Ancienne collection d'un haut diplomate algérien, reçu en cadeau de la part d’un homologue en poste en Inde, années 1980, puis par descendance

This Qur’anic manuscript is of particular interest in that it brings together, within a single codex, decorative and calligraphic features inherited from the pre-Mughal Sultanate period in India, alongside more recent characteristics that came into fashion during the sixteenth century. It thus bears witness to the persistence of earlier practices in Indian manuscript workshops at the time of the establishment of Mughal rule. The seventeenth-century falnama appended to the manuscript provides evidence of the Qur’an’s prolonged use.

Its polychrome illumination—including the opening shamsa, followed by a double frontispiece adorned with mandorlas, as well as the ‘unwān (illuminated title panels introducing the surahs)—is characteristic of manuscripts traditionally attributed to the Sultanate period in India and produced during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. These manuscripts are distinguished in particular by a distinctive calligraphic script, probably originating in Bengal and known as ‘Bihari’, as well as by a characteristic decorative repertoire rich in vermilion red and ultramarine blue, incorporating a recurring motif of palmettes or digitated flowers. These highly distinctive floral motifs are characteristic of pre-Mughal manuscripts and may derive from the much earlier Jain book arts (Brac de la Perrière, Éloïse, Prisme indien : calligraphies et manuscrits dans l’Inde des sultanats, Brill, Handbook of Oriental Studies, 2026, p. 98).

The present Qur’an fully exemplifies this style of illumination. Its text, however, is copied in cursive thuluth and naskh scripts, the latter differing markedly from fifteenth-century Bihari examples. The thuluth used in the text—consistently for the first, middle and final lines—is executed with a certain haste, yet reveals a vigorous and distinctive local style. This is apparent, for instance, in the two occurrences of the word al-raḥīm on the opening double page. The naskh employed for the main body of the text, meanwhile, is very rarely attested before the Mughal period (op. cit., p. 51).

With the advent of the Mughal period, a new style emerged, drawing on Timurid models disseminated from Central Asia to Iran while incorporating indigenous Indian traditions. The Deccan sultanates, which also maintained close links with Iran and the Ottoman Empire, played an equally important role in this stylistic synthesis. The layout of the bifolium containing the first two surahs, with its illuminated margins, follows a Persian prototype developed in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, which remained in use until the seventeenth century. The manuscript was probably copied during the first decades of the sixteenth century, which would explain the juxtaposition of these different stylistic features. The scribe’s name, ‘Chhadu’, may suggest an origin in Gujarat or Sindh, two regions in north-western India where the production of Bihari Qur’ans is documented (op. cit., cats. 1 and 55, pp. 175 and 188). A Qur’an with similar codicological characteristics was sold at Christie’s South Kensington on 11 April 2014, lot 327.

The Qur’anic manuscript is followed by a falnama, signed Mu‘izz al-Dīn ‘Urf Chhadu (?) b. Shaykh and dated 29 Rabī‘ II 1073 AH / 11 December 1662. This short work was used in conjunction with Qur’anic reading to foretell the future of the person seeking guidance and thus belongs to the practice of bibliomancy. Written in a hand that differs slightly from that of the Qur’an, it may have been added at the beginning of Aurangzeb’s reign. This falnama attests to the magical and divinatory uses of the Qur’an, an important aspect of the Bihari manuscript tradition. It is even reported that the Mughal emperor Humayun (r. 1530–40 and 1555–56) abandoned his planned conquest of Kashmir after receiving an unfavourable omen during a divinatory session based on the Qur’an (op. cit., p. 134, citing Abu’l-Fazl’s ‘Ayn-i Akbari).