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Timurid Quran Manuscript
The Timurid Quran manuscript, also known as the Aqquyunlu Quran manuscript, is a 15th-century Timurid Quranic manuscript written on paper produced in the Ming dynasty. On 25 June 2020, it was sold at auction by Christie's for £7,016,250, surpassing its estimated value more than twelve-fold and rendering it the most expensive Quranic manuscript ever sold at the time. Description The manuscript consists of 534 folios, sized 22.6 x 15.5cm, largely comprising dyed, gold-flecked paper manufactured in Ming China. Infused with lead white, the paper is described as having a soft and silk-like texture. It is variously coloured pink, purple, cream, orange, blue and turquoise, with some pages containing depictions of landscapes, flora and birds. The Arabic is written using '' naskh'' script, with '' thuluth'' script used for titling surah A ''surah'' (; ; ) is an Arabic word meaning 'chapter' in the Quran. There are 114 ''suwar'' in the Quran, each divided into ayah, verses (). T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Naskh (script)
Naskh is a small, round script of Islamic calligraphy. Naskh is one of the first scripts of Islamic calligraphy to develop, commonly used in writing administrative documents and for transcribing books, including the Qur’an, because of its easy legibility. Origin The Naskh style of writing can be found as early as within the first century of the Islamic calendar. The Naskh script was established in the first century of the Hijri calendar by order of Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan due to the presence of defects in the Kufic script. Two centuries before it was recorded by Ibn Muqla Like Al-Muwatta written by Malik ibn Anas in a soft, rounded script Ibn Muqla is credited with standardizing the "Six Pens" of Islamic calligraphy, also including , , , , and . These are known as "the proportioned scripts" () or "the six scripts" (). Kufic is commonly believed to predate naskh, but historians have traced the two scripts as coexisting long before their codification by Ibn Muqla, as the tw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thuluth
''Thuluth'' (, ' or , '; , ''Sols''; Turkish: ''Sülüs'', from ' "one-third") is an Arabic script variety of Islamic calligraphy. The straight angular forms of Kufic were replaced in the new script by curved and oblique lines. In ''Thuluth'', one-third of each letter slopes, from which the name (meaning "a third" in Arabic) comes. An alternative theory to the meaning is that the smallest width of the letter is one third of its widest part. It is an elegant, cursive script, used in medieval times on mosque decorations. Various calligraphic styles evolved from ''Thuluth'' through slight changes of form. History The greatest contributions to the evolution of the ''Thuluth'' script occurred in the Ottoman Empire in three successive steps that Ottoman art historians call "calligraphical revolutions": *The first revolution occurred in the 15th century and was initiated by the master calligrapher Sheikh Hamdullah. *The second revolution resulted from the work of the Ottoman calligr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arabic
Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns language codes to 32 varieties of Arabic, including its standard form of Literary Arabic, known as Modern Standard Arabic, which is derived from Classical Arabic. This distinction exists primarily among Western linguists; Arabic speakers themselves generally do not distinguish between Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic, but rather refer to both as ( "the eloquent Arabic") or simply ' (). Arabic is the List of languages by the number of countries in which they are recognized as an official language, third most widespread official language after English and French, one of six official languages of the United Nations, and the Sacred language, liturgical language of Islam. Arabic is widely taught in schools and universities around the wo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the northeast, Afghanistan to the east, Pakistan to the southeast, and the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf to the south. With a Ethnicities in Iran, multi-ethnic population of over 92 million in an area of , Iran ranks 17th globally in both List of countries and dependencies by area, geographic size and List of countries and dependencies by population, population. It is the List of Asian countries by area, sixth-largest country entirely in Asia and one of the world's List of mountains in Iran, most mountainous countries. Officially an Islamic republic, Iran is divided into Regions of Iran, five regions with Provinces of Iran, 31 provinces. Tehran is the nation's Capital city, capital, List of cities in Iran by province, largest city and financial ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Timurid Empire
The Timurid Empire was a late medieval, culturally Persianate, Turco-Mongol empire that dominated Greater Iran in the early 15th century, comprising modern-day Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, much of Central Asia, the South Caucasus, and parts of contemporary Pakistan, North India, and Turkey. The empire was culturally hybrid, combining Turkic, Mongolic, and Persian influences, with the last members of the dynasty being regarded as "ideal Perso-Islamic rulers". The empire was founded by Timur (also known as Tamerlane), a warlord of Turco-Mongol lineage, who established the empire between 1370 and his death in 1405. He envisioned himself as the great restorer of the Mongol Empire of Genghis Khan, regarded himself as Genghis's heir, and associated closely with the Borjigin. Timur continued vigorous trade relations with Ming China and the Golden Horde, with Chinese diplomats like Ma Huan and Chen Cheng regularly traveling west to Samarkand to buy and sell goods. The empire led ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ming Dynasty
The Ming dynasty, officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming was the last imperial dynasty of China ruled by the Han people, the majority ethnic group in China. Although the primary capital of Beijing fell in 1644 to a rebellion led by Li Zicheng (who established the short-lived Shun dynasty), numerous rump state, rump regimes ruled by remnants of the House of Zhu, Ming imperial family, collectively called the Southern Ming, survived until 1662. The Ming dynasty's founder, the Hongwu Emperor (1368–1398), attempted to create a society of self-sufficient rural communities ordered in a rigid, immobile system that would guarantee and support a permanent class of soldiers for his dynasty: the empire's standing army exceeded one million troops and the naval history of China, navy's dockyards in Nanjing were the largest in the world. H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christie's
Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie (auctioneer), James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, and it has additional salerooms in New York, Paris, Hong Kong, Milan, Geneva, Shanghai, and Dubai. It is owned by Groupe Artémis, the holding company of François Pinault. In 2022 Christie's sold US$8.4 billion in art and luxury goods, an all-time high for any auction house. On 15 November 2017, the ''Salvator Mundi (Leonardo), Salvator Mundi'' was sold at Christie's in New York for $450 million to Saudi Prince Badr bin Abdullah Al Saud, List of most expensive paintings, the highest price ever paid for a painting. History Founding The official company literature states that founder James Christie (auctioneer), James Christie (1730–1803) conducted the first sale in London on 5 December 1766, and the earliest auction catalogue the company retains is from December 1766. However, other sources note that James Chri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lead White
Lead white is a thick, opaque, and heavy white pigment composed primarily of basic lead carbonate, , with a crystalline molecular structure. It was the most widely produced and used white pigment in different parts of the world from antiquity until the nineteenth century, when it was displaced by zinc white and later by titanium white. Lead white has maintained relatively consistent production methods across times and regions, yet it has a wide range of applications in different contexts, such as home decoration, art production, and cosmetics. Given its affordability and distinctive visual qualities, lead white was particularly favored and generously used by artists in their paintings. However, most art supply companies now explicitly advise against the use of lead white because of the risk that it poses of lead poisoning. Even after this drawback was known, it continued to be used in paintings and cosmetics. Production methods As one of the oldest synthetically produced pigmen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thuluth
''Thuluth'' (, ' or , '; , ''Sols''; Turkish: ''Sülüs'', from ' "one-third") is an Arabic script variety of Islamic calligraphy. The straight angular forms of Kufic were replaced in the new script by curved and oblique lines. In ''Thuluth'', one-third of each letter slopes, from which the name (meaning "a third" in Arabic) comes. An alternative theory to the meaning is that the smallest width of the letter is one third of its widest part. It is an elegant, cursive script, used in medieval times on mosque decorations. Various calligraphic styles evolved from ''Thuluth'' through slight changes of form. History The greatest contributions to the evolution of the ''Thuluth'' script occurred in the Ottoman Empire in three successive steps that Ottoman art historians call "calligraphical revolutions": *The first revolution occurred in the 15th century and was initiated by the master calligrapher Sheikh Hamdullah. *The second revolution resulted from the work of the Ottoman calligr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Surah
A ''surah'' (; ; ) is an Arabic word meaning 'chapter' in the Quran. There are 114 ''suwar'' in the Quran, each divided into ayah, verses (). The ''suwar'' are of unequal length; the shortest ''surah'' (al-Kawthar) has only three verses, while the longest (al-Baqara, al-Baqarah) contains 286 verses.Muhammad Mustafa Al-A'zami (2003), ''The History of The Qur'anic Text: From Revelation to Compilation: A Comparative Study with the Old and New Testaments'', p.70. UK Islamic Academy. . The Qur'an consists of one short introductory chapter (Q1), eight very long chapters, making up one-third of the Qur'an (Al-Baqara, Q2‒At-Tawbah, 9); 19 mid-length chapters, making up another one-third (Q10‒28); and 86 short and very short ones of the last one-third (Q29‒114). Of the 114 ''suwar'' in the Quran, 86 are classified as Meccan surah, Meccan (), as according to Islamic tradition they were revealed before Muhammad's migration to Medina (''hijrah''), while 28 are Medinan surah, Medinan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Juz'
A ''juzʼ'' (Arabic: ; : , ''ajzāʼ''; ) is one of thirty parts of varying lengths into which the Quran is divided. It is also known as parah ( Persian: ) in Iran and subsequently the Indian subcontinent. There are 30 ''ajzāʼ'' in the Quran, also known as – ''sipārah'' ("thirty parts"; in Persian ''si'' means 30). During medieval times, when it was too costly for most Muslims to purchase a manuscript, copies of the Qurʼān were kept in mosques and made accessible to people; these copies frequently took the form of a series of thirty parts (''juzʼ''). Some use these divisions to facilitate recitation of the Qurʼān in a month—such as during the Islamic month of Ramadan, when the entire Qurʼān is recited in the '' Tarawih'' prayers, typically at the rate of one ''juzʼ'' a night. Subdivisions Most Juz' are named after the first word of the first verse of the Juz'. Each Juz' is divided into two ''Hizb'' (lit. "two groups", plural: Aḥzāb). Therefore, there are 60 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quranic Manuscripts
The Quran, also Romanization, romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a Waḥy, revelation directly from God in Islam, God (''Allah, Allāh''). It is organized in 114 chapters (, ) which consist of individual verses ('). Besides its religious significance, it is widely regarded as the finest work in Arabic literature, and has significantly influenced the Arabic, Arabic language. It is the object of a modern field of academic research known as Quranic studies. Muslims believe the Quran was orally revealed by God to the final Islamic Prophets and messengers in Islam, prophet Muhammad in Islam, Muhammad through the Angel#Islam, angel Gabriel#Islam, Gabriel incrementally over a period of some 23 years, beginning on the Night of Power, Laylat al-Qadr, when Muhammad was 40, and concluding in 632, the year of his death. Muslims regard the Quran as Muhammad's most important Islamic view of miracles, miracle, a proof of his prophet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
