Qurʾanic selections

Accession number:

MS M.1194

Title:

Qurʾanic selections

Created:

Turkey (Ottoman), 18th century

Binding:

18th-century brown leather with gold stamped designs, but possibly not original to this volume. Doublures of blue and green paper with small designs. Repairs on the spine and inner flap.

Credit:

Gift of George L. Tutt in memory of his wife, Ann Carlson Tutt, 2015.

Description:

107 folios, bound : cream paper, ill. ; 163 x 105 mm; ruled surface: 106 x 58 mm

Provenance:

Purchased by Harry E. Carlson from a Russian émigré in the 1930s; inherited in 1992 by his daughter, Ann Carlson Tutt (1938-2006); inherited by her husband, George L. Tutt. Gift of George L. Tutt in memory of his wife, Ann Carlson Tutt, 2015.

Notes:

Decoration:
Harry E. Carlson, who died in 1992, was Assistant to Secretary of Commerce, Henry A. Wallace, and a candidate for Governor of New Hampshire in 1948, losing to Sherman Adams.
5 illuminated 'unvans (ff. 2v, 4v, 8v, 23v, 103v), illuminated section ends, headings with gold, cream, blue, mauve, and lapis, finely rendered with maps of Mecca (f. 21v) and Medina (f. 22).
The text has four sections. Title for Section 1 (f. 2v) is "This section is the first part of this book," but the name of the book is not given; Section 2 (f. 8v) includes the 99 Beautiful Names of Allah (ff. 18-20v) and other charts; Section 3 includes a good representation of Mecca (f. 21v) and Medina (f. 22) with outlying shrines, all identified in naskh inscriptions; Section 4 consists of a long Qur'anic extract followed by more Qur'anic verses. No colophon.
The inclusion of the full bird's-eye view of Mecca and Medina in Muslim religious literature apparently became popular in the 16th century. In manuscripts of Muhyi al-Din Lari's Dha'il al-Kharat; they appear as part of a series of diagrams of holy sitesn and descriptive text useful to pilgrims to Arabia. Later 18th-century texts such as al-Jazuli's Dala'il al-Kharyat usually included only representations of Mecca and Medina, first as diagrams and later as three dimensional paintings. Although the name of the text is not given, it may have been part of a book intended for pilgrims to the Holy Muslim sites in Arabia. (Barbara Schmitz)

Script:

naskh (11 lines)

Language:

Arabic

Resources:

Description/Bibliography

Century:

19th century

Genres:

Illuminated manuscripts

Paper (fiber product)

Naskhī