VO LU M E 2 1 N O. 1 M A R C H 2 0 1 2
the journal of
the asian arts society
of australia
TAASA Review
THE PERSIAN ART OF POETRY
c o n t e n t s
Volume 21 No. 1 March 2012
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Editorial : T he Pe r s i a n A r t o f P o et r y
TAASA RE VI E W
Susan Scollay, Guest Editor
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LOVE AND DEVOT I O N: F R O M P E R S I A A N D B E Y O N D – A N E X H I B I T I O N AT T H E S LV THE ASIAN ARTS SOCIETY OF AUSTRALIA INC.
Abn 64093697537 • Vol. 21 No. 1, March 2012
ISSN 1037.6674 Susan Scollay
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PO ETRY IN TH E IRANIAN P SYC H E : R EFL E CTIONS ON OM AR K HAYYA M ’S R U B A I YAT
Mammad Aidani
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LOVE OR D EVOTION? FRO M P E RSIA OR THE B EYOND – A P E RSIAN SU FI P E RSP E CTI V E Rafal Stepien
14
‘WASHING HYPOCRISY’S DUST’: PERSIAN POETRY AND POPULAR IRANIAN MUSIC
Gay Breyley
de s i gn / l ayo u t
17
DIS COVERING P ERSIAN M USI C
pr i n t i n g
Philippe Charluet
John Fisher Printing
19
P OLITI CS AND P ERSIAN MYTHOLOGY IN THO MAS MOORE ’ S PA R A D I S E A N D T H E P E R I
Shelley Meagher
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PE RSIA AND BE YOND : T WO RE C ENT AC Q UISITIONS BY TH E STAT E LI B RARY OF V I C TORIA
Clare Williamson
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TRAVEL IN IRAN: B ETW E EN AW ESO M E D E SERTS AND E X Q UISIT E UNRE ALITI E S
Christopher Wood
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e d i to rIAL • email: [email protected]
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publ i c at i o n s c omm i t t ee
Josefa Green (convenor) • Tina Burge Melanie Eastburn • Sandra Forbes Charlotte Galloway • Jim Masselos • Ann Proctor Susan Scollay • Sabrina Snow • Christina Sumner
Ingo Voss, VossDesign
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IN THE PUBLIC DOM AIN: A N I N D O N E S I A N Q U R ’ A N I N AG S A
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TAASA c o mm i t t ee
E DITORIAL : TH E P E RSIAN ART OF P O E TRY
Gill Gr ee n • President
Susan Scollay, Guest Editor
Art historian specialising in Cambodian culture
CHRISTINA SUM NER • V ice President
Principal Curator, Design and Society,
Powerhouse Museum, Sydney
ANN GU ILD • TREASURER
Former Director of the Embroiders Guild (UK)
Dy A ndre asen • SECRETARY
Has a special interest in Japanese haiku and tanka poetry
Hwe i-f e’n ch eah
Visiting Fellow, School of Cultural Inquiry, Australian
National University.
JO CE LYN C HEY
Visiting Professor, Department of Chinese Studies,
University of Sydney; former diplomat
Matt Cox Study Room Co-ordinator, Art Gallery of New South
Wales, with a particular interest in Islamic Art of
Southeast Asia
Phili p Co urt enay
Former Professor and Rector of the Cairns Campus, James
Cook University, with a special interest in Southeast
Asian ceramics
LUC I E FOLAN
Assistant Curator, Asian Art, National Gallery of Australia
Sandr a For be s
Editorial consultant with long-standing interest in South and Southeast Asian art
Jos efa Gree n
General editor of TAASA Review. Collector of Chinese
ceramics, with long-standing interest in East Asian art as student and traveller
MIN-JUNG KIM
Curator of Asian Arts & Design at the Powerhouse Museum
ANN PROC TOR 
Art historian with a particular interest in Vietnam
Yuk i e S ato
Former Vice President of the Oriental Ceramic Society of
the Philippines with wide-ranging interest in Asian art
and culture
SA BRINA SNO W
Has a long association with the Art Gallery of New South
Wales and a particular interest in the arts of China
Hon. Au ditor
Rosenfeld Kant and Co
s t a t e r ep r e s e n t a t i ve s
Australian Capital Territory
Ro byn Maxwe ll
Visiting Fellow in Art History, ANU; Senior Curator of Asian Art, National Gallery of Australia
Northern Territory
Joanna Barr km an
Curator of Southeast Asian Art and Material Culture,
Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory
Queensland
Ru sse ll S tor er
Curatorial Manager, Asian and Pacific Art, Queensland Art Gallery
South Australia
James Be nn ett
Curator of Asian Art, Art Gallery of South Australia
Victoria
Carol Cains
The focus of this issue is a landmark exhibition
at the State Library of Victoria (SLV) from 9
March to 1 July, 2012. Love and Devotion: From
Persia and Beyond celebrates the beauty of
Persian manuscripts and literature. The world
of Persian stories and the illustrated volumes
in which they were copied spread beyond
the territorial borders of Iran, unifying a
cultural zone that incorporated Central Asia
and the empires of the Mughals in India and
the Ottoman Turks in Anatolia and southeast
Europe. Articles exploring aspects of Love
and Devotion have been written by specialists
who have played a role in developing the
exhibition, and others whose research and
experience relates to the exhibition themes.
It is exactly 5 years since TAASA Review
dedicated an issue to the ‘Arts of Islam’ and
quoted the pre-eminent London collector
and philanthropist, Nasser Khalili, calling
for world citizens of all faiths to engage in
dialogue and acknowledge the ‘ties that
have existed among them for centuries.’ By
presenting the world of Persian storytelling
and poetry from the classic period of secular
Persian literature, the SLV exhibition offers
a significant response to that call. Although
little known in the West, Persian poetry’s
universal themes of love and devotion – to
lover, friend, teacher, ruler and the Divine –
reveal echoes and parallels with European
literature and the complex ideals and
practices of mediaeval and pre-Renaissance
life and patronage in both east and west.
Persian literature, seen through the lens of its
memorable stories and great poets, is imbued
with love, often in allegorical form. Poetry
has been a key component of Iranian national
identity, but also appreciated and emulated
by others through the centuries. Exquisitely
illustrated and illuminated manuscripts from
the Bodleian Libraries at the University of
Oxford dating from the 13th to 18th centuries,
together with rare works from the holdings of
the SLV and other Australian institutions will
be displayed in the largest and most significant
display of Persian manuscripts to be held
in Australia. The Bodleian Libraries rarely
allow such a large number of manuscripts to
travel for exhibition at the same time. Usually
accessed only by specialist scholars, many of
the works will be exhibited and published for
the first time.
For many Iranians the stories told by their
great poets of the past are a vital component
of their national consciousness. Persian
literature specialist, Rafal Stepien, reflects
on issues of identity in the work of the 12th
century Sufi poet ‘Attar, while scholar and
playwright, Mammad Aidani, evaluates
the philosophic legacy of ‘Attar’s near
contemporary, Omar Khayyam.
Gay Breyley, an ethnomusicologist, explores
interconnections between Persian poetry
and other art forms, especially music. The
versatility of Persian lyrics, she argues, has
allowed their constant adaptation to changing
political contexts. Shelley Meagher reveals the
way the poet, Thomas Moore, made use of
key aspects of Persian poetry to comment on
national affairs of his native Ireland. Philippe
Charluet and Christopher Wood contribute
more personal insights into the poetic world
of the Persians: through the music with which
poetry is inextricably linked and through
reflection on Iran’s complex cultural landscape.
Finally Clare Williamson, Exhibitions Curator
at the SLV, and James Bennett, Curator of
Asian Art at the Art Gallery of South Australia
(AGSA), report on the increasing number of
significant manuscripts from the Islamic world
entering public collections in Australia. The
AGSA remains our only cultural institution
dedicating a permanent gallery space to
the various arts of Islam, yet the SLV has
shown considerable initiative in expanding
its collection of Persian and other eastern
manuscripts and in developing this exhibition
in association with the Bodleian Libraries.
By so doing the SLV has positioned itself
alongside leading international institutions
seeking to challenge long-held notions of
perceived opposition between east and
west and uniformity in Islamic art forms
by applying the more nuanced perspective
of recent scholarship. Iran now stands at a
crossroad in its long history, yet its poetry and
stories endure - at once deeply symbolic and
approachable; celebrating Iran’s distant past,
yet tolerant, relevant and astonishingly topical.
Note: The terms ‘Persia’ and ‘Iran’ have been
used almost interchangeably throughout this
issue. The language spoken by most Iranians is
‘Farsi,’ but the term ‘Persian’ is widely accepted
in English. Persian words and names have
been transliterated using a simplified version
of that used by the International Journal of
Middle Eastern Studies (IJMES). The consonants
‘ayn (‘) and hamza (’) are represented by
apostrophes. Dated manuscripts are given
their Islamic calendar (AH) dates first with
the corresponding Christian calendar (AD)
dates following in parenthesis. BC dates are
specified when appropriate.
Curator Asian Art, National Gallery of Victoria International
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LO V E A N D D E V OT I O N: F R O M P E R S I A A N D B E Y O N D – A N E X H I B I T I O N AT T H E S LV
Susan Scollay
The youth and the singing girl, Leaf from a disbound manuscript of Jami, Baharistan, dated year 39,
Ilahi era, reign of Akbar (1595 AD), Lahore, Bodleian Library, University of Oxford
he international exhibition, Love and
Devotion: From Persia and Beyond is the
result of a unique partnership between the
State Library of Victoria (SLV) and the Bodleian
Libraries of the University of Oxford. It is the
first major exhibition of Persian manuscripts
to be held in Australia, and will focus on the
beauty of the manuscripts and the stories of
human and divine love that are told through
their pages. These tales were copied and
sometimes reinterpreted over time, reaching
far beyond the borders of Iran, speaking to the
heart and soul of vast areas of Asia.
T
The other-worldly atmosphere and universal
themes of Persian narrative and mystical
poetry appealed especially to audiences in
northern India during the Mughal era, and
also in the territories ruled by the Seljuqs and
later the Ottomans in Anatolia and further
west in the region of modern-day Turkey.
The lifestyle of the poets in these regions
and the relaxed gatherings at which poetry
was shared bore little relationship to political
boundaries of the time (McChesney 1996).
Through shared sources in antiquity and
cultural exchange through trade, travel and
diplomacy, many stories conveyed in Persian
poetry intersected with European literature.
Writers in Europe such as Chaucer, Dante
and Shakespeare, increasingly reflected an
understanding and interest in Persia through
their plays, poetry and prose.
Persian literary culture flourished in the
princely and imperial courts of Iran and
its neighbouring empires where luxury
manuscripts were crafted for elite patrons.
Calligraphers, illuminators, painters and
binders worked in teams, producing
illustrated manuscripts in prodigious
quantities, creating one of the richest periods
in the history of the book. At the same time
many of the stories contained in these
manuscripts were embraced throughout
all sectors of society, told and retold within
families and at community gatherings.
The exhibition showcases a rich selection of
works from the world-renowned holdings
of the Bodleian Libraries, one of the oldest
collections of manuscripts and printed
books in the United Kingdom. These are
complemented by rare works from the SLV
and other Australian collections. The Bodleian
Library’s founding in 1602 coincided with
a time of increasing interest in the East.
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TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 1 N O. 1
The ghost of Nizami welcomes Nava’i, introduced by Jami. From a manuscript of Nava’i, Sadd-i Iskandar,
one volume of a Khamsa, dated AH 890 (1485 AD), Bodleian Library, University of Oxford
Over subsequent centuries its holdings
were augmented through the generosity
and foresight of scholar-collectors such as
Archbishop William Laud, Edward Pococke,
Archbishop Narcissus Marsh, John Bardoe
Elliott and in particular, the brothers Sir
William and Sir Gore Ouseley. It is their role
in the collection and preservation of these
manuscripts that enables a wide range of
scholars and audiences today to appreciate the
significance and beauty of Persian literature.
The manuscripts travelling from Oxford
range in age from the 13th to the 18th
centuries, and include a large number of
securely dated examples and several with
an imperial provenance. These include a
magnificent copy of the Baharistan (Garden
of Spring) composed by the Persian poet Jami
in 1487, and prepared for the emperor Akbar
at Lahore in 1595, during an era regarded by
many as the highest point of Mughal luxury
manuscript production. One of its eight
chapters is devoted to love. In it a young
man hears a girl singing on the terrace of her
master’s house and falls in love at the sound
of her voice (Topsfield 2012). Some of these
exhibition works will be known to specialists
in the field from previous publications, while
most are being exhibited and published for
the first time in Melbourne.
For many in the western world our
introduction to the world of Persian poetry
and culture was through the pages of a copy
of Edward FitzGerald’s Rubaiyat of Omar
Khayyam. FitzGerald was an eccentric English
scholar who, in Oxford in the mid-1850s, was
encouraged by his Persian language teacher
and friend, E.B. Cowell, to translate a 15th
century copy of Khayyam’s original verses.
The Bodleian Library had acquired the text,
written in delicate Persian script, a little
more than a decade earlier. The short, witty
verses had first been written in 11th century
Nishapur, an important city in north-eastern
Persia, where Khayyam was famous as an
astronomer and mathematician rather than as
a writer.
FitzGerald’s imaginative rendition, first
published in 1859, would eventually become
one of the best-selling works of poetry in
the English-speaking world and was also
translated into many other languages,
inspiring artists and musicians (Decker 1997).
While fanciful in parts and certainly not a
literal translation of the original, FitzGerald’s
free interpretation offered Europeans a
glimpse into the world of mediaeval Persia
with its rich court life, ritual and ceremony;
its friendships and love affairs; fine costume,
garden parties, music and love of beauty.
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 1 N O. 1
In a 1946 edition of Fitzgerald’s Rubaiyat in
the SLV’s collection, the frequently quoted
lines from the 11th stanza are accompanied
by an illustration by Sarkis Katchadourian
that captures the essential imagery of Persian
poetry. An idealised loving couple symbolise
the connection between eternal beauty and
the yearning lover. The young man offers the
wine cup to his beloved as they sit surrounded
by the accessories of romance – the wine
flask, food, a book of poetry and a musical
instrument (see p9 of this issue).
The Rubaiyat was not the only Persian work
translated by FitzGerald. A mystic narrative
called Mantiq al-Tayr (Conference of the
Birds), written by the 12th century Persian
poet, ‘Attar, was treated by FitzGerald in a
similar way, with episodes rearranged and
some imagery realigned to suit European
poetic understanding. Yet scholars generally
agree that, as in his work on the Rubaiyat,
FitzGerald captured the essential atmosphere
and feeling of the original verse.
The Persian language (Farsi) is written in
the Arabic alphabet that displaced many
local scripts as the religion of Islam spread
into Iranian territory in the mid-7th century
after the fall of the Sasanian empire. Ottoman
Turkish was also written in Arabic script until
1928, and languages in northern India and in
Afghanistan still use it. Most Persian poetry
is written in a style of calligraphy known as
nasta‘liq, characterised by its elegant, looping
curves. It was the adoption of paper-making
in 9th century Iran that enabled increased
production of manuscripts in elite workshops.
The khitabhana, as they were known, employed
papermakers, calligraphers and painters,
bookbinders and designers and it was these
artists who adapted the ornamentation of the
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art of the book for use in all other media such
as ceramics and textiles.
