Arabic MS 765 (The John Rylands Research Institute and Library, The University of Manchester)

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Arabic Manuscripts

Summary of Contents: The sixth 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 13-14.

Title: al-Qurʿān

Title: القران

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

1a-17b

Title: Juzʿ 13

Title: جزء

1a-11a

Title: Sūrat Yusuf

Title: سورة يوسف

Incomplete: from 12:53 to 12:111; with lacunae.

Incipit: لا مارة بالسو الا ما

Explicit: لقوم يومنون

11b-12a

Title: Sūrat al-Raʿd

Title: سورة الرعد

Sūrah 13

Incomplete: contains only the very beginning and the very end of the Sūrah.

Incipit: بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم المر تلك ئايت الكتاب والذي

Explicit: بيني وبينكم ومن عنده علم الكناب

12a-17b

Title: Sūrat Ibrāhīm

Title: سورة إبراهيم

Sūrah 14; incomplete, with several lacunae: e.g., between folios 12 (14:1) and 13 (14:25), between 16 (to 14:27) and 17 (from 14:52).

Folios 13b-14b are blank.

Incipit: بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Explicit: النور باذن ربهم الئ صراط

18b-100b

Title: Juzʿ 14

Title: جزء14

18b-32b

Title: Sūrat al-Ḥijr

Title: سورة الحجر

Sūrah 15:1-96; incomplete, with lacunae: between folio 19 (15:3) and 20 (15:23), between folio 25 (15:43) and 26 (15:52), between folio 27 (15:58) and 28 (15:66), and between folio 30 (15:78) and 31 (15:88).

Incipit: بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم الرتلك ايت الكتاب

Explicit: مح الله الها اخر فسوف

33a-100b

Title: Sūrat Al-Nahl

Title: سورة النحل

Sūrah 16:2-128; incomplete, with lacunae: between folio 33 (16:5) and (16:10)and folio 37 (16:17) and 38 (16:22).

Incipit: انه لا اله الا انا فاتقون

Explicit: والذين هم محسنون

Physical Description

Form: codex

Support: White and cream glazed paper.

Extent: 100 folios (ii+100+ii)

Dimensions (leaf): 362 × 292 mm.

Dimensions (written): 230 × 175 mm.

Foliation: Modern foliation in pencil in Western Arabic numerals. Folio 14 was most probably the beginning of a new volume (see shamsa on folio 15a, and double full-page illumination on folios 15b-16a.

Layout

1 column with three lines of Arabic script, the Persian and 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

Folio 1a: full-page illumination with the middle of Sūrah 12:53.

11b: Sūrah heading within illuminated rectangular panel.

13a: Illuminated rectangular panel above the last two word of 14:25.

Folios 15a, 17b: circular shamsa without text; primarily in gold, red and blue.

Folios 15b-16a: double full-page illumination with the first six words of Sūrah 14:26.

Folios 18b-19a: double full-page illumination with the Basmallah and the first four words of Sūrah 15.

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

Deed of endowment (waqf) on folio 18a (to be deciphered); see same or similar note in Arabic MS 761, Arabic MS 762, Arabic MS 766, and Arabic MS 771.

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

Bequeathed by Enriqueta Rylands (1843–1908) in 1908 to 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), no. 30, revised and expanded by Zsófia Buda.

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

Manchester 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. 30 [765].

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.

Funding of Cataloguing

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