Qur’an Fragment

Location: perhaps India

Materials: ink, gold and opaque watercolour on paper; margins restored; modern binding

Dimensions: 104 folios; 38.5 x 31.5cm

Accession Number: QUR 413

Other Notes:

The fragment contains parts of surahs III–IV and LXXXVII. The text is written in an unusual form of muhaqqaq. Every first, fourth and seventh line on each page are written in gold, with the eyes of the letters filled in with blue. The decoration of the two surah headings – surah al-Ma’idah (folio 51a) and surah al-An‘am (folio 62b) – is comparable in quality if not in style to the finest Timurid examples.  

Script:

main text copied in muhaqqaq script, incidentals in thulth; 7 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.29, pp.108–11.