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Lot Essay
This folio and the following lot are consecutive lines from the same leaf of the largest Qur'an ever made, written in the great (jalil) variant of muhaqqaq, described by Sheila Blair as a “triumph of calligraphy over illumination” (Islamic Calligraphy, 2006, Edinburgh, p.267). The original, untrimmed leaves would have originally measured around 222 x 155cm., the entire Qur'an requiring some 1600 folios - a uniquely challenging task in pre-modern manuscript production.
Letters measure up to 14cm. in height, written with a reed pen more than a centimeter wide, requiring extraordinary calligraphic skill. Although eponymous with the bibliophile Timurid prince Baysunghur (1397-1434), due to his having written the monumental inscriptions on the Gowharshad Mosque (1418-30), they are more likely to have been the work of the master calligrapher, 'Umar Aqta, under the patronage of Timur (1336-1405), Baysunghur's grandfather (see David James, After Timur, London, 1992, pp.18-25). Such an accomplishment is even more astonishing given that he was one-handed, as his name suggests.
This attribution is based on a story relayed in Qadi Ahmad's 16th century treatise Calligraphers and Painters, of a monumental Qur'an, each line around a zar (approximately one meter) wide, made in Samarqand in the time of Timur by this calligrapher. 'Umar Aqta had tried to astonish Timur by writing a Qur'an so small that it could fit under a signet ring. Finding Timur unmoved, 'Umar Aqta went away and wrote a Qur'an of such enormous proportions that it had to be brought to Timur on a cart. "Hearing that, the sultan came out to meet him, accompanied by all the clergy, dignitaries, amirs, and pillars of the state, and rewarded the calligrapher with great honours, marks of respect and endless favors" (Qadi Ahmad, tr. Minorsky, Calligraphers and Painters, Washington D.C. 1959, p.64).
This is corroborated by a matching large stone Qur'an stand made for the congregational mosque of Bibi Khanum in Samarkand, commissioned by Ulugh Beg after Timur's death in 1405. But while Abolala Soudavar has argued that the stand was made specifically for the Qur'an (Art of the Persian Courts, New York, 1992), Armen Tokatlian suggests that Ulugh Beg commissioned the Qur’an himself, supported by a note written by astronomer Ghyath al-Din Jamshid Kashani, a contemporary of Ulugh Beg, referring to a monumental Qur’an of comparable dimensions commissioned by the prince (Tokatlian, "Un Coran monumental timuride," Ars Orientalis, 2016, p.1).
By the time of Qadi Ahmad, the folios of this Qur'an, requiring an astonishing mastery of both calligrapher and paper-makers, had already been dispersed and treasured as individual works of art. As he finishes the story of 'Umar, "One folio of this (copy) was in the possession of Mawlana Malik," i.e. the master calligrapher Malik al-Daylami (Soudavar, op.cit., p.59). A complete folio was sold in these Rooms, 27 April 2004, lot 22, now in the Museum of Islamic Art, Doha (MS.119.2007). Others are in the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery (LTS1995.2.16.1), the Astan-i Quds Library in Mashhad, the Museum of Ancient Iran, and the Malik Library, both in Tehran. Fragments are dispersed around public and private collections, including six at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (21.26.12-13; 18.17.1-3; 1972.279) and the David Collection, Copenhagen (20⁄1987). The David Collection fragment contains verses from the same sura as the ones on this and the following lot.
Letters measure up to 14cm. in height, written with a reed pen more than a centimeter wide, requiring extraordinary calligraphic skill. Although eponymous with the bibliophile Timurid prince Baysunghur (1397-1434), due to his having written the monumental inscriptions on the Gowharshad Mosque (1418-30), they are more likely to have been the work of the master calligrapher, 'Umar Aqta, under the patronage of Timur (1336-1405), Baysunghur's grandfather (see David James, After Timur, London, 1992, pp.18-25). Such an accomplishment is even more astonishing given that he was one-handed, as his name suggests.
This attribution is based on a story relayed in Qadi Ahmad's 16th century treatise Calligraphers and Painters, of a monumental Qur'an, each line around a zar (approximately one meter) wide, made in Samarqand in the time of Timur by this calligrapher. 'Umar Aqta had tried to astonish Timur by writing a Qur'an so small that it could fit under a signet ring. Finding Timur unmoved, 'Umar Aqta went away and wrote a Qur'an of such enormous proportions that it had to be brought to Timur on a cart. "Hearing that, the sultan came out to meet him, accompanied by all the clergy, dignitaries, amirs, and pillars of the state, and rewarded the calligrapher with great honours, marks of respect and endless favors" (Qadi Ahmad, tr. Minorsky, Calligraphers and Painters, Washington D.C. 1959, p.64).
This is corroborated by a matching large stone Qur'an stand made for the congregational mosque of Bibi Khanum in Samarkand, commissioned by Ulugh Beg after Timur's death in 1405. But while Abolala Soudavar has argued that the stand was made specifically for the Qur'an (Art of the Persian Courts, New York, 1992), Armen Tokatlian suggests that Ulugh Beg commissioned the Qur’an himself, supported by a note written by astronomer Ghyath al-Din Jamshid Kashani, a contemporary of Ulugh Beg, referring to a monumental Qur’an of comparable dimensions commissioned by the prince (Tokatlian, "Un Coran monumental timuride," Ars Orientalis, 2016, p.1).
By the time of Qadi Ahmad, the folios of this Qur'an, requiring an astonishing mastery of both calligrapher and paper-makers, had already been dispersed and treasured as individual works of art. As he finishes the story of 'Umar, "One folio of this (copy) was in the possession of Mawlana Malik," i.e. the master calligrapher Malik al-Daylami (Soudavar, op.cit., p.59). A complete folio was sold in these Rooms, 27 April 2004, lot 22, now in the Museum of Islamic Art, Doha (MS.119.2007). Others are in the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery (LTS1995.2.16.1), the Astan-i Quds Library in Mashhad, the Museum of Ancient Iran, and the Malik Library, both in Tehran. Fragments are dispersed around public and private collections, including six at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (21.26.12-13; 18.17.1-3; 1972.279) and the David Collection, Copenhagen (20⁄1987). The David Collection fragment contains verses from the same sura as the ones on this and the following lot.