Binding of Kairouan

This binding is one of the oldest Islamic examples, and is often characterized by its oblong format which, when closed, is reminiscent of caskets, whose lock consists of a hook within the upper panel and on which unfolds a leather hinge fixed to the backboard.

This backboard is composed of a leather-covered poplar-wood pressboard and lined with a piece of parchment.

In the centre of the panel is a bell-shaped fleuron, topped with a lotus flower. It is enclosed within two concentric circles, from where two symmetrical spear motifs emerge and extend along the longitudinal axis. From these two rings emerge four furled, tri-lobed fleurons point towards the corners of the panel. The borders of the latter are composed of two superposed rectangles.

The decorations were obtained using the technique of thin-wire relief. The wires were laid out on the pressboard and attached (glued?) along the light grooves for the design of the motif that the craftsman wished to create. Once the wire was in place, the binder stretched damp leather on the pressboard. The leather shrank when it dried and the motif created by the passage of the wires finally emerged. The motif became more defined, for example, during the burnishing process, which involves passing a metal tool over the panel—this emphasizes the elements in relief and flattens the rest of the leather.

The other decorations were obtained using the technique of engraving, which consisted of incising the leather surface with a fine point to obtain fine parallel grooves that define the ground or complete an ornamental element.

This Kairouanese binding belongs to a collection of over 150 specimens that were part of the ancient library of the Great Mosque of Kairouan. In addition to its exceptional value, it attests to the town’s great importance as a book-producing centre, whose influence radiated throughout the Maghrib. This is corroborated by the Cairo Geniza documents, which irrefutably prove that Kairouan exported books to Egypt and Spain during the tenth and beginning of the eleventh centuries. It has also been established that the fabrication techniques for the first Muslim bindings were influenced by Byzantine and Coptic bindings that spread throughout the Mediterranean basin. The impressive series of Coptic (Egyptian) bindings (Fayyum and other Delta towns) in the collection of Pierpont Morgan, mostly dating from the fifth to tenth centuries, has many technical and decorative similarities with the Kairouanese bindings.   

In the Islamic era, bindings that originated in Damascus—held at the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts in Istanbul—have many similarities with the Kairouanese collection. Another Qur’an binding, held at the Cairo National Library (inventory No. 22910), which was given as a legacy (in 883–884) to the Great Mosque of Damascus, has the same strapwork, plaiting, and interlacing decorations used on Kairouanese bindings.

Islamic bookbinding fabrication techniques spread throughout the Western world, particularly to the Latin areas, and Jean Vézin identified a possible connection with the backboard of the binding of the Gospel of John from the tomb of St Cuthbert[1].

The technique of fine-wire relief was also applied in Christian societies, as can be seen on the binding of the Syriac manuscript (held at Dublin’s Chester Beatty Library) that dates from the eighth to ninth centuries[2].

[2] Van Regemorter, B., 1961, pp. 7–8 and 11, pl. 3b.