The manuscripts displayed in Melbourne
are secular in origin, made for private use
without the avoidance of figural images that
characterises copies of the Qur’an or prayer
books made for religious use in the Islamic
world. Much Persian poetry has its origins
in the pre-Islamic era of the great Persian
empires, yet as the stories were retold and
refashioned many acquired a spiritual overlay,
stemming from visionary mysticism rather
than religious doctrine. The verse is highly
symbolic and an ideal vehicle or bridge to link
earthly and heavenly images – profane and
spiritual ideas. Sufi mystic thought permeates
all poetry after the 12th century, even that
written at court.
Poetry and other forms of literature were,
and still are, regarded as the highest form of
culture in the Persianate world. Poets and their
skilful use of highly ornamented language
played a key role in the creation of a courtly
culture in which the book arts, prestigious
gift exchanges of illustrated manuscripts and
the formation of imperial libraries were vital
components of kingship. An outstanding copy
of Firdausi’s 11th century Shahnama (Book of
Kings) produced in Shiraz circa 1430 includes
a portrait of its patron, Ibrahim Sultan, a
grandson of the great Central Asian leader,
Timur (Tamerlane), depicted holding court
in a palatial setting (see cover image). At the
time the manuscript was produced, Ibrahim
Sultan was serving as the governor of Shiraz
and his portrait in this copy of the Shahnama
reinforces readers’ perception of him as a
generous patron and legitimate successor to
the glorious kings of ancient Iran.
A superb illustration from one of the Bodleian
manuscripts helps explain the central place
that poetry and poets held in Persian culture.
Beautifully painted in the 15th century, the
work, which illustrates a re-interpretation of
a romance first made popular by the great
12th century Persian poet, Nizami, was once
considered to have originated in the workshop
of Bihzad, possibly from the hand of the
master himself. Recent scholarship however
attributes it to a painter whose name, Qasim
‘Ali, appears in the text (Barry 2004).
The manuscript is copied on highly polished,
gold-sprinkled paper, with outstanding
calligraphy carefully set in places at an
angle. It recounts the story of Alexander
the Great, who was known in the Islamic
world as Iskandar, a figure seen as not only
a great military leader and wise ruler, but
also as enlightened to the point of spiritual
perfection, ‘the perfect human’. The poet,
Nizami, is depicted as a wise old scholar or
sage seated just left of centre, dressed in a
dark red robe and blue shawl, his writing
tools on the ground in front of him.
Nizami is best known for bringing together
five of his long narrative poems into a
compilation called simply Khamsa - meaning
‘five’ – a ‘Quintet’. The Alexander romance was
one of Nizami’s five works and generations of
poets afterwards wrote their own versions of
each of the stories, all trying to outdo each other
while trying to improve on Nizami’s original.
Such ‘emulation’ – tazmin as the Persians called
it - was the mark of a skilled poet and much
valued in Persian culture.
The illustration is one page of a manuscript
composed by Nava’i, the pen name of Mir
‘Ali Shir, a high-ranking court official and
close companion of the reigning sultan, as
his version of Nizami’s Persian original. An
ethnic Uighur from east Turkestan, he chose
to write it in an eastern form of Turkish,
though as a cultured and educated person he
also spoke and wrote in Persian.
This evocative scene of a number of
revered Persian poets both living and dead,
measuring only 12cm by 16cm, is set at night
with a deep-blue, lapis lazuli sky pierced by a
crescent moon shining directly on the central
figure of Nizami. Moonlight illuminates the
whole scene, without shadows and without
perspective as Western artists understand it.
Nizami’s slightly stooped upper body echoes
the curve of the lunar crescent as he leans
towards the two living poets on his left: Jami
and Nava’i himself (in a green robe, humbly
Zulaykha’s maids overcome by the beauty of Yusuf, From a manuscript of Jami, Yusuf u Zulaykha, dated AH 977 (1569 AD), Bodleian Library, University of Oxford
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TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 1 N O. 1
The marriage of Yusuf and Zulaykha, From a manuscript of Jami, Yusuf u Zulaykha,
dated AH 1004 (1595 AD), Bodleian Library, University of Oxford
bowing to the old master). Nizami’s posture
is that of the old Sufi masters who have spent
their lives in prayer and contemplation.
In the visual language of illustrated Persian
manuscripts, the crescent moon is a symbol of
mystical Sufis, many of whom were also poets
who spoke, wrote and sang about human love
as the first step on the way to spiritual love,
the journey towards attainment of unity with
the Divine. The scene is an idealised version
of reality, conveying the cultural and spiritual
ideas of the world of the Persian poets and
their historical and geographical reach.
Many of the classic stories written by these
poets are recounted to this day throughout
the Persian - speaking world. The exploits
of their iconic protagonists - the great hero
Rustam; the love triangle of Khusrau, Shirin
and Farhad; the tale of Bahram Gur and
the seven princesses in the seven palace
pavilions he built for them; the love story
of Yusuf and Zulaykha; and the tragedy of
Layla and Majnun, described by Lord Byron
as the ‘Romeo and Juliet of the East’ and the
inspiration behind Eric Clapton’s 1970s song
of thwarted love, ‘Layla.’
Like many Persian stories, the story of
Yusuf and Zulaykha is ancient in origin
and archetypal in its plot. It relates a tale of
an unusually handsome and chaste young
man who resists the advances of an older
woman. Many in the western world know
the story from the Biblical book of Genesis
as the account of the virtuous slave, Joseph,
and the wife of the Egyptian official, Potiphar.
Previously in commentaries on the Jewish
scriptures the female protagonist was named
as Zulaykha. In the version in the Qur’an,
Yusuf (Joseph), the manifestation of Divine
Beauty, is described by the women of Egypt as
‘not a man but a noble angel.’
Scholars tell us that at least 18 Persian poets
wrote their versions of the story based on the
Qur’anic account but with embellishments of
their own. The great mystic, Rumi, mentions
it frequently in his poetry; Sa‘di from Shiraz
retold it in the 13th century; and one of the
best-known later versions was written in 1484
as a mystical allegory by the great religious
authority, Jami, from Herat. It was this version
written by Jami that is still regarded as the best
example of a mystical love story in all Islamic
literature. Some episodes from the story
were particular favourites of illustrators and
exhibition visitors will enjoy pages depicting
Zulaykha mad with love for Yusuf (Joseph)
after she first sees him in a dream, Yusuf being
sold into slavery, Zulaykha’s maids fainting at
the sight of him, and the grace of the lovers’
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 1 N O. 1
final mystical marriage after Zulaykha gains
spiritual enlightenment and her youth and
beauty are miraculously restored.
The rarity of the manuscripts and strict
conservation considerations mean that
the exhibition will be limited to a 16 week
season, exclusively at the SLV. After this,
the manuscripts will return to storage at the
Bodleian Libraries and in December 2012 the
exhibition will be remounted at the University
of Oxford. The exhibition is accompanied
by a publication with more than 130 fullpage colour illustrations, and essays from
Australian and international specialists.
A conference supported by the Australian
National University and by TAASA will be
held at the SLV from 12-14 April, 2012.
Susan Scollay is an art historian specialising in the
Islamic world. She is guest co-curator of Love and
Devotion: From Persia and Beyond and editor of the
publication that accompanies the exhibition.
REFERENCES
Barry, Michael. 2004. Figurative Art in Medieval Islam.
Flammarion, Paris.
FitzGerald, Edward. 1997. Rubáiyát of Omar Kháyyám: a Critical
Edition, ed. Christopher Decker. University Press of Virginia,
Charlottesville.
McChesney, R.D. ‘“Barrier of Heterodoxy”?: Rethinking the Ties
Between Iran and Central Asia in the C17’ in Charles Melville ed.,
1996. Safavid Persia: History and Politics of an Islamic Society, I.B.
Tauris, London.
Topsfield, Andrew. ‘Images of Love and Devotion: Illustrated
Mughal Manuscripts and Albums in the Bodleian Library’, in Susan
Scollay ed., 2012. Love and Devotion: From Persia and Beyond,
Macmillan Art Publishing, in association with the State Library of
Victoria and the Bodleian Library.
7
P O E TRY IN TH E IRANIAN P SY C H E : R E FL E C TIONS ON O M AR K HAYYA M ’ S R ubaiyat
Mammad Aidani
Rubaiyat, Illuminated title from a manuscript of Omar Khayyam, Dated AH 865 (1460 AD),
Shiraz, Bodleian Library, University of Oxford
A consciousness associated with the
soul is more relaxed, less intentionalised
than a consciousness associated with the
phenomena of the mind.
(Gaston Bachelard 1969: xvii)
P
oetry plays a unique role in the psyche
of Iranians, the majority of whom have
remained closely connected to their poets
throughout the centuries. Speaking to the New
York Times in August 2011, Professor Ehsan
Yarshater of Columbia University and general
editor of the Encyclopedia Iranica project, was
quoted as saying that Persian poetry was
Iran’s greatest cultural contribution.
Persian poetry and poets, throughout
Iranian history, have played a pivotal role in
enriching as well as shaping the foundations
of Persian culture and its complex and multiethnic components. In their day-to-day
lives, regardless of their social and cultural
position, Iranians have consciously taken
their poets into their hearts. Among the
long line of historical poets, Omar Khayyam
(1048–1131) holds a special place, both in the
western understanding of Persian poetry and
culture, but also in Persian hearts and minds.
His personality as well as his poetry appeals
to ordinary Iranians, who have a collective
connection to his masterpiece, the Rubaiyat.
Omar
Khayyam
was
an
important
mathematician, philosopher and astronomer.
He was born in Nishapur, which was the
capital of Khorassan, a province of Persia
(modern Iran) in the north-east of the country.
It was the first Persian province to be invaded
by the Turkmen tribes under their Seljuq
rulers in 1040, before they expanded their
rule from Nishapur to include all of Persia
and Mesopotamia. In the introduction to their
translation of the Rubaiyat, Avery and HeathStubbs point out:
Khorassan was commercially rich. Its
principal cities lay on the trade routes
which extend from the Far East through
Persia to the Mediterranean. It was also
fertile and so attracted invasion by the
nomadic people of Central Asia once their
tribal hosts had come as far west as the
river Oxus. Throughout the Middle Ages
the inhabitants of Khorrasan were taught
painful lessons in sudden reversals of
fortune (qtd. in Aidani 2010: 27)
8
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 1 N O. 1
Omar Khayyam’s approach to the questions
of human existence and of temporality was
arguably one of the most innovative of the
Middle Ages and up to the Renaissance, when,
for the first time in the history of western
philosophy, the question of the existence of
the self was discussed by the metaphysical
and rational 16th-century philosopher, Rene
Descartes. Khayyam’s ideas transcended his
own background and made him one of the
great universal poets whose philosophical
insights have contributed enormously to our
understanding of how to reflect and learn
and, by extension, to recognise that we live
in the moment; that we need to embrace the
idea that moments pass, and with them our
ephemeral existence.
As a poet-philosopher, Omar Khayyam may
be understood as the first rationalist and
scientist to turn to the question of ‘being’ in
order to focus his attention on the problem
of existence. His poetry is the product of his
questioning. He encouraged his readers to ask
the same questions and seek the meaning of
their being in the world. Omar Khayyam was
arguably the precursor of those thinkers who
put forward the concept of living poetically in
the world. In other words, one could make a
case that he was the first Iranian thinker who
explicitly raised the question of consciousness
in the self and its direct embodiment in the
way one perceives and experiences the world.
This concept, advocated by Omar Khayyam
in his poetry almost eleven centuries ago,
should be recognised as one of the ideas
that dominated many of the great 19th and
20th century Western philosophers such as
Nietzsche (1844 – 1900), Jean-Paul Sartre (1905
– 1980) and Jacques Derrida (1930 – 2004).
A vigorous interpretation of his Rubaiyat
suggests that Omar Khayyam was one of the
first existential thinkers of the last millennium.
Omar Khayyam directed his thinking to the
question of ‘being’ in order to challenge wellestablished views that ignored the primacy of
human beings in the world, considering them
as mere objects. This led him to elevate human
beings in his poetry to the level of masters of
their own choices in life and owners of their
experience in the world. Khayyam invites his
readers to recognise and embrace that they
are living in ‘moments’ and to acknowledge
that each moment passes and does not return.
For him, we are all embedded in this world
and do not know where we are going beyond
it. According to him, we do not know how to
answer the questions of why we are here and
what is awaiting us elsewhere, beyond those
fading moments. As he puts it in the following
ruba‘i (quatrain):
Awake! For Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:
And Lo! The Hunter of the east has caught
The Sultan’s Turret in a Noose of Light.
(A. J. Arberry 1982: I)
This challenging concept is one of his very
significant contributions to an ontological
search for the meaning of our existence in
the world that not only fascinated but also
vigorously engaged the greatest thinkers of
the west throughout the 20th century. The
eventual re-appearance of Omar Khayyam’s
Rubaiyat from centuries of obscurity and
its celebrity in western literature are due to
the English writer and translator Edward
FitzGerald (1809–83), without whom this
old man of the east would not have been
the subject of so much interest and of such
a multiplicity of interpretations. Khayyam’s
verses had been translated previously, but
when FitzGerald made his version from a
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Edward FitzGerald. Illustrated by Sarkis Katchadourian, Grosset and Dunlap, 1946. State Library of Victoria
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 1 N O. 1
9
INSIDE BURMA:
THE ESSENTIAL EXPERIENCE
26 October – 14 November 2012
Few people have immersed themselves
as deeply in Burma as TAASA contributor
Dr Bob Hudson. His longstanding annual Burma
program features extended stays in medieval
Mrauk U, capital of the lost ancient kingdom
of Arakan (now Rakhine State) and Bagan,
rivalling Angkor Wat as Southeast Asia’s richest
archaeological precinct. Exciting experiences
in Yangon, Inle Lake, Mandalay and a private
cruise down the mighty Ayeyarwady are also
included. Limited places available.
Land Only cost per person
twinshare ex Yangon $3990
CAMBODIA: ANGKOR WAT
AND BEYOND
29 October – 15 November 2012
Angkor’s timeless grandeur is unmissable.Yet
Cambodia offers a host of other important cultural
and travel experiences: outstanding ancient,
vernacular and French colonial architecture;
spectacular riverine environments; a revitalising
urban capital in Phnom Penh; interesting cuisine
and beautiful countryside. Gill Green, President
of TAASA, art historian and author specialising in
Cambodian culture; and Darryl Collins, prominent
Australian expatriate university lecturer, museum
curator, and author who has lived and worked in
Cambodia for over twenty years, have designed
and co-host this annual program.
Land Only cost per person
twinshare ex Phnom Penh $4600
ISAN: THAILAND’S ANCIENT
KHMER CONNECTION
07 February – 25 February 2013
Isan is the least visited part of Thailand.
But this north-eastern region has a distinctive
identity and, in many ways, is the Kingdom’s
heartland. Here older Thai customs remain more
intact and sites of historical and archaeological
significance abound. Darryl Collins and Gill Green
(see above) expertly host this new journey which
includes spectacular Khmer temples such as
Prasat Phimai, Phanom Rung, Prasat Meung Tam,
and Ban Chiang (the most important prehistoric
settlement so far discovered in Southeast Asia).
