Document (sanad) issued to Muhammad ibn Abdurahman al-Balkhī

Before you is a rare educational document from the Timurid period, issued in Samarkand in February 1435. This is a sanad, or ijaza — an official certificate authorizing a student to teach Islamic sciences on behalf of his master.
The document was granted by the scholar Fazlullah al-Samarqandi to his student Muhammad al-Balkhi. The nisba “al-Balkhi” itself reveals the intellectual attraction of 15th-century Samarkand: students traveled here from across the Islamic world to study within the scholarly environment of the age of Ulugh Beg.
The main text is written in the monumental thuluth script, one of the most prestigious forms of Islamic calligraphy. Its large and elegant rounded forms were commonly used for religious manuscripts, architectural inscriptions, and official state documents. Additional notes and annotations visible in the margins reflect the living tradition of Islamic scholarship, in which texts were continually supplemented by commentaries and explanations from teachers and later readers.
The paper itself is equally significant. Samarkand paper of the 15th century was renowned throughout the Islamic world for its durability and smooth surface. Owing to its exceptional quality, the manuscript has preserved the clarity of its script for nearly six centuries.
This document reminds us that Samarkand in the age of Mirzo Ulugh Beg was not only a center of astronomy, but also one of the foremost university cities of Islamic civilization.