The jewel in the crown of the collection is four facsimiles of the Samarkand Kufic Quran, known as the Uthman Quran.
The Uthman Quran is one of the earliest manuscripts of the sacred book, dating from about the first quarter of the 8th century, and revered by Muslims as the primary copy of the Quran, stained with blood of the third righteous caliph Uthman. At his will, the scattered records of the Prophet Muhammad’s sermons were combined into a single text which was sent to every corner of the Caliphate. In order to avoid any controversy, other copies were destroyed. Uthman was killed in an accidental skirmish and his blood dropped on the copy of the Quran which he held in hands when came out to meet assailants.
In 1869, the Uthman Quran was brought to the Imperial Public Library of St. Petersburg from the Khoja Akhrar Mosque in Samarkand. According to the note of the Adjutant General of Turkestan, Konstantin von Kaufman, the acquisition of the famous rarity was due to the fact that “this Quran was the best among the books of the Tamerlane Library and brought by himself”. The Quran was studied by the most prominent Russian Arabists and dated to the 2nd century of Hijrah.
The manuscript has 353 sheets, material is thick, hard parchment and 69 missing sheets were replaced with paper sheets. Tracing of the text, written in large Kufi script with diacritic marks, has almost always been updated, except the text on later insertions of solid glossy paper. The ink was originally black, but faded and turned into dark brown.
You can learn more about this topic in the book-album “The Collection of the State Museum of the History of Religion” (Volume XII) from the series “Cultural legacy of Uzbekistan in the world collections”.
The general sponsor of the project is the oilfield services company Eriell-Group.
The Uthman Quran
The material collections of the State Museum of the History of Religion from Uzbekistan is the collection describing the mode of life of Muslim people.