In the eighth century CE, the Christian theologian John Damascene referred to a Book of the Cow among the sacred texts of the Muslims. P. Hamb. Arab. 68 not only represents so far the earliest known Qurʾānic manuscript preserved on papyrus, but also bears witness to an independent circulation of the Sūra of The Cow in late seventh- or early eighth-century Egypt. Significant deviations from the commonly accepted text of the Qurʾān suggest that this copy was rapidly discarded. The present volume offers a complete edition as well as a thorough philological and historical study of the manuscript.
Mathieu Tillier, Ph.D. (2004), is professor of medieval Islamic history at Sorbonne Université (Paris) and a member of the CNRS team “Orient & Méditerranée” (UMR 8167). He is the author of books and articles mainly focused on Islamic law and institutions, among which Les cadis d’Iraq et l’État Abbasside (132/750-334/945) (Damascus: Presses de l’Ifpo, 2009), and L’invention du cadi. La justice des musulmans, des juifs et des chrétiens aux premiers siècles de l’Islam (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2017).
Naïm Vanthieghem, Ph.D. (2015), is a research fellow of the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) at the Institut de recherche et d'histoire des textes (IRHT). His work focuses on documentary sources discovered in the Nile Valley, and on their importance for economic, social and intellectual history in the Middle Ages.
Since 2012, the two authors have collaborated on exploring institutional, social and intellectual dynamics in medieval Egypt, examining them through the lens of papyrological evidence. They have written numerous articles and co-authored the book Supplier Dieu dans l’Égypte Toulounide. Le Florilège de l’invocation d’après Ḫālid b. Yazīd (IIIe/IXe siècle) (Leiden: Brill, 2022).
Foreword
Introduction
Papyrus Hamburg Arab. Inv. 68: Images and Papyrological Edition
Michael Marx "About the Corpus Coranicum mark-up system used for the edition of Hamb. Arab. 68"
Presumed original page display of the codex Papyrus Hamb. Arab. 68
Appendix: P.Wash. Libr. of Congress Inv. Ar. 176 (Qurʾan 9:67-71)
Bibliography
Index
This book will appeal to both academics and a wider public interested in the history of the Qur'an and early Muslim communities. It is aimed at historians, Islamologists and philologists working on Medieval Islam.