The Othman Qur'an (also termed the Othmanic codex, Othmanic recension, Samarkand codex, Samarkand manuscript and Tashkent Qur'an), named for the third Caliph, Uthman ibn Affan, is a manuscript Qur'an kept in the Hast Imam library. Along with the Sana'a manuscripts, it is considered to be the oldest in the world.[1]
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This copy of the Qur'an is attributed to the third caliph Uthman. In 651, 19 years after the death of Muhammad, Uthman commissioned a committee to produce a standard copy of the text of Quran (see Origin and development of the Qur'an).[1] Five of these original Qur'ans were sent to the major Muslim cities of the era, with Uthman keeping one for his own use in Medina. The only other surviving copy is said to be held in Topkapı Palace, in Turkey.[1][1]
Uthman was succeeded by Ali, who took the Uthman Qur'an to Kufa, now in Iraq. When Tamerlane destroyed the area, he took the Qur'an to his capital, Samarkand, as a treasure. It remained there for four centuries until, in 1868, when the Russians invaded, captured the Qur'an and brought it back to the Imperial Library in St. Petersburg (now known as the Russian National Library).[1]
After the October Revolution, Vladimir Lenin, in an act of good will to the Muslims of Russia gave the Qur'an to the people of Ufa, Bashkortostan. After repeated appeals by the people of Turkestan ASSR, the Qur'an was returned to Central Asia, to Tashkent, in 1924, where it has since remained.[1]
The parchment manuscript now is held in the library of the Telyashayakh Mosque, in the old "Hast-Imam" (Khazrati Imom) area of Tashkent, Uzbekistan, close to the grave of Kaffal Shashi, a tenth-century Islamic scholar.
The manuscript is incomplete, only a third of the Qur'an surviving:[1] it begins in the middle of verse 7 of the second sura and ends abruptly at Surah 43:10. The manuscript has between eight and twelve lines to the page and, showing its antiquity, the text is devoid of vocalisation.
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