This bound manuscript is one part (known as a "juz'") of a thirty-part Qur'an. Another section, juz' 13, is held by the MFA (29.58) and other known sections can be found in the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin and the Ethnography Museum in Ankara. The calligrapher of this thirty-volume Qur'an was probably not a professional scribe, though he clearly had great skill. In the inscriptions ending each volume he repeatedly tells us his age (77) and gives his name, which includes the phrase al-Qadi or “judge” in Arabic. He relates that he copied out this Qurʾan in Maragha, a city in the hills of northwestern Iran. Perhaps he lived there and worked as a judge.

So much personal information, which is quite unusual in an inscription like this, may be a clue that the manuscript was undertaken by and for the calligrapher himself. If it was indeed undertaken for his own reasons and for his private use, he must have been a man of considerable means. The high quality of the illumination (the painted decoration on headings and in margins) indicates that he employed a skilled artist to work with him. Perhaps it was reaching his late seventies and contemplating his mortality that spurred him to undertake this elaborate and expensive pious endeavor.

---