Other inclusions, including a sidetrip across the
mighty Mekong into Laos to explore Wat Phu
Champasak, are also scheduled.
Land Only cost per person
twinshare ex Bangkok $4500
To register your interest, reserve a place or for
further information contact Ray Boniface
H E R I TA G E D E S T I N AT I O N S
N AT U R E • B U I L D I N G S • P E O P L E • T R AV E L L E R S
PO Box U237
University of Wollongong NSW 2500 Australia
p: +61 2 4228 3887 m: 0409 927 129
e: [email protected]
ABN 21 071 079 859 Lic No TAG1747
10
15th century Persian manuscript held in the
Bodleian Library it was eventually noticed by
a succession of poets, artists and orientalists
that included Dante Gabriel Rossetti and
John Ruskin. Later revisions of FitzGerald’s
translation went on to become best-sellers in
the English-speaking world, and were later
translated into a number of other languages
(Williamson: 2012, 171-72). It is even argued
that it was through FitzGerald that Iranians
found their true Omar Khayyam.
regardless of the hardship they experience in
the world. This existential attitude was made
explicit by one participant in my survey when
we discussed Omar Khayyam’s influence on
his life. The man suddenly recited to me:
Iranians who know Omar Khayyam’s poetry,
understand its essence and meaning to be
deeply rooted in ancient Persian philosophical
perceptions of existence and belief. As Avery
and Heath-Stubbs explain:
Poetry and the meaning of existence are
entrenched in the psyche of those Iranians
who are deeply attached to the rich cultural
and creative legacy they have inherited from
their great poets, whose works are eloquently
expressed in their beautifully poetic and
musical Persian language, Farsi. This body of
work represents for Iranians a great source of
resilience when facing difficulties. It enriches
their individual and collective identity as well
being an ongoing fount of joy and hope.
[T]he frequent imagery of mortal clay
turned into pots, or of flowers and the
edges of book that were once human lips
and limbs, can be considered pantheistic.
But the emphasis is on Man rather than
on God, and in Persian thought it is not
so much a matter of ‘pantheism’ as of the
sentiment that all the elements of God’s
creation - of nature - are inextricably and
sympathetically combined. Thus the
‘pantheism’ in the imagery of Persian
poetry cannot be taken unreservedly as
representing what is meant by this term in
the West. Its origins lie in a deeply rooted
Oriental acceptance of nature’s oneness, a
concept which may not include belief in
a divine Creator in or outside the natural
order. (qtd. in Aidani: 2010: 28)
The following lines clearly and powerfully
illustrate the oneness of nature as Omar
Khayyam perceived and understood it within
his Persian culture:
Since nobody has a lien on tomorrow,
Gladden the sad heart now;
Drink wine in the moonlight, my dear,
Because the moon will revolve a long time
and not find us.
(qtd. in Aidani 2010: 28)
If only there were occasion for repose,
If only this long road had an end,
And in the track of a hundred thousand
years, out of the heart of dust
Hope sprang, like greenness.
Dr Mammad Aidani is an award-winning playwright
and
inter-disciplinary
hermeneutics
scholar
philosophy,
specialising
cultural
theory
in
and
narrative psychology based in the School of Historical
and Philosophical Studies, University of Melbourne.
This essay is an extract from a longer manuscript
being prepared for publication.
REFERENCES
Aidani, M. 2010. Welcoming the Stranger: Narratives of Identity
and Belonging in an Iranian Diaspora. Common Ground
Publishers, Melbourne.
Bachelard, Gaston. 1969. The Poetics of Space, trans. from French
by Maria Jolas, Beacon Press, Boston.
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Other Persian Poems: an
anthology of Verse Translations, ed. A.J. Arberry. Reprinted 1982.
L.M. Dent and Sons Ltd. London.
Williamson, Clare. 2012. ‘Imagining Persia: European Travellers’
Tales and their Literary Offspring,’ in Susan Scollay ed., Love and
Devotion: From Persia and Beyond, Macmillan Art Publishing,
in association with the State Library of Victoria and the Bodleian
Library.
Omar Khayyam (in Persian), http://www.afarzaneh.com/khayyam.pdf
In my recent study of Iranians’ experiences of
displacement and in the process of collecting
their life stories (Aidani 2010), many of the
participants made reference to the importance
of Iranian poets and writers in their lives.
Among these, Omar Khayyam and the
profound message of his poetry featured
strongly. There is no doubt that Khayyam has
been a source of deep insights to these Iranians
and seems to relate directly to their displaced
lives. In particular, Khayyam’s philosophy of
‘being’ in the world and ‘now-ness’ provides
them with the capacity to reflect more
deeply on their lives - wherever they are and
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 1 N O. 1
LO V E OR D E V OTION ? FRO M P E RSIA OR TH E B E YOND ? – A P E RSIAN S U FI P E RS P E C TI V E
Rafal Stepien
L
ove and Devotion: From Persia and Beyond
– such is the title of the exhibition of
Persian and other manuscripts at the State
Library of Victoria to which this issue of
TAASA Review is devoted. Surely this sounds
innocent enough? And yet, in what follows,
I would like to consider the oppositions that
such a title implicitly calls into play, and
the questions these raise for our informed
appreciation of the works from the Bodleian
Libraries, on display in Melbourne. I will
do so from the perspective of a Persian Sufi
poet universally acknowledged as one of the
greatest exemplars of the art: Shaykh Farid alDin ‘Attar Nishapuri (c. 1145 – 1221). I mean
to allow ‘Attar, as it were, to tell us what he
would make of love and devotion, of passion
for one’s homeland (in this case Persia)
and the lure of all that lies beyond it. When
worldly and other-worldly loves collide, and
loyalty to one’s beloved may mean infidelity
to one’s faith, what should a Sufi do?
Some 190 works have been attributed to ‘Attar
over the centuries: an exaggerated number
which attests to his popularity throughout the
eastern Islamic world. Of the handful of books
agreed by modern scholars to be authentically
his, the Mantiq al-Tayr (Conference of the
Birds) stands out as ‘Attar’s undisputed
poetic masterpiece. A masnavi or religious
epic, the work is composed of 4724 rhyming
couplets in the most authoritative modern
edition (Shafi’i Kadkani, AH 1387 (2008 AD),
and includes well over 100 well-wrought
illustrative tales set within the over-arching
framework of the journey of the world’s
assembled birds to the Simurgh.
The figure of the Simurgh is rooted in the oldest
recesses of Persian religion and folklore. The
name derives ultimately from Saena, a bird
mentioned in the Avesta, the basic collection
of sacred texts of Zoroastrianism, the primary
religion practiced in Iran until the Arab
invasions and subsequent mass conversions
to Islam in the 7th century. Pahlavi-language
sources from the Sasanid Dynasty (224 – 650
AD) speak of the ‘Senmurv’, whose nest lies
on the “tree without evil and of many seeds”
(Schmidt 2002). Generally identified as a
bringer of rain, this Senmurv is a benevolent
figure in the largely arid Iranian plateau,
in contrast to his counterpart ‘Kamak’, who
prevents the rains from falling by spreading
wide his enormous wings, and thereby
bringing drought (Schmidt 2002).
THE HOOPOE TELLS THE BIRDS ABOUT THE SIMURGH, FROM A MANUSCRIPT OF ‘ATTAR,
‘ATTAR CONVERSING IN A COURTYARD, FROM A MANUSCRIPT OF A WORK ATTRIBUTED TO GAZURGAHI,
MANTIQ AL-TAYR, DATED AH 898 (1493-94 AD), BODLEIAN LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
MAJALIS AL-‘USHSHAQ, DATED AH 959 (1552 AD), BODLEIAN LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 1 N O. 1
11
The Simurgh maintained its hold on the Persian
imagination into Islamic times, appearing
notably in the Shahnama (Book of Kings) of
Firdausi (940 – 1020). In choosing to utilise this
figure so deeply grounded in his own Persian
mythological heritage to structure his Sufi
narrative, ‘Attar perhaps wished to convey
something of the ambivalence he may have
felt toward himself as a Persian Muslim. The
related themes of home-leaving and homecoming, community and alienation, national
and spiritual identity, recur throughout ‘Attar’s
collected works: it is in the figure of the Simurgh
that we find these themes most conspicuously
drawn together.
‘Attar’s Simurgh has been described as
“enigmatic beyond description… It is the
king that all the birds seek and, yet, none
other than their own reflection” (Keshavarz
2006: 125). What on earth could this mean?
And could it mean anything earthly at all? On
the one hand, it is obvious that the Simurgh is
understood to be an allegorical representation
of the transcendent Divinity; on the other, it is
but a bird like all the others. In characteristic
fashion, ‘Attar parries these questions with
a pun - the single most celebrated pun in all
of Persian literature. Though a multitude of
birds set out on the arduous quest in search
of the Simurgh, only 30 birds (si murgh) arrive,
and thereby realize that they are nothing other
than the Simurgh Itself:
As soon as the thirty birds looked at It
They could but see that thirty birds were
Simurgh
Their heads all spun in bewilderment
They knew not this until they became that
They saw themselves to be all the Simurgh
Simurgh Itself had always been the thirty birds
(Mantiq al-Tayr 4263-65). ‘Thirty birds’ is in
all cases the literal translation of ‘si murgh’.
The Simurgh, then, is an irreducibly
paradoxical figure, straddling what ‘Attar
often calls “the two worlds” of this life and
the afterlife, the mundane and divine realms.
Only a few lines later, the Simurgh Itself speaks
of Its own presence as a mirror in which each
thing is restored to its own self-identity:
Each one who comes sees himself in It
Body and soul see body and soul in It.
Since you’re thirty birds who have come here
As thirty in this mirror you appear
(Mantiq al-Tayr 4274-75).
12
And yet, in order to arrive at Its nest, the birds
have had to traverse the seven valleys of all
worldly and spiritual pursuits, including
even the final valley, that of Poverty and SelfExtinction, only to be told that:
All these valleys that you have left behind
And all these manly deeds that you have done
Throughout you have but acted in My acts
Your valleys of essence and attribute were
but dreams
(Mantiq al-Tayr 4281-82).
I propose that ‘Attar’s Simurgh thus represents
the fundamental ambiguity in which every
seeker finds him or herself on the spiritual
journey toward one’s own true self. In seeking
the Simurgh beyond the confines of their
common nests, the birds must traverse both
the external borders of their homeland and the
internal barriers of self, leaving behind all traces
of their own identity. In explaining all the fuss
about the Simurgh, ‘Attar has the Hoopoe, leader
of the pilgrim-birds, recount the story of how one
of Its feathers once fell from the heavens in China:
That feather is now on display in the
Chinese gallery
That’s why “Seek knowledge even if it be
in China”
(Mantiq al-Tayr 740).
This refers to the well-known saying of the
Prophet Muhammad, traditionally understood
to mean both that the truth-seeker must
needs leave the comforts of home, and that
everywhere – even somewhere as far away
as China – has knowledge to offer. One’s own
home too can be a source of knowledge, and
thus one does not need to go anywhere after all
to find the truth!
standing attentively in front of the largerthan-life figure dominating the illustration.
Whatever we may make of this illustrated
scene, there can be no doubt that the 15th
century illuminator of ‘Attar’s masterpiece
took great pains to leave us wondering –
again – about identity.
Perhaps we can better understand this theme
of identity – be it personal, national, or spiritual
– by turning to the issue of love and religious
devotion as portrayed in the Tale of Shaykh San’an.
This is by far the longest and most famous of all
the stories gathered in the Mantiq al-Tayr, and is
placed by ‘Attar at a crucial point in the epic’s
plot. Many of the birds have just presented their
various excuses as to why they cannot set out
on the quest. In a bid to silence all their doubts
and imbue them with the requisite fervour, the
Hoopoe tells them a tale which goes something
like this: Shaykh San’an, esteemed ascetic and
paragon of piety, leaves Mecca in search of the
‘idol’ appearing in his dreams – idol-worship
being one of the gravest of Islamic sins. Having
found her – a Christian girl as it turns out – he
falls inconsolably in love, such that:
Love of the girl plundered his soul
Infidelity streamed from her tresses,
flooding his faith
(Mantiq al-Tayr 1237).
The shaykh rejects all his disciples’ pleas for
him to turn away from his newfound beloved.
She initially pokes fun at his professed piety
and advanced age, but eventually consents to
accept him on four conditions:
Bow down before an idol, burn the Qur’an
Drink wine, and sew your eyes shut to
your faith
(Mantiq al-Tayr 1350).
One gets a very vivid sense of this ambiguity
in an illustration accompanying ‘Attar’s
verse in the Bodleian manuscript, MS. Elliott
246, dated AH 898 (1493-94 AD). Here, the
birds are urged by the Hoopoe to set out to
find the fabled Simurgh. The depiction of the
assembled birds is as expected - until one
notices the central figure. This bird is not
only far larger than any other but is decked
out with kaleidoscopic feathers, a streaming
ruff, upturned comb, and gloriously billowing
streamers. He stands quite apart from the
relatively drab mob around him, so much
so that one wonders whether this is not a
portrayal of the Simurgh Itself. It is surely not
the Hoopoe, which is usually depicted as a
small brownish bird with comb and fine beak.
The shaykh accepts all she bids of him, and
ends up not only abandoning Islam, but even
agreeing to work as a swineherd. All this is too
much for his disciples, who eventually forsake
him to return to Mecca. Once back, however,
they meet the shaykh’s closest companion,
who upbraids them for turning their back on
the shaykh, and immediately sets out with
them to reconquer the shaykh’s lost soul.
Having prayed and fasted for 40 days and 40
nights, the pilgrims are rewarded with a vision
of the Prophet Muhammad, who assures them:
In the Bodleian manuscript, the Hoopoe
seems to be represented as the small bird
Upon seeing his erstwhile disciples return, the
shaykh is suddenly recalled to Islam, such that:
Know with certainty that a hundred
worlds of sin
Are set alight with one sigh of repentance
(Mantiq al-Tayr 1520).
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 1 N O. 1
THE SHAYKH OF SAN‘AN BENEATH THE WINDOW OF THE CHRISTIAN GIRL, FROM A MANUSCRIPT OF ‘ATTAR,
MANTIQ AL-TAYR, DATED AH 898 (1493-94 AD), BODLEIAN LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
Infidelity rose from the road, and faith set in
The idol-worshipper of Rome returned to
worship of the Lord
(Mantiq al-Tayr 1539).
Spurred by her own dream-vision, the
Christian girl then begs the shaykh to accept
her conversion to Islam. Newly converted,
however, she cannot bear the pain of separation,
and dies on the spot. ‘Attar concludes that:
Such fate befalls one oftentimes upon the
road of love
They only know who know the load of love
(Mantiq al-Tayr 1597).
This story – to whose poetic beauty the
foregoing summary does scant justice – seems
on the surface to present a rather orthodox
view of the relation between love and religious
devotion. The shaykh, it appears, was quite
simply blinded by passions he would have
done well to suppress. All ends well, however,
though not without the merciful intervention of
Muhammad himself, spurred by the piety of the
shaykh’s disciples. Indeed, the climactic death
of the girl despite her conversion seems only to
confirm this rather righteous reading, according
to which she, unfaithful temptress, gets but her
just desserts, while the shaykh is returned to his
rightful role in the God-given dispensation.
