Moroccan Jewish Islamic Amulet Qur'an Case Stone Inlays Mixed Metal

Moroccan Jewish Islamic Amulet Qur'an Case Stone Inlays Mixed Metal. Measures 6 1/4" high x 7" wide x 1 7/8 thick. "These types of metal cases are generally called "Qur'an case in the antiques profession. These cases were made and used by both Moroccan Jews and Muslims. Muslims would put a page of the Qur'an (or a small Qur'an) in them, Jews would put a Jewish text in them.

These texts were put in the box to function as an amulet. So the best generic label would be Moroccan Jewish, Islamic amulet case. Now this is confirmed by what appears on the back side of your case, of which there are many known examples. What you see there is a "magic square box" filled with Arabic numbers.

That the numbers are in Arabic has no bearing on whether the case was made by a Jewish or Muslim artisan, given that Jews in Morocco also daily used Arabic. In fact, I have an example of one of these types of metal cases with Hebrew on the back and Arabic numbers on the top lid. I believe most of these cases were made by Jewish Berbers (Jews who lived in Berber villages and who spoke the Berber language, Amazigh).