# Folio from the "Blue Qur'an" > Unknown workshop, probably North Africa (attribution disputed) - second half 9th century - mid 10th century CE (Metropolitan Museum dating; c. 850-950); disputed, see narrative > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/blue-quran-workshop/blue-quran-folio-met/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-08-19 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Unknown workshop, probably North Africa (attribution disputed) - **Date:** second half 9th century - mid 10th century CE (Metropolitan Museum dating; c. 850-950); disputed, see narrative - **Medium:** Gold and silver on indigo-dyed parchment - **Dimensions:** 30.4 x 40.2 cm (11 15/16 x 15 13/16 in.) - **Object type:** Manuscript - **Period:** Early Islamic North Africa (disputed attribution; see narrative) - **Current location:** Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Department of Islamic Art - **Attribution:** disputed ## Summary A single leaf, gold and silver Kufic script on indigo-dyed parchment, cut at an undocumented point from a once-bound multi-volume Qur'an now known only as the Blue Qur'an. The Metropolitan Museum's own catalogue hedges the leaf's origin as "possibly Qairawan, Tunisia", and that hedge is the honest state of the field: at least six named scholars have argued for six different combinations of date and place, from early ninth-century Baghdad to tenth-century Umayyad Spain, and none has settled the question.What is documented is narrower and, in its way, more striking. The original manuscript, reconstructed as seven volumes of roughly 600 folios, required the parchment of at least 150 sheep and the work of several identifiable scribal hands, luxury production on a scale that every competing theory agrees points to a ruling court as patron. Most of it stayed in the library of the Great Mosque of Qairawan, recorded there in a 1294 inventory, until Tunisia's 1967 nationalisation of religious endowments sent the bulk of the surviving leaves to what is now the Raqqada National Museum of Islamic Art, still the largest single holding. This leaf was not among them: it surfaces in the documentary record only in London, with the dealer Sam Fogg, by 2002, more than eleven centuries after its probable making, and was purchased by the Metropolitan Museum in 2004. Everything in between is unknown, and this record says so.Other leaves from the same manuscript have gone to auction repeatedly since 2010, for hundreds of thousands of pounds apiece, completing, sale by sale, a dispersal that began somewhere in the manuscript's own past, itself only partly recovered. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **second half 9th century-mid 10th century (disputed range)** Unknown patron and workshop `[disputed]` (origin) The Metropolitan Museum dates the leaf to the second half of the 9th to mid 10th century and gives its findspot as "possibly Qairawan, Tunisia". At least five other named scholarly positions place production anywhere from early Abbasid Baghdad or Fustat to Umayyad Cordoba to Aghlabid or Kalbid Sicily. No single position commands scholarly consensus. See narrative for the individual positions and who holds them. - **possibly from origin-by 1294 CE (693 AH)** Great Mosque of Qairawan library (if the traditional attribution is correct) `[disputed]` (documentary trace) A 1294 CE inventory of the Great Mosque of Qairawan's library, published by Ibrahim Chabbouh in 1956, records a Qur'an written in gold on blue parchment. This is the strongest documentary link between the manuscript and Qairawan and the principal evidence behind Jonathan Bloom's attribution, but the identification of the inventory entry with this specific manuscript is an inference, not a stated identification in the source itself. - **1294-2002 (for this specific leaf)** Unknown `[unknown]` (gap) No owner, custodian, sale or publication record for this individual leaf has been identified between the 1294 inventory (itself of uncertain identification with this manuscript) and the point at which the London dealer Sam Fogg is documented holding it, by 2002. The broader manuscript's Tunisian custodial history in this period, continued library holding, 1967 nationalisation of habus endowments, 1983 transfer to Raqqada, is documented for the state collection as a whole but is not evidence for this specific leaf, which by 2002 was already in London and had therefore left Tunisia by some undocumented route and date, possibly as part of the wave of leaves that began leaving with F.R. Martin's pre-1912 Istanbul purchase, possibly later. This gap is recorded as a gap. - **by 2002-2004** Sam Fogg, London (dealer) `[documented]` (dealer custody) The Metropolitan Museum's own provenance note identifies Sam Fogg, the London dealer in medieval and Islamic art, as holding the leaf by 2002-2004, prior to its sale to the Museum. - **2004-present** Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York `[documented]` (purchase) Purchased by the Metropolitan Museum in 2004 using the Lila Acheson Wallace Gift, an acquisitions endowment named for the Reader's Digest co-founder and Museum benefactor. The purchase price has not been published in any source consulted for this record. ## Open questions - Which of the at least six published scholarly positions on date and place of production, Abbasid Baghdad/Mashhad, Fatimid or Aghlabid Qairawan, early Abbasid Fustat or Baghdad, Umayyad Cordoba, generic Andalusia, or Aghlabid/Kalbid Sicily, is correct, if any single one is? The field has not converged after more than a century of argument. - What happened to this specific leaf between its probable origin ("from