15.2: Timurid
- Page ID
- 108692
Arts of the Islamic world: The Timurids (1369-1502)
by Glenna Barlow (excerpted)
This powerful Central Asian dynasty was named for its founder, Tamerlane (ruled 1370-1405), which is derived from Timur the Lame. Despite his rather pathetic epithet, he claimed to be a descendent of Genghis Khan and demonstrated some of his supposed ancestor’s ruthlessness in conquering neighboring territories.
After establishing a vast empire, Timur developed a monumental architecture befitting his power, and sought to make Samarkand the “pearl of the world.” Because the capital was situated at a major crossroads of the Silk Road (the crucial trade route linking the Middle East, Central Asia, and China), and because Timur had conquered so widely, the Timurids acquired a myriad of artisans and craftspeople from distinct artistic traditions. The resulting style synthesized aesthetic and design principles from as far away as India (then Hindustan) and the lands in between.
The result can be seen in cities filled with buildings created on a lavish scale that exhibited tall, bulbous domes and the finest ceramic tiles (Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\)). The structures and even the cities themselves are often described foremost by the overwhelming use of blues and golds. While the Timurid dynasty itself was short-lived, its legacy survives not only in the grand architecture that it left behind but in its descendants who went on to play significant roles in the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal empires.
The Miscellany of Iskandar Sultan (Add.27261)
adapted from Muhammad Isa Waley
Imagine being a position to commission a magnificent one-volume selection of the reading matter you would most like to carry around on your travels – a kind of miniature personal library. With no expense spared, you could order the most skillful calligraphers in the land to write it, the best painters to illustrate it, the best illuminators to decorate it, the best binders to bind it…
Such was the good fortune of Jalāl al-Dīn Iskandar Sultan ibn ‘Umar Shaykh, grandson of the famous Central Asian conqueror Tīmūr (Tamerlane). Iskandar ruled much of southern Iran for just five years (1409-1414) before meeting his death after rebelling against Shāh Rukh, his overlord. Iskandar was an enthusiastic and discerning patron of the arts and learning, and a number of the exquisite Persian manuscripts produced for him have survived. Amongst the most remarkable of these are his two Miscellanies, one of which is preserved at the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon and the other at the British Library, now fully digitized as part of our Digital Access to Persian Manuscripts sponsored by the Iran Heritage Foundation and others. Thanks to a generous grant from the Andor Trust, selected folios from the London volume are now available to view and study, with notes and a number of translated extracts, as a ʻTurning the Pagesʼ presentation.
The Miscellanies of Iskandar Sultan, then, are illustrated compendia of texts. Those in the first half of our volume were copied by Muḥammad al-Ḥalvā’ī, and the remainder by Nāṣir al-Kātib; their work is dated 813-814/1410-1411. We do not know who was responsible for the illumination and paintings; but some of the latter are probably by Pīr Aḥmad Bāgh-shimālī, reputedly the greatest artist of his time. Notable features of the book include the small page size (182 x 129 mm.) and writing; exquisitely detailed and inventive illumination; and jewel-like miniature paintings. The manuscript has been skilfully restored by British Library conservators and rebound in traditional Islamic style to open as flat as possible. Because the new binding is undecorated, for ‘Turning the Pages’ the covers from a different manuscript were used instead.
The texts chosen by the royal patron and/or his advisers could hardly have been more miscellaneous. They include a wide-ranging selection of religious, narrative and lyrical poetry; in prose, there are treatises on astronomy and astrology, geometry, medicine, farriery, alchemy, history, and Islamic law. In this ʻTurning the Pagesʼ production we have tried to make a representative selection of the 1092 pages (i.e. 546 folios), in the hope of doing justice, as far as possible, to the quality and wide variety of texts, decorative designs, and images.
A detailed description of the contents is available as a PDF, so for present purposes, it will suffice to mention some of their interesting features, with a brief discussion of a few pages by way of example.
The poetical texts in the first half of the Miscellany all consist of parts or the whole of well-known lengthy works in masnavī form (rhyming couplets).
