FIFTEENTH JUZ OF A MINIATURE CORAN, PROBABLY EGYPT OR SYRIA, 16th CENTURY Size of binding: 6.3 x 4.4 cm A few holes, freckles, stains, small tears, folds, probably minor retouching, worn binding with flap missing. Arabic manuscript on paper of 33 folios and 3 blank endpapers, the text of blank, the text of 9 lines in miniature cursive calligraphy ghubar in black ink, a few signs, verse separators and the title and the title of Sura XVIII al-Kahf in red ink. On the first page, a shamseh medallion illuminated in gold and and polychrome and inscribed in thuluth calligraphy in silver letters circled in black and red "fifteenth juz", with the number 15 also written in black ink on the same page. The next double page page, illuminated in gold and polychrome, features a frontispiece with text of five lines in black ink in reserve on an ornate background in in red ink and set in a gilded frame. The vertical sides decorated with a woven band, the horizontal sides with floral floral decoration, one of which includes an inscription in silver letters (barely legible), probably probably the name of the sura and the number of verses it contains verses it contains (111). The frame extends into the margin of a poly-lobed mantling flanked by two rosettes and then two half-lambrequins. The text of the manuscript extends from Sura XVII Al-Israa to Sura XVIII Al-Kahf, verse 76. Bound in in black morocco with an embossed decoration on each cover of a of a poly-lobed mandorla with gold embellishments and floral and framed with fillets, one of which is highlighted in gold. The small format of this manuscript, with 9 lines on a page some 6 cm in height, necessitated the use of a tiny handwriting which could be described as ghubar ("dust" in Arabic). This cursive script is a variant of naskhi used on all types of small small media designed to hold written text, such as amulets such as amulets, talismans and miniature Korans. miniature Korans. Some of these Qurans could be divided into 30 volumes volumes and stored in leather boxes, as shown by an intact example preserved in the Islamic Museum in Tehran (ms. 4273) and attributed to the 13th / 14th century. The manuscript presented here appears to be the orphan of a similar set, now lost... However, a study of the national collections seems to provide a second testimony to the existence of this 30-volume Koran of which our manuscript forms the fifteenth part. Indeed, the Arabic manuscript 6850 in the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BNF) follows exactly the text of our manuscript, introduced by verse 76 of Sura al-Kahf, which completes our juz. This sixteenth juz, as its introductory shamseh indicates, would then, in all likelihood in all likelihood, not only a volume of the same Qur'an as ours but above all the one that immediately follows it. The Both manuscripts, in the same format, have the same binding, that of the BNF juz having retained its flap. The shamseh the introductory shamseh and double-frontispiece with a few shades of the titles of the suras and the separators of the verses in the and verse separators in red ink, which are much more present on our manuscript. François Déroche, in his Catalogue des Manuscrits Arabes of the BNF, cautiously attributes Arabic manuscript 6850 to to sixteenth-century Egypt, and this is how we will situate our work with work with the same precautions. PROVENANCE Private European and imperial collection RELATED BIBLIOGRAPHY BLAIR, Sheila, Islamic Calligraphy, Edinburgh University Press, 2006, p. 260. DÉROCHE, François, Catalogue des Manuscrits arabes. Deuxième Deuxième partie. Manuscrits musulmans. Fasc. 2: Du Maghreb à l'Insulinde. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, 1985, n° 372, p. 67. https://gallica. bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8447036z/f1.item.r=arabe%206850 (consulté 29 January 2025) EXPERT Camille Cellier