McGill Library Collections
Among the rare books in McGill Library’s collections
there are some 670 volumes of manuscripts written in
the Arabic, Persian, Ottoman-Turkish, and Urdu
languages. In addition, there are some 280 single or
double-leaf fragments and pieces of calligraphy,
including illustrations from Persian MSS and signed
calligraphs. They are distributed between
Blacker-Wood Library of Zoology and Ornithology,
Osler Library of the History of Medicine, Rare Books
and Special Collections Division and Islamic Studies
Library.
Most of these manuscripts have been at McGill since
the 1920s. They were collected by the well known
Russian scholar Wladimir Ivanow (1874-1970) for Dr.
Casey A. Wood (1856-1942), who supplied them to
McGill. W. Ivanow was a curator of Persian MSS in
the Imperial Library in St. Petersburg and later at
the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal. The manuscripts
were collected in Northeastern India (Lucknow and
Sandila), where most of them had been copied, making
them therefore of great interest to palaeographers
and codicologists.
In terms of subject coverage, these collections
embrace all aspects of Islamic literature: Qur’anic
exegesis, Tradition, Jurisprudence, Philosophy,
Theology, Mysticism, History, Belles Lettres, and
Sciences. Well-represented among the latter are
Medicine and the Natural Sciences. Among the
manuscripts in the Blacker-Wood collection there are
a number of important illustrated texts on falconry
and farriery, while Rare Books and Special
Collections Division houses 20 early fragments of
the Qur’an and some of the finest examples of book
illustration and illumination. The collections span
the period from the 9th to the early 20th centuries
with a good number of MSS from the late medieval
period.
The most valuable manuscripts in these collections
are gradually being provided with special
tailor-made boxes thanks to the efforts of volunteer
bookbinders and conservators from ARA (Les amis de
la reliure d’art – Canada). Their valuable
contribution, as well as that of the donors who made
their work possible is acknowledged here with
gratitude.
The koran (Qur'an)
Islam is the religion of the book. The Qur’an for
the Muslim is therefore the book par excellence and
this fact is fundamental to an understanding of the
Muslim religion and Islamic manuscript-making as a
whole. Although originally any addition of coloured
ink to the copied text of the Qur’an was strictly
prohibited, with time this book became the most
decorated and cherished of all books among Muslims.
A specific etiquette, applicable to both the reader
and the scribe, grew around it. The scribe, for
instance, was required to be in a state of ritual
purity (aharah), wear clean clothes and face the
Ka`bah (in Mecca) while engaged in copying the Book
(al-Kitab). The copying of the Qur’an was very
meritorious for the Muslim. It fact, it was regarded
as an act of worship, which conferred upon the
calligrapher numerous blessings from God. It is not
surprising therefore that calligraphers and
illuminators, throughout the manuscript age, tried
to surpass themselves in producing the most
sumptuous copies of the Qur’an.
Some of the most visually stunning manuscripts of
the Qur’an were produced in the early Abbasid period
(8th to 10th centuries). They exhibit a variety of
calligraphic styles and decorations, as well as
diacritical pointing by means of slanted strokes and
vocalization in the form of red dots. The horizontal
format manuscripts of that period often had only a
few lines per page, which meant that, in order to
produce a complete copy of a parchment Qur’an, some
500 to 700 animal skins would have been required.
piety and popular
culture
The Islamic manuscript is an expression of Muslim
piety. This phenomenon stems from the fact that
Islamic culture is essentially a book culture having
the Qur’an as its main pillar. This piety may be
seen not only in the manner books were composed but
also in the way they were transmitted. When reading
Islamic manuscripts one is struck by the existence
of pious formulae of all sorts, both inside and
outside of the text, and attributable not only to
the author himself but to the scribe/copyist as
well.
Personal names have honorifics, and so do books,
towns, months, etc. Indeed, a blessing is invoked
practically on anyone and anything. And thus, the
scribe prays for the success of his undertaking, for
his family, for those who will come and to read what
he has copied, and so on.
Scribal verses, placed usually around the colophon,
express sentiments in words that would be quite
familiar to readers of Western manuscripts. They can
be summed up in such Latin expressions as:
• ars longa, vita brevis (art is long, life is
short)
• ora pro scriptore (pray for the scribe)
• finis coronat opus (the end crowns the work)
• errare humanum est (to err is human)
• scriptori vita (long life to the scribe).
Popular culture manifests itself also in various
amuletic and talismanic formulae, which can be found
inscribed in any number of places within the
manuscript.
writing Surfaces
Although papyrus was used in the first two centuries
of Islam (especially for non-qur’anic texts), it was
mostly parchment and paper that constituted the main
writing surfaces. All early extant qur’anic
manuscripts were written on parchment, whereas the
majority of all surviving non-qur’anic manuscripts
were written on paper, which was introduced to the
Arab world from China in the early 8th century.
Although papermaking was introduced into Europe by
the Arabs in the 13th century, from the 16th century
onwards the main Arab lands (with the exception of
Yemen) used European (mainly Italian and French)
watermarked paper. Locally made paper was however
more common in Iran (Persia) and India. The Persian
variety is itself very fine, well-glazed and often
slightly tinted, whereas the paper produced in India
ranges from very fine to somewhat rough and less
burnished. The Kashmiri paper of the 19th century,
on the other hand, is of fine quality, often tinted
light blue, and has fairly regular laid lines.
writing implements
Islamic manuscripts were written with a reed pen (calamus)
nibbed either straight, obliquely or in a point,
depending on the type of script used or personal
preference. The most typical scribal accessory was a
pen box (miqlamah, qalamdan). In the medieval period
pen boxes were made of metal (often bronze or
silver). In Iran and India in the 18th and 19th
centuries these were replaced by elegantly painted
lacquer. The inkwell had a silk or wool wad in its
neck to prevent the pen from picking up too much
ink.
Alongside the pens in the qalamdan there was usually
a penknife and a nibbing block (miqaah), used for
trimming the point of the nib of the reed pen. The
block was usually made of ivory or camel bone.
The inks were either carbon- or tannin-(gallnut)
based and their quality depended on the right
quantity of ingredients used. Ink was often kept in
solid form and recipes for ink-making were a guarded
secret among scholars and scribes.
Scripts and hands
Throughout the manuscript period a great variety of
scripts and styles of handwriting were used. Indeed,
from a very defective script that hardly
distinguished between various forms of letters and
entirely lacked vocalization, Arabic developed into
a vehicle of thought and culture without precedence
in other civilizations. It is said that in the late
Mamluk period (14th and 15th centuries) alone Arab
calligraphers had at their disposal some 42 scripts.
Some scripts became entirely associated with either
the type of work or subject matter. Thus, large
Qur’ans of the early and later Middle Ages were
usually calligraphed in a script called muaqqaq,
whereas the middle size Ottoman Qur’ans were mostly
executed in naskh. In the Persianate and Ottoman
worlds, on the other hand, the script most suited
for poetry was nasta`liq.
Calligraphers’ diplomas
The granting of certificates and/or diplomas (ijazat)
for individual works is one of the hallmarks of
Islamic civilization. Certificates in such
disciplines as Tradition (Hadith) were granted as
early as the 9th century. The granting of diplomas
for calligraphers appears to have started in the
14th century during the Mamluk period and became
characteristic of the Ottoman practice during the
17th to 19th centuries.
A typical diploma of the period consisted of a
decorated composition, executed usually in two
scripts: thuluth and naskh. The diploma or
certificate itself was inscribed in a cartouche at
the bottom of the work. The main element of the
certificate was the expression “I give him
permission to use the word kataba” (literally “to
write”) at the end of his work (calligraphic piece).
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