A Qur'an leaf in gold Kufic script on vellum, Near East, 10th century

This Qur’an originates from one of a very few surviving Qur’ans in which the main body of the text has been executed entirely in gold Kufic script. This would have been a lengthy and expensive process, indicating a commission at the highest level of patronage, hence the rarity of such manuscripts.

The Qur'an from which this folio originates, now widely dispersed in numerous institutions and private collections, has been attributed to both Kairouan (Martin Lings and Yasin Safadi, The Qur’an, London 1976, nos.16-17; T. Falk (ed.), ‘Treasures of Islam’, Musée d'Art et d'Histoire, Geneva 1985, no.1), and also Central and Eastern Islamic lands. The latter due to the so-called Eastern abjad system used in the verse count of this Qur'an, as argued by Stanley (Tim Stanley, The Qur'an and Calligraphy, Bernard Quaritch 1213, p.18). Other leaves and sections from the same Qur'an are in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Tunis, The National Institute of Archaeology, Tunis, Beit al-Qur'an, Bahrain, and the Nasser D. Khalili Collection, London. For other folios which were sold in these rooms, see 6 April 2011, lots 165 and 170; 5 October 2010, lots 8 and 9.