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The divine in the didactic is the. meaning of caUigraph, . Islam, we' might say; marries wirh, the cursive Bow 0'( the Arabic-hand and the a:utbority of that ever-running script, '1~,.iith its, endless o cessions 0:( artistic freedom within the rigorous constraints of its, curving shapes and liaes and piarallels 0 ccu plies llslami.c art hardly ~.e'ss, tho'roughly than, the scriptu re determines its rebgio'n. The beUe'v.et·m,ust be' reader, not speorator: he wruilll not be educated b, imagery, only by the" text. It is the: pen, , oelebrated in 'he Qu:r;an 'l.v:[hjc.'h. erits the perpetual m pride of hand and
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Foreword

Wb,e'D I was asked, in 1979; ID deliver the Kevorkian. Lectures l. 9 8 [=82, the 8ug,ges' ed theme was calligraphy ~ I very g..adly
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cepted the topic imagining that I wold speak, ".n. he four lectures, t about the-various styles of (:~aU:i:gra:phy and about the development "f' resent torms f lJ"., I K o f the· Arabic script :ilJD lIS, 01. C.' rrom tne eany _.'U:fi-' to mode n calligraphic p,aintin"g~ I ,d.i_s,co;veTed", however, that in spite of the numerous recent publications on Is' amic [cal,'i,gra.phy, most 0'[' whieb excel by the q:u811ity 'of their pictures, litt1l e had 'belen written a bO'lIJ.I the position [of the canigraph~1" or his ttain.in.,g ,. There w'es, also a certain lack of information about, the r,eU,gious sig' rificance of calI~ ~I .~" ,. '1 I d ., ~ ltlgrap h y In. M .usnm cu 1ture, a topic C'Iosely related to my mterest in
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the study of Sufism Furthermore, the indulgence [of Arabic and Persianate poets .':'0. wordpiays and. puns biased on the' termi'n[ol.o:gy ' va thed I ather than a p"'pr'e.'c '1\~:I'lAd let ,_a~; 0,(, c'~anig2rap.•h·y.- had alw 'y. s been 10' ,a· alone e:njoyed.;. biy' Wes,tern scholars and seemed to ·des,e'r-ve' special treatment ~ Several informative Persiaa and even more 'Turkish works concerning the biographies of calligraphers, to which some Arabic his~ .~ • ,I. ~. ~ " ."

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torica] material 'was added, proved, at mine not only of information but a IDs10 of joy and, at times amusement; Sufi texts unfolded ever new aspects 'of letter mysticism and cabalistic wordplays; and out of the thousands of examples of the lise' of calligraphic imag,~;ry in the c~oetry in all Islamic languages that had. collect ed over many y1ears, I selected a handfu] that seemed to cover the majo,t topics, of this inexhaustible fie d. T'h'U5:~the' lectures took the form in. which they are now offered '[0 .he public, after they were delivered, in late Feb'I - QQ a ... ~ ~ " ru,ary an d earry M.at-c" h 19ior~, t N,,e'w Y ork U nrversuy, accompan ied, _ by a gre',3:t number of color slides, The transcription follows the gen,~ erally accepted rules; in case of 'urkish wo ~ds~we usually follow '[he modern Turkish usage .. Dates are given in the Christian era, unless a certain ,page or document bears at hijra date; this is then ~ :glve,n as we 11 I have to thank ma:ny friends for their 'hemp an:d. encouragement, First of all, :my thanks are due to the inviting institution, the Kevorkian Foundation ,an.d:, ew York Univeraity, 'who dtd everything to make' my visits to New 'YOI ~k enjoyable, lam particularly grartc'ful [;0 'JD.t' ,,-I" ~ ki C'. r rotessor R~ Ba:yy Wr-. daer ;,'C-hiairman 0':f t hae H 'ag·op K ' ["ev,or: .ian Center for Middle Eastern Stu dies and tO Professor Peter Chelkowski d I, · ~ :,' t: .. h ., bl nome ,staye. d.. nng my ,~l'nl h IS 'WhJ! G oga, lin W·.: ose h .ospuatse hId .u ~ • visits, The Metropolitan Museusa of Art, New York, and the Fogg .. ;, idi Mnseum, Harvardd U·' 1'Umversity ~were mOIStgenerous ~.n'p·ro,vl ing' .. A rt 'M me with photographs and :facili_at€d my search for new material. Stuart Cary Welch shared his knowledge with me in numerous en= livened discussio ns abo u t artistic problems. Wolfha,Jr-t Heinrichs, Harvard University, patiently answered some questions concerning . classical Arabic poetry, and Wh.eeJer ·M., 'Thackston, Jr.", Harvard University, was kin enough to read, as he had. donie before my manuscript and - ade valuable s:u,gges'£ion.s., My research assistant, Ali. ,S,.Asani, never tired of locating relevant 'mate 121] in the libraries ()t· id cllecking' references ~ Carol Cross in the Department of Near East,ern Languages an d Cultures, Harvs ird . niversity, carefully type the text of the manuscript ,a-n.dthus relieved me of a heavy burden,
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'Thus begins a sixteenth-cemury treatise on t'alUigr:a.ph.y, ,and the .. expression is. representative of '[he numerous form,u~a~,'by which Is~,amie poets and calligraphers began their epistles on 'wr:iti:ng~T~,e art of wri:tin,g has played, and still plays, .a very special role in the entire Islamic culture, for 'by the A,l"fd:lic Ieuers=-heritage of all Islamie ,S/o()",eties-thie Divine W',or,d could be. p'res:erV'ed;, and. Muslims were well aware '[hat writing is at specia quality of the human race, "and b,y it rnan is, distinguished from the other animals." It is, as Ibrahim ash.. 'hayb..arni s:tate~d,"the brnguag~ of the hand, the idiom, S of the mind, the ambassad 01 of ·in~nect'l and tbe trustee 6f th,olJJ"g:b:t;, the weapon of 'knowhe,ctge and the companion ofbrerhren in the time' of se'pal~a,tiron,:~"! The field 0&" Islamic ealHgr.aphy is almost inexhaustible, given 'the

various types of Arabic script a;nd the extension of Islamic culture" lt is therefore - et Sr' rprisin"g that a comparatively copious Iiterature about various aspects of Arabic calligraphy 'has been produced not only in M'usHm, lands bJ't also. in the West-, since Arabic letters WIt! e known in, Europe during (hie Middle Ages and were often used for decorative :pu,rposeSrr., The fine Kufic inscription on the corona 'on, gown of the German emperor shows the west's admiration for A.'ra= hie writing as do paintings, like the famed "Madonna widll the shahiida,lJj3j (pr,ofessi.on of faith). These letters were urn ersteod as exotic decorative devices, however, and only in the late fifteenth o€'ntuty was the Ara oic alphabet first made' accessible to German readers in its entirety, It is found, in the travelogue of a German nobleman, Breydenbach, who performed a prilgrim,age to the Holy Land and 'offered his impressions of the journey to his compatriots in woodcuts, among which is also found ar 3wk"rardly shaped Arabie a phabet. Somewhat 'later 'preSSi€S for Ara bite prin ring were founded, fi' st in Italy, then in Holland; but there W'3S ,0 general inter-rest in the lett,ers, sed! by the allegedarchenemy of the Christian world.t As late as in the eigr:htec'n.th, century, with the unbiased interest in Oriental subjects g'l"owing, some studies were devo ed to the early develop", 'h~ ment , ,0 fIt, th e A ra 'bi K[JrII?t,. aSI A" d0 'If. n" roth" •Ie ,_' .mann illas srhown m ,IS. '
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ith ~", d e "'11 d d ec: · these terms Wit: IIOUt entering mto ,3. more '_' taslec ",: nmtion of 'the cursive hands: . ,A debt of gratitude is owed to Nabia Abbott; who did the first independent stQdy of the so-called Koranic scripts "p'u,'b~ish!ed in ~[~[G -ob "" ohe "",,' " - ',"',"',-', "d m :,ra"ll c and ersian 19~J~o. T:.ne JlnCQrerent statements roune ,~,- A',"rabid .. anc '-P"'-".'·'-I I sources concernine the earliest forms of Arabic 'writnn,"" are difficult 10 to disentangle, They speak often of n!a C'qili;, which, 'was inven ted" ae-, ",' d' ,~, " Id r:' "', ',,:': COT, H).,g t "I[ ,-, ',;, d b,," th - pI'OPJ:u::lgr~5 _0 ege,n, ,Y , ie ", -[~et ] ...a. an" h:a,'d no", curve, dl '1~,--- ~ .mes W 'hatsoever." Then, [OU'~ of this :in,h.erit[€:d script .r':,A i ibn Abi J. ali'b alllieg'e.a,y developed the so-called Kufi, wilob ,(1, division of 1/$ curved and ,5/6 straight lme5~1l tradition that m,ay reflect 'the tr2ll.n,g,itlio,n, from earlier Semitic alphabets to th e elaborate KU'fie: style of the' first cen, ,:'[-" ,',f' tr -, . -[ '.", ' t ehol ,- l,~e turtes o [ rh e H eg,lra,. I":~IS rerna r-kab,;~,-:h',ttl a sc 0 ar Iike A·b,U H', "",,-,1' " La.l['~ ' tt ,[,a"y )lan, at- Tauhidi in the le·aFl'y eleventh century stil menrions 'twelve basic forms of Ku:fi.~m,a:ny of them named after" the places where they ~'re first used}~ We certainly [cm :recognize the 'mO;'il script 'that, slanting to the ri:ghJt rather unbeautifully, is found on some fragmeats 'af vertical format (in contrast 1,0' the ,ho·r:izo:ntal form:a;ts of Kufi K()I',a,llsJI~9 Nabia Abbott regards maLnjl pieces that show a slight slant '~O'w'ardthe left and 3.. Iew, small curve 3;[ the beginning 'of the ',~I~'f' " B" atfJ' as 'M'.' ~'" -', L t, ',-, estill !I.', d" - 00 ,*- '~"~"'; "'. '" h",Q'W M","';,.J "n ",eccao:t!, ~u, we $'1,.1 ".0 '~-, L ,K-flOW aenman or , .asrian .sty:,'l.\e~,may hav I," ok ',d-I,.' ,I"t 8ee)J)~", If., ", nave v- [c..., nas HI'lei' .eee. ~'r...J Sol AI " ',', 01Q, ce .u,owev~r:,~ ths tnat ~U.la, one-of the important centers for the .art of writing, and the 'p,olirtic,al cn:nfl,e~tioD of' CAli ibn Abi Talib with ~his' ally aceentuaees the g'en:", e~~,allr aintained claim that C A'H was the first master of calligraphy. m Later IQ zenerations ascribe 'to him. the invention of the' "two-horned ,1:;,l'j,t" "-1"' msc rl,ptlo,n,s anI,d called, la~~', w, hi h .may I~€ flr:;;." $JJfJlQ.p'e' .;(":;:'-I nn In, ear "Y ~'-"~ ,-," ,,'-", aen ,',[JJiJJ.e l'QU _ca .e .1'"';1-", , ","h"iIi""l., ".' "I;'i(. S';'I ",-,--, -', '-P' ,,,~,, ;1""[' SpIlt: 'arrownea 'd_ ,".~,;..' ~ l!..1._'UI ,6',sm, It.:h ie S ,U:-, 1,... "'];11n~,eJ ~dr' ~~ of i~'"'u,,,,~,,, ~"', v the ~~ _,~,

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".'ra Rosenthal correc ly slates that "the earliest Arabic documen 1:8 of wriiti'n,g exhibi t, to say the :~ast" at most ungainly type Jof e script, ;", One of the true miracles of Islam i.s how this script devel1], oped i:" a comparatively brief s'p,a:n of ime into, a well-p -oportioned, h.i,ghly refined. calligraphy of. superb beauty. As used for early Korans" Kufi is the liturgic script par Jf·Kce.Uence,IZ as Martin L:in.gs, has. shown w'irth, great clarity, However, it is more than doubtful whether any of the fragments preserved in the museu ,S date back tOI the time of the first caliphs as is claimed 'by their proud owners, A~-, early as in. the ninth century the great '0Squ,'f in Damascus boasted of possessing a co'py of CO'th.mau·"s.Koran, a.nd so di.d the mosque in Cordova; this latter ,CQupy 'was 60 heavy that it had. 'to. be carried by t\VO men, ra he ,ternlJinus an:te 1t]U,Mn for a fragment or a copy of the Koran can be established only when the piece has a waqf note, s,how'~ ing the date of its. aceession in at certai " library. The earliest datable fragments 810 back '.0' the fil~stquarter of the eighth century: 'but it is possible that the recently discovered Korans in Sanaa, which are a. present 'being inventoried a.n.d a' i aJyz~ed, by 'a, German team, may offer a further clue to the early development [of writing. Less probIematic, of course, is die date of coins and of architectural Kufi, .. " ~ Id Th- very nnpressive; sometimes tru '1 f' ,. c h ae y testive raracten 0,fth .e 10,,t · k t: est K ,oranS~W,II(:'h were wr .'",' m mttt:;:h..~,,{ th.at.' IS, . '00_10! ·OJ.,. as tten ,. d:~s,tiDguish,ed from the papyrus scrolls l\'filh profane texts '14~:may ~u"ggestthat at least some oftl em were written tab,arrltkan, or for the sake of blessing, rather than for readmg purposes, 'hey m,ay have also served for 'the hu.f'l'itt and au"~i;'.~ ~ ~J·I.l "'I ~ wh.o hadc:omnmit. ed to memory .the H·,o~.yB, ook but wanted a writren suppor.. Diacritical marks and sign~,for 'V '01¥ els were added in the days of [Ab,dul-Malik (68.5) i ' order to avoid misreadings of the sacred text;.15 colored ink was used for this purpose, and thus the poets would co,mpar"e, such man 'scripts to a colorful garden. The number of .know.n Kuf Korans, and fragn .ents "is 'remarkably gr,f·a:. and increases almost daily, but no, two of them seer' to be. completely identical in style. The maj'ori-}'1, with the exception of '[he' mfi. il fragments, are written on vellum in herizental format, Often only three to five lines -of black or brown letters, fiU the page;?- and the letters on the hairy side of the parchment are i sually faded; as
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of the 'fi,rst three lines of Sura ,8I, wa 'idha a~from an early

em, 'with fourteen lines [on.the page written.:in brownish ink, is as ·, a!.. m e'·....: ..l.[.·,'JI.y cailicraehed".', .a·, large manuscripts ticulouslv Cdnbt',~" as 'W' "'hat er such' a pocket Koran was meant for a traveling scholar, an office in the calip ··h.o:l,Iarmy O-'1f~..~ mere .ant is unknew .... 1 '1 o! ·lI. .~' l!...[' ..Ji. , _ Ju. ". ~ n oran r.o'p·; 'W'·ere W··· t.. .. on colored 'p'. ?P-I-!~J".: rt fam 0- us ~X··_ S om,e'·' K·:I:_'~ample is. the one whose grea'tes,t pa:rt is preserved in Tunis, (ragmeats of which are found in W·e'SJbf!lr.n museums, It is written in golden. letters on ,dark blue vellum, and, one may assume.that crossrelations with Byzantium m.ay have. insnired the 31\ 'list" since the use of purple an·d.other colored 'papeT for official Byzantin.e documents " ., '1 ~ .~ 1S atteste d (A goo d ex,a:m·p,.e is the :purp Ie 'I a, ... :, t tetter sent b CIonstantme by .. V]] Porphyrogenetos to cAbd'u.r-·R.ahm.an of Cordova in 94~t.}1 Another possible source of influence may be Manichean art. Ma'lli appears eonszantly in Persian poetical imaglery as the painter p,ar I~XU d '" ~ hIli decorate d M'..amcr iean Wl"l'tIng' £ ~. ceuence, anc precious, I avisr JJy d .... ~ heai trom Central Asia :m.ay have influenced the use of colored, and gilded paper in so; .e sectarian or mystical '~r!·tin.,gs;th t seems to be the case in the correspondence of Halla], which aroused the suspicion 0[1 the Baghdadi authorities. 1.'3 As we can barely date any of the early Korans and only ve'~y few names of calligraphers are 'kn,own,l'D the problem of their provenance is equally puzzling, If all the Korans now p ~es;erved in Tunis, were written in Ifriqiyya, .3; flourishing school of c.aUilgraphy must have existed there during the first centuries of the Hegira, Somewhat later this ~school" produced also' <ODe' f the rnost unusual Koo 1-." hi h rans hi h . utnerto 1:. Known, tne so-ca '11d ,:'Iq(,~ ,a·-(~j.ntJ:f. _e' M' l.",,+ 1'1..=..1· wrncn 'was ordered 'by the nurse of the Zirild pri'ooe' ,a~-Mucizz, ibn Badi~ in 1019,~ :2'0" It is in a vertical format" witb. five lines [IOn pages measuring 4,,5 by 3 1. em, The Ietters wit ~. "teeth" are slanting towai d the left; the rounded ones look Iik .. buds, resembling the [eastern. varieties of Kufi much more than '(he M'aghribi styI,e that bega to em erge about the same ttme,,20 Given the mobility of Islamic artists, the .po·ssibUity cannot be- excluded that acal ilgF.a.phe,~·rom Iran :may hav-e spent a f more or :ess extended period of his ife in Tunisia; but this is.highly speculative. Inte"t,e~ting1y~Ibn Badis himself composed a 'book ,on "pens, ink, and scri:pt...,"';'Jl Eastern Kufi seems to have developed out of an a sparendy innate
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Schroeder' suggested that this might .have been the had:ic seript mentioned in A,ra'bit: historical 'WO-rk5~ but this is not the case,.,I~ Easrern
I{u'fi found its most perfect expression in ,3, style called=-withour ob... vious r,e.ason=Klam:~m"athian, K'ufi,~ represented by II K,oran, scattered :pages of which ate found all over the w'()'[ld,. The numerous exampies allow a stylistlc analysis that :n"lay help tor answer the question whether Kg-fie calligrapher carefuU.y planned. ;aItd outlined each of his, :pages OF.! '"'11,ether' he W'31S able, to v:i.fj,uali~e:the C{;fM,ple'tted page and wr'it,e' it without previous mod'eli'n,g.,,!:,3, I n ,!this Koran the. combination of ~eT~y slender letters with at C'OIor led, arabesque b2u:,k;grou,'nd :~sfascinatirn,g'; it i~ 'echoed in 'lh:€,tombstone iofMas~'ucl, III in C,'h~~nim I:as:ter:n Kufi developed into, a smaller variant used, ill numerous Korans written in eastern Iran and ,A:fg:hatnis'~a:n; of which the present owners usually claim that they are at least from the time of c:aUpJh, €Qtb'fD:an,. This .s~tyEe) inc ever more delicate form, icooti:n.u,eo 'tto be used for such decorative purposes as- chapter headings after Kerans 'were no ,oftge:r written m this ha.nd.~It still occupies ,31 plafe :in ,ccrn.temp0l",ary book declo'ratio:n,~

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r:aflbuka "your Lord", late decorative Kufi, from the border of a fifteenth century Koran

min, from, "" r h African Koran, tenth century, with file n.,un deo veloping into the Maghribi form
Kufic Korans and the few profane manuscripts in this style always remained legible; but, when the s,cr:ipt was used on material other

than vellum or paper, rrew forms had to be developed, Coins and, seals offer some beautiful and finely incised shapes '0' Iettera fhat , ad to 'be fitted, into a small round space, so that the shapes of these letters had te undergo some changes, Particularly ditfilcult to disentangle' are inscriptions on W(FVen material, the so-called ,#"'~ work, which 'was eit rer woven into ~,in,en lor silk with differ-lent threads of varying colors O'L'; more rarely, embroidere orr the fabric, The ei"Pttz inscription would mention the name of the ruler or of a vizier who :h,ad, orde~red the piece of cloth from one ,of the official looms, and it milgh,t also con ta in, some good wishes fat them 'blessings 'laver the Prophet, or the like. Ernst K'Mnel. to whom we owe the most important studies of #ro:1., ri,gl;}1tly,:'.'cscr·",es the ,grou,PI" most examples of which are preserved (the Fa imid ,tir~); as an art fo,r,m "in which calligrapher and weaver' semetimes seem '£0 compete to make the deciphering of the decorative borders as difficult as, possible." 24 Whoev.er has tried to read the Yemeni fabrics in the Boston seum of Fine Arts will agree with himl 25, Similar difficultiesmay also be encountered in ceramscs, a ho .g ::, the materia itself offei ed
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fewer problems :for calligraphers, who usually devised harmonic '~S forn .ulas of blessings OF' popular ada,ges "1.0 fill the borders of 'bowls and. plates. G,ooid ceramic KU'fi 0,' len' nas a fine incise', line around f. e Ietters EO distinguish the- properly ~6 "he diffictd.ties for the' '. .~, rea db" . l:egIn. wit th numerous :~.'nSCT'jlll£]O'ns-tat are not th e wor k er re 'th ,'$ of a master' calligrapher bu seem to be hastily jotted on the :glaze: ~ £-...' h an d may 10ften consis 01f no more th an remnants 0.11 pliO/U.s ·W]J.S.:f;S .. _, Easiest to foUow' is the' development 0.( Kufi Ion. stone, beginning from the simple mscripticn on the Nilemeter in Randa/Cairo. The discovery of a €o'mpara"tively large number of £0"'··Ibs:tones. in Egypt that date from the eighth [0 the tent century enables the scholar 'to trace the' development 0'£ the decoration: the extension of letters i. 1.., tnat was tr en ue d.. "Ttl .. secon d,.ary d eviees car Ie d musannam h '1111 ,. '. \.mWllr.qj th . ;-, ~ ~n,d,looking; as the name indicates, like camels' humps, or with floriated and t:o·~iated.~illiyas that were used to fill the space be .ween, , - ·I.e 2:7' b eneatn, an d a b h , '.~ nove t h Ietters." T h Ii'iarror VttcUt". -'W h' h IS conJ.€ . .-:OC·, sidered a formative principle in so much of Islamic decora [·ioln, seems ib hei ,. h s: h to h.ave contrinuted d to, tne mvention 0f t:- iese forms hat.. In t· COUF,se at" of time, developed into the' innumerable varieties of ',_I-·o,ria'ted. and foli a 'led Kuf], to. which the plaited. Kufi was ver'Y 500"0 added, _he Ie tten lam and alif" which form the article in Arabic and that are rle'pe~; -d time and again in. the profession of faith as wen as i the ....J ~ .- m" ,. wor d .A'Il-h' maucec d (Ihe artists tv ptait uhei stems ~ mgemous ways~ -lr ·a·,-', err In ~ And .it should 'be kept in mind. that the central concept of Islalllthe word A,llah-offe~ed infinite possibilities 1.0 artists, ~h'o would. .fil~ the spaee between its two l's 'with knets, H!lJwler.;s~ stars, and other designs, \v·h.ic , if put in their proper context, serve '[hie art historian h to date Kufic :insc]fipti!on.s,.2S The tendency 'to embellish the name of
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screen consisting of the same word and bui 11 in Zaragossa, Spain" at ., 1!.., ,. denei ab oout tLh"e same til e SI.-Jj,OW U a t,hese decoranve ten,' eneies weI:e un ~ " ,Th,€ plaiting, often combined 'with foUation~ attained its. greatest perfection in. the hirteenth century tHl "W': "en the S,eljuks in ' natolia found some su P eifel SO[I·, ,'ions, for '[his calligrap hie device (as in Siva'S and Koaya), while 'the inscription a'~ Iltutmish's to,111b in Delhi, 'which is slightly earlier, pro,v~s that as far east as. t e reee ,'dy conqu er ed Indian cities plaiting' 'ad assu med an important role, undoubtedly introduced from ~,fg' anistan with ilLs superb Ghaznavid and Ghorid inscriptions. Finally, the mat "13"',' ,aticaJ regularity of laits. and ):,0[0 Is,
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than the letters themselves determined th,e' calligraphic presentation. The last gflf',at example of this art is tIle profession of faith in its Shia :tornl, in O'~jaitll,-5, miJ):r.iih in the Friday Mesque in Isfahan, dated 1307;, which ,ap'-ears . 0' the unturored eye merely as a .',et\Vol -k, of ar a besq est , "his inscription has an almost mag:ic~d,character: indeed, one may understanc it as a kind of amulet; for such inscriptions as this ineg~ ible as [hey migh; ap'pear, conveyed baf;alc" to the onlooker, One is even inclined 'ito say 'that, the more incomprehensible the text seemed, the more it radiated this quality of sacredness, as, Richard Ettinghausen has duly stressed.P Seen from a different angle, the' regular ly posited knots and foliation are comparable to; the r-ad-if (the oOrlstan'tJy' repeated byrne word, of a Persian poem), because the artistic vision out of w,hich, both e'm,ergeid~the poem with its monorhyme and the regularly crnamentalized K'u,6~=-"b; ,t re same, Kufic writi g' is usu 'Uy thought to' be connected with Arabic texts, whether the Koran, or sacred .sayin,g8~ at times ,Historical inscripf,o"ns". However, the complicated 4uctus was used even for Persia
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works, and there exists a long poetical inscription of M·di.scud. ]11 f]' O·····lnn }' 1 '1 ~\ 10 Ghl.~,~. t.ha eon aIDS a.neroir 11 ,~ h..· "·ltt ' 'hr' :U:,lL.'. , \; .: :~~'~ I.;;.J:.., .:" azm . at ontain epic WlIU,oll... 'lftV ." ~.... h e", '11 :Id .. l.a· ..... d .',. -,.;;, d ~.-, '.' ', ... :t';. " .... , ·.. ~.,...l .his .:.,: IS pa.iLaoe· ecorareo. ,,.1!...,o-- In,scrl.p"uOD,~10 J'J'. c ...p.. ers Ian. ai e tounn !!.JlJ.tt:;F fiunC ~ .• l!1t:,h..U ~ - . d D' Ih 'h" .. . m B .U. t...·arill~,.·' ~geD~", t:h, I, a.n "PIIi.l a.lIfii. c.' rewa.n ~3 3: .•. u J::~' . ~~h The develop,iment of :Ku,'n!c lep--,i~rap-;hy was largely du.€ .0 the rnaterial used, Wbile stucco inscripfions could assume an almost tapestty like quality, w',orkwg wii'h bricks required a different technique out ·of which an,gu.lar forms developed, ],e'ad:·'n:g 'to the jha"rrJinji' free", tangular) Kufi, Min;lrie·~s in. Central Asia and Afgh.·arll.is:uttD (Minara-i .1am) ShOiW' some of the earliest examples of this style;, and th:e names the Prophet and th e. righteou s caliphs in the .'Turkish trian .. gles,n in th'e' Karatay 'M'edre'SJe in K,ony',a (1'2,5,1) ,3:1",6 among '[he earliest ex'IlW pies of rectangular K.. in. tU.ewQ,rk and contrast in this same UD building with amost intricate Kufi!Ginscription tlhr~t fiUs the drurn of the dome: the latter led, to hig'hly refined stellar forms. S.ha~rtlnji K.. became a favorite with artists in Iran and Turan. '..'he Timurid ufi tnasters i'n S,a,·m,a:.rqand ,3 nd Herat and the Sr'af3viid arch itects in .Isfa... han and )e·lsewh,er,f; invented Idelig.iltful ornaments oonsisting 'of the
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a.·me· 0',·" God. His Prophet ,(I s ~and tl e First Im am cAli'·' 34 0, r~[~' pioru '0:£ formulas, which were inserted in, colorful tjles. in the overall pattern Kufi of vaults. en h' ances ~and d omes Th is lFPI':""t~'ng"· u ·11.~1,.1;~' 1-1 W·_ as ,,,~,.~~ti used for book decoration and has lately inspired some' modern b uslim artists to develop new forms of art, The corr iction JoE the first studen s of ls' amie caUi,graphy (also held by some Islamic historians) that the' cnrsive hands d,eveloped lout of the Kuf has lo'ng been discarded .. We now know that there , was always a cursive 'hand in 'which people jotted down. various texts; business transactio as, and 'so' forth on leather and palm leaves but mostlyerr p1apryru,s Grohmarm, studying' the numerous papyri avail .. able, has shown how th ..~ nonli. urgical style [of 'wyitin,g developed in l the fi.1 st centuries of Islam, 35 "he cursive hand be,g,an. to be shaped mo,f"€ elegantly with the arabization of the aiwan under the Ornayyad caliph ~ A'b, ul-Malik i ~~'7, when particular scripts f~~ ."he chancell~'?, ",.ere .require~. The first name to be mentioned 15 that of Khalid ibn Ab['JI,-,. ayyaJ, \.v' 0 wrote poems, informative news, and, a so Korans d,urin,g the rules of al-Walid and COlmar ]1, that is, irrthe fir.st two' decades of . f' e eigh'th, centu -y.. 'We do, not know, however.., whether the Korans were wri ten lin "uti or in. cursive hand on papyrus, a style of which a fra,gm en t has 'been. preserved, The develcnment of 'the cursive hand and its use by 'o'ch the W(lIraq (the copyist) and the .m~Tri:,. (who 'was in c, arge of the clean copying ,of manuscripts in the chancelleries) ~e5~ulled, in a whole lit[e", ature on the duties of a klitib (se-cretary) in l",hich. the rules far the construction of letters, the' cutting ,of 'l, e pen, the' preparation of both '[ypes [of ink, midad and l}il)T'~ and, '[he whole vocabula.ry (:OD-' nected with these occupations l\'er, .iscussed at length .. This litera!L~ ith '1IIl~ .' II ture a lso provioec d tlh ,:t.,..":: [."t. W·lt., ,a~ necessary gl",am,m.atlC1a h. ',e.ItU·t.lu .'.IIl", mston-~ cal, g, ograph ieal, and ethical information. 36 IQ,alqas,handi~s $ubQ,~ ala c'~hli., the fourteen-volurne manual for the Maml uk cha cellery in ··81.pt, is a good summary of earlier works and presents a v[ery lucid introduction '0 the art of writing in i s third vohrme. S.l he earliest chancellery scripts must have been very heavy; their proto -ype W,3S #iilmtJr, descried 'by' Nabia Abbott as an a:ngular ,Kufic style 'but understood later as at .po\-verful script 'written 'with, GIl b oad pen, often ill. looi sand connections of "etters not permitted in, other
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without dots; it was then mainly used for the ruler's signature, The pious caliph 'Q'mar ]] 'egarded the large measurements of tkaqil lu'1R:Iir documents used by his predecessor as a sheer waste of money and urged, his seeretaries to use a smaller hand for documents Heavy l11mar and so-called s:kiiJmi (Syrian) script were discarded by '[he' c. A'bbas:ids~,who instead used a 'pen call.. 'Riff (half) ed for their own oUltg~in,g documents; smaller styles. were prescribed fOlr correspondence between @ffi,cials, such as thruluth (one third), The rule 'was, that a, perso'n with, lower rank used smaller letters 'when 'W '-iting to his su perior ,. 8 3 The most freque'nt~y used script for documents was i'()uqr~ In. ~b h S~"'. h 'vente d by Y\lS,U, f'" 'the ,~ h 0"f' II iran un as,--'IJZ1." ,1. remame ed tr e brother preeminent chancellery so ipt and! could be used in different sizes accord' ng 'to the nank of the addressee and '[he importance of the' document, ~,ach, sl,tyle' had a small (kha-ft) and a Ia ge (fair) variant. shaq ibn Hammad, sec etary to, the cAbbasid caliph al-Mahdi (775,= 85), mentioned as 'til,' first 'to 'have founded a real "school' of calligraphy; the: names, of fifteen of his disciples are mentioned Slightly later Ahmad ibn Abi Khalid al-Ahwal, "the Squint-eyed," worked for al.. a'mun, Qa qashandi, following the earlier sources, M ascribes, to' him the invention 0 a variety (9'£ .s.lyl.. s, among them knaH e al=mu~amar1it (_or co 'respondence between amirs), Jikttt,t al-'q-isas t for f small pieces of paper), and. ghitbar ttt-~il'(J (": or s~ret~ and' f~ , pigeon, 'pOI5f'~)~ But 'we d()1 n.. know what these styles looked Iike, It is ot attested 'th.at a document written 'by al-Ahwal-e-a letter from, Ma'mun to "he B'f:zantine emperor-e-was exhibited in COj1stantin,opl.e' for its unusual beau,'ty.'~J'~1 s, Ma mun's rule ~gaverise to numerous ventures A in the fie d of science p--;'"hilo~o'p.--v and theology -- it was. apparently']' !OJ." . -. '.. ,:~ ". also a crucia] period foi the dev elopment of calligraphy. 'Th,€' caliph's vizier, al-Fadl ibn Sahl Dhu'r-Riyasatam, hi credited with shaping, at the caliph's behest, the ri:,asi script that seems, '_0, be- a mo e , rorrn 0,·· n'ifj" WI!'" a ,a.tge space b . f 'r/' ".b I 'Thi · cor P,3\ctc oetween th '1" te mes. ,IS script, W'a8 accepted for Ma'rnt n's bureau.t" Docume I,lSI could be written. on pap1er of va "OUS colors , according to the exigencies of protocol." A sto y tha , provides an idea of IIOW' thesemedieval forerunners of the long Ottomanand Pel's.ia~njirmltn$ 'may have looked is told about the' Sahib Ibn cA'b,baid, vizier, calligrapher, and 'famed litterateur. In 9,96,,.he produced for the invessty les,'n"d
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Nizam'u'[:m,u,[k; along with at Koran that ·d .. d d eontamed 311. mtertmear rransianon In reo anc an exp_,anau,on 0 r-'' ,difficult expressiens in blue; '[hose '1ffTSeS which could, be applied to practical p'Ur)?O~ie'S w',ere' marked :in g,o~"d..4! The 'use of colored inks was likewise common in the chancelleries, The' l,e'f['f'r tb,at Timur sent in 1~99 to Sultan, :F,8'r:aj 0'( Egypt W,3.S "J h _ oeen camgrapn e d in go Iden, ietters by h ,:_'" 1 -seventy ,CU'~,.,. OD"g ana na d b U],'ts, t ,_' dr ',_' ~,,_ h /15 ee, ~' b .' so' h 'master ser ~'L B'ar-_u ddim Mu namma d T a,i':fllZI"'. to, W,I am a1 seven Korans on '[hick Khanbaliq pa.p,er are ascribed 4,3~three of th-em in thuluth and four in mu:kk, 'with the basmeda in K'u,fi, and the s:h(.J/n ia,n-11.,'U~,Ul (th,e. e xplaIDJ,a_:tioiH, 'Q f when .and W here the revelation carne) in ri(l4c and ri~anis;tr~e", 'One' special feature ,of [he' chancellery scripts seems to be, 'that they contain many more ligatllr"es than do the copyists' styles, A prntoco] ," ..L i 1'" g~o ''lQ\ b 1d script ()IIf - tne canpth a'1 M uqta dir (r. ,~,ylitJi'~~) s ~ -~: ..... 1,(, ows tne iGm ano ,£h 'e. ali/joining together-, and, in the later mmalJal that w,as ~used, in efficial writin.,g virtually all letters are c~~oselyconnected with one an.other: Ibn K"h(1l1du'n,;'s remarks :;i,bo'ut the almost "secret" style of chancellery 'writers, shews thar t~hisd.'ev·ce;'~lopment continued through the centuries.v' W'be1o Hafiz i'll, the fourteenth century cemplains that his be oved did not send 'him a letter' made from the chainlike letters to catch the fluttering b']T1Q of bis heart, he ,c~everly alludes '00 a documem in. mwakt:d script, ,4o~' . A smaller $,cript; iji;za" W'3,S derived from ,tt1.t:tqi" a.nd was commonly used in Otmm.an, d,IO(nme:nl!r;,. i:~ preserves the large' 'h~lO.PI$ between the final letters a nd 'tire' aJi/ of the d,efinite article of the loU owing 'word. which is a' -SQ found 'in the Turkish iLlvilni style where the loops assume the shape of pointed ovals.. , How 'w,e':~l known '[he ehancellery styles were in the Middle Ages, is attested by' a ~Jin,e the twelfth-century poet Khaqani 'who claims: of
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The letter mim as 'used, by calligraphers Is ~~b~ind'l't~ is; it has, :0.0' that opeaing in the center ~ 'wh,U'e the ,tthree teeth of the sfn are' s rrru_;gb t,Q'Fi'i,""'...J out 11n- h a neellery ~t,oy,:],~ -.v ~~.,. .' ,'._ limee into ~iftg-'le .,
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In the cas of Ottoman divli:n! the flow of the lines follows the im.perial;ughm1J the decorative shape developed out of 'the handsign of the emperor; ·,v:,hi.ch was already fairly 'we 1 developed in the day of Mehmet the Conqueror.:" Hence' the lines show a risinog tendency toward the le t. A )lair fOl~m, Oof' ,di.van'; was sometimes used 'by Otto ... man calligraphers for decorative pa:ges~

