Women's Contribution to the Enrichment of the Art of Calligraphy and Quranic Manuscripts: A Codex by Zynab bint Aḥmad al-Maqdisiyyah as a Case Study

Abstract

This study examines the contribution of Muslim women to the art of Arabic calligraphy and Quranic manuscript (Muṣhaf) production an artistic and scholarly domain that has not received sufficient historical and technical analysis. A gap exists between the material reality of this contribution, as attested by numerous extant artifacts, and its relative absence from comprehensive historical and archaeological scholarship. The study therefore aims to examine a Mamluk-era Quranic codex (Rab‘ah), currently held in the Museum of Islamic Art in Cairo, copied by Zynab bint Aḥmad al-Maqdisiyyah, with the goal of offering a comprehensive codicological analysis encompassing the manuscript’s material, script, ornamentation, and binding, as well as an assessment of the calligrapher’s adherence to the Quranic sciences governing orthography and vocalization (Ḍabṭ and Rasm). The study employs a descriptive-comparative methodology to highlight the artistic and aesthetic features that distinguish this work from other Quranic manuscripts. Among the most significant findings is that women’s contribution to the refinement of Arabic calligraphy was not exceptional but rather part of a long-standing civilizational phenomenon, and that Zynab al-Maqdisiyyah possessed both scholarly and artistic mastery. The study further finds that she imbued the. manuscript’s ornamentation with functional purposes serving the reader, such as marking verse divisions and indicating the sections (Ajzāʾ) and parts (Aḥzāb) of the Quran. The simplicity evident in the manuscript’s production style suggests that it was produced independently of official royal patronage, given its lack of the decorative elaborateness characteristic of contemporary sultanic Qurans.