A page from the romance of Islamic art …
It set my mind alight once I learned the story of this noble Qur’an …
I became certain then that there is another side — one carrying a romance and a unique human state — within every piece of art in museums and public libraries …
This Qur’an was presented by Sultan Abdülhamid II to his wife, the Lady Ayşe Destizer, on the occasion of their marriage, saying to her: “Let us find you a name from the Holy Qur’an.”
The sultan opened a page of the Qur’an, and his eye fell upon the verse that ends with the word (al-mushfiqun, “those who are apprehensive”) in Surat al-Mu’minun; so the Lady Ayşe was named (al-Mushfiqa) thereafter.
(The Qur’an is in the hand of the military judge Mustafa Izzet, dated 1288 AH / 1871 CE, and is preserved in the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts under number 406.)
