Gold leaf, silver, and ink on parchment colored with indigo
9 3/4 x 15 in. (24.8 x 38.1 cm)
Brooklyn Museum, New York, Gift of Beatrice Riese (1995.51a–b)
Not on view
Few objects demonstrate the inventiveness of early Islamic artists as elegantly as the now-dispersed Blue Qur’an. The manuscript reflects an awareness of Byzantine purple-dyed luxury manuscripts written in gold and silver. The later Muslim scribes’ innovations, however, are evident in the manuscript’s horizontal format, indigo-dyed blue parchment, and golden Kufic script. The combination gold and blue may have carried heavenly associations, as the same color scheme was used in the Qur’anic inscriptions in the Dome of the Rock dating to roughly the same period.