Browse Items (24 total)

These delicate tapestry-woven textile armbands with inscriptions (Arabic tiraz) rendered in golden Kufic script lettering would have adorned the wearer's body in a luxurious echo of the regal blue and gold parchment Qur'ans produced during the…

The oblong pages of this palm-leaf style (pothi) book are covered with Sanskrit phrases (mantra) to treat illness, prevent disaster, and grant wellbeing. The five protective goddesses pictured here embody the five Buddhist mantra collections that…

This fifteenth-century copy of an important textbook in Islamic law is intricately annotated with the notes of a legal expert (Arabic faqih) in Egypt who was using the book as a teaching tool. The notes are largely case studies and problems in law,…

This is an extremely rare example of a complete medieval woven silk robe. Luxurious robes were highly valued in trade and often presented as diplomatic gifts, but due to the fragility of textiles, most of what survives is fragmentary. The exchange of…

"The dispersed “Blue Qur’an” to which this folio belongs is one of the most famous surviving Qur’an manuscripts. The text of this outstanding Qur’an is copied in gold ink outlined in black on a deep indigo-blue parchment. Small silver…

"Glory to God" (subhan Allah) appears on the right-hand page as an ornate Arabic letter form upon a delicate floral background. The sweeping letter forms and particularly thin uprights show how the monumental thuluth script was adapted by Chinese…

This Buddhist prayer sheet is a rare survivor among hundreds of identical prints featuring Avalokite?vara, a form of the Boddhisatva of compassion, and was produced in 947 to celebrate the annual Ghost Festival. In the early 11th century, this print…

The prayer book "Waymarks of Benefits" (Dala"il al-Khayrat), originally composed in fifteenth-century Morocco, was frequently copied from Senegal to Turkestan, at the western and eastern extremes of the Islamic world. It was the most popular…