A stunning illuminated opening front-piece and facing page, from a dispersed 16th Century Middle-East Qur'an, containing the first chapter of the Qur'an, Surah al-Fatiha (The Opening). This is recited in every cycle of the five daily prayers. To the rear of the facing page is the illuminated panel for chapter 2 of the Qur'an, Surah Al-Baqarah (The Cow) with its heading and verse/word count), v.1-5. This is an exceptional and rare manuscript, unmounted to give options for display, The decoration is built of gold-ground floral scrollwork, cusped blue cartouches enclosing polychrome palmettes, inter-linear Persian gloss in red, foliate marginal medallion, and rule work borders in red, green and gold; naturalistic tulip and rose sprays throughout, characteristic of Persian Safavid period Middle-East illumination. The illumination work is simple outstanding. Please note that shipping costs are not solely the cost of the postal delivery service itself. Included within the shipping price is the work undertaken to prepare the article, for photography, for uploading to Catawiki, for preparation and packaging the article securely and for transporting the article to the postal delivery agent for processing. Also, please consider when bidding on this lot that this artwork is shipped from the UK. Import duties will now have to be paid by the recipient to the Postal Service when the parcel arrives in your country. This will likely vary between 5% and 20% of the sale price depending on your country's Import Rate, so please check this if you are concerned. This is a Tax collected on behalf of your Government and is not an additional fee charged by us.