The Master Scribes: Qur'ans of the 11th to 14th centuries AD (The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art)

This, the second of the four-volume catalogue of the Qur'anic material in the Collection, covers the period from AD 1000 to 1400 and includes examples from Iraq, Iran, Syria, Egypt, Anatolia, India, Spain and North Africa. The 56 items presented here include a Qur'an written in gold in 12th-century Iraq; one of a small group of Qur'ans known to have been produced in Valencia in the same period; and what may be the earliest surviving Qur'an from India. Even more remarkable is a section from a 30-part Qur'an written by Yaqut al-Musta'simi, the greatest Islamic calligrapher of the later Middle Ages: other sections from the same Qur'an are in Istanbul and Dublin, but this is the only one to retain its original illumination. These important items are the subject of substantial new studies and other essays cover Qur'an production in Damascus and manuscript patronage in Shiraz under the Inju'ids and Muzaffarids. The detailed catalogue entries are complemented by multiple colour illustrations, and colophons and other significant documentation are reproduced with full translations.