Arabic MS 767 (The John Rylands Research Institute and Library, The University of Manchester)

Display:

Arabic Manuscripts

Summary of Contents: The eighth 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 20.

Title: al-Qurʾān

Title: القران

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

1a-45b

Title: Juzʾ 20

Title: جزء 20

1a-3a

Title: Sūrat al-Naml

Title: سورة النمل

Contains the middle section of Sūrah 27:60 and from the second half of 27:91 to 93 (last aya of this Sūrah).

Incipit: وانزل لكم من السماء ماء

Explicit: عما يعملون

3a-44a

Title: Sūrat al-Qaṣaṣ

Title: سورة القصص

Contains Sūrah 28:1-88. Several lacunae.

Name of the Sūrah in the illuminated panel on folio 3a is سورة طسم.

44a-45b

Title: Sūrat al-ʿankabūt

Title: سورة العنكبوت

Contains Sūrah 29:1-43. Several lacunae.

Name of the Sūrah in the illuminated panel on folio 3a is سورة الم.

Physical Description

Form: codex

Support: White and cream glazed paper.

Extent: 45 folios (ii+45+ii)

Dimensions (leaf): 355 × 293 mm.

Dimensions (written): 230 × 170 mm.

Foliation: Modern foliation in pencil in Western Arabic numerals.

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

Name of the Sūrahs are in illuminated panels on folios 3a, 44a.

Folio 44b: 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

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. 32, 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. 32 [767].

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

Subjects

TO TOP