Did you know that OPenn is hosting The Digital Walters, a data set of digitized manuscripts and TEI manuscript descriptions from the Walters Art Museum manuscript collection? Items in the collection are from all over the world, and from ancient to modern times. It features deluxe Gospel books from Armenia, Ethiopia, Byzantium, and Ottonian Germany; French and Flemish books of hours; as well as masterpieces of Safavid, Mughal and Ottoman manuscript illumination.
Among the items on The Digital Walters are the following Middle Eastern manuscripts. They were written between the 12th and 19th centuries, originated in Iran, Syria, and Turkey, and cover a wide range of topics including religion, poetry, and science. If you’d like to see more Middle Eastern and Islamic manuscripts from The Digital Walters in addition to the eight manuscripts featured below, please check out Walters Art Museum Collection page on OPenn.
W. 567, Koran, Fol. 1b-2a. This manuscript is a small illuminated single-volume copy of the Qurʾan, likely produced in Iran. A date is inscribed on the final page, which is interpreted as 1230 AH / 1814-5 CE (fol. 186b). The manuscript opens with an illuminated double-page incipit with the verses of chapter 1 (Sūrat al-fātiḥah) and the initial verses of chapter 2 (Sūrat al-baqarah), decorated with interlinear illumination (fols. 1b-2a). http://openn.library.upenn.edu/Data/0020/Data/WaltersManuscripts/W567/
W. 589, Two works on precious stones, Fol. 1a. This codex contains two short works on precious stones ascribed to Jamāl al-Dīn al-Tifāshī and Aristotle. The piece attributed to Aristotle is likely to be a paraphrase or extract from that author’s Liber mineralium (or Lapidarius). This anonymous Ottoman copy was written in 989 AH / 1581 CE, possibly in Syria. http://openn.library.upenn.edu/Data/0020/Data/WaltersManuscripts/W589/
W. 557, Koran, Fol. 2b-3a. This copy of the Qur’an was made in Iran, probably in the sixth century AH / twelfth CE. The text is written in the New Abbasid (broken cursive) style with vowels indicated by red dots and orthoepic signs such as tashdīd and sukūn in green. http://openn.library.upenn.edu/Data/0020/Data/WaltersManuscripts/W557/
W. 651, Poems (tarji’band), Fol. 3a. This is an illuminated and illustrated manuscript of a small collection of short love poems of the type called tarjī`band by Nūr al-Dīn ‘Abd al-Raḥmān Jāmī (d. 898 AH / 1492 CE). It was copied in black nasta‘līq script by the calligrapher Muḥammad Zamān al-Tabrīzī in 998 AH / 1589-90 CE in Safavid Iran. http://openn.library.upenn.edu/Data/0020/Data/WaltersManuscripts/W651/
W. 668, Album of Persian and Indian calligraphy and paintings, Fol. 56b. This is an album (muraqqaʿ) of Persian and Indian calligraphy and paintings, most probably compiled in the thirteenth century AH / nineteenth CE. The album contains thirty-four illustrations, three of which are attributed to the Mughal painter Abū al-Ḥasan (Nādir al-al-Zamān), two to Manūhar, and one each to Dawlat and Ṣādiqī. The album was initially in an accordion format and was later made into a codex. The lacquer binding with central ovals and pendants decorated with flowers dates to the thirteenth century AH / nineteenth CE. http://openn.library.upenn.edu/Data/0020/Data/WaltersManuscripts/W668/
W. 682, Single leaf of a youth with a falcon, no linguistic content, Fol. W682a. This Safavid drawing depicts a kneeling young man with a falcon. It dates to the late tenth century AH / sixteenth CE or early eleventh century AH / seventeenth CE and was likely produced in Qazvin or Isfahan. http://openn.library.upenn.edu/Data/0020/Data/WaltersManuscripts/W682/
W.619, Two works of Sa`di: the Rose garden (Gulistan) and the Orchard (Bustan), Fol. 10b. his illuminated manuscript contains two works by Sa‘dī (d. 691 AH / 1292 CE): the Gulistān (Rose garden) and the Būstān (Orchard). It was copied in 980 AH / 1572 CE by Muḥammad Riz̤ā al-Tabrīzī in Iran. The text of the Gulistān appears in the main area, while that of the Būstān is inscribed obliquely around the main text area on three sides.http://openn.library.upenn.edu/Data/0020/Data/WaltersManuscripts/W619/
W.593, Wonders of creation, Ṭūsī, Muḥammad ibn Maḥmūd, Fol. 106b. This is an illuminated and illustrated copy of a Persian version of the famous ʿAjā’ib al-makhlūqāt (Wonders of creation) by Zakariyāʾ al-Qazwīnī (d. 682 AH / 1283 CE), composed by Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad al-Ṭūsī (fl. sixth century AH / twelfth CE). The text, in black nastaʿlīq script, may have been written by an Iranian scribe in the tenth century AH / sixteenth CE in Ottoman Turkey. http://openn.library.upenn.edu/Data/0020/Data/WaltersManuscripts/W593/
The Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies 