PROBABLY MOROCCO, CIRCA 1300

The frontispiece of this impressive manuscript has a carpet page of intricate geometric strapwork. Frontispieces like this can be seen in the earliest Maghribi manuscripts, such as the Qur'an which was sold in these Rooms, 7 October 2008, lot 98, which was dated by its colophon to Ramadan AH 470/April 1078 AD. The colophon of that manuscript also detailed how it was copied for the personal library of the Vizier 'Abd al-Malik ibn Siraj in Cordoba. The frontispiece of this manuscript, however, more closely resembles that of MS Arabe 385 in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, which is dated by its colophon to Jumada II AH 703/January 1304 AD.

Both of the manuscripts mentioned above, however, are executed in a fine micrography, which starkly contrasts with the bold hand used throughout our manuscript. A closer comparison of the calligraphy might be drawn with a Qur'an in the Khalili Collection (acc.no. QUR521). That manuscript, written with seven lines to the page, also shares with our manuscript the system of vocalisation, with coloured dots marking the different kinds of hamza, as well as similar gold and blue vignettes in the margin beside the sura titles. In his catalogue of the Khalili Collection, David James connects that manuscript with another in the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts, which has in it a marginal note indicated that it was endowed to a religious foundation in Marrakech in AH 635 / 1238 AD. Though Maghribi was used on manuscripts in both North Africa and Islamic Spain, the balance of probability suggests that this manuscript was produced in Morocco. An intriguing feature of our manuscript is that many of the pages retain traces rules along the edges of the text panels, executed in drypoint and pencil, in order to help scribes keep their lines straight.

A final comparable manuscript which also should be mentioned is the so-called 'Pink Qur'an', which is also normally dated to the 13th century and attributed to Spain, although there remains a strong possibility that it was copied in North Africa. We know the Pink Qur'an to have been endowed to a foundation since the word habasa appears in the top left hand corners of the pages, pricked into the paper. The same word is written in the upper margin of many of the left hand pages here, indicating a similar history. In the same hand, catchwords have been added to the lower left hand corners of each page. This suggests that at the time of the manuscript's endowment, it may also have been rebound, with the quires separated and the catchwords added so that the binders could keep track. The current binding may indeed date from this time: the Italian paper stuck to the front and back covers strongly suggests that this was done in Algeria or Tunisia, Ottoman domains where Italian paper was imported in abundance.