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Orientations | Volume 55 Number 4 | JULY/AUGUST 2024 10 Spread from a richly illuminated Qur’an section Afghanistan, Herat; 1519 Ink and gold on paper; 23.8 x 15.8 cm (each leaf) The David Collection Photo: Pernille Klemp 40 While generations of Qur’an calligraphers perfected the angular letters of classical Kufi, administrative and commercial scribes developed alternative scripts to suit their practical needs. These were generally rounded and cursive (leaning with the direction of writing, from right to left) and enabled the user to write quickly and with fluid pen strokes. These versatile styles of writing gradually matured into a set of refined calligraphic scripts known as ‘the Six Pens’ (al-aqlam al-sitta), three of which can be seen on a Qur’an leaf from the 14th century (fig. 8). The majority of the text is written in a small and compact script known as Naskh (from nasakha, ‘to copy or transcribe’). For the sake of variety, or perhaps to demonstrate artistic prowess, the calligrapher selected two larger display scripts for the first and seventh line. The slender, spacious script of the first line is Muhaqqaq (‘plain’ or ‘regular’), while the heavier and slightly slanted script of the seventh line is called Thuluth (lit. ‘one third’). Looking at the lower right side of the leaf we find that another of the Six Pens, the small and wavy Riqa script, has been used for a marginal note in red, and at the bottom, the heading for the subsequent Qur’an sura is written in the slender but more angular New Style script derived from Kufi. This playful combination of different ‘pens’ was particularly popular in the Iranian world between the 13th and 15th centuries. However, the choice of Naskh as the main script indicates a more westerly origin, probably Yemen. The display script Muhaqqaq became a favourite of Qur’an calligraphers and their patrons owing to its blend of monumentality and readability. It even appeared in an enlarged version called Jalil (‘great’) Muhaqqaq that emphasized the monumental qualities of the script. Jalil was often employed in architectural inscriptions, but it can also be seen on a two-line fragment from a colossal manuscript known as the ‘Qur’an of Timur’ (fig. 9). Commissioned by the Central Asian world conqueror Timur Lenk (r. 1370–1405) and penned by the master calligrapher Umar Aqta, this manuscript tested the limits of premodern book production in several respects. The majestic letters are each up to 13.8 centimetres high and were written with a reed pen more than one centimetre wide, a demanding task even for an expert calligrapher. However, the difficulties involved in the production of this manuscript would have started well before Umar Aqta ever put pen to paper. The fragment shown here constitutes a little under a third of a full leaf, which would have measured approximately 220 by 150 centimetres. The complete manuscript would have comprised some 1,500 of these giant leaves, and the sheer volume of water, cloth fibre, and manpower required for their production would have made this book project extremely costly and challenging. In the Qur’an of Timur, the superb penmanship of the calligrapher remains very much in focus, but in a Qur’an section from the early 16th century, the writing is almost overshadowed by rich and colourful illuminations (fig. 10). The main text, written in black Naskh, is nestled within several layers of decorative frames featuring multicoloured flowers and split-leaf
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11 Spread from a Qur’an section China, Beijing; 1643–44 Ink and gold on paper; 24 x 15.3 cm (each leaf) The David Collection Photo: Pernille Klemp patterns. Generous amounts of gold have been used for the backgrounds, for the interlacing surrounding the sura headings, and for the verse markers in the text. The original illuminations were executed by the famed artist Yari al-Mudhahhib (‘the illuminator’) in Herat in 1516, but the manuscript later went to India where al-Mudhahhib’s illuminations were restored and augmented by Indian artists. This Qur’an was part of the libraries of the Qutb Shahi dynasty of Golconda (1496–1687) and the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb (r. 1658–1707). As the art of Qur’anic calligraphy spread across the Islamic world, the scripts used generally retained their classical forms. There were, however, Muslim communities who were so geographically remote from the Islamic heartlands of the Middle East, Iran, and Central Asia that the calligraphic style of their Qur’ans began to deviate from the mainstream. This was especially true of the Chinese Hui Muslims. The Hui were descended from West Asian Muslims, many of whom had come to China with the Mongols in the 13th and 14th centuries. After the fall of the Mongol Yuan dynasty (1272–1368) and the rise of the Han Chinese Ming dynasty (1368–1644), the Hui gradually integrated into Chinese society and lost contact with their coreligionists to the west. This gave their artistic production a distinctly Chinese flavour, as can be seen in a spread from a thirty-volume Qur’an penned by a female calligrapher in Beijing in 1643–44 (fig. 11). The text is written in Arabic, but in a particular script called Sini, which is the Arabic term for ‘Chinese’. Sini is derived from the classical rounded cursive scripts such as Muhaqqaq, but it is less regularized and allows more room for interpretation by the artist. In some cases, the Sini letters can even take on an unusual wavy appearance that may reflect the influence of Chinese brush calligraphy. The marginal decorations of this Qur’an are also highly evocative of the region in which it was produced. On the right, we see a small structure shaped like a Chinese pagoda, with a blossoming chrysanthemum below. These rather naturalistic motifs break with the traditional Islamic convention of embellishing the Qur’an with abstract decorations only. Rasmus Bech Olsen is a curator at The David Collection. Selected bibliography Manijeh Bayani, Anna Contadini, and Tim Stanley, The Decorated Word: Qur’ans of the 17th to the 19th Centuries, Part 1, London, 1999. Sheila Blair, Islamic Calligraphy, Edinburgh, 2006. Sheila Blair and Jonathan Bloom, Cosmophilia: Islamic Art from The David Collection, Copenhagen, Chestnut Hill, MA, 2006. Francois Déroche, The Abbasid Tradition: Qur’ans of the 8th to the 10th Centuries AD, London, 1992. Alain George, The Rise of Islamic Calligraphy, London, 2010. David James, After Timur: Qur’ans of the 15th and 16th Centuries, London 1992. Joachim Meyer, Rasmus Bech Olsen, and Peter Wandel, Beyond Words: Calligraphy from the World of Islam, exh. cat., The David Collection, Copenhagen, 2024. 41

