A Qur'an section (Juz II), written in thuluth script in the style of Ibn al-Suhrawardi Near East, probably Baghdad, 14th/15th Century


Arabic manuscript on paper, 20 leaves, five lines to the page written in elegant thuluth script in black ink with diacritics and vowel points in black, verse-endings marked by gold roundels with green and red dots, illuminated marginal devices in colours and gold added later, sura heading written later in eastern kufic script in gold on a blue ground with a gold rectangular panel and a palmette extending into the outer margins, colophon written in naskhi script in white on a blue ground within a gilt-edged rectangular panel at end, stating that this manuscript was copied by Ahmad bin al-Suhrawardi in the year AH 708/AD 1308-09, folio 1 recto with a full-page illumination in colours and gold added later, binding late 16th Century, not belonging 355 x 240 mm.
|This manuscript was copied by a scribe working in the style of Ibn al-Suhrawardi, who was one of the six best pupils of the famous calligrapher Yaqut al-Musta'simi. The illumination, meanwhile, seems to have been added at some later date, this time by an illuminator consciously working in the manner of Ibn Aibak, who also worked at the Ilkhanid court at Baghdad.For two folios from the 'Anonymous Baghdad Qur'an', in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, copied by Ibn al-Suhrawardi, and illumuinated by Muhammad ibn Aibak ibn 'Abdallah, and dated AH 706 and 707/AD 1306-07 and 1307-08, see M. D. Ekhtiar et al (edd.), Masterpieces from the Department of Islamic Art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 2011, pp. 92-94, no. 54 A, B. For other examples of the work of both, see M. Lings, The Qur'anic Art of Calligraphy and Illumination, London 1976, nos. 46-48.