Oliver White
Head of Department
Lot 268•
A group of six West African Qur'ans in their contemporary leather cases and wrappers Sub-Sahara, probably Nigeria, late 19th/early 20th Century(6)
23 April 2013, 10:30 BST
London, New Bond StreetSold for £5,000 inc. premium
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A group of six West African Qur'ans in their contemporary leather cases and wrappers
Sub-Sahara, probably Nigeria, late 19th/early 20th Century
Sub-Sahara, probably Nigeria, late 19th/early 20th Century
Arabic manuscript on paper, 649 leaves, loose, 13 lines to the page written in sudani maghribi script in dark brown ink with diacritics and vowel points in red and brown, yellow roundels between verses, every tenth verse indicated by a larger roundel, catchwords in wide margins, sura headings in same script as text written in red ink, coloured devices in outer margins, loose, edges frayed, browned, contemporary brown leather wrapper, in case with the bismallah stitched in black leather on the flap, and five other similar Qur'ans from the same region
the largest 235 x 193 mm.(6)
the largest 235 x 193 mm.(6)
Footnotes
Provenance:
Private UK collection: acquired in Chad and Niger in the early 1970s.
For further reading on West African Qur'ans written in the sub-Sahara, which spans a large area extending from the Sudan to Nigeria, see A. D. H. Bivar, 'The Arabic Calligraphy of West Africa', in Africa Language Review 7 (1968), pp. 3-15; N. van den Boogert, 'Some Notes on Maghribi Script', Manuscripts of the Middle East 4 (1989), pp. 30-43; and A. Brockett, 'Aspects of the Physical Transmission of the Qur'an in 19th Century Sudan: Script, Decoration, Binding and Paper', Manuscripts of the Middle East 2 (1987), pp. 45-67.