A fine illuminated leaf, laid on card, from a very damaged copy of the Dala'il al-Khayrat dated C1820. The Dala'il al-Khayrat, is a famous collection of prayers for the Islamic prophet Muhammad originally written by the Moroccan Shadhili scholar Muhammad al-Jazuli (died 1465 AD). It is popular in parts of the Islamic world amongst the Muslims of North Africa, the Levant, Turkey, the Caucasus and South Asia—and is divided into sections for daily recitation. The legend behind the origin of the Dala'il al-Khayrat claims that al-Jazuli once awoke late for his morning prayers and began to look in vain for pure water to perform ritual ablutions. In the midst of his search al-Jazuli encountered a young girl who was aware of al-Jazuli's famed religiosity and was bewildered on why al-Jazuli could not find pure water. The girl then spat into a well which miraculously overflowed with pure sweet water for al-Jazuli to perform ablutions. Consequent to performing prayer, al-Jazuli inquired to the means by which the girl achieved such a high spiritual station. The girl replied it was simply by "Making constant prayer for God to bless the best of creation by the number of breaths and heartbeats." Al-Jazuli then resolved to write a work collecting litanies of prayers asking God to bless and show mercy and kindness to Muhammad. Some minor staining within the scripture and some fading of the Surah, but otherwise a vibrant and highly decorative leaf laid to card. The scripture is written in Arabic naskh black ink, with commentary in red between the lines of scripture. In this case Durood Shareef (a common phrase used by Muslims to prose and bless the prophet) seeks blessings to be bestowed on Muhammad. There is some wonderful arabesque decoration surrounding the scripture in plentiful gold and celestial blue. 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.