An illuminated Qur'an, copied by Mustafa al-Khatib-zadeh, a pupil of Ibrahim al-Rodosi (from the island of Rhodes) Ottoman Empire, probably Constantinople, dated AH 1175/AD 1761


Arabic manuscript on paper, 394 leaves, 13 lines to the page written in naskhi script in black ink with diacritics and vowel points in black and red, gold roundels marking the verses, inner margins ruled in gold, black and red, sura headings written in naskhi script in white on a gold ground, one double-page illuminated frontispiece in colours and gold, illuminated devices in wide outer margins, contemporary red morocco with gilt diaper pattern on front and back boards and flap, covers detached, rebacked 178 x 118 mm.
|ProvenancePrivate US collection, 1960-present.Although the scribe's teacher came from Rhodes (then part of the Ottoman Empire), he lived and worked in Constantinople, and it therefore seems likely that the manuscript was copied in the capital. The scribe, Mustafa al-Khatib-zadeh, is mentioned as a pupil of al-Rodosi: see S. Rado, Turk Hattatlari, p. 153. Al-Rodosi is also mentioned in M. U. Derman, Letters in Gold: Ottoman Calligraphy from the Sakip Sabanci Collection, New York 1998, p. 90. Derman mentions a pupil of Rodosi, Mustafa al-Kutahi, who liked to be known as Shaykh-zade, and it is conceivable that this man could be one and the same as the scribe of the current manuscript.