SULTANATE INDIA, PROBABLY 15TH CENTURY

Details

A SMALL BIHARI QUR'AN
SULTANATE INDIA, PROBABLY 15TH CENTURY
Arabic manuscript on paper, 492ff. plus 3 fly-leaves, each folio with 15ll. of black bihari script, tajwid picked out in red ink, gold roundel verse markers, sura headings blank on gold within polychrome borders, text panels within red and black inner and outer rules, catchwords, outer margins plain, gold and polychrome marginal roundels and medallions, the opening bifolio with 9ll. of bihari script of sura al-fatiha and part of sura al-baqara set within gold and polychrome borders with red and blue interlinear stylised vocalisation, further marginal illumination with polychrome floral detail, the closing bifolio with sura al-nas similarly illuminated, ending with 4ff. of a Falnama (Book of Prognostication) in Persian verse, bound in blue leather binding with panel depicting a landscape, the doublures red gilt-tooled leather
Text panel 3 x 1 ¾in. (7.8 x 4.3cm.); folio 6 1⁄8 x 3in. (15.5 x 7.7cm.)

Provenance

Private collection, Paris, 1960s and thence by descent

Conditions of sale

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Lot Essay

In terms of its mise en page, our Qur'an is similar to one in the Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art (QUR 237). The earliest known Bihari Qur'an is dated 1398, formerly in the collection of Prince Princess Sadruddin Aga Khan (see S. Canby, Princes, Poets and Paladins: Islamic and Indian Paintings from the Collection of Prince and Princess Sadruddin Aga Khan, London, 1998, pp.106-7, no.76). A Bihari Qur’an and Qur’an folios were sold in these Rooms, 25 April 2024, lots 86 and 88.

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