SAFAVID QUR’AN HEAVILY ANNOTATED BY A QAJAR SCHOLAR
QUR’AN.
Qur’an.
Persia (probably Shiraz), sixteenth century, c. AD 1600 and c. AD 1850.
Manuscript in Arabic on paper, remargined throughout in the nineteenth century and now measuring 247 x 156 mm, ff. 427 plus a single flyleaf at beginning and end (f. [36] misbound before f. [37]), the original (sixteenth-century) Qur’an manuscript written in a fine naskhī in black ink on lightly polished buff paper with reading marks in red ink, 11 lines to the page, text area 160 x 90 mm, verse-markers of whorl design in gold and set off with blue dots, sura headings in white thuluth set against gold cartouches (or, occasionally, gold thuluth against blue or orange cartouches) within panels of arabesque decoration, richly illuminated double-page opening (added c. 1600) bearing Sūrat al-fātiḥah in black naskhī within elaborate gold medallions set against a field of delicately painted foliage and flowers in gold and colours, smaller medallions above and below containing text from Sūrat al-wāqi’ah in gold thuluth, second surah (Sūrat al-baqarah) commencing with a fine headpiece (also added c. 1600) and with borders of similar foliage and flowers in gold and colours, the opening two pages of the same surah (ff. 2v–3r) with interlinear decoration in the same style, Qur’an text of final opening (ff. 426v–427r) within gold cloud cartouches, recto of final leaf (f. 427r) containing the end of the final sura (in two lines) followed by a du’ā’-khātim (a prayer to be recited on concluding a reading of the Qur’an) of seven lines in alternating gold and blue muḥaqqaq within penwork cloud cartouches, verso of final leaf containing a note dated 1272 AH (see below), nineteenth-century margins of slightly polished cream paper, text within a border formed of broad gold and thin red and black lines, two outer borders of single lines in red ink, groups of five and ten verses indicated respectively by the words khams and ‘ashar in gold; extensively annotated throughout in Persian and Arabic, apparently in a single nineteenth-century hand; some wear and occasional staining to the original Qur’an leaves, some careful repairs probably made at an early date and also when the volume was remargined, but generally in excellent condition; mid-nineteenth-century lacquer binding, each cover painted with a large bouquet of assorted flowers within a gilt border enclosing small flowers; lacquer somewhat crazed and with a few small losses, some chipping of panels along joints, neatly resewn and rebacked; housed in a brown cloth box.
A remarkable sixteenth-century Safavid Qur’an manuscript, carefully remargined during the Qajar period and extensively annotated by a scholar of that time.
The manuscript had in fact undergone a previous campaign of enhancement and restoration c. 1600 when a richly illuminated double-page opening was added at the beginning of the manuscript and the original opening received a very fine headpiece and borders in the same style as the added opening. These embellishments were retained when the manuscript was again restored in the Qajar period.
The sura headings are reminiscent of Shirazi illumination of the middle of the sixteenth century, and the alternating gold and blue muḥaqqaq of the final prayer here was often used (although not exclusively, of course) in Shiraz, sometimes for entire Qur’ans (see, for example, David James, After Timur. Qur’ans of the 15th and 16th centuries, The Nasser D. Khalili collection of Islamic art, vol. III, 1992, no. 41).
The first part of the later inscription on f. 427v contains a tradition related from the hadith scholar Shaykh Saduq’s work ʿUyūn akhbār al-Riḍā on the merits of allegiance to ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib. There then follows a prayer, after which a date is given as the afternoon of Saturday 28th day of the month of Ramaḍan in the year 1272 (i.e. 2 June, AD 1856) in Dar al-‘Ilm, Shiraz.