Uzbelistan: Section of a leaf from the largest Qur'an ever known, Muhaqqaq Script, Samarkand, c.1405.

Fragment of a leaf from the great Qur'an of Samarkand. These two lines are a fragment of a leaf from the largest known Koran ever made. Each leaf had seven lines, and the leaf would have measured 222 × 155 cm untrimmed. The Koran was copied by Umar Aqta for the world conqueror Timur (Tamerlane) in his capital of Samarkand. Transcribing a Qur'an in this format must have demanded enormous concentration of the calligrapher, and the exactitude and elegance with which the gigantic script - Jalil Muhaqqaq - was written make it a masterpiece in its genre. The point of the reed pen must have measured c. 1 cm, and making the large sheets of paper must have been a technological accomplishment in itself.