拍品專文
Shihab al-Din 'Abdullah Haravi, also known as 'Abdullah Tabbakh, was a calligrapher who worked in the atelier of prince Baysunghur at Herat. He was one of the most celebrated calligraphers of the Timurid era, especially known for his thuluth. He is responsible for the calligraphy on a number of buildings in Herat, most notably those founded in Mashhad by Gauhar Shad Begum, wife of Shah Rukh. He founded a school of calligraphy in Herat and numbered amongst his pupils 'Abd al-Haqq and Sheikh Kamal Shabzavari, the father of the artist Sheikh Muhammad. Another Qur'an copied by him is in the Chester Beatty Library (A.J. Arberry, The Koran Illuminated. A Handlist of the Korans in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, 1967, no. 141, p. 43).
Although the signature of 'Abdullah Tabbakh in the present Qur'an is incorporated within the sixteenth century Shirazi refurbishment and may therefore be a later addition, such is the high quality of the hand that it is not unreasonable to suppose that the signature was either saved from the original and stuck into the refurbishment or that the name was copied from the original manuscript. As well as being an illustrious scribe, 'Abdullah Tabbakh was said to be a master of gold-sprinkling (afshan) (Sheila S. Blair, Islamic Calligraphy, Edinburgh, 2006, p.305). The fine gold-sprinkled pages of this manuscript support the possibility that indeed this manuscript was copied by Tabbakh.
Although the signature of 'Abdullah Tabbakh in the present Qur'an is incorporated within the sixteenth century Shirazi refurbishment and may therefore be a later addition, such is the high quality of the hand that it is not unreasonable to suppose that the signature was either saved from the original and stuck into the refurbishment or that the name was copied from the original manuscript. As well as being an illustrious scribe, 'Abdullah Tabbakh was said to be a master of gold-sprinkling (afshan) (Sheila S. Blair, Islamic Calligraphy, Edinburgh, 2006, p.305). The fine gold-sprinkled pages of this manuscript support the possibility that indeed this manuscript was copied by Tabbakh.