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Selections of Arabic, Persian, and Ottoman Calligraphy
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Commentary to the "Kitab Sibaywahi" with illuminated panels
AUTHOR/CREATOR
Calligrapher: unknown
CREATED/PUBLISHED
14th–15th centuries
NOTES
Dimensions of Illumination Panels: 5.8 (w) x 11.1 (h) cm
Dimensions of Written Surface: 4 (w) x 10.4 (h) cm
Script: Persian naskh
This double-page illuminated blue and gold panel was intended to contain the title to a work whose text appears on the fragment's verso (1-88-154.10 V). Although the title is not contained in either of the two gold central medallions, the text on the verso makes it clear that the work was a commentary (sharh) on a treatise of Arabic grammar composed by the famous early Kufan grammarian Sibaywahi (d. 188/793).
The illuminated panel includes four rectangular registers above and below the gold medallions, in which the bismillah ("In the Name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful") is inscribed in gold Kufi script on a blue background decorated with gold arabesques. All around the illuminated panels appear marginal finials painted in blue. The two illuminated panels are separated by a crease in the beige rag paper where the folio originally would have been folded in two. In the upper horizontal appear two water stains equal in size and shape (due to the original fold). In the lower horizontal, a note or owner's mark seems to have been erased, and the word ‘unvan (title[?]) added in black ink to identify the illuminated panels' function.
Although the fragment is neither dated nor signed, the illuminated panel and the Persian naskh on its verso suggest that the work may have been executed in Persia (Iran) sometime during the 14th or 15th century.
The verso of this calligraphic fragment provides a commentary (sharh) on a treatise of Arabic grammar composed by the famous early Kufan grammarian Sibaywahi (d. 188/793). The text is executed in black ink in Persian naskh script in two columns of fifteen lines per page. Marginal glosses, commentary, and corrections appear in the left column, cross-referenced to the main text by red underlining.
This particular sharh to the "Kitab Sibaywahi" provides a mid-level pedagogical textbook rather than one of the various standard commentaries to the work. It combines together several unrelated themes scattered in the "Kitab Sibaywahi". For example, it includes a discussion of grammatical rules applied to numerals above 10 and analyzes dependent clauses (mansub).
For further information on the "Kitab Sibaywahi", see Michael G. Carter, "Sibaywahi" (London and New York: Oxford Center for Islamic Studies and I.B. Tauris, 2004).
SUBJECT
Persian naskh
Arabic calligraphy
Arabic script calligraphy
Illuminated Islamic manuscripts
Islamic manuscripts
Islamic calligraphy
MEDIUM
21.1 (w) x 20.3 (h) cm
CALL NUMBER
1-88-154.10
REPOSITORY
Library of Congress, African and Middle Eastern Division, Washington, D.C. 20540
DIGITAL ID
ascs 195
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.amed/ascs.195
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