An important illuminated Qur'an juz' (XXVI), attributed to Ibn al-Wahid, Egypt, Mamluk, circa 1306-11 AD

text: surah al-fath (XLVIII), part of verse 18 to surah al-zariyat (LI), verse 30
Arabic manuscript on thick polished cream paper, 56 leaves, 3 lines to the page in bold black thuluth script, gold florets separating verses, 3 surah headings in gold thuluth script, illuminated marginal roundels marking the fifth and tenth verses with the words ashr and khamsa

In generally good overall condition, last page with some wear, wormholes and abrasions, some smudges and marginal repair, one page with tear to upper leaft corner, spine becoming slightly loose, calligraphy generally strong and bold and pages clean, as viewed.
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This Qur'an juz', displaying a magnificent bold thuluth script, originates from a manuscript most likely copied by the most renowned Mamluk scribes in the fourteenth century, Muhammad Ibn al-Wahid, the calligrapher of the famous Baybars Qur'an in the British Library. 

David-James also suggests that the illumination is probably by Sandal (Abu Bakr), who worked on the Qur'an copied for Baybars al-Jashangir alongside Ibn al-Wahid and the illuminators Muhammad al-Mubadir and Aydughdi Ibn 'Abdallah al-Badri. Indeed the decorated heading panel of the juz' sold at Christie's (10 October 2013, lot 63) bears a striking similarity to the decoration of the colophon in the Baybars Qur'an (see James 1999, pp.34-35, fig.14).

The calligraphy of the present juz and the manuscript as a whole demonstrates a rare use of tumar script, as used in the Mamluk chancellery. The gold surah headings are finely executed in gold in a script known as 'ash'ar (a mix of thuluth and muhaqqaq) and are close to those employed in the Baybars Qur'an. Sharaf al-Din Muhammad Ibn Sharaf Ibn Yusuf al-Katib al-Zar'i al-Misri, known as 'Ibn al-Wahid', was one of the finest scribes of the early fourteenth century, and history has gifted us a full account of his life via both al-Safadi and Ibn Hajar (see respectively H. Ritter & S. Dedering et al (Eds), Khalil Ibn Ayak al-Safadi, al-Wafi bi'l-Wafayat, Wiesbaden, 1949-92 and M.S. Jad al-Haq (Ed), Ahmad Ibn 'Ali Ibn Hajar, al-Durar al-Kaminah fi A'yan al-Mi'at al-Thaminah, Cairo, 1966-67). He was born in Damascus in 1249-50, and later travelled to Baalbek and Baghdad, where he studied under the master, Yaq'ut al-Mustasimi. Afterwards he moved to Cairo where he entered the service of Sultan Baybars, producing a Qur'an for him which remains one of the finest Mamluk works of art in existence. According to James, the manuscript from which the present juz originates, is "probably the only other example of a Qur'an in the hand of Ibn al-Wahid" (James 1999, p.39).

Other portions of the same Qur'an are in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin (MS.143(c)), the Kunstbibliothek de Staatlichen Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin (KB 31.559, see A.M. Schimmel, Islamic Calligraphy, pl.XXIII) and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (26.II). A further juz', including a decorated opening panel, was sold at Christie's, 10 October 2013, lot 63.