Arabic MS 772 (The John Rylands Research Institute and Library, The University of Manchester)

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Arabic Manuscripts

Summary of Contents: The thirteenth 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 26.

Title: al-Qurʾān

Title: القران

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

1a-89a

Title: Juzʾ 26

Title: جزء 26

1a-3b

Title: Sūrat al-ʾAḥqāf

Title: سورة الاحقاف

Contains Sūrah 46:1-34. Several lacunae, e.g. between folios 1b (46:3) and 2a (46:32).

Incipit: حم تنزيل الكتاب

Explicit: العذاب بما كنتم تكفرون

4a-26a

Title: Sūrat Muḥammad

Title: سورة محمد

Contains Sūrah 47:1-38.

Incipit: الذين كفروا صدوا

Explicit: ثم لا يكونوا امثالكم

26b-50a

Title: Sūrat al-Fatḥ

Title: سورة الفتح

Contains Sūrah 48:1-29.

Incipit: بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم انا فتحنا لك فتحا مبينا

Explicit: مغفرة واجرا عظيما

51b-67b

Title: Sūrat al-Ḥujurāt

Title: سورة الحجرات

Contains Sūrah 49:1-18.

Incipit: يايها الذين ءامنوا

Explicit: بصير بما تعملون

67b-82b

Title: Sūrat Qāf

Title: سورة ق

Contains Sūrah 50:1-45.

Incipit: ق والقرءات المجيد

Explicit: يخاف وعيد

82b-89a

Title: Sūrat al-Ḏāriyāt

Title: سورة الذاريات

Contains Sūrah 51:1-30. Incomplete.

Incipit: والذاريات ذروا فالحاملات

Physical Description

Form: codex

Support: White and cream glazed paper.

Extent: 89 folios (ii+89+ii)

Dimensions (leaf): 355 × 296 mm.

Dimensions (written): 230 × 175 mm.

Foliation: Modern foliation in pencil in Western Arabic numerals.

Condition

Usage stains. Folio 1 has some old repairs and part of it is missing; loss of text.

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 46:1.

51b-52a: double-page illuminated frontispiece marking the beginning of Sūrah 49.

Folios 52b-53a: full-page illumination with the first words of Sūrah 49:1.

4a: Sūrah heading within illuminated rectangular panel.

26b: Sūrah heading within illuminated rectangular panel.

67b: Sūrah heading in gold surrounded with floral decoration in gold, red and blue.

82b: Sūrah heading in gold surrounded with floral decoration 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.

48a: the middle line is written entirely in gold: محمد رسول الله (Sūrah 48:29: 'Muhammad [is the] Messenger of God').

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. 37, 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. 37 [772].

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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