Page from a Qur'an (Primary Title)
Unknown (Artist)
Muslims believe that the contents of Islam’s holy book, the Qur’an, were revealed by God—through the archangel Gabriel—to the Prophet Muhammad. Literally the word of God made visible, the text’s transcription has always been accorded great reverence and frequently benefitted from substantial patronage and artistic skill. Calligraphy’s central place in the arts of the Islamic world is, thus, entwined with its cultures’ foundational text. While the language of the Qur’an always remained Arabic, as it was revealed, the scripts in which it was written changed over time and place. Until the later tenth century, most Qur’ans were written in the angular Kufic script, with short, thick vertical strokes and long extended horizontals that lend it a measured formality. This folio’s fifteen lines of Kufic, written with a broad-nibbed reed pen, are visually punctuated with red dots, diacritical marks that add a decorative element to the composition.
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