have been. earlier examples, Scribes and calligraphers occupied an i'm, ot ant pbu:e in Islamic' soci ety, and more '[Itan one st,ory in th'e p ,Arabian Nigh'u. telle of the' importa ace of writing and of beautiful h 'erect Qof,jtJ·., s;wet tn:g ,,~a.. .an_ ·we,L'-'fO;un... e.- UJaw~ .." Tit if: '1;1' 'll'l~ l'., ... , d 11'1 d_ d ,_ "L; 41 .. writmg w~t: ,~ ·'·..-,1;1 . use o f·diacritical marik an d' In many cases, o f][1 .s -', vowe sIgns _" came e hi ,. d · b~ h h more commo ,·even - .'OU.g.- some !~H)Pi isnca -.e. persons mig h t or ... ~ ject to th e nee 0,1fthese S1.,gnsIn pnvate correspon d.ence b t .ese s .. oecause ,. It wo,~ mean hat :.h.eaddressee \~as not intelligent enough to deciI': pher the message .. But at the same rime there was an awa 'eness of the danger of misreading important words, and the general feeling was well expressed by the ,cAbbas·:!dvizier CAli ibn "Isa (d, 94 6) that "writing provided 'with diaeritical poi:nts iB like an artistically d.e• ~ i,

'The develop ent of ,calligraph,y inside an.'' outside chancellery use w~ S facilitated b,y the introduction of 'piapf.'r, ,~O[' papyrus. with its raw surface did not allow ar ..istic \Vtitin,g'~The 'first book on pa p er about which we know anything "V' as, written by 870, but here may
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One' m.ay here also think of the story of the 'first qalandcl.:r in the, b a, NCo,-'. ,.it'·' h ich h '1", .' 'Lo 11"'··· . A ra,.~an ,.,~gf'~ts m ~'" ic ,-.'~-kem.OllA.'ey w~n~s tJI~~ ,~i'~~ 8 b eart b hi .' _".f . :ls,ei~ egao'£ caU.lgr.aphy In various styles and by his skillful poetical alluj;

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But QQ the whole, '[be development of truly beautiful, well-measu red set ipt is connected with th e name of Ibn 'Mnqla, a native of Shilra~ w,~ serveo severatll' trmes as vizier u:nrt' h 6"- na 11 di d in h10 d'i .' '. til re __ y mec ' , 'prison air was 'killed in ..1940 ~ Before that, his, enemies had cut off his .. h h .b. h 'b to. .'L .....l,'. 'flgll tnanc d'~ tne ,,~,a.'FS=est 'pU.Jl.:lSr]J,ft},en.t to b I-Iemetead out to me UD'u.'lSputed master of calligraphy, His main ,oorrttibUl;tiO'n. to the development of the' CUi-give hand was to relate the propcrtions of the letters to that of the allf., S4J, The measurements were taken by rhomboid polnts produced :by th.'e pe'n 8 0 that an (LUI wl~'u.ldbe, ,a;c~ordin~g' to. the styie, ;:}~.' or q pOllD_S hi -h,"}" 'a {1,Q. ']- pom ,t,,,Jrug , ,.,J ' '1' ~. ~' 'I" " 19 ,' ,~,_(" ", ...," hish an.'O.~1 emts 11." '-"'-."it". te ~ p Jiong~ and so Ion This geometry of the letters which was perfected bv ",.J' eKpl.aining th e relations a,m"oIlUl~ the p~n~ts of ,.etlters in circles and ., ,. 'l nas .. 'n·' h semicircles; 'b remameod b'"..JII'" .•ltlIU,UJ.g· I: i(:a,ltJlIg;r,a~p_l__ers. '~O O;UI" d ,8..y·, an d ~ I;fO:r .•• the perfection of a script is jurd,ged according to the relation of the
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in our century th s, EI""[FV'p-<'' ';..' '"'"' n---:' poet Iaure Ph- auoi ""'0- m""'p' ..J1 ~I the piUaf'ls ,of the' ,Alh2uno :ra (1) ~~€&li/j'Wr[,t~en b'y Ibn ,M'uqbl,,:U- ::);8 The vizier, who continued tio write skillfully even after his hand 'h,'''-'lIi·~' ,a' ,tF" tu~~~, taught his or...'f'~ several fo-Ilowers am"O'*"iW'g- them amnutated .aU been ,'" :I~l-~, 1~ . ,-.' .n a.· _' ~ 'his -danghter, wi:ftbwhom CAli ibn Hila], known as Ib~(J. l.... a ,Ba,wwab; studied the art.,5~He added 81J,me' mere elegance to the' strict folies of Mb:n Mu:qla~~ and the Koran that he. wrote in the year ]OOQ' (now in the Chester Beatty Library) is a remarkable piece of writing, particularly the long swingin:G' curves at the final round letters, One wonders if some of the hundred Korans in the libv'ary of the Bu'waylUdl vizier. ,Atdashir ibn Sab'uT; w'hich were "\fritte1n by the best caIliGf31pbers.; tame from his' pen, as one also wona"crs how ,~P"IOa1t the ratio between K;UD and cursive Korans in this famous Eibr'~'rf might '~'-'V~' _., fTh'~ ''I''~''7·~l' besid IQ~' .,:&'Q 'I?' orans more than t- ~ ".l,~·_ ~ been lkill~ -g\lrl~, . ~ ".~. ~ ,~
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the no nsensic al talk of 'M'LlS J1Y Iima the Liar in the' script of Ibn Mu~:t~.and·Ba,wwa'b;;65 a The school of Ibn al-Bawwab was continued in Baghdad Among the masters of his style was at woman, Shuhda al-Kariba, from whom rhe chain of transmissm,on ,gf1H~'S to the' ast of the grea.'t. medieval calligra phers, lraqllJ.t aJ='M"uSlta'csi'mi (d. 1298), a. eunuch whe had belen in the service of the last ~'Abbasid,caliph, whom he outlived by forty ye',ars" To be sure, there were ftourishin'lg schools of calligraphy before him; as Ibn, ar-Rawandi's remarks about the' masters of his native Kashan prOrve for '~he time around 12'OO~rem,arks supported ny '[he superb quality of some early ,ca.'Ui,gra.p:hies; G,6 but tJD Yaqut a new 'w'ay of trimming th.'e pen is attributed-e-a slight slant that makes the 'iIt'1f--,ii:r m..·,.a;r 'o:iIin"d ... ne- r stro 1,• hin 'm'O'llf"~ distinl:"••. ..:_ . '~.~ ~11n;·d 'rend ,;:!Zi;V~ g' DI',S' hable U.!l: . ,I.'.II!.« J.,£_ ...... the script more le'~e,gar[t '0 later times, n.O gfe~l'll:er praise could be bestowed UpCUl ,:(1 (~aEijgrapher than so say that hie W'a8 able to sen 'his
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velopment of a particular sty),le,.From thai tune 0,' ward the sitttJ s_yles remain exclusively in use for copyists' and "calligraphers' p'u,r... , poses, They are (I) na:S'kft (connected 'with cAb,dallah as-Sayrafi), (2) mu,lJ,aqq,aq (connected with "Abdallah Arghun), (3) tkuJ.u~h (connected with Ahmad Tayyib Shah), (4) UluqfC (OO)RIU!C"tJed with Mubarakshah Q'u1tb); (5) nl}ani (connected with Mubarakshah SU'Yu,," }I, and (6) nqa/' (connected w~t, Ahmad as-Suhrawardij, 61 With 'the introduction of these six basic styles the multiplicity of P eV]IOUS s" yles falls, i' to 0" livion, for it is amazing and so: ewhat di ~. h. . 'h . J'llsqu,ie'ttlng' ,t: at I'b,n an- Nadim' ,_if,~'m,t, composeed· i,' tl lie· time IUe, adnn's F!l.. . tween Ibn Muqla and Ibn al-Bawwab, enumerates no Iess than twenty-four diffel",ent cursive hands, among which some that were to become very pfo,'mine:nt later are Dot :' ',entioned,.'''s It is consoling that a writer who is almost contemporarv lvith II" an-Nadim, Ibn Wa,h"'b al-Ka..ib, complains that even the scribes are no longer aware t of all the different sty~es of the ,gOIO_ old, da )1:'5.,6'9h n:. ., ;"L t...... .:l -I. A'mong 'I,: e aqwm es-ssua tne most' nnpressrve one IS ,bt1.u:u.tr;~,., hi h l;7IIIC,' belongs tO the ttfJlam mUTallab,,(:l,-, the roundedtplump st.yle'" and b. also
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described as .uqaww;a-r (hollowed) or lay:yt.-n (soft) ,. It is written with a broad pen; the aliJ begins with 8, li,ght stroke at the rigbt 'upper angle and can have a sUgh'[ curve at its lower left, Even in the Middle Ages it was compared 'IDa a. man looking at his feet, Th·ultith was mainly used in epigraphy less frequently in cal '~igraphy exoept or the. sura headings of Korans, Some fi,D,eKorans in ,thuluth be'~,ofngto' Mamluk Egypt; written in gokiei ink, 'the eyes 0 their Ietters are sometimes :fiIIed, with dark lapis la.zuli.7'(O' It seems that an art form that later became a. favorjte w ith callig aphers was inventer under Tjmur, Say-yid ~A,b~u.1IQ211,dir ibn "Abdul 'Wahh,ab wrote at Koran for him ill which the first, the central, and the last lines are in tkuluth, .1., L 'Th' comoms non 0;' t.WOI sty I'es was. t hen connnbi ,. f ;, . ie rest m nassn: 'll~.JS Died in Mamlu:k and Ottoman times" especially for decorative album
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The ~ oth e i'r" ~:Q""'O"P ~'P""'1"'n:I·t- used in th e :M',' '1,~ '0' ....... ';:iIi:' ~!l1!.I'n7'lflnn_ idd - '--. Iw.,__ ..., ,J:QI.rj!'~~~~'7"'"'"'''7.' /'-... "'-'., - ,"',,' ie ,,;111111.' " _.' (meanmg th . accurate, wen,-',OlF,g:anrZ€J -··d~ ,"4, " 'I'~' ,~cr,[p't\;~ accor d~'~",-" ILU .. iGeal ." .e, I '_ IO,g '-TI ,- .hi!...I.'i the au Jll~~,~!.le~trs[ Lon dition s: - " u~on, 10f Wfltln,g HI ,~,:l.~~:! .(:"-'"'-:"-1\ ~a{~qtq,attemp t'i ",' aecu =ng /'t,.,-~1..,., ... -:'L!., . ,-,~-; -".,1." ~-:-, racy,,. 1'~ LI,·I\~e7l~tal'1r,!)j W,uJ.c,.!lJJ z, ,"'-. sma'-:-:r,.ter re"-1anve, tnlU-{'CffJYJaq h~1as H:-·.·' is, ns .~ 1 , at . --' In,gs termlnattnB - m- Sf],arp 'pornts" 'f4.'""t is t:, ererore caueed a d'ry' d '" ., ,- -- -,~ - ~ ,. ~ - -. - ,~- '--- -- _. - '11.. ';,'., '. h -, . £' . _.. .'~'~ . -, enc " "'b~" - "-- "-- '1 -'h- ], , - .. - - -d tne - --" etters (y a~l:S ). SCtlpt, m W"1."sen t"hI,e'di f"f)' "€'rell,[e- between- ..h- vernca 1-1'- -- an.'tb: e 1,,"'-' " , ones .IS very marxeu, (J'~:!1 'b"-;" '/' :9:' pomts hi ~,g" .If]J, ''''!~I~,·,J' l-t,l.: .", rower ked _J;;IG' 'fnug-~ ",'"'I'"" ,"., h'- 'C," ~'~'Uf.U~rt .~;,:fha :, ," . ,'1'1 , " t s. on~,y t ,,"'.fl,~1f nas a, srnau stro.' 'Ik' .e'. a t ~,I~ u.pper rlg ,'h-"',_b_UI). urmer no CU"-_ eu mstance . swi 11' ~~ ~:UI'~, a th ~ l~,w;: l'~'f'~'~ :U', ~ . 'ilrhi e con ~r~sts betwee ..n ,Air rh 'v. v_
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Modern handbooks of eanig~tI'ph.y in Turkey cairn that both mit-I' '1·" nar ~~qaq ana AA:'":t..;z,- -' are m~re,:y JfII vartanrs 0 r--..tr,r...._ .. f""",,l-jli ,aJ,FJj,U, ~,h'e-, "'-1 l h: ( l-~mn1; ;J'l/~.-~,niJ; ~:yl,e nas £orffJ.erly ra.'F'ely been observed 'by W'iestern scholars, even thoug'h, allusions '~!O i~. re abundant in poetry, a The true copyists' script is the' small nru;1ik written ~:rj(h a, fine pe~n d "~'~31,l "" strai ~eJl~ t- '~:~:'lIif'" WI" t.h,Au t- , an1· :1' 'l~'ii11~1 stroke A:' on"l~ff JL: vJLW.a 11,.. o'hl ~'~I the an~. - ". ~ '. . ,v .~' ' n ~&a ,~~ cellery styles its, COUn;[er:p;a rt is, rifJ'~a" meant fo,t. ~m,an, pieces of p~lper . - d .. ... ,.IU no 1.:-O'Jr ... '"ft· " .:,; t -,1,,;,.(' ani", no ",.~ b it .....t ,:f' -- Sn&llllc.~lll' - t d·ocumenrs es •. . ~' ... 1-- b 01111,s','r1es h at; n .•• measures gruly 5 points, Even thou gh fig La 'was never a, classical script, rhe last. biographer of J:"'utkisb cal igr.ap,hers,) Ibnul Emin Inal, devotes a w'bole Cha:p1!~1'[0 the masters of this :style 'W':hOI, a~1,is t,o 'be
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round endings of 'the letters 'being small and perfectly ,circular aQI that a p.a:g,e ffi,a.y- look very calm and sedate. However, the letters are often too closely crammed together, an d someone used to Turkish naskh would find a Koran printed in Pakistani style' difficult to ap-' predate The Turks developed a ftasM in which the fine, gra:oef1ul letters seem to' walk .swiftly toward the left, This style, whose foundation was laid by Shayth, Hamdullah a1F',Qund, 1500 and that was..perfected L.," -h H'-£' 10·····,s,m,a,n" atter sleven gene'ra[JIODS,~ h: b·£Qom'e" ,G ',-- "'.'.".-' .', . .,""" '. .. - ,. IVy " ·~ssuccessor, " ,a_,ll,Z; " __ ' .. ~.-' '.,as a model of bjeauty,. That is w'hy tb,r; Turkish ~2il·fin.~ claims, Kuran '. JL.t. _.. - d' ' - ._-'_J L.._ ~'l';J: MtK~tl~, ~fl·'_- M'....' ~..J.~ O~U1mu- 18~antiU~, . <t ~. ." :Mitr' 00 _.,.il. ...... ~ 'tlatii'aI (' ,~ ..e aOifa n 'wa~ ... Th if? .1'''-:'' [~. .__
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revealed in Mecca, was recited [properly] in, Egypl~ and was written . .'- .stan m ['" "b ·U·1j3'~'\ ". Derived from n~ is ghubftr" the dust script, written with, a minute 'pen."O:ri,sin,ally meant. ~or ,pig~on p.. it. est, :~ate'fused ~0Jt decorative purpose'S such as filling: ~in"g:~,e letters 'w']i-[ha whob.~~ text or making'up fi,gur~s of human b~ing~~animals, or S'ower,s from pious formu las ~One can also write the basmsla ~prthe profession of faith in ,~ .L ., l. ,- ,~OFan. 0'f w hilCJ]~ k lb. gtiUuar on -a gra:mn 0\fri '76 TL.e-:fi rst gF~Ub·aT ''Iii' r]l~"e~,.,' _' ~ n WI€ snaw was written for Timur biy c'(lmar al=,Aqta.t" ~ calligra,pheF who, did not be~,"n,g to, the Yaqutian chain of transmission. The ruler, however ~was not happy w~tb a Koran that could 'be fitted under a. signet ~ , H'" -. ""~,".-~ ' ' 'Il'" r.nl,g.~, " e re-b - -,";'1 th e ca l'~ .".~ w__.'men 'wrote ~ , "'['1f.-,.-. ,. ,;--',' ' ~. .-f'· ·u.ll.ie~, l[lgr'al,puJ~r:~ h0..•~." ' ano ...lLlI.e]' bopy o the Holy BOQ'k,;, ach p1ialge' of which measured a cubit in length, Tie mur, finally impressed, handsomely rewarded the artist.,19 The story mayor :M,(lY not hie,authentic, but it ieertain]y shows the pred ilection of late- fourteenth and. fi fteenth-century connoisseurs foT.'

