HISTORIANS OF ISLAMIC ART ASSOCIATION
Fourth Biennial Symposium, October 16-18, 2014
Aga Khan Museum, Toronto, Canada
CONTENTS
Introduction and Acknowledgements
Symposium Program
Panel 1
Collections and Exhibitions Between Knowledge and Imagination
Panel 2
Knowledge and the Building Traditions
Panel 3
Crafting Knowledge in Persian and Turkish Book Arts
Panel 4
Pentagons and Decagons in Islamic Art
Panel 5
Faking It? Imitating, Copying, and Forging Persianate Art and Architecture
Panel 6
The Word Embellished
Panel 7
Embedding and Disseminating Knowledge in the Art of the Book
Panel 8
What Artists and Artisans Knew
Notes
INTRODUCTION AND
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
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Following the highly successful and stimulating HIAA Biennial Symposium held at The
Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2012, the executive board of the Historians of Islamic Art
Association agreed to hold its next symposium at the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto.
The diversity of HIAA members’ interests was well served by the first three Biennial Symposia
in which scholars from North America, Europe, and the Middle East presented new research
on a broad range of topics. As global resilience on the Internet has grown, the role of HIAA has
expanded through its website and H-ISLAMART, keeping HIAA members in touch with one
another and providing news of publications, scholarly issues, and the impact of world affairs
on the subjects of our research. No amount of electronic information, however, can replace the
valuable opportunity for HIAA members to present their work in person to their colleagues.
Occurring one month after the Aga Khan Museum’s opening, the Fourth Biennial Symposium
will focus on the theme of Forms of Knowledge and Cultures of Learning in Islamic Art. The
symposium will open with a keynote address by Lisa Golombek, Curator Emeritus (Islamic
Art) at the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto. Over the course of the two days, the program will
consist of eight thematic sessions on a variety of topics covering all periods and most media of
Islamic art and architecture. Participants and registrants will be encouraged to visit the Museum’s
Permanent Collection gallery and the two temporary exhibitions, In Search of the Artist: Signed
Drawings and Paintings from the Aga Khan Museum Collection curated by Filiz Çakır Phillip,
and The Garden of Ideas: Contemporary Art from Pakistan curated by Sharmini Pereira.
The HIAA 2014 Program Committee includes Ruba Kana’an, Head of Education and Scholarly
Programs, Aga Khan Museum; Oya Pancaroğlu, Department of History, Boğaziçi University;
and Karin Ruehrdanz, Senior Curator of Islamic Decorative Arts, Royal Ontario Museum. The
symposium was planned in consultation with the HIAA board and particularly with its President,
Sheila Canby, Patti Cadby Birch Curator in Charge, Department of Islamic Art, at The Metropolitan
Museum of Art. The Aga Khan Museum has made the symposium possible with its full support.
Sussan Babaie Ruba Kana’an
HIAA President-Elect
Aga Khan Museum
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SYMPOSIUM PROGRAM
Thursday, October 16
3:00–6:00 p.m.
Optional individual visit to the galleries
12:40–2:00 p.m. LUNCH
6:00–6:45 p.m.
Keynote Address: The Chini-Khaneh as “Library”
Lisa Golombek, Curator Emeritus (Islamic Art), Royal Ontario Museum
2:00–3:40 p.m.
PANEL 3:
Crafting Knowledge in Persian and Turkish Book Arts
7:00–9:00 p.m.
Welcoming Reception: Aga Khan Museum, Toronto
Chair: Christiane Gruber
Elizabeth Rauh
Processes of Depiction (Tasvir): An Illustrated Manuscript
of Yusuf va Zulaykha Attributed to Mu‘in Musavvir
Friday, October 17
9:00–10:40 a.m.
Ashley Dimmig
Ottoman Calligraphic Albums as Storehouses
of Knowledge and Teaching Tools
PANEL 1:
Collections and Exhibitions Between Knowledge and Imagination
Chair: Avinoam Shalem
İlker Evrim Binbaş
“Shadow of the Ancestors”:
Reconfiguring the Past in Ottoman Genealogical Trees
Mariam Rosser-Owen and Mercedes Volait
Can Collections Speak? What We Can Learn
from an Early Collection of Islamic Art
Evyn Kropf
“Sensible Metaphors”: Pictograms in the Transmission
of ‘Abd al-Wahhab al-Sha‘rani’s al-Mizan al-kubra
Irina Koshoridze
From Private Collectors to Public Institutions
Solmaz Mohammadzadeh Kive
Staging This Islamic Thing:
The Conflicts in Exhibitions of “Islamic Art”
3:40–4:00 p.m.
COFFEE BREAK
4:00–5:20 p.m.
PANEL 4:
Pentagons and Decagons in Islamic Art
Yuka Kadoi
Rethinking Intermediality in the Study of Medieval
Islamic Iranian Architecture: Photographs, Exhibitions,
and the Persian-Gothic Thesis in the 1930s
10:40–11:00 a.m.
COFFEE BREAK
11:00 a.m.–12:40 p.m.
PANEL 2:
Knowledge and the Building Traditions
Chair: Gülru Necipoğlu
Esra Akın-Kıvanç
From Vasari to Mustafa Ali:
Contextualizing the Written Sources of Islamic Art History
Gül Kale
Proportional Relationships: The Science of Surveying
and the Architect’s Cubit in Ottoman Architecture
Chair: Hashim Sarkis
Carol Bier
Pentagons and Decagons in Islamic Art: Geometry Made Manifest
Eric Broug
The Importance of Pentagons and Decagons in Islamic Art
Jay Bonner
The Formative Role of the Decagon and Pentagon
in the Development of Islamic Geometric Design
4:00–5:00 p.m.
Sharon C. Smith and Shiraz Allibhai
Archnet: A Demonstration Workshop
5:30 p.m. onward
Departure for the Royal Ontario Museum
to attend a cocktail reception for speakers and chairs
Ünver Rüstem
Building the Ottoman Baroque:
Architectural Practice in Eighteenth-Century Istanbul
Yasser Tabbaa
The Light of the Imam: Ishraqi Dimensions
in the Mosque of Shaykh Lutfallah (1603–19) in Isfahan
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05
Saturday, October 18
9:00–10:40 a.m.
PANEL 5:
Faking It? Imitating, Copying, and Forging
Persianate Art and Architecture
Chair: Karin Ruehrdanz
2:00–3:40 p.m.
Chair: Persis Berlekamp
Amy S. Landau
Safavid Attitudes Toward Sacred Images
in the Written and Visual Record
Simon Rettig
A Genuine Aggregation of Styles? Questioning the Authenticity
of Paintings in the Vever Khamsa of Nizami
Aslıhan Erkmen
Illustrated Biographical Writings
as Educational and Visual Memorial
Yael Rice
Made in the U.S.A.:
On a Safavid Cubiculum in the Philadelphia Museum of Art
Anastassiia Botchkareva
Between Timurid Prince and Mughal Emperor:
Legacy in Transmission
Igor Demchenko
Authentic Monuments in the Forged Tradition:
Inventing and Training Ustos in Soviet Central Asia
Stefan Kamola
“With All Elaboration”:
Rashīd al-Dīn and the Display of Knowledge
Rachel Ward
Qaysar and the Naples Globe
10:40–11:00 a.m.
COFFEE BREAK
3:40–4:00 p.m.
COFFEE BREAK
11:00 a.m.–12:40 p.m.
PANEL 6:
The Word Embellished
4:00–5:20 p.m.
PANEL 8:
What Artists and Artisans Knew
12:40–2:00 p.m.
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PANEL 7:
Embedding and Disseminating Knowledge in the Art of the Book
Chair: Sheila Blair
Chair: Stefan Weber
Noha Abou-Khatwa
A Mamluk Calligrapher’s Tradition of Learning:
The Career and Works of ‘Abd al-Rahmān ibn al-Sāyigh
Friederike Voigt
The Rediscovery of Underglaze Painting in Late Qajar Iran:
The Master Potter ‘Ali Mohammed Esfahani
Nourane Ben Azzouna
Of Proportion and Rhythm:
Converging Discourses on Calligraphy and Music in Medieval Islam
Miriam Ali-de-Unzaga
Secrecy as Adornment: Transmitting Knowledge
During the Weaving Process in Rural Morocco
Fateme Montazeri and Arash Shirinbab
Scripture or Art Instruction? A Study of Fakhr al-Ashraaf’s
Lithographed Quran and its Calligraphy Treatise
Marcus Milwright
Insiders and Outsiders in the Transmission of Knowledge:
The Case of Traditional Craft Practices in Greater Syria
Ayşin Yoltar-Yıldırım
The Question of Well-Rounded Artists of the Book
at the Ottoman Court
Stephane Pradines
The Rock Crystal of the Zanj: From Madagascar to Fatimid Cairo
LUNCH
6:00–6:40 p.m. Assadullah Souren Melikian-Chirvani, Aga Khan Trust for Culture
A Sufi Message on Neyshabur Pottery
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Chair and Discussant: Avinoam Shalem, Columbia University
PANEL 1
Collections and Exhibitions
Between Knowledge and Imagination
Mariam Rosser-Owen and Mercedes Volait
Victoria and Albert Museum, London,
and Institut national d’histoire de l’art, Paris
profess a connoisseurly desire to understand the embryonic field of Islamic art and to form a
comprehensive collection of exemplars.
