al-Qurʼān: Kufic fragment [IO Loth 1] القرآن الكريم

al-Qurʼān القرآن الكريم : Kufic fragment

This manuscript was 38A in the India Office collections.

[metadata: Otto Loth, A Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts in the Library of the India Office, (volume 1), here with notations and hyperlinks].

1.

38 A. Size 31/4 in. by 5 in.; foll. 64. Five lines in a page.

A Kûfic MS. on parchment, containing fragments of Sûrah 36-39, viz. (foll. 2v.-6) Sû. 36, 26-40; (foll. 13-18, 7-8)1 47-71; (foll. 9-11) 74 to the end; (foll. 12, 19-20) Sû. 37, 1-15; (foll. 21-28) 20-64; (foll. 29-31) 71-90; (foll. 32-38) 102-145; (foll. 39-47) 151 to Sû. 38, 13; (foll. 48-59) 16-50; (foll. 60-61) 59-65; (fol. 62) 85 to the end, and the title of Sû. 39; (fol. 63, in four lines and in another handwriting) Sû. 39, 31-32, with the words کتبه علی ابوطالب (sic).

Round characters; wide spaces; occasional red dots for vowels. Verses divided by gold ornaments; every tenth verse likewise marked by larger ones. The titles of the Sûrahs have not been filled in. The whole MS. has more recently been bordered with thick paper, which is entirely gilt and ornamented. At the beginning (foll. 1 and 2r.) Sûrah 1; at the end the usual epilogue, صدق الله الخ, both within ornaments. Bound in leather, and covered with silk.

This MS. is said to have been “[Arabian books] brought into Hindostan by Tamerlane, and sent from Lahore to Paris.” [ed. note: this according to an eighteenth-century note on the flyleaf, which also says "Koran Kufic" and is signed "Charles."]

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Note 1: The first eighteen leaves have been misplaced in binding.

[ed note: Catalogued in the library as IO Loth 1]