The mosque housing the “Katta Langar Qur’an” has been restored

The “Langar Ota” Mosque one of the rare architectural monuments dating back to the 15th–16th centuries and located in the mountainous Langar village of Kashkadarya region has been restored.

The restoration work was carried out with the support of the U.S. Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation (AFCP) and under the scientific supervision of the University of Chicago. According to the Uzbekistan Foundation for the Development of Culture and Art, the international restoration team worked on ornamental designs, columns, mosaics, and calligraphic inscriptions.

For a long time, this mosque housed one of the oldest Qur’anic manuscripts the Katta Langar Qur’an. According to scholarly research, it dates back to the last quarter of the 8th century. Moreover, this Qur’an is believed to be associated with the third caliph, Uthman, and was written under his supervision.

The full volume of the Qur’an is thought to have consisted of 206 pages. Today, only 98 pages of the manuscript written by an unknown calligrapher have survived. In 1936, 81 of these pages were transferred to the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts in St. Petersburg. The remaining 17 pages are preserved in Uzbekistan.

In 2018, the World Society for the Study, Preservation, and Promotion of the Cultural Legacy of Uzbekistan succeeded in returning the facsimile manuscript of the Katta Langar Qur’an, which had been kept in St. Petersburg, to Uzbekistan.