Equally interesting is what does not appear in the collection: there are no manuscripts and very
little figurative art. This is a notable difference from Islamic art collections formed during the 20th
Can Collections Speak? What We Can Learn from an Early
Collection of Islamic Art
Gaston de Saint-Maurice (1831–1905) was a French count who served as equerry
to the Khedive of Egypt from 1868 to 1878. While in Cairo he formed a large
collection, much of which was exhibited at the 1878 Paris Universal Exposition,
century and today, which implies a change in fashion since the days of such early connoisseurs
as Saint-Maurice.
This paper will share our first observations on what we can learn about the historiography of
Islamic art by studying one man’s collection, and what Saint-Maurice’s collecting activities can
tell us about the art market in Cairo in the 1870s.
where Saint-Maurice curated the section on “L’Egypte des Califes.” At the end
of the exposition, the collection remained on display in Paris, where curators
from the South Kensington Museum (later the Victoria and Albert Museum, or
V&A) saw it and commented on its quality. The Arabist Stanley Lane-Poole
(1854–1931), acting as the museum’s adviser on “Saracenic art,” considered it
to be “of the greatest value and rarity.” Eventually, part of the collection came
Irina Koshoridze
Georgian National Museum, Tbilisi, Georgia
to London on loan, the remainder staying in Paris. In 1884 most of the loaned
From Private Collectors to Public Institutions
objects were bought by the London museum, while a large quantity was sent to
This paper will explore how education continued and continues to play a role in the collection
the Royal Museum in Edinburgh. Today Saint-Maurice’s collection is dispersed;
and display of Islamic art in Georgia.
approximately 200 objects from his collection reside in the V&A while a smaller
number are held by the Musée des Arts décoratifs in Paris, and an as-yetunknown number are in Edinburgh. In addition to the objects exhibited in Paris,
some 700 objects remained in Saint-Maurice’s maison arabe in Cairo (now part
of the French embassy and the subject of a recent book by Mercedes Volait).
This paper aims to share the early results of a new collaborative research project
between the Institut national d’histoire de l’art and the Victoria and Albert
Museum, focusing on Saint-Maurice the man and his collection. Starting with
a close study of the V&A collections, the project will encompass the dispersed
objects in other institutions to build a panorama of his collection as a whole.
The Saint-Maurice collection in the V&A comprises historic objects from across
the Islamic world, especially Egypt and Syria. These are primarily “decorative
arts”: tiles, textiles, inlaid metalwork, woodwork, jewellery, seals, amulets,
stone inscriptions, arms, and armour. They date especially from the 14th to 16th
centuries but also include 19th-century objects such as high-quality carpets
from Iran and Central Asia that were bought new. Saint-Maurice’s tastes ranged
widely and his collection also included pieces from Turkey, India, East Asia,
and Europe. Some of the objects are eclectic, but as a whole they seem to
The paper will focus on Alexander Roinashvili (known also as Roinov), a successful photographer
who started to collect Islamic antiquities in the second half of the 19th century, mostly in Georgia
and the Caucasus, which at that time was inundated by foreign “hunters” of antique artifacts.
He acquired a mass of objects of interest for their local provenance as much as their inherent
quality, including famous vessels such as the Basra Ewer and the Tiflis Ewer.
Roinashvili created a collection from which he extracted a travelling exhibition that was taken
from Tbilisi to Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and Astrakhan. He created one of the first private
museums in the Russian Empire, and he introduced new methods of exhibiting artifacts,
including photos, multimedia, labelling, and cataloguing of artifacts. Some of the costs of this
enterprise were recouped by selling objects to collectors and institutions: Count Bobrinsky, the
Hermitage, and the Berlin Museum of Islamic Art all bought some of their finest objects from him.
In his will, Roinashvili’s collection was bequeathed to The Society for the Propagation of Literacy
among Georgians. Similar in spirit to Western museums with an emphasis on education, the goal
of the society was to acquaint Georgians with aspects of their history and of the wider world. The
collections were later merged with the Oriental collections of the Shalva Amiranashvili Museum
of Fine Art and are now displayed in the National Museum of Georgia, where they continue the
endeavour initiated by Alexander Roinashvili.
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Solmaz Mohammadzadeh Kive
University of Colorado
Staging This Islamic Thing:
The Conflicts in Exhibitions of “Islamic Art”
The recent century has witnessed many criticisms of the universal notion of “Islamic Art” and its
exhibitions, which have disregarded the changes through time and differences among places in
favour of a homogenized entity. In response to the criticism, many museums have undertaken
significant renovations. The names of the collections, likewise, have been widely reconsidered.
“Islamic Art” has been replaced by various names de-emphasizing the religious implication. In
an extreme example, The Metropolitan Museum of Art has renamed its exhibition the “Arts of
the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia.” However, I would argue that
the unity and by extension homogeneity of what falls under these various names continues to
be taken as obvious, both by universal survey museums and the current century’s museums of
“Islamic Art,” though perhaps to different ends. On the other hand, in some Muslim countries,
such as Iran and Turkey, which are ironically considered two important sources of “Islamic Art,”
the collection of the Islamic period is framed within national history. Looking into the latter
instances, this paper discusses some spatial techniques used in the former cases to solidify the
notion of the unity and homogeneity of “Islamic Art.”
advancement of architectural studies in the field of Islamic monuments in Iran, interwoven with
the reshaping of socio-cultural fabrics and self-consciousness that radically took place in Iran
during a thriving period of the Pahlavi regime. Yet the most important endeavour was initiated
by Pope, who conducted the photographic documentation of medieval Iranian architecture,
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Yuka Kadoi
University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom
including the Friday Mosque of Isfahan, for his monumental Survey of Persian Art (1938–39)
Rethinking Intermediality in
the Study of Medieval Islamic Iranian Architecture:
Photographs, Exhibitions, and the Persian-Gothic Thesis in the 1930s
manifestations of ideal architectural forms and styles as well as two-dimensional displays for
This paper reassesses the formation of art-historical discourses on the architecture of Islamic Iran
introduced to Western audiences as quasi-Christian architecture. Although the stylistic affinity
in the early 20th century and considers the process of reshaping images of the Islamic architecture
between Sajluq mosques and Gothic cathedrals had already been addressed by Western
of the Saljuq periods — especially the Friday Mosque (Masjid-i Jami‘) of Isfahan. Drawn from the
architectural historians long before the 1930s, tangible visual evidence for the sophistication of
extensive use of archival sources, the paper traces how Saljuq mosques in general and the Friday
the Persian vaulting system and other technological peculiarities that was projected in Pope’s
Mosque of Isfahan in particular became masterpieces of Islamic Iranian architecture in the guise of
large-size photographs (his so-called photo-murals), further enhanced by his formidable
the “Persian Gothic Cathedral,” with emphasis on the development of intermediary research tools
eloquence in public speech, served to revoke the Persian-Gothic thesis and ultimately to secure
ranging from traditional analytical but artistic drawings to photo journalism and filmmaking.
his fame as the then-champion (and later the loser) of this long-lasting art-historical debate.
The discussion of this paper is centred on the role of photography and is concerned with the
In the age of digital media of the 21st century, architectural photographs and exhibitions of the
period between the late 1920s and early 1930s, when the architectural landscape and cultural
first decades of the 20th century may not exert the same visual merit and social impact as they
heritage of Iran attracted a number of charismatic individuals such as Arthur Upham Pope
did in the pre-war period. Yet a particular image of medieval Islamic Iranian architecture that
(1881–1969), André Godard (1881–1965), Eric Schroeder (1904–71), Myron Bement Smith (1897–
was steadily formed in the 1930s continues to shape our thinking today, and the proposed paper
1970), and Erich Schmidt (1897–1964), to name just a few. Each played a pivotal role in the
elaborates on this process.
as well as for his lesser-known but important series of propagandistic exhibitions of Persian
architecture in the 1930s. The latter particularly explored the potential of photographs as visual
the general public and research resources for students.
Instead of emphasizing its original context as a living Muslim religious complex, the image of
the Friday Mosque of Isfahan was carefully crafted as a de-Islamized ruin and was essentially
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Chair and Discussant: Gülru Necipoğlu, Harvard University
Knowledge and the Building Traditions
Esra Akın-Kıvanç
University of South Florida, United States
Using this new approach in the study of pre-modern texts in a global context, this paper intends
From Vasari to Mustafa Ali:
Contextualizing the Written Sources of Islamic Art History
Europe but rather as active components of textual and visual modes of learning formulated and
Over the past few years, in an attempt to study Islamic art and architecture outside
of the paradigms of a traditional East-West dichotomy, a growing number of
scholars have expanded the scope of their studies to include discussions of
intercultural exchange between the Ottoman and Italian worlds. Informed by
theories of cross-cultural translation, the compelling works of these scholars
address the overlapping and oft-competing visual idioms of Ottoman and Italian art
and architecture and encourage us to cross the artificial boundaries among different
academic fields and geographies. A greater awareness of the significance of primary
sources for comprehensive research and their increased availability have facilitated
this exciting, if belated, new direction in scholarship. As the newly discovered
written sources of Islamic art historiography begin to serve as valuable tools in
formulating discourses to interpret a wide range of issues from patronage to artistic
output, an urgent need emerges to consider primary texts not simply as passive
individual texts composed in a historical vacuum isolated from the visual cultures of contemporary
disseminated by the literati and connoisseurs of art in the 16th-century Ottoman Empire and Italy.
