Author Description

The third volume of the catalogue of Qur'anic material covers the period from 1400 to 1600, and presents 60 items from Iran, Central Asia, Syria, Egypt, Turkey and India. Most notable among them is a Qur'an that was kept in the women's quarters of the Mughal imperial residence in the 17th and 18th centuries. This exquisite manuscript may have been produced for Shah Tahmasp, the greatest patron of the arts of the book in 16th-century Iran. Besides detailed catalogue descriptions, colour illustrations and a section on documentation where colophons are reproduced with translations, the volume contains substantial new studies. These cover the monumental Qur'an previously associated with the Timurid prince Baysunghur ibn Shahrukh; Ruzbihan Muhammad, the most eminent calligrapher and illuminator of Shiraz in the early 16th century; and the great Ottoman calligrapher Ahmed Karahisari.