Wattasid Qur’ans (876–961 AH)

Overview

What do we know?

This guide lists 2 Qur’ans in three groups: those that survive and meet the criteria, those recorded in the sources and since lost, and those on the edge of the criteria.

surviving Qur’ans meeting the criteria

Qur’ans recorded in the sources, with no known trace today

Qur’ans on the edge of the criteria, included for comparison

Qur’ans whose surviving parts can be browsed in full at the source

Criteria

A Qur’an enters the first list when three things hold:

The date of copying is stated explicitly in its colophon or endowment deed, not inferred from its style.
Its owner is known: the copyist, if named, or the person for whom or for whose library it was made.
It was demonstrably copied in the Wattasid lands, that is, Fez and its region.

The Wattasids ruled Fez as sultans from 876 AH / 1472 CE to 961 AH / 1554 CE; for about half a century before that they had been viziers and regents of the Marinids, and the Qur’ans of those years are on the Marinid page. The Saadians rose in the Sous in 916 AH / 1510 CE and entered Marrakesh in 931 AH / 1525 CE, so the south became theirs, and their Qur’ans are on the Saadian page.

What the badges mean

Each card carries three badges: does the Qur’an survive? Is it complete? Can it be browsed online?

SurvivesLostCompleteIncompleteFully digitisedPartial imagesNot digitisedUnknown

Sample	Qur’an	Date	State	Completeness	Digitisation	Where today	Browse
On the edge of the criteria
	The Green Qur’an (Rabat)More about it →	Undated, ninth century AH fifteenth century CE	Survives	Completeness unknown	Not digitised	Rabat	—
—	The Qarawiyyin Qur’an 879More about it →	Endowed in 949 AH 1542–1543 CE	Survives	Completeness unknown	Not digitised	Fez	—

Timeline

Qur’ans in the reigns of the sultans

The bars are the reigns of the main rulers and the markers are the Qur’ans. A filled marker is a surviving Qur’an, a hollow one a lost Qur’an, and a horizontal line the span within which an undated Qur’an falls.

Click a marker to jump to its card. On a phone, swipe the timeline sideways.

The Qur’ans

Cards and samples

The samples are close-ups of the writing itself, not of the illumination or the opening pages. Click a sample to enlarge it; you can zoom and pan, and follow a link to the full page at the library that holds the manuscript.

On the edge of the criteria 2

The Green Qur’an

Undated, ninth century AH · fifteenth century CE

Page of this Qur’an →

SurvivesCompleteness unknownNot digitised

Today: Rabat, National Library, no. 1304
Format: Paper dyed entirely green, so that none of the natural colour of the paper shows; writing in silver; modern binding
Attribution: To the Wattasid period, in the “Discover Islamic Art” database of Museum With No Frontiers (MWNF) and by Khabta

One of the few Maghribi Qur’ans written on paper coloured throughout. Mohamed Abdelhafid Khabta sees it as a witness to the level reached in this period in making and dyeing paper and preparing inks, and pairs it with two other Qur’ans on coloured paper: Qarawiyyin 5 and Arabe 389 in Paris.

Undated, and neither its copyist nor its owner is known. Its attribution to the Wattasid period rests on its style.

Close-ups of the script (1)Click to enlarge →

**A page of the Green Qur’an** · National Library, Rabat, 1304, after Khabta, fig. 52 · *AI-enhanced*

A Qur’an endowed in Fez in 949 AH

Endowed in 949 AH · 1542–1543 CE

In the reign of Ahmad al-Wattasi

Page of this Qur’an →

SurvivesCompleteness unknownNot digitised

Endowment: In Fez in 949 AH, in the reign of Sultan Ahmad al-Wattasi
Today: Fez, Qarawiyyin Library, ms. 879

Umberto Bongianino and Éléonore Cellard mention it in their study of the Pink Qur’an (2025), comparing its script and illumination with the leaves used to restore the Pink Qur’an in Marrakesh in the Saadian period. For them it is a witness to Qur’an making in Fez in the mid-tenth century AH.

What is known is the date of its endowment, not of its copying, and the sources available to us name neither its copyist nor the person who endowed it.

Bongianino & Cellard (2025), note 78

Sources

References and image rights

Every statement on the cards comes from one of these sources.

Umberto Bongianino & Éléonore Cellard, “The Pink Qurʾan: A Reverse Biography”, 2025, note 78: the Qarawiyyin Qur’an 879.
Mohammed al-Manuni, “Markaz al-mushaf al-sharif bi-l-Maghrib” (The place of the Qur’an in Morocco), Daʿwat al-Haqq 105 (1968): the pausal system of al-Habti.
Mohamed Abdelhafid Khabta, al-Khatt al-maghribi wa-asnafuhu fi l-masahif al-makhtuta (Maghribi script and its varieties in manuscript Qur’ans, doctoral thesis, 2010–2011): the Green Qur’an.
Museum With No Frontiers, “Discover Islamic Art” database: the Green Qur’an, National Library, Rabat, 1304.

Limits of this guide

In the published studies available to us we found no Wattasid Qur’an that names its copyist, its date and its place together. The Qarawiyyin Library, the National Library and the Royal Library most likely hold Qur’ans of this period that have been neither studied nor digitised; the catalogue of the Qarawiyyin Library by Mohammed al-ʿAbid al-Fasi (1979–1989) is the first place to look. We welcome any pointer to a published dated Wattasid Qur’an.

Images: a page of the Green Qur’an (National Library, Rabat, 1304), after the thesis of Mohamed Abdelhafid Khabta, fig. 52. Some images are reproduced from published studies, mostly at low resolution, to introduce Qur’ans that have not been digitised; the source of each image is given under it, and the rights belong to their owners and to the libraries that hold the manuscripts. Weak images were enhanced with AI (Real-ESRGAN, blended with a plain enlargement so that the letter forms do not change), and each enhanced image is marked under it.