An illuminated Qur'an, East Africa or Oman, dated Shawwal 1262 AH/September-October 1846 AD

Qur’ans produced in East Africa and in other centres around the Indian Ocean represent a relatively under-examined area of manuscript studies. As a result, attributions of such manuscripts remain difficult to pinpoint given the movement of surviving material across trade routes throughout the Indian Ocean littoral.

The decorative repertoire of this manuscript shares features with a small corpus of Qur’ans attributed to coastal East Africa, Zanzibar and Oman and the manuscript presents an interesting, dated, addition to this lesser-known group. The rectangular format of the opening illumination, framed by freely drawn arabesques, is closely comparable to a Qur’an section in the collection of the Sultan Qaboos library, Oman and another in the collection of the Ministry of Culture and Heritage, Muscat, Oman (inv. no.MS 2220, see Hirgi 2023, p.391). The colour palette of the illumination, primarily formed of red, white, black, yellow and olive-green is also shared among the group as is the inclusion of rubricated letters that feature in the colophon of the present manuscript.

The geometric decoration in the various marginal medallions of the present manuscript recalls the tradition of Sub-Saharan African Qur’ans (see lot 6 in the present sale) while the colour palette is reprised in South East Asian manuscripts, although often with more curvilinear drawing to the decoration. For a detailed discussion on Qur’ans attributed to coastal East Africa, see Hirgi 2023.