Two Folios from a Qur’an

Location: Iraq or Iran

Materials: ink, gold and opaque watercolours on paper

Dimensions: 43 x 33.5cm

Accession Number: QUR 438.1–2

Other Notes:

Text: surah al-Kahf (XVIII), verses 109–10 and surah Saba’ (XXXIV), verses 1–3.

These folios come from a dispersed prayer book that contained the five surahs from the Qur’an beginning with the phrase, al-hamdu li’llah (I, VI, XVIII, XXXIV and XXXV). The manuscript must have been one of the finest of its type to have been produced  in the late 14th or early 15th century.

The script is a magnificent black muhaqqaq outlined in gold, and is unusually thin given its large size.

Script:

main text in muhaqqaq, incidentals in thulth; 5 lines to the page

Bibliography:

D. James, After Timur. Qur’ans of the 15th and 16th Centuries, The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, volume III, London 1992, cat.1, pp.16–17.