Gül Kale
Independent Scholar
Proportional Relationships:
The Science of Surveying and the Architect’s Cubit in Ottoman Architecture
Cafer Efendi’s Risale-i Mimariyye (A Book on Architecture, ca. 1614), written by a scholar for
an architect, has been a unique text on architecture, not only in the Ottoman world but the
Islamic world in general. While it has often been deemed an incoherent book, a closer reading
discloses the underlying intentions of the author. I demonstrate that according to Cafer Efendi,
architecture was based on various modes of knowledge, ranging from the science of geometry to
the science of music.
witnesses to the shared visual and cultural histories of the Ottoman and Italian
Cafer Efendi’s text also includes chapters on the science of surveying. Based on these chapters,
worlds but as products of these very same shared histories they help illuminate.
this paper will explore the inherent link between architecture, the science of surveying, and
The paper will address this need through a comparative analysis of two of the
most significant written sources of Ottoman and Italian art history: Mustafa Âli of
Gallipoli’s Epic Deeds of Artists (1587), the earliest Ottoman treatise about the lives
and work of Muslim calligraphers and painters, and Giorgio Vasari’s Le Vite de’ più
PANEL 2
to help historians of Islamic art and architecture understand and appreciate primary sources not as
eccellenti pittori, scultori, e architettori (1st ed., 1550, 2nd ed., 1568), a standard
inheritance law that defined the measures of the architect’s cubit in the early modern Ottoman
world. I will explicate how a scholar tried to reconcile the cosmic, mathematical, and social
orders through the architect’s cubit during the complicated and transformative years of the 17th
century. In addition, I will discuss a unique document that relates Cafer Efendi’s role in surveying
as an expert on religious law at court, which illuminates his curious identity.
reference book on the artists of the Italian Renaissance. These two biographical
It has been claimed that Ottoman architects did not have a theoretical background. Yet although it
works, fulfilling their authors’ aspirations, have played a major role in shaping
cannot be generalized for all the architects in the corps, Cafer Efendi’s various references to Mehmed
and transmitting knowledge in their respective Ottoman and Italian contexts. By
Agha’s geometrical knowledge demonstrate the opposite in the case of a chief architect. Mehmed
engaging in a hermeneutic analysis of the literary language and content of the two
Agha’s skill in drawing is one of the main indications of his mathematical expertise, according to
texts and incorporating analyses of similar treatises from the Islamic and non-
Cafer. Thus I will conclude by discussing the inherent link between architectural drawings and the
Islamic world, this paper explores the shared linguistic and conceptual elements of
science of surveying against the backdrop of the foundation ceremonies of the Sultan Ahmed
Ottoman and Italian art historiography. With a focus on Mustafa Âli’s and Vasari’s
Mosque. Cafer Efendi’s book, written for the chief architect, Mehmed Agha, was informed by Cafer’s
criteria for aesthetic judgment, the paper also articulates the points of convergence
diverse interests in the sciences. In this sense it is an exceptional source that conveys the relationship
and divergence in Ottoman/Islamic and Italian/Renaissance understanding of art’s
between architecture and the history of science in the early modern period and sheds light on the
historical progress and theories of visual perception.
perception of architecture from the viewpoint of a scholar conversant in various sciences.
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Ünver Rüstem
University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
Yasser Tabbaa
Independent Scholar
Building the Ottoman Baroque:
Architectural Practice in Eighteenth-Century Istanbul
The Light of the Imam:
Ishraqi Dimensions in the Mosque of Shaykh Lutfallah (1603–19) in Isfahan
Eighteenth-century Istanbul witnessed the emergence of a radically new kind of Ottoman
In a well-known hadith, Imam al-Husayn describes the imams as “silhouettes of light revolving
architecture characterized by its overt use of Europeanizing forms. Dubbed by scholars the
around the throne of the All Merciful,” an intrinsic quality of eternal light that stood at the
Ottoman Baroque, this mode swiftly eclipsed more established idioms to become the imperial
foundation of Imami thought and its confluence with Ishraqi theosophy in the later Middle
style par excellence. Yet the mechanisms through which this shift occurred remain largely
Ages. Conceptual linkages between Ishraqi theosophy and Persian architecture have long been
understudied, a neglect that has contributed to — and is symptomatic of — an enduring belief
proposed, but largely within a perennialist discourse that marginalizes history, or else they have
that the Ottoman Baroque was the product of unidirectional influences from an increasingly
been outright rejected by some prominent historians of Islamic art.
dominant West.
This paper proposes a historical investigation of the links between Ishraqi theosophy and
Using neglected and unknown primary sources, this paper will examine the instrumental role
Safavid religious architecture, particularly the Mosque of Shaykh Lutfallah (1603–19) in Isfahan,
that changing architectural practices played in facilitating the Ottoman Baroque. Especially
which was the first mosque to be built by Shah Abbas I in Isfahan and the first structure to be
important was the rise of enterprising groups of non-Muslim Ottoman architects who came to
erected on his renowned Maydan-i Naqsh-e Jahan. Focusing primarily on the reformulation of
dominate Istanbul’s building trade. These mainly Greek and Armenian kalfas (“master builders”)
Safavid domes in the early 17th century, best exemplified by the dome of Shaykh Lutfallah, into
utilized their communities’ mercantile and cultural contacts with Western Europe to create a
smooth radiant hemispheres, the paper proposes an interpretation of this monument in relation
style that answered emergent tastes among their elite Muslim patrons, who were themselves
to the theosophy of light as formulated by Shaykh Mulla Sadra and elaborated by contemporary
seeking closer diplomatic ties with Christendom. Though often outside the institutional
writers and poets, in particular Shaykh Lutfallah al-Maysi himself and Shaykh Baha’i al-‘Amili. A
framework of the imperial corps, the kalfas successfully secured the lion’s share of royal
close reading of the political, historical, architectural, ornamental, and epigraphic dimensions of
commissions, transforming a professional landscape that had previously been controlled by
the Mosque of Shaykh Lutfallah suggests that it was built as a monument that both reifies and
court-appointed Muslim architects.
expands upon the illuminationist theosophy of Imami Shi’ism.
What allowed the kalfas to flourish was their expertise in adapting foreign-derived forms for
Finally, the Mosque of Shaykh Lutfallah has been viewed as a kind of royal chapel for the private
distinctly Ottoman purposes. While their understanding of European models rested primarily
devotion of the Safavid court, a view that might explain the absence of a minaret, courtyard, or
on imported goods and illustrated books, the architectural evidence suggests that some of the
even cenotaph in it. One could further argue that the Lutfallah Mosque was a largely symbolic
kalfas gained first-hand knowledge of Western art through travel. Moreover, various Byzantine
monument — somewhat like the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem — that projected the theological
quotations among the buildings show that these architects were looking also to Istanbul’s
ideas and even political ambitions of the mature Safavid state.
own antique patrimony, as if to stake a local claim to the same classical heritage underlying
the Baroque in Europe. Such aesthetic self-consciousness indicates the unwritten intellectual
discourses that must have surrounded the Ottoman Baroque, further challenging the view that
the style was born of outside influence.
Indeed, the sultan’s court deliberately fostered the Ottoman Baroque as an internationally
legible mode that would proclaim the empire’s standing on the world stage at a time of
heightened East-West interaction. Capitalizing on their communities’ established role as
intermediaries with Europe, the ascendant kalfas were fully able to realize this ambitious
architectural statement.
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PANEL 3
Chair and Discussant: Christiane Gruber, Department of Art History,
University of Michigan
Crafting Knowledge in Persian and Turkish Book Arts
Elizabeth Rauh
University of Michigan, United States
Ashley Dimmig
University of Michigan, United States
Processes of Depiction (Tasvir):
An Illustrated Manuscript of Yusuf va Zulaykha
Attributed to Mu‘in Musavvir
Ottoman Calligraphic Albums as Storehouses
of Knowledge and Teaching Tools
A previously unstudied illustrated manuscript of Jami’s Yusuf va Zulaykha
of various works on paper, bound under the auspices of Sultan Abdülhamid II in late 19th-
(University of Michigan Isl. MS 358) includes a colophon attributing the
century Istanbul. Between their red leather covers, the Abdülhamid II albums exhibit numerous
book’s 13 paintings to the 17th-century Persian artist Mu‘in Musavvir. Due to
calligraphies in different scripts, texts in various languages, prime examples of illumination,
the manuscript’s deteriorated condition, the compositions’ underpaintings
highly elaborate decorative papers, as well as a few paintings and drawings — with dates
are visible and thus available for close scrutiny. These visual details aid in
spanning three centuries. How, then, do they function as diverse yet codified collections?
determining the hand of the artist within the complex production of the
While it is unknown how or in what condition the individual specimens came into the Ottoman
codex’s painted folios. Moreover, other visual materials related to the images
court, their subsequent reframing speaks to the nature of learning the art of the book. While
suggest that the artist’s hand was not working alone or without visual aids.
most books can be classified as educational objects in general, albums represent a specific
Indeed, some of the paintings present in Isl. MS 358 can be found in other
pedagogical methodology. Unlike other types of books, the didactic nature of albums lies not in
Safavid albums of drawings and illustrated books, including a Judeo-Persian
their textual or narrative content but rather in the breadth and apposition of their visual elements.
