ALMOHAD MARRAKESH, 13TH CENTURY

Although the 'Pink Qur'an' has historically been attributed to Valencia, a recent article by Umberto Bongianino and Éleonore Cellard has persuasively resituated the manuscript in a North African setting ("The Pink Qur'an: a reverse biography', Journal of Islamic Art and Architecture, 1, 1-2, pp.83-142). The earliest evidence concerning the manuscript is a waqf inscription, recorded in 1954, which indicates that all ten volumes of the manuscript were endowed to the tomb of a wife of the Almohad caliph al-Murtada (r.1248-66). This provides a terminus ante quem for the manuscript, which must have been completed before the date of that inscription, Safar AH 650/April-May 1252 AD. Though pink dyed paper has been associated with Xativa in al-Andalus, the article also draws attention to a number of manuscripts copied on pink paper which are known to have been copied in Almohad Marrakesh. The manuscript then stayed in Marrakesh through the following centuries, having been re-endowed during the Merinid period, at which point the distinctive pricked 'hubs' inscription was added to the upper corner of each page. Folios from the Qur'an have recently sold in these Rooms 26 October 2023, lot 48; 25 April 2024, lot 21, and 30 October 2025, lot 6.

The illumination of this folio and the following lot conforms with the style of the artist referred to by Bongianino and Cellard as 'Illuminator A'. A large roundel on the recto of lot 5 marks ashr, a tenth verse, while teardrop motifs marks a fifth, khams. There is interesting evidence of pentimento on the recto of lot 5, where a teardrop-shaped medallion has been apparently effaced. It is likely that here the illuminator initially put a fifth marker, instead of a tenth, later corrected their mistake and added the correct illumination to the margin. Such corrected errors are found throughout the 'Pink Qur'an', including with relation to variant readings of the mushaf, and discussed by Bongianino and Cellard, 2025, p.119.