Latest / The Story of Uzbekistan: Silk Road Kingdoms and Soviet Legacy — Fexingo History / The Samarkand Kufic Quran: Uzbekistan's Sacred Manuscript
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about Samarkand's architecture, its astronomy, its rulers. But there's one object that I think is arguably the most sacred physical thing in all of Uzbekistan, and it's actually a book. Luna: A book? You mean like a famous manuscript? Lucas: Exactly. It's called the Samarkand Kufic Quran, and for centuries, many believed it was the actual copy of the Quran that belonged to Caliph Uthman, the third caliph, who was assassinated in 656 CE. According to tradition, his blood still stains the pages. Luna: Wait, the actual copy from the 7th century? That would be one of the oldest in existence. Lucas: It is indeed one of the oldest. The manuscript is enormous—about two feet tall—written on parchment in an early Kufic script, with almost no vowel marks or diacritical dots. That makes it incredibly hard to read for anyone not trained in that style. The story of how it ended up in Samarkand is a saga in itself. Lucas: After Uthman's death, the codex was said to have been taken to Medina, then to Damascus, and eventually to Baghdad. But by the 14th century, it surfaces in Samarkand, at the mosque of Khoja Ahrar, a famous Naqshbandi saint. Some say it was brought by Timur himself, or maybe earlier by the Karakhanids. Luna: How did it survive all those centuries? Parchment is durable, but still. Lucas: Well, it was kept as a relic, not exactly used for daily reading. By the 19th century, it was housed in a small room in the Khoja Ahrar mosque complex in Samarkand, where locals venerated it. Then in 1868, the Russians took Samarkand from the Emirate of Bukhara. And that's when the story takes a colonial turn. Lucas: A Russian general named Konstantin von Kaufman, the first Governor-General of Turkestan, heard about the manuscript and basically seized it as a trophy. He sent it to the Imperial Public Library in St. Petersburg, where it was studied by Orientalists like the Finnish scholar C. G. Mannerheim—yes, that Mannerheim, before he became president of Finland. Luna: Wait, Mannerheim the explorer? I didn't know he studied Quran manuscripts. Lucas: He was a Russian officer and an avid collector. In 1906, he was on a spy mission across Central Asia, but he also took time to photograph and describe the Samarkand Quran. Anyway, the manuscript stayed in St. Petersburg, now Leningrad, after the revolution. The Soviets were unsure what to do with it—they were officially atheist, but it was a valuable cultural artifact. Lucas: In 1924, the Soviet government decided to return the Quran to Tashkent, partly as a gesture to the Muslim population of Turkestan to win their loyalty. It was placed in a special repository, but during the Stalinist purges, it was almost forgotten. Only after World War II did scholars really start studying it again. Luna: So where is it today? Can people actually see it? Lucas: It's kept in the Hazrati Imam complex in Tashkent, in a very secure, climate-controlled room. It's displayed sometimes, but not always. The building also houses the library of Abu Mansur al-Maturidi, the famous Sunni theologian. And there's a whole museum around it now. Lucas: But here's the thing—scholars are divided on whether this really is Uthman's personal copy. The radiocarbon dating and the script analysis suggest it might be from the late 7th or early 8th century, so close to Uthman's time, but possibly not his actual copy. Maybe it's an Umayyad-era copy made for a mosque. Luna: Does that matter for the people who venerate it? Or is the belief more important? Lucas: For many Uzbeks, especially religious Muslims, it is Uthman's Quran, full stop. The idea that his blood is on it is a powerful symbol. In 2007, a group of experts did a new study and concluded it was likely from the 8th or 9th century, not the 7th. That caused some controversy, but the manuscript remains a national treasure. Lucas: One interesting detail: the manuscript is incomplete. About a third of the pages are missing, probably lost over centuries. Some pages have turned up in other collections—a few are in the Institute of Oriental Studies in Tashkent, and maybe some are still in private hands. Luna: It's incredible that something so fragile survived wars, conquests, and revolutions. It's like a physical thread connecting us back to the 7th century. Lucas: Absolutely. And it's not just the object itself—it's the layers of history around it. Every time it was moved, it tells us something about the people who moved it: Timur's empire building, Kaufman's colonial plunder, Soviet cultural politics. It's a mirror of Central Asian history. Lucas: You know, speaking of the effort to preserve these stories—and this is something that matters to us directly—this podcast is listener-supported. We don't run ads, and the only reason we can keep digging into things like the Samarkand Quran is because a handful of listeners chip in through buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's not a big ask, just something that keeps the show going for people who care about these deep-dives. Luna: Yeah, it's a small community, but it makes a real difference. And it keeps us free to follow whatever thread catches our interest. Lucas: Exactly. And speaking of threads—there's another angle to this Quran story that I think is fascinating. It's not just about the past; it's also about how modern Uzbekistan uses this relic to assert a national identity. President Karimov often referenced it as proof of Uzbekistan's deep Islamic heritage, and now it's featured on stamps and in official tourism campaigns. Luna: So it's become a political symbol too, not just a religious one. Lucas: Yes. And there's a tension there: the manuscript predates the modern nation-state by over a millennium, but it's now a flag for Uzbek identity. In 2017, the government digitized the entire manuscript and put it online, which is wonderful for scholars, but also a way of controlling the narrative. Lucas: Another thing: the script itself is a work of art. Kufic is angular and majestic, with elongated horizontal strokes. Writing a Quran that size required immense skill—each page had to be perfectly aligned. And the ink is still dark after 1,300 years, because it's carbon-based, not iron gall. Luna: Carbon-based ink, that's what they used in ancient Egypt too, right? It lasts longer. Lucas: Exactly. So the Quran is also a treasure for paleographers. And the fact that it's in Tashkent now, not in a Western museum, is a point of pride for many Uzbeks. It was one of the first major artifacts returned by the Soviets to a Central Asian republic. Lucas: I should also mention that there's a second, smaller fragment of a Kufic Quran in the same complex, sometimes called the 'Uthmanic fragment,' which might be from the same set. But the big one is the star. In 2020, a special exhibition was held for its 1,400th anniversary—though the dating is approximate. Luna: It's amazing how one object can open up so many stories: religion, empire, colonialism, nationalism, art. Lucas: That's exactly why I wanted to cover it. When you think of Samarkand, you usually think of the Registan or the gur e amir tomb. But this Quran is the city's most intimate link to the dawn of Islam. It's not just a monument—it's a book that people have touched, read, and prayed over for centuries.