THE SHAKERINE COLLECTION: Calligraphy in Qur’ans and other Manuscripts
THE SHAKERINE COLLECTION: Calligraphy in Qur’ans and other Manuscripts
SHARAF AL-DIN ABU 'ABDULLAH MUHAMMAD B. HASSAN AL-BUSIRI (D.1296-97 AD), QASIDA AL-BURDA, EGYPT OR NEAR EAST, DATED 846 AH/1442-43 AD
Auction Closed
October 23, 11:03 AM GMT
Estimate
24,000 - 28,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
SHARAF AL-DIN ABU 'ABDULLAH MUHAMMAD B. HASSAN AL-BUSIRI (D.1296-97 AD), QASIDA AL-BURDA, EGYPT OR NEAR EAST, DATED 846 AH/1442-43 AD
Arabic manuscript on paper, 28 leaves, plus 1 fly-leaf, 15 lines to the page, the fourth, ninth, and fourteenth in red naskh running diagonally, fifth, tenth and last written in elegant black or gold muhaqqaq, the intervening lines in neat naskh, f.1a and f.28b with a polychrome and gold shamsa, f.1b with an illuminated heading, in brown gilt leather binding, with flap
34.5 by 26.2cm.
N. Safwat, A Collector’s Eye. Islamic calligraphy in Qur’ans and other manuscripts, London 2010, no.54, pp.216-9.
The original title of this work was Al-kawakib al-durriya fī madh khayr al-bariya, but is more commonly known as Qasida al-Burda ('Poem of the Mantle'). Written in praise of the Prophet Muhammad, the composition was very popular in Mamluk and early Ottoman period. The shamsa on f.28b mentions the son of the King Tahir Sayidi Muhammad, who is unrecorded in Bosworth. Some inscriptions above the shamsa written in black diwani and the Ottoman binding attest that the manuscript was in the library of an Ottoman scholar.
There are nine copies of this poem, one of which was commissioned by the Mamluk ruler Qaytbay (r.1468-95), in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin (see A. Arberry, A Handlist of the Arabic Manuscripts in the Chester Beatty Library, volume V, Dublin, 1962, p.55, no.4168). Another forty copies are in the British Library, London (see P. Stocks and C. Colin (ed.), Subject – Guide to the Arabic Manuscripts in the British Library, London, 2001, pp.304-5, L.1). See also Brockelmann, GAL, I. 265 and S., I. 467.
A copy presenting the poem with a similar layout, dated 896 AH/1490-91 AD and attributed to Ottoman Turkey, was sold in these rooms, 26 April 2017, lot 8. Another copy dated 859 AH/1454-55 AD sold in these rooms, 24 October 2018, lot 22, and a copy dated 901-904 AH/1496-98 AD copied in Damascus and with a similar layout and heading sold at Christie's London, 26 April 2005, lot 40.