Single parchment folio, Shelfmark: KFQ 20; Qurʾānic Text: ; Lines per page: 16; Dimensions: 208 x 250 mm; Script style: kūfī (type B I b); Estimated date of production: 700-800.
In the catalogue of the Khalili Collections François Déroche writes about this fragment ( The Abbasid Tradition, London 1992, S. 52): "6 / Single folio / Second half of the 8th century AD or early 9th / 20.8x25cm, with 16 lines to the page / Material Parchment; the recto is the hair side / Text area 16.6 x 21.8 cm / Script Style B.I b / Accession no. KFQ 20 / The decoration and page layout of this folio are as characteristic of B.I b manuscripts as are the forms of the letters. The slender appearance of this script was inherited from Hijazi, although B.I b is usually far more regular than Hijazi. (A possible exception is cat.2 above, a Hijazi fragment written in a hand as regular as that of cat.6.) As in other B scripts, the base line does not always serve as a support, and some letters extend beneath it even in their medial forms, as if to balance the weight of those which stand above the line. Jīm, for example, looks like an oblique stroke placed across the line, while mīm is circular, and hāʾ is a half-circle, with the base line running between the two ‘eyes’, one above and one below. / In B.I b, the width of the line is almost uniform: the return at the base of independent alif is flat and rather thick, for example. The same lack of contrast can be observed in the final forms of other letters such as nūn, in which the pen seems to flow evenly; a tendency to curve the body of this letter slightly can also be detected. / The text runs from Sūrat al-kahf (XVIII), verse 86, to Sūrat Maryam (XIX), verse 4. It is written in dark brown ink, with diacritical strokes. Red dots indicate the vocalization. Triangular clusters of three strokes (I.I.4) mark the end of every verse, and two concentric circles in ink (I.A.I) indicate the end of every tenth verse. For the hundredth verse, at XVIII, 99, four small semicircular figures have been added to make a kind of cross. The last word of Sūrat al-kahf is followed by the expression Hādhihi khātimatu sūrati aṣḥābiʾl-kahfi (‘This is the conclusion of Sūrat al-kahf’) and the number of verses written in red."
For a detailed description of this early Qurʾān with a list of sister fragments in collections of Gotha, London, Paris and Philadelphia, see the catalogue entry by Marcus Fraser about Qatar National Library HC.MS.03190.

• Déroche, François: The Abbasid Tradition. Qurʾans of the 8th to the 10th centuries AD. Nour Foundation in association with Azimuth Editions and Oxford University Press, London 1992.