Surah Āl ʿImrān (سورة آل عمران ), verse 77
Damascus, ninth century CE

Leaves from a copy of the Qurʼān, originally bound in 30 parts, written on parchment in the early Abbasid calligraphic style of Arabic, commonly classed under ‘Kufic’. A phrase inserted above the text of every leaf indicates it was an endowment by Amajur, the Abbasid governor of Damascus. The leaves of the manuscript were scattered widely and other fragments can be now be found in Istanbul, Cairo and Oxford. From documents accompanying a fragment in Istanbul we know that the endowment was made to a mosque in Tyre in 875–6 CE. From the collection of Cambridge Professor of Arabic Edward Henry Palmer (1840–1882), acquired during his travels in Sinai, Syria and Lebanon in 1867.

This manuscript has been digitised in full and can be viewed by clicking 'Open Digital Library' below.

MS Add.1116, f. 20