Description:

SHEIKH HAMDULLAH (1436-1520) AN EXCEEDINGLY RARE COMPLETE ILLUMINATED QURAN SIGNED BY SHEIKH HAMDULLAH

Arabic manuscript on paper, 372 leaves, 13 lines to the page written in elegant naskhi script in black ink, diacritics and vowel points in black and red, gold roundels between verses, sura headings in gold on red cross-hatched panels with floral motifs in blue, one double-page frontispiece in colours and gold, oval shamsa in colours and gold containing a pious inscription in riqa' script in white, marginal verse, hizb, and juz markers in naskhi script in blue ink, occasional stylised marginal floral devices in colours and gold, colophon signed by Shaykh Hamdullah, ownership inscription in Turkish below, some smudging, 19th Century tan morocco with floral tooled design in gold, worn, in modern slipcase

The scribe: Shaykh Hamdullah, who was born in Amasya in northern central Anatolia, was in effect the creator of Ottoman calligraphy and perhaps its greatest exponent. He learned and developed the six scripts from Hayreddin Mar'ashi, a follower of the 13th Century calligrapher Yaqut al-Musta'simi. Hamdullah taught Prince Bayezid, son of Mehmet the Conqueror, while the former was governor of Amasya. He had already been employed at court and is known to have copied at least two medical manuscripts for Sultan Mehmed II. On the prince's accession to the throne as Sultan Bayezid II (reg. 1481-1512), Hamdullah went with the new Sultan and became master scribe in Constantinople. It is reported that the Sultan - such was his respect for him - used to hold Hamdullah's inkwell for him as he wrote. Secure in his position at the palace, and receiving a substantial salary, he perfected his calligraphy, making naskhi script the most elegant and legible for use in manuscripts of the Qur'an. Copying the Qur'an occupied most of Hamdullah's career. He is said to have produced 47 copies, as well as other religious and calligraphic works. After Bayezid's death, under Sultan Selim I, Hamdullah retired to a Naqshbandi establishment near Constantinople (he may have migrated to this order of sufis from the Suhrawardi order, in which his father had been a shaykh). It has been suggested that his retirement was due to his close association with the Halveti Order. It was well known that the new Sultan distrusted the Halveti Brotherhood, and believed that their patron, Koca Mustafa Pasha, was involved in the death of his grandfather and uncle Cem. When Suleyman the Magnificent acceded to the throne he asked Hamdullah to copy a Qur'an for him, but the scribe declined on the grounds of ill health, and did in fact die shortly afterwards. (See J. Raby, Turkish Bookbinding in the 15th Century, London 1993, pp. 96-100 and 166-67, no. 23). His work continued to have great influence on Ottoman calligraphy until the breakup of the Empire: he was known as Qiblat al-Khuttat, the Calligraphers' Point of Orientation. Although there are many calligraphic album pages signed by or attributed to Hamdullah, there are very few signed copies of the Qur'an in private collections. Several Qur'ans copied by him are in Turkish public collections: there is one written for Sultan Bayezid II in 1496, now in the Topkapi Palace (EH 72; see D. J. Roxburgh (ed.), Turks: a Journey of a Thousand Years 600-1600, London 2005, pp. 296-97, no. 253, p. 441). Three other copies are in the Topkapi Library, dated 1492, 1499 and 1503 respectively (see The Anatolian Civilisations III, Istanbul 1983, E. 14 & 16). A copy from the collection of Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan was exhibited in Geneva: see T. Falk, ed., Treasures of Islam, Geneva 1985, no. 105; and ibid., Islamic Calligraphy, Geneva 1988, no. 37. For a Qur'an in the Nasser D. Khalili Collection with very similar sura headings and verse markers, see D. James, After Timur, Oxford 1992, pp. 70-75, no. 18. Such features seem to demonstrate the pervasive influence of Yaqut al-Musta'simi, since a Qur'an in the library of the shrine of Imam Reza at Mashhad (dated AH 686/1287) has similar headings and verse-counts (see M. Lings, The Qur'anic Art of Calligraphy and Illumination, London 1976, pl. 28). For this reason it has been suggested that the present manuscript dates from a relatively early point in Hamdullah's life, perhaps 1475-1480.

Provenance: 

Purchased in 1995 from Antiquarian M.B. Alwan (5 James Street Burlington MA 01903) 
Thence by descent 
Property of a British Collector 

29.5cm x 19cm

Please note: On the colophon page, it is stated that Sheykh Hamdullah was the calligrapher of Sultan Beyazıt, the son of Fatih Sultan Mehmed (Fatih the conqueror), and that it was written as a title in front of his name.
'' Kâtibü’s-Sultan Sultan Bayezid Han ibnü’s-sultan Muhammed Han''
السكرتير سلطان سلطان بايزيد خان بن السلطان محمد خان





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