Page with illuminated calligraphy, Hadith (Sayings of the Prophet Muhammad)

Ottoman calligraphers often demonstrated their skills by writing different styles and sizes of Arabic script on rectangular sheets of paper, which were then illuminated, mounted on pasteboard with colored and marbled papers, and assembled into accordion fold albums, known as muraqqaʿ. Calligraphic panels were often written in the style of a master. In this calligraphic panel composed in the 17th century, the unnamed calligrapher wrote in the style of 15th-century calligrapher, Shaykh Hamdullâh (1436–1520), who was highly regarded for centuries for refining the "Six Pens," referring to the classical scripts: thuluth, naskh, muhaqqaq, rayhani, tawqi', and riqa'. This calligraphic panel containing Hadith, or sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, was composed using the thuluth style of script for the heading and the naskh style for the five small lines. This calligraphic panel was assembled with decorative inserts and bordered with multiple margins in a variety of colors, all of which were speckled with silver. The reverse contains marbled paper in three shades of green that match another MFA folio of Ottoman calligraphy, 29.87.