Among the thousands of Quran manuscripts that still exist today, some attract so much scholarly attention that they acquire their own names. Examples include the Codex Parisino-Petropolitanus, the Blue Quran, the Palermo Quran, the Isfahan Quran, and the Samarkand Kufic Quran (also called the Tashkent Quran or the Mushaf Uthmani).
The Khalili Collection of Islamic Art includes the world’s largest private collection of Quran manuscripts, with parts of all the manuscripts mentioned above. Together, they show how Quran manuscripts changed over more than a thousand years: from parchment to paper; from black ink to a range of colours both for decoration and for vocalisation; from austere calligraphy to more elaborate script styles.
As Wikimedian In Residence at the Khalili Foundation, I have recently been improving coverage of Quranic manuscripts. This meant creating new articles for the Isfahan Quran and Palermo Quran, adding images from the Khalili Collections to related articles, and extending the overview article on Early Quranic manuscripts.
Wikipedia’s volunteers have been fantastic, translating articles and making stylistic improvements. So far, “Palermo Quran” has been translated into Turkish and Spanish and “Isfahan Quran” into Persian and Spanish. A new translation in Slovene Wikipedia uses a Khalili Collections image to show readers the Samarkand Kufic Quran. Reviewers approved images of the Palermo Quran and Isfahan Quran for the front page of English Wikipedia, where they were each seen by millions of readers.
The latest article is a biography of a calligrapher who grew up in the city of Shiraz but moved to the Mughal court, where two emperors employed him to provide calligraphic inscriptions, including the most ambitious calligraphic art in the Islamic world: the 670 metres of Quranic inscriptions that decorate the Taj Mahal. He is known by the title Amanat Khan Shirazi (“trustworthy nobleman from Shiraz”). Of the many artists employed in creating the Taj Mahal, Amanat Khan was the only one allowed to sign his name to his work.
In retirement, Amanat Khan dedicated himself to prayer and to copying out a Quran manuscript of his own. As expected from a master calligrapher, it is visually stunning, combining coloured inks, gold, and watercolour paint. That manuscript today remains intact in the Khalili Collection of Islamic Art (QUR 614).
Much more information about these manuscripts is contained in catalogues, scholarly papers, and the collection’s website. The Wikipedia articles can only be surface-level introductions for the general public, but by being shared openly on a high-traffic website they hopefully invite readers to explore this combination of literature, art, and religious devotion.
Learn more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isfahan_Quran
