Bombed 16th Century Jesuit College Housed A Special Collection

On the night of April 24, 1944, British air force bombers hammered a former Jesuit college here housing the Bavarian Academy of Science. The 16th-century building crumpled in the inferno. Among the treasures lost, later lamented Anto.n Spitale.r, an Arabi.c scholar at the academy, was a unique photo archive of ancient manuscripts of the Qura.n. The 450 rolls of film had been assembled before the war for a bold venture: a study of the evolution of the Qura.n, the text Musli.ms view as the verbatim transcript of God's word. The wartime destruction made the project "outright impossible," Mr. Spitale.r wrote in the 1970s. Mr. Spitale.r was lying. The cache of photos survived, and he was sitting on it all along. The truth is only now dribbling out to scholars -- and a Qura.n research project buried for more than 60 years has risen from the grave.

Hat Tip to Ross Doutha.t Blog in the Atlantic Magazin.e, link (here)