Folios from a Qur’an Manuscript A.H. 383/A.D. 993

Folios from a Qur’an Manuscript A.H. 383/A.D. 993
The first centuries in the copying of the Qur’an witnessed a succession of changing styles in the manuscript’s calligraphy, decoration, and format. This Qur’an shows many of the changes taking place in the medieval period. Whereas earlier Qur’ans were made of parchment and inscribed in a relatively simple kufic script, this manuscript was created of paper and of an angular script known as “new style script”. The folios belong to the last volume of a four-part Qur’an manuscript, other folios of which provide the date of AH Ramadan 383 / AD October – November 993 and indicate that it was copied in the Iranian city of Isfahan. In both its medium and calligraphy, these folios reveal the increasing cultural pull of the eastern edge of the Islamic world, a decided shift from the earlier, Mediterranean- focus of the first Islamic centuries.