Yusuf and Zulaykha manuscript.
Furthermore, the Abdülhamid II albums are objects in their own right, not simply a group of
This Safavid illustrated manuscript of Yusuf va Zulaykha opens several
disparate specimens of noteworthy works on paper. Their reconstitution as albums grants
avenues for exploring the various tools and techniques used for painterly
them new life, with new purpose: training viewers as connoisseurs of various aspects of
production in 17th-century Isfahan. The processes of depiction in book arts —
manuscript production. However, even though these albums are continuing a centuries-old
including underpainting, image transfer, circulation, and copying — underscore
tradition of album-making in Islamic lands, their 19th-century cultural and political milieus
the vast visual repertoire in which artists were skilled and upon which they
must be considered, particularly in light of contemporaneous modernization projects, including
drew to produce compositions. Artists trained and working within these
education reform. Within this context, this paper analyzes the Abdülhamid II albums as both
pictorial practices emphasized artistic skill and visual acumen in repetition.
storehouses of knowledge and tools for teaching the art of the book at a time when printed
Thus, identifying one master artist’s individual hand in a creative object
books were becoming the norm. Thus, these albums exemplify the process of collecting and
must be understood within collaborative contexts, including the sharing and
preserving knowledge in material form and also demonstrate the means by which artistic
copying of images. Based on contemporaneous visual evidence and painterly
commodities have historically been utilized as teaching tools.
The University of Michigan Islamic Manuscripts Library currently houses four large albums
practices, this paper argues that the artist Mu‘in Musavvir was the executor of
the manuscript’s paintings. However, his output also must be simultaneously
examined within the conceptual and material processes of image making
shared by a number of artists in Safavid Isfahan.
17
İlker Evrim Binbaş
University of London, United Kingdom
“Shadow of the Ancestors”:
Reconfiguring the Past in Ottoman Genealogical Trees
The genealogical tree as a historiographical genre emerged in the 13th century when ruling
dynastic lineages needed to define their sovereign authority in the emerging constitutional
his belief was confirmed by a vision in which he encountered the prophet al-Khidr and saw the
source of the law for himself.
Prior to this encounter, al-Sha‘rani had asked his most important shaykh, the illiterate palm-leaf
plaiter ‘Ali al-Khawwas al-Burullusi (d. 1532 or 1533), which school of law was best. In response,
the shaykh drew a diagram on the wall with his stick illustrating the common source of the
schools of law. He used this diagram to explain that no school has better claim to the law than
any other.
crisis of the post-caliphal political environment. The extant examples demonstrate that the
Following the practice of his shaykh, al-Sha‘rani included a number of pictograms — which he
genealogical tree provided the political authorities with a convenient tool to unify the past with
called amthal mahsusah or “sensible metaphors” — in the introduction of his Mizan. At least
the present in a linear fashion. In other words, the genealogical tree was a platform on which the
one of these pictograms is clearly a reproduction of the explanation he received from his shaykh
full gamut of visual and narrative techniques could be deployed to reinterpret the past without
in visual form. Introducing and captioning the pictograms, al-Sha‘rani includes injunctions to
changing the general outlines of historical outlook.
see and contemplate these visual metaphors in order to know the concepts they signify. In
The Ottomans inherited the Mongol and Timurid practices of composing genealogical trees,
but they also vastly expanded the literary and visual repertoire of the genre. From the so-called
Tomar-i Hümayun (Topkapı Sarayı Kütüphanesi A. 3599), which was produced in the palace
workshops in Istanbul during the reign of Süleyman the Magnificent, to the Subhatu’l-ahbar
(Österreichische Staatsbibliothek H.O. 11), a much-copied cyle of genealogical tree composed
addition to clarifying the concepts for his lay audience, these injunctions reflect Sufi notions
of apprehension — such as those propagated in works attributed to al-Ghazali and Ibn ‘Arabi,
whom al-Sha‘rani is known to have studied — which require spiritual mediation of the visual.
Indeed, diagrams relating ontological and cosmological concepts appear in other Sufi writings,
though their significance as visual mediators remains greatly understudied.
sometime in the 17th century, the Ottoman genealogical trees in the 16th century were the
The significance of the pictograms for ongoing transmission of the work and its concepts is
primary textual device through which the Ottoman dynastic imagery projected a world-historical
reflected in their faithful reproduction in numerous manuscript copies produced in the
and universalist outlook. In these genealogical trees, the Ottoman dynasty was presented as the
centuries following the work’s composition. Taking as its point of departure a 17th-century
culmination point of an eschatological historical progression. The later Ottoman genealogical
manuscript copy of the Mizan held in the University of Michigan Library, this paper draws
trees appear to have lost their historical dimension and acquired the status of mere family trees.
on the evidence of a corpus of manuscripts produced chiefly in Ottoman lands during the 17th
In my paper, I will compare the contents and organization of the Tomar-ı Hümayun and the
and 18th centuries to analyze the role served by these visual metaphors in the transmission of
Subhatu’l-ahbar with the Tabaka-yi Mülûk-i Osmâniyân, an important genealogical tree that
key concepts in the Mizan. It also seeks to explore the role of visual devices in the mediation of
is today part of the rich Islamic manuscripts collection of the University of Michigan. My paper
knowledge within Sufistic cultures of learning.
argues that the Ottoman genealogical trees went through the process of the routinization of the
historical discourse after the 17th century.
Evyn Kropf
University of Michigan, United States
“Sensible Metaphors”:
Pictograms in the Transmission of al-Sha‘rani’s al-Mizan al-kubra
The writings of the prolific Egyptian Sufi and scholar ‘Abd al-Wahhab al-Sha‘rani (d. 1565)
demonstrate a remarkable interest in the legal and spiritual concerns of laypeople, in particular
their confusion surrounding the arguments among scholars and jurists of the various legal
schools. In his mid-16th-century work al-Mizan al-kubra (The Great Balance), al-Sha‘rani lays
out a theoretical justification — rooted in Sufi assumptions — for his belief in the validity and
equality of all the legal schools and their origins in a single source. According to his own report,
18
19
Chair and Discussant: Hashim Sarkis, Harvard University
PANEL 4
Pentagons and Decagons in Islamic Art
Carol Bier
University of California, Berkeley, United States
Fivefold geometric design yields pentagons and decagons. This particular area of Islamic
Pentagons and Decagons in Islamic Art:
Geometry Made Manifest
design is harder to master but also offers more opportunity for creativity and innovation.
Unlike squares and equilateral triangles, regular pentagons and decagons cannot
tessellate the plane; that is, they cannot cover the plane with no gaps and no
overlaps. Of the regular polygons (those with sides of equal length and angles of
equal measure), only equilateral triangles, squares, and hexagons can tessellate
the plane. These fundamental geometric facts underlie the play with geometric
patterns in Islamic art and the two-dimensional structure of Islamic geometric
patterns in the plane. All of these geometric characteristics rely upon divisions of
the circle.
Furthermore, such basic principles, and the laws of symmetry, underscore
the particular significance of pentagons and related geometric figures, such as
geometric design has fascinated craftsmen for centuries across the Islamic world because its rules
are different than the rules that apply to fourfold and sixfold geometric design. Fivefold geometric
What is not understood is how and why craftsmen came to make fivefold patterns. Did they start
on four- and sixfold patterns and progress to fivefold as they became more skilled in the course
of their professional “careers”? Did they ever go back to four- and sixfold patterns once they had
experienced the creative challenges and opportunities of fivefold design? How did they develop
their skills? How is it possible that the Maragha Tomb Tower compositions are so incredibly
advanced and skillful? Can the very rare tenfold composition in the Bou Innaniya madrasa in Fes
tell us something about the design preferences of Marinid craftsmen? Why is there only one extant
composition with a twentyfold star design (in the sabil of the complex of al-Ghuri in Cairo)?
The answers to these questions can never be found by looking for historical evidence; such
evidence simply does not exist. Any tentative answers to these questions have to come from
looking closely at compositions and trying to understand how they were constructed.
decagons, five-pointed stars, and ten-pointed stars in patterns in the plane.
Looking at Islamic art, and drawing upon textual sources including mathematical
treatises, scientific biographies, and poetry, this paper advances an interpretation
of geometric patterns that is related to the study of post-Euclidean mathematics
in eastern Islamic lands of the 10th to 12th centuries. The 13th-century historian
Jay Bonner
Independent Design Consultant
the intensive explorations of algebra and geometry, in particular, the study of
The Formative Role of the Decagon and Pentagon
in the Development of Islamic Geometric Design
properties of polygons, found visual expression in architecture and the arts.