Such an interpretation runs into difficulties,
however, once we try to take into account the
prelude to the tale which ‘Attar puts into the
Hoopoe’s beak. As with his more frequent
epilogues, such preludes function to give a
certain sense to the story, be it in terms of a moral
exhortation, doctrinal lesson, or some such other
hermeneutic key. In the case of Shaykh San’an,
we find the following verses introducing the tale:
If they should tell you to renounce your faith
Or if you should be told to ditch your soul
Who are you? Leave behind both this and
that
Abandon faith and cast aside your soul
These lines make ‘Attar’s position clear: the
exigencies of love override all other interests,
including even those concerned with one’s
spiritual well-being. ‘Ditch your soul,’ he
urges, and to hell with the afterlife! Indeed,
as the foregoing account of Shaykh San’an
shows, this is precisely what the story’s main
protagonist does… but only to find release
from the torments of love (and from the infernal
torments that would have awaited him) in the
final peace of devotion to the divine.
fitting tribute to him and his fellow devotees
of the one Beloved.
Rafal Stepien studied Persian language and literature
at the University of Isfahan, Iran, and holds degrees
from the Universities of Western Australia, Oxford
and Cambridge. His current doctoral research at
Columbia University, New York, explores intersections
between poetry of the Buddhist and Sufi traditions.
REFERENCES
Keshavarz, F. 2006. ‘Flight of the Birds: The Poetic Animating the
An apostate may call this iniquity
Say: Love is greater than faith and
infidelity
What’s love to do with infidelity and faith?
What could a lover care for his own soul?
Each one whose stride is sure on love’s
long road
Has left Islam and infidelity in his tracks
(Mantiq al-Tayr 1173-76, 1184).
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 1 N O. 1
In summary, then, we see that the central
figures of the Mantiq al-Tayr are portrayed
by ‘Attar in such a way as to render any easy
characterisations impossible. The Simurgh
and the Shaykh embody both their homeland
and what lies beyond; and in proposing
them as models for our own pursuits, ‘Attar
shows us that attachment to either passion
or dispassion will leave us far removed from
what was never distant. I suspect that ‘Attar
would thus have very much appreciated an
exhibition dedicated to Love and Devotion; a
Spiritual in ‘Attar’s Mantiq al-Tayr’ in Lewisohn, L. & Shackle, C.
(eds.) ‘Attar and the Persian Sufi Tradition, I. B. Tauris, London.
Ritter, H. 2003. The Ocean of the Soul, (Radtke, B., trans.), Brill,
Leiden.
Schmidt, H.P. 2002. ‘Simorg’ in Encyclopaedia Iranica, accessed at
http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/simorg
Shackle, C. 2006. ‘Representations of ‘Attar in the West and in
the East: Translations of the Mantiq al-Tayr and the Tale of Shaykh
San’an’ in Lewisohn, L. & Shackle, C. (eds.) ‘Attar and the Persian
Sufi Tradition, I. B. Tauris, London.
Shafi’i Kadkani. AH 1387 (2008 AD). Mantiq al-Tayr., M-R. (ed.),
Milli, Tehran.
13
‘ W ASHIN G HY P O C RISY ’ S D U ST ’ : P E RSIAN P O E TRY AND P O P U LAR IRANIAN M U SI C
Gay Breyley
A prince and princess feasting on a terrace, From a manuscript of Hafiz, Divan,
copied before 1717, Bodleian Library, University of Oxford
Bring wine, that by Hafez’s will, from a pure heart,
I may wash Hypocrisy’s dust, by the goblet’s grace
(Hafiz 2001: 30)
I
n Persianate cultures, the various arts have
maintained their close interconnectivity
to a greater extent than in Western cultures.
Poetry, in its aural and visual forms, music,
calligraphy, painting, metalwork, stucco,
architecture, garden, carpet and textile design
and other arts share crucial principles and,
to varying degrees, are interdependent. The
importance of symbolism and allegory and
the capacity to bring to life the past, with its
contemporary implications, and to inspire
love and devotion, through connections to
others and to God, cross artistic forms.
In this context, an ideal social and spiritual
encounter satisfies all the senses. Persian texts
contain many poetic accounts of the pleasure
derived by all, from kings to poor poets, from
gatherings that achieve this aim. The sounds
of an accomplished singer accompanied by
sensitive musicians, in a visually beautiful
setting, whether ‘natural’ or skilfully created,
with the textures of fine fabric and the taste of
abundant wine and food, are complemented
by the sweet perfume of roses, musk and
loved ones.
In such a scene, the most significant component
is the use of language – the words that
accompany each art form and, usually through
metaphor, reveal ‘the truth’. Each art form’s
status has shifted over the centuries, but
poetry has held a dominant position and has
shaped the other arts, especially music. The
rhythmic and melodic patterns of Persian art
music are drawn directly from classical poetry.
Throughout most of the long history of Persian
music, its lyrics have been viewed as the most
powerful element. In Persian, there is one
word, she’r, for poetry and lyrics. Most classical
vocalists and some singers of popular music
select texts from the repertoire of classical poetry
to suit their audiences’ situations and reflect
their moods. Improvisation has been central
to this process, demanding great sensitivity, as
well as virtuosity, of musical performers.
Although the moral role of music has been
the subject of debate and the social status of
musicians has mostly been low in Persian
14
contexts, the power of music, encompassing
poetry, has always been acknowledged. In
Firdausi’s Shahnama, or ‘Book of Kings’, the
musician Barbad chooses a royal garden
as the setting for his conquest of the king’s
heart, which he achieves with a repertoire of
balladry, heroism and spirituality. Barbad’s
musical performance, his versatility, sweet
nature and poetic words ensure his rise to
personal power.
While art music was largely confined to the
court until the 19th century reign of Nasir-aldin Shah, other musical forms, including the
recitation of the Shahnama, were available to
the less privileged. Before literacy became
widespread, the performance of poetic texts
was central to cultural and social life. Texts
gained new meaning with each performance,
as they were linked to current events and
listeners’ personal situations. Melodic
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 1 N O. 1
Shah Nowruz invites Nightingale to join his party, From a manuscript of Badi‘ al-Din Manuchihr al-Tajiri al-Tabrizi,
Dilsuznama, dated AH 860 (1455 AD), Edirne, Bodleian Library, University of Oxford
recitation and music were the primary means
of transmitting poetry across social classes,
including people without access to books and
other inscribed art.
Although an ephemeral art, musical
performance was one of the most easily
transported, repeated and remembered.
Performers were responsible for the
interpretation and presentation of a range of
narratives, ideas and facts. In contexts where
direct speech could disadvantage or even
endanger the speaker, a skilful performer
conveyed messages metaphorically. Metaphor
also enabled multiple layers of meaning,
especially around the crucial theme of love and
the torment of separation from the beloved. Of
course, the beloved may represent a male or
female romantic partner, a spiritual companion,
God, an ideal such as freedom or justice, or
any combination of these. Guided by a poet’s
words, then, a musical performer works with
his or her audience to create new meaning
from old. In broad terms, this tradition persists,
even in some of today’s popular music. The notion of ‘washing hypocrisy’s dust’ recurs
in different forms in the verses of Hafiz (c. 132489), Iran’s most popular poet. Hypocrisy is often
represented as a major obstacle to true love and
devotion – to the desired union of apparent
opposites – and as the principal corrupter of
social, cultural and spiritual life. While the
symbolic but ‘true’ words of a poet reveal truth
and enlighten audiences, the false words of
hypocrites deceive and pollute, leaving layers
of destructive dust. The desire to ‘wash’ such
‘dust’ has linked Persian poetry and music for
centuries. This is true even of some Westernised
popular music, with contemporary lyrics, in
Iran’s more recent history.
There are many different ways to define popular
music, but it may be seen as beginning in Iran as
part of ruhozi, a tradition of comic improvisatory
theatre. Ruhozi songs, while musically and
lyrically simple, mocked the powerful and
hypocritical with varying levels of wit. In the
20th century, with the advent of radio, the
Allied military presence during World War II
and the Pahlavi Shahs’ Westernisation policies,
a new popular music industry developed. As
well as the Western influences, this music came
to be closely linked with the film industry and
was influenced by developments in Arabicspeaking countries, especially in the 1950s,
when Egyptian film was popular.
Most songs in this genre were composed for
the purpose of light entertainment, but among
them were pieces that drew on Persian poetic
traditions, or were interpreted as containing
the multiple layers of meaning and allegorical
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 1 N O. 1
references expected by readers of Persian
poetry. Such songs were often read as poetic
protests against hypocrisy, injustice or
other obstacles to freedom and love, and as
articulations of longing for truth and freedom.
As with art music compositions, there are
popular songs that have returned throughout
Iran’s modern history and gained new levels
of meaning with each return. One of the most
successful pop songs of the 1950s was Mara bebus or ‘Kiss me’ (1955, lyrics by Haydar
Raqabi, music by Majid Vafadar, first recorded
by Hassan Golnaraqi). Under the Pahlavi
regime, the singer Golnaraqi was sentenced to
a short prison term for his performance of the
song, but Ma-ra bebus remained clandestinely
popular throughout the 1960s and, indeed, is
still played in Iran today and invested with
new significance. Most listeners read into the
lyrics that the song’s narrator was a political
prisoner sentenced to death; this is implied
from the first lines: ‘Kiss me, kiss me for the
last time; God keep you, I am going to my fate’.
Subsequent lines are read as revolutionary: ‘I
have to give up this bright morning because
I have a blood pact with a brighter morning’
and ‘I have to start fires in the mountains’.
The timing of the song’s initial release shaped
these readings, as popular anger about the
1953 coup had just been compounded by the
execution of 30 members of the Marxist Tudeh
party’s military branch. In this context, the
song’s narrator was popularly imagined as male,
although some researchers claim that the lyricist
wrote the piece in the voice of a dying woman.
This is one of many examples of the versatility of
Persian lyrics. It is fitting that the details of poetic
meaning are constantly improvised to satisfy
15
A ROYAL PICNIC (DETAIL), FROM A MANUSCRIPT OF ‘ATTAR,
INTIKHAB-I HADIQA (EXTRACTS FROM THE HADIQA).
COPIED C.1575, BODLEIAN LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
Shahram Nazeri combined Kurdish and
Persian musical structures with the words of
the renowned poet Rumi, (known in Iran as
Maulana, 1207-73):
You too can go away and leave me alone now
Why not abandon this ailing, broken
creature of the night
I am no longer disturbed by the waves of
lonely days and nights
It’s your choice to come back, forgive, or go
away in betrayal (Namjoo 2006).
their changing contexts. However, the principles
that accompany these shifting meanings remain
little changed; these are the principles of truth,
love, devotion and freedom.
In the 1970s, Iran’s popular music industry
underwent
an
acceleration
of
both
Westernisation and expressions of resistance.
Queen of pop Googoosh (1950- ) epitomised
this decade, with a range of Westernised
musical styles and Persian love lyrics, laden
with a plethora of ‘light’ metaphor. While
Googoosh dominated fashion and every
form of media, some of her colleagues, such
as Farhad and Dariush (Eghbali, 1951- ),
achieved popular success with arguably more
‘serious’ allegorical songs.
In 1978, Dariush’s hit Bu-ye Gandom (The Scent
of Wheat), reportedly inspired many young
people to join the burgeoning revolutionary
movement. One such former revolutionary
reminisces that it was this pop song that gave
him and his friends the belief that revolution
was a realistic possibility (Jamal, personal
communication, Los Angeles, 2010). Again,
timing was crucial to popular readings of this
symbolic pop song. Beginning with the line
‘The scent of wheat is mine, everything I have
is yours’, the lyrics contain references to all
the senses, a collective thirst and a desire for
the earth’s beauties to be shared.
The 1979 revolution was closely followed by
the 1980 invasion of Iran by Saddam Hussein’s
Iraq, which resulted in eight long years of
war. During the 1980s, as the Persian pop
music industry shifted its centre from Tehran
to Los Angeles, many of Iran’s art musicians
sought to reverse Western influences on
their music and its lyrics. This included a
return to classical poetry. On his album The
Language of Love, popular art music vocalist
16
Folk rock singer-songwriter and musician
Mohsen Namjoo describes Nazeri’s postrevolutionary album as ‘a musical blessing
for the nation’, as it musically and lyrically
articulated the complex feelings of pride and
national unity, determination and despair,
that accompanied the outbreak of war. Nazeri
also selected lyrics that linked ‘truth’ with
‘righteousness’, as well as with love and the
suffering of the devoted. In the context of postrevolutionary Iran, where many felt abandoned
by former ‘friends’, this could be read as multilayered criticism of the hypocritical nature of
all forms of false friendship.
After the Iran-Iraq War and Iran’s subsequent
period of reconstruction, Mohammad
Khatami was elected president in 1997,
bringing with him a program of minor
cultural reform. This included the resumption
of locally produced popular music, with
government authorisation. Classical poetry
now expanded its popular realm from art
music to pop, rock and fusion.
Fusion, or talfiqi, combined such instruments
as electric guitar and keyboards with the
kamanche (a bowed spike fiddle, which, much
earlier in the 20th century, had been one of the
first Iranian instruments to be replaced by its
Western relative, the violin), setar (one of several
forms of long-necked lute), daf (frame drum)
or santur (dulcimer). Rock and pop groups
often combined Western instruments, rhythms
and melodies with Persian texts, including the
poetry of Hafiz, Rumi and Sa‘adi (c. 1213-92).
One of the most popular of these groups was
O-Hum (www.o-hum.com), which recorded its
first album, Nahal-e Heyrat (Sapling of Wonder,
a term drawn from Hafiz) in 1999, launching
it online in 2001. O-Hum made more songs
available online in 2002, under the title Hafez
in Love. The group’s second album, Aludeh
(Polluted), was released in Canada in 2005.
More recently, Mohsen Namjoo has emerged as
one of Iran’s most popular ‘serious’ musicians.
Namjoo has set classical Persian poetry to music
in unconventional ways and today he uses his
own wry word play and metaphor in his lyrics
(www.mohsennamjoo.com). Namjoo’s work
is highly innovative as he combines elements
of Persian art music, traditional recitation and
western folk and rock in new ways. Hafiz’s
notion of the need to ‘wash hypocrisy’s dust’
is echoed throughout Namjoo’s repertoire.
Among other things, his lyrics recount a
wartime education in absurdity and illuminate
many aspects of postrevolutionary sensibilities.
In his song Gozar, he sings ‘See how they have
made hypocrisy fashionable ... See how we
see dollar signs everywhere’. Namjoo’s setting
of Hafiz’s ‘Zolf Bar Bad’ gained considerable
popularity in Iran and the diaspora. ‘Zolf Bar
Bad’ displays Hafiz’s customary wit, imagery,
paradox and hyperbole, leaving many semantic
possibilities open for the listener:
Since the day I was captured by you, I am free...
Show your face, to make me indifferent to the flower
Show your height, to make me free from
the cedar...
Ultimately, this piece follows the tradition of
evoking love and devotion, which remain as
compelling in the 21st century as they were in
the 14th.