The Miscellany also includes qaṣīdas, poems in monorhyme, in praise of the Prophet Muḥammad or the Imams of the Shī‘a. Others are technical tours de force, single poems incorporating as many different metres or rhetorical devices as possible. Next comes a selection of over two hundred poems in the shorter ghazal form. This is complemented by a more extensive anthology, occupying the outer text panels of almost three hundred pages. Categorised variously by subject, genre or metre, it contains ghazals and other poems by over three hundred authors. Famous contributors include Farrukhī, Manūchihrī, Nāṣir-i Khusraw, Salmān-i Sāvajī, Amīr Khusraw, Ḥāfiẓ (one of the earliest known textual sources), and ‘Imād-i Faqīh. These last two both feature in a previous blog posting: see Jahangir’s Hafiz and the Madrasa Jurist. Others are little known today; whether their verse was fashionable in 8th/14th century southern Iran, and what criteria were applied by the compilers of Iskandar Sultan’s two Miscellanies would be an intriguing topic for literary historians to investigate.
As for the prose contents of Add. 27261, their subject areas have been enumerated above. The inclusion of a summary of jurisprudence according to the Ja‘farī school (mazhab) followed by Imāmī (Ithnā-‘Asharī) Shī‘īs is another indication, coupled with the above-mentioned poems in praise of the Imams, of interest in Shī‘ism at a time when the great majority of Iran’s population was Sunnī. There is also a concise guide to sacred law pertaining to religious obligations attributed (even though it is in Persian) to Abū Ḥanīfa, main founder of the (Sunnī) Ḥanafī juristic school.
Ā’īnah-’i Sikandarī, a treatise on alchemy named after Iskandar Sultan, was written expressly for him, as was Risālah-’i Kibrīt-i aḥmar (‘Red Sulphur’), on the same subject. Mukhtaṣar dar ‘ilm-i Uqlīdis, ‘Elements of Geometry,’ presents some theorems from the first book of Euclid’s work, complete with illuminated geometrical figures and adorned with illuminated margins incorporating verses in praise of a patron and here doubtless intended for Iskandar Sultan (Figure \(\PageIndex{5}\)).
Finally, a large proportion of the second half of the Miscellany is devoted to astronomy and astrology. This fact, coupled with the magnificent illuminated ‘Horoscope of Iskandar Sultan’ (now preserved at the Wellcome Institute, just half a mile along Euston Road from the British Library) suggest that the Sultan had a strong interest in such matters. The computation of calendars and the use of the astrolabe are described in Ma‘rifat-i taqvīm va usṭurlāb. Lastly, some of the 340 pages devoted to Rawẓat al-munajjimīn, a comprehensive early treatise on astrology, are enlivened by colourful, imaginative and exotic drawings in the margins. At the end of the copying process some blank pages remained, and it appears that at least one artist was literally ‘given carte blanche’ to decorate them in any matter he wished.
Who decided what to put into the Miscellany? Did Iskandar choose for himself, or did others help? The manuscript has sometimes been described as a kind of encyclopedia, but even with the contents of the Lisbon volume added, one would not only have a few subject areas covered; there is an abundance of great imaginative poetry but little practical information. If asked to design a ‘Swiss knife’ book for a Sultan, I think I might include some of the following (besides the poetry and jurisprudence): a cookbook; guides to hunting and to edible plants; at least as much geography as history; a primer of navigation by land and sea; a concise multilingual phrasebook; and prayers, passages from Scripture, and other words of wisdom and consolation for hard times. (The British Library has a kind of miniature miscellany compiled by the novelist George Eliot.) In any case, as a great bibliophile Iskandar must have been a happy man when the Miscellany was first presented to him for inspection.
The Khamsah of Nizami: A Timurid Masterpiece
One of the best loved of the illustrated Persian manuscripts in the British Library is the Khamsah of Nizami Or. 6810. Made in Herat during the reign of Sultan Husayn Bayqara, and with one picture dated 900/1494-95, it contains some of the finest late 15th-century painting. The glorious colour and meticulous drawing of its illustrations strike the viewer immediately, while the depth and complexity of their meaning is endlessly fascinating. In addition the manuscript poses interesting problems of artistic attribution and patronage.
