President Erdogan presents 'Istanbul Mushaf' to Department of Sacred Relics

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has presented the "Istanbul Mushaf" to the Department of Sacred Relics, which contains 10 volumes of the Holy Quran handwritten in 8 years by calligrapher Huseyin Kutlu and his team of 66 people in Istanbul.

The Istanbul Manuscript, which focuses on the entire Islamic history and geography from the era of the Rashidun Caliphate to the present day, encompasses the handwritten transcription of the Holy Quran.

This project, aiming to explore the history of Quranic arts over 15 centuries of Islamic civilisation, was carried out under the proposal of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The initiative revives the "nakkashane" tradition that faded away in the 18th century. Nakkashane refers to royal design ateliers within or near Ottoman palaces.

The manuscript, measuring 365 by 559 millimetres and consisting of 850 pages in total, was presented to Erdogan for his contributions to scholars and Islamic civilisations.

In the production of the manuscript's papers, a total of 800,000 organic egg whites were used for 200,000 sheets of paper.

Additionally, a specialized papermaking machine was developed specifically for the sizing of the papers.

A thousand special facsimile prints of the manuscript were also produced, with dimensions identical to the original.

In the complete 10-volume work, each volume's outer cover, inner cover, endpapers, and title pages were designed in various styles reflecting the characteristics of the respective periods.

The inks used in the work were also prepared by Huseyin Kutlu and his team from completely natural materials.