Sacred Hands

This splendid muṣḥaf (copy of the Qurʼān) was penned by the Ottoman calligrapher Kayışzade Hafız Osman Nuri Efendi of Burdur (d.1894) in âyet-berkenar format (fifteen lines per page with each page opening at the beginning of a verse and closing with the end of a verse). Because this format required the calligrapher to dramatically adjust the spacing of the letters, the majority of the great masters did not use it. Only Kayışzade Hafız Osman Nuri Efendi and Hasan Rıza Efendi (d.1920), both students of Kadıasker Mustafa İzzet Efendi (d.1876), are known to have successfully penned maṣāḥif in this format.

Hafız Osman Nuri Efendi completed 106 maṣāḥif during his lifetime, and according to his own note in the colophon this is the ninety-ninth. Bahaddin b. Tevfik illuminated the muṣḥaf, which features an exquisite double-page illumination at the opening.

References: Derman, M. Uğur. Letters in gold : Ottoman calligraphy from the Sakıp Sabancı collection, Istanbul. New York : Metropolitian Museum of Art : Distributed by H.N. Abrams, c1998, pp.130-131 ; Rado, Şevket. Türk hattatları : XV. yüzyıldan günümüze kadar gelmiş ünlü hattatların hayatları ve yazılarından örnekler. Istanbul : Yayın Matbaacılık Ticaret Limited Şti., [1984?], pp.228-229