Arabic miniatures (Arabic: ٱلْمُنَمْنَمَات ٱلْعَرَبِيَّة, Al-Munamnamāt al-ʿArabīyyah) are small paintings on paper, usually book or manuscript illustrations but also sometimes separate artworks that occupy entire pages. The earliest example dates from around 690 AD, with a flourishing of the art from between 1000 and 1200 AD in the Abbasid caliphate. The art form went through several stages of evolution while witnessing the fall and rise of several Islamic caliphates. Arab miniaturists absorbed Chinese and Persian influences brought by the Mongol destructions, and at last, got totally assimilated and subsequently disappeared due to the Ottoman occupation of the Arab world. Nearly all forms of Islamic miniatures (Persian miniatures, Ottoman miniatures and Mughal miniatures) owe their existences to Arabic miniatures, as Arab patrons were the first to demand the production of illuminated manuscripts in the Caliphate, it wasn't until the 14th century that the artistic skill reached the non-Arab regions of the Caliphate.Richard Ettinghausen, La Peinture arabe, Genève, Skira, 1977, 209 p.
Despite the considerable changes in Arabic miniature style and technique, even during their last decades, the early Umayyad Arab influence could still be noticed. Arabic miniature artists include Ismail al-Jazari, who illustrated his own Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices,al-Jazari, The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices: Kitáb fí ma'rifat al-hiyal al-handasiyya, transl. & anno. Donald R. Hill. (1973), Springer Science+Business Media. and the Abbasid artist, Yahya Al-Wasiti, who probably lived in Baghdad in the late Abbasid era (12th to 13th-centuries), was one of the pre-eminent exponents of the Baghdad school. In 1236-1237, he is known to have transcribed and illustrated the book, Maqamat (also known as the Assemblies or the Sessions), a series of anecdotes of social satire written by Al-Hariri of Basra. The narrative concerns the travels of a middle-aged man as he uses his charm and eloquence to swindle his way across the Arabic world.
With most surviving Arabic manuscripts in western museums, Arabic miniatures occupy very little space in modern Arab culture.
Origins Non-figurative ornaments in early Mus'hafs The following manuscripts are listed in a chronological order, however the date estimates of a codex may be concurrent or similar to those of other manuscripts due to the wide range of date estimates offered by radiocarbon dating:M. Stuiver & H. A. Polach, "Discussion: Reporting Of 14C Data", Radiocarbon, 1977, Volume 19, No. 3, pp. 355-363.
The Birmingham Quran manuscript is a parchment on which two leaves of an early Quranic manuscript are written. In 2015 the manuscript, which is held by the University of Birmingham, was radiocarbon dated to between 568 and 645 CE (in the Islamic calendar, between 56 BH and 25 AH). It is part of the Mingana Collection of Middle Eastern manuscripts, held by the university's Cadbury Research Library. The manuscript is written in ink on parchment, using an Arabic Hijazi script and is still clearly legible. The leaves preserve parts of Surahs 18 (Al-Kahf) to 20 (Taha). It was on display at the University of Birmingham in 2015 and then at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery until 5 August 2016. The Cadbury Research Library has carried out multispectral analysis of the manuscript and XRF analysis of the inks.
There are no diacritical marks to indicate short vowels, but consonants are occasionally differentiated with oblique dashes. The text is laid out in the format that was to become standard for complete Quran manuscripts, with chapter divisions indicated by a decorated line in the form of basic geometric shapes painted with red lead, an ancient pigment used from 300 BCE onwards, such motifs vary in color and shapes in this manuscript, in one folio, three wavy threads of orange-red colour separated by dots run parallel over the entire span of the page, In the outer margin, the three lines are interlaced to draw a highly stylized palm leaf, in another folio, the separator is covered with blackheads. The verse endings are indicated by intertextual clustered dots.
In the codex Parisino-petropolitanus, one of the oldest extant manuscripts of the Quran. With its largest part of the fragmentary manuscript being held at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, as BnF Arabe 328(ab), with 70 folia. And another 46 folia are kept in the National Library of Russia in Saint-Petersburg.
