The Book

Déroche (François), Qur’ans of the Umayyads, A Preliminary Overview, Leiden, Brill, (’’Leiden Studies in Islam and Society’’), 2013, 226+46 ill. ISBN 9789004255654

The Author

François Déroche, né à Nancy en 1952, est directeur d’études à l’École pratique des hautes études, IVe section : « Antiquités et codicologies arabes ». Il est correspondant français de l’Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres depuis 2001.

Presentation

For the first time, the dramatic changes the Qur’anic code underwent during the Umayyad period (660-750 C.E.) are analysed and presented on the basis of a selection of material in good part unpublished. In Qur’ans of the Umayyads, François Déroche offers a chronology of the various developments which marked the period, in an approach combining philology, art history, codicology and palaeography. The conclusions he reaches challenge the traditional account about the writing down of the Qur’an and throw a new light on the role of the Umayyads in its handwritten diffusion.

Content

Illustrations
List of figures

Introduction

Chapter 1
Transcribing the Qur’ân in early Umayyad times:
The Codex Parisino-petropolitanus

Chapter 2
The written transmission of the Qur’ân in ḥijāzī script
A general appraisal

Chapter 3
The transformation of the muṣḥaf

Chapter 4
Imperial ‘scriptoria’?

Conclusion

Bibliography
Index