A fine Khurasan silver-inlaid brass pen-case, Eastern Persia, circa 1200 AD

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The elegant decoration of this present penbox, which combines vegetal scrolls with stylised script, is evidently intended to adorn an item highly valued by its owner. Ibn Muqlah, whose treatise on the Arabic script has shaped the language as we know it today, emphasises how the knowledge of Allah and his word is transmitted through the pen (H. Naji, Ibn Muqlah, Khattatan wa abidan wa insanan, Baghdad, 1991, p.114). Therefore, the preservation of the pen, and subsequently its case, is of extreme importance, a concept understood by al-Qalqashandi who stresses how “it is necessary for the scribe to do his utmost to adorn the pen case, to make it excellent and to look after it” (Allan 1982, p.92). 

The present penbox would have probably enclosed a pot for ink, sand and starch, as well as a long compartment for reed pens and a knife to sharpen them. For a thirteenth-century example of similar form, see E. Atil, Islamic Art and Patronage. Treasures from Kuwait, New York, 1990, p.140, no.40.