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MS 3610 in the National Museum of Iran is one of the oldest extant dated Qurʾānic manuscripts, written in Eastern or Iranian Kufic script. It is strongly believed to have been written in the Khorasan region. The colophon indicates it was transcribed in Rabīʿ al-Ākhir, 416/ June 1025, by the scribe Abū Muhammad Jaʿfar b. Alī al-Warrāq. Abū Naṣr Manṣūr al-Mudhahhib was the illuminator, and the diacritical marks were applied by Muḥammad b. Abī Zakariyā according to the readings of Abū ʿAmr al-Basrī and al-Kisāʾī al-Kūfī. The 149 folios remaining of this manuscript, comprising approximately 28 parts (juzʾ) of the Qurʾān, offer valuable insights into early 5th/ 12th century Qurʾānic scribal practices in Khorasan, including textual variations, orthography, reading variants, Kufic script, and illumination.

Early Muʿtazilite Qurʾānic exegeses form an important part of the classical exegetical heritage. Although influential on subsequent commentaries, most of these works have been lost, with few extant manuscripts. Prominent Muʿtazilite exegetes of the late 4th century AH include Abd al-Raḥmān ibn Kaysān al-Aṣamm, Abū Ali al-Jubbāʾī, Abū Muslim al-Iṣfahānī, Abū al-Qāsim al-Balkhī, and Abū al-Ḥasan al-Rummānī, whose exegetical views survive only in fragments preserved by later scholars. Meanwhile, a recently accessible manuscript of an unknown early commentary, likely of Iranian provenance and reflecting a distinctly Muʿtazilite approach, offers valuable new material. Housed in the National Library of Israel (Ms. Yah. Ar. 374), this unexplored text represents a significant document for the history of Muʿtazilite exegesis. The author is unlikely to be among the prominent figures mentioned above, but perhaps a lesser-known Muʿtazilite from Baghdad or Rayy, or possibly a Hanafi Muʿtazilite from 5th or 6th- century AH Khurasan or Transoxiana. This article presents an edition of the surviving text and explores its significance within the history of Muʿtazilite exegesis, analyzing its unique features and contribution.

Endowing Qurans by Shia and Sunni women in ancient Islamic centuries was a common practice, and numerous examples of these can be found in the library of Astan-e Quds Razavi. Amiratī bint Abī al-‘Abbās al-Ḥamrā'ī, likely a Shia woman from the 5th century AH, endowed a thirty-fragment Quran in Iranian Kufic script to the shrine of Imam Reza (AS). This article provides a historical overview of this manuscript and its endower, describes its textual and artistic features, and demonstrates that fragments of this endowment have dispersed over time, now found in the National Library of France (Arabe 7263), the shrine of Imam Hussein (AS), and the Central Library of Tehran University (4631), or have been sold in various European auctions.

ʿImād al-Dīn Abū Muhammad Yaḥyā b. Hibatullāh al-Ḥusaynī was a renowned Shia scholar and a well-respected, well-to-do member of the Sādāt who lived in the fifth and sixth centuries AH. He was a prominent figure in the Bayhaq region, holding the position of leadership among Shia. Ancient sources praised him as a brilliant scholar and poet in both Persian and Arabic languages, earning him the title “Ṣāḥib al-Qurʾān” due to his deep attachment to the Holy Qurʾan. Yet, a thorough search of the Āstān Quds Library’s endowment records reveals that Yaḥyā ibn Hibatullāh al-Ḥusaynī and his grandson, Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. Yaḥyā b. Hibatullāh al-Ḥusaynī, endowed two significant Qurʾānic manuscripts to the Shrine of Imām al-Riḍā in the sixth century, which has hitherto remained unknown and unreported.The Qurʾān of Yaḥyā b. Hibatullāh Ḥusaynī is a masterpiece of Qurʾānic writing in Iran during the sixth century AH, beautifully crafted by a Shia scholar from the Ḥusaynī Sādāt in Bayhaq and dedicated to the Shrine of Imām al-Riḍā in 535 AH/ 1140 AD. In fact, the scribe originally meant to create a work of art for dedication to the Shrine, and lavished it with exquisite decorative and illuminative elements throughout its entirety. The manuscript’s textual features, including its reading variants (which does not conform to a specific reading tradition), adherence to analogical orthography in writing Qurʾānic words, use of the Basra system of verse counting, and similar characteristics, are consistent with Sunni Qurʾānic writing in central Iran and Greater Khorasan during this period. Two distinctive features of this manuscript stand out: the scribe’s explicit intention to dedicate the work to the Shrine of Imām al-Riḍā, marked by beautiful calligraphy at the beginning and end of each part, and the use of striking decorative and illuminative elements throughout the manuscript.