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Orientations | Volume 55 Number 4 | JULY/AUGUST 2024

10 Spread from a richly illuminated Qur’an section Afghanistan, Herat; 1519 Ink and gold on paper; 23.8 x 15.8 cm (each leaf) The David Collection Photo: Pernille Klemp

40

While generations of Qur’an calligraphers perfected the angular letters of classical Kufi, administrative and commercial scribes developed alternative scripts to suit their practical needs. These were generally rounded and cursive (leaning with the direction of writing, from right to left) and enabled the user to write quickly and with fluid pen strokes. These versatile styles of writing gradually matured into a set of refined calligraphic scripts known as ‘the Six Pens’ (al-aqlam al-sitta), three of which can be seen on a Qur’an leaf from the 14th century (fig. 8). The majority of the text is written in a small and compact script known as Naskh (from nasakha, ‘to copy or transcribe’). For the sake of variety, or perhaps to demonstrate artistic prowess, the calligrapher selected two larger display scripts for the first and seventh line. The slender, spacious script of the first line is Muhaqqaq (‘plain’ or ‘regular’), while the heavier and slightly slanted script of the seventh line is called Thuluth (lit. ‘one third’). Looking at the lower right side of the leaf we find that another of the Six Pens, the small and wavy Riqa script, has been used for a marginal note in red, and at the bottom, the heading for the subsequent Qur’an sura is written in the slender but more angular New Style script derived from Kufi. This playful combination of different ‘pens’ was particularly popular in the Iranian world between the 13th and 15th centuries. However, the choice of Naskh as the main script indicates a more westerly origin, probably Yemen.

The display script Muhaqqaq became a favourite of Qur’an calligraphers and their patrons owing to its blend of monumentality and readability. It even appeared in an enlarged version called Jalil (‘great’) Muhaqqaq that emphasized the monumental qualities of the script. Jalil was often employed in architectural inscriptions, but it can also be seen on a two-line fragment from a colossal manuscript known as the ‘Qur’an of Timur’ (fig. 9). Commissioned by the Central Asian world conqueror Timur Lenk (r. 1370–1405) and penned by the master calligrapher Umar Aqta, this manuscript tested the limits of premodern book production in several respects. The majestic letters are each up to 13.8 centimetres high and were written with a reed pen more than one centimetre wide, a demanding task even for an expert calligrapher. However, the difficulties involved in the production of this manuscript would have started well before Umar Aqta ever put pen to paper. The fragment shown here constitutes a little under a third of a full leaf, which would have measured approximately 220 by 150 centimetres. The complete manuscript would have comprised some 1,500 of these giant leaves, and the sheer volume of water, cloth fibre, and manpower required for their production would have made this book project extremely costly and challenging.

In the Qur’an of Timur, the superb penmanship of the calligrapher remains very much in focus, but in a Qur’an section from the early 16th century, the writing is almost overshadowed by rich and colourful illuminations (fig. 10). The main text, written in black Naskh, is nestled within several layers of decorative frames featuring multicoloured flowers and split-leaf

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