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K.orans, of enormous sizes=euffice it. to mention a Marnluk copy of 117 'by 98 em and the Kora·n wri:ttt. n by Timur's g~ra.nd8oin. Ba.. ysun·ghur, which measures lOt by 177 em .. To write Korans, or-at least their first and last pla.ges., in g'old was not l1.D·U: ual, as copies rom all pa ts of the Muslim world, from Moroeco to' I-n[d. prove, But nonia, reU.giIous tes ts could . also 'be lavishly decorated, particularly :p,ole'try ·d' '. ~ '.' compose d b ki by ,In,g.s, be i a I-'M u.~tam['~..5 verse In trh e runt h centurym :.·e'it Ba.gh.da :[_ or the poetical works of 'the Deccani rulers Muha . imad8.0 . " -;1rr .. r.alm g.l .tt. l·ut.'S_,J . .a . Q,'·1:"Q" .. h' h ,ar'h a.n.a lb' '.',. hir t,.. dil· ..h: h . ·arolund ]6·:·[O·~·rO· . hand. did not remain restricee d to e nancei'1111 ,elry or ~ .•• . ut t re cursive 1l,.. _ .. B copyist p·urpo'ses... Sh[oFtly after the year 1000 one finds its first exI"
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amples in architectural inscriptions, a 11.,[1. in. "'. comparatively short time it re pl aced..Kufi, or coexisted with. it for a while until Kufi became so h.~·.ghlymvolved that it had to be' replaced by a mo·r;€'readable script, A typicalli example i the area of the Qu:w·wa.-t I-Islam mosq.ue and the Q atb Minar in. Delhi (t2'3'6)~ where botb styles are use~d 10 a :higb degree of perfection .. Two decades later, Konya is. another striking example, whe.r,€ the sophisticated Kufi of the- Karatay Medrese
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and .' .[e'e ezan -. ,thtd'uM surroundina 0 t ae [ ate of the go' nei,gh.boring InceMinareli Medrese are a most contemporary (12'.51 and . '258 ~ respectively) Such. inscriptions show thac thulutk .h .a,d in .. h h :._egre1e o,~re f nement even b erore ,. W&~ g~.ven f' .. • ... I: fit d .eea reacne d 3, hi19J d d its final touch tty Y cJ!(lu and it is not astonishing r, that 'two gleft'e-r.a= tions later some [of Yaqut's d isciples excelled both in Koranic calligraph .. and. in the ~ayoul of hug" archi ectural inscriptions. They used y· to write the texts for the' stonecutters or tilemakers: it is '[old of one .. ., .. .. s·' - of' a K' J,~f ' .d master 'th at h e u,~n:,ote·~':um~.l ~'::'~""~ ~ anc . h e stonecutters 'F'COP,IOIrr . " .- _. . ...'.," . ~ duced '. ~~ I'D ,'re'1· f ~ ,. ,. :!~nro·p.\"yWIith: b ,3,k 'Ekl bri cks 82 ,ilit'· . ~.- 'l -~ u, .1,·~· ,le. .. . Tkulu~lh remained the ideal style for epigraphy and was used on virtually every material and everywherev lv uslirn artisans s e'- to 'have covered every conceivable object with wr~ti g often with. verses or rhyming sentences, The Ki'tiib ,al~muwias,ksha, w·h.ich. offers a lively :pi.(:ture of the life of the elegant u'.Pp e f class in E,.a.gh,d.ad in the n in th and ten th cen turies, $:.3.. qu otes vers es t'h a.t 'were artisticall y 'writ en on pillows and curtains, goblets and flasks, garments. and he~adge~n'",. belts, and kerchiefs, goldern and silver vesse $.; as well as, on. porcelain .. landsome slave girls had verses written in henna, .on their cheeks and foreheads, as -did writers 'with the reedpens that they used or
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sent as gifts to friends, ,~iI}r~b;s r(pra-yer,-:ni{;hes) in wood and marble .'h·t;lW every pOSSl.·...e com- b" .,,'~ 0"f" scrip". 'an d_' .. "r'b]-I,·· -, omanon . .... ... ~,. 11~ id s,. . ".' . ".' . wooe . rmaia " rith Wl .. mother-of-pearl or ivory mscriptions has, 'been :fou:nd from India to.
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not only offer difficu._t specimens of the ea ly "hanging" style but sometimes 'preserve' interesting pieces from Arabic or Persian literature, both poetry and prose; inscriptions inlaid in copper or brass ,. h ~ mtormanon ~ " ..., may 0'f'C' either h~ ter mstoncat~ ,., ,c' or contain 'I'" .nerary p'lece,g, In whic the vessel Is imagined speaking' about its destination ...ManY' of there have a. re igio;us content (thus the Bi ri 'W31re from. the .Decc,an ith '1 ions) d . ~yrlan, ,g.ass, I 'Wl~ strongty Shiite i .~ nte mvocauoas , ana mosque '1 .amps m S':" supply us with th,e names ,of their IdO'DO;r,S or allude .0, the Prophet who. is 'sent as ,sirii.ju:n munir (a shining light; Sura, ',3J40)t or else' tO the light-verse of the Koran (Sura 2'4/35)~ The' use of inscriptions on ,. ~ d k Ara I1C ,g,ass and - cerarmcs was 810 W-.'despreac u a", rnock A bi wore dS, are , -I ,..' d oun d O'D, some porceiam pl,eees p,ro·. ucecdl__~ rwh"' .. ,In ~_~i]n,.a C ,ex:p.ort, to, tor Near Eastern countries". Many sligns on vessels D'D ~o"gel" yield any 'f .~ h f' ~~ meanmg, .'or 'more ano more tne crattsman imitateed. diti , 1: tradmonat models without unde -s.tan[d.in,g the letters, which 'E terefore often consist simply ofren mants of repeated 'blessing formu as. Q-, ite early in 'history the Arabs seem 'to 113ve used rU.gs w,"tl.: inscriptions or letters on them; otherwise, the' long deliberation :PUl forth by the fourteenth-century theologian as-Sub i as to whether or not one' was al owed' 0 tread upon such a :rug would be meaningless.P' Cursive epigraphy reached its apex in the inscrip ions, on m,osq _es and minarets. The use of tiles enabled the' artists [,0 ..' I educe highly intricate, radiant inscriptions of flawless 'beauty; here, Thnurids and Safavids found, unsurpassable solueions. India, on the other hand ,. can boast of some of the finest inscriptions carved OU[ of marb e or laid in black into white marble as, in the Taj Mahal, where calligraphers and architects s:k.'l£ully produced the illusion that aU letters are absolutely equal in size. despite t - e changin,g perspeetis ei> One 85 must also, not forget '[he' powerful stone. :ins;cri,ptions with a highly deeorati ..., ..L ' • h n ism, as. ecorattve orgamzanon 0 f' me verncal 1!" 10 rr yt h~. ~ 1 pa-rau,e 1" s mica '. found in fifteenth ... century Bengal or early seventeenth-century Bijap'u,[",8'6 an area whos .. contributions to, the development of ' hie art ' of Arabic epigraphy is usually overlooked because art historians tend [O' focus on the examples of Ottoman Turkis . architecture that bave
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~.'otl_g since become the perfect embodiment of cursive epigraphy at its best, N~kh and thtil~th seem to embody the genius of the Arabic script most .r-!~,.I 1:''til' wh '\..rJJ. ~ua! th e developm ent of A."-' rahic W''f'i>rit;I'it''i(U the I;;,. '= of the M: uslim worldJl..,'."_,~ th e 'M····'~ rib ll'i~ ~a~o a traedve.:"Ie 'i1'O' , crh' at ,....",:[ ~ W,~'st~'t"ft'!'i, m ~'n"'-y' Even Ibn _Ri. Q~~,[, un.I,!@. Tunisian himself did not "a," o :.!t.Il, 'u'h-I- ·'JII"I·d" , . .. : ,.' ,:.'~1l,1,;~, :v <SI1'P'''p--'''ro'!,rA of ,', - "I ',' ,', " '~ d" ,. h- , t h.e wl'~tmng 10f' 11- rs compamots w h0, hao not, parucipated d i .. In u-e r, e~ form of the cursive hand by Ibn Muqla and his successors and who '~'~, . ...J ",. ',,',' L,)' " 'It,. "",,' "" 11" d uvea In. an area !J.J],la,[" ne nnpnes, was, not ~a' "11 cunura , " ]1,y aoas rea .itY vanced e;nJolu~g'h ro equal. Cair,o wttb its numerous facilities where' a refined art Ul(,t:;ciC'anigta,pby w'oultl 'be sought and hence ta:u,ghti,81 W',e know, however, that there were also quite at number 0''£ scholars and '. ~ :e" h '., h,,0, .. d n" h di109 to tne "L. writers In th M".agn ri 'b-''W~ pl':-aet~ce;_,call,d,gf'ap:, 'f aGCO~~~ rules '01 the Baghdadian masters 'W hich ehey a pparentl Y' learned while tr.avelin,g'to, the E~,fJt,8,8Inscriptions in the Alhambra as well as "I~', th at Lor e,p,tgrap nc ".1 on ~~panlsh , silks prove t " 'I' ,C",,-- 1',",1/,'''''-'''' ohi 'PUI. poses £ he ~"-:,'d,~t'i" , 1'1 81.,5 """ ,e tra. ".I Jl0n,3,lt
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the! has its dOlf beneath it and ' 'be q bas, only one (lot, The common :'_orth Afriean hand was' apparently refined in Splain; the' so-called ,,,,d:'; ", "",,' with 1,IiS "'d.': li, ,'["'1"''''", A .nua 1usran S;.l"rlp,~ WI "i'll'" ense succession reuers, l" "'p"~""',,,:,, im resses ILlJJe reader 'by' its h,igh degree of straightness, '~:b' "d' ., ,~m use. 'fr '",-' copies 0, I of [t " " 'm"', thaall.m ,,.,1j.. .1.VcI!ag,nTI,. ve,U.urn rername seerr S I Il,.U.e .or the Koran 'Ionjg,er t:h,:lo in the East, and some Maghribi. Korans, written in ,gold on e vellum bave at beauty of their own, even th,O'ugh. they do not conform to the canon, -Mag'tn:ibi ap:peia:rsto the ~.po ctator ~~~~c loaical 1. 1.JJ" -"'-~'IUl-!} for the JIJ'e''i'''V'W'-I:"'"J:~ openin U of 'Fb,,.::.; e than Jl., ~a" 1~ ,~, 'UJ~ initial Cal"' and the enormous endings of the letters, which are- by no means pe'rfe,cdy cir,cu.bll"",look tao, ir'regul at ~Some later matnllJ,script.~ have buttonlike upper len,di'ngs of the verticals and, the pages often umr '.' ,', 'Iide .~.'''.l:!:!;.,l"",]''k,' ch '1'·-·· ,Q",8,_, ie a SP_I el"W'~u_] .e c araerer. Th oecc [",B,yIOn,.D, ns stronatf eol...e d cor S,I ro,n coiors, hU~~f'ev.er)s often str ikingl y attr active; 'the u se 0 f colored inks i for he vowel signs adds to the :p'i{:1ttti~es(qu,e q'u fllit}" of the ]~Hl.g:e" Ex-amples from the 'works, ,of'the Moroccan master a1-Q .·'a:nd,'usj, from the . ~ i, h h "'. - .' ir ,- ' ' , ,i" ' i, .., eart Y nmeteentn century as s own ln, Kh,atlb~, nd Sy,elmaslt.s1 book, a reveal the artistic possibil ities of th is style, ,II Matgb,ribi was. exported 'to 'western Africa, but both in Berna and in Kario (northern :N"ige:lia,)r the letters are much heavier '[han, in. the
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Maghrib proper: in Bornu they rather resemble oblique Kufic letters, whereas in Kano ..hey are very stiff, Besides, the nermative na.skk style beca me more COl1UllO'1ll in West·'· frica as 800;0. as printed re:~i,gitliUS,books were imported from E,gypt and other Middle Eastern. eOUD,' ries.,9 0r ", ost lovers of Islamic callig aphy would bestow the highest praise on the u:hanginJg'!' style as developed :in the Persianate wor~d" A cer .. (""'!III"n' .end toward ext en.d . 'g, the le tte -rs.. ~ ..... the " low er '1..er" 't'· can be feu nd tr lin m ,~.II., " "_ IV' __ in early Persian manuscripts and orr ceramics from the twelfth and th irteen th centuries, This is. a natura] development because the freq_uen,tI'yoccu:rr:"','ng verbal endings. ~t, -i, -st require' a movern ent of the pen. from the :upp'er- right toward a I ,ong" swmgmg melt €nding. The so-called taCliq was used, according 0 Qadi Ahmad. exclusively for chancellery purposes.P' 'That remained so' even after Mir.=,cAIi of "",,"'!'.L. ,·1 .. , '1'111" . ,_'L\...", '''~') 9~ T ,'b'~',., >c,a,e:· ¥'M,iI- "t, all.. .... ...a ,llZ,;, . ·11 d ~l~wa. , ,..,ft'Uttau (",(/ t, if 1f',X,empllary" ,cau,"~,grapJLller ,,' had ~, hl", " ... ,,' regulated the hanging style 'by s,h,a, .in.g' and measuring the letters according [.0 the nules deve oped for the Arabic cursive style, Legends tell hat it dream of Hy'in,g geese, interpreted for hi- by Hazrat cAl i, inspired him to, ' erfect the style se that he can be IC~ .ed" not the' inventor, '.u t the firsrt calligrapher of nasta e'l'iq~ The masters of
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this style still teach their disciples to form certain le ters Ii're a bird's wing or beak, Under the Timurid pr:inJoe' Baysunghur Mirza (d. ,,43,3) the .h:a:ngin,g s,tyh~became the true vehicle for Persian texts, and it is said that all his: orty COUlt calligraphers we',' e Mir~,c,Ali __ alri.zi~', disciples .. Mir-~'AH~s. son, cA.bdu:Hah, Shakarin-Qalam, perfected his father's work, and his style remained so' predoi inant that attempts by some other calligraphers, namely lv aulana "Abdur-Rahrnan Khwariztnii and his tw',o 'sons, to develop a style of their own is harshly 93 cr .,~., d b some 0"rlen'ta 1sources.?? ncized by ,: .. ,NasUl/~liq,. I ae "brjde of the Islamic styles of 'writing/' l14 is certainly

an ideal vehicle

os poetical texts, and th comhination of fine po .. "I d~ ... borc [ers e' -ry WI" ,. itten 1D Ie. eg',aJn t nasie:c~-, ,a.D.~ Id ecora te d. Wit ':. arttsnc b d_ liiq : '"h' "., : _OU,b..·t·I··'· -1" one'. 0 tr e iF,eattest acr ievenn,'.enrs ... ·:f- M":' 'I'!:'m-'~ a 't, ,ts. of th ,---,. . chi ',. ',- t'\ 0 "US IS de , · ~ess y .' .. IS Toward the end of the fifteenth century, pages '\t;l."th pious sayings or with. pithy quatrains 'w'ere as, popular as 'were. smal] oblon,g :£ajiftas, ~ '" .. h" .." .' I an th 'OltogleS:ln wmcrh poems were written In minute elegant nasta Cl',,·:tq'~ y1I Th rreatest m ._·:_~'~~.lta 0' rf ,.,.J-..1 I!i:!t'J'~'e- "are con n ected WI"t' h eastern Iran asters ~u ... ~ _ ~ Sultan-? Ali Mashhadi (d. 924/151'9)r the Sulldn al-KhtJl,~i1i~; (King of v I .. ,Calligraphers) produced dr rine a lifetime -,. of some e"g:hty vears an Ie' "," '" . enormous, number of .[ook~,:, a ,Iy of l\rhic'h are e" tan ,_ m but he was surpassed in elegance by 'Mir-(;Ali Haravi, examples 'of whose hand are found in, most librari,~s and museums, It is said that 'Mif'-cAli was asked about the difference between Sultan-" Ali's and his 0'\\1".-' writing', and answered- 'J "m have blf'GUg. 'r'ht it to perfection, 'but his writ .. in,g bas a :s.pecialfl,aV'or~~""5The' tWOI masters are in a certain way '. ~ ,,- ,rb' '~ .. lb··,' ······ ]'b'B':'! ~~'.' ..,~. compar ....aoreto,t, non 'M:~' 11... an d,In ,u'qJJ,a, ,··· at..aawwarb'" 16 b , t t 'SOM[e'. ,,','.' ',U_~[O . ',-' poets Ibn al-Bawwab compared to them appeared " ike a doorkeeper with his. stick in his hand ." 97 After the dispersion of the Timurid rule' in, Herat, different schools of na:s~taC.tiq developed "inSafavid Iran, where the outstanding master is Mir-clmad, whose pedigree gOles back to Mh~5,CAlt98 ,B'efore Mir.,.clmad, the' name of Mah .iud Nishapuri outshines ,cal,",grap'hers of the first half of the sixteenth century in Iran, He was "the {averite of Shah 'ahmasp, for whom hie wrote a Koran in nas~a'Cliq in 1,5.3,S,; it is one of the ve:ry few specimens! of a whole Koran, in the hanging style, which is not aesthetically wen suited to Arabic .. An Indian poe:says in the-seventeenth century:
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the h~¥daY' of the Mog;hul Empire and in Ottoman Turkey, Turkish ta~liq tends, to a sHg:htJ,y 'wider opening of the fin,al .semicireles of the r"ouna!ed, letters, whereas Indian ,taCliq., Iike Indian nasib often has rather tigh,tl y ~lOS1€d) ,Perfectl y cireu tar endings, did ,1l":'I,.,,,",",,,,, h broken ~ '~" 1el], Out 0:1, ta"'tYJ ""eve'o"pe- s\"f,~ta) tne "b 'k SC'I'lp\~'" W h~'L, 'was f' tl apparently in the D1e,g,mnir.i:g mai'nly used in the chancelleries a,:n,d was molded i'n.to a more elegant for~m by Sha:fic:a. 0£ Herat (tit .l.67'6)~ whose writing leeked "like the tresses of a bride," 1:0;1 '~Ab,du),-Maji,d, of Taliqan (d'.. ] ]85/17'7,3,) 'brou,gLh't it to :P-€f'f€!Cfi'C),11,1'G2 It 'seems 'more than an acc:idlent that this ,8:ty~,e developed ·~U:,ex~ctly the same time when the word ~hi.krt.tt (broken) became one of the key words of Per'IT' P .'.".1- ,:1. hei '('" 'L_ " $lal'n, poetry m JtDuia.,~ ~'agie'S \nw $rli'i~~j ,t "I,eu;, unes thrown, as n ",,'," -,' -, h'-d~-'-- ~ -t',,-, often ,'(' ~, were, "over 'th-',' pa.g,e W!t;IU.OU,t- ap'pare,nnt y1f' .er, ar,e Q ..en rermmseent ne --,',of modern graphics rather than of l~gible script, and thus the !2U:~'S"" '" 11-h d h-·' .' .', 'I K-' " thenc resurt 0'r-'- 't;-- e most sacrec '1 'rneranc script, t,'h earllf ',,'oramc e K ufi, and that 0 f the extreme profane, po etical 5trip~ are' 'quite sim... i~ar::one admire'S them without trying' 11'0 decipher them, The poets ~d 'I·' 'k .'1... ,l".... L ~}l.......... • t hen WOUcl!> , crann that .... UJ;ey wrote thei letters in k(,#)",e-'I • Sl,-t~;!ta in their order to, ,express their' broken hearts' hopeless s,ta;te;,I,0 3 and. one wonders whether Bedil, the most famous :~e,p'r-e',sentativ'eof the involved Indian s't'y~.'en poetry", bad in mind a pag,e of ,;s;hi'ktlSt(j,~, 'with i its lines crossing each o,lther, when he exclaimed:
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There are some .peeuliar developments of the .Arabie script in the east-ern part ef the Islamic world, Among them, is the so.. aUed B·i.., c hari sty,-1 w._hi I:: W:2l'S U8€:c" m ,J.,D!L U1 JR'8l° ,liy' :U.1 t h t! nrteent h' century. di l' di '"'~ CJ::. ar~, e, '-'1lC The rules of Ibn, Muqla were either' ll:p,known to:" or \n,eg'~!ec'l~d,by, its calligr,a,phers,; in, fact, its sJOl-"V~y thickening lQw'e'f' endings and the' flat i5aa are reminiscent 0 f 'M,ag;h'llib:i~ and, ,M in that s'ly'le, th,€ deco,.... .' 1I....J· dB· h ,. ~ ration UJl co 1 f"u mK~;CilTI, t'e:no"er. a goo_ . ~"L~,ari manuscrtpt qurte ',Of 'beautifutlJ,m5 Again" in the (]cn'tr,al[ Asian areas, influences of Mo,n-, '1 'b'~ d ~ ·~!orans,m '" go 'I· ian an d . 'L '., ,i C·.<,~rllnese, ~ '. wfltlll;g are palpable; ane certain K which the I g' endings are strangely stacked, wO'Ld!d deserve more on . '"
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intense 'study. It seems that some of these texts were written with a brush instead, of with a. reedpen: but more resear-ch, has 'to be. [done in this field, Out of the basic s1tyles of Arabic wriiting a great number of d,erivatives developed and are still in, use, The long verticals that 'ate so predominant in Arabic especially invited. 'hie calligraphers 'to invent fascin.ating calligraphic fence's on album pages~ a. technique that probably grew' out of the headings of princely docu ients and that 'were apparently partleularly <common in, ' nd.ia.10i6, Playful inventions were not lacking either = while the use of anim ated letters on metal
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still SQ [even in remote areas such as West Africa." Popular stories also, 0,'0- only the Arabian Nigkts~, show the high appreciation of calligraphy even among 'the illiterate: the famous Turkish master Hafiz Osman ~ had once forgotten his 'p,uT'·-:eand." returning from Istanbul :HL tO Ustudar, paid the ferryman wIth an artisncally wruten UMlW.,'~' Even though .a MusHm ofthe middle or u,p'p,er crass wouldreceive a ge:neral education in '[hie basics of decent writing, it took much more ro be rightly called a khattat (calligrapher), A look at the careers, f4\'milly balckgrotJlnd$:~ and even S{)ID[e of the idiosyncrasies of callig raphers reveals some in+<~~~"ftJn'g·'· acets 0·£ 'M',' slim cu .lture r.- Cerf ... .u "t "__ .. ' ._. tai ,'I.y t .·ere 'we -if; many of whom one could say that "by walking in the valley of calligraphy he became noted and famed," 6, a. formula applicable to, 'ministers '3'fl:d, po ets ~ theol ~8ia:ns ana members [of the' nobility, for an. of whom good handwriting, Of at least enough knowledge to appreciate calligraphy -,was as much part. and parcel of their education as was a knowledge of the Koran and the art of versification. However, in order to be called a lhttljal., long study ~h '" dd by ~ ,. Wlt[_c. a master was require unta'"I-I one g,ra,u,ate_,. ~... recervmg the ijaza (permission), which .g.a,ve the calligraph er the. rig. I·t to, sign his products with h\l$. 011 name (or, in some cases, with a nickname ,given. by the mas: er) by ·writtin.,g kambafn.l fulan (written bY' so-and;!I.

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I'he rufes that had to 'be obeyed in. this process resemble in the main those 'by which the medieval Muslim studied poetry and rnusic, er ' . educed in'''0' Ctl"'·~~m'-~ A' in Sufism a' f>~"'''';~'~ sniritual eh :~~in· v U1llo;,. .11'.1.;;1'.,. ~WiUU'j r' 'was abso utelv necessary lte connect the discipline through genera .. · tions of masters with. the founder 0'1" 'with the most: fa m.ed. writer of his partiaular s yle .. In the field of naskh and its derivatives for the I~ ,. d h ld : ' ..aqut; III T ll'f'.:,ey Sh·ay.K ' H·' d_'UII h kh ,-.am: [earllu;ef perlo':: ." t.1 at wouic b [e Y' .' k t lla of Arnasia and Hafiz Osman for the last three ceamries, In the' nasta (li.q traditier the s.ilsiJa would; .g'o 'back to. Mir C Ali of Tabriz
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Sultan-C',A~.i ofMashhad (ca." 1442=I519) and M:ir-'Ali al-Katib (d.. l5"516J~ in biter )~im:es to' Mir-']mll!d (kil ed t6l!))., 'The imi a:£i1C)!D of models '\<\il"], i.'ttea by these masters was an important part of instruetion: thus, one finds pages with the iuscr~ru,ptiOI'n Mir= C,Ali' aL=,kat4h naqalahu'fulan (transferred 'by s,o~an"d,-s10l.'8 . FOff the earlier centuries w'e are fa,ce:d, with at lack of reliable data, because the biographers-a-especially thfjr.se more remote in, timetended '~Q 'br.irl'g:th,e 'MaS:Ee:fS, in, as close a 'sequence as possible, or to connect them 'wi'th other important bjs.'IDrical pe'rso'n,aHties,~ This IS
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par'ti(U~alr.lyevident in the, case of' Y aqut, 'who is credited wi~h having received a handsome reward from the king: ·of Delhi, Muha;mmad. T'u,g:bl.uq (d" ]3.51), for a copy of Avieenna's S,h'if~, and wilt) is said, to! have been ,a,d,mir-ed ~y the Su,fi master fAbdu~-Q"adiT Gilani (d 1]66)" This would give h~'ma life span of some two hundred ye,ar-s:,,'jg The future calligrapher- needed certain psycho,logic.al characteristics: he should be ':0£ sweee character and of an 'un,assu:mlng'- disposition," as one of the' earliest handbooks says"lO Since 'wl:~i:tin,gwas in many cases the 'writing tofs'alerted 'wo:rd:s.,the calligrapher ~~~dllolid.d not be unclean for a. single hour," 1mas Sultan- eAl i. admen ished the adept ~ hi r_'v:m~u, ep :m8,1 _,e J'1i,ral' a:s'~mtu:r ~' S" -'~' fo,L,_.;..} ,. WIlJ\WJ,C h 'wag"once d "tl ,{",., ,_ :or <t1rt'l ,(if..-tUKttl.·•• 'L,' III his h f f copied by the Ieadin,g master of~,u!l${a/';liq, Mit-=~Imad,~[2 I have met ,. 'h em~u~ir()ll" d lid 'b ca,~gf'3p, h ers or gIl: S W_'JiO '~.... idiereo ,th~e gl~J!,1l-: en texts Oft tQm'-111,: cloths, wll:o·performed gh/usl" the maJor' ritual ablution, every mornin',g 'before g,oing to 'wo'r'k. .A:n:d, if they did not g'o that far, they at least ]18!.,d renew' their 'U)Mil' time and a(T'ain-For "ouritv of writine'10 to r. ~. is purity of the soul," 1,3 and ,this is reflected in 'f:xtern"al purity .as well; to WF'Ete the Koran in a worthy style W3JA1l always the highest g~,aJ. fer a ca11igr,a,phelf,~ and it can 'be touched or recited only ill We' State of ritu 31 pu~it¥ (SlJJ,F'3 56/7' 9)~ The ,perso,n i:nter,e.sted in c:aUigraph'y' had to find a master eo instruct him ~individ ually or in a small ,grollp; Ietter by lener, 14:It was 'by' such constant reh eau:"sing of sin:g:le letters O['h:a:t the script in, the ~a" tern p':;)lrt-of t' ..... Mu~lim' world assum 1 ·i~··..,;w such bea utv ';h-"!11",Q;, I"'Dthe s he v i .I!J.~ _J[I~ Marglll'ib the scribes immediately began to wri1t,e' w'h~,]:ewords and therefore never eame ,(;dO!~H~;to, the. elegance of the eastern sty~,es~as Ibn Khaldun (himself a Tunisian) deplored.t" The pu.p,il then had to spend all day p,ra,etic:ing as Mi"r-c AU says::
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Hafiz Osman used even the moments of rest during the liong and arduous p1iJlgrima,ge '[10 fill sheets of Plat per w.ith his fltIl.£1;q (practice)",'1 faithful to the advice, "Either trim your pen or "\vrite somet i· :g'~,;, Wh,en the Persian master known as Rashida n, ad tiel I,$: €'. d hac been assassmatec d~ ne .' h ,gOI.' te ,,1.'idi m lng atter hi unc Ie M" em mad h d b '~,IS n Ir-I. Jl ran out of paper ~ Finany, he ,vent: to another calligrapher and compl'ained 'that he was forgetting the rules of wri.ting~l9. One therefore understands an eig'h'lee'nth~century calligrapher f rom Lahore who
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Under the master's guidalllee the :nupil, learned b,ow' to sit properly, usually squ,atlting, but also sitting on his heels; the paper 8 iould 'rest. IOn. his ~eft hand or on the knee' iU so' that it is s.lig'htly Hexiblle, because the' rOluDld endings can 'be written more e,a,s,Uy in this 'way than if tne paper is put [on a hoard desk er low table, as had te be done' for la-F'g'€; pieces., ,hen he learned the' m,easureQu:nts of the letters ",Y the dots and eire I,es introduced by Ibn Muqla and had to ~ ,. l 1JJ:'13t lSi, the swmgmg 01f' 1E,e''~ h ~~ h [ong' en d·8"'W, ue thie 1 h'" 11 practice t·,.s[a,'~~ L etters, that are called in Persian dilm.a'1uid:y' (with at train), which means the
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woven on the same loom;' 'since the'y must 'be absolutely equal in size~23'(T __ comparison, of calligraphy to something woven or em,'Ie broidered OCCU,f':s frequently in early Arablic tex.ts~)2,4 1"~A't_daytimes one should practice t.h,~.smal] hand, iluzfl, in the eve,Ii, .:g the large [0 e, jal:r,. n says Sultan-? A:li of Mashha:d,25 wb"o also ell 'UJ m erates tile' reo u iremen ts fOI[" callig-' raphers as bein g.... "in It as black as '[he au th or's fortune [or, rather, "misfortune," b,altht~i'siytiA]I" a :pen
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as the ,k_hatt~ "d,Qlwn/'sc:ri pt' of a beautifu friend ~ ,~ Su~,ta~n~'AH 'y~)'ooge[' compatriot, Mir- ~Ali~ puts It hess epo,e'ti.caiHy 's bur more practically: the c,alligra,p'he~r need's 'five' '[h.illg~a fine tern"....li" " - ,t ','. ,',--' '" ·l·~" -_ anh ,-' --.,' -,od --, md endi "-',,' ,,-, -,-,,', perame n t'-~, .D'!U,erS,1an d' ,10,go, ""'f'-' C3:~19Fa,p'."y" a goo - h',3..11,"- if urance U of pain, and the necessary utensils:
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portant utensil for the calligrapher, '[he instr-g,ment that as an ,early Arab writer says, "introduces the daughters of the 'brain into the b!f:l. ar cnamners-- Ii) 'fI,OO~., '1:....... ;" 2:1 . 1!.... ciassicar'~L.· ~- 11 ~- mbe :'"d' b , ~ dboeks d evote J' : ., ..... ,ong ' ne I ' .. l:il,j~Ulnl-,.'UOU',k_S .. ch atp ~el. t··- th e ,3Jr"t Il) ···,:~'~'n, CI lln,. ILr~111. .. [~g_'~e Fee, '_".',n ~ , T1!...I··_:_ of Cllly P,[D '. ,'-. ,dc' -'""'0' lrnmii .., 1f-b "" ',-,' d" 'p' e 2.8: JUl,~ ~. s~'_ ~ -, 0~ 11 ,',,", -", ,,', ,'f.. ,1L~[g" uualitv carne ,f;- .. , 'W",>,,-''C~tc,.," c-d·l ~ "Jrg..t;.",~,~u;;:;::r.,w,~~ from hest qU,a!lJI~l ',' from,_,_ asn ann ~h~ ,pens o e"SJ ....~.,' A.mY} and Egy pt. 2-Q Pe~~'~cypres,se$ i:n the garden of kDowled.pe'~·n,Q-w'er~' often used 41.6 nresents for- v:i:zi'e1r& and scribes, accom p~~n':" bv V;iQ!,~;fO~~ that "'liCt"'\n~d~l'~c'r.lii" '11-'0" the eleeant B·agh"d-'''Jlld~':;.rJiI'lf1j :a,,,,,"'; ',iI ied ,~'. -'i/'L"It:d,!i;;~,'· d ",4i ~v..iI,' _('~;~.~ u ..• e '. ',;:;pJ,~,.I!,,- ... ';style, might ,d,escrib€; 'lih,€:beauty of the scribe' 'who 'wars to! use t:h:em,,3' or 'might contain unusual comparisons to praise the miraculous thing, h ~.~ ,~ -',',''_ i: 'II,?:, 1Jr-.. : -: ',d!~~ '~,-',;r'[l--i, ht "-_!" ,- ~,-. .I. ':' \\t" ~se We.I,J!" [ is ,~lg;JRIJ,t" am ~ nose importance--r' ~i, "h·, : -,v" y,. IanI,d,.' wnose is ea ~ .' ' use is immense,' ~~ $:u,cn, ,pe'ns, belonged to th e items treasured even in (hue pala(:lf's, of the kings:: '~he ,,:'atimid caJ~~JP:h l-Mustansir 'had, boxes 'fiU,eq, \with all a kinds of :pens~among them SOlU1f;' '~h,a.t had been used. b,y Ibn M'lulla and Ibn al-Bawwah~~:i And a pen found at a noted calligrapher's tomb might iin,duce ,3, young man to rum to the art of writing,~3'4! h cai 19rap.[I,er mig" ~,-, 1,-- rat e cases, tne-',, ~'l-l"'~ - , ----: ,-'" -'h' t use at very nne steer ,pe.D. or a n . qaill, bu it these are exceptions that the biographers note dO\V'fi carefuU,y ~ In early manuscripts fr-om India and=-as far as -'OQ)f' can see S,5, from Censral Asia, the ealligraphv was 1€:xe'CllJted <wit'h a brush, 816 Since the ,~i'["yle of writin,g' depends largely on th.. angle at which e [he pie~n, cut and, the rarti,'Q betw'If!e:n, '[he- two sides of the shagqJ~ the is, ~,_, --,~ .-~;ae ,,"mcisson ma d" m 'Ith,e m,t'id': dL or t. e ,-,.' (-: ~- enc .. .' ~."-:,-,- master 'L.,3!d'_ hi ,~, t - -JJ,e' .'"'~f' ':'h·- pen $ ..,-~d , e'v,erf . Jill IS special wa'y' of' trimming his :p,eo.. ,1 The' .plenknif:f' 'was often beauti~
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fully ornameated, especially in Or-Ulman Turkey, and 'was cherished 'by 'trou::: masters, zdJthough it is, as a. tenth-century ,poet claims "iangry with the p~.,ta/lYlll and hurts ~Il't,',.~.:S 'he cuttine W·~,!I;2l done An [a, smlaJI,IJ.: plate .:. ~,'n -,.,I"~' .Ir~,...; :·:I_~..' ~D~ .,_~_,",~~ yJ. .:_,~J:lLl'~' , ,of i.V;()fY or tortoise shell or similar hard ~'polishable material 'wh'ic:h was at 'the mOISt 10 em long and S em broad, .. 9 3 Once the pen was. properly trimmed, the calligrapher had 110 turn to the preparation'·, ~f': th a ';;'n'I"'" ,a.· .'U, "m:' -0..'" m'," st_'el'S 'b~"-'V e ,w,e,. :rec ,,",lp es and .. ' '....,y ,. Ga.S ->". .c!ft· ... ' . ut",'u ,3' 1.8. for ~i-n,'~~ '·M.'··A'·t1l...·~·d,-;-1~~·-fc··'~.,~,,·',,"d'-1 " ·b)II·:' In ,~~anuU,w ur U.Il,a.l(;. does not fade " ve,,;J Jl.UJ ;S UI.JLlel COnS,[. era.J!y ~, n .Istat lh., '~II some calligraphers wo\),ld carefully collect the lampblack that'! cOV'= ·' ~re on ., .... ·'·,·d-:··'-'II. \' ereed· ,*,'h,.·,,··::'III·m:., tamps : In th,._-~·S':'·"lll·.:c··· .. "' .... .:.. mosq.ue an .. setnee.411 'In certain me: -,u~,e.ymLa.nlye ' corners of its walls; thus, not nnJ:y was the raw' materia] fc,r their ink of good qu.2ll1ity, 'bU'E it also carried rhe bttralu$ of the mOls'q'u,e with it r-·"' "1' r~ -:,., :.. ,4J@\ A~" · r _ x n,g tne soot WI hi rae eothei '~"'~ di ,'. th -. :".- was --,.llJ;e._ mixi 'n io'h,:, . 0 er mgre "I rents, nIe In,~. "~ , -. . put, " sma l'~ quannnes, into t h...J u,a.~t:j uhe i k,well, an item that has III It IIJe e In inspired Arabic, Persian ~an d 'Turkish poets for about a thousand ,- .•- . r.:tJ, id~'~ ',,,1: .. , . '!lid , ilver -. . . y~~u·s,. p:'..recious m 'k-' $,1ta d·j,:i;.orten l.n!ta~1wnn go,!!! I or- st 'Ii er, -sqn,ar,e . .ancs, .'I~ ro ), d... '1,:/iIIi'~~ wood \,~.aer also .if~·· 0= rouna, 0 merar or .preclo'lus WyO. rlatei ,,:11:,-, o pcu..!,~"l:~'~';) ce am , were used as gifts, ~~TllUS,~ Ibn ar-Rumi in the late ninth century says in a verse about 3. ti'iwiit· rnade of ebonj' with, !go'[d,inlay that he presented to som,Eo,ne': .
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W'e .send you t-he mother of wishes a .__~ '__' i~~'f)'r" nezro w"· ·m·· of nobl ~. ,t·_ n ,d· '~f o.l'~ U ~.\
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who, has decorated herself with yellow, for 'the ne'gro likes to wear yellow dresses; 4i31 " ~:":.''''''cemn rres sate ~ at T-IU r~JSll'ilwr net Jln.SC ribed 0. n a 'k,O¥ W II ..· later..a ' l.. ,,"·,.~ ~"··:t,lir ". ..... vith .. seven rrr e. rhr ee' i:n.kw',e:n'S that contained variou s eoiors that they represented "my heart's blood., the smoke of my heart, and 'm~y black fortune." 44· The calligrap,'hc:r would sometimes h,an,g' the inkwell Over his l~'ft ,,'.... ..' na "~'to .. ,.': .. 11'~k'-. -..-'"" .:~--.-;: at ~,.e ". k ',..4,5 - ate arm B'D th ,t i, was, SWl·"n'gJn'g,. 1.1.e ear rIngs, at 'fh'" u,e(_·;:c,. ]. .n '1' i(Lit · . ,~i r-tunes connbi "J! pencases ,a,n~_~. 'I ... ",'n-, mneo In,K.weU,S·:, . , - ""d" _,€!'. o· metal am d , orten mae . "f '.. . .. ..Co·, decorated with verses such arsthe 'OResJust quoted, carne into more common use, The i:flk'w,c;n was certainly as important ;;.0 the fi,ed,d, of (::a.U.i.gra:p'hy "as ,a kinrg on biij throne"!'; ~6 -and "it could be described as "th e nave 10:£ the Khoranese m usk deer not only because its con.' . ' ." -..,.] d tents were lJ....~ 'rn, a's mus k 1.1..... a,~,SIO because It was recommenued, I;,i~a;('~ .',~uut 1i . from... the d "'JliV~ of al-Ah: WaW 1 ... the earlvY n,,~n_·· cei in nintb Ce,n!lJUry~0 pU.. so m····· ,'t·.. '. cd., .. ~.~U.. e
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placed in. the inkwell tin prevent the ink from flowing too abundantly), Alludi.ng to the liq:a, a seven eenth-century poe[ could say:

