in the finer manuscripts. On the other hand, these same manuscripts will be considered, in an effort the dimensions of other letters-particularly looped both to confirm the distinctions observed here and to letters like flu, q&f mzm,h7, t179marbiitah, waw-were help localize the production of the two groups. rarely altered, even at the ends of lines, possibly be- cause the uniform width of the stroke allowed little scope for contraction beyond eliminating the lines Characteristicsof Early Qur'an Script connecting such letters, which resulted in their tangen- tial alignment. Occasionally, when the scribe intended To return for a moment to those hapless scholars to make two letters tangential, he inadvertently left a struggling to read their first "Kuific"Quranmanuscripts, narrow channel between them; then a tiny hairline it is worth trying to isolate the source of their difficulty. stroke was inserted to connect the two letters at their It can hardly be the letter forms, for they are sharply closest points (e.g., Figs. 10,1. 1; 12,1. 5; and 19,1. 17). drawn and unambiguous; the similarity between dal/ This solution was usually so subtly executed that the dhWJand k4f may at first cause some confusion (e.g., reader scans the lines without noticing that a potential- Figs. 2,11. 2, 3,5; and 20,1. 8), but otherwise the letters ly disturbing gap has been closed in this way. are more distinct than in some printed texts. Assuming Fourth, words (never connected letter groups) were that these scholars know the Quran well enough, why freely divided between lines, without respect for natu- is it so difficult to pick out familiar words and phrases? ral breaks in sense or pronunciation, in contrast, for The answer is obvious yet seldom taken into account example, to syllabic division in English.14 One corollary in discussions of "Klafic"script. The typical early Quean is that uneven side margins, particularly on the left, are is not written in words and phrases: It is written in quite common, though occasionally, when a line fell groups of connected letters separated by spaces.12To too far short of the ideal margin, a little marker was compound the difficulty, isolated letters are treated as inserted to lengthen it.'5 groups in this sense and are preceded and followed by What has been defined so far should be understood spaces of the same width.
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