Blue Koran

The Blue Qur'an (Arabic: المصحف الأزرق al-Muṣḥaf al-′Azraq) is a late 9th- to early 10th-century Fatimid Tunisian Qur'an manuscript in Kufic calligraphy, probably created in North Africa for the Great Mosque (Mosque of Uqba) of Qairawan. Although scholars generally agree on its provenance and dating, recent scholarship by Alain George dates the manuscript rather earlier, to the early Abbasid caliphate; however, it has been dated as late as 1020 CE and placed in Córdoba as well as Qairawan. It is written in gold and decorated in silver (that has since oxidized) on vellum colored with indigo, a unique aspect of a Quranic manuscript, probably emulating the purple parchment used for Byzantine Imperial manuscripts. Red ink is also used. It is among the most famous works of Islamic calligraphy, and has been called "one of the most extraordinary luxury manuscripts ever created." Art historian Yasser Tabbaa wrote that the "evanescent effect" of the gold lettering on indigo "appears to affirm the Mu'tazili belief in the created and mysterious nature of the Word of God."

The manuscript's approximately 600 pages were dispersed during the Ottoman period; today most of it is located in the National Institute of Art and Archaeology Bardo National Museum in Tunis, with detached folios in museums worldwide. These institutions include the Musée de la Civilisation et des Arts Islamiques in Raqqada, which has 67 folios. The folios are differently sized: the folio held by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is 28.25 cm by 37.46 cm, but there are pages as large as 31 cm by 41 cm. Most of the folios remained in Qairawan until the 1950s, when they were further dispersed. In 2012 and 2013, folios from the Blue Qur'an were sold in major Islamic art auctions, carrying a price of hundreds of thousands of dollars apiece. Christie's of London sold folios in 2012 and Sotheby's in a record-breaking 2010 auction; the one folio auctioned by Sotheby's was reported sold for over $800,000, over double its estimated price. A note must be made, however, that Sotheby's published records do not show any folios sold that year.

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