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Arabic MS 761 (The John Rylands Research Institute and Library, The University of Manchester)

Arabic Manuscripts

Summary of Contents: The second of fourteen large volumes of an illuminated Quʾranic manuscript with interlinear literal translations in Persian and Qarakhanid Turkic. The set, probably from the 14th century, would originally have comprised 30 volumes. This volume contains parts of Juzʾ 5.

Title: al-Qurʾān

Title: القران

Language(s): Arabic, with interlinear translations in Persian and Qarakhanid Turkic

Title: Juzʾ 5

Title: جزء 5

1b-100a

Title: Sūrat an-Nisāh

Title: سورة النساه

Contains surah 4:24-147. Several lacunae.

Incipit: والمحصنات من النساء

Explicit: وامنتم وكان الله شاكرا عليما

Physical Description

Form: codex

Support: White and cream glazed paper.

Extent: 101 folios (ii+101+ii)

Dimensions (leaf): × mm.

Foliation: Modern foliation in pencil in Western Arabic numerals. Folios 34b, 101a, and 101b are blank.

Layout

1 column with three lines of Arabic script, the Persian and Qarakhanid Turkic translations below.

Hand(s)

The Arabic text is in large Naskh characters fully vowelled, perhaps of the fourteenth century. The Persian and Turkic translations are both written in smaller characters in the same hand.

Decoration

Folios 1a, 34a: almond-shape shamsa without text; primarily in gold, red and blue.

Folios 1b-2a: double full-page illumination with the first seven words of Surah 4:24.

Folios 32b-33b: double full-page illumination with the words 9-15 of Surah 4:61 and first three words of Surah 4:62.

Folio 35a: full page illumination with the words 4-7 of Surah 4:62.

Folio 100b: circular shamsa without text; primarily in gold, red and blue.

Small illuminated verse markers at the end of each verse, larger, more elaborately illuminated markers (almond-shaped and circular) after every five and ten ayas.

History

Origin: 14th century, probably CE; possibly produced in ; Transoxiana (A. Ata narrows it down to the Ispicab region; see Ata 2020).

Provenance and Acquisition

Folio 1b: round-shape black seal.

Deed of endowment (waqf) on folio 1a (to be deciphered).

Formerly in the collection of Alexander Lindsay, 25th Earl of Crawford (1812–1880) Crawford, Alexander Crawford Lindsay, 1812-1880. His bookplate on the back paste-down: 'Bibliotheca Lindesiana 4/D'.

Purchased by Enriqueta Rylands (1843–1908) in 1901 from James Ludovic Lindsay, 26th Earl of Crawford (1847–1913) .

Bequeathed by Enriqueta Rylands (1843–1908) in 1908 to The John Rylands Library.

Record Sources

Description based on A. Mingana, Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts in the John Rylands Library Manchester (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1934).

Availability

The item is available for consultation by any accredited reader.

For information on eligibility and admissions procedures, see Using Special Collections at the John Rylands Research Institute and Library.

For further information on the availability of the item, please contact the Special Collections Reader Services.

Digital Images

Library Digital Collections (full digital facsimile)

Bibliography

A. Mingana, Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts in the John Rylands Library Manchester (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1934), no. 26 [761].

Eckmann, János. "Ein Ostmitteltürkische interlineare Koranüberseztung." Ural-Altaische Jahrbücher 31 (1959)

Eckmann, János. "Two Fragments of a Kuran Manuscript with Interlinear Persian and Turkic Translation." Central Asiatic Journal 13 (1969): 287-290.

Eckmann, János. "Eastern Turkic Translations of the Koran." Studia Turcica 17 (1971): 149-159, especially 153-155.

Ata, Aysu. "The Rylands Manuscript: The First Translation of the Kuran into Turkic." Man and Nature in the Altaic World.: Proceedings of the 49th Permanent International Altaistic Conference, Berlin, July 30 – August 4, 2006. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2020, pp. 14-23.

Union Catalogue of Manuscripts from the Islamicate World