Arabic MS 769 (The John Rylands Research Institute and Library, The University of Manchester)

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Arabic Manuscripts

Contents

Summary of Contents: The tenth 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 the very end of Juzʾ 22 and parts of Juzʾ 23.
Title: al-Qurʾān
Title: القران
Language(s): Arabic, with interlinear translations in Persian and Qarakhanid Turkic
Title: Juzʾ 22
Title: جزء 22
1a-1b
Title: Sūrat Yāʾ Sīn
Title: سورة يس

Contains Sūrah 36:25-27.

Incipit: بربكم فاسمعون قيل ادخل
Explicit: وجعلني من المكرمين
2a-96b
Title: Juzʾ 23
Title: جزء 23
2a-18b
Title: Sūrat Yāʾ Sīn
Title: سورة يس

Contains Sūrah 36:28-72. Several lacunae.

Incipit: من بعده من جند
Explicit: فمنها ركوبهم ومنها
19a-46a
Title: Sūrat al-Ṣāffāt
Title: سورة الصافات

Contains Sūrah 37:11-177. Several lacunae.

Incipit: فاستفتهم اهم اشد خلقا
Explicit: المرسلين والحمد لله رب العالمين
46b-76b
Title: Sūrat Ṣād
Title: سورة ص

Contains Sūrah 38:1-88. Several lacunae.

Incipit: بسم الله الرحم الرحيم
Explicit: ولتعلمن نباه بعد حين
76b-96b
Title: Sūrat al-Zumar
Title: سورة الزمر

Contains Sūrah 39:1-29. Several lacunae.

Incipit: بسم الله الرحم الرحيم
Explicit: ضرب الله مثلا رجلا فيه شركاء

Physical Description

Form: codex
Support: White and cream glazed paper.
Extent: 96 folios (ii+96+ii)
Dimensions (leaf): 360 × 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

Folio 1b: full-page illumination with the second half of Sūrah 36:27.

Folio 2a: full-page illumination with the second middle of Sūrah 36:28.

46b: Sūrah heading within illuminated rectangular panel.

76b: Sūrah heading within illuminated rectangular panel.

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. 34, revised and expanded by Zsófia Buda.

Availability

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