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into the liqa (i,e, ,. the 'piece of cot ton or raw silk that is

10. this connection, a very strange story is told about Ibn :a~-;Lu.ca'ybiya.:, one ,of the leading masters in the 1 tie' twelfth century '"rho 'was, una e1qualed in, his art in. E,gypt~Hie' was l-f 'iting a cOPY' of th e Koran for Sultan Saladin 'on a c~):~,d., ~loudY' d,ay and, SiO he tells:
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e ~ ith B.erere me there was, a b orazrer Wlt} inkstand had become hard, and Mhad 1\.., , '''' , '. blat I (au ld , nave 'put it into llt~ut .1, [h
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f .' '. h·" nre In It; tne ~f.qa '" the In h no 'water close at hand so ,. t h.ere was a A k 0 fI wme ;-,as,t. before me, and I pou'fleld some of it into the inkwell. 'Then I wrote ',\lith it one page of '[he Koran CO,P:" and 'warmed it on t te brazier so ilia :it. mig':h·t dry up" And .a spark s.prang 'u,p and burned '.hie written script complet;ely without le.av1'ng anything of the PJaper~ I was frightened, ,go'tup and washed.the inkwell and the 'pens, p.u't new in.k into it, and asked GOld for fOF'g i:v e-

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'"d ll]" h t £ ..:I'.... .. A ,3;, 8l: _e.ILl.g, on t he i ~ _·8 .e importance ot t h e aa~wdt;!, one may mention th .2.t a - .rea.' , Y IJJ le,ar.l!Y ersran poetry th -. connection bet ',',en,. '"awa~ ""1' -- , ,,'1 ,,' E , JU.e .-"' etwe ', and [daw'iat (foct I .ne) was made, a connection that is achieved by addr., t··11.., ,,~ 1:;.r'f J .. "~,,. ," hi h ~-h'-" -- ,...it :"~h '1-', ing a. m U1J. U strot ke re I.J,e .'a~:~l 0 I Utama",'"' W, ..,ItC Ie· I.a.0g-es l I 1I1!L:u a. ~am" :50 . "Th m k '. ~ fh " "' '. _ (e' ". cstan d. is, one-tn1)..... d 01- the l. rmng, t h pen, one-t h'. d anid (r, -',e :·If,. ;'. the hand, one-third," says at tenth-cen ury handbook for. secretaries~'~][But after preparing the pens and the 'ink, the paper too had '[[0 be speeially treated, Paper manufacmring was introduced into the Arab wO;t:~.,d, after 75,:_", and. paper was one of the main rea= sons fOE the development of'orna .ental cursive handwritinsr. In l' Ie ear y days, paper from Samarqand and Syria was considered to be
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ermills, some of which were in India (Daulatabadi, Adilshahi, and "'~ --,·L, ihi - .. ' ,,-,. ".. - .-~,- ".... --, .. b ., -Nuzamsnar I p,aper are'.-mentioned ,...JI .. ,n "~'h cc.. - ith.•oentury)., ,5,,3 C'-'- loa tne ntteent
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~..I ilk di f' pr,ovtu,e, d , su .• 'pa'pe'r., W:hi h was usee In. T-" .lei rmur "d-days :"or b h d s bot ..OCuments and Korans~54 But aU papers, 'whatever their quality, were made from ra.gs., Khaqani, in thee mid-twel th century, s:k]].fHIy alludes to 'the two fD 0S't e~qui8ite ingredients for roy-al chancelleries when he' claims, :\n,a panegyric 'poem for therShah of the two, Iraqs'' for his document (ta,Tt.qiC).~
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and the meteor an Egyptian ,p,en.55

A:fte- .sel[ecting the right quality of paper, '[he ca'iligrap'her had to cover it care ully with analr; a mixture of rice pow'dell", starch, quincJ€ kernels, along with e,gg 'w'h,ite and, orher ingredients; this mixture 'was. then pressed until it was incorporatec into the paper" towhich it gave a smooth, shiny surface [OlD which the pen could glide e.asimy,,56 Thus, when Kalim sings about a s :ar~p sworn:
When the pap1eJ]", receives a, letter from the description of [he' sword, paper ,a.nd,alta". fan apart! 501 The 'next step 'was, to burnish the pa.,-: er with a piece of stone, preferably an, agate, to remove all unevenness from it; and finally, the c,aUigraph[er put tile masl::ar' between W'[O sheets of pape .' ' he maslar consists of fine.' silken threads fixed on at frame of cardboard and serves as a ruler. Two pages a11a time lean, be marked ,vith, delscate l~ ..58 Ines \~·; In, case the ealligrapher wanted to create' a special arrangement of words in so... called ,Fughrii shape, he woul[d, draw a model that was then fixed on the' paper with :fin:e needles, thus producing seqi ences of dolts, llh'I'OlLl,gh whie ,. c031,dust was usually rubbed for fine outlines, a.io[fi,gwhich the 'h,g-nre could then be executed, The same process was us ed for IJ3l',-g'e rchitectural inscriptions, a some models of which 'w1e'represerved for. a long tim,tB,,;5'9i. After this preliminary wors, the calligrapher migh'. begin to' write a, sacred sentence or a beautiful p,oem~ But until h,eirea,f;,h,edth~s point, he .had, to fill page after page [or.wooden slate after slate with 1Il4Shq (practice), which had. 'to be 'washed off again and again, (Ori ... ental ink, is solu bl e in 'water) ~IOn1y the exercise sheets of the gre'a.1t
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he certainly reaches the 'he:ig':h,t of hyperbole.

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permitted '£,0, sign with mtahaqahu (he practiced ill-at least, that '.' , ",' '1.~ 61 was ...-1 cusrom In, 'Tiu.rKey~ tile. :.*" _ ''',,~~,:,_ Eve'A the most accomplished calligrapher 'wo;uld, sometimes delete pa,g,c'$from his writings in, 'C3Sle the calligraphy was not absolutely '.' ,(~-1rl"-d .' tl.,--~ i·~'~\,'" ,",-'",- ,- ,.1 awsess: , , h --'.' -,-, taken ft" '~II' .r?"~ 8U'O' pag'e~ca~" if: mUnr1;ra}..; ,~,,, ,1.., '.' out) were' ,again, ,['QI"'" ·· ,'.ed U u re ','," .",'; ad '~"""'~ ma ae 10,'l,0 '.'.' albr 1eete- , L.. V the master So anrrm tel S an d ,._' .',~" ,_', ,',' d ... ,"''~i1:'" an ai ·um" ,I; ~ sometimes ~ 0:' as m t h e C3:S,f; 10'f H 6. ·,·,g;w,,a:Il,. -~:a'_",_z Wh,il.e practicing, the calligrapher was not supplosed· '[0 :H£[ any'IS 'It:hifig h.eat~v'y in order to protect his hands .. ,2 One i-s therefoF~e' 8Ul·,'" prised to find that at :m,ast.er Iike Shaykh Hamd ullah (d. 1519) was an excellent sportsman: :0.01[: only was he' a g:oo,d swimmer who some'. b nOIS:pOru,s., carry'ullg hi "'r[t)~n,rImple'meD'ts between '. ...' ;;. 1 nmes swam tne D' .:'11$ I .. 1k.,,", teeth uU ~ h p~! "tel'S "h'" a,'Ib'ilr!· ']'1'U te COnte nJll~S ~e~" ~ 1-." 11" .. e' .-,: ".- 'U e'd' ln, ~.~,;II:... ," "" '.'68 "~ r,:h, ~C~. ,. " .'~,,- fll&J;llJ,ery IS -:[ .~~l!. ~ tration on the target W'U a sp,iritual exerci$"e'., strengthening both his, e'y,eand his! mind, for this ~TU.1y'mysti~,al coneen'u~;atio~nis at the' heart of ad,Hgra:phJl; as of eve~y 'It:F'UC art, Typical of 'Ith:is,attitude is the storv of the ,G3Jli~'3lp'h,erin Tabria yw:li'oldid not even notice the terribl~ eart'h1q,uake°'in t'h.~ cit~ because hie, s,ifting in a :Ittle basement, was, so engrossed :iu. prIDd,u,ci'ng a ,a,a.-wleg,s 'waw,; $li After fin.ishin 0" the ~,U .1In ~, -~'l 14 ~ doeumen if b ~o· '0':' .of' ~ b' ~o:~ :1" ..V-·.·11.. "l'.-!liw~, III . ~~ ;1 1·(O"f ,g:pohv U\L _ -t,,. .'_ or poem, the s~ribe'w.a~gsup'· ·p··rosoo, tn but some s.ap:d 011. it, which 'was
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OlQspilC.EOU:S.6S '.. t' ,As in an, traditienal Islamic sciences, the disciple 'CQuJLd. :i1:u,ally reeeive his, ijitztj~ that is" ~~e' attained the ;high'l!'s~~. fit by the per:mis 6'& h 'fa sion t,o sj,g,ll 'with 4~t{lbtih~1.l"~ wr'fit-e i~).,6'T My o'wn teaeherin fi(lS,taC,lfq {h,e
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s,aid~, "By imita:tin,g a. piece by Mir=;~lm!aDd""I received 'my icali~/~(t.8''00 'wri't·,Qm Y"~ <"Ziln,..J: to teach ""$t It:' was also p--'~Iss,ible to receive an -to _. . ijam ta6\a~'Tl (for the sake of blessing) from a. mastiff" whom 'OAe
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venerated but, with whom one head not studied, after ha.vin.g ,gained, al formal ~ijijza from a first D\,a$ter,,{;9 The Sufi practice of 'rec~eiving' the patched frock from one's own master, '(he s.ntJ/JM at-tlJ.1,b~'J(j" arid then. sometimes addin g to it the khi'''''(Ja~i ,.~bt:t1"'rfik from a nether master hAIJ1/edia~ely cunles to mind, . The ij'tDrt could have a. caveat or put some stipulations on the recipien t, as in a document of 1.198/17"'!i where the teacher writes: Under the condition that he not divide a single word to;wrire it on two lines, and that he a.lw:ay,s: wri'[,e;, the formula "God bless him? and give him peace' a,fler' mentioning the 'noble name of the Prophet, and that he not place himself h,augh;~Hy above his, colleagues, I give him permission to write: the 'l«Jj,ia_l}a. "71 -ha rne i. ... t.' ,.,c - - "I]f- h -~ -'~Id .. - '11 ," - 'dl 1'1)' ... I," seems t .'dt .ow - ,~t'UV,al,or- a cat J:gra,pl', er cnu~,-, 'b'e restnctee t cert - ,' fain, :ki:n:ds, 'Of wri tim, g fee.g~,d,Gc;or8tiv e p2,ges,~1)·i"lyrtS,. Oil" boo ks) ~ 'bu:'[ :it ld 'II i lid , k'" d 0.'f ca:,'w.l'gr.a.p,lf~,yn th speciat 'II sty.~le lli 'l.," . ] C:OY,t.:'_ also 'be vau ~ f or e"lc:ry 'JD i re that the' new'~y graduated calligrapher would write .. Thus, tombstones are signed as early ,IS in, eig:b;'[ll,-It1'entul]" .E,gypt arid also much later in Istanbul or Thatta: the ,/taiaba g'l\l',es important information alU:'IQ[ 'the artists who sketched and executed them. ""/1 Sine,le' the ij~(J/ W'~S F'atre1ly granted" the friends 0 f the g'fadu"atitl,g 11.. '~ "",",...:] - .. '~ h t: e call~ ~gra:pl1.f;r sometimes ,compos,eu p'oet~callcnroaograms for t bOO res.. ~,.1.S, , rive day EU1:di praised his skill in dr'aw~in~gn, I(JJij "';w,bb:b, resembles the a beloved's cypress-like stature, 'w~ith w'hith aU, other letters are in
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'm'a···".~· 'L....:-"iii"·m':,ng. ~:I blind ~Jr.wUJll, ILI,/ thereaft ,~r 1G I·~jn'·"'~. ~~ ~1f-,~~lf:~v 1\,s,in. other 'arts and' ,er,afts; the future calligrapher usuall y blegan h 'RI.,. M· ." - C.·I' ....-'.. ·dl vegan t, th ~ ,C'-,";, -'t,.t"' .' 'i[' ,-~, . ,l.lS ~;ratlnln,g ,e·a;.f,!lJ.Y,..'..· ,I.r- .:ma·, 'lJ."., ,- ,; '--, at c ··.'e. .tgc OJ[ ellg~l, 01hi ers atIt' nine or so; and some particularly gifted, caUi:gTa:p'he'Ts received their ijtJm· at the age of thirteen, seventeen, or ·eirgh.te'e·n.,. The normal .a.g·e range" however, seems '['0 have been in the twenties, That the aisci~, pline W'3.S hard is eviden t frorn 'M'u:s\taqim1:~ad's frequen t allusions to e ;l;1Il.~..l:.'" -... ,.1!.. ... - ... , ---,'-'~ rkish ..". ',. th ~tUlY.,ylftg 1Jj,Du,fJ" tn'.Ie master 11 roo" as rn the T-'ursas verse' '.' ia t tne .. . 1'-: ' ·111:.'~c' '--·h·" comp,a1. es Ga,~,l[grap..y I ~'tmi.:r 1·'· ~~J~." '('(',n chickr ','s) "but ", the "etl~eQrt,ll'O.. ~ ucspeasj, GIl. In 1 .e,-- sst -~, , to -- a.~ in arts mas ;·er s, m €lU iFh- iIl;'h llll.,OIliU ros En') w:~rx.,.n 78 A" Lie ';w n ,. "-"b,nl"'=n ~'c m other a -.!.q .. 11,'1 • ., -:an d. era f' ,particU,I;arl¥' :mu:sico" ita,·l'~·' b was co~nne'(te.' d 'W]Jt h cer .. ts, w.il'rapOJY tain families ..Even In ea.F,:[Y eemuries the scribes of the dfWdn ~p:p,.a:r~ endv in hi' erit ed bot 1,.. thei T skillJl;i:) an...3 t~' ~ll"r 0·' ,~,~.hrou gh g:enera . ~,c;c' -~',l "J,,..,. ,~.' uiU~.I, ,_- ~ ~- . U IJI~ ·.<·.1r,~11. t <t~IO~' on w'_'(_.:0 ''.'h;· e ~ ~~l, in an 'at ca for 0-" f the l·b-· 'W' 'ah b .Jl~,a. " 1'!Ii'19 In Ibn €:~ mile :r_~~, " _-.' :Mllqla 's case, too, b is father and. brother were noted calllgraphers. .A'Iook at the biographies suffices [,0 :prove that families of caU,igr,a.~ phers remained preminent for generadons, and not ral"'ely' ,R partieular'[y 'gift'f1d discip~.'e' was .:mratrled to the. master's daughter to continue th,e family 'pr,bfe,ssio;n" This was true in Turkey and Iran as ·wlel~. in Sin.'d.; an,d was pro,b1abi[Y so [II ether countries also, as i'. .f.' ,~ it. 111'~o' .T'.-h'-,I.IS, .Iam.l~"y JJlo'e:ige a·1:..··.. .a.cc'oun.~~ror the f:· ct rnat one 'fi-'I' .ds a con so ,,~. -'..-. it"" sr, --"'.', ..e ·nc. ~'lr.· '.'.' _D "'S' siderable number of women in the c,aJB,gra.:p;h.·ic ttaudi:tilon~ l:n .hie Pr.·o:pb:et"'s" r.im.e ,tthere \V·ere wctmen. ~kin;ed in. writing~. i:nc,)udin.g oin.e of Mu·h.a!.'mm,ad.~s,w:iov,es, an.~.la.t,e1.'" slaNe-girl scribes 8o'metimes ,ac'hieved. impo''Fta'nt p·ositio:ns d,e'l~l:piteL rese:rv;a;l:i'ODS ~voic:ed by the ortru:odo"x. 8~' T'h,C2' 'poets of medieva~ B,aghdad enjoy~d de~s,(ri.b·in.S"the' lcharming girM ~8C'ribe 'wh,os,e' ,"'n:'k.,looked like, :her :h,air) ·\iV:h.oJse comrp~,exilon was as" white aD.d. s.o~t as h.er paper! wh·ose e',r~la$:b,es Tes,embled. pe'TIIJ.s.'i.8:1 B'\J'[ thE oo·le of th,e' WO:Dlen can.i~gr.a.ph,en w,ag 'rDtlf'f:' impo,rtan.t th:an s,uoch
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' ld lea b ,~." fh 1 ~ 1ittIe' verses WOU~::".I '1 d us tobeneve, 0' : ·,fte 0,'1_tne leac ~ln,g ca 11 ,lgra.... phers in the Mid,die Ages, who formed a '[ink between Ibn al... Baww,ab
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.3,D d Y'" bh k ib \:: 57'4"-1 d' "aq'ut~, w;as' [z' ay:na.' S"'I,llh d .a a1 ...tau ,a ld ,.,,,_,':. " ["7'' 8:'' )'" M'" .... mal, S , Jr C.-I ' d:augl:rterCaubarshad was, at n:otf',d calligrapher: ,sto,d if emperors are celebrated as good masters [of the craft, p incesses did not [a:g behind, Foremost are the names of Shah Ismalci :'5 Idau,ghter ~u~ and Auhi Z b unrusa, VI ':0 not onry practice d three "h ~ ., h rangze b' g.lJil,e::'I, aug:~ter, ,~',e,' ··,S ~;C:' d d' c styles, of cal1i~ap:hY' but was 11 patroness 'of poets, SiC aolars, and calligraphers.83 The Lady Malik,a. Jah,an,. whose copy of the Koran, in unusual] y bold" co' 0·I":£u1 letters is pr-eserved in, the Chester Beatty Library, may~ be 'the' accomplished wife of Sultan Ibrahim II C Adilshah of Bijiap:u\f (r, .l5,80=16,26)~ although 3,0 attributio'D of this Koran to a. later period seems more like I.y,.84, In "he, eightee uh and nineteenth centuries a number of Turkish women are known to have wntten Sit) well that their \vritings stU] adorn m,osq'u1es and t8ftko' in Istanbul, Dine of them received he, ijiiza before reaching puberty in ]69/17'56 and produced a model 'book of calligraphy at the age of twelve ...Her ,aza by the w,ell,-known master Mehmet Ras,oo Efendi is an, interesting piece of Arabic litera ure .. ,5 The biographies of some' 8 of' be, women calligraphers reveal, once "more' the close relationship between c,aUigra~p'hy and religio'n,~ One of these women. separated ., . 11,£, f''-",' h '-"-'".." I, III II,.-era~e," US,., an. d d'" evo,.te " h"erseJJ.., 'to' ':,.', "'It,!lng {H'JUS,. om '..er rn:"h,' "111"'+, ..... ~ , h "b - '~~.',. ..', ,', e. _.,', wr.l ., ,L":" - , descriptions of the Prophet, and considered the nine l)iJ~ she had produced as. a subs itute for children, :n,6:piD,g '. at they 'WO'_Id 1'0'_ ' ._' .dI .. ..'_JLIJ,er" _ " terce ..,'f; ,,0][" 1!.... - O'D. D'·ooms. '(I', 66 A' ,. -,' h-" YOU,D,g ,W,I, ,o,w jomeed- a eu ,6' ,ay,. 'n'o1t :"e:r ",' ..... idow ie .,~ . " order and excelled in copying ,Kor,ans~,a;'t " . Here again, an important aspect of the calligraphic tradition becern ,..:.;,c evid e n t ~ m amv ma ster iI;!'~rpi:'p, 1I"'~n" alm . IO~lit' every fa'm 'O'U altly J, '.;_. ~ " J' ., ~ ligrapher in Ottoman 'I urkey=-were i'n, one '\vay orr the other connecsed with a Sufi order, Even in earlier Persian sources one' can read that this or that master lied, a dervishlfke life or walked around .m ,.. £ It gown, 1 k..::>. a. S' fi'- ~ y."., aq,u,I't:"· .amous d ,~,.:.. }., 'Y"I-h ya '.",'...:.- -fl",''" .... a, ,_e.II. , ....".'., .].~ • .:.U.I ;; ... . ", "",' .,--.:- c llSCIpIC, . ar .'S ,S as eu bore his SlLrrname' with fum rigb,t,8'$, as. did, Pir C Ali as-Sufi, Nearly a century before' as, this latter master, the gr,eat theoretician o.f the' school of ,Ibn vArabi , C Abdul ..Karim,~" J' - (d,,.ea. ,. 1408~- w~aspraised .. ~I... \ ,rili . '" -" -' -~. ' ".. ,_ " "1.,· - '- ,'.. -- ~ for his most elegant handwriting ..Bi9 One also] has '00 remember that ,
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(Sultan ,cAli of ·M.ashllad;. Shaykh Ham,d.'uUah)'9t(J' who ind:i .. · h L, , In hich d '11 cated , to tnem tne d· directron " W'Nile! 1nO neve ' lOP h '. styte, neir I:n Turkey t.. e development of ca ligraphy is particularly conr nected 'with the Mev'~,'eviorder, which played such an impncrtarnt role in the gr'()i\'\rt of music and 'poetry in the Ottoman Empire .. ,1 How ... 9 , ever, OD\e' fjrn,d.s rnemb T:S of almost all the other orders) including he P aqshbandiyya, some- of whose members excelled as calligraphers in Timurid Herat as w,eU as, in Ottoman Turke y.·92, Mustaqimzade, himself a devout Naqshbandi, of course highlights the contributions of his, order to the development of calligraphy, The Ska:cbaniyya~ Qa.,diriyya, Sunbuliyya, Khalvatiyya, and, jalvaltiyya are all represented in the biographies; '9'3., and, whether the calligrapher was a full member of~ 10 ~ only loosely affiliated with the order, as. is so often the case wi h Muslim f aternities, 'his inspiration ce tainly came from 'these religious centers. Sufi tendencies manifested themselves :in 'the large .', mber of fine invocations of Sufi sain Sr, usually in ,,~gnrd shape, and in calligraphic pictures with reHgioD.S, content .. The painter-calligraphers ,0 the Bektashi order must be es oecially .. h" . Th 11 f jUutL mennone d In trns connecno ,1"le " last gr~at master 0', th'''''''~' h an'd ',. rtaslh in .. urkey, (·A.ziz Rif~.\,ci from Trabzon {l87'2-1'9'34) ~became' a follower of the well ...known spiritual leader Kenan Rifa.C.i in 1907; after W,om~U.d I be wa $( invited ,o,gy:pt by' King' Fuad, for Wh'CHD War he wrote a Koran in six months, Staying' in Egyp,t during the heyday of Kemal Ataturk's reforms, he bee: .,'ne the true revive]! of the mod€I"m Egyp'tj an sc hool of lela ssical calligraphy ~'!i.4. aditi hS oe 0" JU.8t as t.e eu fi trai I son seems to' lJ....·m.., an. almost IR'legra 1 part t of th.. life of calligraphers, 'many of tnem were also poets~'95 The great ... e · est masters .ind.ulged. in rh¥~ming exercises to teach their disciples some secrets of the craft, as il became popular from Ibn a]...Bawwah's time Ofi.ward~96The' most tarnous examples in ( ,e Persian tradition are the instructive verses by $ultan;ooC'Ali; 9l'l' Mir-" A.li,!<lS and their compatriot and contemporary, M~j:nu·nof H'er:at~9'9ITo be ,S re, W nat they produced was nlQrtgreaa poetry but practic;aJ. verse .. Sometimes their lines reflect a ·state of disappointment or unhappiness, ·W.hen a Persian caU.igraph'er ofthe [ate seventeenth century describes how, HOu'£. of ove for the script he wanted to take: 'to, his bosom the yOU·D.g bride of 'Hope and final 'Y discovered Khidr
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that in this 'field oil die-privation nobody can open the knot of fortune with the strength. of [his]

