Details

Standardized Title:

Qurʼan.

Subjects:

Islamic illumination of books and manuscripts.
Islamic illumination of books and manuscripts -- Specimens.

Form/Genre:

Specimens.
Fascimiles.
Qur'ans.
Illuminations (painting)
Annotations (Provenance)
Manuscripts, Arabic.
Manuscripts, 12th century.

Language:

Arabic.

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.
text file

Summary:

Seljuk illuminated copy of the Qurʼān with interlinear gloss and three reference tables.

Notes:

Title supplied by cataloger.
Foliation: Modern pagination in pencil added every recto, upper left.
Layout: 17 long lines with gloss written diagonally between the lines; border-ruled.
Script: Written in naskh in black ink; pointed and vocalized; gloss in naskh in red ink; pointed and partially vocalized; some sūrah headings in New Style in white and some in thuluth in gold.
Decoration: Illuminated frontispiece in gold and blue with geometric pattern in white (p. 3); dual-page illuminated opening in three registers, the central white space for text, the upper and lower registers for extra-Qurʼānic text in white on a gold foliate background, with all three spaces surrounded by wide gold margins with knotwork designs (p. 4-5); wide gold border-rules with gold foliate fill in the corners around last pages of text (p. 418-419); dual-page densely illuminated colophon divided into three registers with the upper and lower reserved for text in white on gold foliate fill and the central rectangular register filled with a geometric design, chiefly in gold, of a central diamond with four half circles overlapping each point of the diamond and a central medallion made of eight interlocking circles with gold, green and blue filling the interstices, gold patterned and foliate fill cover the spaces around the diamond and frame the pages (p. 420-421); some sūrah headings in white ink on blue field set between two interlocking half circles in a register, gold with foliate fill in the interstices of the circles and gold and blue rosettes on either end and an illuminated vignette in the margin (example, p. 105); other sūrah headings written in gold lined in black on a white field in a register with gold patterned or foliate fill at either end and an illuminated vignette in the outer margin (example, p. 195) some of the central registers also contain blue and white decoration (example, p. 177, 238); gold 16-leaf florets mark verse endings; teardrop, circular, and rectangular marginal medallions in gold and blue mark text divisions; textblock is border-ruled in gold; three pages of references tables in black and red (p. 422-424).
Binding: Dark brown gold tooled leather over pasteboard with flap (Type II); now disbound.
Origin: Copied and illuminated in Hamadhān, now in Iran, at the end of Jumādá al-Ūlá, 559 A.H. (April, 1164) by Maḥmūd ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Kirmānī (p. 418-419).
Dimensions of original manuscript: 422 x 279 mm.
Electronic reproduction. Philadelphia, Pa. : University of Pennsylvania Libraries, 2012.

Penn Provenance:

Formerly owned by Aḥmad Jāwīsh and donated by him as a waqf (pious endowment) to Jāmiʻ al-Azhar (Cairo) in the time of Muḥammad ibn Sālim al-Ḥifnī (Shaykh of Al-Azhar Mosque in 1757-1767) (waqf inscription, p. 3).

Publications about:

Ettinghousen, Richard. "A signed and dated Seljuq Qur'an." in the Bulletin of the Ameriacn Institute of Persian Art and Archeology 4 (1935), 92-102.

Cited as:

University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology NEP27

Contributor:

Kirmānī, Maḥmūd ibn al-Ḥusayn, active 1164, scribe.
Jāwīsh, Aḥmad, active approximately 1760, former owner.
Andalaft, Dimitri, bookseller.
Jāmiʻ al-Azhar, former owner.
كرماني، محمود بن الحسين، active 1164، scribe.
جاويش، احمد، active approximately 1760، former owner.
جامع الاهر، former owner.

OCLC:

1119721244