Book

Qur'ans of the Umayyads

A First Overview

Author

François Déroche

Date

01 December 2013

Links

Brill

For the first time, the dramatic changes the Qur’anic code underwent during the Umayyad period (660-750 C.E.) are analysed and presented on the basis of a selection of material in good part unpublished. In  Qur’ans of the Umayyads, François Déroche offers a chronology of the various developments which marked the period, in an approach combining philology, art history, codicology and palaeography. The conclusions he reaches challenge the traditional account about the writing down of the Qur’an and throw a new light on the role of the Umayyads in its handwritten diffusion.

About the author

François Déroche, Ph.D. in History (1987, Sorbonne) is Professor of History and Codicology of the Arabic handwritten book at the Ecole pratique des hautes études in Paris. He has published Islamic Codicology (2005), La transmission écrite du Coran dans les débuts de l'islam (2009) and many other contributions on early Qurʾanic manuscripts. An interview with François Déroche about his latest book can be read here.

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