The medieval Muslim travelers Ibn Jubayr (d. 1217) and Ibn Battuta (d. 1377) describe the veneration of Qur’an codices associated with the third Caliph ‘Uthman ibn ‘Affan (r. 644-656). At the Great Mosque in Damascus, Muslims rubbed and kissed one of these Qur’ans as a means of obtaining baraka (divine blessing). In Mecca, a Qur’an associated with this caliph was used as part of a ritual to bring rain during drought. Remarkably, neither writer comments on these books and their use as intercessors to God as violations of Islamic law. Scholars have, in the last few decades, examined a number of aspects of lived religion in the medieval Middle East. Activities such as veneration of saints and grave visitation have been analyzed, successfully complicating the scholarly dichotomy of Islamic orthopraxy and “popular” religious practices. Like their medieval predecessors, modern scholars have been largely silent concerning veneration of Qur’an codices. By tracing the changes in the literary accounts of the assassination of ‘Uthman, by Ibn Sa’d (d. 845), al-Baladhuri (d. 892), and al-Tabari (d. 923), I demonstrate that medieval scholars intentionally escalated the drama and trauma surrounding the Qur’ān present at the murder. This was done, I argue, in order to rehabilitate ‘Uthman’s problematic caliphate and ensure his place among the other three Righteously-Guided caliphs, collectively known as the Rashidun. These powerful narratives, however, had unintended consequences among the Muslim masses. It was these accounts, I suggest, that encouraged every-day Muslims to elevate Qur’ans associated with ‘Uthman to the level of hyper-sacred. This paper attempts to identify and examine the religious and political processes that resulted in the extreme veneration of ‘Uthmanic Qur’ans. I argue that sanctification of these books was a long process inextricably linked to the contentious history of the third caliphate, the rise of the book in the ninth century, and the attempts by ninth-century Abbasids and religious scholars to unify the Muslim community. Brannon Wheeler notes, “Sacred things are conventions agreed upon by, and pertaining to, society.” By the twelfth century, when the prestige of both ‘Uthman and the written Qur’an were crystallized, the unintended consequence of these processes was the extreme sanctification of particular codices. This paper documents the process and consequence of agreeing on the level of sanctity of ‘Uthmanic Qur’ans.