Prayers for Daily Use,

£8,000 · Offered by Shapero Rare Books

A charming prayer scroll containing prayers arranged in accordance to the 7 days of the week, intended for daily use and probably carried in a small pouch on the owner during travels and possibly during hajj pilgrimage. The paper is of a fine polished finish, the gold illumination is lavish (interlinear colouring in gold throughout) and the naskh calligraphy executed by a very regular and skilled calligrapher, indicating that a person of some significant social status would have been the primary user of this scroll. Single scroll, illuminated manuscript on paper, in Arabic, complete (3 conjoined membranes), 1660 mm x 90 mm; text in single column, copied in elegant black naskh script, illuminated head-piece opening the text, in gilt and polychrome, each of the daily prayers with gilt banner to open with section heading in red thuluth, text block framed within multiple polychrome rulings, interlinear colouring in gilt throughout, no scribal attribution or colophon at the end (as intended), top of decoration trimmed (with slight loss), later black paper pasted along upper edge (likely to for a protective layer around the rolled scroll); mid-twentieth-century plastic tube with a type-script paper label wrap-around (possibly a cutting from one of the Rotulus catalogues of Erik von Scherling), housed in a cardboard box with paper label reading 'Arabic - Scrolls...'.

• Binding: Hardcover

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