Al Quran Codex Parisino-Petropolitanus

Codex Parisino-possibly the oldest extant Quranic manuscript
Year Written: c. late 7th to early 8th century
Language: Arabic
Script Type: Hijazi
Current Location: 70 folios at Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris; 26 folios at the National Library of Russia in Saint-Petersburg, Russia; 1 folio in the Vatican Library; and 1 folio in Khalili Collection in London
References: Madain Project, Wikimedia Commons

The Codex Parisino-Petropolitanus is a 98 folio Quran manuscript dating back to the late 7th or early 8th century. The manuscript was found with several Quranic fragments in the Amr Mosque in Fustat, Egypt. During the Napoleonic expedition in the late 18th century, French scholar Jean-Joseph Marcel bought several of the folios and Jean-Louis Asselin de Cherville bought a few more pages a few years later.

Research conducted by Yassin Dutton suggests that the manuscript may have been written in Syria as it is written in the qira’at (readings/recitations) of Ibn Amir of Damascus, Syria. Today, parts of the manuscript are preserved across four different institutions: the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the National Library of Russia, the Vatican Library, and the Khalili Collection in London.