Latest / The Story of Uzbekistan: Silk Road Kingdoms and Soviet Legacy — Fexingo History / The Katta Langar Quran: Bukhara's Blood-Stained Holy Relic
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked about Bukhara's ark, its libraries, its paper. But there's one object that ties all of that together, and it's literally huge. I'm talking about the Katta Langar Quran, the giant manuscript that's been kept in Bukhara for centuries, and it has a story that's part history, part legend, and part politics. Luna: Katta Langar — is that the name of the manuscript or the place? Lucas: Both, sort of. Katta Langar means 'big pendant' or 'big amulet' in Uzbek — it's a term used for a large, revered Quran. And there's actually a village called Katta Langar in the Qashqadaryo region, but the manuscript we're talking about is the one that's been attributed to the caliph Uthman, the third Rashidun caliph. It's a massive codex, written on parchment, with huge letters, and it's been a pilgrimage site for centuries. Lucas: The legend goes that this was one of the official copies of the Quran that Uthman commissioned and sent to the major cities of the expanding Islamic empire. There were several of these 'Uthmanic codices' — one to Kufa, one to Basra, one to Damascus, and one to Medina. The one that ended up in Central Asia is said to be the copy that was sent to Syria, or perhaps the one from Medina, and it somehow made its way east. Luna: Wait, how would it end up in Bukhara? That's a long way from Arabia. Lucas: Well, that's where the history gets fuzzy. Some say it was brought by the Arab conquerors in the eighth century, others say it came later with the Samanids, who were a Persian dynasty that ruled Bukhara in the ninth and tenth centuries. The Samanids were great patrons of Islamic learning, and they might have acquired it as a prestigious relic. But the earliest concrete references we have to the manuscript being in Bukhara date to the sixteenth century, when the Shaybanid rulers, who were the Uzbek dynasty, mention it in their court histories. Luna: So it's been in Bukhara for at least five hundred years, then. Lucas: Yes, and it was displayed in the main mosque, the Kalyan mosque, and people would come from all over to see it and to touch it. It was said to have healing powers. There's a tradition that the manuscript has a dark stain on one of its pages that is the blood of Uthman himself, who was assassinated while reading it. That's a vivid image, but historians are very skeptical. The blood stain, if it is blood, is more likely from some later event. Lucas: And the identification with Uthman is also dubious. The script and the parchment suggest a much later date, probably the eighth or ninth century, not the mid-seventh century when Uthman was alive. But for the people of Bukhara, the legend was more important than the historical evidence. It was a symbol of their connection to the early Islamic world, and it gave the city prestige. Luna: So when the Russians came in the nineteenth century, did they take it? Lucas: Actually, they did, but in a complicated way. When the Russians conquered Samarkand in 1868, they found a similar manuscript, which they took to Saint Petersburg and then later to Tashkent — that one is now known as the Samarkand Kufic Quran, and it's been studied a lot. The Bukhara manuscript stayed in Bukhara until 1923, when the Soviet authorities decided to move it to Tashkent as part of their campaign to centralize cultural artifacts. They put it in the museum of history, I think, and it's been in Tashkent ever since. Lucas: But the people of Bukhara didn't forget about it. In the 1980s, there was a campaign to have it returned, and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the government of Uzbekistan finally agreed to transfer it back to Bukhara. It's now in the Kokand Museum, which is actually a palace in Bukhara, and it's on display there. Luna: So it's home again. But do people still see it as a holy relic? Lucas: For sure. It's treated with great reverence. Museum staff handle it with gloves, but pilgrims can still view it through glass. And there are still rumors that it's the actual Uthmanic codex. The director of the museum once told me that they've had requests to have it examined with modern techniques, but they're reluctant because they don't want to damage it. And there's also a political dimension — the government wants to use it to promote national heritage and tourism. Lucas: You know, this whole conversation reminds me of something. This show is a lot of work to put together, and it's only possible because a small group of listeners chip in a few dollars a month on buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. If you're one of them, thank you. If you're not, but you get something out of these stories, that's the easiest way to keep them coming. Luna: Yeah, it's a good thing to support. And we promise, no ads, just history. Lucas: Right. Now, back to the Quran. One of the most fascinating things about this manuscript is what it tells us about the politics of early Islam. The assassination of Uthman and the subsequent civil war created a deep schism between Sunni and Shia Islam, and relics like this became ammunition in that conflict. Both sides have claimed to possess the 'true' Uthmanic codex to legitimize their version of events. Luna: So it's not just a religious object, it's a political one. Lucas: Exactly. For the Sunni rulers of Bukhara, having this manuscript was a way of asserting their orthodoxy and their continuity with the early caliphate. For the Shia, the fact that Uthman was killed while reading it is a sign of his martyrdom and the legitimacy of Ali's claim. So the manuscript is a physical reminder of a theological feud that's still alive today. Lucas: And there's another layer. Some historians think that the Katta Langar Quran might not be a single codex but a composite, with different parts written at different times. That would explain some of the inconsistencies in the script. If that's true, it's not so much a single relic as a kind of palimpsest of Islamic calligraphy and tradition. Luna: That's wild. So the museum is essentially a living manuscript. Lucas: In a way, yes. And it's not the only one. There are several large Qurans scattered around Central Asia, each with its own legend. The one in Tashkent, the Samarkand codex, has been carbon dated and found to be from the eighth century, which supports the idea that these are later copies, not the originals. But even the copies carry immense weight. Lucas: I think what I love about this story is how it shows the way history is not just about what happened, but about what people believe happened. The Katta Langar Quran may not have been touched by Uthman, but it has been touched by millions of hands, and those hands have left their own marks, literally — there are fingerprints worn into the edges of the pages. That's a kind of history too. Luna: Fingerprints from centuries of pilgrims. That's a beautiful thought. Lucas: It is. And it makes you wonder what future generations will make of it. Will they still see it as a holy relic, or as a museum piece, or maybe as a symbol of Uzbekistan's rich and complicated past? Probably all of those things at once.