From the opening of the 12th century, Muslim geometric artists in Khurasan and eastern Persia
A 17th-century Ottoman treatise articulates this relationship with respect to the
began using patterns with fivefold symmetry in their architectural ornament. Examples found at
role of geometry in the training of architects, which included the preparation of
the Minaret of Mas‘ud III in Gazni (1099–1115), the Friday Mosque of Golpaygan (1105–18), the
inlaid work using mother-of-pearl (sedefkar). Many examples of this prestigious
Kwaja Atabek Mausoleum in Kerman (1100–50), and the ceremonial arch at Bust (after 1149) are
Juzjani alludes to “geometry made manifest” in architecture. It is argued that
Ottoman craft survive today in the Topkapı Palace and in other museum collections,
which demonstrate mastery of the challenges presented by pentagons and
decagons in the construction of geometric patterns in the plane.
Eric Broug
Independent Author and Designer
The Importance of Pentagons and Decagons in Islamic Art
In geometrical compositions, pentagons and decagons can feature as a visible
component or as an invisible structural contributor. To do justice to the importance
of both these polygons in Islamic art, it is important to look at both these roles.
21
methodology responsible for these fivefold designs employs a limited set of polygons, including
the decagon and pentagon, which combine together to form polygonal tessellations from which
geometric patterns are extracted. This method is referred to as the polygonal technique.
There is significant evidence that this was the primary historical design methodology employed
by the originators of this tradition. As such, the polygonal technique is fundamental to the rise
Simon Rettig
Smithsonian Institution, United States
A Genuine Aggregation of Styles?
Questioning the Authenticity of Paintings
in the Vever Khamsa of Nizami
of this geometric discipline as an ornamental tour de force. The application of the polygonal
Like an immeasurable number of manuscripts, a copy of the Khamsa of
technique was both systematic and non-systematic. There are five methodological systems that
Nizami (Arthur M. Sackler Gallery — Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.,
were used historically: the system of regular polygons, the 4/8 system A, the 4/8 system B, the
S1986.61) attributable to 15th-century Iran and now incomplete reached the
5/10 system, and the 7/14 system. Of these, the 5/10 system has the greatest degree of design
Indian subcontinent. Like many others, as well, the book was later repaired and
diversity, including the highly complex dual-level patterns that were produced during the 14th
mended, the zone of text mounted onto new margins, and many illustrations
and 15th centuries. Clearly, the 5/10 system is critical to the overall tradition of Islamic geometric
added, probably also in India. Albeit not an uncommon practice, the pictorial
art. The pentagon and decagon are the primary polygonal modules of the 5/10 system and
additions to the Vever Khamsa are among the most intricate later refurbishments.
function as the key determinants for creating the complete set of polygonal modules for this
In the checklist of the collection published in 1988, Glenn D. Lowry and Milo C.
system. What is more significant, more than any of the other polygonal systems that were used
Beach convincingly attributed the making of the original manuscript to western
historically for creating geometric patterns, the tessellating properties of the decagon and
Iran around 1470. Furthermore, they differentiated at least three styles for the 91
pentagon appear to have informed the expanded methodology of non-systematic pattern-
paintings: a Timurid style, a Turkman courtly style, and a sub-imperial Mughal
making that followed the 5/10 system. In this way, the decagon and pentagon likely played an
style. In fact, a more recent examination enumerates five — if not more — different
important role in the development of particularly complex geometric patterns characterized by
pictorial modes, including unusual “Turkman-like” and “Timurid-like” styles.
different combinations of star forms within a single design, such as 9-, 10-, 11-, and 12-pointed
The aim of this paper is to propose a new hypothesis for the successive stages
stars. Such compound patterns are a distinctive feature of this ornamental tradition. Being that
of transformation in the manuscript not only through stylistic analysis but also
the decagon and pentagon are responsible for the great preponderance of fivefold geometric
through codicological investigation. As a result, one may be able to differentiate
patterns that are central to the aesthetics of Muslim cultures, and being that the tessellating
and narrow the time of subsequent pictorial additions. However, it is rather
properties of the decagon and pentagon appear to have played an important role in the
surprising that the authenticity of the Timurid- and Turkman-like paintings, and
expansion of the polygonal technique into non-systematic design, the pentagon and decagon
beyond them of the manuscript as a whole, has never been called into question.
must be regarded as fundamental contributors to the beauty and diversity of Islamic art.
Indeed, either these illustrations are veracious copies of earlier Iranian models
Chair and Discussant: Karin Ruehrdanz
of design had become a particularly significant part of the Islamic ornamental repertoire. The
Faking It? Imitating, Copying,
and Forging Persianate Art and Architecture
among the earliest historical fivefold patterns. Within 150 years, this uniquely Islamic variety
sometime before Henri Vever acquired the manuscript at the end of the 19th century.
Sharon C. Smith and Shiraz Allibhai
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States,
and Aga Khan Trust for Culture, Switzerland
Archnet a Demonstration Workshop
This workshop is intended to showcase the relaunched Archnet and demonstrate to the user
community new functionality, tools, and methods for using it to its full potential. The workshop
will respond to users’ questions and concerns through real-time demonstration.
Whatever conclusion we draw, it would appear to be of great importance for
the burgeoning field of the Islamic arts of the book in the early 20th century.
In the first case, the paintings would not only illustrate the fact that painters
had a thorough knowledge of a history of styles but also the ability to imitate
and reproduce faithfully images from the past. In the second hypothesis, the
manuscript should be putatively integrated into the large body of forgeries
mainly created for the Western art market around 1900. Through a parallel
examination of both possibilities, I ultimately question paradigms that have been
developed and used by scholars in their attempt to discern the authentic from
the fake.
22
PANEL 5
possible made in 16th- or 17th-century India or they simply are tricky fakes added
Yael Rice
Amherst College, United States
Igor Demchenko
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States
Made in the U.S.A.:
On a Safavid Cubiculum in the Philadelphia Museum of Art
Authentic Monuments in the Forged Tradition:
Inventing and Training Ustos in Soviet Central Asia
One of the centrepieces of the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s Persian galleries is a stucco-
The illusion of uninterrupted artistic tradition is a common justification for the highly
decorated cubiculum from Isfahan, acquired on behalf of the museum by Arthur Upham Pope.
interventionist restorations of architectural monuments, be it in 19th-century France, Soviet
Attributed in didactic labels to the patronage of the Safavid ruler Shah Abbas I, this intricately
Central Asia, or contemporary India. Since most often it is impossible to attribute a building
carved and painted small room has long offered visitors an ornamental window onto the lives
produced before the 18th century to a single creator — whether an architect or a master mason
of Iran’s royal elites, a marked contrast to the 16th-century pillared temple hall from Madurai,
— a nebulous idea of national/regional/local creative force substitutes for an author. This
India, installed in a gallery nearby. Absent from the wall text is the fact that the stucco panels
force, otherwise labelled as a tradition, avoids any temporal localization; rather, it functions
of the cubiculum had arrived in Philadelphia in the early 1930s in an extremely fragmentary
as an embodiment of the spirit of the place together with ostensibly traditional costumes,
state. Archival records indicate that no fragment was longer than three inches in length. The
pottery, woodcarving, and intangible heritage, including dances, songs, cuisine, etc. Yet if other
reconstruction of these architectural fragments was not done by Iranian artists, however, but by
manifestations of local tradition thrive in the limited niche of the tourist pleasure industry, the
local Philadelphia artisans funded through the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a U.S. New
craft of building is often elevated to the sensible domain of heritage preservation.
Deal agency.
Like all other souvenir industries, the craft of heritage-based architectural production can
Recent examinations of the cubiculum under ultraviolet light indicate that these WPA workers in
mimic any historic era according to the demands of the public, cultural bureaucracy, or simply
large part fully fabricated afresh the stucco panels and their painted decoration. The Philadelphia
touristic fashion. This is made possible through the ability of “traditional” masters to learn from
Museum of Art’s so-called “Safavid Cubiculum” is, in other words, a largely 20th-century
the academic studies of “their” heritage; utilize the most contemporary technologies of artistic
invention. Even so, this paper argues against identifying this installation as a fake or a forgery.
production; and productively interact with the bureaucratic apparatus installed to construct (or
Rather, it seeks to situate its reconstruction within a localized history of technological and
in official language, “rediscover,” “restore,” “reinstate,” etc.) the neglected local heritage for the
aesthetic development in the United States. Indeed, as recent research has revealed, the lead WPA
purposes of nation-building, cultural decolonization, or forced modernization.
artisan assigned to the project had also been involved in the earlier construction of the heavily
Persianized Bahá’í Temple in Wilmette, Illinois, which, with its heavily adorned concrete cladding,
represented a bold treatment of a technologically innovative material. This paper asks how these
modern practices depart from and overlap with pre-modern Persianate practices of artistic
imitation. In doing so, it seeks to complicate and even challenge notions about the forgery and
authenticity of Islamic art within the early 20th-century U.S. sphere.