Two additional folia have been preserved, one kept in the Vatican Library (Vat. Ar. 1605/1) and the other in the Khalili Collections in London (KFQ 60), attributed to the 7th century, six oval dots ranked in three pairs also punctuate the verses. Every fifth verse is marked by a red alif surrounded by dots (rather than hollow circles like in Codex B. L. Or. 2165). The surahs are separated by a space.S. Noja Noseda, "Note Esterne In Margin Al 1° Volume Dei ‘Materiali Per Un'edizione Critica Del Corano’", Rendiconti: Classe Di Lettere E Scienze Morali E Storiche, 2000, Vol. 134, Fasc. 1, pp. 19–25. In the Codex B. L. Or. 2165, a Qur'ānic manuscript from the 1st century Hijra, with its fragments in the British Library, London (United Kingdom); Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris (France) and in Dār al–Athar al–Islāmiyyah, Kuwait city (Kuwait). Six oval dots ranked in three pairs punctuate the verses. Every tenth verse is marked by a red hollow circle surrounded by dots.W. Wright, Facsimiles Of Manuscripts And Inscriptions (Oriental Series), 1875–1883, The Palæographical Society, William Clowes and Sons, Ltd.: London, Plate LIX.Y. Dutton, "Some Notes On The British Library's 'Oldest Qur'an Manuscript' (Or. 2165)", Journal Of Qur'anic Studies, 2004, op. cit., p. 44.
Simple ornaments of the borders and openings of the surahs in the pages of the 1st century hijra Qur'ans are also found. A notable example is the TIEM ŞE 321 Mus'haf (This manuscript belongs to the Şam Evrakı ‘Papers of Syria’ collection, at the Turkish and Islamic arts Museum). The surah headings of this codex are illuminated but do not represent the text found in the pages. The decorations of this Qur'an resembles those of the Umayyad mosaics of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. It's dated to the period after 72 AH / 691–692 CE or more probably during the last quarter of the 1st (early 8th) century hijra.
The “Umayyad Codex of Fusṭāṭ” (Codex Marcel 13) of the 1st century of hijra, is a manuscript that may have been one of the mus'hafs that were sent by al-Hajjaj to many important cities including Fusṭāṭ that contained reformed orthography, it is written in the Kufic or perhaps late ḥijāzī script.
This copy was written with 25 lines to the page on folios in vertical format. The average height of the line is about 11.5 mm. With homogenous quires with five bifolios. The surah headings of this codex are illuminated but irregularly.F. Déroche, "Colonnes, Vases Et Rinceaux Sur Quelques Enluminures D'Époque Omeyyade", Comptes Rendus Des Séances / Académie Des Inscriptions & Belles-Lettres, 2004 (published 2006), pp. 227-264, esp. p. 237.
Another manuscript housed in the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum is the "Qur'an of 'Uthman", due to its colophon that attributes the scribal work of the mus'haf to 'Uthman bin' Affan, the third Rashidun caliph, however, the style of script and decorations seems to go against this claim. Therefore, it is more likely that this manuscript dates back to the second half of 1st century or first half of 2nd century hijra. The codex was restored by Dāwūd bin ʿAlī al-Kaylānī on 3 December 1437 CE.
