Koran

The illuminated opening spread with the Fatiha and Bakara surahs has a broad border with lappets along the long edges. Large blue hatayi flowers encircle the border. The text is surrounded on four sides by broad horizontal and narrow vertical panels filled with illumination, and th ere are gilded cloud cartouches in the spaces between the lines. This type of illumination painted predominantly in tones of gold and lapis blue was used for the opening spreads of Korans from the 15th century onwards. There are illuminated panels above the surah headings of this Koran, which has no illuminated rosettes in the margins to mark the endings of sections of different lengths. Instead of the traditional rosettes, these places are marked by writing in gold rıka script.

The covers of the cherry coloured leather binding with flap are decorated with a deeply stamped gold-tooled composition consisting of a globular oval medallion, cornerpieces and border. The maroon leather doublures are decorated with a gold-tooled medallion with pendants. The binding is original apart from the fore-edge flap, which is a later replacement.