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Page from the "Blue Qur'an"
Page from the "Blue Qur'an"

Page from the "Blue Qur'an"

9th–10th century
Object Placeprobably made in North Africa, possibly Qairawan, Tunisia
Medium/TechniqueInk, color, gold and silver on indigo-stained parchment
DimensionsHeight x width: 28 × 36.6 cm (11 × 14 7/16 in.)
Credit LineSamuel Putnam Avery Fund
Accession number33.686
On View
Not on view
ClassificationsBooks and manuscripts
Description
This folio is from the “Blue Qurʾan,” among the grandest of medieval Islamic manuscripts. With its gold script on dark blue parchment, the Blue Qurʾan was an aesthetic glorification of the holy text. But it may have had other connotations. Its rich colors emulated—and perhaps competed with—imperial Byzantine manuscripts of the Bible written in gold and silver on purple or blue parchment. And the gold perhaps symbolized the light of the holy text shining through darkness and illuminating the infinite.

 

More gold was originally visible on the pages of this Qurʾan than we can now see. Beneath the now-tarnished silver medallion in the margin, which may have been added during a medieval refurbishment, is an original gold element. Some traces of red, and occasionally green, pigment remain. Just why the gold was covered up is unknown.

InscriptionsRecto - Sura 3 [al-Imran, "The House of Imran"], vv. 47-50 Verso - Sura 3 [al-Imran, "The House of Imran"], vv. 50-55 The text on the recto side of this page, translated below, is from Chapter 3, "The House of Imran," verses 47-50. It is part of the angel's annunciation to Mary of the birth of the prophet Jesus: "God creates what He will. When He decrees a thing He does but say to it, "Be," and it is. And He will teach him the book, the Wisdom, the Torah, the Gospel, to be a Messenger to the Children of Israel saying, "I have come to you with a sign from your Lord. I will create for you out of clay as the likeness of a bird; then I will breathe into it, and it will be a bird by the leave of God. I will also heal the blind and the leper, and bring to life the dead, by the leave of God. I will inform you too of what things you eat, and what you treasure up in your houses. Surely in that is a sign for you, if you are believers. Likewise confirming the truth of the Torah that is before me..."Provenance1931, purchased at the Exhibition of Persian Art [1] by the MFA for $85. (Accession Date: December 22, 1933)

NOTES
[1] Possibly the 1931 International Exhibition of Persian Art organized by the Royal Academy at Burlington House, London.