1/2825/0 (Leigh Town Hall, Wigan Council Archives: Wigan & Leigh)

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Oriental Manuscripts

Contents

Summary of Contents: This Qur'ān manuscript (muṣḥāf) bears a dated of completion in Ramaḍān 1221 AH (12 Nov.–10 Dec. 1806 CE), possibly in Ottoman-era Kurdistan. Given the small, pocket-size, lack of lavish decoration, and informal but neat hand, the unidentified scribe likely copied it for personal use. Subsequently damaged then restored, a subsequent owner copied Arabic devotional prayers on the beginning, end, and and in occasional margins in an unrelated comparatively bold hand.
Title: al-Qurʾān
Title: القران
Colophon: The colophon unusually appears on 1a
Language(s): Arabic

Physical Description

Form: codex
Support: Text of paper, handmade in Europe, with with partial watermarks evident in the gutters, and ~22 laid lines per 20 cm and ~24 mm between chain lines. Subsequently externally tinted medium sienna-brown and polished. Folios 11–12 later replaced and 148–152 repaired with comparatively thin-weight, eggshell-tinted wove paper.
Extent: 190 folios, 2 flyleaves (ff. i + 190 + i).
Dimensions (leaf): 152 × 103 mm.
Dimensions (written): 117 × 72 mm.
Foliation: Modern pencilled Arabic numerals on the upper-left corners of the a sides throughout.

Collation

Primarily a combination of triternions and quaternions throughout. Catchwords throughout most of the lower-left corners of the b sides.

Condition

Handle text with caution. In poor condition, with stains, tears, and historical repairs throughout.

Layout

1 column with seventeen lines per page. Replaced folios 11–12 with 7–13 lines per page. Ruled with a misṭarah hand guide.

Hand(s)

Minute clear black naskh script hand, with chapter headings, verse markers, and khums and ‘ashr divisions indicating every fifth and tenth line respectively in red.

Replaced folios 11–12 and restored text on 148–152 in a comparatively larger but small naskh, Ottoman-style hand.

Decoration

Verse divisions marked by small red circles.

Additions:
Marginalia: Various prayers in another hand inscribed at the beginning and end, and occasionally elsewhere in the margins.
Inscriptions: The right pastedown:
‘Presented to the Free Library
Wigan
Crawford, Rome /84.’
Bookplate: The left pastedown:
‘Presented to the Wigan Free Public Library
The Right Honourable Earl of Crawford and Balcarres, August, 1894.’

Binding

Probably close to contemporary, early 19th century binding, possibly Ottoman.

Abbreviated resewing on three recessed cords. Thin-weight wove endpapers added to the beginning and end, countermarked ‘GB’.
25 × 58 mm. .
Edges trimmed and cloth endbands adhered to the head and tail, the former now lost. Boards covered in full, artificially embossed, claret-coloured, straight-grained 'Morocco' sheepskin leather, hollow-backed, with squares along the edges and defined joints, but without a flap (Type III binding per Déroche).

Spine panels divided by foliate decorative pallete, with inverse Gothic arches at tail.

157 × 110 × 25 mm.

Handle binding with caution. In poor condition with the upper headcap broken off, right board hinged with gelatin tape, and extensive abrasion on the board exteriors.

Seal(s):

A blind-embossed seal of the Wigan Free Public Library appears on the endpapers, accessory content, and first and last folios:
33 × 25 mm.

Accompanying Material

A letter adhered on the right board interior:
‘Al-Quràn Arabic MS on paper. 12vo
written probably in Kurdistàn, or on the
frontiers of Turkey and Persia.
A note at the commencement states that
the MS was finished (by the scribe) in the
month Ramazan 1221, or about 1805.
Crawford.’

History

Origin: Possibly completed in a province of the Kurdistan, then in the Ottoman Empire; Ramaḍān 1221 AH (12 Nov.–10 Dec. 1806 CE)

Provenance and Acquisition

While the circumstances under which this volume arrived in Britain remain unclear, Alexander Lindsay, 25th Earl of Crawford and 8th Earl of Balcarres (1812–1880) possibly acquired it from an unidentified source for his Bibliotheca Lindesiana at Haigh Hall, Wigan.

Probably inherited by James Ludovic Lindsay, 26th Earl of Crawford (1847–1913), who then presented it as a gift to the Wigan Free Public Library in August, 1894.

Probably transferred to the Archives: Wigan & Leigh before 2001.

Record Sources

Bibliographical description by Jake Benson in 2025 with reference to the volumes in hand.

Availability

To book an in-person or online appointment to consult the manuscript, visit . For any other enquiries please email archives@wigan.gov.uk

Bibliography

Funding of Cataloguing

The Soudavar Memorial Foundation

Subjects

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