A rediscovered almoravid Qur'ān in the Bavarian state library, Munich (cod. Arab. 4)

Abstract

This article examines and contextualizes a small Quranic manuscript, copied in al-Andalus in 533/1138-1139, whose importance has so far gone unrecognized. Among its many interesting features are: its early date; its lavish illumination; its colophon and the information contained therein; its system of notation and textual division; its use of different calligraphic styles, including Maghribī thuluth; and a series of didactic notes written at the beginning and end of the codex. Presented in the appendix is an updated list of the extant Qur'āns in Maghribī scripts dated to before 600/1203-1204, aimed at encouraging the digitization, publication, and comparative study of this still largely uncharted material. The advancement of scholarship on the arts of the book, the transmission of the Qur'ān, and the consumption of Quranic manuscripts in the Islamic West depends upon the analysis of these and many other surviving codices and fragments, related to Cod. arab. 4 of the Bavarian State Library and its context of production.