Arabic MS 768 (The John Rylands Research Institute and Library, The University of Manchester)

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Arabic Manuscripts

Contents

Summary of Contents: The ninth of fourteen large volumes of an illuminated Quʿran manuscript with interlinear literal translations in Persian and Qarakhanid Turkic. The set would originally have comprised 30 volumes. This volume contains parts of Juz' 22 but with many gaps.
Title: al-Qurʾān
Title: القران
Language(s): Arabic, with interlinear translations in Persian and Qarakhanid Turkic
Title: Juzʾ 22
Title: جزء 22
1a-27b
Title: Sūrat al-ʾAḥzāb
Title: سورة الاحزاب

Contains surah 33:31-73. Several lacunae.

Incipit: وَتَعْمَلْ صَالِحًا نُّؤْتِهَا أَجْرَهَا
27b-63a
Title: Sūrat Sābaʾ
Title: سورة سبا

Contains surah 34:1-54. Several lacunae.

Folios 40b-41a: illuminated medallions.

Folios 41b-42a: First eight words of Surah 34:21 in illuminated full-borders.

63a-85b
Title: Sūrat Fāṭir
Title: سورة فاطر

Contains surah 35:1-45 (breaks off in the middle of verse 45). Several lacunae.

Incipit: بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
Explicit: من دابه ولكن يوخرهم
86a-86b
Title: Sūrat Ya Sīn
Title: سورة يس

Contains surah 36:2-6.

Incipit: لمن المرسلين علي صراط
Explicit: الكثرهم فيهم لا يومنون

Physical Description

Form: codex
Support: White and cream glazed paper.
Extent: 86 folios
Dimensions (leaf): 366 × 300 mm.

Layout

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

Hand(s)

The Arabic text is in large Naskh characters fully vowelled, perhaps of the 15th century. The Persian and Turkish translations are both written in smaller characters in the same hand.

Decoration

Divisions are marked with illuminated pages and ornaments.

History

Origin: second half of the 13th or first half of the 14th century 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).

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

Catalogue information compiled by Elizabeth Gow from Alphonse Mingana, Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts in the John Rylands Library, Manchester University Press, 1934.

Availability

To book an in-person or online appointment to consult the manuscript, visit Using the Special Collections Reading Rooms. For any other enquiries please email uml.special-collections@manchester.ac.uk.

Digital Images

Manchester Digital Collections (full digital facsimile)

Bibliography

    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 Koran 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.

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