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

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 exercises were often made in the style of a particular master. This calligraphic panel dates from the late 14th-15th century and is in the style of the famous calligrapher, Yāqūt al-Musta‘ṣimī (d.1298), who lived in Baghdad and survived the fall of the city to the Mongols in 1258. Yāqūt is most well-known for perfecting the "proportioned script," in which letters are measured using a system of dots and circles. This folio of calligraphy containing Hadith, or sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, was composed using the muhaqqaq style for the large script and  the rayhani style for the smaller lines. To make the verse markers, an illuminator used gold to paint pinwheel medallions and ornamented them with blued and red dots. The bordering margins are gold and the papers are speckled with gold leaf.