Kashmiri Quran
Kashmir, North India, 18th century
Ink, gold, and lapis lazuli on paper with lacquer covers
A6098
Further images
This single volume Qur'an is copied in naskh script with 17 lines per page, in black ink within gold cloud-like cartouches. Sura headings are written in blue ink within a gold cartouche, while verses are separated by gold discs. Other textual divisions are outside the margins of the text: the rukū or thematic paragraphs are indicated by a red 'ayn within a boteh motif.
There are several richly-illuminated double page spreads featuring gold arabesques on a lapis lazuli blue ground, with red and blue roses surrounding 8 lines of text. This type of illumination is typical of 18th-century Kashmiri manuscripts, such as those in the Khalili Collection (object no. QUR396), the Morgan Library, New York (MS G.69), and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2009.294).
This manuscript is an example of production attributed to the province of Kashmir in northern India. The arts of the book – especially papermaking and bookbinding – are said to have emerged in this region during the reign of Sultan Zayn al-ʿAbidin (1420-1470), but it was mainly from the 18th century onwards that a dynamic manuscript tradition developed. The French traveller Victor Jacquemont, who travelled to Kashmir in 1831, recalled that there were around 700 to 800 copyists, transcribing the Qur’an or the Shahnameh and working to order. Their manuscripts were traded in the region and beyond. In the late 1740s, the transfer of power from Mughal to Afghan Durrani rule in the province of Kashmir had an impact on manuscript production, and the quality declined.
It is extremely hard to rely on material evidence to reconstruct the history of manuscript production during this turbulent period. Kashmiri manuscripts almost never include colophons giving the date and place of copying. A few rare exceptions, including a Qur’an now in the Gulistan Library in Tehran, has a colophon which states that the volume was copied in Kashmir in 1173 AH / 1759-60 CE. Thanks to these few exceptions, we may assume that high-quality Kashmiri Qur’ans, like the present example, were made in the 18th century.
There are several richly-illuminated double page spreads featuring gold arabesques on a lapis lazuli blue ground, with red and blue roses surrounding 8 lines of text. This type of illumination is typical of 18th-century Kashmiri manuscripts, such as those in the Khalili Collection (object no. QUR396), the Morgan Library, New York (MS G.69), and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2009.294).
This manuscript is an example of production attributed to the province of Kashmir in northern India. The arts of the book – especially papermaking and bookbinding – are said to have emerged in this region during the reign of Sultan Zayn al-ʿAbidin (1420-1470), but it was mainly from the 18th century onwards that a dynamic manuscript tradition developed. The French traveller Victor Jacquemont, who travelled to Kashmir in 1831, recalled that there were around 700 to 800 copyists, transcribing the Qur’an or the Shahnameh and working to order. Their manuscripts were traded in the region and beyond. In the late 1740s, the transfer of power from Mughal to Afghan Durrani rule in the province of Kashmir had an impact on manuscript production, and the quality declined.
It is extremely hard to rely on material evidence to reconstruct the history of manuscript production during this turbulent period. Kashmiri manuscripts almost never include colophons giving the date and place of copying. A few rare exceptions, including a Qur’an now in the Gulistan Library in Tehran, has a colophon which states that the volume was copied in Kashmir in 1173 AH / 1759-60 CE. Thanks to these few exceptions, we may assume that high-quality Kashmiri Qur’ans, like the present example, were made in the 18th century.
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