TWO KUFIC QUR'AN FOLIOS
TWO KUFIC QUR'AN FOLIOS
TWO KUFIC QUR'AN FOLIOS
2 More
No VAT on hammer price or buyer's premium. PROPERTY OF A SWISS LADY
TWO KUFIC QUR'AN FOLIOS

PROBABLY NORTH AFRICA, 9TH CENTURY

Details
TWO KUFIC QUR'AN FOLIOS
PROBABLY NORTH AFRICA, 9TH CENTURY
Qur'an XX, sura taha, vv. 115-134 and Qur'an XLIII, sura al-zukhruf, vv. 30 (part) - 50 (part), Arabic manuscript on vellum, 2ff. plus two fly-leaves, 16ll. of black kufic script with red diacritics, in later margins with added gold and polychrome ruling, in later light brown tooled morocco binding, with paper doublures
Text panel 5 1/8 x 7 1/2in. (19 x 12.8cm.); folio 9 7/8 x 6 3/4in. (25.1 x 17cm.)
Special notice
No VAT on hammer price or buyer's premium.

Brought to you by

Behnaz Atighi Moghaddam
Behnaz Atighi Moghaddam Head of Sale

Lot Essay


The script used in these two folios matches most closely with what François Déroche terms 'D.IV' script. Generally small in size and used - as in this case - on manuscripts with 15 or 16 lines to a page, the script is characterised by the flattened hook on independent alef, the enlarged head of final nun, and the elongation of letters like ta', daal, and kaaf (François Déroche, The Abbasid Tradition, Oxford, 1992, p.88). It is not possible, given the current evidence, to attribute this with any particular region, since samples of D.IV have been discovered in caches across the Abbasid Near East in Kairouan, Cairo, Damascus, and Sana'a (Déroche, op. cit., p.36). Nonetheless, the survival of a waqf deed written in this script dated to the year AH 329/883-4 AD suggests that our folios most likely were written in the ninth century. This also matches with the current understanding of the date of the so-called Blue Qur'an, the script of which is closely related to D.IV.

More from Art of the Islamic and Indian Worlds Including Oriental Rugs and Carpets

View All
View All