IQNA

Quran Manuscripts in Heart of Vatican’s Christian Treasures

9:31 - August 31, 2025
News ID: 3494430
IQNA – Although the Vatican Library is a Christian library, Islamic heritage holds a special place in it and many Quranic manuscripts are kept in this library.

The Vatican Library

 

According to a report published by Leaders Al Arabiya, over the centuries, Arabic manuscripts have been transported to different parts of the world in different ways, to the point where no library in the world’s major cities is without a part of the treasure trove of Arabic heritage. In this way, the Arabic manuscripts have spread a vast amount of knowledge in several languages ​​in an unparalleled way.

Italy, like other Western countries, has received a significant share of this wealth. The first collection of Eastern manuscripts was made at the Council of Florence in 1441 by the Vatican Library in Rome. These religious manuscripts were brought by Eastern clergy who came from Alexandria and Jerusalem al-Quds to attend the council’s meetings.

Then, with the opening of the Medici Publishing House in Florence (1584), manuscripts were developed. According to the author of the book “The Path of Letters” (2012), the first manuscripts acquired by this publishing house were manuscripts donated by the Syriac Patriarch Athanasius Nematullah (d. 1587) on the mysteries of the universe, astronomy, and astrology.

 

Yemeni Manuscripts

The number of Yemeni manuscripts in Italy is estimated at 3,300. Giuseppe Caprotti played a major role in transferring Yemeni manuscripts to Italy.

Valentina Rossi writes in her book “Italian Manuscripts” that Caprotti arrived in the Yemeni city of Al-Hodeidah in 1885 and then settled in Sana’a. He stayed there for about three decades and during this time he collected a large number of Yemeni manuscripts and secretly sent them to Milan, Italy. The shipment consisted of nearly 60 boxes containing manuscripts, which amounted to more than 1,800 volumes.

By 1909, 1,610 Arabic manuscripts from the Caprotti collection had been transferred to the Ambrosiana Library in Milan, and during 1914, another 250 manuscripts from this collection were transferred to this library by Senator Luca Beltrami. The Ambrosiana Library thus contained 2,040 manuscripts, most of which were brought from the southern Arabian Peninsula.

Quran Manuscripts in Heart of Vatican’s Christian Treasures

The Vatican Library

The Vatican Library is one of the most mysterious and precious treasures of human knowledge; a place that is not accessible to the public, but whose cultural and historical value is beyond imagination. A magnificent building with thousands of manuscripts, historical documents and precious books, some of which date back thousands of years.

The Vatican Library, known as VAT, was officially founded in 1475. The library contains about 75,000 manuscripts and 85,000 copies of early printed works, that is, books published since the invention of the printing industry in the mid-15th to the 16th centuries, and includes more than a million books.

The library contains 2,217 Arabic manuscripts, excluding Christian Arabic manuscripts.

Quran Manuscripts in Heart of Vatican’s Christian Treasures

Ambrosiana Library

This library is located in Milan, Italy and is second only to the Vatican Library in terms of Arabic manuscripts, containing 2,040 Arabic manuscripts.

 

Linz University Library

The Linz Library in Rome contains a treasure trove of exquisite Arabic manuscripts, which, according to the cataloguing, includes 82 Arabic manuscripts. Also, 75 new manuscripts have been added to the library recently, 63 of which are Yemeni manuscripts.

Quran Manuscripts in Heart of Vatican’s Christian Treasures

Quran Manuscripts in the Vatican Library

Although the Vatican Library is a Christian library, Islamic heritage holds a special place in this library. Among this heritage, many Quranic manuscripts are kept in this library, but most of them are parts of the Quran and do not include the entire Quran, from Surah Al-Fatiha to Surah An-Nas.

The manuscripts of the Holy Quran in the Vatican Library are considered exquisite and rare books, and their number reaches 144 copies in various volumes. This is while the number of manuscripts of the Quran in other libraries in Rome is 71 copies.

Manuscripts of the Quran from Morocco, sub-Saharan Africa, the Arabian East, the Ottoman Empire, Iran, and India have reached this library, the most important of which are the manuscripts obtained from Morocco.

What distinguishes Moroccan manuscripts is that they are luxurious, skillfully copied, and mostly written on paper. There is a Moroccan collection written on paper dating back to 1488, obtained from the Grand Mosque of Zeitouna in Tunisia. This copy is notable for its large size and high quality.

Among these manuscripts is a copy of the Quran that stands out from other manuscripts because its first two pages contain beautiful illumination and decorations. This Quran is written in Naskh script, but its scribe and the time of copying are unknown.

Quran Manuscripts in Heart of Vatican’s Christian Treasures

The second collection of manuscripts includes Qurans from the Ottoman period, the number of which in the libraries of Rome reaches 157 copies. This collection constitutes a large part of the Quranic manuscripts in terms of number, and its general feature that distinguishes this collection from other Qurans is that they are classified as special and medium-sized Qurans.

A third collection of manuscripts from various sources has been transferred to the libraries of Rome. These include: 12 manuscripts from Eastern countries, 12 from Iran, 4 from sub-Saharan African countries written in Moroccan script. Also, among the Vatican manuscript collection, there is a manuscript of the Quran written in Hebrew letters.

This manuscript belongs to Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and dates back to the early 15th century.

 

Some Other Manuscripts in the Vatican Library

Prophetic Hadiths: This book is an Andalusian manuscript containing a collection of Prophetic Hadiths and appears to have been a textbook. It is also written on the title page that the book was dedicated to the school of Granada (in Spain).

Al-Anwar al-Muhammadiyah: This manuscript is by Abu al-Hasan Abdullah al-Bakri, but its copyist and the time and place of copying are unknown.

Jawaher al-Quran wa Durarah: This manuscript is by Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, but the copyist of this book has not provided information about the time and place of copying and his name.

Al-Kafi fi al-Fiqh: This book is by Abu Omar bin Abdullah bin Muhammad bin Abdulbar al-Numiri, which is written about the jurisprudence of the school of Malik bin Anas, one of the Sunni imams, and includes several chapters, including: the book of prayer, the book of ablution, the book of zakat, etc.

At the end of this book, it is written: “The book Al-Kafi was written, with the help of God, in the first ten days of the month of Sha'ban, 849 AH, by the hand of a servant in need of God’s mercy, Abu al-Khalil Ibrahim al-Qalbi, the preacher of the Grand Mosque of the city of Tarazuna (in Spain).”

Stories of the Prophets: This manuscript has 5 chapters and includes the life stories of the prophets, starting with Prophet Isma’il (AS) and his children, and then reaching the life story of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and the mention of his name in the Torah and the books of the prophets (AS).

 

4284774

captcha