Unknown - Qur'an - Herat - 1460

Qur'an - Herat - Timurid - AD1460. This is a manuscript leaf from a Koran scribed shortly after Shah Rukh’s reign at a time of great political turmoil. It was relatively small for ease of carriage, thus was most likely for private use.

It contains 14 lines of scripture from the Medinian Chapter 2, Al-Baqarah (The Cow) v.93-100, which address the historical behaviour, broken covenants, and attitudes of the Children of Israel toward divine revelation, contrasting it with the arrival of the final message. These verses establish key theological principles: they emphasize that true faith requires obedience, expose the danger of prioritizing worldly life over the Hereafter, and affirm divine validation of the Quran. They also state that opposing Allah's angels equates to absolute disbelief, while highlighting the tragic pattern of habitually breaking sacred covenants. A lesson for today.

The leaf contains 14 lines of evenly spaced and elegant naskh script in black ink and in an educated calligraphic hand. Multiple free-hand 'aya' in a simple gold spiral mark out the verses . Two marginal on the left mark the 95th and 100th verses respectively. The leaf is fully framed in gold and blue lines.

There is some devotional use staining bottom left through page turning, which has also exfoliated the marginal decoration, but otherwise this is a good clean copy and well preserved for its age dating from around the time of the fall of Constantinople to Islam in 1453.

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