Map of Southeast Asia showing the location of Aceh (underlying map © Google)
Aceh, in present-day Indonesia, on the northern tip of the island of Sumatra, was, by the 13th century, the site of one of the earliest Islamic kingdoms in Southeast Asia. Muslim merchants from across the Indian Ocean flocked to Aceh when the Portuguese captured the great city of Melaka on the Malay peninsula in 1511, and by the early 17th century Aceh was the most powerful sultanate in the region.
Aceh was long a hive of literary and scribal activity, with close links to scholarly circles in Mecca and Medina (the two holiest cities in Islam, today in Saudi Arabia). It was also an important port of embarkation for Hajj pilgrims from all over the archipelago, earning the sobriquet Serambi Mekah, “the verandah of Mecca.” By the late 19th century Aceh was increasingly hemmed in by European colonial expansion, and in 1873 the Dutch invaded Aceh, initiating a long conflict during which thousands of manuscripts were destroyed or captured.
Opening pages of the Qur’an, Aceh, 1820s (British Library, London, Or. 16915, folios 2 verso–3 recto)
The art of the book in Aceh
The British Library holds a beautiful Qur’an manuscript from Aceh. All the characteristic features of the “Acehnese style” of manuscript illumination can be seen in the pair of ornamental frames at the beginning of the Qur’an, with the first chapter, Surat al-Fatihah (“The Opener”), on the right-hand page, and the first verses of the second chapter, Surat al-Baqarah (“The Cow”), on the left-hand page.
Small text blocks are surrounded by decorated rectangular panels on these pages. The texts are framed with vertical forms that extend upwards and downwards with tips that slope inwards. On the three outer sides of the decorative panels are decorative triangles, with those on the outer vertical sides flanked by a pair of tendrils or “wings.” The palette is primarily red, yellow, and black, but the most important “color,” which carries the main motifs, is “reserved white,” which is not a pigment at all, but the background of the paper which has been left uncolored to pick out the design.
Illuminated letter in Malay from Sultan Iskandar Muda of Aceh to King James I of England and Scotland, 1615, MS Laud Or. Rolls b. 1. (Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford)
Despite the ravages of the Dutch war, there are probably more illuminated Qur’an manuscripts surviving today from Aceh than from any other part of the Malay world, though most date from the 19th century.
Two centuries earlier, in 1615, the greatest sultan of Aceh, Iskandar Muda, sent a letter in Malay to King James I of England. The letter is one meter high and lavishly embellished with gold and translucent colors, and is perhaps the finest known illuminated Islamic letter from anywhere in the world at the time. Yet little is known of the art of the book in Aceh in the intervening years of the late 17th and 18th centuries, or about the political, theological, and pedagogical contexts of production in this period. One important factor was probably access to the high-quality European paper, that all known Aceh Qur’ans are written on, including the one presented here, which was written on English paper watermarked “J Whatman 1819.”
Beautifying the Qur’an
Illumination in Qur’an manuscripts fulfills two main aims, the primary one being to adorn and beautify the Holy Book and hence honor the Word of God. The second is primarily functional: illumination serves to guide the reader through the text by signaling key junctures of the book through strategically positioned graphic devices, especially necessary in a book culture where pages were not traditionally numbered.
Final decorated frames at the end of the Qur’an, Aceh, 1820s (British Library, London, Or. 16915, folios 254 verso–255 recto)
The key elements of the Acehnese style of manuscript illumination can also be seen in the double frames at the end of the Qur’an. Exactly the same structural principles are adhered to: decorated panels around the text block jut upwards and downward, and are adorned on the three outer sides with triangles that now extend to trace the form of an arch or dome. The same colors of red, yellow, and black are found, and again the reserved white of the paper ground plays the dominant role in carrying the scrolling floral motifs. Aceh was famed for its gold weaponry and jewelry, but gold is never found in Acehnese Qur’an manuscripts. There are probably theological reasons for this, as the adornment of the Qur’an in precious metals has periodically been contested across the Islamic world.
The center pages marking the start of juz’ 16 (Q. 18:75), Qur’an, Aceh, 1820s (British Library, London, Or. 16915, folios 132 verso–133 recto)
A third pair of illuminated frames is found in the center of the book. The placement of the illuminated frames in the middle of a Southeast Asian Qur’an manuscript is an important indicator of its regional origin. These three similar-yet-different pairs of illuminated frames in the British Library Aceh Qur’an illustrate the basic tenets of Acehnese illumination, namely double frames faithfully constructed according to a traditionally accepted set of structural principles, filled with an infinite variety of scrolling floral and foliate motifs, realized in a palette centered on red, yellow, and black but with the primary role always accorded to the reserved white of the page itself.
