French Scholar’s Book Discusses Features of Old Quran Manuscripts

TEHRAN (IQNA) – Francois Deroche, a French scholar who is a specialist in Codicology and Palaeography, has discussed the features of the earliest manuscripts of the Holy Quran in one of his books.

The title of his book is “Qurans of the Umayyads: A First Overview”. It is arguably one of the most important contemporary works written on the subject of Quran manuscripts.

A translation of the book into the Arabic language by Hisam Sabri has also been published in Cairo.  

It is one of the main research studies conducted in the contemporary era on Quran manuscripts.

In this book, Deroche offers a history of the changes to old manuscript copies of the Holy Quran.

He says he does not trust new methods of historiography of manuscripts and that he tries to use a combination of methods, including analysis of script, copy, and inscription and the history of art to recognize the progress of Quranic scripts in time.

The book analyses the Quran manuscripts belonging to the Umayyad era, namely the first Hijri century.

Deroche was born on October 24, 1952 in Metz, France. He is a researcher and specialist in Codicology and Palaeography.

He has a degree in Egyptology and has worked in the Bibliothèque nationale de France (national library) in Paris as well as Anadolu Studies Institute of France.

He has been a professor of history of the Quran text at the Bibliothèque nationale de France since 2015.