COPIED BY MUHAMMAD TAHIR BIN SHEIKH TAQI SHIRAZI AL-KHALAJANI, MUGHAL INDIA, DATED RAJAB AH 1082/NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 1671 AD

Although the illumination of the frontispiece of this Qur’an is unmistakeably Indian in design and colour, from the nisba al-Khalajani, the scribe Muhammad Taher bin Sheikh Taqi Shirazi al-Khalajani, must originally have hailed from the town of Khalajan near Shiraz. He may well have come from a family of scribes who were resident of Khalajan – a Qur’an copied in fine naskh was written there by a certain ‘Imad al-Din Hassan bin Ibrahim in AH 1036/1626-27 AD (Manijeh Bayani, Anna Contadini and Tim Stanley, The Decorated Word, Part I, The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, Oxford, 1999, no.42, pp.132-33). Another Qur’an, copied by a Karim bin Ibrahim was also copied there (sold Sotheby’s, 26 April 1982, lot 31). This suggests a family of scribes of which our member may have emigrated to India, seeking employment in the Muslim courts.