WITH LATER ASCRIPTION TO 'ALA AL-DIN AL-TABRIZI, IRAN, 16TH CENTURY AND LATER

Whilst the colophon of this manuscript which attributes it to ‘Ala al-Din al-Tabrizi is a later addition, the elegant naskh in which the Qur’an copied in is extremely strong and in the style of the master. Stylistically it is not impossible that our manuscript was penned by him. ‘Ala al-Din Tabrizi (d.1592 AD) was a court calligrapher under Shah Tahmasp, who flourished in the third quarter of the 16th century. The Gawhar-Sultan album in the Nasser D. Khalili Collections includes numerous calligraphic panels by ‘Ala al-Din Tabrizi. One of the pages published in The Art of the Pen shows the scribe working in a number of different styles, including a small neat naskh very similar to that of our Qur’an (Nabil F. Safwat, The Art of the Pen, London, 1996, no.43, p.85).

At some point in the 18th century it is likely that our manuscript was in India where the lavish illumination on the opening bifolio was added. A Qur’an in the Nasser D. Khalili Collection, attributed to the Deccan and dated 1780-82, has illumination very similar in colour and style (Manijeh Bayani, Anna Contadini and Tim Stanley, The Decorated Word, London, 1999, no.70, pp.220-21).