Unknown - Qur'an - Herat - 1460

Qur'an - Herat - Timurid - AD1460. This Quranic manuscript folio was scribed shortly after Shah Rukh’s reign at a time of great political turmoil. It is an unusual folio in that if contains 4 marginal medallions on the same page and thus rare.

The folio contains scripture chapter 56, Al-Waqi'ah (The Inevitable Event), v.63-80. this field executed lead, written in a confident black naskh with diacritical pointing and verse markers, passes through the sera's rhetorical sequence of divine questions on, the sown crop, on drinking water, on fire kindled from a tree, into the elaborated oath by the positions of the stars and concludes with the affirmation that this is "need a note Qur'an. By highlighting basic miracles like farming, water, fire, and the divine origin of the Quran, the verses urge humanity to be grateful and recognize their ultimate Creator.

The folio has evenly spaced and elegant script containing 14 lines of scripture broken. Free-hand 'aya' in a simple gold spiral mark out the verses. Unusually the folio contains four marginal roundels stacked along its outer edge, alternating gold ground and lapis blue ground, each filled with fine scrolling and arabesque ornament. The folios is fully framed in gold and blue lines. There is clear devotional use through page turning lower left, but otherwise this is a good clean copy and very well preserved for its age.

Shah Rukh (1377–1447) was the powerful ruler of the Timurid Empire from 1405 until his death. As the fourth and youngest son of the legendary conqueror Timur, he took control of the empire following his father’s death and successfully navigated internal succession struggles to unify core territories across Persia and Transoxiana (historically referred to as Mā Warāʾ al-Nahr (Arabic) or Farārūd (Persian), both translating to "what lies beyond the river").

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