HAFSID TUNISIA, SECOND HALF 15TH CENTURY

The present manuscript belongs to a small but distinctive group of religious manuscripts produced in Hafsid Tunisia that are characterised by a developed 15th century book hand, the use of the colours blue and magenta, the shadow and light additions to the chrysography, and the use of mabsut instead of thuluth script for titles (Laura Hinrichsen, The Lost Libraries of Tunis, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter GmbH, 2024, pp. 119-20). Notably, the group contains a large number of multi-volume hadith manuscripts, including several copies of the Sahih al-Bukhari (for example, one in Munich: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod.arab. 113; op cit., p. 260).

Within this group, the use of a carpet page to open the manuscript is an unusually conservative choice. While the majority of early Hafsid Qur'ans on vellum feature a carpet page, only one known example, dated AH 893⁄1487 AD and dedicated to the death of Prince al-Mas'ud, features this motif on paper (op. cit., p.175). The conservative artistic repertoire of the present manuscript is further exemplified by the illumination's close resemblance to earlier Andalusian manuscripts on vellum, such as a Qur'an juz' dated AH 703⁄1304 AD and attributed to Granada (in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, Arabe 385; Jerrilynn D. Dodds (ed.), Al-Andalus: The Art of Islamic Spain, New York, 1992, p. 316).

Interestingly, the traveler Ibn Khalil (d.1514) noted that several Andalusian intellectuals, including Ahmad al-Himyari al-Andalusi al-Khuluf and the celebrated poet and calligrapher Muhammad al-Khayyir al-Malaqi, vied for the patronage of prince al-Mas'ud (Hinrichsen 2024, pp. 174-5). According Ibn Khalil, the latter "sung his praises, [and] therefore this prince made him his familiar, his close friend, and took him as secretary" (Rihla of Ibn Khalil, as cited in op. cit. p. 174). While an exact attribution is uncertain, the clear favour shown to Andalusian calligraphers in the circle of al-Mas'ud demonstrates the enduring appeal of Andalusian aesthetics also seen through the carpet page in the present manuscript (op. cit., pp. 175).

Our section ends with a hadith regarding the permissibility of the use of the cosmetic kohl during a period of mourning (Sahih al-Bukhari 5706), followed by a spurious and partly erased colophon dating the manuscript to 10 Rajab AH 505⁄18 January 1112 AD.