A Monumental Qur'an Leaf in Kufic Script on Vellum, North Africa or Near East, Circa 850-950 AD

text: surah al-kahf (XVIII), verses 39 to 79
Arabic manuscript on vellum, 18 lines to the page written in Kufic script in brown ink, diacritics and vowel points picked out in red and green ink, tenth verse marked with a red circle

In reasonably good overall condition, some small losses and nibbles to leaf edges, a few minor stains and creases, ink bold on both sides, very minor worm holes to outer untrimmed margins, as viewed.
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This Qur'an leaf in Kufic script is remarkable not only for its large proportions but also its ornamented simplicity. Whilst the script of this unusually large Qur'an folio is close to styles D.I and D.Va in Déroche's categorisation (Déroche 1992, pp.44-45, although the alif and terminal qaf are closest to style C.I, see pp.34-37), there are certain ideosyncracies that differentiate it from other examples of Kufic script such as the thin trail of the terminal letters that drop below the line (see the letter mim for example). Furthermore, the individual verses are not marked in the text but the tenth verses are indicated with subtle red circles, differing from other more elaborate gold verse markers of other Qur'an leaves that employ type D scripts. In fact, there are a few indications that the text may originally have lacked any diacritics or ornamentation altogether, consisting solely of the brown Kufic text. On further leaves, textual corrections have been rendered in the same red ink as the vocalisation, suggesting that both were added simultaneously sometime after the completion of the text (see also Fraser & Kwiatowski 2006, pp.34-37, no.6 and Stanley 1995, no.2). Although relatively tightly packed together, the script is highly uniform and its legibility suggests that it may have been intended as an institutional copy, perhaps for a mosque or madrasa.

Two other folios from the same manuscript were exhibited in the exhibition Ink and Gold, Museum für Islamiche Kunst, Berlin, 2006 (see Fraser & Kwiatkowski, op.cit., pp.34-37). A further leaf can be seen in Bernard Quaritch, The Qur'an and Calligraphy, A Selection of Fine Manuscript Material, London, 1995, pp.58-59, no.2). Other leaves were sold in these rooms 1 April 2009, lot 3, 8 October 2008, lot 7, 9 April 2008, lot 14, 24 October 2007, lot 3.