The Nahj al-Faradis: Rare Book of the Week
Detail from from the Timurid Manuscripts, the Nahj-Al-Faradis. Estimate £2,000,000 - £3,000,000 ($2,600,000 - $3,900,000)
This week's Rare Book of the Week comes up for auction at Christie’s in its spring sale of Art of the Islamic and Indian Worlds on May 1, an extremely rare folio from the Timurid manuscript, the Nahj al-Faradis, commissioned by Sultan Abu Sa’id Gurkan in 1466 in Timurid Herat.
The manuscript focuses entirely on the hadith about the Mi’raj of the Prophet. The folio has two paintings, one depicting the Prophet arriving in the Fourth Heaven, the other with the Prophet meeting Jesus at the Bayt al-Ma’mur. It is unique apart from a ‘sister manuscript’ written about two decades earlier, and now in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris.
Folios lacking in the Paris manuscript mean that this folio is the only existing depiction of this important scene. It has an estimate of £2m-£3m ($2.6m-$3.9m).
Featured in the video below, also going under the hammer is a richly illustrated epic based on the Shahnama including the Garshaspnama and Samnama, probably Mighal Lahore, dating from the second quarter of the 18th century. It has an estimate of £700,000 - £1m.