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hie rakes up' an idea that had been commonplace with writers from early times onward .. Thus complained the Arabic poet "Abdullah ib," Sarah (a ~!S 1511:121 ) ::

CAli Efendi, author of the ManAqib-i lid,inarvaran, quotes an. Arabic verse that ~w\as pparently popu~af"enoagh to be engraved on at Ieast a one 'in kwell: 1'~12 Don't think that writing ha,d made me happy, and [I tere '\V3S no generosity of the hand of H atim at-Ta'i, I need only orne Olin.g', namle~,ythe g,hif[ing 10£ the do'. from 'the Iih to '[he t. lIl~a That means that instead of .khat,. (script), he needs hazx: (forr-.!:' tune), This pun, was used six " undred years, before him. by Kushajim., so ibe. and 'poet at the Hamdanid court in Aleppo, who says about 'himself that he
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And rnore than one good ,calligrapher must have felt mike the sixreenth-centnry Ottoman master Ishaq Qaramanli" who one day ':211'"-' ried 'with .him a highly decorated Koran 'written '. y Yaqut's ·d.jscip~.e c a ,. vh -.:, storr .', esti . ated .. ··h' ,-.. A·-·.. h un W nc a. cus orner es imate . 110 'Ill... . l-vom.1 ,6.",.u :"'O aqcna; bt t" rg, oe ··· .. orth.. ' no' . when he saw that the same' person bought a strong donkey (;0 10,.000 aqGha~, hi€,gave up calligraphy and wen into retireme rt ...OS l
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calligrapher), Some of the n would boast of their unusual talents, such as the not very modest M'~]r-cIm,ald, who addressed himself with
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He alludes with d' and l to, the tresses, wi'~h,ali! to the stature, More t, ~ '1- .. ~ '}" ou tre'" t hsan ttus per,f".ecu y ciassicar~ V'eT'Sle IS uh I,e Ie_aim, 0'f"- a T''UJ"1L h ' 'I illS, calligrapher who announced in verse that he, be'ariin,g the si;x pens stvles) ,.'" h,~, nan J:ilr', , ild -,,,, rear -- - -,', " ,', i.e., s y. es: 1.8 ,,11$, ha 'd; nse a 1"0,"d'- WOU.Il. .. :11.0 ... £, '. even a. seven ... " headed dragQn.:i€J1 Olther masters 'were t ae subject of adJ. iring verses in 'w:hich their , unsurpassable art was praised, "and someone like C Abdur Rashid Daylami e'~Rashida"), 'who :fior along time served at Sh~,hj:a.h}(il;n's, .. court, would elegantly calligraph such verses written i'n, . is hono~~and then return the pages to the aut ors. U)8 From a cursory glance 'thrQ,ugb.the lbiogra'prh'ie.:s it would seem that the development. of a. t::,alJ.i\graphiccareer was rather uniform; grow., .. ,. '~1' h 11 mg 'tIp l'n an mtehectua '. environment, t re you,ng peo'.pl!l.e stu,d d,J'le, .Ct nd t'h' ith --3' '0'1, I!en W l[ith ii'"A11 't" ives=-anc '" l:eD, en :,ef' ItTII" ad t, go 'if .. hei nver ihoodrI as '. reia -,0' - ai n" tur ur 'II" -11 '.' diep en d ent .or court call~"l;gr,.apers Of J(H'neQ some pracncat pt'OJL esIll,' ht ""....:1, ."~ C' In.''' . •. sion, In Or. ternan Turkey after about 15,00 talented YOlun.,g men from II] '., ',,- " uld ocs "b ............ th ", art " lour"'''h'' ,~h parts 0' ',ct e ,country W'OU,Jr: "-,ck to Istanou m wnere _.e ,'", .. " ' ~h d d ',1 ~ IS,,' e. unc er It ie b nenevotenr ,pa't.ronag'e ,Otf"':L su'}tan.. tne s-t!o receive tihei err trai ning in calligraphy, 'Many 'wrou,ld, later. 'be ,em:p,lolyed as teachers ';;'li"il the imperial ch 0' ols ;'n .mind' !lN~ (theologiea schools] ., o they It .II!ail '\ _ it:", :,~;'; ,.:'I~J,", .1,-:, WO'u.Jd, work in the chancellery of the sultan or some vizier' ,or in religious administration or financial offices (of which ,a fine repre ... sentation is f(lU,n.'d,in the rare first edition of Mouradgea d'Ohsson's ·w·o'rk), 9 Probably what was, remarked about. one of th,e outssanding ..(Ji I calligraphers .at t'b,e turn of ,O'UT' century who earned his money bry ·-... ·· lid d f' f' wrmng Imp'erm,J documents COUll; oe sal~ 0,1m,an.y 0:,-- t. em: u
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In Ottoman Turkey, 'w,t'n'y good calligraphers reached '[hie hi,gh[est echelons of the religious establishraent=or ~perhaps vice versa: ma,'ny leading lOlrthodox, theologia.:ns '~leF,e [outs,ta:ndin,g <:aUigraphers" an im.pre-s$ion that IS verified 'by icompariso[ns. with, medievaJ Arabie rec" rd M -.. ' ' ed ~['h' vkh u]- -1,,'1'1' or ~ even more t:... OJ:.S~ '..":,_any .. mas ... ,HS servei ~5 o ,ayK s am ',: "'" rreI, ,', - L ~ 1] --..'.... q,U~n.tltY1 [.,a d'" atS&af 0 'f" R-"", 1 A",··~·· 1, 01" I'",S[Ql1luuU,.".' 1!"'1 Th' e mOist IlIZ 1",. . . .• ume 1;:n,a~a)OlLUjr ...
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ful inscriptions, are known 'to every visitor' to Istanbul ;a,u,d,some of whose ca.Uigr~rphic pictu,r,es have been reproduced dozens of tim1e~~.,J~2 . The less fortunate had to write KCl'r,ans, and other WOT'k~, n, order o ,an,d,were apparently regarded ,21.1 somewhat inferior b'J!~ their coltenab - ~h l~ h "h 1 eagues: as. ,!S ~~rl[£~nabout a. ,PVQF TUifK.lS\·. cau ,gr,a,ph· m tne e~,g ier teenth century: ,~,~ belongs to those who spend their days in the He fedder-place of the wor'~d,.Ute n,e~u:,~~ig'htedO.a:~Si and" make taUig,.., g aph r' th eir su stenance, HIm ,3, O:rd:y,a, min,grit.y 'Of Icat'~,,:~:i.gr,ap'hetrs~otm,'_,d hope to serve in. a prineely or rttyal m.~bF'aJry. These hlCky few enjoyed, thre' highest prestige ill~ and eou Id evel:l,joke with their. patrons ~as '[be often repeated story of Sult~n-:r:,AH .and Husayn ,8,ay'qaxa S,hOW~EL Sul~afl~c,Ali~'WhOI had deeorated the whole 'Murad. g'.ar.d.en. in Herat 'with ]],is caUigra:phy:l1S (besides- the almost inrrumerable manuscripts of Persian ,poe tr ¥. that he . ,"' "d') was "'d·ld H jD .. ', ' -, wh '.', .' 'id·,1 pI'o.d U({t ..,) ':':.' a,..,._,res~e,'d" b yusayn nayqara, wr 0 StU,. j;"'l -'.,,'," .', want ylolu to pr"e;p~fr,e'my tombstone!" Sulta:D=CAr replied, 'UB,'N't that needs "1' i ' i ,.,.' . ,- s··,··· 'h~II" ;,1, -.'.' "-I'ld some tin (. J>OUT 'M· :-,~'.... sry~"",H"·usayn ,.ja.yq,aT3: ~au,g J,rt,gy retorted, ~"'] -l.me,: " aJle.sl . really don't intend to d"e' that 'fast!" llac Calligraphers Qf this calib'~r were giv'{~nL,accQrding: to tbe€, local customs ~'hi ,'0" ... ~)':b SIQIlJl1d in w lid,e',~ such as eUu-W . a.o 11. . . . ('Medel ' IQf scribes) - ..,_.~ '1 -, '-n~ frk,·~ttiib '.' ~. . qilifal t:.tt-kijtttJ;b (p1oin:t of .ol1i,iB'Rtation for scribes); or, 'pa'tticularly in, . 1.,' .",' ,." .. 2/O/'I'1'I;n u ,l,..,.. "'-·,0 -' -,-; I· ran an d.. 'I· IdT· .. awar"lT ...... raq'(l;.,Ul. I(J".e\\\,,'II 'II_. -, ~,"C) " L•..... -. tJ{lWim tG~ ,- ·'l'.d:',en ' ,n,. J1a'I!i' ]' ......,i-"!r.o' '" '~JJ, Jj,ettel S
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phers, being close to the rulers, also suffered with them and uriderwent hardships w'hen their p,atron,g 'were kjnled:~ the tin-g:d,()1n 'was conquered, O}:' the :p~a[l"oln,a:,gie' ceased for some other reason. A typi.eal exa:m,'p:Teis the ~€ading' master of na:;s.t8 ~li.(b 'Mn-'- cAli, 1:IJ~ W ho was active in Her-at .at 'hie' time of Husayn ltatyq31r:a, stayed there when ;.....
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handwriaing and, Bihzad's painti'll,g" He survived the- Safavid conquest of Herat in '919/15<15 and appal'rent'~y "lid well under the artloving :g-overll0,r Slam 'Miir'Z~; but when Herat '\t~l~S :6n,alUy lost to the U zbeks in 93r,51] 530" ,cUbJay,d Khan took Mir-'cAli, like other artists, with, him 'eo Bukhara, where he produced some of his finest w'Olr:k.., He was accompanied by his disciple; Sm:yyi,d, Ahmad Mashhadi, who served for some tiw.€ in the libral:-Y of the, S:ha.ybanrild ruler ".Abdul c,A'ziz before returning to his native to-win after 'Mir-~'Ali'g death in 1.5516j;.1~O 'while the. master calligrapher's children emigrated 00 Irrcdia".'1'~jl Other c~U:igra:,phe~:s, from the Timurid court ~t Herat went w·rth the Safavids to Tabriz and Qazvin and s,e'1'V'ed there to d evelop a new era of nas'acli'q Ca,Ui_gTa.p.hy,. Still oth~er.sfollowed the example zrated to In searc of ernl'p··IAvof iIilh·1.1!!. num erou ~ IP"OoCO;t,!!,! 'W'" It".,~ _u· .:.II"dJI"llaL up meat; and Q,a:ndaha:r~ where Humayun stayed fnT~o'[ue time before nd , JeJ!l:a '""! e "Du1.2tOCl _.r,~o~, recenquermg Ind '".. oecam it; a secon '. Heratt, 'T~h··"I··I~·"'·"" n aditi ton nora, . of developed fUlsta;cllq' really begins. at that time at IQa.'ndah.ar., Not every t'altigr;2tp,he r was 'bo:rn. and relhr~aI in an ed ucated middle or 'UI'pp' er class 'fIi'nll"'Dj,;;iCiirnl', th ou g" h this 'W' th C'" normal p~'~_·a.,~ . S': attern ul~W.~tan -~A I i Mas,hbarl i has told th e. plitFfti~ 'bl~gi in g:s of' his ~arr<ee'f'in, h:i~ nn 'poem l~~1!-the orphaned child, who had praJ!oticed witlro-ut a, teacher, W'81S ,guifd:e:E1 'by some ssaJntly pers'Ol)ality; and fin,a,:n1y e'm;erged 38.' tll,e leading and cltl"tainl}l most prolific ,,,~rJte'fof nastacti.q~,l-vhi[,bhe wrote in the style 'Qf A~h,a:ri of' Herat, raa .~,f)W' and then one finds condescending :r~:m,~rk~ about a master ".- h ose" fatner'~' was "a '. '" d dI" .::.-. 'll'" .... , ,l2 '!J!. anoId' I one" 0 'Pl\)" ,gI"e a ,I'_~S'st ~ ,.,;!L." .. . ',' n of !J."Je '. __d" \iV, .'. sancuer, 'b~ . -(" masters in, fifteen th -ceatury Iran is known as ~Abdall ah-i Ha'J'3':vi "' Tabbak .. Dr A§kp(J;~,,_ "the C ' n'·'It ss '[0 [~;'Il.,c'-cua:t he 1".. h, Cook,' u ' eeeame mterestee d in e'aUigr.a:p:by when hie 'br-;iOU,:g:t.i.:t at tra.y'fu I ,of sou p from his fasher's '~,ittl,eshop to, Maulana j.acfar 'the ,eaniiJl~,apher; Wl1<Ct l-1&S s}ltrour.n,deJd, by ele'gant roung' disciph~s:~1.t5'Thanks to, his hard 'woirk?"he 80fH) sur... ~'··"'-'~"'~d~ 115 '-'·o'-b-:-l'-" and bee .'" p'asse, h-,~·i, n .. e ciassmates ano ~.ecame an C)JU tstandi .lng m,as"",q, ,no!!; .sta . only in Maulana Jacf~r.\s style of na;ta;'«'li'q, but also in ru:tSi:h;J, in which 1!..., . ~. ~;-"i' fi..' aQ'rall CuPl.s., "'[ th e f .. {l"_'u~,1 nlJOl ,the '11"'~r...11~1 e· ,Q _' , .. re ·f'·, JLl!le WlJFO'~ ,l,pr~y-.._ve 'If? .... _ "10' '~ of his desire began to boil alnd:;,heated 'by his master's instruction, became aflame '\Fit11 fame, and '[hro,ugn, :111s 'd,1L~(:atiOIn. he became a e 'cooked" per,teet human being WhO'5H:~ specialty is 'to spread out the b·I· ,'~j ,~'I~ of .n ..... 1s ,l.p amd_,. 0 d ist [1 u roO I,.3_vi18h'I'~it y_ '\1-ar'"~.., '., k:" " ds 0.'f t· ."p--:,t-'.!'b·1 e C~'QI~IfJ v" maste sh U'JUS an S "
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delicacies." 1.26, "The C(}Q:k/'" 'EtiU.S poetically praised, maeried his master's dau.gh~r. and became his true successor; he also 'went to India (or SO(Q1e 'time, 'p'reg'um,a'b·~.y to '11ida:r;;~,~1 -f ' '" f e di __ An e~anlple from mere recent times IS t hlifJ!t 0'1 n~aat E~f:n'j [ ]857 ':0""-'-"lQ!1,2), art orphan ·fvom.l.s'lakrubuJ w~ho' as so fascinated by tllH~C b~e,autY' w of Arabie letters he saw on tom~bs;lto':fJJ,eg that 'he collected the d ust 'of charcoal to prepare an inklike m\a~tte~r~ which he kept in clam shells, · USttU tne stems 0'1f· fletnes as, a .pien to copy mscrapnons rrom .... 'Ii....... ..J .... ~ ., ... Can d, tombstones, He W'3S discovered by' a ealligrapber wbGO :p;~o'per'~f trained hjm, so that he became ll! tt~ghly respected master 01 the craft, 128 At the same time, '~~e'If'ai,d.i~.:gcalligrapher in Istanbul was ·:II~,'~ ("d I ~'1!.1'~.' W.'h-~'',' as HIJ$; surname m ~'.e; . nfiA)"- ,- ,-' ",-, " nd 1'L.aI~S) 'Kep' a 11 - ,t ' .... F,'"l'"t;_ -1"B ,~~(h ...>J c'A~'" uioen ..... _,,_.r-l];,_~ .o, ,~t:..' grt)cJery Sh'OiP! besides instructing people in t:anigr~p,h,y.l:2:'~! We are _.;.-.,,":. inded 0,. tJ1:JJ,!e 1£' tr.,~ ,loon ,21.- ousanr _.,,",'ears a·g1)-b",(-~I~ili-h'- ~ . e ,[-', a,galn rem n~,.;:;, af .1!:..j ·c_ aun - ~·.'d"" ',' " th '1',·,-''1'-0'" y ,::'-"', '-<""'-""",,' W· ,eM iC I' -: '·h~'"·- ''''£'"t ,- . -,-,.··iIt'~i v,U..fi- master, WI 0, 0, J5n, w~s a crartsman or arnsa .n.; .. NO'U l...:!l :'instru .. u" c~. his select d,i's.cip;~Je.s in his Iittle shop, in.'u"Dd:ucing them tOI the mysteries of 'Divine Love and .B,€'auty'", as the ealligmap,h:er made them ex\be ~. ~llll d l\:r'f·'tt1ng~ pre'~s tnese mysteries in we~i~1Dea:su.Te·wri . _ But there are. still more amazing fae s than the development of a poor orpb,ilA. into a master call.igra.:p:he'r~ Some of the ~o>ust(in~ding' ~,:C'~.~,i!' ._:~,I.:. ~"g suffered frn,-u"':1Iid .,~.l~.~~~ tha t scareelv seem roo' mp ''':iI'iIi',~'b~'~' IJ: . ~-. ,:. ~··.lI.i ~~I~~ .!I;~ C·-'a-lI·I'l'g-rllf.il<'ii·~pchers ",-,/t·l.r- t he ar O.IL wfld.ng., O:~-· --. course, one ,', d ", rt "iT" ';, -, ,~, f' if a ~allig ,1I1~' W,E,I-u. .,,,-" ..... ,"',"'" -,,' ",' '..oes no,t- min d'· ,1 a"",.'r.a",pher is. mute l~'O (as. the proverb has. it, "writing irs fh,e" oocngu,;e of the hand") or ~ like t'hJ~: reat Mjr-CAli" hard of hearing: 1l3;1. bU the g 'first well-known calligrapher in '[he C Abbasid Empire :isknown as.al"', ~ne .' ~ - -- --.Ct- in ,urey ,',- -A ~:tU1a~, ~. ,re,',qumt-eyecd,~ ~Tl!.;.. art". '0 r-· nt1S~a.$:tq "'" T' -ke was ,pel'. ·L . 'I "the !':!I!"i.t""ii!".;Pidl m E:·~,C;~ild."U' esari surnamed ~"'"U. bv '" ~ 'c-'r';'f]ipl-,j!!lI\jd, ' eft-h '[r1I ,A Ad'. F" ~.lIi." . C] d ,fioj,um, .•.•. , ' ~0 ..'" N···· - ~tq la,"· ecorne ~~,~"--'",-1,-, rrke .mao-i'" n., ' ('d I'" .. no)', tvosta: C1=' h-"- d b-' ,,' ~" -, POPU,ll-d1l-~ In T..ur ;.ley _'" thanks tO the work of Dervish, C Abd.i M.as~hh,~di(d, 1647,),,1.3!a a ,m,Es(i'"" "'~,~ 0,_ M",,"~-,=C[~·p,~'d' anc .,....,.'. 'f1!... '-1 ret nee 1n [h'" e:ng~.~teen t'~I""~['I' -',.' pLl. of e If' ma ,." md WatS tnen refined ~.~., e -,:',:,w,.:I' ./. ..n ce.n"ury by this Es-Ca,d, who was born with· his ri.g'h't side' completely parr.alyz1etd. and his left side affected. 'by a 'palsy that ~aste-d. ro'. a long time ..~StiU~ hh\ ttrge to Wl'"i-rreWaS so great that he began to, practice as a mere ~h- all, ~~c.ame h-' ~ ' ~ ~ ~ f-' -I .." ~-t+ ~ C~'.. -- 10' wI!Oo·:__(;)'m,'U SZwl= C' u'~d--I d~ ib..~_ - ~ ~ tne f' ounner de 0',1.. T' '[J:fltlS, h na.,s~a't1~ t ' ,- h .a ··1~· . iJ t ';-'" k lk." --, ,as ,go 'b,(ijQ." ,D''',-" } ',_>,!£l~rJ.o,c&e, ~o~.rus_; ho -;·,·:b eve ['h- e. be '' penmaa ,.~,s{:m.p!l.e~ ,1.r~" d .. rouse, w '~',' " est _'
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A,s,:blDg as, roya'l, patronage continued, (~a1Iigr.ap~yin ,an ·its branches flourished. Various :forms were developed to please the 'e'-yes of artlevin '0f!t orin ces ~":lI.m-nIAg':' -:'h'l~r''L· has to m ention 1 the a rt of "'~:in~~:lil~ IvY ,r" the preparation of a special cardboard by pastil1.,g and 'pressing layers of paper together, These ~~li became the ideal vehicle £01' album pages and were e',agerly collected. ]l~'i8 It seems that the art of preparing su:ch pages goes back to Baysunghur Mir~a'! court; and· CAli Efendi's verse 'tha't he' "produced raiDhow$:. on the sky fif thre page" ~,3$! could be' applied to more than one artist; Yet, the same auther e,ompl-ains bitter~'f .ab'Qu'~. those 'w'b,o elf: tel pieces pages with
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it wherever !hey want, 1.4'~

This Turkish quotation from the late sixteenth icc'nrury applies also to many of the M,oghul album p.(ag,esin 'wh:~"ch miniature or t'iw,e a,
54

ceo'[ "al piece of [aUigr.aphy have no relation whatsoever to the S'U'y" L. iderati roun d lng ,· mes. an:d~ :P'. re 1- 'y aes tn e -. con S' teranons seem to h ave 1C I, pl.aye\d a role i ' producing a lovely p~"g,e~ ,'he courts-e-agam, H, st thee' Timurid CQO't'[ in Herat=-sometimes
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had a ,qa,#C who cut out extremely fir e letters tit) be pasted on the ;" . '-'" .~'" ':' ',' ,",' ',' ~- ".-.~ ,', t _: ,,-, 111 ' pages~141 T--L. ,"n-' ~'--,~, 0'" H',u,.say.n, " 'B' ayq,ar.a as cut out b y C'A" bd aJl,a hI, son ne ,~~oon "f'" of Mir- cAli;. is probably thee best-known example of this art, since '. .. '1" P b- ,,~. ,s!om,€ I?ages f rom 'it h.ad'.:b een Itm~ev6~,af aes 'mtSera'~fr:es: sots ( ,3;'$ H uart " 'translates the Turkish a Uthor Habib's juhala=i .khudhalfi) ].4:2 from the d teund t b err way "W .··.··,e'Stern COlt1]ecaons, .' '. . into A ya SI()r-,ya. manuscript ani', f (The OOC'U, 'renee in Habib's bool , pub: "shed, in 1306/1.887, S,}lOWs, ,. .L h ", ~.. - .'-', st .. ",", la· .. .-", - 'm~ .' '-' '1", trme, mat (_,=C the ·r-t'· 'mus h ave ',-, ·k·en pw.tlrce'.- at a. very ear_y '. ~ . .,' Tie art n.f,de:~;c·fl.,uh;' work p:er"e-rt"ed' a II r ]5-'IO'I~f'~' so me of M--,'-" €.te· irv ..'r~ -'. u ,.l4,3, ~.AI.i~'s· verses, have been cut out exactly according to the author's dwri ,. S '" 'm' d .'.S.I.lnlUB.. • ., I '.htandwrmng bI:y~' aOgl. CAll.Bsaaa kh hi i B 11"'h hara in 94315,37,~ among them I he ealligr ~(:f:'her's charming- remark:
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In. 'Turkey, 'where' the tradition continued, Fakhri of Bursa is men~ f' nonedd as ..1.... b lest master '0". uhi ar t, '145 tne I,. '15 ,. Some calligraphe -s in y.cya~,service were occupied with preparing ". dd sea 1 cuttlO.g precious stones, ano ··,raw.1n,g tr if msorrpuons S;" TO:f eo: eoms, h h .. ~'h 11.1 -,!. O t, '_ tners were {:.,arge d with writmg t~Ie roya~f l~g/l~1'a m ever more re'f),n,ed forms, One usually forgets that the 'poet "ughra'.i; whose Lamiyat al- ~ajam ilsone of the most famous medieval A.rabi.c: poems." was at C: 'Uigraphet' and vizier at the $le'ljuk.id. court and acquired his, 5." rname f&olm the skill with w'h,ich he drew the titgh:ra,.l.Ui W,e .are compafatively wen informed about the masters aft Akba'f~s, court W'. ',0 were experts in cutting 'riqiic and nastaCliq on seals: 141 these had developed a lp,eei!al techniq ue of mirror script, an.d were caned , ~ .I

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Ch4pn.ivf..i (left writer), ~,4J)glome of them became

