AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): A copy of a 14-cenury-old Quran manuscript named ‘Mus’haf Mashhad Razavi’ was presented to senior Iraqi cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
The manuscript is in Hijazi script — the collective name for a number of early Arabic scripts that developed in the Hejaz region of Arabia.
During a recent meeting with Ayatollah Sistani in Najaf, Quran researcher and translator Morteza Kariminia offered explanations about the Mus’haf, which dates back to the first century after Hijra (7th century AD).
Ayatollah Sistani hailed the activities at the Astan Quds Razavi in Mashhad on introducing old manuscript copies of the Quran, some of which are attributed to the Infallible Imams (AS).
He hoped that such efforts for reviving old books and manuscripts, will continue by the Astan.
Ayatllah Sistani also sent greetings to the researchers and scholars contributing to these efforts at the Astan of Imam Reza (AS) holy shrine.
The Mus’haf Mashhad Razavi was unveiled in a ceremony in Mashhad last month.
The 252-page copy contains 95 percent of the text of the Holy Book.
Different analyses and studies, including carbon-14 dating, showed that the major part of the copy was written in the first Hijri century.
It was written on parchment measuring 35 by 50 centimeters either in Medina or Kufa and was later taken to Khorasan (northeast Iran).
Then in the late 5th Hijri century, the owner endowed the copy to the holy shrine of Imam Reza (AS).
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