about 900", per the Metropolitan Museum's own catalogue hedge) and the point at which the London dealer Sam Fogg is first documented holding it, by 2002? More than eleven centuries are undocumented for this individual object. - Is Jonathan Bloom's reconstruction of the original manuscript as seven volumes, based on abjad numeral sequencing, correct for every surviving leaf, or only for the subset on which it has been directly tested? - Do the silver verse-markers on this specific leaf show the same tarnishing to black documented for other Blue Qur'an leaves elsewhere in the corpus? No condition report specific to 2004.88 was identified. - Which scribal hand, in Alain George's classification of several distinct hands across the corpus, if any, produced this leaf? The question has apparently not been asked in print for this specific folio. - How many leaves of the original manuscript survive in total, across public and private hands? Published estimates cluster around 100 but are explicitly approximate, and private holdings are by nature incompletely surveyed. - Will the price the Metropolitan Museum paid in 2004 ever be published? Museum purchase prices are frequently withheld, and none of the sources consulted for this record discloses it. - Is the object described in the 1294 CE Qairawan library inventory (published by Chabbouh, 1956) definitely this same manuscript, or could it describe a different, now-lost blue-and-gold Qur'an of similar description? The identification is treated as the best-supported link in the scholarship, not a certainty. ## Sources - [1] Metropolitan Museum of Art, "Folio from the 'Blue Qur'an'", accession 2004.88, object ID 454662, collection catalogue entry (medium, dimensions, date, findspot hedge, credit line, and provenance note naming Sam Fogg, London). - [2] Wikimedia Commons, File:Folio from the "Blue Qur'an" MET DP167100.jpg. Metropolitan Museum Open Access image, CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. - [3] Wikimedia Commons, File:Folio Blue Quran Met 2004.88.jpg. Photograph by Marie-Lan Nguyen, self-photographed at the Metropolitan Museum, November 2011, CC BY 2.5, with file description confirming Sura 30, verses 28-32. - [4] Wikipedia, "Blue Quran". Tertiary source, consolidating the dispersal history, the multiple named dating/attribution theories, the Byzantine-influence and Mu'tazili readings, and reported condition of silver markers across the corpus. Flagged for replacement with the primary scholarly publications it cites (Bloom, George, Deroche, D'Ottone Rambach) wherever a specific claim needs a firmer citation. - [5] Alain George, "Calligraphy, Colour and Light in the Blue Qur'an", Journal of Qur'anic Studies 11.1 (2009), pp. 75-125 (codicological analysis identifying multiple scribal hands; early Abbasid dating argument). - [6] Jonathan M. Bloom, "The Blue Koran Revisited", Journal of Islamic Manuscripts 6.2-3 (2015), pp. 196-218 (Qairawan/Fatimid attribution, seven-volume reconstruction via abjad numbering, 1294 Qairawan library inventory). Cited via listing. - [7] Jonathan M. Bloom, "al-Ma'mun's Blue Koran?", in Early Islamic Art and Architecture (Ashgate/Routledge reprint series). Cited via publisher listing; original argument testing and rejecting the Abbasid al-Ma'mun attribution proposed by F.R. Martin. - [8] Sotheby's, "A large Qur'an leaf in gold Kufic script on blue vellum", Arts of the Islamic World sale, London, 22 April 2015, lot 62 (catalogue essay summarising competing scholarly attributions: Bloom/Qairawan, T. Stanley/Andalusia, M. Fraser/Sicily, Alain George/early Abbasid; estimate GBP 300,000-400,000; condition note). - [9] Paul Fraser Collectibles, "Blue Qur'an single leaf realises $547,500 in London sale" (reporting the 22 April 2015 Sotheby's result at GBP 365,000 / $547,565; hammer vs. premium not distinguished in the article). - [10] Aga Khan Museum, "Two folios, from a manuscript known as the 'Blue Qur'an'", AKM477, collection catalogue entry (bifolium, fourth of seven reconstructed volumes, c. 950, pre-970 dating rationale). - [11] Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, "Page from the 'Blue Qur'an'", accession 33.686, collection catalogue entry (Sura 3:47-55; 1931 Burlington House acquisition for $85; accessioned 1933; tarnished silver medallion noted). - [12] Khalili Collections, "Two Folios from the 'Blue Qur'an'", KFQ 53, collection page. - [13] Wikimedia Commons, File:Folio from the Blue Qur'an (CBL Is 1405A, f. 1b).jpg. Chester Beatty Library, Dublin; public domain (faithful reproduction of a public-domain two-dimensional work). - [14] Wikimedia Commons, File:Der blaue Koran,Kairouan.JPG. Raqqada National Museum of Islamic Art, accession Rutbi 196, photographed 2006; public domain/CC0. - [15] Wikimedia Commons, File:Khalili Collection Islamic Art kfq_0053.1b.jpg. CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO. - [16] Patrimoine de Tunisie, "The Raqqada National Museum of Islamic Art", overview page (manuscript room; 1967 habus abolition and nationalisation; 1983 transfer to Raqqada; museum opened 1986). - [17] Interesting Engineering, "1,000-year-old secret of rare Blue Quran's gold leaf finally revealed", 21 November 2024 (Zayed National Museum, Abu Dhabi, multispectral imaging finding concealed text from Sura al-Nisa' beneath gold leaf on a separate Blue Qur'an leaf; curators Nurul Iman Bint Rusli and Mai Al Mansouri). - [18] Islamic Awareness, "The Famous 'Blue' Qur'an" (codicological detail on verse-marker conventions, gold roundel and silver medallion system; A. Welch citation; F.R. Martin/Bernard Quaritch publication history). --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.