QUR'AN
QUR'AN

SIGNED 'UTHMAN BIN 'UMAR AL-HAJJA[R], MESOPOTAMIA OR ANATOLIA, DATED FRIDAY 15TH JUMADA I AH 673/15 NOVEMBER 1274 AD

Details
QUR'AN
SIGNED 'UTHMAN BIN 'UMAR AL-HAJJA[R], MESOPOTAMIA OR ANATOLIA, DATED FRIDAY 15TH JUMADA I AH 673/15 NOVEMBER 1274 AD
Arabic manuscript on paper, 194ff. plus 5 fly-leaves, each folio with 15ll. of black muhaqqaq, gold rosette verse markers, sura headings in black-outlined gold thuluth in clouds reserved against red-hatched ground and flanked by two squares of foliate calligraphy issuing palmettes into the margins, further marginal medallions with a line of gold kufic in the margins, colophon dated and signed, some later notes in the margins, 4ff. at the beginning later Ottoman replacements, some paper repairs generally to the margins, in later red morocco with stamped medallion and spandrels and white paper doublures
12¼ x 9 1/8in. (31.2 x 23.3cm.)

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Romain Pingannaud
Romain Pingannaud

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Lot Essay

The style of calligraphy in this Qur'an owes much to the tight fine rayhani developed by Yaqut al-Musta'simi such as that of his Qur'an in the Mashhad shrine library (Martin Lings, The Qur'anic Art of Calligraphy and Illumination, London, 1976, p. 55, pl. 28). Our scribe is equally diligent about inserting every single diacritical mark and vocalisation notation symbol. One feature here that is rare to find is the use of three dots under the letter sin in each bismallah. This is a feature seen in a few Qur'ans from Iran and the Mesopotamian region that appears to have died out by the fourteenth century (for example see David James, Qur'ans of the Mamluks, London, 1988, p. 26, fig. 9 and A.J. Arberry, The Koran Illuminated, Dublin, 1967, no. 48, pl.32).

Qur'ans or Qur'anic fragments dated to the thirteenth century are extremely rare. According to one source, excluding the 23 by Yaqut al-Musta'simi and those from Spain and the Maghreb, there are only 31. This example is thus of documentary importance giving as it does both the name of the hitherto unknown scribe, who was conceivably a pupil of Yaqut, and the date.

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