Folios from an `Abbasid Qur’an

Folios from an `Abbasid Qur'an. The sura headings of this Qur'an manuscript are written out in gold script, with a large and colourful palmette design projecting into the margin for extra emphasis. There is a full page of illumination at the start and conclusion of the text, each in a different design of interlocking circles (at the start) and checkerboard (at the end). The layout is typical for a multi-volume Qur'an of this date, each separate volume would have splendid illumination panels, usually on facing pages at the beginning and at the end of the book. However this manuscript does not contain a complete "thirtieth" (juz') or "sixtieth" (hizb) of the Qur'an's full text, and is therefore a fragment of the original volume. Codex, ink, colours and gold on parchment, 11 folios, Arabic text in kufic script, sura headings in gold with large illuminated palmette, illuminated frontispiece (1v), finispiece (11r) and text markers throughout, final section of the Qur'an (sura 92:2- sura 114), possibly from a sixty-volume set, unsigned, Iraq or Syria, undated, c. 800-900.