Finally, after much deliberation, al-Akwá authorised a special project funded by the cultural section of the Foreign ministry of West Germany, to restore and catalogue the manuscripts on location in Yemen. This offer was rejected by the Yemeni authorities who preferred the manuscripts to remain in the country. As word spread of the find, Denmark contacted the Yemeni government with the offer to preserve the manuscripts on the condition they were sent to Denmark where the restoration work would take place. Īpparently with no indigenous expertise to conserve the badly damaged manuscripts, Qādī Ismāʿīl al-Akwá, President of the General Organization Of Antiquities and Libraries initiated the effort to secure external specialists to conserve the manuscripts. Drawing a wide variety of experts from both the Muslim and non-Muslim world, a number of specific research activities were recommended, amongst which was highlighted the pressing need to conserve the rich corpus of Qur'anic texts discovered in the Great Mosque of Ṣanʿāʾ. A Colloquium on the Islamic City organised by the World of Islam Festival Trust, sponsored by UNESCO, was held at the Middle East Centre, Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Cambridge, in July 1976. At the international level an urgent call for the preservation of these manuscripts would soon gain widespread attention. Consequently in an attempt to prevent further corruption, the remaining manuscripts were eventually retransferred back to the Great Mosque. After noticing the contents of the sacks were gradually diminishing, the Yemeni authorities realised these valuable Qur'anic manuscripts were yet again being sold off piecemeal.
Reminiscent of the adventures of Indiana Jones, the re-opening of the storeroom was photographed almost immediately after its occurrence, the Italian Islamic archaeologist Paolo Costa proudly kneeling in front of the cache of manuscripts cradling a folio of the Qur'an. As the storeroom was also located in this area the remaining manuscripts were permanently removed consisting of some twenty sacks and placed in the National Museum. In 1972 in order to consolidate the north-west corner of the external wall to the mosque, it was necessary to remove part of the roof to allow progress to be made in the restoration and renovation works. Over time the curator of the library sold off the contents of the sacks unlawfully with some of the manuscripts ending up in Western libraries. Before repairs to the storeroom were complete, five or more sacks of Qur'anic manuscripts were removed and deposited in the Awqāf Library. During this time a forgotten about storeroom with no access door and a single window was discovered to contain a substantial cache of used Arabic manuscripts, almost all being ancient manuscripts of the Qur'an spanning the first few Islamic centuries.
Qādī Hussain bin Ahmed al-Sayaghy, then Director of Administration at the Yemen National Museum, instructed an examination of the area concerned be carried out to assess the extent of the damage. In 1965 heavy rains damaged the roof construction of the Western Library in the Great Mosque of Ṣanʿāʾ – a mosque established by a companion of Prophet Muhammad. One is advised to consult the after named publications for specific details on the published folios lines per page, verse/ sūrah divisions, specifics of script etc. Although the script in this fragment is italic, yet its angles are sharp.
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