The number of surviving six-line Kufic Qur'ans from the early Islamic centuries is not very high. One of these six-line Kufic Qur'an manuscripts, possibly transcribed in the late second century of the Islamic era, is a work with a few scattered pages currently preserved in Iran and in some libraries and museums around the world, but all have been transferred from Iran to other places. This article identifies and gathers images of the remaining pages of this ancient Kufic Qur'an, examining and introducing this work in detail from a textual and manuscript perspective. The author believes that this manuscript can be considered among the oldest Kufic writing efforts in Iran or Iraq, influenced by the culture of Qur'anic writing and bookbinding in Iran.

Ancient Qur'anic manuscripts are generally known as Kufic Qur'ans. Writing the Qur'an in various forms of Kufic script continued until the early 7th century AH. Among these, a category of ancient Qur'anic manuscripts exhibits features rarely seen or entirely absent in other Kufic manuscripts. These Qur'ans, characterized by an overall slant and a tendency to the right, are referred to as Hijazi. This article explores and introduces the most important characteristics of Qur'anic writing in the Hijazi style during the first and early second centuries AH. These features are generally not continued in the Kufic script in subsequent centuries. Therefore, the presence of all or most of these features in an ancient Qur'anic manuscript points to its transcription in the first or early second century AH.

Manuscript No. 4251 of the National Museum of Iran is one of the oldest Kufic Qur’āns in Iran, almost all of its folios have been preserved together and its writing might be dated back to the second AH/eighth century. The codex contains 326 leaves; each having 16 lines, was among the endowments of Shah Abbas the Great, for the Sheikh Safi al-Din Shrine in Ardabil. Since 1937, it has been transferred to the National Museum of Iran and is kept there; however, so far no special study or research has been done on it. The present article, while introducing this old MS of the Qur’ān and examining its various textual and artistic features, shows that there are several features in this manuscript that distinguish it from other similar examples: First, drawing the symmetrical headers on the first page of each sūra; second, mentioning the non-canonical and uncommon Qur’ānic readings; third, referring to the various Qur’ānic divisions (three-part to ten-part divisions of the Qur’ān); fourth, unusual naming of the sūras, such as Sūra Mūsā (instead of Ṭāhā, 20), Sūra Sulaymān (instead of the Shu‘arā, 26) and Sūra Dāwūd (instead of Ṣād, 38). Among these, one of the significant features of this manuscript is the mentioning of non-canonical and unfamiliar Qur’ānic readings, which we call Shawādhdh. Although the original diacritics of the manuscript has been done with golden dots, the scribe or diacritics maker, by using green dots in some letters, also referred to other readings, most of which are non-canonical, and sometimes they are unknown among the literary Islamic sources. It seems that this method of mentioning uncommon readings has been common in many Kufic Qur’āns in the second AH/eight and third AH/ninth centuries, specifically in Iran.

In the Ayatullāh Mar‘ashī Najafī Library (Qum), there is a small manuscript in the Eastern Kufic script, containing two parts (the eighth and the seventeenth) of a thirty-part Qur’ān, at the end of which there is a colophon attributed to Ibn Bawwāb in 392 AH/1002. Based on this colophon, some have attributed the manuscript to Ibn Bawwāb (d. 413 AH/1022). This article shows that although this attribution is incorrect, and the colophon is fake and annexed, the manuscript itself is very old and belongs to the early fifth/eleventh century. At the beginning of the various parts of this Qur’ān in various libraries, the name of Abū Sa‘d Muḥammad b. al-Ḥussayn al-Baghdādī (d. 439 AH/1048) is mentioned, who was one of the Buyid ministers in Baghdad, and it is possible that he was either in charge of scribing this Qur’ān, or its owner. In this article, the author brings together the remaining fragments of this thirty-part Qur’ān from several libraries and museums of Iran and the world to examine them in full, in terms of text, illuminations, orthography, variant readings, and the like. The other Eastern Kufic Qur’āns, similar in handwriting with the copy of Abū Sa‘d al-Baghdādī, have been introduced at the end of the article.

