Catalogue Description:
This manuscript is a copy of the sixteenth-century Had qat al-Su`cada (Garden of the Blessed), written in Baghdad by the Ottoman mystic Muhammad bin Sulayman, known as Fuzuli (circa 1483–1556). It is a text on the Prophet’s family and belongs to a group of illustrated devotional manuscripts executed in a provincial style in Baghdad under the patronage of the Ottoman sultan Mehmet III (r. 1595–1603). Here, the Prophet is shown veiled and seated on a pulpit, accompanied by his cousin and son-in-law, `Ali, and his grandchildren, Hasan and Husayn, all distinguished by haloes of fire. According to the Ottoman Turkish text, Muhammad is conversing with the angel Gabriel and the Angel of Death. The representation of Muhammad demonstrates that depictions of the Prophet, while not common, have long existed in the Islamic world.
Works on Paper Rotation, Islamic Galleries, June 2009
Ladan Akbarnia
