Qur'an section

Details
Qur'an section
North Africa, twelfth century

comprising part of sura al-A'raf, manuscript on vellum, 21ff., each with 5ll. well-formed brown maghribi, diacritics in red, green and blue, gold rosettes with red and blue details between verses, similar elegant drop-shaped medallions marking every fifth verse, (some staining and damage to edges, one double folio trimmed), loose in contemporary brown morocco binding with flap stamped with central medallion and borders (distressed)
9¼ x 7½in. (23.5 x 19cm.)

Lot Essay

This section contains four quires, each of three double folios. The first quire is complete, the second lacks its middle double folio, the third is complete and the fourth lacks the first folio. If these were included the section would run from a part of verse 124 to a part of verse 158

A superb example of maghribi calligraphy, the letters in this Qur'an section are rounded with considerably greater smoothness than is normally found with this script. The softness of the brown script is balanced by the hardness of the coloured diacritics and, even more, by the mathematical precision of the ornamentation. For a similar example, attibuted to thirteenth century Granada, see:

Lings, M. (op. cit.), pls 97 and 98, pp.209-211 and
Lings, M. and Safadi, Y.H.: The Qur'an, London, 1976, cat.45, p.39

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