Gold thuluth verses run beneath an illuminated sura heading

A wide gold sura-heading panel with dense blue-ground vine scrollwork runs across the top of the page, a large gold-and-blue rosette medallion in the margin beside it. Below, lines of gold thuluth script, dotted with small red and blue diacritic marks, carry the opening verses, each verse marked by a small gold roundel. A teardrop-shaped gold-and-blue ornament and a second, larger rosette medallion punctuate the left margin further down the page.

Calligraphy is the most honoured of the Islamic arts, because it carries the text of the Qur'an. From the angular Kufic of the earliest manuscripts to the rounded naskh, muhaqqaq and thuluth scripts codified by Ibn Muqla and Ibn al-Bawwab, and the hanging nasta'liq of Persia, calligraphers and illuminators produced Qur'an pages, album leaves and carpet-page frontispieces of extraordinary refinement, often on gold-flecked or richly bordered paper. Leaves of this kind are held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the British Library, the Chester Beatty Library and the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts in Istanbul.

Printed as a museum-grade giclée on Hahnemühle fine art paper using 12-ink archival pigment printing. Available handframed in FSC-certified wood with optional float glass, or unframed. Ships worldwide with free delivery to 30+ countries.