The above examples illustrate just a few of
many connections between poetry and music
in Persian contexts. Today, along with art
music, fusion, rock, pop and folk, hip-hop has
a very significant following. Many Persian
rap texts also reflect their historical context of
classical poetry and related arts. For centuries,
palaces, teahouses and private courtyards
were venues for the dissemination of poetry
in Iran and the Persianate world. Performers
and listeners took great pleasure in the sounds
and semantics of the Persian language and its
capacity for interaction with other arts. Today,
venues include the internet, concert halls and
private basements, but the union of Persian
poetry and music continues to provide elegant
entertainment and inspiration.
Gay Breyley is an adjunct research associate at Monash
University, where she completed a postdoctoral
fellowship in 2008. In 2010 she was an Endeavour
research fellow (Austraining International), hosted by the
University of Tehran. With Sasan Fatemi she is co-author
of Iranian Music and Popular Entertainment: From
Motrebi to Losanjelesi and Beyond (Routledge, 2012).
REFERENCES
Hafiz. 2001. Divan of Hafez Shirazi. Farhangsara Mirdashti,
Tehran.
Namjoo, Mohsen. 2006. ‘In Praise of the Minor Key, A –
The Third Note.’ TehranAvenue.
Mohsen Namjoo. www.mohsennamjoo.com
O-Hum. www.o-hum.com
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 1 N O. 1
DISCOVERING PERSIAN MUSIC
Philippe Charluet
MAULANA MUHAMMAD TABADKHANI AND OTHER DERVISHES DANCING, FROM A MANUSCRIPT OF A WORK ATTRIBUTED
TO GAZURGAHI, MAJALIS AL-‘USHSHAQ, DATED AH 959 (1552 AD), BODLEIAN LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.
n early 2010, I was invited to contribute
a number of audio-visual components to
the State Library of Victoria’s (SLV) exhibition,
Love and Devotion: From Persia and Beyond.
These included a full-length documentary
film framed around the exhibition settings, a
unique opportunity to explore extraordinarily
rich themes, including Persian literature,
poetry and book arts, and their intersection
with the West; and an audio-visual exhibition
component made up of classical Persian
poetry and music performed live.
I
Music is usually the starting point of any
of my projects. It defines its emotional path
by setting the mood and the rhythm of the
film. In addition, when exploring other
civilisations like Persia, the sourcing of
authentic music is crucial, as it informs the
cultural context. I knew nothing of Persian
music so I set out to learn more, quickly
sourcing and purchasing music CDs (I
was travelling to Paris at the time and was
blessed with meeting an expert in this field,
who, surprisingly, was a young Frenchman
in his mid-twenties!).
I was astonished by what I heard. The purity
of the music, the way it deeply connected,
dare I say, to my spirit. I felt I was hearing
something created very much in the depths
of time. I was lucky enough to hear great
contemporary masters like Ali Reza Ghorbani
(particularly his album Les Chants Brulés and
Ivresse) and Shahram Nazeri & Hafez Nazeri
(The Passion of Rumi). Of note also, are albums
by Jordi Savall, including Istanbul and Orient
– Occident, which explore the dialogue of
Ottoman music with that of the West.
When discussing Persian music, we must
include Persian poetry because one does not
exist without the other. For Persians, poetry
does not make sense if there is no music and
music does not make any sense if there is
no poetry. They are absolutely intertwined.
As Dr Mammad Aidani of the University of
Melbourne said when I interviewed him for
the film: “The soul of Persians, as I understand
it, is embedded in the poetry of these great
poets that we in the West read - particularly
Omar Khayyam, Hafiz, Sa‘di, Jami and
especially Rumi, who we call Maulana.” The
music is “like a fountain embedded in the
poetry” according to Dr Aidani, and as in
poetry, everyone has their own responses, or
reactions, to it.
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 1 N O. 1
17
THE MEHR ENSEMBLE WITH TOOFAN TOGHYANI, TINA ARBATAN, SAMIRA KARIMI, MEHDI MIRZAEI,
JOEL CERDOR, SEPEHR TOGHYANI, POOYA MEHMANPAZIR (LEFT TO RIGHT)
Persian music has two distinct strands: the
first may be termed ‘traditional’ i.e. the
indigenous, classical musical tradition of
Iran; and the second is what I would call a
‘mystical’ strand, and often accompanies
poetry expressing notions of Sufism. My
personal taste very much attracted me to the
second, as this has a depth and connection
that I have rarely felt with any other music I
have encountered (except maybe the purest
Gregorian chants in the West). I now often
refer to mystical Persian music as ‘the music
of the human soul’.
After listening to much Persian music, I
went to a concert in July 2011 in Melbourne
performed by the Mehr Ensemble, the only
Persian music performance group based
in Australia. As is the custom, they were
seated with their instruments on finely
decorated Persian rugs and cushions. The
Mehr Ensemble was formed in Tehran, Iran,
in 1999 and is now based in Melbourne after
the group’s leader, Pooya Mehmanpazir,
migrated to Australia in 2006.
The first hour of the concert was devoted to the
poetry of Rumi, the great Persian mystic poet.
As Susan Scollay, the SLV exhibition co-curator
said when interviewed: “Rumi currently tops
the best-seller lists for poetry in the US and is
also very widely read throughout the rest of
the Western world. Surprisingly perhaps, this
best-selling Persian poet lived and wrote in
the 13th century in the city of Konya in central
Anatolia, the Asian part of what is now the
modern-day Turkey. At that time Konya was
part of the great empire of the Seljuq dynasty
and a multicultural, multilingual cultural
centre of note.”
The musicians wore white as a sign of purity
of spirit for this mystical part of the concert.
It is also important to note here that Persian
poetry is usually sung, not recited as it is in
the West. The second hour was of a more
traditional nature, almost folkloric in parts,
and, to reflect this, the musicians changed to
brightly coloured clothes.
I was fascinated by the instruments, the
simplicity of design and material, yet
producing such exquisitely pure sound. The
long-necked lutes, such as the setar, tar and
tanbur or the bowed spike-fiddle kamancheh,
which produce such rich sounds with only
a few strings; the daf, a circular animal skin
framed-drum which sounds like a dozen
drums played at the same time; the ney, a
simple bamboo flute, played straight through
with no reed, that seems to touch the inner
depths of one’s being. Yet, none of these
instruments approached the purity and
18
beauty of the most refined instrument of all,
the human voice.
In Persian music and songs, the vocalist plays
a crucial role, not only providing the mood
and driving the piece but the voice itself is
used like an instrument, in ways rarely heard
in any other culture. The singer allows words
to almost take flight, prolonging each syllable
and letting them ring magically in his/ her
throat. In many songs, the music is played as
an emotional response to the voice rather than
as an accompaniment. I was mesmerised, my
spirit lifted.
The musical introductions were perfect
for what we set out to achieve, providing
a simple emotional dialogue to the poetry
and taking the audience into a wonderful
world of images that ranged from that of
fierce princesses, kings, historical myths and
demons to that of the Lover, both in human
form and that of the seeker of mystical union
with God. So my discovery of Persian music
is just the beginning of a wonderfully rich
journey of discovery, unearthing this prolific
culture, and its poetic treasures.
Philippe Charluet is a documentary film producer and
director specialising in the arts. His award winning
These musicians were a perfect choice for
the audio-visual component of the State
Library exhibition and I approached them
immediately. We set out to collaborate in
the making of an 11-minute film that would
show the extraordinary detail of some of the
manuscripts whilst the Persian-language
poetry written in the manuscripts was
both recited and sung. The accompanying
soundtrack would be made up of music
performed on only a few instruments.
documentaries include The Medieval Imagination
(SBS) about medieval manuscripts, Dreams of
Darkness (SBS) about the photographer, Bill Henson,
and Romeo and Juliet: A New Vision (Stvdio)
examining the creative process of choreographer,
Graeme Murphy. The documentary Love & Devotion
will be released in June 2012 (stellamotion.com.au)
The Mehr Ensemble will perform a concert at the State
Library of Victoria on 31 March, 2012 (mehrensemble.
com.au) and is releasing their first CD to coincide with
the exhibition.
I had noticed that Persian music relies on
both improvisation and composition. The
early part of each song, the introduction as I
would call it, is usually a rhythmic prelude
of more than a minute, to set the mood of the
piece. Again, this is the part that I found of
real interest, acting almost as a meditation
to set the desired tone, both literally and
emotionally.
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 1 N O. 1
POLITICS AND PERSIAN MYTHOLOGY IN THOMAS MOORE’S PARADISE AND THE PERI
Shelley Meagher
PARADISE AND THE PERI, TITLE PAGE, THOMAS MOORE. DESIGNED BY OWEN JONES. DAY AND SON, 1860. STATE LIBRARY OF VICTORIA
n its publication in 1817, the Irish
songwriter Thomas Moore’s long poem,
the ‘oriental romance’ Lalla Rookh, made a hit.
Within a year it had gone into seven editions:
Moore’s publisher, John Murray, later referred
to it as ‘the cream of copyrights’. But, as an
examination of Paradise and the Peri, the
second of the poem’s tales reveals, its popular
success tends to obscure its polemical nature,
which draws on an unconventional view of
Islam and its Persian sources.
O
In the 19th century Paradise and the Peri was the
most popular of the four tales recounted by the
minstrel in Lalla Rookh. It inspired paintings, a
ballet, and whole books of watercolours and
engravings; Schumann adapted it to opera.
Its appeal is not surprising. The tale contains
a mixture of exotic snapshots of Iran, India,
Egypt and Syria, historical information,
and sentimental speeches. It is the 19th
century counterpart to 21st century popular
television history series. The narrative’s fluid
rhyming couplets sweep the reader across
Iran, Afghanistan, India and the Levant,
swooping down on select historical events,
providing factual details while conveying
the perspective of an ‘ordinary’ person of the
period. While all the events take place in the
Islamic world, however, the selection of sites
and historical events has far more to do with
the poet’s own political agenda.
The tale’s theme is the possibility of returning
to grace for those who have fallen. In the
19th century many people turned their
imaginations to the issue of how to regain a
blessed state once lost. How a woman who
has transgressed social rules may regain
acceptance was a popular version of this
question. So was the fate of the destitute
and how they may attain economic security;
in its spiritual sense the question is deeply
entrenched in Western culture through its
treatment in the Bible.
Paradise and the Peri hits many of the buttons
of the 19th century interest in this question.
Lalla Rookh’s minstrel tells the tale through
the eyes of a Peri, a kind of fallen angel in
Persian mythology. Moore makes his Peri
female, searching the world for an offering
of atonement through which to regain
heaven. Largely unfamiliar to Moore’s
primarily British and Irish readers, his Peri
figure offered a novel and whimsical way
of exploring what would become, by mid-
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 1 N O. 1
century, an enormously popular theme of
redress for those who have fallen.
As Moore knew from George Sale’s introduction to his 1734 English translation of the
Qur’an, the Qur’an incorporated the ancient
Persian mythology concerning Peris into the
new faith at the time of the first emergence
of Islam. Sale and the late 17th century
French orientalist encyclopedist Barthélemy
d’Herbelot were Moore’s main sources on
Peris, for although they feature in key works
of Persian literature such as the poet Firdausi’s
Shahnama or ‘Book of Kings’ completed in 1010
(two manuscripts of which were held by the
Trinity College Dublin library when Moore was
a student in the 1790s), and although Moore
read all he could of Persian literature, he had no
access to translations of the crucial texts.
So Moore understood that Peris had been
assimilated into Islamic theology. Their
provenance is clear in Paradise and the Peri.
When the Angel at the gate of Heaven tells the
Peri that he will let her back into heaven if she
brings ‘the gift that is most dear to Heaven’
to redeem her sin, the Peri flies away on her
quest musing over the magical treasures of
ancient Persian mythology, such as the rubies
beneath Persepolis and the jewelled cup of
Jamshid. But she quickly concludes that these
things will not suffice for ‘Allah’: ‘gifts like
19
PARADISE AND THE PERI, THOMAS MOORE. DESIGNED BY OWEN JONES. DAY AND SON, 1860. STATE LIBRARY OF VICTORIA
these are not for the sky’ (the requirements
of rhyme determine the weak euphemism for
paradise). The type of Peri this tale concerns is
clearly one that is bound up with Islam.
This makes it all the more striking that the
Peri’s first offering of atonement is the blood
of a Hindu soldier who dies fighting Mahmud
of Ghazna - the Central Asian leader to whom
the poet Firdausi presented his epic Shahnama.
As a footnote in Moore’s work points out,
Mahmud of Ghazna went on to conquer
northern India in the 11th century as its first
Islamic ruler. The narrative does not explicitly
state that the tragic hero whom Mahmud kills
is a Hindu, but his faith is evident from the
allusions to the material culture of Hinduism:
Land of the Sun! What foot invades
Thy Pagods and thy pillar’d shades –
Thy cavern shrines, and Idol stones,
Thy Monarchs and their Thousand
Thrones?
(Moore 1817: 137-38)
Pagodas, idols, shrines in caves in an eastern
land, all these were markers of Hinduism for
Moore’s readers, and the verse portrays the
region as wholly Hindu. Moore stresses that
Mahmud’s conquest of this land involved the
brutal destruction of a whole civilisation.
The Hindu soldier’s sword is broken and he
is down to his last arrow when he encounters
Mahmud, who offers him his life and wealth
if he accepts Mahmud’s sovereignty. But for
the soldier, the Muslim conqueror’s atrocities
and destruction of his people and homeland
means that there can be no negotiation. He
answers Mahmud by firing the last arrow
at him, but misses and is killed. The Peri
descends to earth and collects as her offering
to heaven the soldier’s last drop of blood,
remarking afterwards that:
Though foul are the drops that oft distil
On the field of warfare, blood like this,
For Liberty shed, ...holy is...
(Moore 1817: 140)
This surprising celebration of Hindu heroism
offers more than a hint of protest against
England’s treatment of Ireland, about which
Moore had been increasingly outspoken over
the decade preceding the publication of Lalla
Rookh. By 1817 he was famous for his ‘national
melodies’ of Ireland, songs which lament
the loss of Ireland’s historical glory, and the
repercussions for its leaders of the failed 1798
and 1803 Irish rebellions. The very notion of
Peris, when raised by Moore, was obliquely
reminiscent of Ireland, for in the later part of
the preceding century, Persians had become
20
associated with the Irish, both through theories
that the Irish were descended from Persians,
and through ideas of Persian as a sweet and
lyrical yet deceptive language, and of the Irish
as passionate, heated and peculiarly attuned to
Persia. Moore’s first reviewers had no trouble
detecting in the Muslim minstrel Feramorz a
figure for the Irish songwriter Moore.
To anyone familiar with Moore’s Irish
polemics, the Peri’s second choice of gift
to heaven – the dying breath of a woman
nursing her lover as he dies of the plague
– indeed indicates that he has Ireland in
mind in this tale. In 1810, in his polemical
pamphlet, A Letter to the Roman Catholics of
Dublin, Moore had used this very same trope
to advocate that the Dublin Catholics concede
a power of veto to Westminster in Episcopal
Catholic appointments - if, in return,
Westminster would annul its prohibition
against Catholics standing for Parliament.
