This tile bearing verses from the Qur’an may have once formed part of a calligraphic frieze within a tomb or religious structure. Written in thuluth script, the raised text from Sura 62 (Al-Jumu‘ah), Verse 9 demands that believers join in Friday prayer. The narrow bands of naskh script above and below also contain Qur’anic verses, here painted in luster over an opaque white glaze. Perhaps set at eye-level above a dado of geometric tiles, the full group would have once formed a continuous band of text. A total of twenty tiles from this frieze are known to exist, including eight in the Museum’s collection.
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All these tiles belong to the same decoration of a building, whose location is unknown. According to the inscriptions, it is possible to say that the first two frieze tiles (40.181.13 and X.111) were separated from the last three (15.76.4, .5, .6) by the three corner tiles (40.181.9, .7, .8). About twelve more tiles are known from the same series in addition to these eight in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Six of the twenty known tiles are corner tiles (one in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris; and two in the Godman Collection at the British Museum, London); therefore it may be suggested that the frieze once decorated wall surfaces with corners as dadoes. According to Sheila Blair, these tiles may, instead, have covered the cenotaph of the tomb of 'Abd al-Samad in Natanz mentioned in cat. no. 20 of this volume, MMA no. 12.44 (Blair, 1986, p. 65 [1]). The surface of each tile is divided into two border fields and a large central one, each carrying Qur'anic inscriptions. The quotations are selected from various verses of suras from the Qur'an, although none of them forms a complete sura. The upper inscription: 48:25 (no. 40.181.13); 55:44-50 (no. X.111); 55:65-70 (no. 40.181.9); 34:37–38 (no. 15.75.4); 34:39–40 (no. 15.75.5); 34:40–42(no. 15.75.6). The main inscription: 42:6 (no. 40.181.13); 42:9 (no. X.111); 42:9–10 (40.181.9); the second half of the basmala and 2:285 (no. 15.75.4); 2:285 (no. 15.75.5); 2:286 (no. 15.75.6). The lower inscription: 56:52–56 (no. 40.181.13); 34:12–13 (no. X.111); 34:18–19 (40.181.9).
[Carboni and Masuya 1993]
Footnotes:
1. Blair, S. S., The Ilkhanid Shrine Complex at Natanz, Iran, Cambridge, Mass., 1986. Published Ph.D dissertation.
Inscription: Qur'anic inscriptions In Arabic: upper white border (sura 55:65–70), the second (sura 62:9) is the central inscription, which is larger and molded; and the third is located in the lower white border (sura 34:12–13).
Unknownprovenance; acquired by the Metropolitan Museum by 1922
Asia Society. "Iranian Ceramics," May 3, 1963–September 12, 1963, no. 66.
New York. Hagop Kevorkian Fund Special Exhibitions Gallery, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Persian Tiles," May 4, 1993–January 2, 1994, no. 21b.
Wilkinson, Charles K. Iranian Ceramics. New York: Asia House Gallery, 1963. no. 66, pp. 8, 133, ill. (b/w).
Carboni, Stefano, and Tomoko Masuya. Persian Tiles. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1993. no. 21b, p. 26, ill. (b/w).
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