Bifolium from the Pink Qur’an

[0:00] [music]

Dr. Steven Zucker: [0:05] We are in the Cloisters, part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, looking at two pages from a Qur’an, which is just mind-blowingly beautiful. Specifically, it’s referred to as a “Bifolium from a Pink Qur’an.” What that means is it is one sheet of paper with four sides. A Qur’an is the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, and it is the most sacred text in Islam.

Dr. Ariel Fein: [0:27] The Qur’an is divided into 114 surahs, or chapters. There are only five lines of text per page. That means that this Qur’an in its entirety would have been a multi-volume work.

Dr. Zucker: [0:42] These pages came from a book; where is the rest of the book?

Dr. Fein: [0:45] In the 19th century, it became common for art dealers to dismantle manuscripts so that they could sell them for a higher price.

Dr. Zucker: [0:52] We think the Qur’an was disassembled so pieces could be sold separately, so that these objects could be framed and put on the collector’s wall, and so disassociated from its cultural history.

Dr. Fein: [1:04] What’s so special about this bifolium is its beautiful pink color. We see this dyed paper. It was common for luxury manuscripts to be produced in dyed papers. We see yellow paper dyed in saffron, we see chocolate-colored papers, and here, this gorgeous pink Qur’an.

Dr. Zucker: [1:27] It really does glow in the gallery, and it draws your eye onto this magnificent calligraphy.

Dr. Fein: [1:33] This Qur’an is an example of a Maghribi Qur’an, so it’s a Qur’an that was produced in the regions of the Maghreb, the Islamic West. This includes the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa — modern-day regions such as Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and Libya.

Dr. Zucker: [1:52] This was made in what is now Spain. We think either in the city of Valencia or the city of Granada.

Dr. Fein: [1:58] Since the 8th century, Muslims had lived and ruled over the majority of the Iberian Peninsula. Over the course of the 11th and 12th centuries, Christian kingdoms in the north of the Iberian Peninsula gradually waged war on these Muslim territories. By the 13th century, when this Qur’an was produced, the Kingdom of Granada was a holdout of Muslim rule on the peninsula.

Dr. Zucker: [2:26] Art historians find this significant because it’s an expression of the continued flowering of Islamic art, even in this moment of transition.

Dr. Fein: [2:34] The Arabic script that we see here is unique to the regions of the Maghreb. It’s a beautiful freehand script that’s written in a dark-brown ink.

Dr. Zucker: [2:44] The freehand nature is highly skilled. I’m looking at those long, sweeping tails. Although each individual tail seems spontaneous, they are all almost precisely alike. There is a tremendous degree of control, but it feels uncontained.

[3:02] That’s, in part, true because it’s in contrast to a series of diacritical marks that are each outlined. On the one hand, you have these smaller diacritical marks that feel precise, and then you have this much freer, open, warmer script.

Dr. Fein: [3:16] Diacritical marks are these small markings surrounding the Arabic letters that help the reader pronounce the Arabic text.

[3:27] This Maghribi script is in contrast to the scripts that we see in Qur’ans produced in the Mashriq, in the Islamic lands of the East, where Arabic script was far more regulated and the proportions of the letters were far more exact. Here, the scribe has more freedom to develop their own calligraphic style within the bounds of this Maghribi calligraphy.

[3:51] In addition to the Arabic letters, the page is adorned with medallions marking the breaks between each of the verses.

Dr. Zucker: [4:02] They’re gilded. There’s a beautiful framing device. Then, there’s an Arabic character within.

Dr. Fein: [4:07] The Arabic letters correspond to numbers, which help the reader know which verse they are on. In addition, in the top left corner, we see this ornamented teardrop-shaped medallion. This is called a sajjada mark. It indicates for the reciter when they are supposed to bow when they are reading the Qur’an.

[4:26] This beautiful calligraphy and rich gold gilding, as well as this pink-dyed paper, suggests that this originally belonged to a royal or noble patron.

Dr. Zucker: [4:39] Paper in Europe was a brand-new thing.

Dr. Fein: [4:42] Paper is often thought to have been invented in China in the second century. It was a strictly controlled secret. It took centuries before paper spread to the Islamic world.

Dr. Zucker: [4:55] It did so, we think, by way of Samarkand in Central Asia, where papermakers were captured. This technology became more widely known.

Dr. Fein: [5:04] It moved from Iraq, and Iran, and Egypt, all the way to Spain and North Africa, where paper mills were established, including, perhaps, one of the first paper mills in Spain in the town called Xàtiva. It was renowned for having produced the most magnificent paper, prized for its glossy surface.

Dr. Zucker: [5:26] And because of the quality of this paper, we believe that this was the mill that produced this paper. These pages are not only an expression of extraordinary calligraphy, but also this millennia-long trek of paper technology from China into Europe.

[5:40] [music]