To concede the veto power may be daunting,
Moore had argued, but these anxieties pale in
comparison to what it might achieve, namely,
Catholic Emancipation and the expansion
of the legislature, which would increase
the likelihood of achieving constitutional
reform. ‘Your courage,’ Moore tells the
Dublin Catholics, ‘will rival the gallantry of
that youth, who courted his mistress, at the
moment when she was dying of the plague,
and “clasping the bright infection in his
arms,” restored her to health and beauty by
his caresses.’ (Moore 1810: 33)
In Paradise and the Peri, it is the bride who
caresses her stricken bridegroom, and she
succumbs to the infection and dies shortly
after he does. Heaven rejects the Peri’s first
two offerings as good, but not quite good
enough to atone for sin. So if sympathy with
Irish nationalism is latent in the Peri’s first
offerings to heaven, Moore does not portray it
as a viable road to happiness for Ireland.
The anomalousness of the Peri’s first choice of
offering to Allah – the blood of a Hindu Indian
nationalist shed in an attempt to kill a Muslim
in a religious war – is all the more striking for
the fact that in Lalla Rookh’s framing narrative,
Paradise and the Peri is recited by a Muslim
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 1 N O. 1
PARADISE AND THE PERI, THOMAS MOORE. DESIGNED BY OWEN JONES. DAY AND SON, 1860. STATE LIBRARY OF VICTORIA
of Asia.’ (Edinburgh Review 29 1817: 2) The
problem for Jeffrey and later critics is that the
characters are too like Europeans: they are
not different enough to be Indian or Persian.
But this attack – like those of the opposing
viewpoint which complains that 19th century
European literature too often portrays
Muslims as fundamentally different from
westerners – overlooks the claim central to the
political allegory, that what is true of Islamic
imperialism and the Islamic faith is also true
of Christian imperialism and Christianity.
Despite the recognisably Muslim aspects of
the second episode, its recommendation of
natural and simple reverence transcends the
boundaries between Islam and Christianity.
Paradise and the Peri thus belongs to a minor
but longstanding tradition, dating back to the
17th century, which saw Christianity and Islam
as fundamentally similar. It also emerges in
several others of Moore’s writings. In 1810, he
had compared sectarian prejudices in Britain
and Ireland to parts of the Qur’an written after
Muslims had won several battles, in order to
illustrate a universal principle: that an increase
in power always leads institutional religions
to become intolerant. His article on early
Christianity, The Church Fathers, published in
The Edinburgh Review in 1814, discusses the
common origins of Christianity and Islam
and points out that the scriptures of both have
been influenced by the Persian and Arabic
mythology that predated them.
minstrel to a Muslim princess, a descendent
of Mahmud of Ghazna. But the tale does not
condemn Islam in its entirety. For the final
gift that the Peri offers to heaven, the gift
that succeeds in opening paradise to her, are
the tears shed in penitence by a murderer,
and his repentance takes a distinctly Muslim
form. Encountering a Muslim boy at dusk, the
murderer instinctively thinks to kill him. But
the innocent joy of the boy as he plays in a
garden brings a calm over the murderer. When
the evening call to prayer sounds and the boy
obeys it, the murderer recalls the innocence
of his own childhood. As he opens his heart
he is moved to remorse and penitence, and
he kneels and joins the child in prayer – and,
forgiven, returns into God’s tribe.
The narrative paints Mahmud’s imperialism
in the same forms as it later paints murder,
linking the murderer’s sins to imperialism.
The tale of the sinner – what leads him into sin
and what leads him to penitence – thus implies
that imperialism is unjustifiable, and that the
only way to be a good believer is by the private
practice of faith, and not by the sword.
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 1 N O. 1
Whilst this claim was pertinent to Britain’s
policies in Ireland, most salient, given the
tale’s partial Indian setting, was its critique of
Britain’s imperialist adventures in India. So
the tale asserts a general principle about piety,
militant evangelism, and imperialism and it
indicates that this principle applies to all acts
of imperialism, regardless of which particular
faiths or sects are concerned. The condemnation
of Mahmud implicit in the Peri’s first offering
to heaven rests on his brutal imposition of his
faith on the Hindus of India: that is, on his
imperialism, rather than on his Islamic faith,
even if he uses his faith to justify his brutality.
The tale’s function as a parable has led critics
to attack Moore for using Persian mythology
and oriental settings simply to veil a
European discussion. From the outset, critics
complained that the characters in the tale
were more European than Persian or Indian,
Francis Jeffrey declaring that: ‘They are, in
truth, poetical imaginations; – but it is to the
poetry of rational, honourable, considerate,
and humane Europe, that they belong – and
not to the childishness, cruelty, and profligacy
Because the tradition which saw Christianity
and Islam as fundamentally similar was not
the dominant tradition, it is easily overlooked
today in analyses of orientalist literature.
But this outlook is crucial to Paradise and
the Peri, as to others of Moore’s works,
because it provides the basis for a critique
on imperialism in principle, a critique whose
implicit application to British India in Lalla
Rookh paved the way for mutual Irish and
Indian sympathies a century later.
Shelley Meagher is a writer and academic based in
Melbourne. She holds a doctorate from the University
of Oxford and has held lectureships at Oxford and
Queen’s University Belfast. Her doctoral thesis
investigated knowledge and representations of Islam
in British and Irish literature 1660-1850. Shelley
recently completed her first novel.
REFERENCES
Jeffrey, Francis. Review of Lalla Rookh in the Edinburgh Review,
29, November 1817: 1-35.
Moore, Thomas. 1810. A Letter to the Roman Catholics of Dublin,
Dublin.
Moore, Thomas. 1817. Lalla Rookh: an oriental romance, London.
Moore, Thomas. “The Church Fathers” in the Edinburgh Review,
November 1814: 55-75.
21
P E RSIA AND B E YOND : T W O R E C E NT A C Q U ISITIONS B Y TH E STAT E LI B RARY OF V I C TORIA
ARCHERS ATTEMPT TO SHOOT AN ARROW THROUGH Clare Williamson
BAHRAM GUR AND DILARAM, FROM A MANUSCRIPT OF AMIR
THE SULTAN'S RING ON TOP OF DOME, FROM A MANUSCRIPT
KHUSRAU, KHAMSA, DATED AH 1007–08 (1599–1600 AD),
OF SA‘DI, GULISTAN AND BUSTAN, DATED AH 1258 (1842–43 AD),
STATE LIBRARY OF VICTORIA
STATE LIBRARY OF VICTORIA.
all re-tellings of those in Nizami’s version. For
example he re-tells Nizami’s Layla u Majnun
and Khusrau u Shirin as Majnun u Layla and
Shirin u Khusrau. And in his Hasht Bihisht
(Eight Paradises) he has, in some ways,
‘gone one better’ than the Haft Paykar (Seven
Beauties) of his predecessor.
fine nasta‘liq script set in the four columns
traditionally used for poetic works. The first
folio contains an opening dedicatory shamsa
and each book begins with an illuminated
headpiece. The work is illustrated throughout
with a total of 20 miniature paintings, the last
of which is unfinished. The State Library of Victoria’s copy of Amir
Khusrau’s Khamsa is signed and dated. It was
copied by the scribe Mu‘izz al-Din Husayn
Langari and four of the five books contain
colophons dating the manuscript to various
months in AH 1007–08 (1599–1600 AD). The
place of production is not stated, however the
style of illustration suggests that it was copied
in Iran. The painted lacquer binding was
produced later, most likely in 19th century
India. It is richly decorated in gold, red and
green and the outer panels of both the front
and back boards contain large painted floral
motifs within their central oval medallions.
Original bindings of mediaeval Persian
manuscripts are rare as copies were regularly
rebound after heavy use or to suit the tastes of
a new owner.
Composed some 45 years before Amir
Khusrau’s Khamsa, Sa‘di’s Bustan (1257) and
Gulistan (1258) each have a series of moralistic
tales at their centre. Sa‘di (c. 1215–1292)
dedicated both works to his patron, prince
Sa‘d ibn Zangi of Shiraz.
n the past two years the State Library
of Victoria (SLV) has acquired two
Persian manuscripts that complement and
counterpoint each other in a number of ways.
Between them they say much about the twoway dialogue between Iran and India during
the mediaeval and early-modern periods.
One manuscript was produced in Iran and
presents a major work of India’s pre-eminent
Persian-language poet. The other was
produced in India and presents a key work of
one of Iran’s great poets of the classical era,
thereby revealing the active appreciation, and
shared aspects, of the literature and book arts
of each culture.
I
In April 2010 the Library acquired, at auction
in London, a manuscript of Amir Khusrau’s
Khamsa (Quintet). This followed, in May 2011,
with the acquisition from a book dealer in
Paris, of a manuscript containing both Sa‘di’s
Gulistan (The Rose Garden) and Bustan (The
Orchard). The State Library’s collections have
historically revealed a western emphasis,
reflective of both the Library’s origins and
of broader attitudes throughout the 19th
and much of the 20th centuries. Its more
contemporary collections are broad in their
international scope, and recent exhibitions
and publications have sought to redress the
imbalance within the Library’s historical
collections by presenting examples of nonwestern culture such as Japanese woodblockprinted books, Ethiopian prayer scrolls and a
West Africa Qur’an.
Amir Khusrau (1253–1325) of Delhi, who
became known as the ‘Parrot of India’,
wrote in both Persian and Hindi. A prolific
poet, he claimed to have composed more
than 400,000 couplets in his lifetime. He
also wrote prose and made important
contributions to the development of music in
India. Amir Khusrau’s Khamsa is one of the
most frequently illustrated works composed
in the Persian language (Brend 2003; xix,
xxiii). In it he acknowledges his debt to his
Persian predecessor, Nizami (d. 1209), whose
original Khamsa is one of the masterpieces of
mediaeval Persian poetry.
Amir Khusrau’s Khamsa is both an homage
and an emulation: an approach admired
in Persian literature in which a poet pays
tribute to, but also seeks to improve upon,
the work of an earlier master. The five books
contained within Amir Khusrau’s Khamsa are
22
The 278 folios of the manuscript, measuring
275 x 180 mm, each contain 17 lines of
Written in lyrical verse and comprising more
than 4,000 couplets, the Bustan contains around
160 tales addressed to rulers. The tales convey
Sufi mystic ideas and imagery that were widely
understood in literary and intellectual circles
in Iran at this time. The Bustan is divided into
ten chapters, each addressing a virtue such as
justice, charity, love and humility, concluding
in the final chapter with the state of being in
communion with the Divine.
While verses of poetry are interspersed
throughout the Gulistan, this work is generally
regarded as the most influential work of
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 1 N O. 1
prose written in the Persian language (Lewis
2001). Like the Bustan, it consists of a series of
moralistic tales, in this case grouped into eight
rather than ten chapters. Sa‘di included much
seemingly autobiographical information
throughout both the Bustan and Gulistan,
however he is likely to have exercised much
poetic license in incorporating such anecdotes
as a means of enhancing his arguments
(Wickens 1990).
The manuscript acquired by the Library was
copied in AH 1258 (1842-43 AD). It comprises
143 folios, each measuring 288 x 170 mm, and
is illustrated with 18 miniature paintings in
the Kashmiri style of the 19th century. The
text of the Gulistan is presented throughout
the central panel of each folio, with that of
the Bustan running at an angle throughout the
borders. The binding is likely to be Indian and
contemporary to the manuscript. It is in cloth
and paper, which has been printed in a green
geometric pattern. The text throughout is in
a fine nasta‘liq script set within cloud-like
forms on a gold ground. Produced during
the final years of the Mughal Empire, the
manuscript reflects the continuing place of
Persian poetry and language within Indian
culture of the period.
second is an early 19th century manuscript
of the Tutinama. The acquisition of these
manuscripts, together with those described
above, will create for the Library a small but
valuable collection of Persian manuscripts
that can be studied and appreciated by
scholars and general audiences alike.
Clare Williamson is Exhibitions Curator, State Library
of Victoria, and co-curator of Love and Devotion:
The two manuscripts described above
were acquired in the lead-up to, and will
be displayed as part of, the Library’s major
international exhibition Love and Devotion:
From Persia and Beyond. It is illustrated with 15
miniature paintings in the Shiraz style. At the
time of writing, the SLV is also in the process
of acquiring two additional manuscripts, one
of which is an outstanding copy of Nizami’s
Khamsa. Dated AH 915–16 (1509­–10 AD). The
From Persia and Beyond.
REFERENCES
Brend, Barbara. 2003. Perspectives on Persian Painting: Illustrations
to Amir Khusrau’s Khamsah. RoutledgeCurzon, London.
Lewis, Franklin. 2003. ‘Golestan-e Sa‘di’, Encyclopaedia Iranica,
vol. XI, pp. 79–86.
Wickens, G.Michael. 1990. ‘Bustan’, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol.
IV, pp. 573–574.
BAHRAM GUR AND THE PRINCESS OF THE YELLOW PAVILION, FROM A MANUSCRIPT OF AMIR KHUSRAU, KHAMSA, DATED AH 1007–08 (1599–1600 AD). STATE LIBRARY OF VICTORIA
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 1 N O. 1
23
TRA V E L IN IRAN : B E T W E E N A W E SO M E D E S E RTS AND E X Q U ISIT E U NR E ALITI E S
Christopher Wood
SHRINE OF SHAYK SAFI AL-DIN ( 1252-1334), ARDABIL, IRAN. BEGUN IN THE 15TH CENTURY, THE COMPLEX HOUSES
THE TOMBS OF FIVE SAFAVID ERA SHAYKS. PHOTO: CHRISTOPHER WOOD
I
ran presents many complexities and
conundrums to Western travellers, who
must avoid applying foreign norms to Iranian
identity as expressed in narrative, ritual,
social life, aesthetics and the meaning of place
and space.
Similarly, Iranian miniature paintings cannot
be approached using Western aesthetic
standards. These small luminous works
portray exquisite, closed imagined worlds
in which superbly dressed poets, sages,
kings and lovers assume courtly poses. Even
warriors or hunters in scenes of combat seem
immersed in choreographed rituals rather
than deadly contests.
Westerners can be confused by Iranian
mimesis, which is figurative rather than literal.
Space in miniatures is readable, but neither
infinite nor continuous as in Post-Renaissance
Western art with its deep, measurable space
disciplined by mathematical perspective. In
Iranian miniatures, palace floors rise vertically
up the picture plane, enabling artists to seat
their lovers against fields of richly patterned
carpets. Carpet-like battlefields likewise tilt
up to reveal every stream, rock, and plant in
contrived landscapes of poetic pattern and
rhythm rather than naturalistic vision.
A gifted Iranian-Australian miniaturist I know
depicts flowers with the intricacy and finesse
of an accomplished botanical illustrator. Her
images, however, beguile the uninitiated. Her
plants seem at first sight to be naturalistic
products of patient, microscopic, empirical
observation, but are, on closer observation,
poetic fictions. They are not botanical records
but flower-like imaginative simulacra.
Likewise, the lyrics of a popular Iranian singer
songwriter exasperate English translators.
Inspired in part by Sufi poetry, his evocations
of beautiful gardens, extravagant metaphors
for his love of God, in English can sound
impossibly flowery and almost tritely emotive,
offending even the least prosaic Anglophone.