Deconstructing the notions of tradition and authenticity, this paper will dwell on the single
case of training (in official language, “attracting”) local masters for the restoration of Timurid
architectural monuments in Soviet Central Asia and for the design of modern architectural style
“national in form and socialist in content.” Using the memoirs of professional restorers and
architectural historians as well as graphic and research materials from Central Asian archives and
occasional ethnographic sources, I will trace the patterns of intended and unintended training
that produced the figure of usto, a builder specialized in reproducing historic and designing
quasi-historic ornaments and types of brickwork.
I will also specifically focus on the state-sponsored practices of reviving forgotten methods of
artistic production. Thus, the secret of glazed majolica tiles, lost at least a century before the
Russian conquest of Central Asia, was reinvented for the purposes of architectural restoration by
professional chemists working for the Soviet construction industry. Yet the actual production of
tile mosaics was also entrusted to ustos, who interiorized this craft as their traditional heritage.
This phenomenon — I will argue — is indicative of the illusiveness inherent in the notions
of tradition and continuity as well as the outcome of architectural restoration that, besides
generating chimeras of historic monuments, engender the practices of their authentication
referring back through the invented rituals to the scientific positivism of modernity.
24
25
A Mamluk Calligrapher’s Tradition of Learning:
The Career and Works of ‘Abd al-Rahmān ibn al-Sāyigh
The age of the Mamluk Sultans of Egypt and Syria is known for the flowering of
calligraphy and epigraphy. Both regimes, the Bahri Mamluk and the Burji Mamluk,
left us treasures of calligraphy and epigraphy seen in the streets of Cairo and in
various manuscript collections around the world. The patronage of luxurious
Qur’an manuscripts was an important part of the artistic patronage of Mamluk
rulers and thus was often entrusted to famous calligraphers. One of them was
however, did not only practise his art but also composed a treatise on calligraphy
and laid the foundation of a calligraphic school. It is thus the aim of this paper to
present this master and his works in a way that enables the reconstruction of his
tradition of learning.
Five main aspects of his life and practice will be tackled:
1.
This will focus on the entry by the historian al-Sakhāwī in his al-Daw’
Rachel Ward
Independent Scholar
al-lami‘ fi ahl al-qarn al-tasi‘, since al-Sakhāwī was also one of Ibn alSāyigh’s students.
Qaysar and the Naples Globe
2.
His chain of transmission.
The historical importance of the Naples celestial globe is greatly increased by two inscriptions in
3.
His treatise on calligraphy, which carries two titles: Tuhfat ul al-albab fi
sina‘at al-khatt wa al-kitab and Risala fi al-khatt wa bari al-qalam.
its southern hemisphere:
For the use of Qaysar b. Abi’l-Qasim b. Musafir al-Ashrafi al-Hanafi in the year 622 of the
4.
B.
For the use of the treasury of our lord the sultan al-Malik al-Kamil the wise, the just,
Nasir al-Dunya wa’l-Din Muhammad b. Abu Bakr b. Ayyub, glory to his victory.
This will be followed by the examination of the extent to which his theoretical
tradition reflects in his scripts, as seen in the surviving work he signed.
hijra with an augmentation of 16 degrees and 46 minutes over what is in the Al[ma]gest.
5.
The exploration of his impact will be completed by a review of his
students who all penned or illuminated manuscripts in the 15th century.
Interpreted as contemporary inscriptions, one in the name of the instrument’s maker and the other
Such examination of a great master of calligraphy and his tradition of learning
in the name of his employer, the globe was assumed to have been made for al-Kamil Nasir al-Din
is conducted to analyze the relationship between theory and practice and to
Muhammad, the Ayyubid Sultan of Egypt (r. 615–35), in his capital of Cairo in 622 by Qaysar, a well-
identify Ibn al-Sāyigh’s methodical approach. The extent to which Ibn al-Sāyigh
known scientist whom al-Kamil asked to answer questions on mathematics posed by Frederick II.
influenced the further development of Egyptian calligraphy will be explored. The
Closer examination of the inscriptions and the techniques employed in the manufacture and
decoration of the globe reveals that there were at least five different phases of work on the globe,
that the two inscriptions are not contemporary and that both have been altered, and that the
object is not brass and the copper inlays are not original. Rather than undermining its historical
importance, however, these changes add considerably to the information that they can provide
about the globe, its designer, and its owner(s) and how scientific objects — and their makers —
were perceived in the medieval world.
paper will also look into the role the support of both Sultan al-Zahir Barquq and
his son Sultan Faraj ibn Barquq played in the success of Ibn al-Sāyigh, since both
left us a monumental Qur’an manuscript each signed by our master calligrapher.
Answers to these questions will lead to a better understanding of the artistic and
intellectual life of Mamluk Egypt in the final years of the 14th century and the first
half of the 15th century.
PANEL 6
A.
26
His biography, as given to us by a few of the 15th-century Mamluk sources.
The Word Embellished
the master ‘Abd al-Rahmān ibn al-Sāyigh (770/1368–845/1441). This calligrapher,
Chair and Discussant: Sheila Blair, Norma Jean Calderwood University
Noha Abou-Khatwa
University of Toronto, Canada
Nourane Ben Azzouna
Institut für Kunstgeschichte, Austria
Fateme Montazeri and Arash Shirinbab
University of California, Berkeley, Ziya Art Centre, United States
Of Proportion and Rhythm:
Converging Discourses on Calligraphy and Music in Medieval Islam
The Islamic world produced hundreds of texts that can be useful for a better understanding of
Scripture or Art Instruction?
A Study of Fakhr al-Ashraaf’s Lithographed Quran
and Its Calligraphy Treatise
its visual and artistic products. The need for a careful consideration of these sources has been
Quran manuscripts and books, produced extensively throughout Islamic cultures, are known to
stressed since the 1940s (e.g. Aga-Oglu). Their status and the most accurate way to use them are,
fulfill a variety of roles, from preserving the word of God to embellishing it with the finest crafts
however, still problematic. It is obvious that there is not one single answer to these questions.
of man. The object 38005 kept at the library of Astan-i Ghods Razavi in Mashhad, Iran, however,
If some texts may have preceded works of art — this is, for instance, probably the case with
exhibits an additional, hitherto neglected function, that is to transmit the knowledge of calligraphy.
scientific texts that generated illustrative paintings — this does not seem to be the rule or, at
Lithographed by Fakhr al-Ashraaf Safavi in 1904 and sealed by Muzaffar al-Din Shah, fifth shah
least it is not always easy to determine whether a text influenced an artistic practice or, on the
of the Qajar dynasty, this Quran contains at the beginning a seven-page treatise on calligraphy,
contrary, art theory appropriated preexisting or contemporaneous ideas for specific purposes.
titled “Resale-i Ehya-e Khat” (“Treatise on the Revival of Calligraphy”). Both the style in which
This question arises in particular with regard to what is generally called “technical” literature
the scripture is written and the unusual book design, combining holy scripture with a calligraphy
— for example, about calligraphy — which obviously did not precede but followed the arts
treatise, show many peculiarities. Considering these features, this paper proposes transmission of
themselves. “Technical” literature on calligraphy often stands out by the use of methods and
the knowledge of calligraphy by this means.
theories that are borrowed and adapted, often simplified, from other fields of knowledge,
Fakhr al-Ashraaf copied the Quranic manuscript, using both Kufic and Naskhi scripts; the first few
ranging from Hadīth science (authority and transmission paradigm) to mathematics (e.g. theory
chapters are in Kufic and the rest mostly in Naskhi, with only a few verses randomly highlighted in
of proportions). In this regard, the purpose of “technical” texts is also difficult to identify; are
Kufic. The rare, if not unique, combination of the two styles in the main text of a single book might
they, strictly speaking, “technical” vade mecums or more rhetorical discourses of justification or
be attributed to the desire of the calligrapher to provide the reader with a legible Naskhi guide to
legitimization or “ennoblement” of the crafts into sciences?
read the Kufic style, which, according to the scribe’s introduction, had already been “forgotten for
This paper proposes to address the issue of the appropriation of pre-existing forms of
900 years.” Moreover, the highly stylized Kufic used in this manuscript appears not to fit within
knowledge and cultures of learning through the comparison between how certain mathematical
any particular category of known Kufic styles; rather, it draws on a combination of styles. This
theories met two forms of art that do apparently not have much in common: a visual art
calligraphy treatise provides a detailed textual and illustrative instruction for writing each letter
(calligraphy) and a non-visual one (music). Calligraphy and music gave birth to some of the
in its different forms — a format not found in the other treatises of calligraphy. Extant Persian
earliest as well as richest “technical” literatures in Islam. These texts deal with distinct though
calligraphy treatises, the majority of which deal with the nasta‘liq, mostly consist of poems and
connected concepts: proportion on the one hand and rhythm on the other. Just as several
describe general principles of calligraphy. These treatises often exclude letterforms or have very few
accomplished calligraphers were also renowned musicians, some theoretical texts on calligraphy
illustrations of them.
and music surprisingly converge in their formulations. This convergence is interesting in itself, but
More important than the stylistic features of the manuscript is the fact that Fakhr al-Ashraaf has
also because it contributes to a finer understanding of calligraphic theories. Another important
attached his treatise on calligraphy to the text of the Quran. By this means, he has conveyed
issue is that of rhythm, which is central in calligraphic practice but almost never addressed as
knowledge of the practice of calligraphy. Traditionally, calligraphy masters educated their pupils
such in theoretical texts.
in two ways: first, through stating in a treatise general disciplines and theoretical techniques of
calligraphy; and second, through providing various practical examples and models. Fakhr alAshraaf’s work, however, integrates both theoretical knowledge and its practical implication in
writing the Quran. This feature on the one hand offers a unique possibility to investigate the extent
to which theory has been applied in practice, and on the other hand illustrates how Fakhr alAshraaf elevated the status of the treatise by positioning it after the Divine text.
