MAMLUK EGYPT OR SYRIA, EARLY TO MID-14TH CENTURY

This Mamluk Qur’an features in its opening illumination a central eight-armed star-polygon in blue and gold. A comparable design can be found on a Qur'an in the National Library, Cairo (acc.no.714), dated 1332. The design of the central panel is almost identical, though the border and margins differ. The calligraphic cartouche has been written in a different script but shares the same ovoid bracketed design. It shares the same white thuluth heading design as another Qur’an in the National Library, Cairo (acc.no.8) which is signed and dated AH 757⁄1356 AD (Martin Lings, The Qur’anic Art of Calligraphy and Illumination, London, 1976, p74).

The central panel dates this as a likely precursor to the distinctive Sultan Sha’ban ‘Star Polygon Group’ Qur’ans, termed by David James (David James, Qur’ans of the Mamluks, London, 1988, p178). Our Qur’an does not have the later chinoiserie border and distinctive floral design pushing into all points of the central star polygon which would date it during the reign of Sultan Sha’ban. Furthermore, the absence of the decorated margins would suggest that this is perhaps a prototype for the ‘Star Polygon Group’.