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in 'thlis techld wri enure .' ~ :l,l.~..... ,'" mque tnat th --ey 'C@U,f_:,wr~,t.e' .. stortes in tf;f;'wJ~~='itOO,-~Us '\111,verte,d script). 14'1 The hi'ig'h,e~toffice in this branch of the roy~d,bureaus was, at least in Turkey, the lsrsiJikeun (First Sea:~,Cu ttel") '" whose assistant apparently did much 10'£' tb.€ artistic work ..JI!s,~Some engravjer~Catnig~ raphers worked not only on the comparatively soft ,ag,ate<but on. 'bard stones as '\v:en~Maulana Ibrahim at Akbar's court engraved, thewords la,cl'-i;,J.:a.l4Jf TUi]on 'aU, \ pieces of fu,by in the tl"ea91ufY, and much . r' . , later the Turkish master Vahdeti produced ~ l(),ng inscription on an enorrneus piece of emerald in the Ottoman treflsUf')r.,15'11:Q. later dayls, when not only artistiea Iy designed coins 'but also, bank no1;es. came into use, SOlJlle of the best Ottoman calligraphers were eu"ga.ge1d. in d.. . ad 'E'"" ,'.,,". bank no es an _ postr,n.wlng .,:[1-., " r' .oJ .'m. 0", 'T . ur kish aD:gY.ptlao IU-JJf mQu~emS( ······f' 18 nans '.otes , "I,d a,ge is tam ps,. ,5:2 The enthusiasm for beautiful cal~igr,aph,'y' led very ear.l.y. to forg ... eries and; to say the least, 'wrt)'fl.gattributicns, One of the oldest recorded tales 'Of a forg,@:ry is,told about Ibn al-Bawwab who, at the behest of '[he Buwayhid prin.ce Baha'uddaula gel fju1t to write the missing jUk~ of a Koran written 'by Ibn ,Mulqla,; cal'r,efu.Uy pre.parin,g' 'the same kind of :p,a:per he succeeded so weK~ that the delighted prince decided to claim that the entire Koran ,oopy was the: work of Ibn ,Muq.:~a,.,15'~Sj.'milaf':~,y, it: is told that ~Arif ,Bay;a,z:id Purani, a :me'glJ,-' 'bel' of the leading intellecrual family of Herat, was such at "ood. calligrapher that one day he imitated, a pag:e wr:i.1t1j~J1 'by Sultaft"",c,A~.i ~~ p.iT" e~":Elr.ll'" ';0 epai '-d;n'I'jiTr' same kind of "''O'it'l'!'' if.;1 and JL~..... same the ~u. ""lPn' ientation am a f.':ta,', Iu;:;;f' I .', v· w~ The piece was 8,h,O'wn to M,'ir c Ali Sh,jit',Nava'i, who was 'vil:i.itin,g the Puranis and was hi,ghly surprised 'W see "his' page, in their house .. His librarian was summoned :3: j1,dbroiu"gh't the o,rig;in,aJ pid,ge" S.ultanl:('-f\Ji, who' was present, became SQ- angry that hie ,toCll both p1il'ges and But tth'I ew t herr In t e bash arounc 'dl ... hich ,.... ,", ' '~",,:, em ~~ ·h· oasm , -,-,,'" W~,l[C t h guests were ,,·'tu·' ng~,·' I~> " ,e 51 :percei~ing Mil" '~Ali Shir~s anige'r, ,he q'uickly teok them, out, and it was finally decided that 'the page ,that had not bee:n, dama"ged 'by water should be the master's' original, 1.,5,,~, 1:r"'" -'t mt of "lit ." ,il.:':, ~n'~' ~ '~i LJoo1!i;.J,ngat the enormous e .amour ' ',.", material ,fotJ hand 'V,I. ~ 'm''':iIV ,"""[Jr«.1 ask what and how' fast a, master 'caUig][a:p,h,erwt~lle,., The warraqi the' copyist in ancient times, seems to have led, a rather miserable U£e; f]o.l" he had, to, prtl(lu.c€t la:r:g'~' quantides of 'wen-writtell. p;ag,es 110gain his ,~iv,elibool~l. 'One of the e,a;l}Ev scribes- could cop':Y 'u;p'.~. ]00 pages to :1 \_ 0 in twenty-four b,Q'U,'fS,:155 but even ,a, ,go,od calligrapher could reach a
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..J fM h f Bayb·, b speed."Th story ofMuhammadd S" .. Nishapuri,~ one or B ig'l .ne Simi ish sunghur's calligraphers, 'has often been told. He composed and wrote 3',000' li "(25 ,of poetry in ',we:nty'-fonr :-.QUf'S, and neither slept .n,or ate until he' had finished them :in spite of all the noise surrounding him, But ttl is, Simi was a. rather eccentric figure in his time; noted both. e d tor 'is ,I,. k hi ror h enormous appetite ,a.n.:, 1: hi strong ua-ra._a" W,),C:I h hId ._J8 ',re; pe.', d ~" .,' . a 11 CI~f: _ren 'W h e .'-I _ h ild ' ear.~e: , wntmg f I'r-om h:1m to obtain .at goo_d'' POSl'tlOIl ' in hfe, 1,561We knolw that another calligrapher, Maulana '.' :a€ruf at the court of Iska]]],d,ar .M·'rza,~ 'was p.ai,d, 'to write 500 VC:f'SeSI a. day; and when 'he once had neglected 'his ,d-.'I,ty fO'F two days, he made: u,p for it by writing .-~5,OOverses in one day, w'hil,e a disciple was entrusted 'with trimmin.g his pen!L 1I1~c7 Of MOU,l Shu "uri, orae of the calligraphers in . "imurid Herat I e amount of 300 veTs,es~a,ppare Iy for ,. ·'th d -ha one dav=-i mentioned d \V:l.'~·I-l approval,'m anc r'b'IlS seems to .:- ve b ,aY-'ls been
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It is, told that Yaqut wro,.-,~,OO .copies ,of the Koran, producing two juz" a day'" 'which amounts to two. Korans a. month, This, legl!D,d lJh.ll 11 '. h . f .xorans more or p':robaery serves to €'x.pl[~tln rr [e numerous c.o'pl:es ot Kless legitimatt!€ly attribu ted '[0 Yaqr t.. I. n, al-Bawwab wrote 64 1.159 copies of th e ,M oly Bock, of which -at least 0 ne is preserved, 1 EH~ The earliest information abou the amount of writing done by at calligrapher goes back to the g,ene'f'arion after Yaqut, .a few earlier data. notwithstanding .. Yaqut's disciple NasruUah Qandahari is. credited with 25 copies, some of which a 'e still extant; another disciple, Hajjii Mu'halmmad Bandduz. completed the HOlly, Book P·'fE",o···ba·bly., sixteen I..: ~'.. " .... ', ',' ., . .. times, while Fir Muhammad as-Sur al-Bukhari, who spent m01!)' of his life in Samarqand, copied the Koran 44 times" One copy by him, da t' ed I ' 4 '.A 4' ,llS k"nOl'VD,.;1" 11. .mO'l'i.e,over, h ,e ," ."," 8······ m~{J~'.:t, CJ~I"'" W,u),C·h· , as. ." ", :. ,. .... ".. , wroae ',''Al9~·· .'.' .- '- lL. ", .. " [ ,a, ~'_ , "1'.
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fL 10m twelfth, ... century sources, does not necessarily mean at ful,) clopy but rather a quarter (rubt) or a other fragment of tlu.e K ._, .. \-~ liC was, U eD b n·. separa e y- ..' T- , his exp,~aln8 .,11...-1- jJJSI "'~ .." - title . .'.lOran; '=h"'h ,..,", h .,., ·,Otl nd ." IS sometimes amazingly great 'number of "~copies of the Kosan" produced by some scribes, even ,thou',gh for later Ottoman 'times 'astonish:i'ng qlil!.'n.tittiles of complete Korans, are attested. '~orindividuals, The attitude of the cal ,igr,apher:s to the art of writing a Koran varied, G AH a l-Qaril:" the well-known theologian and author of many religious works ".11 the Naqshl andi tradition (d, l6(Jl,5Il~ used towrjte one su perb Koran every year, sen, i.t, and then live on the proceeds for the next year: 16."3, w:hile one of h is com patriots some decades later
is understood
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,57'

produced 400 (:)0, iies of the Koran in his liferime.making' an averag·e- of 10 per annu'[J1.164 Some caUiarap:;hers - may have written like c~:.a.,· _' .'. . ,",:" [_-, '_:'. _ '. Molla Khusrau Yazdi (d.~ .480), two :pa..ges every day for the sake: of blessing, Others 'may have followed 'the exaRJrp:~e: of SaY)'3id. Mehmed I"z·' .~'. a 11 ~ ~ ~ 11 g,O' ., h ,~.ai;Ser]~[ roun- d" >Il'.'70-'iIIiIi W,'h .0' rna"de :1'£ a, pfn.'n.tto write all ,J JUZ " 0' f tt e y:~ Kora every month 30. ',ha'. he turned out 12 copies of the Holy Book. every year-s-but his, biographer does n.. particularly dW'E,11 ot upon the e .eganc-e of his '~{'ritin.g.,l'ii5' One IQf the last g 'ea I, 'Turkish .calligraphers presented the S04tb, of his 3 06 copies ·0 the last Ottoman sultan, Re'sh~dl and "he had collected all the wood pieces of the pens with which he had written the Koran an,d ordered that the . - --It.. ,. '. -, '~d "a,[el" £ .' h... f nerar ·.11 w....asn m g SfJl-01Lh. _ bif.: hea't-. d W,~.It.U th., ' ._ .d",;.l lMJ, tor .is. ..u ",' ,e.31el, .' L. _ 118.W'OvOI:' 1 . ,a custom 'that was ','ow- as ear: y as. the' twelfth century among pious calligraph ers, m.6? Besides writing the l&:,of'an, he masters of the -na.s.kk,-thulutA tradit tion hard a number of other favorite wor'ks they liked tQI reproduce, It may therefore be in e' estlng to, Iook at t re w',ork of one of the' · I}'. ~Tk V' fi Ef d,. maJor e,a;["lg'rapl.h iers 'Q f nmeteent h.:""Ice'nturyurey, 'as~;_ 'el\l·: 1. (d ]- 4;-7"' '/'183-\ 1) U~8.. 1!... _ . . , Se. 1l...~> .. Vre,1)ory e·~.Ilec*'~ th .e pre, d il' ec t' ~" ..-... '0,r __ . :... ... .. ' lv"n . Jl, Ueca,u " .. .[,JJ.~S . " ' ·t· .£l In most Turkish writers ~ '. the succession of S: ,ay:k:h Hamdullah and ... H ..z 0- ." , a 6', csman . .. °0: c.op~'es 0,.f·- the K: . ' .....- 3 S:-'·l.~;·.f.:"'" t," _.'.., ,n d'I"1 (:'1"·ya. ,I,S ~, ~~.-."'-.".'·· "llUI,C,.lolra.n.;rf·uJ'c£ .,.l,.C ~a. . 'ad' work about the qualities of the Prophet, wh.ic,h was immensely popular in 'medieval Islam, and had acquired ,a certain sanc'~lity of its own), u).!} and :150 Dalii'il and An cam" (i,e.. Jazu]i"s collection Dlal(j~il ai-.. ~ k~yrit} which contains blessings for the Pro ..:het and has been, used by mi lions 0.£ pious souls to expifiess their love lor he Prophet). The predilection for Sura 6) al-AnIO:am~1 seems. peculiar 'to the Turkish tradition 17"1)and is ap'p,arently inspired by a model 'Wl"ittien by Shaykh Hamdullah ..n ad Ii ion" v asfi Efendi wrote 1,150 prayer books and the commentary 0,0 the Pandnd'Ma~~ he also copied the ,Fro't,t, 1}adith~ prebably in the . edaction of j"ami;, single prayers from the tradition; - d" .' _'··:·Jlil'··_. JrJlC .', ··f u '. soe ' ,. -. K" -.... a.n'. h-'''''"'- cuz _m~ t'.IJ...· . aSE 0' ,"'h· e;;:J pa -ts 'Q,f'- [. h ,'eoran~ ,' ,'. ,es~· es ,a~,. , id -. .]) that, he several times imita ed the ,bil,Q. as standardiaed by Hafiz Osman, in which the lofty q.ua:H'b,les of the Prophet are written ln L 1. ....'L th 'I • ,z." 1.,U;;:::'l .,. L....... ;.z:.. ~'. .. L nasfUt wun ~. e .nne r(Jcj"MatQln ,&$ It , titQ·min, m p. romment tlt~utl.t 18 tne center 'and the names of the fbur rightlfeOUSI caliphs in the corners.F" and he wrote another 200 It,i~)lQ.S in different styles, Vas·fi further composed more than 2'~300album pages and 3,,000 fragrnenta=cer., f' Bukhari mlD'YI a 'remarkab' "h~achievement! C·' 'e' ,.-o:ples 0, ~ 11"'h ,,;,s S:t. it.. aOd ~':4!~i{~
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other ~ ~.a collections of haditk s:uch. as, the MaskdTin al~(tllllqii/r and, f.,f·r M" AM ~',-. ahrh w'ei'e rk" ~ "d\ ~ ,. _ 1S!~ --'-''~ :a 1 ~,Jl .-eWlse fa.vor~u.es 'W']: _ '~, PIOUS, masters, 0 ne .. e·ig:bt,~·enih·5CienrtJJ].ry' c,aIHgraph.er is credited 'with 70 copies of the Bukhari, .the Sllila/~ Ba1d,a,wi')~,commentary on t'tJJC' Koran, "and o"tller 'V~')lu:miI1.ous works .. 1~n2A special sa-nctity surrounded Busiri's 'Q~rdat tLl-B'UrrJa~. 'w:hichwas copied, alone or in one of' the numerous takkmiS (q'ujn;~uplet) versions. by a. grear number 0'£ masters, p~l:rti,.{:uJ\arly iii MamJuk. EfiyPt.. Busiri himself 'w,as a. 'wt!U=knowtl. c'allt~gr.atphe[" of the ·lth.irt€enth (entu.ry w':h:o trained 800m€: ,djIsc:kples,~ 1-7,3, Turkish cal~igr,a:p'hle't'St!KCf;Ued. particuJar]y in album pages in w"hi~h the lines of 1W:1ih and ,thu'fAnh, 'we're harmoniously blended to con ... v.ey'~'m.a.inly-q'u.otations from, tlte Pf!o:pb:etic traditien. M.an")" of' them, 'ike their pred .. ecessors in. Ita;q .and.Lran, were also ,eng.ag;ed in composing inst:r-ip,tigns fo·£ mosques and ether religious buildings . and ornamenting mosq.'u.es 'with, eOtlFmO'US, calligraphic plates in joli script, The way ~i:n which Ottoman calligraphers overcame the enorlU()'U8 diFficulties eneountered in ,com,posing and then executing the Koranic Inscriutions around . .. e h .e. of -0"'- (It'-r'~"mr<"ili-·~ ~I .-, :, !aV_ .. ,' (.U._ 1tc~,O ._.~D JI.JI:I.OSqucf,,;;II',still ~JI.I ~ ~- ~ . I..h~ m~'J'd i':i!iirn ~ d" '1k"e-' ~.1 n:'~k' ~l'~ O ,,, Among the calligraphers ,of'nasia cllq, the preferenteg are of course completely different, for to wrire the Koran in, tta$ba:coliq' was, as we' saw ~'Very unusual. PiOUSt ,Araib·it sentences, invoYca~tilons of ~AH~.and s;hOr't prayers are found 0',11 nastticliq pages as, 'w'ell, bat the .majoi~ achievement of the ealligraplrers was to copy classical Persian literature; p.articular~y poetry; ~.7" and it is 'here thar a unique blending 10f 'IDe'Kt and calligraphy was achieved, It goes wi.'tthou·tt, ,ayiLng' th.3't ,the . s favorites of Persian readers, Sacdi and Hafiz, to:p the Us:[S of the available material; N~~ami~sha'7i!s(J. Oil' parts of it are also well rep~ K resented, hut even m@rep,tomin1e.ot in later timea is jaroi's poetry, the' mOSJt roraatatic of h:~sepics, Y~f it Ztdatlkhd being copied over a'wain;; An'0.,t:'b =~~er r~1'V"O~'l"te ;:"1ii.~ M·:-aula r ... 'l:)'i~11 m .11.~'~~.,frl,~f.1f.~~~~.", ab ~_t ',' ~,rh~ o'·_ - -a~ .I:'S:~UI., ~ :J:A":n:~l.'fin"",'i'I;'_ ~ _ 'O~'m~ 'W,,' h,. a calligrapher wrote, at the beginning of at complicated ehreno~ Ij .,~ ~~1

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This means that by ,clOpying' the MatkoolJ)i the' calligrapher felt that he . a~ .. ~~.~ receivin 0. ~ ~. itua m. ~ ._.,icin a -,l.~;~, his hQ~'l""IIi""S; pain spir -a.ll ed ~'\...'" ,,~ Next in frequency to this work, at least during the' late fifteenth and the early sixteenth c enturies, s'ta'Brl~sa book that.newada y:s is not even available in a good edition the Divan of Shahi Sabzaeari, 'who himself 'was O.O.'f' of the calligraphers, musicians, and 'poets of Bay~u,ltihur Mirza's 'cau~t~11'~ Sometimes "the talligra::pheJfs, would cOP'}!' histe '1 '.- . ',. out -: ef - -,"","...:iI, " , ,~ ms JCH~l,~atexts 1,L..., " ,pre errea te turn to CA'" ·11"-, :';"E"',-" =r: '~'~ S JTo,rt.y say:uJ:g!5 m J'3,= ] mi's 'vef'sifu:a:tioio or to '[h,te ,Murdljtit of ~'Ab'd,al~a;h-iAnsari, a, lovely prayer beok of 'the eleven th century. The great tliY'ii.ns of l\haqani and
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phon may allow. W,e''f!~taillly appreciate h 51.. ''1...,'' teen',· d- o f~:,J.]aulS't~flfl'.~ IS, ,FT1 ...1. " VUMliOO=i ~ rtiz.:'
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[he raaster who wrote 31

of t_her.Gulsoo'nl-i f'4!J became clear in this shape through my' penl 'W't~hgeometrical art each verse; of it's '[~t was written altogether on one line, "'..Jj"d h f' ,. h ,. '. h an d l.t U1 .... not h,i,tl]?'pent, at one' 0:- H:5 hemrsnchs b '" ,", mfu ... wit . anot hei 11:'" ~7~' ....J' _'ecam,e , (Jon ,U,S'e.u, ith , ',' 'er .lJJn,e',.
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J ... E'",' 'h' .~C:~''''_ 8,', I'''''' ,(kA-r 0.f' M"cCU;"hh. aa=-rrom w~'~,ose'e!'D ,P'I'rob'ayJJcY more naB""a; I)~q Ullialll-,JlJ. . P" 0, ,'L.,l "'. manuscripts emerged than from that of aDY other calligrapher because ,h,e c(),:ntirly'ed w'rid:n,g' almost "to' the end a'fJ1,is~ VeE)~' lorlg' :Uftb n,,1j. ted"'. 'I"-0 L'~~ ¥ erses ~:,':,~ ". iLO' Gt roo ':-':'Y' ':0 f'~ the~ U"t:o'~n=~~1i~ i,1i jZ .(,-w"-r-~t' m, 'ec ad d -d nzo', ·.U ten ~ n' ,I~~:u:;: ': ms ~. p"I, l!o' . :8'96/]4,92) that i:n, spite o,f his 'being s.i~'~1~tb'ree yeatrs o1,d his muskcolored pen, was ~ltiUyoung so that 'by the' grace of God he did not spo,i] ,1:1 single p)age}l~a'rand.even manuscripts that he copied ten years later .are of flawless beauty, Likewise Shaykh Hamdullah, when more than ,eig'h,ty ~('ea!,.,~, W'(tS able to 1J0'PY' a, 'pe:r£e'£ti"y A,aw less KOif an, old "with my head shaking and ro'f :ha,ir. "faUing rout in the !d,BlYS of .,old, a"g,e~~'jll;~M)' .. we feel for the' successor 'of' a calligrapher w'ho had And p -."J..;:4'- a,', : :L.7" (·"rii"li'""h 1f1'.' ': -I'ry a, th,e pr.;'[OU,$.! "f' 1 _' .... ""1 mten dad La copy, J'ami S '~lll(J~~a~ l:aur6f'.I.,:e" ..~, ~O$a, who died during this, wo.rk :3,nd, was lamented lhy his friend with 'tile nnes:
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He w{ln.t>ed at some F)oillt that with :fa:m·o·us script 'h:e should orrsate a bOGk by J ami .. H~ did what 'W·2IlS· allotted to him of this work~
He chose '[he R.o8ar~l, which is y,er:y' choice, The days cut off th.€ tlirea[a. of his life,
and the thread of the Rosary '$vas n[at 'Completed by him ... 18~

Some calligraphers who had been copying all kinds of texts for the sake of earn.in,g l}]J,o,ney turned to 'writing p~OU8texts in. the later

year.s of the"r lives Hl:2 or 'retired te at lquieit 'place where' they co,ulq prursu·e' '[heir art -wi'[h1out ·th.€: distu'r'ban[~s of courtly or urban Jife. Q'u'm 'wa.s "a. haven of disappointed artists" 1,sa in. the sixteen th centUTf, ana ma·ny' 'stEla artists spent their last yea:rs, in Mashhad, K:nf)win.g' the difficult cireurnstances 'under 'w:hich many of the (.8.1-, 'iig-raiphers and scribes w',orked'!l one wo:n,ders if their eyes did not fail them over the COU.T1H:: of '[h€· years. It seems that at. least from the sisteenth c.etltury onward -it 'was 'unusual '(JO; write small caltigrapb:y ·wlth,our.eyegla;ssf;:s"ls.'i! The. 6r"t concrete remark p·er£ai,nim.f,g to[ the US~,0[(' sp1ectacles is connected with Shah-Mahmud Nishapuri in the m id... sixteenth century, 'W be 'Wl~,o,teinsert ptions and decorative, piQ"ges, wearing gla:s:ses,.l8~ The 'wo'1fd'~Jnak (spectacles) begins to appear in h ,(, ~~ in rstan 'b1! IIId <0,-P· ~ poetry at at'b '·'ef.sia;n ·'oul tne same ume, .A rmatature In I ~'U~, that shews Yaqu't w'ifb spectacles IS, of COUT,S,€: an a·nach:ronlsm",,:m.S6 Later poets thea, some: imes claimed that the s'ky itself had put. Oil spectacles !ClO'oSlsting of SUD 3,Bd m:oo;n.'£0, admire someorae's beautiful
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Indeed, :m.any of them were not only connoisseurs of call~gr,aphy 'but mas,ttl~8,of this art" among' them the A';ryu'bj,d, ad,-Mali:k, al-¢,Adr (d.,
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crow's Ieotl l!ltQ Yet at ~h,~ same t:lm,i!Zi ~n'm" ,~, F\,f the finest and u. '... ," ' .~ . y .._~,~ . __ i;'n, i 11~, . 'g' -,gc t 'It"" . . w'ere" wri tten ,lu~:tb'~ f";1("1;"" .' I~..,,,",'t' lII"~~Ui .~ u 11'[- 'n, d ,"",""''1" am lv I,Q,r)·.\,;,..,,1_, J:'\ior:an:s '. !J.,,,-, ."', .1,Ji,lftiJl,i3~ ~n'" th m ,1.'.1 _' epigraphy on 'buildings constructed during 'their reigns, as on metal'worl" and gl2hss:" belongs 'to the finest exam ples of Islamic art, It is told that M:Uc~~lwiya,he founder of the Oma:yyad house, 'w~as, t at 19oo,d writer hi}11s,e]'Fand that the PtQphe't galV'C 'him some insrruc.. 1!.. ~ .. L 11. nons as to Jl.'Jl@W' to 'w·r~.t,ehJe'Q~fQ, l·' mstrucnons tnat re HI'oct JlcalteF t; t: ideals of scribes: for example "Put a lifNl 'in vour. inkwell. s,har'p,te'o, 'l'~' .1'" "" '. ". " ""', '. th,,, :p,en; ,a.n,d p~,t the b upright and separate the sand make. the m blind, and write the word Allah beallt'tifully a:nd, extend the ar-Rtdjman and :mak€ 'the a,r-R;CJ.b,im fine." JlfU, Another Om)9lYY31,d ruler, M:ar.., d-" · d'·· ," ~ h ~h JHJ,lS '. wan, 11 .IJ,earn.e~" 'wrlt~ng'- -a,.s trarnnon has, it=-together W1t.·.· '1!.i.' 00U81n" the c.aHph eotthman ibn ~'Affan (d. 3'6/656); l'!I+& the role of CAli Eb:n Ab,i Tal ibe as the first member of the JC:£1l1Iig~atp':h,e~r$' s piriitu.al pedigree has 'been mentioned earlier. The practical interest of 'ru~,ers, in, IcaUigt"';tp:hy became visible towatd the 1efLu~JJf of the tenth century, ~Aduda,d.datda, the Bruwayhid is "k'-·" :-", ';-.' as a ,goo. Cal~igrap~.lle:r 0 earned ..J t e" art rrom .,_n M\]I uqias ·d -..-·'l'ml!·, . ,1\",_ '·b· th -rt fror Ib·- '_ .' .I),own, "-"~' w brother ~>]t¥.3, ,SligJldy Iater the ruler of Gil~n~ Qabus ibn, W'ush,'mgir (d. 1.0]3)" wrote such a good, hand in tutsih that it so;n,t:t:e c],aim~ that, w':h:en the eye of the g,ah.ib Ibn ,C Abbad, himself J8k noted master of c .. .. r, A' h·' I 11'" car llgrap h, y~~ n re ,Ion h w:r:ltlng:i'he. asked 111.,]18· usualI r h ms 'yme d stye", 1..1....... '" "";r.., hi .' n au A· l..i:'.lt,,::: iUUif!ltM 11. -if.. ,_, 4. Jtt'1'lil.Jt.tU r.a us .". s- tms 1':h. e sert".- 0 f' I~~l, 'b S,Of" ~aU'w pt a peacock's wing?;;;) 194 The (:oi11parisQ n of beautiful handwriting w'iih neaeoc 'k'',~'W'·";1in~ 1"' ~m':'r"a'ins common in the laJIL~Jb Persian trad itio"'n' '-' 1.95 .. ft' A, century later, the ~'A,b'basid ,~aliphs al-M'usttazhir (d", 5']2l1118)1 and even more al-Mustarshid (d, ,529.11 ]3,5) were known as masters b'" '~ :!I"" '~1'· he h '''B 0,.f tt ra ';,':3,w,va,':latfJL "styw_e' ·In,eauigrap: b ~Hl6' w:h·"~ tne Ji:asJt ruler 'I -'y I~,e: heI 0' f, it!~ 'A'bo'asia ,h,OU~Hf'~, al-Musta'aim (d..6,56/:125,8), studied 'writi.n,g 'wit'h, bis slave, the fam()'u,Js Y aqu, r. ][9"(7 Even I. ILIJ:,u,ou, the '~Irl;A_ ,pr,lnc~ a,I,~.·, '.u ,lZZ i'b··n Badis I~::'_~ it,i'};,iJ' , "U . .iIl, tho 0'14., . JC z···" ;'d~' :::ll_'M"': -v ~ _ u,a ,18 (d'~-I ~1~,gcl:lltlI6,1I) wrote a, treatise on ealligraphy, and the Nasrid ruler of G\r~ln,ad';ft~ Muhammad II (d, 7'O:Il]302)~ is mentioned as, a good ca]],i,grrarphe~r,
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the interest seems ·°0 center in. the Persianate area, Two of the early IGh.azn.a.vid rule -5 Masfud ibn Mahmud (d. 432/l041) and, his son Ibrahim (d. 491/1,098), are mentioned fO'I:~ their 'go,od hand; Mascud repo'rte~dJy' studied f~an,:'.grap:hy with Ibn al-Bawwiab",!98 Both-s-thus ., ~ ... ncr h ,_(:1'1 Mustaqnn za de-use d, to write Korans ·wh..h t: 'ey t h ga'V'e'awa y to the poo;r and need; ...Ibn ar-Rawandi exte nsiv:ely speaks .. th . thirty f jU1-~ of a magnifice;n.t Kouan that the last Seljukid ruler, Tughrul, wrote after s udying calligraphy with an uncle of Ibn ar-Rawandi and had it beautifully illuminated and gi~ded, spending large amounts 'elf monevI on it and then distribtr ··,nGl' i 99 In the foUo,w'm,g:-', it.. ~ centur-ies, r rlers in Iran, In ia, and Ottoman Turkey not ron~y ~.3-' .. 'l:l:~· . ohe ,-. •ut some mes~ .. ..' . ted '~- -.'1'·1 . -.tromze d (at.Is-r.ap. ers b~_.-,. .-... ..-'" ... compete .. w~th tnem, '. ' h us, .. - -. Shah Shuja" the Muzaffarid, ,01 ten mentioned in. Ha rz's verse, is praised as aving v~l'r:Lten wren in the style of Yaqut.~HJ(b, Both, A \m:ad. ibn Uwais Ja:~a'ir i)·f B3,glt,dad.:~UH and Ya'Cqu.b,~, the ruler of the Aqqoyunln I urcomans, were known fo' thei - good hand; the latter '[ri~d to attract ,'°'10 his court the most ramous calligrapher of his age, Sultan-vAli of Masb:ha.cl~:Z02 However, a particular '1:- 0:,' car :~grap,u.-y seem s to -',e a . ra11 h h mar".k or t.he ..·OU8e" 0 f Ti rmur 1ft f;h " eve f II"' all its branches;", imur himself was interested in calligraphy as in other arts and crafts, a.m.d. his grandson. Ibrahim Mirza ibn Shahrukh was instructed in callig .ap,hy by the noted author Sharafuddin of Yazd, 203 His han.d,lvri,tti··n'li was eo perfect that, as Daulatshah c aims .. his pages cOJJ~.d sold as works of Yaqut,,204 I srahim .. i 'za excelled 'be , .. 'l .. , ~I f- h d ..J'" [n..1(t".j wri't].ng; not o:nw.y were ::,I.au}, 0' tie now r .esrroyed mscrtpnons in Shiraz written 'by him, but S(r e Korans are srill extant to. g~ye witness to hls art=one in. ,go,ldren letters in rii4~i script (measuring 6,51 'by 45 COl) is preserved in. Shiraz, ~0,5· and another one (completed 2 o"n'4 Ramadan 830.12[9 JUDe 14.27')is in [hie' MfrEL'opoliltan Museum ..,(N1 . ven ,gm~eate'Jrs the fame of Baysunghur 'Mirza" W:hOSf' library in i Herat was the veritable center of 'the art elf the' book, He had fo.:rty calligraphers in his service (whit: . number mlly b,e' taken as simply de'notin,g a v,ery great n.. umber) an.d "each of them was the miracle ~,.. ..d uI'~ rarity 0,f" the a.!!ie; an~·. - - ey .~-t sue h --.-- an d . h - _. "',,-... h . ie f - -- rare .. ,', ~ d f h -~ 0,~lS ·· tIIJ.lI.~!Jl ane .. unusual works that r. ntil lite hem of resurrection they wi~l.not 'be wiped out b,y the hand, of the events of time and not trodden down by the turning over of :ages~'~2~:l he prince himself also "unfurled T '. ,·'e flag 0.' the pe:n in the battlefield of the ·calligraphers"n268 One of
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shtlq~21fJ .he 'imurid in. erest !n calligraphy once rnore becomes evident at the [COU,Tt of Husayn Bayqa.ta ..of Hera! 'Wm~U.lJ':"1 although. not a ,gr,eat calligrapher himself, gathered the leading masters of his day around rim. His son Badi'iuzzansan Mirza, W:'-IO went first to Tabriz and" after the Ottoman conquest of that citY',; to I~Jta:nJ)u.l (wh~re he died from. the plague in 11)17); wrote an extremely goode hand in. nasta Cli(J'~111 su t thr,.:'majn:r :... ures in Herat were, of CO'U,F~U~'~, g SultanC,AH of :Mash.had and 'his youn,gler colleague Mir,-cAH, al-Katib, wh.o were patronized not only y fie sultar but also 'by his powe ful viizier, Mir cAli SlrniY' :. a.v.a'-L212: The calligraphic tradition continued in the Tir urid house in InS f a-I .b . t; .:wa; u tl so ,,' evetopment 01f tne d·, k _ se ··a.:a.Vl,[.S a I conrr nutecd 0"(:·hI: devel script, Shah Isma-il .I was 111011 only all fine poet ill 'Furki 'but wrote a good hand,213 and he' story has 0 ten been told of how 'he' trie to hide the painter Bihzad and the calligrapher Mahmud Nishapuri d.urin,g the preparation for the battle of Chaldiran i 1514 lese the Ottomans find and kidnap his. mos prized artists-ea s,tOFY hat, however ~can be dismissed, since beth artists joined. the Safavid court about a decade l.ater~2.t4 "..nder Shah [smacH."gdescendants 'thee i erest in fine arts reached two p,ea'k.s~in the -early days. of Shah Tahm.asp .and. during the rule ofShah "Abbas the Great, Shah Tahmasp himself (d .. [97 6/) ,5,76)"a skillful painter in his youthful [days~ wrote thuluth, ntfSk.h~J! a n,d nasta C<liq.. 215; _ copy that he made of one of the b est-se I'llj]lers.o[f" '. (Jse:-.ay&, CA- '.r:t"'fl' 5 mysnca . rn.tAtf{/f"taV1.~.,.'- try-[o C' d t. G-'" •.[ '':'r~au~an) IS now in Leningrad, whe 'e ir "vas btoueht along with rna y 0 - er pieces! from the shrine of Ardabil to which it had been bequeathed and thar was occupied 'bJ the' Russians during th war of 18:28'., Among the mas erpieces of cal igraphy written fOI c ahms s:p is a
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his. Korans in. mv.J;tlqqaq is preserved, in..Mash.had; another one, of the enormous size 0'£ 177 bly 101 (111.~ in tble' Gulistan Mu~e'um~,209 and, is some .superb pl.a.gcs. found ;eir '\-~'ayinto the Metropolitan Museum . .Amo':ng those who surrounded him, and who were allegedly all disciples of Mi,--'Ali Tabrizi, were artists who excelled in many other fields besides calligraphy, such as Shahi Sabzavari, w'hos,e poetry was a favorite 'Q f th e T'imurid age; I he poet Katibi Tu rsh izi, a discipile [of Maulana Simi in. calligraphy: and Yahya Sibak W=-I o, I nder he pe':R name Fattahi, 'wrote the influential novel D,tutur al-'CWh ... ·

