Manuscript with Duke of Wellington association. Rare south indian qur'an in a contemporary indian leather-tooled binding, present here in an excellent state of preservation.

Seyyed Hussain was a Sergeant in the 4th Native Cavalry, British Regiment, and Munshi to the Duke of Wellington during the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War at Srirangapatna in 1799 before becoming the aide-de-camp to Sir John Malcolm. The attached letter relating to the provenance of the manuscript reads: 'The Koran in Arabic, from a very perfect copy in the library of Mahmoud Sufi (?) with marginal notes from two other collated (?) copies. Purchased from Seyyed Hussain (formerly munshee to the Duke of Wellington in Srirangapatna), Bangalore, 1844'.

Single volume, decorated manuscript on polished light blue paper, in Arabic, complete, 335 x 230 mm; single column, 15 lines black cursive verging on naskh, surah headings and qur'anic divisions to margins in red, catch-words, nineteenth-century manuscript note relating to the provenance of the manuscript pasted to front free endpaper, additional folios of prayers at the end of the volume (copied in the same hand as the Qur'an), excellent condition internally; contemporary red morocco with flap, tooled and ruled with cream-coloured paper onlays to medallions, extremities lightly rubbed else a very good example.