To an Australian traveller like me, even
contemporary Iranians’ everyday grooming,
deportment and social interaction seem far
from pragmatic and down-to-earth. Each
morning my Iranian friends spend at least
two hours grooming themselves. Dressed
impeccably, even when travelling in the
Iranian desert, they seem to interact with
other Iranians in a poetic, figurative, courtly
way. I, of course, am dressed in practical
24
clothes and am used to interacting in a direct
manner. A friendly greeting leads reasonably
quickly to the nub of our conversation.
In Iran my friends preface all interactions with
intricate, wordy, seemingly endless, poetic
prologues of polite exchanges about each others’
health, family wellbeing, etc. My impatience
begins to seem childishly hasty as it dawns on
me that in their exchanges, form and meaning
interact quite differently. Whilst driving through
Iran, I exclaim at Iranians’ reckless disregard
for road rules and the directives of the traffic
police. My friend, who has visited Australia,
says laughingly, ‘Chris, you live in such an
authoritarian country’. To Iranians, Australians’
lawfulness seems hopelessly literal.
The closed palace worlds, choreographed
poses and the manicured landscapes of
Iranian miniatures, my miniaturist’s fanciful
flowers, the lyricist’s exaggerated metaphors,
the embellished politeness of Iranian social
exchanges, and the unwillingness of Iranians
to take rules of the road literally, all reflect
Iranians’ very distinctive relationship between
imagination and the world around them.
Given the foregoing, one would be correct in
expecting Iranians to have a very different
approach to the physical geography of
their country to that found in the Western
tradition. Iran’s topography of vast, empty,
arid deserts framed by grand, snowcapped
mountain ranges contrasts markedly to the
intricate, almost claustrophobic world of
Iranian miniatures, but no Iranian naturalistic
landscape painting school developed to
match those of the West. Western travelers
may think Iran’s natural grandeur ‘sublime’,
but such aesthetic concepts express landscape
values foreign to Iranians.
Do Iranians, therefore, ignore or fear this
grand empty topography, locating their
identity in the imagination, or in cities
with their warren-like, teeming bazaars?
Their ‘invented’ flora and the horror vacui
of elaborately patterned tiles that cover
monuments like Isfahan’s exquisite Masjid-i
Shaykh Lutfullah suggest this to be true. Most
Iranians do consider uncultivated land to be
wasteland; for millennia they have tamed
small tracts of desert using mountain water
flowing down long underground aqueducts,
qanats. Iranian gardens, moreover, are walled,
intensely cultivated paradises contrasting
markedly to their inhospitable surroundings.
Iranians nevertheless do appreciate their desert
landscapes as deeply as they do the schematized
garden motifs in their intricate carpets. This
attachment derives, not from a (Western)
Romantic passion for wilderness, but from a
unique sense of territory. Ever since the 7th
century, when Arab invaders destroyed the last
great Iranian empire, that of the Sasanid, Iran
has suffered countless further invasions; the
vast majority of Iran’s rulers have been TurkoMongolian foreigners. These dominated Iran
territorially but were conquered by their subjects’
high culture; hence Iranians’ unique, seamless
mix of urbane cultural pride, epitomized by their
sophisticated poetry and miniatures, and their
territorial sense of place. Despite their aridity,
Iran’s deserts are precious and inviolate. Iranians
treasure this territory as signifying national
identity rather than appreciate it in a Western
aesthetic or ecological sense.
Christopher Wood is the founding director of
Australians Studying Abroad (ASA). Since 1977
the company has organised cultural tours to more
than 45 countries. Christopher has been personally
leading tours to Iran for the past ten years.
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 1 N O. 1
I n t h e P ub l i c D o m a i n : A N I N D O N E S I A N Q U R ’ A N I N A G S A
James Bennett
he recent acquisition of a Qur’an by the
Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA)
is the culmination of a long search for such a
manuscript that commenced in 2005 when the
Art Gallery became the first public institution
in Australia to establish a permanent display
specifically dedicated to the art of the Islamic
world. It is especially significant that the
rare two-volume manuscript originated
from Indonesia, whose art is extensively
represented in the collection. The manuscript’s
extraordinarily lavish illumination epitomises
the great international heritage of Islamic
manuscript decoration.
T
The hand copying and decorating of Al-Qur’an is
regarded as the noblest of all arts in Islam. Muslim
tradition reveres the Holy Book as containing the
Divine Revelation gifted, through the archangel
Gabriel, to the Prophet Muhammad. Wherever
Islam spread, unique regional traditions of
Qur’an illumination developed. Southeast Asian
Qur’an varied in style from simply transcribed
texts on beaten bark paper (Javanese: dluwang) to
ornate illuminated manuscripts using imported
laid paper, such as those produced at the regional
centres of Terengganu, Aceh, and East Java
where this Qur’an was created. It is written in
elegant naskh script and features the distinctive
Indonesian convention of illuminated doublepages at the commencement, middle and closing
sections of each volume.
The majority of surviving Southeast Asian
Islamic manuscripts date from the 19th century
and the lavish use of gold leaf confirms an
account that this Qur’an was commissioned by
a religious scholar (ulama) of Madurese royal
descent around the end of the 19th century. The
exceptional dimensions of the manuscript, and
its intricate decoration, suggest it may have
been intended for use in a public context such
as a mosque. The production of a hand-written
Qur’an was of special ritual significance at a time
when printed versions were becoming more and
more widely available. The first Qur’an printed
in Southeast Asia was produced on a lithograph
press in Palembang, South Sumatra, as early as
1848 and, by the time of the creation of AGSA’s
Qur’an, mass-produced editions from Singapore
and India were being distributed throughout the
archipelago (Ali Akbar 2012).
A number of 19th century hand-written Qur’an
from Indonesia contain colophons dating their
creation to the holy fasting month of Ramadan
which is considered a period of exemplary piety
in Islam. It documents the belief that the copying
of the holy book is regarded as a spiritually
auspicious act that obliges the calligrapher/
illuminator to be in a ritually pure state.
The double-page, illustrated here, marks the
commencement of the 18th chapter (sura)
titled Al-Khaf, meaning ‘The cave’, which
was delivered by Muhammad in Mecca. The
border frame features the shape of a stylised
mountain filled with flowers and vegetal
scrolls comparable to the ‘tree of life’ motif
of Indian palampore trade cloths traded into
Indonesia during the 17th – 19th centuries. It
closely replicates the 1624 headstone of Queen
Ratu Ibu Sarifah Ambani, a descendant of
the great Javanese Muslim saint Sunan Giri
(b.1442), at Aer Mata, Bangkalan. The Madura
royal cemetery is still regarded as a sacred site
for pilgrims today.
Al-Khaf receives its title from its account of
the parable of the ‘people of the cave’ that
is derived from the Christian legend of the
Seven Sleepers of Ephesus. The text refers
to Moses and a ruler named Dhul-Qarnayn,
believed to be based on the character of
Alexander the Great (known as Iskandar in
the Islamic tradition), from whom several
Indonesian sultanates claimed descent. AlKhaf commences with the opening lines:
Praise to Allah, who hath sent His
servant The Book, and hath allowed
therein no crookedness. He hath made
it straight and clear in order that He
may warn the godless of a terrible
punishment…
(Sura XVIII: 1-2)
James Bennett is Curator of Asian Art, Art Gallery of
South Australia.
REFERENCES
Akbar, Ali. ‘Jejak Qur’an Usmaniyah di Indonesia dari Masa ke
Masa’, paper presented at the conference From Anatolia to Aceh:
Ottoman, Turks and Southeast Asia’ in Banda Aceh, 11 – 12
January 2012.
QUR’AN, EAST JAVA, INDONESIA
C.1900. PAPER, INK, PIGMENT, GOLD
LEAF, LEATHER, TWO VOLUMES EACH:
43.05 X 29.0 X 3.0 CM; ART GALLERY
OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA, BOXALL
BEQUEST FUND 2011
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 1 N O. 1
25
B OO K R E V I E W : P E R S I A N A R T S O F T H E B O O K
Susan Scollay
Masterpieces from the Department of Islamic
The Shahnama of Shah Tahmasp: Gifts of the Sultan: The Arts of Art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Persian Book of Kings
Giving at the Islamic Courts
Sheila R. Canby et al.
Sheila R. Canby
Linda Komaroff (ed)
Yale University Press, November 2011
Yale University Press, November 2011
Yale University Press, June 2011
rrp: $79.95
rrp: $250.00
rrp: $85.00
arly in the New Year when lists of
‘cultural milestones’ from the year just
ended were being prepared in newspaper and
magazine offices around the world, one event
dominated. The October, 2011 reopening of the
Islamic galleries of New York’s Metropolitan
Museum of Art (MMA) after an eight-year,
40-million dollar refurbishment was widely
– and deservedly – lauded and topped many
lists. ‘A galaxy of cultures’, declared Peter
Brown, writing in The New York Review of
Books, ‘…an art of luxury that crossed all
frontiers.’ More than 1200 works from the
MMA’s Islamic holdings are now presented
in 15 gallery spaces, spanning the 7th – 19th
centuries and a vast geographic reach spelt
out in the installation’s newly-conceived title:
‘Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central
Asia and later South Asia.’
parchment, to luminous glass vessels, panels
of tiles with designs as carefully drawn as the
manuscript pages that inspired them, bold
velvets, spectacular carpets and an entire
reception room, panelled, painted and gilded
in the style of affluent, 18th-century Ottoman
Damascus. The book’s more than 400 pages
almost sparkle with the beauty of these
objects and the intelligence with which they
have been selected and their interconnections
reassessed.
continents. In 1981, Martin Dickson and Stuart
Cary Welch published a 2-volume study of the
‘Houghton’ Shahnama, as the manuscript is
sometimes known. Now its pages have been
photographically reassembled by the MMA,
in full colour and in one volume, printed
in two editions: one hardbound in cloth in
a handsome slip-cover, the other bound in
stamped and gilded leather in homage of the
opulent original.
E
The exhibition design is as vibrant, detailed
and transporting as the works themselves
– and fortunately for those unable to be in
New York, or who wish to savour and reflect
on some of the exquisite works displayed,
an elegant catalogue, Masterpieces from the
Department of Islamic Art in the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, has been produced to mark
the historic occasion. Edited by a team
including the MMA’s curator in charge
of the department of Islamic Art, Sheila
Canby, and with contributions by a range of
specialists, there are more than 300 illustrated
catalogue entries for works ranging from
early examples of bold calligraphy on
26
The book pays tribute to the generous
collectors and benefactors who laid the
foundations of the MMA’s Islamic collection.
Among them, Arthur A. Houghton Jr., who in
1959 bought an intact and superbly illustrated
copy of the Shahnama (Book of Kings) crafted
in the royal workshops of 16th century
Tabriz during the rule of the Safavid Shah
Tahmasp (r. 1524-76), a renowned patron of
the arts. Houghton subsequently dispersed
the manuscript’s 258 illustrations (out of a
total of 759 folios), donating 78 of them to
the MMA and selling most of the others on
the international art market. After his death
in 1990 the remaining illustrated pages, the
binding and text went to Tehran, exchanged
for a Willem de Kooning painting owned by
the Iranian government.
The illustrated leaves of this masterpiece,
considered the supreme example of Persian
arts of the book, are now held in institutional
and private collections spread over three
At nearly 27 cm x 40 cm, almost as big as the
original folios, the Shahnama of Shah Tahmasp:
The Persian Book of Kings is a large book with
a price tag to match. It is not a facsimile in
the true sense of the word in that it does not
reproduce Tahmasp’s Shahnama page by page.
It offers instead an opportunity to turn one
magnificent leaf after the other, delighting
in the illustrations produced over a period
of 20 years by what is said to be the largest
assembly of paper and pigment makers,
scribes, illuminators and artists ever to work
on one manuscript.
The whole sweep of pre-Islamic Iranian
history and story-telling of the great epic
is painted here in works that evoke both
grandeur and intimacy, all set within wide,
gold-speckled margins: the legendary
Gayumars, Iran’s first king, surrounded by
his courtiers dressed in leopard skin cloaks
and headgear as the monarch sits, enthroned
in an elevated and otherworldly rocky
landscape of mystic blues and greens; the
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 1 N O. 1
albino hero, Zal, who has been raised by the
magnificently plumed Simurgh, spotted by a
passing caravan; Rustam tearing his shirt to
bare his chest as he weeps over the body of
the son he has killed in battle, their respective
horses looking on from the very edges of the
carefully composed scene; the elegance of
the leaping flames that engulf white-robed
Siyavush as he rides his black steed into a
huge fire to prove his innocence; Bahram Gur
riding his camel through turquoise-coloured,
flower-strewn terrain as he hunts with his
favourite slave-girl playing her harp as she
sits behind him; and the musician Barbad,
hiding in a cypress tree as he plays music
that enchants King Khusrau and the courtly
gathering seated with him in a leafy palace
garden. This last folio will be remembered by
Sydney audiences as it was part of the major
exhibition of works of Islamic Art from the
Khalili Collection at the Art Gallery of New
South Wales in 2007.
Long before its dispersal in the 20th century
the manuscript had left Iran. In 1568, Shah
Tahmasp sent it as a gift to the Ottoman
sultan, Selim II, who placed it in the Ottoman
imperial library. Its presentation at the
Ottoman court, along with other luxurious
offerings, is recorded in a number of
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 1 N O. 1
illustrated manuscripts held in the Topkapi
Palace Museum collection. Sometime before
1903 the manuscript left Istanbul and entered
the collection of Baron Edmund de Rothschild,
and thence to Houghton.
The significant role of gift exchange in
disseminating individual works of art,
including luxury manuscripts, and the impact
of this practice on artistic production for
elite court circles in the Islamic world has
long been recognised. Yet an exhibition and
publication produced for the Los Angeles
County Museum of Art in June 2011 are
the first to comprehensively examine this
widespread phenomenon, a key component
of diplomacy and sovereignty.
The exhibition publication, Gifts of the Sultan:
The Arts of Giving at the Islamic Courts, edited by
Linda Komaroff, follows the satisfying format
of a number of longer essays interspersed with
shorter, pithier contributions - all generously
illustrated and followed by a glossary,
bibliography and useful catalogue details of
259 exhibited objects. The volume’s appeal
is increased by its consideration of gifts of
differing status: personal gifts and pious
donations as well as the better-known gifts of
state both within and without imperial borders.
Of special interest is a lively account from
Marianna Shreve Simpson of gift exchanges
between the courts of the Persian Shah ‘Abbas
I (r. 1587-1629) and Philip III, the Hapsburg
ruler of Spain and Portugal (r. 1598 -1621).
The vast scale of the preparation, cost and
transportation of such exchanges between
the Islamic world and Europe in this period
has only recently come to light. Ironically
such efforts, according to Simpson, ‘seem[ed]
to have been for naught’ in terms of any
success on the part of either party in gaining
the diplomatic or trade agreements they so
determinedly sought.
In a year when the State Library of Victoria’s
exhibition of Persian manuscripts will raise
awareness of Persian literature and book
arts in the wider Australian community, all
three of these books could not be more highly
recommended – or more timely.
Susan Scollay is an art historian specialising in the
Islamic world. She is guest co-curator of Love and
Devotion: From Persia and Beyond and editor of the
publication that accompanies the exhibition.
