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LARGE QUR'AN LEAF IN KUFIC SCRIPT ON VELLUM, NORTH AFRICA OR NEAR EAST, 10TH CENTURY
Description
5 lines per page written in fine, kufic script in brown ink on vellum, no diacritics, vocalisation in red, green, blue and yellow dots, single verses marked with gold roundels surrounded by petals in brown ink and containing exact verse number, sura heading in bold kufic in gold on a rectangular panel of gold with a scrolling foliate motif outlined in brown ink, palmette originally extending into margin, trimmed to text and across palmette
Catalogue Note
CATALOGUE NOTE
This leaf comes from a Qur'an with a very distinctive script, examples of which are very rarely seen on the market. The only other leaves from this Qur'an to have appeared at auction were sold in these rooms 23 April 1979, lot 9 (a pair), 8 July 1980, lot 157 (single leaf with sura heading), 29 April 1998, lots 10 and 11, and lots 30 and 31, 12 October 2000.
The script is notable not only for its elegance but also for several other distinguishing features, such as the extended vertical letters, the wide, curving terminal nun, and the occasional slender curving tail of the terminal mim. This set of features only occur on two other known copies of the Qur'an. Leaves from the first can be found in the Al-Sabah Collection, Kuwait (Dodds 1992, fig.1, p.117), the Tareq Rajab Museum, Kuwait, and the Nasser D. Khalili Collection, London (Déroche 1992, no.58). While leaves from the second are in the National Library, Tunis (Rutbi 52, Lings and Safadi, no.24) and the Musée des art Islamique, Qairawan (Carthage, no.358).
A further unusual feature of the script is the manner in which the vertical parts of the letters ta and za and terminal kaf curve forwards. This feature is most commonly associated with eastern kufic script, as is the extended vertical and the playful confrontation of the lam alif in the word la also in evidence here. The eastern kufic script was present in the Muslim west towards the close of the tenth century A.D. and the present leaf may be an early example of the spread of this script westwards across the Islamic world.
The present leaf is also notable for the detailed attention to each verse ending which is marked by a stylised rosette of considerable size containing an exact number, as well as its lavishly illuminated and bold sura heading. Of the other known leaves from this Qur'an only two show sura headings, each with similar large gold panels and confident inscriptions (see Islamische Buchkunst 1980, p.54, no.35 and Sotheby's London 8 July 1980, lot 157 later published in Fehervari & Safadi 1981, p.28, no.1).