Marinid Qur’ans

One of the most splendid surviving Maghribi Qur’ans. It was in twelve volumes of five ḥizbs each, of which only the first and the last survive. At the end of the last volume is a colophon in gold in a decorated frame, giving the date of completion and stating that it was written for the sultan’s library.

The text is in Maghribi mabsūṭ in black ink, seven lines to the page, with the vocalisation in colour. The sura headings are in gilded Kufic, each with a round ornament in the margin beside it. The phrase «لا إله إلا هو», “there is no god but He”, is written in gold wherever it occurs in the text, and the Qur’an has gilded opening and closing pages.

A dated Maghribi Qur’an from the reign of Sultan Abu Saʿid ʿUthman. It was not written for a sultan but for a notable whom the colophon names with his lineage. It is in Maghribi script on parchment, and its gilded decoration brings out the divisions of the text.

The museum has not published a detailed description saying whether the Qur’an is complete or one volume of a set, or how many lines it has. Images are on the museum’s website; it is not fully digitised.

It is called “the Maghribi rabʿa” because its thirty volumes are kept in a square box of ebony inlaid with silver, divided inside into compartments. The text is in Maghribi mabsūṭ, in a carbon ink mixed with saffron and musk. The sura headings and endings are in plain, foliated and interlaced Kufic, and at the end of each volume is the endowment text in seven lines of gilded Kufic within a gilded frame.

Volumes 5, 10, 16, 18 and 26 were lost long ago and were replaced in 1221 AH (1806 CE) in the hand of a Maghribi, al-Hajj Mubarak b. ʿAbd al-Rahman, called “al-Maliki” in some sources and “al-Mashunshi” by Khabta. Volume 30 (from Surat al-Nabaʾ to Surat al-Nas) was stolen from the museum in 1931–1932, most likely taken to Egypt. The founder stipulated that it be read every day after sunrise, by a reader who knew the Qur’an by heart and was of good character.

The verse separators are gilded roundels with the word «آية», “verse”, in their centre, ringed by three circles with small red and green circles alternating between them, on the model of the separators in the rabʿa of his father Abu Saʿid. Fifth and tenth verses, ḥizbs and the divisions for Ramadan have gilded markers in the margin, each of its own shape. The sura headings are in Kufic on a blue foliate ground, or in Maghribi thuluth on a ground of gilded spiral scrolls, and the volumes end with «صدق الله العظيم ورسوله الكريم», “God Almighty and His noble Messenger have spoken the truth”, in Maghribi thuluth in a gilded frame.

Ibn Marzuq records in his Musnad that Abu al-Hasan copied other Qur’ans in his own hand: for the ribāṭ of Chella, for the Prophet’s Mosque and for the Sacred Mosque. The al-Aqsa rabʿa is the only one of them that survives.

Not digitised for the public. Its images are published in Khader Salameh’s catalogue of the Qur’ans in the Islamic Museum (2001) and in an illustrated report by Al Jazeera Net (2020). The two images here are reproduced from Dr Mohamed Abdelhafid Khabta’s course, at low resolution.

A rare leaf whose letters are written in gold and vocalised in colour: vowels in red, sukūn as blue circles, shadda in blue, waṣla as a green dot and hamza as a yellow dot. The verse separators are gilded rosettes with lapis blue at their centre.

Mohamed Abdelhafid Khabta’s thesis (2011, p. 188, fig. 43) reproduces a page from Surat Yunus (61–64) in the same style, captioned “two pages of a Qur’an written in liquid gold in 700 AH in the reign of Abu Yaʿqub Yusuf the Marinid”, with a reference to the Metropolitan as 37.21; many Arabic websites repeat it. But the museum’s leaf 37.21 is from Surat al-Nisaʾ, not Surat Yunus, so the Yunus page is another leaf whose whereabouts we have not found. The museum dates leaf 37.21 to about 1250–1300 CE, mentions neither the year 700 AH nor Abu Yaʿqub, and the leaf has no colophon.

Undated, and neither its copyist nor its owner is known. The date of 700 AH and the attribution to Abu Yaʿqub Yusuf have no support in the museum record, whose estimate could fit the end of the Almohad period as well as the beginning of the Marinid.

Mentioned by Mohamed Abdelhafid Khabta in his thesis (2011), who published an image of its modern binding. Its date falls in the first year of the reign of Sultan Abu Yaʿqub Yusuf.

Dated, but nothing has been published on its copyist, its owner or its place of copying.

A complete Qur’an in one volume, written in the year Abu Yaʿqub Yusuf sent his rabʿa to Mecca. Its opening and closing pages are a geometric lattice around an eight-pointed star, drawn in white lines on a ground of gilded arabesque. The verse separators are three gilded dots.

The date is explicit and the Qur’an complete, but its colophon names neither copyist nor owner. Its place of copying is uncertain: it may come from Nasrid Granada rather than Marinid Morocco. We include it for comparison.

It was probably written and illuminated in Fez. It later left the royal library and was endowed to an unknown mosque, and the margins of its leaves were pricked with a needle to spell the word «حبس», “endowed”: a Marinid way of recording an endowment that is harder to erase than a note in ink.

Its two colophons name the owner of the library but are undated, so its date is known only within the span of his reign.

A complete Qur’an in one volume, opening and closing with three gilded double pages, with the start of each quarter marked by a gilded page. The sura headings are single lines of gilded Kufic.

The date is explicit and the copyist known, but the collection does not say in which state it was copied. In 727 AH North Africa was divided between the Marinids, the ʿAbd al-Wadids and the Hafsids.

The clearest digitised example of how Marinid Qur’ans were vocalised in colour: vowels in red, shadda and sukūn in blue, hamza as an orange dot and waṣla as a green dot. Every fifth verse is marked by a gilded Kufic hāʾ, with the word «خمس», “five”, in the margin; every tenth by a roundel with the word «عشر», “ten”, in gold on a red ground. At the beginning and end are geometric panels centred on an eight-pointed star.

The Qur’an is undated and names no copyist. It is attributed to the reign of Abu ʿInan only because of its endowment.