Arabic MS 77 (The John Rylands Research Institute and Library, The University of Manchester)

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Arabic Manuscripts

Summary of Contents: The fourteenth of fourteen large volumes of an illuminated Quʾranic manuscript with interlinear literal translations in Persian and Qarakhanid Turkic. The set, probably from the 15th 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-98b

Title: Juzʾ 28

Title: جزء 28

1a-16a

Title: Sūrat al-Mujādilah

Title: سورة المجادلة

Contains Sūrah 58:1-22

Incipit: قد سمع الله قول

Explicit: حزب الله الا ان حب الله هم

16b-32b

Title: Sūrat al-Ḥašr

Title: سورة الحشر

Contains Sūrah 59:1-24.

Incipit: بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم سبح لله ما في السموات

Explicit: الارض وهو العزيز الحكيم

33a-39a

Title: Sūrat al-Mumtaḥanah

Title: سورة الممتحنة

Contains Sūrah 60:1-13

Incipit: بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم يايها الذين ءامنوا لا تتخذوا

Explicit: كما يئس الكفار من اثصحاب القبور

39b-49a

Title: Sūrat al-Ṣaff

Title: سورة الصف

Contains Sūrah 61:1-

Incipit: بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم سبح لله ما في السموات

Explicit: فاصبحوا ضهرين

49a-56b

Title: Sūrat al-Jumuʿah

Title: سورة الجمعة

Contains Sūrah 62:1-11.

Incipit: بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم يسبح لله ما في السموات

Explicit: التجارة والله خير الرازقين

57a-65a

Title: Sūrat al-Munāfiqūn

Title: سورة المنافقون

Contains Sūrah 63:1-11.

Incipit: بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم اذا جال المنافقون

Explicit: خبير بما يعملون [sic]

65a-75b

Title: Sūrat al-Taghābun

Title: سورة التغابن

Contains Sūrah 64:1-18.

Incipit: بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم يسبح لله ما حي السموات

Explicit: العزيز الحكيم

75b-88a

Title: Sūrat al-Ṭalāq

Title: سورة الطلاق

Contains Sūrah 65:1-12.

Incipit: بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم يايها النبي اذا طلقتم

Explicit: احاط بكل شي علما

88a-98b

Title: Sūrat al-Taḥrīm

Title: سورة التحريم

Contains Sūrah 66:1-12. Incomplete.

Incipit: بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم يايها النبي لم تحرم ما

Explicit: ومريم ابنة عمران التي

Physical Description

Form: codex

Support: White and cream glazed paper.

Extent: 99 folios (ii+99+ii)

Dimensions (leaf): 366 × 296 mm.

Dimensions (written): 230 × 175-180 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 1a: full-page illumination with the beginning of Sūrah 58.

16b: Sūrah heading within illuminated rectangular panel.

33a: Sūrah heading within illuminated rectangular panel.

39b: Sūrah heading within illuminated rectangular panel.

49a: Sūrah heading within illuminated rectangular panel.

57a: Sūrah heading within illuminated rectangular panel.

65a: Sūrah heading within illuminated rectangular panel.

75b: Sūrah heading within illuminated rectangular panel.

88a: 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. 38, 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.

Bibliography

A. Mingana, Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts in the John Rylands Library Manchester (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1934), no. 38 [773].

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.

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