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2 0 1 1 TAASA C A M B ODIA TO U R
John Millbank
MEMBERS OF THE 2011 TAASA CAMBODIA TOUR AT KOH KER
aving been to Cambodia 10 years ago I was
immediately interested when TAASA,
in collaboration with Heritage Destinations,
offered a tour to Cambodia as part of its 20th
anniversary celebrations in 2011. Especially as
the tour was to be led by our President Gill
Green, an expert on Cambodian textiles, and
long time Cambodian resident Darryl Collins,
museum curator, lecturer and author, and
currently restorer of traditional Khmer houses
in Siem Reap (see TAASA Review, March 2010).
On my first trip I had only been able to visit
Angkor, flying directly in and out of Siem
Reap. This tour offered the chance to see what
I had previously missed.
H
So one morning last October I found myself
at a conference table in the National Museum
of Phnom Penh with my fellow travellers,
being briefed by Darryl about the history of
the museum and its collection. The museum
itself offers an unrivalled overview of Khmer
art, mainly sculpture - an excellent foundation
for the remaining trip.
After a little time acquainting ourselves with
Phnom Penh’s palaces and pagodas, markets
and restaurants (surprisingly sophisticated
and good), we set off in a wide anti-clockwise
circle around the dominant feature of
central Cambodia, Lake Tonlé Sap, to take
in numerous Khmer sites before reaching
Angkor itself. In the south we saw Wat
Nokor, an Angkorean period Hindu temple
harbouring a 1960s Buddhist Wat, and the
early (7th to 8th century) capital of Sambor
Prei Kuk now in a national forest complete
with overgrown bomb craters, reminders of
the secret B-52 bombing campaign of 1969-70.
In the countryside not far from Siem Reap,
a lone 12th century naga bridge still spans
a river: an introduction, as it were, to the
expansive Angkor district.
On one excursion from Siem Reap, we headed
north to Koh Ker, where in the middle of the
Angkorean period the evidently megalomaniac
Jayavarman IV briefly established his capital,
characterised by its own rather squat and ugly
but undeniably massive sculptural style. Much
more graceful, no less for being in picturesque
ruin, was the 12th century temple of Beng
Mealea, to the east of Angkor.
But Angkor itself must be the highlight of any
tour of Cambodia, and it was wonderful to
linger again over the remains of the Baphuon
and the incredibly vivid bas-reliefs of
Angkor Wat and the Bayon in Angkor Thom.
Wonderful also to finally be able to see the
miniature “rose temple” of Bantay Srei, now
easily reached by expressway from Siem Reap
but not accessible to us in 2001, the atrocious
road being (supposedly) closed for repairs.
And the graceful Roluos monuments, prelude
to the high age of Angkor.
My personal highlight was the culmination
of an ambition formed in 2001: the best part
of a day spent bicycling around the Angkor
National Heritage Park, a blissful way to
absorb the sights and sounds of the forest
and the crowning achievements of Khmer
civilisation.
B OITRAN B E ATTI E - H U YNH : 1 9 5 7 - 2 0 1 2
Ann Proctor
A most active advocate for Vietnamese art, the art-historian and curator Boitran Beattie-Hyunh suddenly passed away in
Singapore on 16 January 2012.
Boitran
will
be
remembered by some
TAASA
members
for her presentation
at the 2002 seminar
Vietnamese
Arts:
Tradition and Modernity
held at the Powerhouse
Museum where she
presented her research
on the abstract artist
Ta Ty. At that time, she was also completing
a PhD at Sydney College of the Arts, on the
subject of Saigonese artists: artists whom
the Vietnamese Government had excised
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from history. Significantly, this research
was carried out from an institution outside
Vietnam. Her courage and determination to
retrieve the stories of those artists, who were
exiles from the communist regime and, in
many cases, became refugees after the end of
the war, was extraordinary. Coinciding with
her research was some moderation in the
Vietnamese Government cultural policy, and
works by these influential and historically
important artists are now included in major
museums in Vietnam.
Monash in 1996, Boitran was a lecturer at
the Dong Nai College of Decorative Arts
in Ho Chi Minh City from 1983-1995 and
again between 1996-2001. She curated many
exhibitions, including the outstanding 2009
Nam Bang! exhibition and seminar at the
Casula Powerhouse and was a participant in
many international and local seminars. Her
many achievements include being the first
Vietnamese Community Ambassador at the
AGNSW. Boitran will be sadly missed: she
was a bridge between cultures and people.
Prior to coming to Australia to complete
a Graduate Diploma in Art History at
My thanks to John Clark and Annette Van den
Bosch for their contribution to this obituary.
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 1 N O. 1
TAASA 2 0 TH ANNI V E RSARY P ARTY
TAASA M E M B E RS ’ DIARY 6 D ecember 2 0 1 1 , S ydney
MARCH – MAY 2012
Sandra Forbes
SPEAKING AT THE TAASA 20TH ANNIVERSARY PARTY – GENE SHERMAN
(L) AND GILL GREEN (R). PHOTO: NGUYEN KIM LONG
TAASA’s anniversary celebration party
kicked off in grand form at the Sherman
Contemporary Art Foundation in Sydney
last December. Gene Sherman had most
generously offered TAASA her gallery’s
premises for the celebration, and what an ideal
venue it was. Entry required guests to don
‘snowshoes’ and progress towards the party
itself through a white blizzard: a sensation
provided by the Sherman Foundation’s
surprising and beautiful installation Waterfall
by Tokujin Yoshioka.
After encountering the art in the gallery,
guests joined the convivial throng in the
courtyard (yes, the rain held off!). More than
160 members and guests attended, including
some from interstate. As usual for TAASA
events, many wore gorgeous garments in
various Asian styles, contributing noticeably
to the colour and atmosphere of the evening.
The guest of honour, Edmund Capon,
TAASA’s first Honorary Life Member
and retiring Director of the Art Gallery of
NSW, attended with his wife Joanna. That
Edmund made time in his particularly busy
schedule to speak at TAASA’s event was
much appreciated – as was his speech itself,
in which he congratulated the Society on its
achievements over 20 years and wished us
well for the next 20.
Jackie Menzies, Founding Life Member and
ex President of TAASA, and Head Curator of
Asian Art at the AGNSW, was scheduled to tell
us something of TAASA’s history, but sadly
(for us) she had whisked herself away to real
blizzards in Mongolia to pursue a forthcoming
loan exhibition. TAASA President Gill Green
thanked those Committee members whose
efforts were particularly associated with this
anniversary year, and launched the bumper
20th Anniversary issue of TAASA Review
Vol.20, No.4 (copies of which were made
available to members as they left the party).
The final ceremony of the evening was the
presentation of cheques to the joint winners
of the TAASA Essay Prize, a project initiated
specifically to celebrate TAASA’s 20 years.
One of the winners, Matthew O’Farrell, was
happily present to receive his award, while
the parents of the equal winner, Hannah
Beasley, who was (appropriately) travelling in
Asia, had come from the Southern Highlands
to accept her award on her behalf. Both essays
were published together with the Anniversary
issue of the TAASA Review.
This significant and enjoyable occasion in a
very attractive venue certainly had the true
buzz of friendship and celebration for TAASA
and its achievements.
Special Viewing of Love and Devotion:
From Persia and Beyond, State Library
of Victoria, Melbourne
6-8pm Wednesday 11 April 2012
Exclusive visit for TAASA members to
this beautiful exhibition of rare 13th to
18th century Persian, Mughal, Indian and
Ottoman Turkish illustrated manuscripts
from the Bodleian Libraries of the University
of Oxford, as well as the collection of the SLV.
The visit is timed to allow TAASA members
to attend the SLV conference Love and
Devotion: Persian Cultural Crossroads on
12 – 14 April (with discount available to
TAASA Members).
Susan Scollay, co-curator of the exhibition,
will take TAASA members on a tour of the
exhibition following drinks and canapés at
the Library.
TAASA Members $40; non members: $50.
Bookings essential.
For bookings or further information:
contact Gill Green (02) 9331 1810 or
[email protected].
Jordan & Lebanon: Arts and Culture,
Ancient and Modern
Travel with TAASA in association
with Alumni Travel
10 – 28 October 2012
Christina Sumner, TAASA Vice President
and Principal Curator, Design & Society
at the Powerhouse Museum will lead this
tour. Covering the major archaeological
sights of Jordan and Lebanon such as Petra
and Baalbeck, the tour will offer focused
visits to museums, craft workshops and
contemporary galleries as well as the
opportunity to experience the natural beauty
of these vital Middle Eastern countries.
For information contact Alumni Travel
(02) 9290 3856/1300 799 887 or robl@
alumnitravel.com.au
GUEST OF HONOUR, EDMUND CAPON, SPEAKING AT THE TAASA 20TH ANNIVERSARY PARTY. PHOTO: NGUYEN KIM LONG
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 1 N O. 1
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W HAT ’ S ON IN A U STRALIA AND O V E RS E AS : M A R C H - M A Y 2 0 1 2
A SELECTIVE ROUNDUP OF EXHIBITIONS AND EVENTS
Compiled by Tina Burge
ACT
Lectures & screenings
Arts of Asia lecture series 2012 Love
Hannah Pang: Double Happiness Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
Portrait of a Chinese Wedding
On Tuesdays from 6 March, 1-2pm
RMIT Gallery, Melbourne
17 February - 24 March 2012
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Global Modernism and the Indian Avant-Garde 1922-47
20 March 2012 at 12.45pm
Indian art historian, Emeritus Professor Partha
Mitter, will discuss Indian Modernism as
explored in his book, The Triumph of Modernism: India’s artists and the avant-garde, 1922-47. Every cloud has a golden lining
24 April 2012 at 12.45pm
Dr Olivia Meehan, Assistant Curator at the
NGA, will talk about the Japanese screens in
the Gallery’s collection.
Mural painting traditions (DVD, 2010)
29 April 2012 at 2.00pm
Two documentaries by Benoy K. Behl, The
Verdant Hills, paintings of the Himalayan regions
and Pan Asian Art, murals from Sri Lanka,
Myanmar, Thailand and Bali will be screened.
For further information go to: www.nga.gov.au
Mother India: transactions in the construction of pain 2005.
Nalini Malani, video play. Art Gallery of NSW.
NEW SOUTH WALES
Mother India: video plays by Nalini Malani
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
11 February - 20 May 2012
The uplifting and transformative experience of
love is the theme for the 2012 Arts of Asia lecture
series. The lectures will offer fresh insights
into the interpretation of love in the religious,
literary and artistic worlds with a broad range of
topics including romantic love, devotional love,
parental love and forbidden love.
6 March: Stefano Carboni, Director, Art
Gallery of Western Australia on ‘Famous
Persian love stories’. For further information go to: www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/calendar/artsasia-lecture-2012/
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For more information go to: www.rmit.edu.au/rmitgallery
VICTORIA
Sweets: tastes and traditions In the Steps of the Buddha – from many cultures
Selected Programs
Immigration Museum, Melbourne
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne 15 March 2012
Live: Zen Meditation - The art of just sitting 10 March and 15 April, 2012 from 12-1pm
The Zen monk Seikan Čech, will demonstrate
the practice of Zazen - the art of Zen meditation.
Maitreya Project Heart Shrine Relic Tour
16, 17 & 18 March from 10am-5pm
View sacred relics, found in the cremation ashes
of great Buddhist masters from across Asia. Workshop: Zen Meditation - The art of
just sitting
15 & 29 April 10-11am
An introductory workshop with Zen monk Seikan Čech.
This exhibition will celebrate the historical
and cultural significance of sweet foods
and why difference cultures use sweets for
different purposes and reasons. Through
objects, photographs and multimedia, the
exhibition will explore sweets from India,
Japan, Turkey and many other cultures.
For other events and more information
go to: www.ngv.vic.gov.au
For more information go to: www.museumvictoria.com.au/
immigrationmuseum
INTERNATIONAL
FRANCE
SHO 1 to 41 Contemporary Japanese Master Calligraphers
Musee Guimet, Paris
14 March - 14 May 2012
Indian artist Nalini Malani's multi-media
works focus on issues including identity,
gender, migration and political violence. Her
major work, Mother India: transactions in the
construction of pain 2005, together with earlier
videos recently acquired, are now presented
for the first time in Sydney. They complement
two suites of drawings by Malani in the
Gallery's collection: The Degas Suite 1992 and
Lohar Chawl 1991. For more information go to: www.agnsw.com.au.
Hannah Pang has had a long association
with the fashion industry and is known for
her innovative use of textiles. Her latest
collection is a contemporary interpretation
of 1930s and 40s Chinese weddings in
Shanghai and the surrounding region. Pang
is renowned for pushing the boundaries of
traditional handicrafts and in the exhibition
the fabrics she uses have been specially
developed using a combination of techniques
including gradation hand-painting, tie
dyeing, weaving and embroidery.
The main trends of contemporary Japanese
calligraphy will be seen in the work of 41
contemporary calligraphers which reflect
the diversity and liveliness of this ancient
style. Their work will be contrasted with
the Guimet’s own collection of Japanese
calligraphy along with selections from the
Mainichi Shodokai Foundation.
For more information go to: www.guimet.fr
Seikan Čech, Zen monk. Photo courtesy Melbourne Zen Centre
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 1 N O. 1
SINGAPORE
Patterns of Trade: Indian Textiles
for Export, 1400-1900
Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore
15 November 2011 - 3 June 2012
The exhibition presents over 70 works of
strikingly patterned and brightly coloured
Indian trade textiles, some of which are over
600 years old and have never been on public
display before. The exhibition will explore how
the trade of these sensational textiles made a
huge impact on decoration across the globe. the centuries for the millions of pilgrims
who have made the journey. On display is
a range of objects including historical and
contemporary art, textiles and manuscripts
that bring to life this profound spiritual
experience that has remained largely
unchanged since the 7th century.
For further information go to: www.britishmuseum.org
USA
Byzantium and Islam - Age of Transition
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
For further information go to: www.acm.org.sg
UK
Hajj - Journey to the Heart of Islam
British Museum, London
26 January - 15 April 2012
One of the five pillars of Islam is the Hajj the pilgrimage to Mecca that every Muslim
must make at least once in their lifetime if
they are able. The exhibition examines the
extraordinary travel logistics involved and
how the pilgrimage itself has changed over
14 March - 8 July 2012
The Eastern Mediterranean comprised the
wealthy southern provinces of the Byzantine
Empire at the start of the 7th century. By that
century’s end, the region was central to the
emerging Islamic world. The exhibition will
be the first to display the complex character
of the region and its exceptional art and
culture during the era of transition - from
its role as part of the Byzantine state to its
evolving position in the developing Islamic
world. Whether you want to study textiles in Laos or India, discover ethnic minorities in remote
Viet Nam or North East India, if you seek
to uncover the cultural complexities of the
Caucasus, China, Central Asia or Iran, or to
visit Morocco, if food culture is key, we can
help you in 2012.
New programs include two textile tours covering Mumbai,
Kachchh, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Udaipur, Jaipur and
Kolkata with Carole Douglas, ’taking you beneath the
surface and into the fabric of traditional culture.’
And don’t forget our special TAASA tour to Jordan and
Lebanon with Christina Sumner.
www.alumnitravel.com.au
For a hard copy brochure, email: [email protected]; Phone: (02) 9290 3856 or 1300 799 887 (ex Sydney metrop.), or Fax: (02)92903857
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 1 N O. 1
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