Collections is a series from The Show devoted to the things we acquire and treasure.
We’ve heard about collections of old shoes, old lamps and old bottles. Today, we’re talking about something that’s been around for much longer.
Three leaves, or pages, from the Quran are on view in the Rare Book Room at Burton Barr Central Library in Phoenix. The leaves, along with many of the other books in the collection, were left to the library in one donor’s will.
If you want to see them for yourself, you can sign up for a tour of the rare bookroom through the library.
The leaves are dated to 1106, 1200 and 1327.
Han Hsien Liew, Arizona State University assistant professor of Islamic studies, talks more about the artifacts with The Show.
Full conversation
HAN HSIEN LIEW: My name is Han Hsien Liew. I'm an assistant professor of Islamic studies at Arizona State University. We are in the Rare Books collection in the Burton Barr Central Library. This is a room where they house a lot of very rare books, manuscripts that the Burton Barr library owns.
So we have three leaves from the Quran. The Quran is the holy scripture of Muslims. This is universally regarded as the scripture, in, in Islam. So these are three different leaves from the Quran. They're all from different time periods. They're all also very different in nature. It's very important to note that many of these leaves, when they were produced, of course, they were all produced as one book, but over time, you know, when, when these Qurans change hands, and they get passed on from one generation to another, these Qurans get taken apart and over time, you have people who own a page or two and eventually they travel through different regions, through different markets, different antique fairs. And then they eventually get sold to different institutions.
This leaf contains parts of two different chapters from the Quran. Most of it consists of chapter 55 from the Quran, it's a chapter titled Ar Rahman, which means the merciful. Most of what you have here describes the garden of paradise, what believers can actually see if and when they enter paradise.
And then the other chapter, which you have only the very beginning of it, titled Al Waq’iah, it means something, an event which is coming, so it's basically talking about the end of days. It's dated to 1200. It is written in a script called the Maghribi script. Maghri refers to the Western Islamic world and by Western, I mean, North Africa, as well as Spain. Spain was under Islamic rule for a period of time. And so this script is very unique to that region, so it was likely produced either in North Africa or in Spain. The main verses are in this black brownish ink. The chapter headings are in red. And then in the margins, you have some scribblings, very likely commentary on the particular verse itself. A lot of Islamic manuscripts will, many of them have these so-called marginalia because they've been passed down generation to generation and so you have different students who would write on the margins, who just produce some commentary on the main work itself.
OK, so here, we have a leaf that is dated to 1106. This leaf is much bigger. It has a lot more ornamentation on it, as you can see the gold flex that is very present on, on the leaf itself, so which indicates that it was likely produced by or or at least sponsored or commissioned by a very rich patron, very wealthy patron to be able to afford this level of ornamentation.
This is called the Thuluth script, which is a different script compared to what we've seen before. Similar to the previous leaf, we also have parts of two chapters of the Quran, chapter 29, which is called the spider, and chapter 30, which is called the Byzantines. Many commentators on the Quran have interpreted this chapter as envisioning a kind of commonality between Muslims and Christians.
This one is from 1327. As you can see, the font is much smaller and so because of that, you can pack more words into one single page. And so that's why with the other leaves, you get partial chapters, but with this leaf you actually get a full chapter. You also have these very beautiful gold flowers that separate the different verses within the chapter. The script is a different script. This is a script called the Naskh script. It's a script that is also still widely used today, mainly because it is more easy to read for general people. It's often very rare, I think, for libraries to get Quran leaves with different scripts usually, and, and I think this is a very, very nice sampling of the different scripts that were used actually in the Islamic world in the pre-modern period.
-
Joe Dampt has loved guitar ever since he started playing when he was 10 years old. A few years later, after buying and selling a guitar for the first time, Dampt realized something: He could play as many rare vintage guitars as he wanted if he bought and sold them. -
Sherry Dewane began collecting postcards nearly a decade ago. Her family owned the Stagecoach Motor Hotel in Phoenix. Years after the inn was sold and turned into a parking lot at Sky Harbor Airport, Dewane started searching for old postcards of her family’s demolished hotel. -
Artists who work with found objects are notorious for having strange collections of random items waiting to be turned into art. An installation by two local artists spotlights their unusual collections and chronicles their time making art in the Valley. -
High school teacher Teri Woods has been collecting Fiestaware since the 1980s, and she tells The Show why she started, and why she keeps going. -
Most collectors of presidential items have a specific niche. Maybe it’s campaign buttons, bobble heads or White House Christmas cards. Maybe they focus on a handful of select presidents or a certain time period. Not Steve Ferber. He just likes collecting what he calls "pieces of history."
