An illuminated Qur'an section in Maghribi script on vellum, North Africa or Spain, 13th/14th century

This substantial section comprises just under a quarter of the Qur’an and was probably part of a four-volume Qur’an, which was the most common format in the Maghrib. Its small, square format with twelve lines to the page can be related to a comparable, but slightly smaller manuscript published in Safwat 2010, pp.190-1, no.46. Qur’an sections of this date were more commonly copied with fewer than ten lines to the page (see Sotheby’s, London, 24 October 2018, lot 4, and Christie’s, London, 24 October 2024, lot 11, and 25 April 2024, lot 19). The comparatively more compact arrangement of the script is reminiscent of the twelfth century so-called Andalusi type (see Blair 2006, p.224, fig.6.16), though the hand is larger and more cursive. On one leaf, the scribe must have misjudged his spacing, resolving this with a quirky elongated medial ya’ in the word nasir, which is written diagonally to occupy the space of four lines of text.