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Lot Essay
Reading from the top, the inscriptions include part of Qur'an II, surat al-baqara v.125; the second row has part of Qur'an II surat al-baqara v.260; the third row part of Qur'an III Al-Imraan v.96; two panels, on the right with Allah Jalla Jallauhu, on the left "Muhammad, Peace be upon Him"; inside the large cartouche Qur'an XVII al-israa' v.84.
Before the Shrine of the Prophet Ibrahim next to the Ka'ba was enclosed in the current structure of glass and gilded brass by King 'Abd Al-'Aziz b. 'Abd Al-Rahman Al-'Saud in 1940, it was draped in a four-sided cover with pyramidal top, which was changed at irregular intervals, possibly with the accession of each new Sultan.
Decorated in the same technique as the cover of the Ka'ba, by late Ottoman times it seems to have developed its own distinctive iconography, representing a pedimented and sometimes, as in this example, a colonnaded structure. The present piece is almost certainly part of the same cover as one in the Tareq Rajab Collection, Kuwait, illustrated in Nabil F. Safwat: The Harmony of Letters- Islamic Calligraphy from the Tareq Rajeb Museum, Kuwait/Singapore 1997, pp.114-15. Every decorative feature is the same as in the present piece, from the thickly embroidered columns to the rococo cusped cartouche between them and similar pediment above, to the large salmon-pink silk ground panel (traces of the colour remain on the Tareq Rajab example) and the minor register of overlapping colonnades at the base.
The text of the inscription panels in the current piece is continued in each of the those in the Tareq Rajab cover, with small gaps in the text corresponding in length to the equivalent of a second piece in between. Moreover, the present piece gives the names Allah and Muhammad, whilst the other has the names 'Uthman and 'Ali: missing in the sequence would be Abu Bakr and 'Uthman, first and second of the Rashidun Caliphs.
The cartouche of the Tareq Rajab piece is inscribed "The Sultan Abdulhamid Khan son of Sultan Abdulmajid (Abdulmecid) Khan son of Sultan Mahmud Khan son of Sultan Abdulhamid Khan". If, as is most likely, they are from the same cover, this dates the present piece to the reign of Abdulhamid II (AH 1293-1327/1876-1909 AD).
A comparable piece was sold in these rooms, 12 October 1999, lot 21. That one must have been the third part of another cover from the Shrine of Ibrahim, as it too has the names 'Uthman and 'Ali, and its Qur'anic quotations correlate with those of the Tareq Rajeb piece and its dimensions are almost identical to those of that piece and the current example. The first part from that cover is illustrated in an early photographic account of the Hajj by Ibrahim Rafa'at Pasha: Marat al-Haramein, Part I, Cairo AH 1344/1925 AD (in Arabic), pl.53.
Before the Shrine of the Prophet Ibrahim next to the Ka'ba was enclosed in the current structure of glass and gilded brass by King 'Abd Al-'Aziz b. 'Abd Al-Rahman Al-'Saud in 1940, it was draped in a four-sided cover with pyramidal top, which was changed at irregular intervals, possibly with the accession of each new Sultan.
Decorated in the same technique as the cover of the Ka'ba, by late Ottoman times it seems to have developed its own distinctive iconography, representing a pedimented and sometimes, as in this example, a colonnaded structure. The present piece is almost certainly part of the same cover as one in the Tareq Rajab Collection, Kuwait, illustrated in Nabil F. Safwat: The Harmony of Letters- Islamic Calligraphy from the Tareq Rajeb Museum, Kuwait/Singapore 1997, pp.114-15. Every decorative feature is the same as in the present piece, from the thickly embroidered columns to the rococo cusped cartouche between them and similar pediment above, to the large salmon-pink silk ground panel (traces of the colour remain on the Tareq Rajab example) and the minor register of overlapping colonnades at the base.
The text of the inscription panels in the current piece is continued in each of the those in the Tareq Rajab cover, with small gaps in the text corresponding in length to the equivalent of a second piece in between. Moreover, the present piece gives the names Allah and Muhammad, whilst the other has the names 'Uthman and 'Ali: missing in the sequence would be Abu Bakr and 'Uthman, first and second of the Rashidun Caliphs.
The cartouche of the Tareq Rajab piece is inscribed "The Sultan Abdulhamid Khan son of Sultan Abdulmajid (Abdulmecid) Khan son of Sultan Mahmud Khan son of Sultan Abdulhamid Khan". If, as is most likely, they are from the same cover, this dates the present piece to the reign of Abdulhamid II (AH 1293-1327/1876-1909 AD).
A comparable piece was sold in these rooms, 12 October 1999, lot 21. That one must have been the third part of another cover from the Shrine of Ibrahim, as it too has the names 'Uthman and 'Ali, and its Qur'anic quotations correlate with those of the Tareq Rajeb piece and its dimensions are almost identical to those of that piece and the current example. The first part from that cover is illustrated in an early photographic account of the Hajj by Ibrahim Rafa'at Pasha: Marat al-Haramein, Part I, Cairo AH 1344/1925 AD (in Arabic), pl.53.