Unlike miniatures, which are for well-known reasons unusual in Arabic manuscripts, artistic ‘unwāns are among those adornments which became an organic part of the Arabic manuscript book. Despite this, however, the number of Arabic manuscripts adorned with ‘unwāns is likely not very large. While we lack any broader statistics, we present the results for the collection of the St Petersburg Branch of the Institute of Oriental Studies: among 10,822 descriptions of manuscripts in the published catalogue there are fewer than 200 copies with artistic ‘unwāns; no more than 1.8% of the entire collection.
Despite these modest indicators, the amount of study accorded artistic ‘unwāns does not at present correspond to their significance in the Arabic manuscript tradition…
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