Qur'an, open, c.1834 (paper & leather)

Complete Qur'an (Koran). Binding: Blind-tooled and stamped dark brown leather binding with a pentagon flap. The upper cover features a central stamped, lobed, and pointed oval medallion with floral designs inside, surmounted by upper and lower bid-shaped floral motifs. A faintly tooled border of repeated wave patterns frames the front, containing a tooled pattern of three tiny circles containing small dots in each inside corner and centre of each side. Script: Small neat naskh hand, 15 lines to the page. Black ink for main text and catchwords (on bottom left of each recto page) with red rubrics and black marginal notes in a different hand and thicker pen. Page area measures14.5cm (height) by 9cm (width); text area measures 10cm (height) by 4.5cm (width). Throughout, the text is contained within gold frames with gold circles for verse/aya markers and white paint over solid gold background for sura headings. Thirtieths of the text (ajza') are marked with marginal illuminated floral medallions containing numbers. Frontispiece: On 2r-3v, containing Surat al-Fatiha (f2r) and beginning of Surat al-Baqarah (f3v) within circular medallions inside tripartite ruled frames, the whole within a densely-illuminated floral border with lobed edges surmounted by tighs. Gold illumination is now discoloured (greenish) and paint colours include pale blue/violet, mauve, orange, pale salmon pink and bright maroon. European-style paper in generally good condition. A watermark is visible 2 folios before beginnign of juz' 4. Doublures and inside of pentagon flap of blue-dyed similar paper, with first and last folios pasted to a double layer of thicker maroon-coloured card. Textblock: 14.5 cm (height); 295.4 g (weight); 9.0 cm (width).