A small illuminated Qur'an, Near East, Abbasid, late 12th/early 13th century

Formerly in the collection of a Middle Eastern Ambassador to the U.K., early 1970s

Qur’ans of the eleventh to thirteenth century are important in documenting the transition and growing popularity of rounded scripts. During this time, cursive scripts came to dominate the calligraphic scene which was canonised by the tenth-century scribe Ibn Muqla. The earliest surviving Qur’an in this style was penned by Ibn al-Bawwab, dated 391 AH/1000-01 AD, now in the Chester Beatty library, Dubin (inv. no.Is 1431).

The final two leaves of the text have been replaced so we do not know if the manuscript was ever dated, but it can be situated within the late twelfth and early thirteenth century on stylistic grounds, supported by the paper which is consistent with Qur’ans of this date. The original illumination preserved on the first leaf of the manuscript is closely related to a larger Qur’an dated 1186 in the Nasser D. Khalili Collection (inv. no.QUR572, James 1992, pp.40-43, no.6). Both display a heading written in a loose white naskh within a cloud on a gold ground surrounded by loosely drawn arabesques.

The neat naskh throughout the manuscript is of particularly high quality, despite the small scale the calligrapher was working with. It nonetheless presents a looseness reflective of the period in which copyists were grappling with transforming their regular rounded scripts into calligraphic scripts worthy of sacred texts (Blair 2006, p.202). A comparable naskh is found in the Khalili Collection manuscript above, and another miniature Qur’an bearing a twelfth century date sold in these rooms, 26 October 2022, lot 13. The latter manuscript also shows comparable surah headings written in a larger gold script, and it can also be compared to a Mosul Qur’an, dated 1249, sold in these rooms, 16 October 2001, lot 12.

The form of the elegantly drawn layered petalled border of the opening illumination is found in a marginal medallion of the first text page of the Ibn Bawwab Qur’an mentioned above. Similar applications would go on to be used in Anatolia in the thirteenth century (Khalili Collection, inv. no.QUR228, James op.cit., pp.200-3, no.49), and in Baghdad and Egypt in the fourteenth century (Khalili Collection, QUR473, James op.cit., pp.106-7, no.22.