TWO LINES FROM A MONUMENTAL QUR'AN IN MUHAQQAQ SCRIPT, PROBABLY MAMLUK EGYPT, 14TH CENTURY

This fragment of two lines of the Qur'an comes from a manuscript that must have been of a very large and grand nature. The lines here are cropped tightly at either end, and still measure 35.4cm across. With the original margins the page would have been around 60cm wide, and with either five or seven lines per page the vertical dimension would have been between 70 and 90cm. This is a remarkable scale for a complete manuscript of the Qur'an, and indicates a patron of considerable status and wealth. While the calligraphic style could be attributed to either Mamluk Egypt or Ilkhanid Persia, the sheer scale of the original page size points to a Mamluk origin. The production of very large Qur'an manuscripts was popular among successive Mamluk Sultans and viziers in the 14th and early 15th century (see James 1988, nos.24,28,29,30,31,32,33, 34). Ilkhanid monarchs also favoured Qur'ans of grand proportions, but not to the same extent as their Mamluk counterparts. Only the Qur'ans made for Sultan Öljaytu Khan come close to the size of the Mamluks examples (see James 1988, nos.40,42,45).

Another fragment of two lines from the same Qur'an (and the same sura) is in the Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., acquired in 1945 (see Fu, Lowry and Yonemura, no.41, pp.120-121).