Throughout history, mankind has committed its greatest thoughts to writing. The power of the written word is vast: it allows ideas, emotions, even passions, to transcend time, to pass unaltered from one person to another, from one generation to the next. Human society itself is erected on a solid foundation of documents: edicts, declarations, and holy books. This rare manuscript dates from the early flowering of Islam, a religion which, from its beginning, has been guided by the written word. The reed paper, papyrus, was made for thousands of years in Egypt, a land incorporated early into the Islamic empire. To hold this manuscript today, to decipher its message, is to communicate directly with a vanished world.