The Dating of the ʿUthmanic Codices: An Analysis of the Sources and of the Hypotheses Advanced in Scholarship

Abstract

The article examines the question of when the earliest written copies of the Qurʾan prepared by the order and under the supervision of ʿUthman b. ʿAffan were produced, and analyses the hypotheses that have been advanced on this question in Eastern and Western scholarship. It is shown that the sources contain no explicit statement of the years in which these codices were written, and that the views current in the literature therefore rest for the most part on scholarly conjecture. Three principal datings are distinguished and compared: the end of 24 and the beginning of 25 AH; approximately 30 AH; and a range extending from 25 to 33 AH. The three-stage reconstruction recently proposed by ʿUmar Hamdan is examined separately, together with its implications for the number of copies produced. The article concludes that the copying and dispatch of the ʿUthmanic codices began at the earliest in 25 AH and was completed at the latest in 33 AH, and that codices whose date of writing does not fall within this period cannot be ascribed to ʿUthman b. ʿAffan. Attention is drawn to the circumstance that manuscripts copied in conformity with the ʿUthmanic orthography may themselves have come to be called «ʿUthmanic codices».