The Qur an supposedly handwritten by Imam Reza, kept at the Astan-e Quds Library (Mashhad) and its supplements: a comparison between MS 1586 and MS 4354a, and a few Qur anic folios at London's auctions

Copies of the Qur’an known as having been handwritten by the Shi’i Imams constitute a collection of the oldest manuscripts of the Qur’an in the Muslim world, especially in Iran. Most of these Qur’ans are now preserved primarily in Iran’s libraries and museums and, then, in Iraq, Turkey, Egypt, Yemen, India, and several European countries such as Britain and Germany.
This article sets to make an overall examination of the features of one of the Qur’ans ascribed to Imam Ali b. Musa al-Reza, no. 1586, and demonstrate that fragments of this work, which had been transferred from Iraq to Iran years ago and donated to the Razavi Sanctuary (Astan-e Quds Library), have existed in another manuscript (no. 4354) as well as in several private collections outside of Iran (presented at London auctions); these collections are complimentary to one another. There are obvious similarities between the signature affixed to this Qur’an and the tarqimeh (colophons) of the nine other Qur’anic manuscripts in Iran and other countries. The review of both manuscripts reveals that the scribe of the manuscript in question has transcribed the text of the Qur’an – probably in the latter half of the 2nd century or the first decades of the 3rd century A.H./8-9 A.D.- in accordance with the Basri School, as the examination of certain parts related to the table of the variant readings and the system of add al-āy (verse numbering) in this MS demonstrates its most resemblance to the Basri transcription style. This text, which was originally without diacritical marks, was later punctuated, and vocalized by others. This same punctuating has led to the emergence in the text of some reading errors and variant readings.