Illuminated Manuscript Koran, Walters Art Museum Ms. W.553, fol.5a

This horizontal-format manuscript on parchment is an illuminated fragment of the Qur'an, containing portions of chapters 4 (Sūrat al-nisāʾ), 6 (Sūrat al-anʿām), 7 (Sūrat al-aʿrāf), and 10 (Sūrat Yūnus). The fragment probably dates to the third century AH / ninth CE. The text is written in an Early Abbasid (Kufic) script in dark brown ink and vocalized with red and green dots. Verse markers in the shape of a stylized letter hā' and rosettes indicate groups of five and ten verses. The text is framed by later red, blue, and gold framing lines and a polychrome and gold floral border. The black blind-tooled leather binding with central lobed, pointed oval and pendants is attributable to the thirteenth century AH / nineteenth CE. See this manuscript page by page at the Walters Museum Website: art.thewalters.org/viewwoa.aspx?id=3124