This paper introduces object 38005 into Western scholarship, discusses its peculiarities in relation
to other Persian treatises on calligraphy, and contributes to our understanding of the transmission
of the knowledge of calligraphy. It also addresses how the Kufic style was perceived in the artistic,
cultural, and political contexts of Qajar Iran.
28
29
The Question of Well-Rounded Artists of the Book at the Ottoman Court
Illustrated manuscript production at the Ottoman court has been a focus of a number of
Safavid Attitudes Toward Sacred Images
in the Written and Visual Record
studies in recent decades. The court studios where these manuscripts were conceptualized and
The late 17th-century manuscript painting The Presentation of the Head of Iraj,
produced have been analyzed, especially in terms of artistic output, patronage, and division
which is the subject of this talk, powerfully transforms a pivotal moment of the
of labour. As several scholars have demonstrated, numerous illustrated chronicles from the
Shahnama (Book of Kings). Just as poets and performers came to Firdausi’s epic
second half of the 16th century can be seen as the ultimate culmination of these court studios.
masterpiece centuries after its completion in the early 11th century to borrow
The earlier part of the 16th century is less known and perhaps more variable in terms of the
and reconfigure tropes and narratives, artists provided alternative performances
organization of the court studios. Around the first quarter of the 16th century we can document
to the Shahnama. Here we have a newly visualized scene in the tradition of
that on a few occasions an individual artist worked on several parts of a single illustrated
Shahnama illustration in that its focus is on the gruesome decapitation and
manuscript, such as the copying of its text, illumination, illustration, and/or binding. The
ceremonial presentation of the head of Iraj, a great martyr of the Persian
relatively frequent occurrence of this phenomenon during this period merits a closer analysis.
tradition. I shall suggest that The Presentation of the Head of Iraj alludes to
Was this due to a lack of a division of labour at the Ottoman court studios at that time, or was
notions of sacrifice and authority that were circulating in the Safavid realm at the
this a means for the artist to get recognition and possibly a reward from their patron? To what
time of the painting’s execution. These notions were infused with Christian and
degree does this reflect patronage that valued such well-rounded artists and their knowledge?
Shi’i representations of martyrdom.
How do the Ottomans compare in this regard with their predecessors and contemporaries?
Insights to these questions will be sought through an analysis of five Ottoman manuscripts from
collections in New York, Istanbul, and Munich. Ottoman and Persian realms will be compared to
shed light on these issues.
Aslıhan Erkmen
Istanbul Technical University, Turkey
Illustrated Biographical Writings
as Educational and Visual Memorial
In the Islamic world, many biographical texts were written on poets, Sufis, artists,
Chair and Discussant: Persis Berlekamp
Amy Landau
Walters Art Museum, United States
Embedding and Disseminating Knowledge
in the Art of the Book
Ayşin Yoltar-Yıldırım
Harvard Art Museums, United States
examples of their works — and their miracles, in the case of Sufis. These texts
were called tazkira if they were collected biographies and manakibnama if they
included the prophecies of the Sufis. Among these myriad texts, only a small
number are illustrated.
The tazkiras and manakibnamas were — and still are — considered to be tools
of learning and transfer of knowledge because they include both historical and
professional information on the distinguished people. Although the tazkira
genre has been popular since the early Islamic period regarding the tradition of
collecting information on the first Islamic figures, the 16th century witnessed an
increase in the number of works by different authors, either as separate books or
as addenda and/or contributions to the existing texts. This augmentation trend
may also be observed in the illustrated tazkiras and manakibnamas produced in
Safavid and Ottoman lands around the same time.
30
PANEL 7
and statesmen, providing valuable data about their lives, achievements, sayings,
This paper initially aims to give a brief overview of the biographical writings and their value as
educational and informative tools. Then it will discuss the illustrated biographical works within
the art practice of the 16th-century Safavid and Ottoman manuscript production centres. Two
important works will be considered as case studies in the frame of the paper: Mesha’ir alShu’ara, the third Ottoman tazkira written by the poet, writer, and judge Ashik Chelebi (d. 1571–
Stefan Kamola
Princeton University, United States
“With All Elaboration”: Rashīd al-Dīn and the Display of Knowledge
72), which has a unique illustrated copy at the Millet Library, Istanbul (Ali Emiri Tarih 772); and
The Jāmi‘ al-tawārīkh of Rashīd al-Dīn Tabīb
(d. 1318) has attracted significant attention both
.
Safvat al-Safa by Ibn Bazzaz (d. 1391–92), a manakibnama of Shaykh Safi al-Din Erdabili (d.
for its value as a historical source and as the first great project in atelier reproduction of an
1334), which also has a unique illustrated copy in the Aga Khan Museum’s Permanent Collection,
illustrated book. We know from the surviving autograph copy of the waqfnāma for Rashīd
Toronto (AKM264). These two works belong to the same genre but reflect different visual traditions
al-Dīn’s Rab -i rashīdi that the Jāmi‘ al-tawārīkh was one of several works that were to be
wherein they enable us to think about the visual forms of learning and information transfer.
reproduced annually “with all elaboration, just like the originals” by the scribes supported by
this charitable compound. It is not entirely clear from the waqfnāma, however, whether the
Jāmi‘ al-tawārīkh was originally intended to include illustrations, yet early copies prove that it,
alone among the works Rashīd al-Dīn specified for reproduction, was heavily illustrated.
Anastassiia Botchkareva
Columbia University, United States
Between Timurid Prince and Mughal Emperor:
Legacy in Transmission
While it is widely acknowledged that the Mughals considered themselves members of the
Timurid dynasty, the actual mechanisms by which Timurid culture was perpetuated and
reshaped at the Mughal court remain understudied. This paper explores the transmission of
Timurid cultural legacy in the formative stages of artistic production and imperial identity of
the early Mughal Empire. The discussion is framed around Babur as a transitional figure with a
linking role between the decline of Timurid and ascendance of Mughal court cultures. As a minor
Timurid prince who was conversant in Persianate high culture and simultaneously a conquerorexplorer who founded a new empire in a foreign land, Babur occupied a unique position as a
formative agent in a historical moment that negotiated the balance of continuity and change.
This paper explicates some of the ways in which the text and subsequent illustrations of Babur’s
of the Jāmi‘ al-tawārīkh, with special attention to several understudied early manuscripts.
These include Tehran Majlis ms. 2294, an evidently early copy that does not contain illustrations
but does preserve certain graphic elaborations not found in other copies, and the Rampur
manuscript, which was heavily overpainted in the early Mughal period but preserves hints
about the original visual program of the work. By comparing the features of these and other
early witnesses to the text, illustrations, and visual display of the Jāmi‘ al-tawārīkh, this paper
seeks to address two questions. First is the nature of Rashīd al-Dīn’s understanding of his
own oeuvre and the role of the Jāmi‘ al-tawārīkh within his collected works. The second is
the process by which his history became such a heavily illustrated text and what this reveals
about the development of atelier book production in the late Ilkhanate. This study seeks to
bridge the divide between studies of Rashīd al-Dīn’s work that focus on the text of the Jāmi‘
al-tawārīkh and those that focus on its illustrations, both by considering these elements of the
book alongside one another and by placing them in the context of the author’s other extensive
scholarly output.
memoirs, the Baburnama, offer glimpses into the personal, cultural, and logistical substrates
Taking such a broad view of Rashīd al-Dīn’s work may help us better understand how scientific
underlying the perpetuation of Timurid heritage at the Mughal court. In particular, I address the
information such as history (including genealogy), medicine, and theology was transmitted to
intersection of literary self-representations and posthumous visual representations of Babur in
various audiences during the Mongol period.
several Akbari-period Baburnama manuscripts. Through an analysis of the textual and visual
evidence, I argue that Babur played a key role in transmitting elements of Timurid culture, which
later became transformed, integrated, and constitutive of Mughal imperial and aesthetic identity.
