Šāh Ismāʻīl, a King with Many Visitings of the Qur’an On the Phenomenon of Forging the Colophons of Old Kufic Qur’ans in the Name of Shiʻite Imams
Volume 31, Issue 2, June 2018, Pages 29-53
Morteza Karimi-nia
Abstrakt This paper studies a set of Qur’an fragments in Kufic, at the end of which
some colophons attributed to the script of one of the Shi’ite Imams have
been added. The author first introduces ten manuscripts, their physical
features and the contents of these Qur’anic manuscripts along with their
pictures. Then, analyzing of the colophons of the manuscripts, the author
shows that the colophons attributed to Imams have been added later than
the original time of the manuscripts. All of these colophons come with
sentences signifying the visiting and sealing of manuscripts by the Safavid
king, Šāh Ismāʻīl (rule 1487-1524 A.D.). The author shows that this is also a
kind of forging occurred later than the Šāh Ismāʻīl era in order to increase
the financial and spiritual value of manuscripts.