Several scholars have examined the debates among eighth and ninth-century Muslim jurists surrounding the proper treatment of Qur’an codices, including the meaning of the Qur’anic verse forbidding the holy book to be touched by those in a state of ritual impurity (Q 56:77-79). One aspect of the status of the Qur’an that has not been examined is the impact of the increased prevalence of books, including Qur’ans, on Muslim attitudes toward the sanctity of their written scripture. This paper suggests that by the twelfth century, as Qur’an codices piled up in mosques and market stalls, the Muslim public adopted an attitude of familiarity, even intimacy, toward the written Qur’an, an attitude that was at odds with juridical rulings on the book’s status as a sacred object. Al-Tabari (d. 923) relates only two accounts of Muslims intentionally thrusting the Qur’an into the midst of Baghdad street conflicts. By the twelfth century, however, as related by Ibn al-Jawzi (d. 1201), residents of Baghdad, Damascus, and Cairo had taken to the streets again and again during urban unrest with Qur’ans in hands, on sticks, and hanging from their necks. During one particularly violent conflict, women and children put the sacred texts on their heads. The Muslim public repeatedly exposed their holy book to possible destruction and defilement by a variety of impure substances, in essence defying Islamic law regarding the treatment of the Qur’an. It is not surprising, then, that Ibn al-Jawzi includes in his History a complaint from a Sha’fi jurist about the "decline of sanctity of the written Qur’an in the hearts of the people." This change in attitude is reflected in the manuscripts themselves. Beginning in the twelfth century, copyists and owners began adding a wide array of non-Qur’anic texts to copies of the Qur’an. This paper explores the Qur’an as a sacred material object and the tension between increasing human contact and the maintenance of sanctity. I argue that while the rise of the book in the eighth and ninth centuries in the Islamic Middle East initiated a transformation in Muslim attitudes toward the Qur’an as a sacred object, increased exposure to the written word in ensuing centuries further complicated their relationship with the Qur’an as a book. I demonstrate that the increased prominence of Qur’an codices in the material landscape of the medieval Middle East created a space for a written scripture with a multiplicity of meaning.