Middle East & Islamic World / Islamic Art & Culture

PASHA, Ahmed Muhtar Riyaz ül-muhtar, mirat ül-mikat ve 'l-edvar.
Cairo, Bulaq Matbaasi, 1303-1313 AH [= 1885-1896 CE]. 3 volumes bound as 1 (plates, text, and appendix). Large 4to (29.5 x 21 cm). Text in Ottoman Turkish, set in a naskh Arabic type, most pages in a thin-thick-thin-rule frame. With a separate title-page and 36 full-page, numbered plates (including 1 double-page) on 36 leaves at the beginning of the book and 1 folding plate at the end. Later elaborately gold- and blind-tooled brown calf, each board with a blind ornamental frame with corner pieces and a gold centre piece. Spine with the title in gold Arabic lettering in the 2nd of 6 compartments, the other 5 with blind ornaments and gold fillets on the 5 raised bands, marbled endpapers, red ribbon marker. [10], 378, [1 blank]; 58 pp. Full description

[PERSIAN MINIATURES]. A series of miniatures showing Persian scribes.
Persia, mid-Qajar period, [soon after 1852]. Folio (32 x 21 cm). 50 watercolour miniatures on paper, ca. 9 x 14 cm, pasted on coloured paperboard within multiple-rule frames in gold and black ink, bound as a fan-fold book with cloth hinges. Near-contemporary black leather, stored in a blind-stamped black slipcase with a flap at the head. Full description

POCOCKE, Edward. Specimen historiae arabum; ... Accessit historia veterum Arabum ex Abu'l Feda: cura Antonii I. Sylvestre De Sacy. Edidit Josephus White, ...
Oxford, Clarendon Press [= Oxford University Press], 1806. 4to. Title-page with engraved view of the Clarendon Building, aquatint author's portrait and 1 full-page etched plate. Contemporary boards. XV, [1 blank], 573, [3 blank] pp. Full description

PRISSE D'AVENNES, Achille Constant Théodore Émile. Oriental album. Characters, costumes, and modes of life, in the valley of the Nile.
London, James Madden, 1848. Imperial folio (52.5 x 37.5 cm). With an additional decorative title-page, separately chromolithographed in black, gold and 7 colours, tinted and hand-coloured lithographed frontispiece portrait of the dedicatee, and 30 tinted and hand-coloured lithographs. Numerous wood-engraved illustrations in the text. Modern half calf, richly gold-tooled spine. [6], 60 pp. Full description

PRISSE D'AVENNES, Achille Constant Théodore Émile. Oriental album. Characters, costumes, and modes of life, in the valley of the Nile.
London, James Madden (back of title-page: printed by John Wertheimer & Co.), 1851. Super Royal folio (33 x 45.5 cm). With 31 tinted and hand-coloured lithographed plates, including the frontispiece, and a black-and-white illustration on the title-page. Contemporary gold-tooled red half morocco. [5], [1 blank], 60 pp. plus plates. Full description

[QURAN]. Mahomets Alkoran, door de hr. Du Ryer uit d'Arabische in de Fransche taal gestelt; benevens een tweevoudige beschrijving van Mahomets leven; en een verhaal van des zelfs reis ten hemel, gelijk ook zyn samenspraak met de Jood Abdias.
Amsterdam, Timotheus ten Hoorn, 1696. 8vo. With an integral engraved title-page, and 6 engraved plates showing the Prophet Mohammed, engraved by Caspar Luyken. Contemporary vellum, manuscript title on spine. [12], 547, [1 blank] pp. Full description

[MANUSCRIPT - QURAN]. [A splendid illuminated Quran manuscript].
Iran, AH 1204 [= 1783 AD]. 8vo (15 x 9 cm) Illuminated Arabic manuscript on paper, 19 lines per page, written in a neat naskh script in black ink with diacritics in red, margins ruled in gold and colours. Gold discs or florets between verses, sura headings written in white in gold cartouches flanked by panels with alternating floral motifs in gold and various colours. Brown morocco with a flap and gold-tooled borders and central ornaments. 243 ll. plus 2 end-leaves. Full description

[QURAN - ENGLISH]. SALE, George, (translator). The Koran, commonly called the Alcoran of Mohammed. Translated from the original Arabic with explanatory notes, taken from the most approved commentators to which is preffixed a preliminary discourse. A new edition.
Bath, Printed by S. Hazard for J. Johnson, Vernor and Hood, Ogilvy and Speare, J. Sewell, H. Gardner and C. and G. Kearsley, 1795. 2 vols. 8vo. Engraved fold-out map of Arabia, 3 genealogical tables of which two folding, 1 plate illustrating the Temple of Mecca, all taken from the first editon of 1735. Old calf. Full description

QUTB AL-DIN AL-SHIRAZI. Durrat al-taj wa-khulasat al-nitaj fi ilm al-musiqa.
Shiraz, 1151 AH [= 1738/39 CE]. 4to (ca. 16.5 x 21 cm). Persian manuscript on gold-flecked paper. In tidy black naskh script in 22 lines, with highlights and important words and phrases picked out in red. WIth numerous tables and diagrams. Contemporary leather-backed patterned boards. 57 ll. Full description

RAZI, Abu Bakr Muhammaed ibn Zakariyya al-. [RHAZES]. Taqasim al-ilal. [= Classification of diseases].
Western Persia, 996 AH [= 1588 CE]. 2 volumes. Tall 8vo (18.5 x 10 cm). Arabic manuscript on paper. Black naskh script with important words and phrases picked out in red. Stored in a custom-made red cloth box, disbound, originally bound as one. 109; 89 ll. Full description