One of the most famous manuscripts of the Qur'an attributed to the handwriting of Imam Ali (as) is the complete Kufi Qur'an No. 1 in the library of the shrine of Imam Ali (as) in Najaf Ashraf. The definite attribution of this version to the handwriting of Imam is not acceptable, but this version can be considered one of the most valuable Kufic manuscripts of the second century AH. This article, for the first time, examines the various aspects of it which includes its features, calligraphy, gilding, drawing and spelling, readings, number of verses and other characteristics of the Qur'anic manuscripts. In this version, which I call the "Muṣḥaf of Najaf", like most Kufi versions of the second and third centuries AH, visual features predominate in the writing of the Qur'an: Most of the disagreements on Quranic words of the early Muṣḥafs of the cities are written according to the Muṣḥaf of Basra; The verse counting system (Add al-Ay) is completely consistent with the visual system; and the difference between the readings recorded in the manuscript is mainly close to the readings of the readers of Basra (Abu ‘Amr and Ya'qūb) and sometimes of Kufa (Hamza and Kasāi).

There are indications that from around the fourth century AH, the inscription and handwriting of some Qur’ānic manuscripts in the Kufic script have been attributed to Imām Ali or other Companions, such as the third caliph, ‘Uthmān b. ʻAffān. On the other hand, a search of private collections, museums, and libraries in Iran and around the world reveals that there are now nearly 200 complete or incomplete copies of the Qur’ān attributed to Imām Ali or other Shiite imāms. This article presents two categories of apparent reasons or historical evidence for the unreality of these attributions. First, based on ancient historical texts, it tries to sufficiently show that the oldest written historical documents from the first three centuries AH, all lack such attributions. In addition, mentioning the name of the scribe at the end or middle of a copy of the Qur’ān was uncommon in the first three centuries; therefore, the existence of a colophon at the end of a part of the Qur’ān and the attribution of it to one of the Shiite Imāms in the first century, leads to historical anachronism. The second set of reasons and evidence for the falsity of these attributions goes back to the typological aspects of these codices. In this section, the author describes some of the features in these manuscripts, such as the type of calligraphy (e.g., the Eastern Kufic script), the material of the manuscript (e.g., paper), the Qur’ānic content (e.g., the use of various canonical and non-canonical readings), the existence of errors and inaccuracies of the scribe (according to the Shiites, Imāms do not make mistakes), as well as clear signs of forgery of colophons in Kufic script. These features evidently convince us that the attribution of these codices to the Shiite Imāms is incorrect and unreal.

Abu Ismail Abdullah Ibn Muhammad Ibn Ali Ansari Hirawi(391-481 AH) known as Shaikh al-Islam or Khawaja Abdullah Ansari is one of the greatest Hanbali scholars of Khorasan who is better known among Persian speakers as Sufi and ascetic. He was a preacher, narrator, commentator, and scholar of history and genealogy, and in his time he made many efforts to promote the Hanbali religion in Khorasan, and especially in his hometown of Herat. There are several works left in Arabic and Persian by him, some of which are sometimes properly doubted about their authenticity. One of the most important works attributed to him is his commentary on the Holy Qur'an, which Meybodi states at the beginning of his Kashf al-Asrār, that he saw it brief and concise, and therefore expanded and elaborated it in a new format. However, the original text of the commentary of Khājih Abdullah Ansari, which was the basis of Meybodi’s work, remains unknown. This article, for the first time, introduces new copies of this Persian-Arabic commentary in the two libraries of Khalil Hamid Pasha (in Sparta, Turkey) and the library of the Alavi shrine (in Najaf Ashraf), which confirm its attribution to Khājih Abdullah Ansari, and by introducing the characteristics and interpretive method of Khājih Abdullah, it deals with some of its most important linguistic aspects such as Hirawi Persian dialect, ancient Persian words and Hirawi syntax in this work.

Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Musa al-Musawi was a descendant of Imam Musa al-Kadhim (as), one of the Shiite scholars and writers in Neishabour, and the Naqib of the Shiites in Ṭūs in the fourth century AH, who also had close ties with the Samanid emirs and rulers. Although his name is not mentioned in any of the official sources of Shiite jurisprudence, hadith, theology, commentary and rijals, many writers and historians of the fourth and fifth centuries AH such as Abu Mansour Tha'labi, and Abu Nasr ‘Utbi have repeatedly mentioned him, and quoted his  sayings and verses which are often associated with Iranian history, literature, culture and customs in Khorasan in the fourth century. The present article, while examining ancient sources and gathering scattered information about the life and works of Abu Ja'far Musawi, introduces 30 pieces of the Holy Quran, which he dedicated to the shrine of Imam Reza (as) in 402 AH. This copy is considered to be one of the oldest endowed Qur'ans of the Shiites with dates, which has been written in very ancient Naskh handwriting, along with a multitude of Mudhahab signs and symbols in Khorasan. Its handwriting is Qiyasi and contrary to the Ottoman custom, and its reading is very close to the reading of Abu Amr Basri and Yaqub Hazrami in general.

The writing of Quranic Muṣḥafs today has special artistic features. One of the most important features is the regular and organized writing of Quranic verses in each part, page and line. Today's most famous name is the Qur'an written by Uthmān Ṭāhā, a Syrian scribe whose work has been distributed in recent decades in various Islamic countries under the title "Muṣḥaf al-Madinah al-Munawarah" by the King Fahd Collection. The pages of this Qur'an contain 15 lines, and the end of each page ends with the end of a verse. Also, each of the thirty parts of this Qur'an has been carefully designed and written in 20 pages or 10 sheets. But in fact, this style of writing, which is tied to the name of Uthman Ṭāhā, has had many examples among the scribes of the Qur'an during the Ottoman period, and after that, during the last hundred years. This article, by reviewing the history of this style of writing the Qur'an, shows that the Ottoman scribes did not invent this artistic style during the tenth to fourteenth centuries AH, but the history of this type of regular and organized Qur'anic writing dates back to much older times, and in Iran to the 5the century AH. The Muṣḥaf of Muhammad Zanjānī (dated 531 AH), and the Zarrīn Qalam Muṣḥaf (dated 582 AH), are two very advanced examples of this art in the sixth century AH. In the beginning, the number of rules and patterns of Iranian scribes for the regular writing of the Qur'an was about 30, but gradually before the tenth century AH, it was expanded to about 470 cases. Almost all Ottoman scribes in recent centuries have paid attention to only two things: first, ending each page at the end of the verse, and second, starting each part of the Qur'an from the beginning of the page and ending it at the bottom of the page.

< p >The Manuscript number 4289 in the National Museum of Iran was originally a 14-piece Qur''an on the skin from the third century AH, which, unlike other ancient versions of Kūfī, probably had an Iranian scribe. This article tries to achieve three separate goals by examining the different aspects of this version. First, the general characteristics of this important Kufic version from the third century AH and its differences from other copies of 7-line Kufic in the third century, along with providing information about other scattered papers and components that originally belonged to the same Qur''an. Secondly, it indicates that another 7-line Kufic version, number 548, which was stolen two decades ago from the Pars Museum (Shiraz), was another piece of the same Qur''an, which after the theft, its various pages was sold out between 2004 and 2020, in Various London auctions (Sotheby''s, Christie''s and Bonhams). Thirdly, it shows that this Kūfī Qur''an, unlike all the versions of Hejazi and Kūfī Qur''ans of the first centuries, did not follow the tradition of "attached writing" or "Peyvaste Nigari" in writing letters and words. This is probably due to the special style of Iranian scribes (Khorasan and Transoxiana) who considered breaking words at the end of a line to be ugly and disgusting. During the third to seventh centuries, the Iranian used the Iranian style of Kufic writing which is known as detached writing. The author speculates that this is due to the cultural connection of the people of these areas with the tradition of writing in Iranian and non-Iranian languages ​​in Khorasan, Transoxiana and pre-Islamic Turkestan, which, unlike the western regions, did not follow the attached writing style.
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