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Lot Essay
The present copy is remarkable for that it is copied on quires combining prepared vellum and pink-coloured paper. Each quire is formed of four vellum bifolios for one pink paper bifolio.
A famous group of Qur'an folios on pink paper is attributed to 13th century Andalusia. A number of folios from that manuscript are in public collections, while others have appeared at auction. A large group of them, 215 folios, formerly in the collection of Maréchal Lyautey were sold at the Hotel Georges V, Paris, 30 October 1975, lot 488. The attribution of these striking pink folios to Spain is based primarily on the use of paper. In the Maghreb, parchment remained in frequent use for the writing of Qur'ans into the 19th century. Spain, however, had been manufacturing and using high quality paper for manuscripts of all kinds for some time. Manuscripts like that Qur'an, on pink dyed paper are believed to have been produced in Jativa, near Valencia, the site of the earliest documented paper mill in Spain (Marcus Fraser and William Kwiatkowski, Ink and Gold: Islamic Calligraphy, Berlin and London, 2006, p.64).
Muhammad bin 'Abd al-Haqq bin Sulayman al-Kumi al-Ya'furi was a Maliki jurist born in Tlemcen in 1141 AD. He died in Tlemcen in 1228 AD. His work on fiqh Al-mukhtar fi al-jam' bayn al-muntaqa wa al-istidhkar is a very large work 'of three thousand folios', two copies of which are in Kairouan and Rabat (Al-Zerekly, Al-A'lam, Biographical Dictionary, 2007, vol. 6, p.186). It is largely based on two earlier works by celebrated Andalusian scholars: Al-Istidhkar of Ibn 'Abd al-Barr al-Qurtubi (D. 1070 AD) and Al-Muntaqa of Abu al-Walid al-Baji (d. 1081 AD).
A famous group of Qur'an folios on pink paper is attributed to 13th century Andalusia. A number of folios from that manuscript are in public collections, while others have appeared at auction. A large group of them, 215 folios, formerly in the collection of Maréchal Lyautey were sold at the Hotel Georges V, Paris, 30 October 1975, lot 488. The attribution of these striking pink folios to Spain is based primarily on the use of paper. In the Maghreb, parchment remained in frequent use for the writing of Qur'ans into the 19th century. Spain, however, had been manufacturing and using high quality paper for manuscripts of all kinds for some time. Manuscripts like that Qur'an, on pink dyed paper are believed to have been produced in Jativa, near Valencia, the site of the earliest documented paper mill in Spain (Marcus Fraser and William Kwiatkowski, Ink and Gold: Islamic Calligraphy, Berlin and London, 2006, p.64).
Muhammad bin 'Abd al-Haqq bin Sulayman al-Kumi al-Ya'furi was a Maliki jurist born in Tlemcen in 1141 AD. He died in Tlemcen in 1228 AD. His work on fiqh Al-mukhtar fi al-jam' bayn al-muntaqa wa al-istidhkar is a very large work 'of three thousand folios', two copies of which are in Kairouan and Rabat (Al-Zerekly, Al-A'lam, Biographical Dictionary, 2007, vol. 6, p.186). It is largely based on two earlier works by celebrated Andalusian scholars: Al-Istidhkar of Ibn 'Abd al-Barr al-Qurtubi (D. 1070 AD) and Al-Muntaqa of Abu al-Walid al-Baji (d. 1081 AD).