Folio from a Mamluk Qur’an

Folio from a Mamluk Qur'an. This single folio belongs to a codex (also in this museum: Is 1457I and II). Each side is beautifully illuminated, and each was created as a double page design: the geometric star design on the recto (here) would have faced an identical folio, which is now lost. As often with Qur'ans from Mamluk Cairo, the white kufic inscriptions at the top and bottom are different Qur'anic quotations, referring to the holy book itself: "Indeed We have sent [the Qur'an] down in a Night of Blessings" (Qur'an 44:3, top), and "Indeed We have sent down [the Qur'an] in the Night of Destiny (Laylat al-Qadr)" (Qur'an 97:1, bottom). On the verso, different illumination frames the first sura of the Qur'an. This text should face the second sura of the Qur'an, with matching designs: that opposite page remains in the codex (CB Is 1457I). The illuminator has been identified as Muhammad ibn Mubadir, an artist who collaborated with the better-known Sandal, on Qur'an projects for Mamluk amirs and sultans in early fourteenth-century Cairo. Folio, ink, colours and gold on paper, Arabic text in naskh and kufic scripts, illuminated frontispiece with star polygon design and inscription