News | A rare union of the Qur'an and the Bible on a palimpsest.

LONDON.- Christie’s announced the results achieved for the palimpsest of a Qur’an copied onto a Christian text, realising £596,790 during the Art of the Islamic and Indian Worlds Including Oriental Rugs and Carpets auction. As Lot 1 of the sale, this remarkable manuscript dates to the earliest period of Islam.

The leaves from these folios derive from an earlier Coptic manuscript containing passages from the Book of Deuteronomy, which is part of the Torah and the Christian Old Testament. It was very probably produced in Egypt, home to the Coptic community, at the time of the Arab conquest.

This appears to be the only recorded example of a Qur'an written above a Christian text, and the importance of this manuscript resonates with the historical reality of religious communities in the Near East and as such is an invaluable survival from the earliest centuries of Islam.

Source: ArtDaily Newspaper