Arabic Manuscript Of Koran
date: label: Accession Date
content: 25 Nov 1904
name: label: Donor Name
content: Dr. Lt. Col. Edgar A. Mearns
notes: label: Notes
content: Identified by Annabel Gallop, The British Library: Qur'an, lacking beginning, complete at end. Cream European paper; bound in quires, binding threads visible. Remnants of the brown leather cover still present at the front, but not at the back. Text in black ink, in a steady hand with a slight slope to the left; 15 lines per page; text frames of 2, 3 or 4 ruled black lines, unusually these are hatched at the junctures. Surah headings are in red ink and sometimes flank or are flanked by the final words of the preceding surah; the headings are not set in ruled frames. The ends and beginnings of surahs are marked in the text with composite roundels made up of 3 or 4 intersecting circles, partially coloured in red. Verse markers are black circles which are either coloured in with red or yellow, or left plain. Juz' are marked in margin with petalled concentric roundels in red and ochre, inscribed in the middle with the number of the juz', with the first lines of the text highlighted in bold. The final two pairs of double pages are quite elaborate in their presentation and decoration. The penultimate double-page spread contains S. al-Kautsar (Q.108) through to S. al-Ikhlas (Q.112). Here the text frames are of 4 ruled black lines arranged as two pairs of two, and the surah headings are set within rectangular frames of two ruled black lines. The basmalah at the start of each of the five surahs is treated ever more elaborately, initially by thickening the sin-mim ligature of bism in S. al-Nasr (Q.110), then by shadowing all the letter forms with a foliate fronds in S. al-Lahab (Q.111), and finally in S. al-Ikhlas by additionally outlining the letters in red. The text of this surah is also written in bold and in very large letters, presumably in a belated attempt by the scribe to fill up the space on this page. But even so, only the first two-thirds of the left-hand page is filled with text, and so the bottom third is occupied by a decorative filler, in the form of three triangular arches enclosing foliate scroll motifs, sandwiched between two multi-layered horizontal frames with geometrical patterns, coloured in red, black and reserved white. The final double-page spread contains S. al-Falaq on the right and S. al-Nas on the left, each set within elaborate— but different—frames, again with a palette of red, black and reserved white. On the right-hand page, the text block is surrounded by a series of frames, with triangular arches on all four sides, and with multi-layered frames on the vertical sides extended upwards and downwards. The outer edges of both the vertical and horizontal frames are decorated with a series of finials and semicircles. On the final, left-hand page, the text block is surrounded by an elaborate frame edges with decorative finials, the whole of which is enclosed within a further series of frames. The four triangular arches found on the right-hand page, are on this page balanced by four large demicircles, each flanked by two smaller semicircles. The verso of this folio, which constitutes the back page of the manuscript, bears a few jotted notes and prayers. References: Gallop, Annabel Teh. "Islamic Manuscripts from the Philippines in U.S. Collections: a preliminary listing, including two printed Qur'ans." Our Own Voice Literary Ezine: Filipinos in the Diaspora (April 2011): n. pag. Web. Retrieved from http://www.oovrag.com/bibliography/bibliography13.shtml . Gallop, Annabel Teh. "Qur'an Manuscripts from Mindanao in U.S. Collections." Our Own Voice Literary Ezine: Filipinos in the Diaspora (April 2011): n. pag. Web. Retrieved from http://www.oovrag.com/essays/essay2011a-1.shtml . Gallop, Annabel Teh (2021): Qur'an manuscripts from Mindanao: collecting histories, art and materiality, South East Asia Research, https://doi.org/10.1080/0967828X.2021.1895674
label: Record Last Modified
content: 19 Apr 2021
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Philippines
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Moro
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 043557
label: USNM Number
content: E232848B-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Koran
physicalDescription: label: Width - Object
content: 20 cm
label: Length - Object
content: 28 cm