Manuscript Koran in Maghribi script, likely originating in W...

Manuscript Koran in Maghribi script, likely originating in West Africa dating, again likely to the nineteenth century. A typical loose leaf stack - mushaf - held within a quarto sized leather portfolio - a ghaf decorated with simple, blind-tooling at the edges. Throughout marginal 'roundels' and 'pillars' delineate chapters and divisions with the text. The laid paper bears the 'tre lune' watermark, three crescent moons suggesting that the paper was produced in Northern Italy for the Ottoman/Muslim market. Many European papermakers used watermarks featuring Christian cross. Islamic scribes were reluctant to use such paper for their religious works and, in order to expand their export trade, the paper manufacturers began watermarking the paper with crescent moons, an innovation which helped promote their products within the Ottoman and Islamic world, where scribes valued the superior qualities of European paper. A number of leaves are adhering, usually very lightly, occasionally more stubbornly to each other. A small slip of paper with a Christie's auction number and a date 14th October 199 was found inside. Since that era, when such objects were sold within a niche marketplace, the rise in interest in Islamic manuscripts has hugely increased with a deeper understanding of the cultural importance of such works. Impossible to say if the manuscript is complete, but it would certainly appear to be so. A scholar of such objects would immediately feel the weight of history in such a work.

Estimate:$1,335.80

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