Call for Papers: The Qurʾān You Don’t Expect: An Overview of the Multifarious Forms of a Well-Known Text

A special issue of the Journal of Islamic Manuscripts (JIM) will be dedicated to the unexpected outcomes of the Quranic manuscript and material production and its textual excerpts.

We welcome contributions that examine unusual features of Quranic manuscripts—or early printed volumes—as well as textual Quranic excerpts in under-studied surfaces. The goal is to document the multifarious aspects of the Quranic production and investigate the geographical, chronological, religious, linguistic and sociocultural contexts in which these unusual manuscript shapes and material uses—on the edge of what can be considered a familiar and somewhat normative text and book-form production—were rooted and made sense.

This special issue therefore aims to cover, discover, illustrate and analyse the contexts of production of what goes beyond the well-known form of the Quranic codices. These range from Quranic scrolls to illustrated Quranic manuscripts and prints, from Quranic cipher texts to Qurans in exceptional formats (large or small), from Qurans written on watermarked paper bearing Christian symbols to Qurans with translations, from relic Qurans to forged Quranic manuscripts (for example, falsely attributed to famous people), from xylograph Qurans to epigraphic Qurans, notably on textiles and coins. The issue aims to include a wide range of nuances in which the sacred text of Islam appears in manuscript or written form, with the aim of contributing to the study of the Quran as a living text.

Please send your paper proposal (500 words plus selected bibliography) to the following addresses for the end of May 2025:

Arianna.dottone@uniroma1.it or benazzouna@unistra.fr

You will be informed about the paper selection in June 2025 and the final text (between 8.000 and 12.000 words, and 8–10 HR images) will be expected for the end of December 2025.

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