François de Blois & Deborah Freeman Fahid with contributions by Manijeh Bayani, Shireen Ellinger, Stephen Hirtenstein, Nahla Nassar, Alison Ohta, J.M. Rogers & Elaine Wright
This volume is devoted to the largely unillustrated Arabic, Persian and Turkish manuscripts in the Collection that cover a wide range of topics.
Prayer books and other devotional works include copies of al-Busiri’s poem, the Qasidat al-burdah and al-Jazuli’s Dalail al-khayrat. Of significance also is the group of Shi’i devotional manuscripts produced in Iran and India from the loth to the 19th centuries, probably the largest collection of such material outside of Iran. Finely illuminated, and copied by some of the most notable calligraphers, these works are considered as a body of literature in an art historical context for the first time.
Important manuscripts include a I 3th-century one with the oldest recorded copies of three different works on Qur’anic sciences, two of them rare; a five-fold amplification of the Qasidat al-burdah originally commissioned by the Marinid sultan ‘Abd al-Halim; an autograph volume by the great 13th-century mystic Ibn al-‘Arabi; an early I4th-century diwan of the famous poet al-Mutanabbi; and an early I4th-century Persian translation of Istakhri’s Kitab al-masalik wa’l-mamalik.
Dr François de Blois is a specialist in Semitic and Iranian languages and the history of religions in the Near East in pre-modern times
Deborah Freeman Fahid is an independent art historian; former Assistant Curator and head of publications, Al-Sabah Collection, Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah, Kuwait
Manijeh Bayani is a specialist in Persian and Arabic epigraphy who has contributed to most of the catalogues in the Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art series
Shireen Ellinger is Deputy Curator, Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art
Stephen Hirtenstein is Co-founder and Director, Anga Publishing; specialist in the life, thought and writings of Ibn al-‘Arabi
Nahla Nassar is Curator and Registrar, Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art and the Hajj and the Arts of Pilgrimage Collection
Dr Alison Ohta is Director, Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland; specialist in the technique and ornament of Mamluk bookbinding
The late Professor J.M. Rogers was Honorary Curator, Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art; former Deputy Keeper, Department of Oriental Antiquities, British Museum, London
Dr Elaine Wright is former Curator of the Islamic Collections, Chester Beatty Library, Dublin; specialist in Islamic manuscript production
fully illustrated in colour; section on documentary inscriptions; hardback with dust jacket (slipcased); 36 × 26 cm; ISBN: 978-1-874780-84-7. 377 pages.
Release date: 2025
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