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(dust) seJipt~:noit1:D JDeDtr,on, the fa\m,@u'SH~gkt()nJS'oo'h:luJ,rll:e, in which DO'£ oni', the iU:u5.tratiofl:S 'but also, the high qu,ality 'of the' ~writin,g is rorthv of attention _:2i1!.l6i W~r Tahmasp's brother Bahram Mirza (d., 9,56l] 549 at the age of'thirty,.- r .. ,1Kewise . '~l' d '~" _.... ,,- -". --t:·,· ' ~ 1- "I',,· '--~., ,artt of - -- -uMMa '[hIreej , '1:'ill.., .' -, ,,~;. eXC,If',I."e,.. m p:oetl.'- '"y , paTI .leu"I"a,ry In tne ,-'. -' 0 mu-.k·,- ,(rii,dd],e-)~music, and ,carltigraplhy~ In h~ssllJ,pret''i); libm{aJ~ythe noted cal'I ~ ;r" ph-'. ~ .~.'inter 'M' u h a m·m,a.id , ' ., ,-, II,g, a _ ,e:r~ PJtlUl ~r,. ~,- , lu.ec,'(J/UJr~"" m a~_h,er n,i'd' .,J"'~"' ....- ".J:1.ii ." , - servCi'u. ,r.·.r,,1.,0 some: nme 3:S librarian, ~nd collected for his master a fttu/rarJq,tJ;,e~, in the foreword of which he writes:
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M.Y pen which showed the letter of y'(HJlr tu:-ais!e' in, writin,g And w]lich Was a. Ha,g in 'the herizons of y'Olur laud-eLike the pe'n I'lhbe all tongue in. Y'Du,rpraise, Like the reedpen, I have :m.y- h,e'1t,d Ico'n~ta:ntly on the script 'Of your

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The l];,3,,_git: Fa,te of Bahram's son Ibrahim Mirza" who was executed in, ],~77 in, the bloom of his youth, has always moved hisrorians o,f

art; fO'f 'this prince seemed '[0 combine aU talents that "were typical o,f noblemen, (ro,m. ealligraphy '[1(1 a~x:h.!l~'ry ~pof;try,. He also kept a 'to' 'fjJ,ourish]ng library and. was a d,is~ip,le 01 Malik. D'211ylarmi in ,caIHgra·= p,h,y" but he is kfJ,0WIl, '111:'0["(: than anythi~nge18'~' a collector of Spr~\C-as imens of Mir=,c,Al:i'~s lGaUigra,pby .. As his biographer says~ ~~I have never seen anyone S,O' much searching for and wanting writin.g,s- of Mire Ali~~, an,d being enchanted and thri 'led b1y them," ,2,'1'8 SO that, accordiog to 'Q~lldi Ahmad's, judgment, about half of 'w'h,a~[Mir- CAli had w~dtt~n,was found in. .1b,ra~hinil~ co noctioll; incl t1,:Q,]'n,g th e 1Yilu/r:aqq(t ~ s t:h,aJchie had. pJr-e"p.2u!t d "to oplfo'vid.e for. .his last days and a journey to the . ,ija"l.~ogether with some samples, manuscripts, t and boo.:ks/":21.9 Shah ~Ab'bas~ wlu), sometimes "gractic:edi calligraphy, 1\1'31.8- fond enough of good 'w-tieing to h:old the' c'a'fl:dJ:e,~tick for his favorite, eAliRi:za ofTabriz, W~lO. excelled, 'pr,edomin,an.d.y in, ,&nuiuth ,a.nd who composed 'm,any of the inscriptiens 'in, the public buiklings in Isfahan. i:2,~' The strained relations between c'Ali-Riza. and the unquestioned mas1

ter of 8a&fQ.G,lfq in the ~arly seventeenth century, Mir,,=C[O'Ht{l, are '1:.., ., h "L h '-_,augh ca.w,,~.lgr;a= ,&n0WD as 18 tne tension between t hi S01l:uew_,-',a.t h "(IS ~~.tf ·pl:h:e·f and '[he ruler" Mir~,i~Ima.d's assassination 10 :~6l5, was probably a. resu It of j ealousy and perhaps overstress ed cO'nl,peti.tion, cO'Upled with some unwise remarks 'by Mir-C]marl, even though Mustaqimzade claims that Mir,,,,clmlld.· "Wa~lmurdered by the order of th€ -- _OO,KIHZ ;_. ',"L,'" -, ,'," " ,~rJ.ng, SI0,IS 't-~r 1,'-' -,~,~;'.,.~-, S'h- an necause 'h.i e, WJIlS no"t- on..I y' "a ~S,:-, ,- - ... if): ounm e b<'"t,a. staunch member of the Naqshbandiyya and a. oorresperrdent of Ahmad Sirhindil 22'] In later times, Shah cAbb:ijs II W'3S praised by" flattering courtiers for his delicate, handwriting, 2~2 and thJf; interest in calligraphy con'jj,,-",--,. d the Q"'--' e., .' rast -.,._·]' '-ld,1 M·,. ,Joue" in L,:le_idlJar dYDas,-y . ~ wem .r, Both 'F:-,,'f'-h:_c'A-'-I'"Shalaa an _--_U= ·,0 a~, - , .1 , .lLIl.at hammad Shah Q,aja:r are mentioned ,am'Ol'lg the ft.as,taC~£q writers, who proldttced some decent page:,I,,:!23 and even Nasiruddin, Shah was almost as interested io ,cal1igy~a'phyas in specimens of human beauty. Cal~igra,'p,hy was prat:11ic,€d, in. M'ihltslim India from ~I~jfly times, and certainly after the Ghaznavid conquest of northwestern India It is, t'epoT[led that Iltutmish's g:r-a;ndsoD" the "angel-like Nasiruddin' (r" 12'46~~),~11f'£( the reins JoJ' the g'O\1@t'n'ment to his general Balba.n
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'~; "1Ii:,~',:"'h-:',Io .. . ,.1[: a:rli"tL]Il.~~ In.g S ' Iown L,--:-_: the_'ear.wle:r Timi ur id ~~either .e ,~ve' 011, _-- Tr"'it\!'f ":-'I1""'t" W,~]. . '~~\,h-~ '".: uy , _,,' :,;~ . l . , ~I'Lf' by patronage or by their' own 'wark, was in,:b.eri.,ted. by Babur, who w~s-'well,wtquain,ted with the artistic trends at the court. of his cousin :Husa·yn Bayqara, It seems that Mir-,cA:~i had particularly friend~.y relations with th€, y,(naft,g prince, for he composed some shorf poems '. ~l. _. £ 1:'L_~~l'" l.. ""li-..... ·ri m 'h" lJraJi"~~ 8" bu "-- ~-- .Jl. a styre 0 'f-' hiIS own, th e ,fU';Wtt-t I1ttt7U,_,~ rus -~ -" . :225 --'3, _-lit!]?' mventeo and sent a cO~PY' a, K,or-~n this hand to Mecca, No example of of in, this ,style has survived, for only Mi'f'-c.A'bH.1lJl ..,H3.'YY from. :Magh~had ltd", 980''/ l5'72 in ~Dlelhi) .}la,d mastered this unu sual 'b.,a.nd. 00 'p~,e]f'fee:wCJfJJ, (some unpleasant colleagues wou~,d claim, tha;1tit 'w~asthe ',CUlly' fhing"
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be ever mastered), 2~6 Babur's main calligrapher in the six styles was ,l"h" ,'" ~' M"' Sh a.y'K. '·-il-:A"'" rr ".=:, wWa.I:-~,'K" I·lrmanl.' 2,2'7 W'h.n Humayun stayed in Iran, he was Iucky 'to find some 'fine r;alligra(phel~'s who, partie .,;]a) -Iy after Shah Tahmasp's "sincere repentance, ' \\H~T,e 'happy to aceom'pany him to In _: His son .... a" kbar then W,3:'S able J,,,. a .. ract numerous masters to his court, even though t he, was the only 'o;ghul CtD,pe'rOT to remain illirerate. Abu'l-Fazl's list ill the A~l,f'tFi Akbari' :~ive8 the names of eighteen mast ers who worked at i lie court, £Brmon,g whom hie ,aIDs/Q· entioi ed ." h,ah~Mah= n mud of ,'. '.ishapur ,Z2,g who may have indeed sp., 11t some years a.\tvay " from Iran, as did Dost-M uhar ~,lat, B ada'uni states that 1lf(tS,ta Cliq was "improved much" by Mtr Munshi Ashraf Khan, a .Hus,aynis4yjid ,- ,. " - '1 .,' ~ '~i'l t. f rom _ ,- hb d W h excelled In, various stvies, 2;it9 "and a.w.'~, efi rm,aru iass .,(\(,,, '10 v.ibich are written in . Iindustan are almos exclusively in his noble hand." 2:&;0, Mir Daurt. the Kdtibal-mulk from Herat, 'belonged, a18'O' ",10 the masters who are singled out by Bada'uni and worked. on th.e, H'" arid tner were a consu era 'bl,Ill€' '," . " sidei Cat l~·~i, ll-... o..f' ne « amZll~nama; ~~J. arrc t·Il,....,' ~e ',' w.:w.gt a.p.ltl.y " number of masters "who wrote the seven styles well." 23.;2 A .reatise . '. ' . " . id . icatec kb h'" - .. . nc ian ' 'on ca1]11"l.grap hVT '" a'. , cie-dic ted t,10,'A",."-' oar, !33 -, long [, e ,€l rtitv I'" d .~,. masters M"-, M:acsum Nami deserves special attention because he wac: only a good historian of his, nativ province: Sind, b~u.twas ,'" ;, 1-" 1 aiso a note d p hrysiciarr an.'d.1. a d ecer 'It poet; m ,11S, Iq1JL3I" as master ,-. r '],(Y caJlir~ra'p'her :in nasta it.lia he adorned Azra :F'or" the Buland Darwaza 0 10,Lin Fathpur Sikri, Fort Mandu, and other imp1erial monuments with metrical inscriptions . hat he himself composed, particularly with chronograr .s, H also served as '.,n ambas sador to. Iran ''Y' ..ere he , was pres,entle d to Shah cAbbasl,'~,3,4 ',...,mpetiag "... ith Akbar ...... .' w ., a maecenas '0.:.-£ fine arts was h'w~ zener\...AJIIJ!l,~,,,, ,.' , '- -" D' . . allssimo Khan,kl-Ianan C ":b,du r-Rahim, and {hie fact that the -s rperintenden of his library, Mella :-'u.hammad Ami []'of Kashan,23,5' a ,. iscinle of Shah-Muhammad of Mashhad received a monthly salary of ..,000 u pe,e:s 2,3,6\ shows How much the Khankhanan appreci ued calligraphy," Since he even kept in touch 'with the: masters bviog in far,;, ""k vas an ane ',:,aZVl.n, and co mmrssione d'h ern to wrrte dQ'. ~ "'" a'way cines lil e K - tL some works for him; many artists from _ran came first to him, in the hOlp; ··,o emplej ,. er t,2,3,7 One of hese was e__ bdur-Rahim c,t\mbarin" Qalam from Hera. , who then joine .jahang r's cour n', he.' is the subm

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'. C' ." f '~ ~ '·ft.Cltl:llt, .. jeer o,~an eN:(luisilte miniature at the en.d it):' a eo.p,' 0f- :Ntzam'i"~K" -,L rh ~. 1..1 ne c'~ll'~ ,- ,.:.- ihed C t in;u~ w. .l(;UL 'h ' car lJJra,p",ee tor th ,f'. emperor ~ Jah'.a:Qgjr was: partilcula.r].y fo~nld,l(l,f good ll:tMJta/tliq ~lDdl WFC}te a large, th!ou,g'h not a~ttsti(: h.and that is well known from the rema .. ks he r ha~tlly jotted down in the manuscripts that were entered into his library, such as a Divan of Hafiz 'in the hand lof Sultan-" Ali_:z,3'~' He .3J,~,~ e·,a,~,~,rlli.y collected pages 'by Mix~c,Al~) as can.be seen i'n 'the albums - -- -mb -d u 'b "" .~., 1'~' ~'U. C' t.., ,,","111-.1"1 "'JI;'D "W'-" han 'the 0 r' M" ':..c ~;Ir,' ... 21!.ss'e:, 1 '~ b),]Jui 1i~ a:ad , Ll'Jl~,,:j "'"~n ~J,l~':!IJlw·J;Jl,q,' ',:le IC'l" ,,,,;It., S .,',:' C"L,I_ " malt.,J, aJ,:9Ii5hsLSSin -;·t'·,- .'" "rle,al." '~...l hi.".~.Ql" he €;'Al::.I!l.D.l m.e d ;,' !l:"l' f~';iitl 1~a,h '~A'~bb,iF:M;, at ,lo"n. ' ,.-ch .... ·"1-' . e '~r' '~i. 1'\" '." had given him, to me 'Wr.U1;I'[d have paid his weig'h.t in p€'a:r.lsl ~4c! But even though he could no-t save him, he at least gave she'~ter to some 'of Mir-rclmJl;d~s relatives, ~a'mong whom Aqa C Ahdur-Rashid Datyla..mi, called Rashida, is particularly importan 1m HOle Wa\S, M ir-cImad~s nephew '''''d:- d '~"" -~I-'~' ted - '. ··'I,,·,I!:"\i'" .' , .....n·d; '",-,' 8[11. rscipre 1..'--1- .... :au. "'h'e assassmatee master s re anves exceue In ",amos,l!,.. n (JaUi,gr,a.ph,'X)",2/'41Rash ida was made the instructor of Dara ... Shikoh and, because of infirmi.ty, 6H~aJ.ly gave up his work after serving at the COU>.f[. for twenty-three y~arg\; 2,4~ be spent his last years as supervisal' of buildings 'In Agra, It isteld that his death .anni"ert:s,~ry in, this city
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.'~~'celebrated ':-v· ry ,:~ e' 0 '. Gd.b;e, «r .~~ lb1e ~l;i["..pt e .'~ ': 'Y~,a.J! b.y ~ mee !!L;,,,,I~.lI.,~ '','"1£' ,c'"'lI<1·ll·~ar~l"'nhQiP!i::.", 2,\48· . ·Ie ... 'Il..:.;;',,1 th .-. . " . , .', S-h' hi "-~rl ,-; '!I ~~ ..... 1.,,w.. ,_ .. ,3, ill ar 'JJ (j[n." .wJ.jK,e ts .' ll!.,. 1,1:'r, was, mstru ..... ,I.,e~ '~~ji"'i, ca'-1'-1'l;grap' . 'b" b tl~, 18 Iii. '.' Y" ',. ,It h"I' ',~~~u~g:e, " p:~-" h ,:',- "", ,. -.,.1t be o ·m~·'d·~" ·I-·I~.,. anh -,,- as M',I. .-e'hd'~ B'·· 1", "~ ; ,,.-. sweel lUg ,an,d caRROl, "if cane "" ca llgrap I.y; I. 1 ~fi,yWo~S
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best caUilgra.pb:er 2Ull Oltl:g the MQghuls 'W,3e· Dara-Shikoh, and :w,all;Y fragments show hjs ve'f8a"ti~ity;,,2'11Jil A. Koran c r at .'~'. 'bod Q"'" ad ", writ"'f-t".en b f' h :', 'I f·-· th,e " I I>: 11_" . '.' o f' b_,_1S patron samt, cA····· _U 1-<:211,111" '", 1m, .,01", mausoreum ," '· _. '" P,.';111~~ still ',' shrir '-" 'D ,,'«hd~~ld" ~ nan i, 1:& s, 1. p:r'!e'OJIe ed In" th atIt' ,.,., r me In Da,~, 31· ~2016: Df~1ara "",, S 'H' '". ·d· rve , '~--,. nn u secretary, Cha,nda:r·~Bh,an. ,Braib.m,~nt was; like his master, a disciple of R,ash:id.a,,~2.47while Dara's son, Su[ay:marn-S/hik.oh.~24!.e was, ins't1;llcted by a. ROI'[{2dI("al~igr,a.plh~r from Agr~; Mu'rnin Ak'b~~trabadi~fu~dl.kin.~ Raqarn (d....09l/]16~BO ail the a.gle of ninety),,2\9 Dara's you,n:g~:r brother l and sueeessful riVal,; AU'Ta.ngze:b'~ was a18 0 instructed in eaUigrapby 'by a. II,IL,a.~roll..~. m.. ,a.,'~i;. " li.tt",ill,U-', '~A' Tabrizi ~,Il'- Husavni Ja"iiW?' ~_A:~I~t"'*' I, S'ill:];,yv~fi..J1 ~ '~I.~ 'b.,::r Raaam ~"1 ~ leadins I: I usa lililiL~, ,if" .... ~,n t·d,,, Hl)'94J.l682), who, like R.l81s;hid,a~ belonged te the ,sri/lsillf$ of M:ir~, c I mad '" :2.$~1 Au ran g~z-elbwas a 'I~HiZ)~vc~<rful c:~U,:~,gr.a:phef") as can 'be' 'w:~t""' n €'s,sed fro-m, the copies of the Koran that are preserved in, various 'm'usegmg~2:511 The third, brother, Shah-Shuja", copied some pages u:a·fter the writhlg of Maulana Mir-" Ali~,H:2.~2w·hich shows that admira:tion. fot. the great master .of Herat and Bukhara CQijl'~j:tl!'ue.d, the ia house of Timur ~A :£ew decades later, Muhammad S'h~h :R.a:n,geia(d"
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:1.7'413) t~ied his hand in 1uJsla.clfq calliigf',aphy;H~ and, as the poetical tale. ,n,if'was inh eri t- ed ~Iy' m,est of ~a[D~ r ',E' d escend _an ,_"9, the i terest ,in ; ,v~ '_ ~. iI;'ii:! llJ., ~ ,_~, _ .. ~ .~ ".~ J~l, ,~ I , loalligr,a',pb]f too contirrued to' the ver.y end of the M,ogllUI ,dyu,asty", The last emF.H~ror~ Bahadur Shah Z,3),£ar (d~ 1162')~ mastered various st),'I,es,and even instructed discip:~.'~'s, n eaUil,gr.apby (as he h,31,Q, also i some disci pie's. in Sufi,sm.).. He is best known for charming little calligraphic pictures of faces, flowers, 3J1,d other items, iOlulftr' sty:me~2'~4 In th'f! Deccan, the ~Uig;t·,a.phie tradition goes back to Bahmanid Th ~,i!. ,.~l.." .' ,', insid d ',lila" ',,_ ~' ~',~, 'd_,at¥s,.,' 'he 1 alfge t/'(JU,;Ulili, mscrrpnons . .ln~n':'J! Ah_'"ma,- S'L h -Wair.:;,S 'd '.' [435) tomb in llida'[' are written 'b?{Shukrullah Q~,zvinj,;~'5:5'and th€ inscriptions at the ,Nic.m,a;'t.ullahi sbri,ne jl1 B:i,aar., which ,~fr,e'almost c,ontempora·ry with Ahmad Shah's mausoleum, are pr.(;lbabl~:y the ID"OSt outstanding examples of elegant thuJuih carved 010t of stone fOHJ:nd all o'~'le't'India in this, early period. One wonders if these i'nscr;[ptio,n,s, were drawn, 'by 'OD,e10£ Shah Ni~'m,atuUab.~,s disciples, ,the faraous calm~~'''':iln!hQ1i''i' A'" hrafuddin s. M", ~l"'~"'~ arani azand ' ho ~.:~ '~om'-, of ,il-1f"-.,a ~I . R~,~~" 'w"_', u wrote a.,,·I, I ll.t-Jr.~.~ poet Adlt,arj :injali ,t41lluth :for Ab:mad, Shah's palace, "and 'the Telugu masters, whq are miraele workers in i"l}lita:.tion; 'C;;;n~"ed in ,~, it :hu,g~e stone and, placed it over the gab-:;" ~'" 5 ij The inscl'ip~ti.'Oll'S at the 2 Ni~~lliliatullall.i shrine w():uld, conform [0 this descrip~io:n~ T he in flu x of calUigral?h ers-s-ei th~er visi'£ing' or settl ing there continued d.uTin~~fthe later Bahmanid time, cAb{tal1a.h,=i Tabbakh ,of Herat was 'C)De of those who went to' India and, as, the chronicles , d " I· . . '. .. 'i·- some 0,fC state, composed an 0 d-" m I-m onor 0"f- t_he prl1De muuster, .. ,,_... <.-. ae '" 'whost: V~@TgeS, are quoted by Habib ..51t' ,A'~thotl,gh, the place in "India" ~ " is not specified, the Olb:!y ptim,e minister of that period w ho was W,Ofthy of an. ode w~;a;s Malh"n~:u.d.G,awa:nof Bidar (assassinated 1481),,, the 11 h d h " m:ost lPl'p>o''f'tan.t, maecenas 0" f" st,h jj[~tS,I" ~.panc art U'J. tie, B"')$,'h mamet 'kin,gdom~ His relations with Herat are' we'U known, and in his COE,respondence with one of '[he Iranian masters, of historilogr,apb:y and ,calli1graplh:y:; Shla;ra:ru,d:clj'n Y (lzdiJc he used plentifully the ima,ger'y from the .sphere of w'l"iting~. It is, said that the superb tnUr~qqaq inscrip!S"S, . (; . :' ~IOD I(),f: 1l-" '. m aoras '.' a In B',',," d ar, ,par ts ,',- wmer hi' .... . s'1~ll,visi b'I!,,~,e, r-a',_ an t-JfJ!..lS r'- _,::....11 -'1 _I'. S Q f:- h are :' ' ' 111In d·1.. i ~"m,., ,. 11.. ,- was. ,,..J g;-;.,,h -, a.t some p(U,n,I" W<Of,_ "ee 'It ,":~'"=k' .d !1i,.-1:~,eWQUrk::., li..!omp,os,eu, b· cA···· ill as-ou .. W,'D; ~,- ,-" '"Y ',' also in Istanbul to adorn some of M,eh,met the Conqueror's build2 ings .. 5-9 Another Persian caIHgraphet called, ~ike the most famous master of h.is time' and, 'therefore sometimes confused 'with 'him, :Mir.,,&'AH al.. ,
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died in Gujar,a[ in, 152\8;:sso hie may h,avI€ been an instructor of .Sultan MLl~afl~ar the Benevolent, the art... Ioving, pi.'otls son of Malamud Begra who: is 'k1J,o~\\rn, as 2M calligrapher and musician, The insersptions on th:e ~a:r,op~ha,gjof the Qutbshahi kings ~In GOI~CO,flld.a. pil'"O¥le: [hat ,call~apb,y was as 'h:rn,g':hly developed j'n the Deecan as it was in 'the MQghu,'~Empire, Lutfullah al-Husayni of Tabriz (d. 1633) decorated many monuments i the city of Hyderabad, 'buil'lc in l600 by' Sultan Muhalltm,31d~'Qtl'[i Q1L~'~bshab,. It seems that 'eaU,igraphy flourished 'p;ru;~icula~rill'yat the ~A,di~.sh,ahi court of Bij,alPHbllDr'" where 'e;llt!'n, 'the 6,'f'tl_ ruler ~ Yu~nfJ is, credited with ·..Ji ,€.1,~ c _., "hi 21, gOOIU, 1:;... , ~ ,~'- ... 1:.w,3.([[,0 ~.9 ~~a ,~tq~Ibrs hi ... ·;Il··..l,~'l,:,h--.at.,-' I.. , th e most c a,rmll:lg rora .lmi'1JUl.S, -I'h . personality anton; ahe ,B'~japl1l"irulers, wrote S"0ID:fi calligraphic pa,ge~" i!' hi U· b,. 1,'· A co,p~yQ'J( his 'b· ;OO'~; .ftttt-i-l> " na,urasj) was wntren 'b t h court ca 1-'dgr:a= I··r te ph er C] smatullah, SeV\er:al ,odler copies were entered in,lQ, ~~he' nyal r m'''b· . 16i3 11,... 'Le. £. wt y,a:ry In. ,-. '. W,w:,ren,'th e ,aC(Ofl1.'p,tl$,uJfu ~ .",]1'· ~ 1 .Q' M c: ~:dsCipll€ f·· I~_U~ZZU"'ddi !(}Jl xnn Kashan, Muhammad Baqir, served as head librarian but even 'I11JJlr{~' famous W"~S the copy produced 'by M:tirKhalilullah Shah, This master, a disciple of 6 a,ryid,-Al:rm,ad of M,ashhad,~26J lef~ 'the S,a.:fa,v'ild, Em1'1·

