This large vellum qur’an folio is written in elegant Kufic-Abbasid script. A cluster of six gold dots is used to indicate the end of each verse and the gold text at the bottom is the surah or the chapter heading for the following qur'anic text.The folio is inscribed with verses from the Qur'anic chapters, Surah al-Tin (The Fig) 95:5 "Then do We abase him to be the lowest of the low (Except such as believe and do righteous deeds: For theirs shall be a boundless recompense)".It is also inscribed with a verse from the Surah al-Alaq (the clot) 96:4 - "He Who taught (the use of) the pen."As the Qur'an was the sacred word of God, it was important the script used to convey the holy text should differ from the regular scripts. Early scripts such as Kufic and Hijazi were deemed appropriate to convey the divine revelations. Over time Kufic acquired a form status as a stately and important script.Parchment (animal hide) was one of the most popular writing materials due to its robust durability in harsh climates. Owing to the expense of its manufacture, folios tended to be small in size and oblong in format. A taste for elegance, the combination of the small page sizes and the elongated horizontal Kufic script were factors that led calligraphers to pen only a few lines of text per page.
