"This volume comprises a selection of papers delivered at the symposium "The Word Illuminated: Form and Function of Qur'anic Manuscripts" held at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery during 1-3 December 2016 and organized in conjunction with the exhibition "The Art of the Qur'an: Treasures from the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts." Speakers investigated the materiality of luxury Qur'ans, from the lavish use of costly materials such as gold and parchment, the development of special scripts and intricate illuminated designs to the meticulously tooled bindings. In addition to examining the physical features of Qur'anic volumes, the authors examine the manuscripts in their artistic, historic, and religious contexts to understand more fully the transformation of these works into potent symbols of piety, political and religious authority, and into instruments of legitimacy. Over the centuries, many of the Qur'ans were offered as diplomatic gifts or taken as booty and endowed to mosques, tombs, and other religious complexes to perpetuate and transmit their exceptional baraka (divine blessing). As Qur'ans changed ownership, they also acquired a complex and layered after-life, which has further enriched their identity well into the present."-- Provided by publisher.
Form and function of Qur'anic manuscripts from the seventh to seventeenth centuries
Islamic illumination of books and manuscripts
Foreword / Massumeh Farhad -- Introduction : Current Perspectives on Qurʼanic Manuscripts / Simon Rettig, Sana Mirza -- Asṭār al-awwalīn : The Qurʼanic Handwritten Tradition and Its Beginnings / François Déroche -- Ghaznavid Imperial Qurʼan Manuscripts : The Shaping of a Local Style / Alya Karame -- Illuminated Qurʼan Manuscripts of Late Medieval Rum (Thirteenth to Fourteenth Centuries) / Cailah Jackson -- A Luxury Market? : Yaqut al-Mustaʻsimi's Qurʼans / Nourane Ben Azzouna -- Sultan Öljeitü's Baghdad Qurʼan : A Life History / Sheila S. Blair -- Mamluk Qurʼans : Splendor and Opulence of the Islamic Book / Alison Aplin Ohta -- A Sixteenth- Century Shiraz Masterpiece : Chester Beatty's Ruzbihan Qurʼan / Elaine Wright -- The Qurʼanic Soundscape of Mimar Sinan's Mosques : A Survey of Recitation Programs and the Unusual Case of the Hadım İbrahim Paşa Mosque at Silivrikapı / Nina Macaraig -- The Rise of the Enʻam : Manuscripts of Selections of Suras in the Early Sixteenth- Century Ottoman Empire / Simon Rettig.