#Blue vellum paper series#
He developed this theory after acquiring a group of leaves from this series in Istanbul in 1912. Martin suggested that the original manuscript was commissioned by the Abbasid Caliph al-Ma'mun for the tomb of his father Harun al-Rashid. Over the course of the last century, the provenance of this now iconic manuscript has been much debated. The use of a grid for the text, visible on some folios, also strengthen the link to the western Islamic world. The usual abjad system is not employed here instead, a slight modification of this alphanumeric system, favoured in the Maghreb, is used (Blair, op. Bloom suggests that an attribution to Qairawan is likely, in large part due to an analysis of the alphanumeric counting system used on this manuscript to number the suras. Bloom, 'Al-Ma'mun's Blue Koran' in Revue des études islamiques, vol. the suras and the verse-counts, and the sixtieths in silver.’ (Stanley, op.cit., op.9 and J.M. In most probability, there are mentions of two manuscripts: one copied with five lines of gold kufic, the other (which sound temptingly close to ours) ‘.in seven sections, in the large format, written in gold, in kufic script, on blue-black vellum. It is not entirely clear whether the inventory mentions one or two manuscripts as it suffered some damage.
The inventory of the library of the Great Mosque at Qairawan, compiled in AH 693/1293-94 AD mentions manuscripts copied in gold on black-blue dyed ( ahkal) vellum. Early literary sources mention Qur’anic texts copied in gold, the first of which is from Ibn al-Nadim writing in the 10th century, who attributes to Khalid bin Abi al-Hayyaj the gold inscription in the Mosque of the Prophet in Medina and the subsequent commission of a gold Qur’an by the Abbasid Caliph ‘Umar bin ‘Abd al-‘Aziz (Stanley, op.cit., p.7).
As discussed in a well-documented essay on a bifolio from this Qur’an published by Bernard Quaritch Ltd, ‘the cost involved in producing so luxurious a manuscript must have limited potential patrons to the caliph himself and other individuals of the highest rank’ (Tim Stanley, The Qur’an and Calligraphy, Bernard Quaritch Ltd, catalogue 1213, p.7). Although the precise history of the manuscript is still the subject of discussion, there is wide consensus that the Blue Qur’an is one of the most important early Qur’an manuscripts and that the folios are a startling example of luxurious early Islamic manuscript production – made for a patron of considerable wealth and ambition. The colour of the vellum contrasts exquisitely with the gold calligraphy, making it one of the most distinctive of all kufic Qur'an manuscripts. This folio comes from the Blue Qur’an, an important early manuscript, the origins of which remain the source of some debate.
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