Folio from a Qur'an Manuscript

Leaf from a Koran

Among the rare pages from fourteenth-century Persian Korans, a number are known containing contemporaneous, interlinear Persian translations of the Arabic text. In such early times, these translations could not have been sanctioned by orthodox Muslims, since the miraculous nature of the word of God as revealed in the Koran has always been understood to be inextricably bound up with the Arabic language. Such manuscripts represent an attempt to make the holy book more accessible to non-native Arabic speakers in an age when New Persian had long since come into its own as a literary language. The Metropolitan also has in its collection a section from a thirteenth-century Koran which has a contemporaneous interlinear Turkish translation.

The present manuscript, as represented by the seven pages in the Metropolitan's collection, is not notably sumptuous; and the period in which it was executed cannot be said to have been fundamentally innovative with respect to the art of calligraphy. Nevertheless, the happy combination of bold vitality and classic refinement provides considerable aesthetic gratification in a highly legible text, verses 81-85 of Sura 7, al-A'raf, The Battlements, where the story of Lot is told.

Manuel Keene in [Berlin 1981]

Inscription: Sura 7: 81-86 (al-A'raf)

sale, Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, June 15, 1979, no. 162 (to MMA)

Berlin. Museum für Islamische Kunst, Pergamonmuseum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. "The Arts of Islam. Masterpieces from the M.M.A.," June 15, 1981–August 8, 1981, no. 18.

"Masterpieces from The Metropolitan Museum of Art New York." In The Arts of Islam. Berlin, 1981. no. 18, pp. 66–67, ill. p. 67 (b/w).