إلى الآية 10من سورة التكوير ( وإذا الصحف نشرت . وإذا)
اقتباس:
133 leaves, incomplete, 23 lines per page written in small, neat eastern kufic script in brown ink on vellum, vocalisation of red dots, tenth verses marked in margins with gold foliate roundels containing the exact verse count in gold kufic ('ashrun, thalathun, arba'un etc), further **** divisions written in margins in gold kufic, sura headings in gold kufic with blue and gold palmettes extending into margins, later red morocco gilt, re-backed, with flap. ****: Suras VII-XC
Dimensions: 10 by 8.2 cm.
Provenance: Previously sold at: Christie's, London, 4th July 1985, Lot 71.
This fascinating manuscript is a rare example of eastern kufic script written in vertical format on vellum. The vast majority of eastern kufic manuscripts are written on paper. The use of paper occurred earlier in the eastern lands of Islam than those in the west due to the arrival of the technology for making paper through the capture at a battle near Samarkand in 751 A.D. of Chinese prisoners, including several who were paper-makers. Thus as early as the 8th century paper was used as a material for writing manuscript in the lands east of Iraq. In the western Islamic lands (i.e. the Levant, North Africa and the Mediterranean basin) the use of paper took longer to establish, especially for the writing of Qur'ans, for which the traditional vellum was the favoured material until the 11th century. In the far west, in Morocco and Islamic Spain, Qur'ans were written on vellum until the 15th century. The illumination of this manuscript, especially the sura headings, is close to that of Qur'ans written in kufic script of the 9th-10th centuries. The script is a small eastern kufic with a slightly cursive quality. Three manuscripts in the Nasser D. Khalili Collection, London, compare very closely with the present piece (Deroche 1992, nos.78,80,82, pp.143-5152-3) and other comparable manuscripts and leaves are as follows:
Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, (Splendeurs, no.8, p.30); Nuruosmaniye Library, Istanbul, Ms.23; Tareq Rajab Museum, Kuwait, TRMS.20; Al-Sabah Collection, Kuwait (Jenkins 1983, pp.20-1); Nasser D. Khalili Collection, London (Deroche 1992, nos.79,81); and, Sotheby's, London, 26th April 1995, lot 17