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..,, he sed cause,:,.-., usee th-.e ',._'.-'., too ..,·f> , .. -f·-· .'. ·aameJJ;JIJJtmen S=8iome. ·'t'h~-i·;' a ie razor- " .." 0 -t'en .or " .. ' ., ..l,'-- .. its '"log ,. good calUgrapher should never do. (Khalilullah is reported to ·hat·v'€: remarked, '''1 write with me 'pre'D llnife,!";)~UU1 Pages writte,n, by him were 'very:- expensive and Odie- gf his admirers 'bad to'-:D ' '._' 0 '. --. :@iv'ea'wood Arab horse to the owner of such at platg~ro obtain ,i:t. 264 Many of ''Er L i u ian ~I]· apr ies were I 'hi h d~' AIL~' 1- l 11 'L" ',s Cal!l=lg: tater .·,Q'us.ec, tn t h e lib .. ,1' ':rall1Y 0"f A-ssa.. fudda:ula in Lu;cknOI~l-which was, alas, de1UtQ:y.'e-d in :18,55 after i£ had fallen on bad da.ys d ecades be'fo)"'E:'-a.s becomes clear from the report 'Of the tb,e:~Tl ata.hJ,gU:I~:r, tile Aus rian orientalis; Aloys, Sprenc ,geT'~Khalilullah, w·ho, is also caned Amir Khaljl Qalandar or Butshir-,rr• '.'..-. •

·1 ,',_. \Vl. 1 ' '. . ' .,' ... ,i.--::L f - 'h·~ zh m,... ,p",aymg ". ith 'J,118 surrsame . In(l.:t"t ~_\iV, ten, -l!'l~e '" ,. '.' . h 1S .,..;} ~..:l'L ...JI"7.J =~"'"t.~J~ M1 r, uld]],cat!es ,-'. statu $1 as a, sa!1Ji'~ )~! fKlir~ ,ga~u:tuPdu,li3i«J;J~-t·iI:~I-~ S /ft,J.lrtm " The, 8ha'h/king became the' emperQ:f' ef the :pe'n'~"~.$IIU! ,btah,'rn.m'~~, court poet Zuhuri, to whom we owe such colorful poetical descriptions of the Deccan, was \fJery fond J().f Khalilulla:b", ~)"ul others c:riticizecJ him be...-".,,,",",.- . OGC~tS1Qn,!
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kan, reeurned to lr,a.n, art the' invitarion of Shah ~Abbas, 'but, 'he ,preferred life inIndia and died in Hyderabad in 1626. On 'me whole, Ibrahim eAdilshah seeme to have 'preferred the naslik style of calligraplhy in which most copies of (be Ki':tab-i .~u:wmare written, The' call,i:gra:p:hicpanels that cover large areas of the IBrahim. huza" the kin,g:s maurs1ole.um,; in Rijapur .are of highesr artis'lile·q.ualHty~ M,a:ny of the calligraphers who visit~d India or settled there had to pass th,rough Sin,d; (g.-t' the Lower Indus Valley served as a kind of rBlttis for artists d:u:ring the, mid-sixteenth century ~The. tWo Turk: .. ish d Y·I}UltS'ti!ct rhat ru]ed~ in Sind after the fall of the mdigenous Samma dY'nast, in ],5'2'0 namely' the Ar,gh'un~$ and Tarkhans, had dlesc:end.ed from Hera t; thus, :caIligra:p,her~ and lloets. Wh(l fled, the war-stricken ci.ty found man o:~.d. friends and relatives in the eapital, Thatta, B'2JreIy ,t,t,ny manuscripts have survived from that time; 'yet the inseripnons on tombstones in Ma'k~ii MiU :p'roV'c'thepresence of excellent: masters of M;,wJutn and, less prominently ~of msta'iiq in Sind; and, even. the last dyn,ast}" QfSio,d" the Talpurs (11',S6,.-..]S,4.3}, though themselves not at,(:tivein. HteT,a'ture or fine arts! were able '[0, attract til nu mber QIl' gootl calligl";a.:pl:u:!'fjs. from 1 ran and 'rlorthe'r:n In,ttia,~ ~6J~ Perhaps the mast outstanding FD'Y,el tradition of caUigr,a,phy is found in the Ottoman house, 1v here almost every other ruler is known as, a. ealligrapher. MU,fad, II.'s interest i~o(aln.,gr.apb.y is mentiened 'by the sou.rces;,;;2~'i6,M'c'h,ID'C3't the Coaqaercr studied {:aHigra .... ,'hy with a master 'from Sarnsun; ~~1 and Ekrern HakleYAy,rerdi has given a detailed account of the 'high standard of calllgraphy 011, var .. ions media ,~lu,:ring'Eatih's time,,2S& The real Foy,al traditien, however, seems 'tilt) begin with M'e:h];rH~t1s sen Bayezid ,lID who; d'u.rin.g his, gIO''Ver,fIJ.(lts,hiP in. Amarsya" ha,d, th,e good fortune of ·bec,omin.g~ disciple the of the founder of' '[hie! Turkish 8.0.110,01 of tuultn ,andl. !lh~u,tk~ ,S'h,aykh .. d Hamdullah (1436-1519),,, who continued tile line of Yaqui's di&ciple~ Ahmad Suhrawardi, Amasya 'w~asap'J)lareJl.tly at fertile g,rul for calhgraphy; at least it is c;~a:irn,edthat Yaqut was born in that .citYm As for his spiritual descendant, S:h,ayk:h Hamdullah, his whole f3'm.Uy was famed for 'sno-d writing.,gtf9 He ·h.imself wa.'S~,(llSI le",ge'll.d has it, inspired by Kh.lldl- to develop a :ne',"r elegan.11, style of ~M and, tkul'ug:h~ Prince Qorq,ut also studied, w'i.th him in Amasya; then. the sbayth. 'pro ... ceeded to Istanbul where his former pupil B ayezid bad ascended the throne in ]48,1. after much internecine sitruggIe~ He was highly
1 ;

71

honored by (hie sultan, 'w:ho did n.ot mind p acing the cushions in the Tight position for him, Orr holding his inkstand. The master was alsegranted a decent income from two vin~lges in, the Szigetvar area. It is a strange coincidence that his, life spa,n, is almost exactly the same as that oil Sultan~C,A~i of Ma.~lll:h,:arl~wh,o occu'pi,e'o a vel'"y similar position both in the spiritual g~e1;l{ea1f)gy' calligraphers ,a'iil>d In. the of offi,cia] hi!€'l70,arcb.)~''9'£ a TU'Jr kish court. Srba1ylth Hamdullah wrote forty-seven copies of the Koran a.. nd :m3,I1Y thousands ,of prayers as well as orhet texts, ~t W and, from hilD, the sil:sild g'oes ehroughhis son-in-law Shukrullah through six, ~g~en,erations UD'[U it reached Hafiz O:nna:n in, the second half ,0.£ 'the seventeen th centu iy ~ Since Shay kh Harnd ullah's gra.ndson was' sq'uirl7lt eyed, he had 'to write t;H'~7f1t 'v@t"y c~oself over the ,parpel1,~;3, n g, did. not attain the same perfection as his father and grandfather; fh:e~efore, the line continued thr!C)~Jgh, ftDnrelati:ves:.2:71 In the late fourteenth century Ibn Khald'un. had praised Cairo as the center 0,( c.ivUi~a.tioD. and hence of gaold caJJigraphy;, the same could 'tile' s,a.i,deven mote ju.stifi,ab,~'y abou t ] stanbul from 1,500 O:fI=, w81Jid.,~7'2 Sultan 8'tileyman W.H~' 'Magn.HJi'reo£'s good hand in borh tku-· lutk a1ud ,taC;lfq' 'was, :hi,g;hly pr aised '1:"'1 Turkish writers",27~ and he' was lucky enough to be surrounded 'by' a number of ext:elle'nt calligra. h h 'c" .. P',h Tiers 'W h decorated h~' b ,: 'old' lngs WIL tr err mscrtpnons. Th ,0' eeoratea J8Ul I" te most: eutstan ding personality among them wa.,sA'hm,ad Qa.tahis,ari, whose artistic genealogy w'ellt '~h,rouJ,g~h, 'Yah<yat as-Sufi [21,4! 'to: C Abdallah Pi1f as-Sayrafi to' Yaqut, His large inscriptions in roundels in the SBE~Y'maniya 'lIDOSq:u e at',€: ~S, 'well known, to ev'el~y''Vi sitn;r to .Ista nbul ~as a.rl€' his '~!if;'ty unusual and daring specimens of the f;Ja.$mala~ in which he r.eached the absolute prerfec,tion of (hie' large tauqic 'nan,d and that lately have frequently been printed :in both the East an,d, the West because of their unique dynamism (after Habib ft,ad :p.ub:£is:h,ed it first in, his book Khatt u khattfl:~Li:n; in 1306/]887')1" O:n,'e'" nderstaod.s u why some admirer thus described his, basmola in ;3 Persian verse:
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oJ th is ,6tJ.SmLdtt, in, the gaide fi 0'£' calligraphy '-,,~" nd .ro' cedse _ rom d ,--;t·, :8,-6Cam~ ,a. cypress. an, P -"'-··d-I~u,ce, see··dfro '_,,()c"Si. These letters became the viceorioua arrny;
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to, the biographers a petit, 'velry elegantly ardred person, 111USl have 'been possessed 'by a special power, and his art 'is as unique as is his contemper ary Micmar Sinan's architecture, :F~m{)iUSis the' ·K·()ran, that :h,e 'w~ro'te:£01'the sultan; and. in .. his, =~-.~-< -:":"'-,--1' h.e CO,1l1. me d 3S~.t"'b ecam e more an._.m.fj,le POP" ar, b~ _, d ,8, b um Pil::g'eS , 1tfMkh and th·muth in a harmonious bl,ending~2.c16 It is Dot surpri'sin.,g that hie 'did. not form a school but had only a few very special students, amo~g 'them. 'his former slave and then adopted son", Hasan II he ',' ndn At''t" "the C'iL..-'I- ebi,I, C" .t..~~'I~.q".:l' ~17' In p~ ~·.l1i le,5=:','6'- W ik. 1. ,It!ii.aJ.''''' . " ~'U'af.IL,g.···.", W lIl.u·.l i" ._ dots of his scrip t became transformed into moles on the cheeks of th e h ou ris of P arad ise. "" @.?,:8 ,A generation later, Murad 1]1 appears as the ruler 'w:ho best t:o~m'bined love' !elf fine arts and ·mystical.illy tinged verse His jali ~thut.uth was $1()1 outs tan d in g that [;wO' of his 'vr.iiin\g~ ad orn th e A'~·,a. Sofy d. mo :27; It \V l.,~r han ifi"h··, cA,····ll~i ,', f.'eJ.-Jl. 1 translat -'d' "'Iu-'~'-hu"'cl' '~_,~, '.. a~If' ,':. "d. E-·· endi . :r:,a, . ,SII.,ulII.;e "_ . ~ ," .', din Va.zdi~s R:isal'a~i' ,qu,tbina as MfJl/n~.b=i' kijnl1!11!),I:&r:&."~:&is,'@1 This c.Ali Efeo,d.i fw, om. Gallipoli 'was an emlP~'tlyee in the d~u(iru of several grande€'S and a. p;rOili.fi!C: 'writer of pret'ly mediocre prose, history, and poetry
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every sp~al"e. oment of his busy life m i,n, the: various C6The1fS, f the Ottoman Empire to calligraphy, which o he :bead learned from Shaykh Hamdul ah's grandson, Shukrullahzade Pir Mehmet Dede, Fer his translation 6f·>Q.utbu.ddin.~s, work he " .'" '~. "d' th if. h I.'e',p ,cn 'ilrb-'" no, te_ i(:;al.lgrap,. 'b-',eT CA> bd u '['1' h Q-:.-:~.r.un,l'l'2;,81 b ,. ·t " ,,~ ". secut e!._.- ',' ,']. "E .e' . ~ 'd" . ,,. 'I'~'" ., ar :, ,. .e, .1. -'ll . ,. I. ~.. '·d '~.' .' U .IS hi ,21;,dd 'I ~ ,I IS euuons to the text, casting In t€r.e-8t~Thg 81 _.e hts 0.0 tne ,1g bistory of Tur kish cal igrap,hy and on ~" life of a rather frustrated he calligrapher, that are of special value even though his work has to. 'be used wftth caution, Atu)tfh.e:r artist 'W,bOl was aware 'of M urad III~s love of IcaU.igr,ifl:p:hy d,edic;flled. a 'book of ,(:alligt~a;p:hicmodels (now in ·"1 ~ .:Ii' (,I"".,!. .'.'leana!'\ t~· ,•..1m~~ '-.' '-u,r]~n,g- M" '-urau s reJ1,g.n"'a s~I'a.nge·man. 'l~W~ 'iJF aulm'l) . Q hi - . 2:8'2 D --,,- ,.- ',' , f;ea:ched Istanbul-s-the Persian ambassador Elchi Ibrahim R.h.an (99 1)/158,2) w'ha, "had attained a wbite beard due to the love of [black] 'WFiting' and who exaggerated. in his album pages the flaking of gold and ornamentation for, since his handwniting was not very distin'guished·, it was '~O bide 'his mistakes '[halt he <sp1ent _go]d lavishly ~ 2:8,3 n Somewhat later, Sultan Murad IV (:I62',3==40)1 is 'praised, as a fine , calligrapher even by one JQf' the leading masters of ntMta'qliq" N'argis,,,, iZ31d,e;, and Sayyild Ibrahim Efendi Nefeszade dedicated .his f}ulzaf-i
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calligraphers, [0' him. !84: Slig:btly later 'the Turkish calligraph ie tradition 'reac'h,ed its apex "vii . 'afiz 'Osman (c. :I642',~98), a me iber 0(£ the Sunbu ,iyy;a. order centered in the It6,kke 0;£ Kocamustafa Pa.s.h.a~:2,$5. The Koran as, writ'[en by him is, S'[ua, [he jdeal for ,ev,ery art-loving, 'P,":,OUS, Turk" 'who would certainly a.gree with th,€. chronogram m,a,r.:king his, death: To serV€ the word of God day and night; ... Th ". e.' A' .1,,01:1,< ' "i had' g ::, ~g-ht'v ',;- ,_raIh..'d- him yuu.-" p',~a [spe -~""'i,'-l,- ,'-,:, ''',",28,6 e, ,,,JJ'." ." ,.:J'; h7l:o= 8..: Cella, power]
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Yah,y,a, Kemal, the last classical Turkish poet, has praised Hafiz --,-~ '....._ . Oc,a;.usta a ,ala L _ie - I let O sman In ms poem ""KI -:- ,.. ' , fa P' - - - n' ; C~UJl:lng:h im "th - pr'o,p,h ., - ,",,--, "1\,,,," ,- :1.. d,C o f' pe'n,ma, S.t,liPI "', , wnose- 111, -"."'" rummous b ,i , nrum nates th ,e_ar Ilness 'OJ! ,e'lng i'~-'l1 t ," the cemetery ~'-,'here"creepers, inscriptions, s tones, and trees are blended together." It was Hafiz Osman whe instructed, the royal brothers Mustafa II and Ahmad I: ,I even after he suffered a stroke, As Bayezid I had attended [10 Shaykh Ha ~I,dulla'h~snee .. tt us ds MUHstafa I! did" not mind, helding the mkstand for his teacher, and it is, told 'at ,e once remarked: "Never will there be another Hafiz Osman!" Whereup..:)n the caUigr:ap"h,er 'eplied: ~"Yo,ur Majes1r~ as Iong as there are 'kings, 'that bold, 'the inkstand for 'theh teacher there will be ma y more H' anz' ',sm,a.ns,.. Hetnus " POll]te'd 1..,0 11'e~ nnpor t ance-,~'. -L, ~-to th . .,-, ',' -- , _e , , ~ if:. '0-" .. of patronage as, well as, to the' rules, of proper behavior w:hleh even a king' has 00' observe vis-a-vis his '[e',at.her~!'i8'7 The instruction 'was apparently very successful, as, sb.. own by the large basmala the s'ultan w, -ol,e in one stroke of the- pen; it now adorns the A.-yaSofya .. ,88, It is 2 said that 'be' always, asked Hafiz Osman '£0 write a sentence ,first and, , en ':, , ", 2 M':,u -,~, c-. b '_,_ ,'el' an., ' ,- ,,',- " ,d t.h ,- - cople" d' , I " 89 ,:'"s~,al-aSI,:rO ,th' .' :' ,..,:-" successo'r',' A",h' ,ma _".1,·,1. prac. ".:c, - - ad 1" I '!J.lO€!"_" " ,'rs'( w tm H' 2iL~:Z 0-:'- ---,~. ani:" fo,;' d 6' fi ' lsntdn, md ,a:r'lli" t,:e i . -, ~.d' h In ]',g ':> , lI.,et the m,as:teI' ,S ,:_Ie.-at."1 ,~" e'98' with his favorite .disciple, Yedikuleli C Abdallah, who wrote a. beanti .. , f - c, py of the Koran for him. 2:90 S,u~,ta.nAhmad himself, who ad alse studied taCliqlf.wrote both Koran copies and album p:~gles~ One' day in I 13,6/17:25 he assembled a1'1 the masters ofcalligraphy to show them the' album of his own calligraphy; the tWOI leading poets of tr.. e age, 'V,ebb,': and Nedim, immediately ~xtem',p>o'l"ized chronograms and several caJligraphe'rs· followed suit with their ehronograms and verses, fo-r "Mercury, the' scribe star, himself came down to look 3'[ this alll,., ~ " jU .'
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bum and found t'h,e lofty lines ,. . " worth,y to, be' ,hung' from the 'high:es:t ,sky,,"!'2191 Sultan Ahmad .Ill wrote a fine mirrored btlSma:lo;,2'92 ., .. ano...::II app"a.re'll'ldy macde I a pomt EiO sen d at I e tt least ODe piece Oil{"" 1'4£$ eaUigra.p,:t.ry to each major mosque in .~:,sta'n'bu],.2S1S Remarkable "s the rb skf ." -~,'h:'",'h nSCflplWl'On e ," his mot'fO.hl ,~,",~,r S tomi m .rs u'd''iar, w, Ie _,~nSIS~./,'~S' _,',',e lor ,IS ,',,' 0"f' th Prophetic tradition: "P arad ise lies, u nder the feet of mo hers
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Invocation of the Prophet Muhammad" written b,y 'he Ottoman 5'01tan Mahmud II about 1,8,3S

But with Mai1m,u,d II. (d, ]'839), otherwise noted for his ,p,0lit leal re",'-~ "f' ... - r. .. .' - -." ~ . "'~' d .. , Ottoman h -"-~' f'orms, a" _" aster 0, th e exalt once more occupiedtr"h' e 0"" " ",' ~. rene, i ,'_~e received his ijaw from Mehme;: 'Vasfi, .'OT'a, fine ,~il,a,. but the influence of Mustafa Raqim, the master of large decorative writing, is also 'Visible in his writing~ 'He is credited lv,~th, "one of the finest tablets ir jalf thulrufh ever: written" in TUI?keYr.I~S Finally, the so rrees mention Sultan t,Abdul M,~jid, Wh'D died in 18161 at the ,ag~ of forty and, despite a rather lascivio IS p'riv,a,[e life, now and then fOUDd time to write' beautiful calligraphies, some of which are found in mosques of Istanbu ,. He was granted the ijaz.a for thuluth by cll2le'[ E'fcn,di.2.'9S And it is no accide .that the ust!:fu~ littl e book by Habib, U'~'~Ih!' ~"'ll ~,"JUFtfW'fG,rlu~ ,~~l.rl4't':O'+':;~.. dedi .... •ed_ tY $' .ulta_, C'A'-,, bd IU. Ham .. in ~: n , .. 1,1JA."I~t 'U'~M,~. I. . _" id- [~~ 130,5/.1-88,7.
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in which the music of the verse .and the :UlUlSic of the :~,ii1e' are f.ta,'r~ , ".s, iusl ,'..J W~ ,en, ]b ,,' , .' -, , ab . OD.IOU,o; y ,'1.",.1 -,d",'el,Qt."' ,-'h,' " _ ,Il, a ,1 S": a.wwa ; th ,€" " -,'"~"" cal,IiI'gr '~"-P':,~r u eo master >- 'lll~,:-,-, a,__hi of the late [JetrU] all dearly €.Jevertth centuries, d,:~,ed;a 'poet W'fote a dirge on him:
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vard Uni V ersitv Cambfidze, Mass, .. l!i"" '·,D'···_·'

Diploma (ij~tl) for a Turkish calligrapher, cA.i Ra'if Efendl, by two master ca l:~gl~a:phe-rs,;dated 120611 796., Reprod uced from 'the Collections of the :Liblrary of Congress, Wfa~h].ngt()in~ C,. D,.,

Sura t ~2 written in circular form, .fa.·yenc.e ...Me-h.rnet Sukollu Mosque, Istanbul, 'seventeenth ,cent· .rr;; Photo Edna,·(1 Widmer, Zuric.h -

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Varier s Iorr ts ofhei' ill, naskh. cal igraphy on an exercise sheet, Cour" ",- .-,- ;"J'" : , " "",' , " ,ass~ tesy "f th e F' ogg,' A' ~~ M",USieum" 'I' ,- ,,'rd U' ,," "~~·t= C""'" ibrids,.,ge,,, MI'·' 01, ,anr,ar, .. nIVe,! 8,1y,.a.m·m,

Anthropomorphic and zoomorphi _ letters from a canteen in metal, Syria, mid-thirteenth century, Mos .1 school, Courtesy 0' the Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonia . Institution, Washin,gtoLn" D" C"

Peacock wb.. tail is rna-die' ,0 'd-ivlini ,eaUigra'phy,. containing blessings ose for an Ot oma ,"ruler, 'Turkey" ca. 17'OO~ rom the ~Bellini-Album," The Metropolitan .•' useum of Art; Louis V,",:BeU Fund, 1'967

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Page from, an anthology of poetry in nas~ac,l'fq script, The sc ipt is cut out and pasted on, the patper" Iran or 'Turkey, 11ft century. The Metro,p,olit~ln Museu.m of -,rt~,Gift of M-'s~ ,Lacey W~ ,Dlr1exel, 1889

III

Ca lli rra ph y... .'.... and Mysticism

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ID,y ('Nun. and. the' Pen' and by. the hencr of the ·tl:iter,~iteProJ.bel Ibq lor ·t\ hoolll th .. Pen lv, ou1d ID.~t have been creased!" 1
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More t an any othe religion, Islam stresses the importance of the Book and :8 in fact the first religion in which the distinction be _\,ree·n the ahl al-kira!J and those without a written reve arion was clearly stated to form part of its lega~ system, h M .. h . '[1 d Y eft. ..heb the oearer 0 f_u IS message, _'··U h-ammae d.rne :l"'o'p_le-~ is cal ed in 'the Koran «mmil'- which came to. be' interpreted as ~~ mlettered" 'Dr none who needs .0'0 l'earniDg,.'~'becaU.8e ~ot the preservation of the h .1Vl.ne f h 1n, . '" ,0."G'0 d (. f true essence 0 f tne D,. ., message, . or tne "lTI"__ ibranon u .as Harry W() £SOD. cans it), the Prophet's mind had to be absolutely pU.i-,e·; just as :M·ary : ad to, be a virgin to' become the vesse of inearna ion, For this reason the :mysti,cs loved '00 dwe I on the illiteracy of the Prophet: and as proud as they were of the' revealed Boo .'~they also realize ._.that i,etters m~,ghlbe a veil between themselves and the im'
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The orphan, who recites' he Koran without lesson, drew the line of abolition [naskh, or "a line of nasltk calligraph y'~] over the ancient pageS;::!l for the message which he b;tolug:, t abrogated aU, previous revelations. ',"oiwever; this message i self, the Koran, abounds in allusions tOI writing, At the very be,ginning of the revelatio , in Sura 96~1God appears as He' ~~w'h.o,ta'_'_gh.tman. by the pen," and. the 6.rs.1twords of Sura 16,S, read: ~"'-, and by the Peril" This sentence has inspired un, poets and mystics throughout the centuries and is alluded to in many verses, all the.more as the last th ee verses of this sura are recited agains'- the evil (rye'. Everything', the Koran holds; has, 'been written fr'om, all eternity on ,the,tau/) ,al-ini:JJ)fiJ;, the 'Well~'pl',es,erved Tablet by means cf the pr',ce'xirs,te"Ht Pen, Sueh formulations led of necessity to discussions about predestination and free will, a:nld they color the eligious history of early Islam, "The Pen has, already dried up," says a tradition that was -quoted in. defense of the idea that 'whatever bead been decreed in preeterniry cannot be changed, Mallliana Rumi, 'w'h,g felt that such an i~n'terpreltatio':n, would be da gerous for man's development and 'hamper him O'D hi& 'way 'to 'higher levels of spiritual prog-ress, ". terpreted the g,aY'mg differently .. The faci that tJti,e Pen has drier] up does not mean. that ev,erytrung is In'''eordain'ed but rather that 't ' ere is written once and for all that good actions 'will be recompensed wb,Ue sins will be' punished: this is the unchangeable 'pule accor '.ing to which man shou ld act, a I here is also another tr:adirt],on: . . Pit d . '" 11.. s: th dis w h ,en the ",en was a b t It0 wrll~e:_ own th e ,pU,-'lSr,[o.Eme, 't, :lor tne ' us~'OU, 1.!... di 'M'~ '. ''b. Que. l.en'[.-' usnms 'W'.Il,~.l.O 'were: ,go". -ng to h 1'1 a. terri.' ible voi nei ,~, ..IJ.,evoice carne, shouting, "Be :ave, '0 Penl" and from fear the Pen was ,s'pUit:-whic . is '\l"hX every p'.n has to be split "'n, order tOI write." .. ~ S'mce, aecore d" ,lng' to gelD,era 1 b 111" e ,a.u.man ';151actions are 'w'rlltten 0'0, aener, 'U ,th.,e-able 1 in Islamic a-guages fate is generally termed '1IUIJtfUb, "writte :,/~ or "written O(n. the fOli-e':h'eadn~ramiw,ht or attn ,aziSr~ in
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Persian and Turkish, respectively ... he lines engraved Ion man's face could the.. be interpreted as ·teni~"g of his. fate, as constituting, as it were, the [ide' page of his destiny, which eould be deciphered by those with. insight, 'u "he warrior-poet Khushhal Khan Khatak slays in a. fine Pashto quatrain .hat "the true men 0'( God in this w·Qr~.d read f 110m: tie tav'L'l.et [0' the C h: :a: t :'e SCTlp'. ,01f . 11 h th f h J!..,or,e'· d ' i,e'[eart., ""i ,[. Poets have often complained that the "writers of pre-eternity" have written the fate of lovers in black 6 or considered the image of the d d d ,. b )- d [. ey carry .,. tnetr mmo s asorawn ·b.i-'L pen D.C" > estmy on _esovec h In 1!..." ~ytne tlle tablet of their .hean....7 Over and 'over have suffering lovers cried . · i... :':,:._._a b Si dhi out. lik S use eassmm Sh h cA" d U I I. auif"" S"lO_.J], verse:
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Had I known that the dis. iste of s.~.paratio:n would 'befall me', ] would have- washed off the 'writiJl,g o,f destiny in the ',,,,ery begin,

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But mystically inclined writers would rather agr'ee with Ruzbihan Baqli, who saw the Pen of the decision (jaiwa) of pain take: .'he ink of loving friendship from the inkwell of ecstatic experience to 'wlrite letters love Ion the heart of the' lovers}' For a rebel poet [ike' Ghalib the "writing on the forehead" is the mark tell by the prostration before his. idol, mo (.I Islam 'the dark m.ark on the £ore-h,e'.ad. caused by frequent prostratiens is regarded as, a s,i,gn of special pi.ety; see 'Sura 48/29:,.) And how should man '.011: act, im pro perly, munlJanf (lit., "slanted") when the Pen that wrote h ts (" was cut ~ at croo k d way,' l' " .... .ate In ceo 'The Pen which was able to write everything ,O'D the Tablet, is, according tO a Prophetic tradition, the fu~~st thing that G'od created. r2: For the ,SUi' theoreticians and some philosophers it ·Wa.SI therefore at times regarded as the symbol of the First Intellect or ~ rather" the First Intellect itself. Ibn ('ATalbi, combining this idea with 'the b.egin~ · c 6' 8 .' ks 0.'. u d~lan-c:::: n'Ing 0'.,~ ~ura '..'','., Nu.n wa~J J,;". ,t.-qaw:m, speaks of an ange 1 cal~.Ie-.~. N'- ni u 'W ho is "the per sonification ~of the IF irst Intellect in its, passive aspect as the container of all knowledge n 13':h,a.t corresponds to the cornmon interpretation of nun as the primordial I.n~k.w·ell, to which i£s shape indeed can be compared.v' The fifteenth-century Shia thinker Ibn Abi Jumhur" who closely follows Ibn ,c,A'rabri's system, considers the Divine Throne the' Pen, the Universal Intellect, and the pri-

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