A beautiful, finely decorated manuscript Qur’an, on ivory paper, in a very uncommon decorated binding with fore-edge flap. The use of muhaqqaq for the first, middle and last line of each text page, and the lingering presence of Eastern Kufic in the cartouches at head and foot, point to c.1500. Close decorative patterns were traced in manuscripts produced c.1500-1540s in late Timurid / early Safavid Herat, in present day Afghanistan, e.g., Cleveland Museum of Art 1924.746. The prevalence of gatherings of 8 ll. is also more frequent in Central Asian manuscripts. The interesting composite binding is an uncommon, skilled technique, of which Dr K. Scheper only records 5 known instances at Leiden UL and 1 at LC. Composite bindings are ‘intriguing’ and ‘complicated’, and ‘the technique itself is easily overlooked because the final result is not decidedly different from that of a typical well-made decorated full-leather binding’ (Scheper, p.256). Here the binding bears central gilt-tooled inlays in olive green goatskin, single gilt ruled at their juncture with the lighter brown goatskin of the board edges, both types of leather having been paired to the same thickness. The lighter leather at the board edges comes in fact from the turn-outs of the doublures, folded over to create contrasting colours (Scheper, pp.256-8, n.37). Similar doublures, with the same colour patterns and quadrilobed decoration, have been traced to Safavid Herat, c.third quarter of the C16 (Louvre, shelfmark AD 6262). The board decoration, heavily influenced by Ottoman models, is also compatible with the style of c.1600 Central Asia. A most interesting Qur’an, with unusual features.
