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The Qur'an consists of 445 folios, 45 x 30 cmin
size. There are eleven lines of script to each page: a large Muhaccaq
at the top and bottom in panels of similar dimensions and two intervening
panels of Naskh measuring 6.5 x 9.5 cm. There are five decorated
areas including a prayer at the end of the manuscript. The pages are fastened
into gatherings of about five bi-folis each and tightly sewn, with head
bands of red and yellow silk. The binding is possibly not original. In
any case it is now attached to the book-block up-side down, a fact which
usually indicates that a manuscript has been rebound or restored in Europe.
The paper is a good, firm, cream, polished variety. Between most of the
illuminated pages are protective intervening leaves of contemporary paper.
There is an additional leaf at the beginning. This is soiled, as are the
lower left corners of most other leaves, indicating that the manuscript
was extensively read.
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The Muhaceaq is usually blue in colour
with black vocalisation, but very occasionally the script is also black,e.g.
fols 430-431r. The Thulth is in gold, outlined in black with blue
vocalisation, while the Naskh is black with black vocalisation. Reading
notes on the text are in red on the Naskh and green on the larger
scripts. The latter are written on a pinkish ground, while the Naskh
is written on a cream one. Both grounds are treated with a gold spattering
effect. The text of each page is surrounded by a series of coloured lines
forming a border whose outer edge measures 25 x 15.5 cm. The panels of
Naskh have decorated panels on either side bearing a floral arabesque
motif. These panels are very similar apart from the background and border
colours which change from page to page, or to be more exact, from openingt
o opening. Whenever the background is gold, the arabesque becomes polychrome
instead of gold, or some single colour.
Ayahs are marked by petalled rosettes
in the sections written in Naskh; in the others they are marked
by knots. Decades of ayahs are indicated by a gold marginal medallion
bearing the word ashara, 'ten'; in white Kufic. Pentades
are marked by a blue quatre foil with the word khamsa 'five', in
Kufic. Other textual divisions are simply noted in the page margins.Surah
titles are usually in white Thulth over a polychromatic floral arabesque
design on gold. The title is always within a cartouche on a floral
ground of some colour other than gold.
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Follios 1v-2r are blank apart from large centralmedallions.
The text is in white Thulth on a polychrome arabesqueground. Each
medallion has eight lobes decorated with a polychrome arabesquepattern,
incorporating brown and green chinoiserie scrolls. Thearabesques
culminate in gold trefoils with a pale blue chinoiserie scroll.There is
an outer border of fine blue finials.
The opening pages of text, fols 2v-3r, are amagnificent
tour de force. The text of AI-Fatihahis written out
in white Mahaceaq in two gold medallions with pendantcartouches
above and below, bearing AI-Waqi'ah 77-78. Todescribe the pages
as resembling two beautiful Persian carpets would normallybe an over-worked
art historial cliche, but in this instance it is singularlyappropriate.
To decorate the main field of design the painter has used a multiple-level
technique identical to that used in Persian carpet design.A field of swirling
polychrome arabesque scrolls is overlain with chinoiserie scrolls
in green, yellow, pale blue and brown. The arabesques bear large,feathery,
fold scanthus type-leaves with green shading. Such leaves are also found
in Ruzbihan's work elsewhere, such as the Bodleian Kulliyat and
the Nour Collection Qur'an. There is a wide border of blue and gold lanettes,
covered with the same pattern as the main field of the design.This is an
extremely complex piece of work and, one would think, the product of a
mature craftsman.The design of these opening pages is identical to that
of the loose front-piece formerly in the Vever Collection and now in the
Sackler Gallery.
The arrangement of the verses of Al-Fatihah
is not exactly the same and the colours of the various motifs have
been altered, but with these minor exceptions the pages are virtually identical.The
measurements of both manuscripts differ by only a few millimetres.These
two examples deserve more detailed comparison, as they are clear evidence
of the extent to which manuscript production in Shiraz became organised.
A stencil or series of templates must have been employed to produce the
basic design which was then painted. Such a method would clearly have reduced
the time necessary for the production of lavishly illustrated manuscripts.
Fols 3v-4r contain Al-Baqarah l-16 and are fully
illustrated. The larger scripts are written over polychrome arabescureson
a pale blue ground in the central panel, and an ultramarine one at the
top and bottom. The panels of Naskh have background of polychrome
arabesques on gold. The title and verse-count is written in gold in a finely
illustrated sarlawh, which extends upwards into the margin.
Fols 208v-209r contain the opening verses ofAl-Kahf,
marking the half-way point in the manuscript. The decoration resembles
that of fols 3v-4r, but the panels of blue Mahaccaq are written
over gold grounds decorated with polychrome scrolls. Similar one scan be
seen in one of the Qur'ans exhibited in 1985 in Geneva No.66 .
The last but one section of illumination comprises
folios 434v-445r and is unquestionably the most spectacular portion of
the manuscript. Each page from AI-Akhlas to AI-Nas is covered
with the most amazing array of colours. Not only do the backgrounds of
each opening change colour in the most dramatic manner, but the script
in the larger panels also changes colour from one opening to the next.Each
page is a masterpiece in its own right.
Every opening has been carefully considered by
Ruzbihan, who has arranged the colours so that they harmonize. This is
done by having the same colours opposite one another, or having the upper-right
and lower-left, or upper-left and lower-right panels decorated in identicalfashion.
The number of colours becomes progressively greater as the surahs become
shorter and more titles have to be incorporated on each page.Sometimes,
to preserve the layout of each page, it has been necessary to exaggerate
the length of the strokes joining the letters.
The final pages of text are surrounded by a multi-lobed
outer border covered with alternating palmettes and heart-shaped motifs.These
are covered with polychrome floral scrolls. In the margin of the page blue
and gold quatre foils, suspended like lanterns on long blue thread-like
finials.
These pages also contain the colophon which is
written in two rectangular panels after the end of AI-Nas in an
unusual manner. The text runs across the pages at right angles to the maintext
and states:
1. qad tasharrafa bi-tahririhi wa taqadammabi-tarqimihi
al-faqir iia'llah al-ahad al-ghani, aqall al-du'afa'
wa-adeaf.
2. al-fuqara', Ruzbihan Muhammad al-Tab'ial-Shirazi,
hashsharubu fi hizb al-Nabi al-Hashimi Muhammad al-Makkial-Qurashi.
1 . Copied and illustrated by the one needy for
God, the one, the Munificent, the least of the feeble and weakest.
2. Of the wretched, Ruzbihan Muhammad al-Tab'ial-Shirazi.
May God muster him with the party of the Prophet, the Hashemite Muhammad
of Makkah and Quraysh.
The colophon of the Mashhad Qur'an dated 954/1547is
written in identical panels, with script at right-angles to the maintext.
This suggests that the Chester Beatty manuscript, particularly inview of
its obvious maturity of style and elaborate method of production,was produced
in the 1540's, in the reign Tahmasp.
The final piece of illumination appears on folio445v.
In complete contrast to the previous group of pages this one is ina subdued
yet majestic style. The text comprises part of the prayer tobe read upon
completing the Qur'an. This is written in fine white Muhaccaq over
polychrome floral scrolls on gold. It is surmounted by a fine sarlawhwhich
extends upwards into the margin. The decoration is covered by a piece of
protective paper, obviously contemporary, which bears on its verso side
the impression of the missing second half of the prayer.
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