QUR’AN FOLIO IN KUFIC SCRIPT

Arabic manuscript on vellum, each side with 7 lines strong and elegant sepia kufic, verses marked with pyramids of gold dots, gold rosette marker at the end of the fifth line indicating the tenth verse of the surah and inscribed ashara in kufic script, diacritics and vowels points indicated by red dots, numbered in the outer margins in Arabic numerals, framed.

Text:

The Qur’an 83: 7-12 Surah al-Mutaffifin from the middle of verse 7 to middle of verse 12).

Translation:

“[But no! the] wicked are certainly bound for Sijjin and what will make you realize what Sijjin is? A fate already sealed. Woe on that day to the deniers, those who deny the day of judgment. None would [deny it …].”

The horizontally elongated letters seen here are characteristic of early kufic Qur’ans on vellum, and the elongations are thought to be a response to the rectangular page format. The angular script is moderated by the roundness of several letters -such as fa qaf, waw - that look like large black dots; their inner blank spaces reduced almost to a needlepoint.

This Qur’an folio comes from one of the finest Qur’an manuscripts in kufic script. A section of this Qur’an is in the Iran Bastan Museum (Inv. No. 4289), Tehran. Please see, Martin Lings, The Qur’anic Art of Calligraphy and Illumination, Westerham, 1976, no. 5.

A folio from the same manuscript, in the Ithra Archive, is published in The Art of Orientation - An Exploration of the Mosque through Objects Edited and Written by Dr.

Idries Trevathan et al

Ithra, Hirmer, Munich, 2020, p. 119.

Provenance: Private UK Collection

North Africa or Near East 9th – 10th Century

Dimensions: 23.2 x 32.7 cm.