Towards a history of the Qur'anic Codex in Umayyad times

According to the Muslim tradition, the text of the Qurn was written down at the latest under the reign of the caliph Uthmn (644-656 AD). When the Umayyads seized power in 660 AD, its written transmission was at its very beginning. Discoveries made during the last decades enable us to retrace the way in which the text itself and its physical appearance deeply modified in Umayyad times (660-750 AD). The manuscript evidence combined with the sources suggests a direct involvement of the rulers in these changes. It also opens new avenues of research about the conditions under which the text was transmitted.