The manuscript is written on parchment made out of gazelle skin. While the folios from the restoration of 1437 CE are made out of paper. Every tenth ayah is marked with a circular gold medallion surrounded by blue, green, and red dots.S. al-Munajjid, Dirāsāt fī Tārīkh al-Khatt al-ʿArabī Mundhu Bidayatihi ilā Nihayat al-ʿAsr al-Umawi (French Title: Etudes De Paleographie Arabe), 1972, Dār al-Kitāb al-Jadid: Beirut (Lebanon), pp. 56-57, Figs. 26 and 27.T. Altikulaç, Hz. Osman’a Nisbet Edilen Mushaf- I Şerîf (Türk ve İslâm Eserleri Müzesi Nüshası), 2007, Volumes I and II, İslam Araştırmaları Merkezi (İSAM): Istanbul (Turkey).S. Şahin, The Museum Of Turkish And Islamic Arts - Thirteen Centuries Of Glory From The Umayyads To The Ottomans, 2009, Blue Dome Press: New York (NY), p. 23, pp. 24-25.T. Altikulaç, Hz. Osman’a Nisbet Edilen Mushaf- I Şerîf (Türk ve İslâm Eserleri Müzesi Nüshası), 2007, op. cit., pp. 106-107 (Volume I, Turkish section), pp. 120-121 (Volume I, Arabic section).S. al-Munajjid, Dirāsāt fī Tārīkh al-Khatt al-ʿArabī Mundhu Bidayatihi ilā Nihayat al-ʿAsr al-Umawi (French Title: Etudes De Paleographie Arabe), 1972, op. cit., p. 55.
The Topkapı Mushaf, also called “Qur'ān Of ʿUthmān” (Topkapi Museum, Istanbul, Turkey), From 1st / 2nd Century Hijra, is traditionally attributed to Uthman Ibn Affan. But the paleographic assessment indicates that the Topkapi manuscript comes closest to those writings that date back to the 8th century. Its illuminations are similar to those found in the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus and other Umayyad monuments.
Its surahs are separated by ornamented horizontal bands. The manuscript also contains large circular rosettes, these are found after every 5 and 10 Ayahs, while rectangular shaped signs are found after every 100 verses and signs of similar shape following every 200 verses in some surahs.S. al-Munajjid, Dirāsāt fī Tārīkh al-Khatt al-ʿArabī Mundhu Bidayatihi ilā Nihayat al-ʿAsr al-Umawi (French Title: Etudes De Paleographie Arabe), 1972, Dar al-Kitab al-Jadid: Beirut (Lebanon), p. 55.
As for the “Qur'ān Of ʿUthmān” (also known as the Uthman Quran, Samarkand codex, Samarkand manuscript and Tashkent Quran) at Tashkent (Samarkand), Uzbekistan, based on orthographic and palaeographic studies, it probably dates from the 8th or 9th century.E. A. Rezvan, "On The Dating Of An “'Uthmanic Qur'an” From St. Petersburg", Manuscripta Orientalia, 2000, Volume 6, No. 3, pp. 19-22. Radio-carbon dating shows a 95.4% probability of a date between 775 and 995. However, one of the folios from another manuscript (held in the Religious Administration of Muslims in Tashkent) was dated to between 595 and 855 A.D. with a likelihood of 95%.
Written in the territory of modern Iraq in the Kufic script. Now kept in the Hast Imam library, in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.A. Shebunin, "Kuficheskii Koran Imp. SPB. Publichnoi Biblioteki", Zapiski Vostochnago Otdieleniia Imperatorskago Russkago Arkheologicheskago Obshchestva, 1891, Volume 6, pp. 69-133. Its verse endings are marked by small panels of diagonals lines; the tenth verse is marked with a square medallion illuminated in blue, green, red and manganese with a stellar design.
Emergence of Arabic miniatures
The only surviving Arabic illuminated manuscript dating from before the 11th century is the "Great Umayyad Qur'an". Found in the Great Mosque in Sana'a, ornamentation of this manuscript incorporated motifs that are very similar to those used to decorate the Dome of the Rock, the Great Mosque of Damascus and the desert castles of Umayyads. Because of this the time of production of this Qur'an has been narrowed to between 691 and 743 CE. It is the only lavishly illuminated Qur'an codex extant that can be securely placed in the Umayyad period. It's currently housed in the Dar al-Makhtutat. The manuscript includes full illustrations that take up entire pages, and also sūrah dividers and ornamental borders. One of the miniatures representing Jannah is based on a cosmogram, and, on the reverse, a mosque.
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