Decorated frames in the middle of a Qur’an, Aceh, 19th century (Leiden University Library, Cod. Or. 2064, folios 378–79)
Similar frames can be seen in another Qur’an from Aceh, captured in 1874 and now held in the Leiden University Library. Surveying other Acehnese art forms, the closest parallels are found in wood and stone carving, where the same distinctive finials and scrollwork can be seen, and also a similar distinctive calligraphic style of overlapping letter forms .
The name Muhammad with intertwined letters, part of a calligraphic wooden panel in the Museum Aceh (photo: A.T. Gallop, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Throughout Southeast Asia, the impact of the beautiful decorated frames in Qur’an manuscripts is heightened by the fact that illumination is applied sparingly, leaving most pages essentially plain. The text is generally written in black ink, with 15 lines per page, and is enclosed by frames comprising four parallel ruled ink lines (from inside to out) of red-black-red-black. It is notable that even simple features like this can be regionally distinctive: this particular combination of red and black ruled text frames is uniquely found in Aceh, and by itself would be almost sufficient to identify the Acehnese origin of a Qur’an manuscript.
Pages showing the start of Surat al-Hijr and the beginning of juz’ 14, with the surah heading and the first line of the juz’ in red ink, Qur’an, Aceh, 1820s (British Library, Or. 16915, folios 117 verso–118 recto)
Even on the relatively plain text pages, graphic devices help the reader to navigate through the book. The Qur’an is divided into 114 chapters (called surahs), which are not organized chronologically but by length, with the exception of the first short chapter. In this manuscript all the surah headings are set in panels bordered by red-black-red ruled frames, with the surah title written in red ink, stating the number of verses it contains, and whether it was revealed by the Angel Gabriel to the Prophet Muhammad in Mecca or Medina.
Heading in red ink for Surat al-Kafirun (“The Disbelievers,” Q. 109), containing six verses, revealed in Mecca, flanking in black ink the initial words of the chapter, Bismillah al-rahman al-rahim, “In the name of God, the Merciful, the Beneficent” (detail), Qur’an, Aceh, 1820s (British Library, Or. 16915, folio 254 recto)
For readers and memorizers of the Qur’an, more important than the arrangement of the chapters is the division of the full text into thirty parts of equal length, called juz’ (plural form ajza’), which cut across the surahs. This mode of division is of particular benefit in planning the recitation of the complete Qur’an within one month. Each juz’ can also further be divided into two, four, or eight parts of equal length.
Examples of marginal ornaments marking the start of a juz’. Left to right: folios 80 rectio, 126 recto, 99 verso (details), Qur’an, Aceh, 1820s (British Library, Or. 16915)
The division of the Qur’an into juz’ and related parts can be marked in manuscripts with a variety of graphical devices, usually in a scale of complexity in proportion to the size of the portion of text signified. In the Aceh Qur’an discussed here, each new juz’ is heralded in manifold ways: an elaborate ornament is placed in the center of the vertical margin of the page; the exact starting point in the text is marked with a roundel made up of small intersecting circles; and the first line is set within in red frames, with the text written in red ink. Subdivision of a juz’ into halves (nisf), quarters (rubu‘) and eighths (thumn) is similarly indicated with a decorative medallion, albeit on a smaller scale, placed in the middle of the outer vertical margin, while the exact point of commencement of the respective part is indicated in the text with a smaller elaborate roundel.
A selection of marginal ornaments indicating subdivisions of a juz’. Top line, left to right: folios 8 verso, 25 verso, 40 recto, 72 verso; bottom line, left to right: folios 57 verso, 62 recto, 70 verso, 88 verso (details), Qur’an, Aceh, 1820s (British Library, Or. 16915)
These marginal ornaments are all composed of a standard base of a series of concentric circles in different colors, each separated with a thin band of reserved white. In the center is a pattern made up of intersecting arcs, allowing for great variation through the symmetrical coloring of different portions. The smallest unit of textual division of the Qur’an is into verses or ayah, and these are indicated in our manuscript, as in most Acehnese Qur’ans, with small black ink circles colored in yellow.
Like most Qur’an manuscripts from the Malay world, Or. 16915 has no colophon with information on the identity of the scribe or artist, or on the place of production or date, but it is written on English paper watermarked “J Whatman 1819,” suggesting that it might have been copied some time in the 1820s. It was probably brought from Aceh in the late 19th century following the Dutch invasion in 1873. This attack marked the start of the thirty-year Dutch war on Aceh, during which thousands were killed and many manuscripts destroyed while others were seized by Dutch forces or those in their employ. As a result, Qur’an manuscripts from Aceh can now be found in collections across Europe, including in Denmark, Belgium, and Austria, as well as in the Netherlands and Britain.
