IRAN OR NORTH AFRICA, 9TH/10TH CENTURY

This folio is from a manuscript of great power and simple beauty. The letter forms to an extent recall those of what Déroche terms the 'D' group, which is the most varied group of the early Abbasid scripts. In nature the line is thick and the vertical upstrokes are always perpendicular to the base line. The scribe of this Qur'an does not appear to have prepared the parchment by marking the lines, instead copying the manuscript free-hand, resulting in occasional uneven lines.

Another folio from this Qur'an, sold in these Rooms, 11 October 1988, lot 40 is now in the Khalili Collection. Déroche notes in his catalogue entry on that leaf that on the basis of the script, this Qur'an may have been part of the famous MS.322 in the Institute of Oriental Studies in Leningrad (al-Munajjid, 1960, pl.I, in Francois Déroche, The Abbasid Tradition, London, 1992, no.69, p.126).

Other folios and sections from the same Qur'an have appeared at auction. Most recently a section was sold in these Rooms, 24 October 2019, lot 20.