32
This paper revisits the relationship between exemplar and copy in the early manuscript tradition
Chair and Discussant: Stefan Weber, Museum für Islamische Kunst
im Pergamonmuseum Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
What Artists and Artisans Knew
Friederike Voigt
National Museums Scotland, United Kingdom
The Rediscovery of Underglaze Painting in Late Qajar Iran:
The Master Potter ‘Ali Mohammed Esfahani
Underglaze painting is a decorative technique that was brought to maturity by
This paper will illustrate that the weaving process in rural Morocco is related to a categorization
potters in Iran in the last quarter of the 19th century, following a period when
of art where certain weavers are perceived and treated as persons of high status, and their
it had ceased to be used and knowledge of the process was lost. Unlike the
production is treasured and highly valued in its local context as well as in international collector
predominant technique haft rang, literally “seven colours,” underglaze painting
circles. Weaving also takes place within the category of Islamic art, not merely because weaving
enabled the craftsmen to achieve a degree of refinement, detail, and colour
is done by Muslims but rather because it constitutes a sacred space, a spiritual activity,
gradation comparable to representational depictions in other media. It allowed
surrounded by ancestral rituals and practices that aim to connect with the divine.
them to transfer the visual repertory used in miniature painting, photography, or
lithography to tiles for permanent display in a public and private space.
paper introduces the mechanisms in the weaving process related to the transmission of
The success of a product depends on the knowledge of the quality of the raw
knowledge. This is a personal account of my two-year fieldwork among weavers carrying out
material and the manufacturing process. This paper considers how the potters
participant observation and my own weaving apprenticeship in the Middle Atlas Mountains.
experimented with figurative underglaze painted tiles to regain the necessary
My ethnography (1) documents how knowledge (technical and non-technical, verbal and
technical proficiency and also how they developed it further to satisfy the
non-verbal) is transmitted from the master weaver to the apprentice; (2) explains how the
need of the time for detailed representation. Recorded information on the
choice of motifs is linked to several factors: weavers believe that a correlation exists between
technical processes by indigenous craftsmen is rare for Iranian pottery. For
the technical quality of the textile and the human quality of the weaver — between technical
the 19th century, however, we are fortunate to have one master potter, ‘Ali
virtuosity and human virtue; and (3) introduces the paradigm of “secrecy as adornment” to
Mohammad Esfahani, whose work is exceptionally well documented. Based on
describe how all along the process of learning, the female apprentice is akin to an initiate
his description of the manufacture of underglaze painted tiles and the analytical
accepted into the membership of a group that could be described as a secret society, where
results of the samples of body material, pigments, and glazes he gave to illustrate
female non-weavers and also men are excluded and ignore the rules of weaving process.
his treatise, as well as of his finished tiles, the paper investigates his contributions
to the development of the decorative technique of underglaze painting. It
also addresses the recognition these potters received by the court for their
accomplishments in a tradition for which Iran was famous.
PANEL 8
By briefly touching upon the two categories — art and Islamic — in rural Morocco, this
During the apprenticeship, regardless of its informal character or the ties that may link teacher
and disciple, a particular relationship is formed between them — a relationship that can last
years and may continue after the apprentice is transformed into an experienced weaver. This
relationship is not only based on the acquisition of technical knowledge —the apprentice
looks up to her master weaver, observing and repeating all her technical actions and gestures
Miriam Ali-de-Unzaga
Independent Scholar
Secrecy as Adornment:
Transmitting Knowledge During the Weaving Process
in Rural Morocco
It may seem surprising to see a paper on Moroccan rural weaving included in
a panel of Islamic art, as often the practice of weaving is seen as a pleasant,
— but also involves the transmission of social, moral, and spiritual values and practices. As we
shall see, the master weaver represents a role model: knowledgeable, honourable, intelligent,
creative, powerful. While the master-disciple relationship has been discussed extensively by
Hammoudi (1997) as paradigmatic of Moroccan society, it has never been discussed within the
context of women’s practices in Morocco.
Finally, since the weaving rituals and practices described in my paper have remained virtually
unchanged for centuries, I trust that we can benefit from learning about contemporary
performances that will give us an approximate sense of the importance of weaving and of
transmitting knowledge between weavers during past times.
domestic activity that women do in their spare time, and North African rural
textiles tend to be considered minor decorative artifacts or tourist souvenirs.
35
Marcus Milwright
University of Victoria, Canada
This rock crystal arrived in the capital cities of Baghdad and Cairo via Persian merchants who
Insiders and Outsiders in the Transmission of Knowledge:
The Case of Traditional Craft Practices in Greater Syria
south toward the coast of Mozambique in order to get gold or to the southeast to reach the
Medieval European visitors to Greater Syria remark on the fact that urban craft specialisms were
often passed through generations of the same family. There are also claims that the restrictive
practices of Islamic guilds meant that sons had no choice but to follow in the footsteps of
their fathers. More recent ethnographic observations have shown matrilineal transmission of
knowledge in some craft activities, particularly in rural contexts. Workshop structures facilitated
the passing of crucial technical data from masters to journeymen and apprentices; this sharing
travelled with Omani boats and sailors. They journeyed for months to East Africa and were
stationed in many Swahili ports like Mombasa, Zanzibar, and Kilwa. Then they pushed farther
Comoros. On arrival in the island of Mayotte, the merchants exchanged ceramics and other
items for the precious rock crystal, of which only the best parts were retained.
Between the 11th and 12th centuries, the rock crystal was discharged in Aden, Yemen. The
archives of Jewish merchants and Persian travellers tell us that the products were then
transshipped and forwarded to the Egyptian ports of Aydhab and Quseir on the Red Sea. These
valuable goods were then loaded to the Nile Valley and transferred by felucca to Cairo and
Alexandria, where the rock crystal was then shaped by skilled craftsmen.
of knowledge through time might be achieved orally or through diagrams (such as pattern
My paper will show the complexity of international trade in the Indian Ocean in the early Middle
books). Textual transmission was probably much less common, though craftsmen wrote treatises
Ages — a “globalization before its time.”
and a few survive today. By contrast, our principal textual sources on the crafts were written
by those with little or no experience in the manufacturing practices they described: religious
scholars, market inspectors, and travellers. This paper examines the implications of relying upon
the evidence of “outsiders” in the reconstruction of pre-modern craft practices. The final section
suggests ways in which we might reconcile these data with the findings of archaeology, scientific
analysis, and ethnography.
Stephane Pradines
Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations, Aga Khan University, Pakistan
The Rock Crystal of the Zanj: From Madagascar to Fatimid Cairo
An archaeological excavation in Mayotte, a small island of the Comoros archipelago in the
western Indian Ocean, has uncovered large quantities of fragments of rock crystal in the form
of chips and flakes of different sizes. The site, called Dembeni, is one of the largest and richest
archaeological sites in all East Africa. Its apogee in the 9th to 12th centuries was a period of
intensive trade, first with the Abbasids in the Persian Gulf, then with the Fatimid Caliphate in
Egypt. Dembeni delivered an archaeological material of unprecedented wealth for the time, with
a large amount of Chinese and Persian ceramics, as well as glassware from all over the Islamic
world. This accumulation of richness was not made by chance, and for many years archaeologists
sought the origin of the wealth of this site.
The discovery leads us to conclude that it is possible to be more precise than Arab written sources on
trade in the Indian Ocean during the medieval period and to pinpoint the exact international trade
route. Arab and Persian sources on trade in the Indian Ocean during the medieval period mention
rock crystal from the islands of the Zanj in East Africa. The mineral was imported to Mayotte from
Madagascar in draft form, then resized and exported to the Middle East — mainly to Iran and Egypt.
36
37
NOTES
HISTORIANS OF ISLAMIC ART ASSOCIATION
The Historians of Islamic Art Association (HIAA) is a private,
non-profit, non-political organization whose purpose is
to promote the study and teaching of the art, architecture,
and archaeology of Islamic cultures and to facilitate
communication and co-operation among those engaged in
scholarly and other professional activities related to these
fields. Established in 1982 as the North American Historians of
Islamic Art (NAHIA), the organization has since grown into an
international group with members in the Middle East, Africa,
South and Southeast Asia, and Europe. In 1996 the name
was changed to Historians of Islamic Art (HIA) to reflect the
broader objectives of the organization and its efforts to foster
co-operation with colleagues beyond North America. In 2006
the organization became an unincorporated association
under the laws of the State of New York, and the name
expanded to Historians of Islamic Art Association (HIAA).
To encourage scholarly contributions to the fields of Islamic
art, architecture, and archaeology, particularly by our junior
members, HIAA also awards various competitive prizes: the
Margaret B. Sevčenko Prize in Islamic Art and Culture for the
best unpublished article written by a junior scholar, and the
Grabar Grants and Fellowships, a new program supported by
the Oleg Grabar Memorial Fund, intended to further research
and assist participation in scholarly meetings.
AGA KHAN MUSEUM
The Aga Khan Museum is dedicated to presenting an overview
of the artistic, intellectual, and scientific contributions that
Muslim civilizations have made to world heritage. As a
permanent home for rare masterpieces representing a broad
range of artistic styles and media, the Aga Khan Museum
offers visitors a window into the remarkable diversity of Muslim
civilizations ranging from the Iberian Peninsula to China.
A vibrant educational institution, the Aga Khan Museum
welcomes the full spectrum of public engagement. Its innovative
facilities — housed within a stunning building by Japanese
architect Fumihiko Maki — provide flexible programming space
for musical and dance performances, culinary workshops,
lectures, special events, and film screenings.
38
39
www.agakhanmuseum.org
Images: Details from The Court of Keyomars, folio 20v from
a Shah-Nameh (Book of Kings) produced for Shah Tahmasp I,
painting by Soltan Mohammad, Tabriz, Iran, ca. 1522, AKM165.
Copyright © 2014 The Aga Khan Museum.