Illustrating a parable in Makhzan al-Asrar (‘Treasury of Secrets’), the first of the five books of the Khamsah, ‘Harun al-Rashid and the barber’ takes us inside a hammam (‘bathhouse’). We are well and truly inside since the plain doorway in the right marks the entry to an area of privacy, or relative privacy. In its main saloon, men, with their gaze politely directed away from each other, are dressing or undressing with proper decorum. To the left is a more private space, its status is expressed in a more stately architecture: this is for the moment reserved for caliphal use. In it Harun al-Rashid is the direct object of attention of two attendants, and appears to have engrossed the activity of two more. This space is the focus of the narrative: the viewer’s eye has been led towards it from right to left, according to the reading direction of the Persian script. The text tells us that when Harun visits the hammam the barber who shaves his head asks for the hand of his daughter in marriage. Harun is incensed by this impertinence, which is, moreover, repeated on his subsequent visits. Harun puts this problem to his vizier, remarking that it seems unwise to subject oneself to the double threat of an actual razor and a dagger-like word. The vizier speculates that the barber’s presumption might result from his standing over a treasure: the caliph should order him to move his position. Harun acts accordingly; standing on a different spot, the barber no longer feels himself the caliph’s equal; excavation reveals the treasure over which had been beneath his feet.
Over and above the requirements of the narrative, the depiction of the hammam is the gift that the artist makes to the viewer. There are minutely observed practical details such as the soot deposited on the walls by the lamps in the private room, or the precise position of hands that wring a wet towel in the public space; and there is the symbolic detail that the caliph’s robes and crown are temporarily laid aside, so that in a sense he becomes a vulnerable man on a level with the others. There is careful observation and judgement in the use of colour: the dark buff tiles of the floor are evidently not glazed, so that even when wet they will not be slippery; their colour is beautifully set off by the array of blue towels of varying stripe that blazon the function of the establishment, and that are secured into the main composition by the rod that lifts them to or from the drying line.
Is this picture the work of the great painter Bihzad? The names of both Mirak, the older master, and of Bihzad have been written underneath it at an unknown date, but the majority of scholars would attribute it to Bihzad. Writing in 1605, the Mughal emperor Jahangir, then in possession of the manuscript and priding himself on his connoisseurship, asserted that 16 of its pictures were by Bihzad, five by Mirak, and one by ʿAbd al-Razzaq, though he did not specify which (See earlier post: ‘A Jewel in the Crown’).
One of the pictures to which no notes of attribution have been added is the ‘Miʿraj’ (‘ascent’) (Figure \(\PageIndex{8}\)), the picture of the Prophet Muhammad carried up into the heavens on the back of the Buraq, a mount with a human face—the Buraq’s face suggests the work of Mirak, the other faces less so. The Prophet is seen in a swirl of golden clouds and surrounded by angels, against a night sky. He is above the black-draped Kaʿbah, with the town of Mecca around it treated in fascinating detail, albeit in a rather Persianate architecture replete with blue and turquoise tiling. The picture follows the type of one produced some 80 years earlier in the Miscellany for Iskandar Sultan BL Add. 27261 of 1410-11 (see earlier post: ‘The Miscellany of Iskandar Sultan’). The later picture has, however, two brilliant innovations. The Prophet is here looking around him in wonder, and the precinct of the Kaʿbah contains two human figures that are so tiny that the viewer seems to look down on them from an immense height.
This magnificent manuscript clearly draws upon the talents of artists of the royal workshop, but it does not display the name of Sultan Husayn Bayqara, who ruled Herat from 1469 to 1506, as patron; instead, a line on one of the arches of Shirin’s palace (f. 62v) says that it was made for the Amir ʿAli Farsi Barlas, and it seems that he is depicted in the frontispiece. Nevertheless, it is beyond doubt that it is Sultan Husayn Bayqara who appears, in proxy portraiture, in illustrations to the story of Iskandar (Alexander the Great), as an ideal king, surrounded by philosophers (Figure \(\PageIndex{9}\)) or showing respect for a holy man (Figure \(\PageIndex{10}\)).
Thanks to the generosity of the Barakat Trust this manuscript has been fully digitized and can be viewed in our digitized manuscripts viewer. You can also check out this detailed catalog description [PDF] with links to all of the miniatures.
Articles in this section:
- Glenna Barlow, "Arts of the Islamic world: The later period," in Smarthistory, July 8, 2019 (CC BY-NC-SA)
- Muhammad Isa Waley, “The Miscellany of Iskandar Sultan (Add.27261),” in The British Library’s Asian and African Studies blog, March 28, 2014 (CC BY)
- Barbara Brend, "The Khamsah of Nizami: A Timurid Masterpiece," in The British Library’s Asian and African Studies blog, May 18, 2014 (CC BY)