New Delhi
Dr. Eleanor Cellard is a French woman, who has become one of the few non-Muslim experts in Quranic manuscripts in the world.
She began her research on the Qur'an in 2008, first mastering the Arabic language and literature. In 2015, she presented her doctoral dissertation Written Delivery of the Qur'an. Study of a Collection of Manuscripts from the 2nd H./8th CE.
Until 2018, she continued her research as a research assistant and postdoctoral researcher at the College de France. She first joined the French-German Quranic project, then the Paleo-Quranic project. Her work was based on the Islamic scholarly tradition of traveling in search of knowledge.
She posted this on Twitter:
My research project the Qur’ān attributed to the caliph ‘Uthmān ended last month. I think I’ve accomplished a lot during this last year, in accessing all of the dispersed fragments of this manuscript. But so much remains to be discovered about its fascinating history… pic.twitter.com/6hWmtTjl1n
— Dr. Éléonore Cellard (@CellardEleonore) January 7, 2021
She was also given special permission to work in places that were not open to all, especially to women. The fact is that a very few young people today are interested in studying the ancient Arabic languages, but Cellard undertook a special study of the ancient Arabic, Syriac and Akkadian languages in order to study the Qur'an.
Dr Eleanor Cellard with a huge Quran
Because of her study of the ancient text her work is considered to be the first formal proof of the written languages.
This is the first book in the Arabic language literary tradition. One of the most interesting Qur'anic manuscripts in Cellard's major research is the Qur'an attributed to Uthman. She says: It was probably manufactured sometime in the 8th century AD and weighed at least 50 kg.
Pages of a manuscript
Each of its approximately 700 pages was as large as the size of a single animal's skin."
A rare version of the Qur'an
A person who posted the story of Cellard on Twitter wondered “Why do we focus on gaining wealth in education but put knowledge behind us? Is there an institution like French and German Quranic institutes in any Muslim country especially Pakistan?”
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