{
  "dataset": "QuranRecords — earliest manuscript witnesses, folio catalogue",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "released": "2026-07-09",
  "license": "CC BY 4.0",
  "license_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "description": "Catalogue of the earliest Qurʾānic manuscript witnesses shown in the Atlas, each aligned to the passage(s) it carries and linked to its holding institution. Folio images are openly licensed; rights credited per entry.",
  "note": "Datings and ʿUthmānic attributions of several codices are contested; the catalogue records the dispute rather than resolving it.",
  "citation": "QuranRecords, 'Earliest manuscript witnesses, folio catalogue, v1.0.0', 2026. https://quranrecords.com/data/ — CC BY 4.0.",
  "manuscripts": [
    {
      "id": "birmingham",
      "name": "Birmingham Qurʾān (Mingana 1572a)",
      "institution": "Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham",
      "script": "Ḥijāzī",
      "material": "parchment",
      "date": "parchment radiocarbon-dated 568–645 CE",
      "contents": [
        {
          "surah": 18,
          "from": 17,
          "to": 31
        },
        {
          "surah": 19,
          "from": 91,
          "to": 98
        },
        {
          "surah": 20,
          "from": 1,
          "to": 40
        }
      ],
      "record": "https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/facilities/cadbury/TheBirminghamQuranManuscript"
    },
    {
      "id": "sanaa",
      "name": "Ṣanʿāʾ palimpsest (DAM 01-27.1)",
      "institution": "Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt, Ṣanʿāʾ, Yemen",
      "script": "Ḥijāzī",
      "material": "parchment palimpsest",
      "date": "~1st century AH",
      "contents": "An erased lower text under a standard upper text; the lower layer preserves parts of many sūras in a different order with word-level variants.",
      "record": "https://corpuscoranicum.de/en/manuscripts"
    },
    {
      "id": "parisino",
      "name": "Codex Parisino-petropolitanus (BnF Arabe 328)",
      "institution": "Bibliothèque nationale de France (folios also in St Petersburg, the Vatican & London)",
      "script": "Ḥijāzī",
      "material": "parchment",
      "date": "c. 7th–8th century",
      "contents": "~45% of the text survives, from Q2:275 to Q72:2 with lacunae.",
      "span": {
        "from": {
          "surah": 2,
          "ayah": 275
        },
        "to": {
          "surah": 72,
          "ayah": 2
        }
      },
      "record": "https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8415207g"
    },
    {
      "id": "blue",
      "name": "Blue Qurʾān",
      "institution": "Dispersed; this folio at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (2004.88)",
      "script": "Kūfic (gold on indigo)",
      "material": "dyed parchment",
      "date": "c. 9th–10th century",
      "contents": [
        {
          "surah": 30,
          "from": 28,
          "to": 32
        }
      ],
      "record": "https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/454662"
    },
    {
      "id": "samarqand",
      "name": "Samarqand / Tashkent codex",
      "institution": "Hast Imam Library, Tashkent — UNESCO Memory of the World",
      "script": "Kūfic",
      "material": "parchment",
      "date": "c. 8th–9th century",
      "contents": "An incomplete large-format codex spanning roughly Sūra 2 to Sūra 43.",
      "record": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samarkand_Kufic_Quran"
    },
    {
      "id": "topkapi",
      "name": "Topkapı muṣḥaf",
      "institution": "Topkapı Palace Museum, Istanbul",
      "script": "Kūfic",
      "material": "parchment",
      "date": "c. 8th century",
      "contents": "A near-complete early codex — most of the muṣḥaf survives in one volume.",
      "record": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topkapi_manuscript"
    }
  ]
}