An illuminated Qur'an, North Africa, Algeria, dated Rabi' al-Awwal 1188 AH/May-June 1774 AD

A note in the upper margin of the opening bifolio written by Ahmad ibn al-Tunisi in 1188 AH, the year the Qur’an was completed, states that the Qur’an was endowed by al-Sayyida Jannat, daughter of al-Sayyid Mustafa Bay Bushlaghim. Mustapha Bouchelaghem, known as Bey Bouchelaghem, was elected as Bey of the Western Beylik in 1686.

The endowment note allows us to situate the production of this manuscript within Algeria. The manuscript is elaborately decorated with double page illuminated frontispiece and finispiece, illuminated surah headings of diverse styles and a rich variety of verse markers. The elegant Maghribi script is aligned with the extensive  decorative scheme with key sections of the text picked out in multi-coloured ink of various sizes. The distinct form of floriated Kufic used in several of the surah headings, where the gaps between letters have been carefully filled in polychrome, recalls the illumination of a sixteenth century Moroccan Qur’an produced for the Sharifian Sultan of Morocco, Mawlay ‘Abdallah ibn Muhammad, now in the British Library (inv. no.1405, Blair 2008, p.67, fig.5.6). The similarities indicate the persisting styles in North African manuscript production which remained clearly linked to the earlier tradition. However, the interpretation is less formalised and demonstrates a considerably more polychromatic interpretation than their predecessors. It is fitting that a manuscript of this quality, extensively illuminated throughout, would have been owned by the daughter of the Bey.