[CT]introduction

139 Other dispersed pages of this manuscript are to be found at the Rezâ `Abbâsi Museum, Tehrân (ex-Mahboubian collection); David collection, Copenhagen; Keir collection, London; Sadruddin Aga Khân collection, Geneva; and Los Angeles County Museum of Art (17.73.5.412).

140 Ologh Beyg's reputation in astronomy was such that Jahângir, the fourth Mughal emperor of India (r. 1605-27), requested the astrolabe of Ologh Beyg from Shâh `Abbâs, the Safavid ruler. Shâh `Abbâs obliged by making a duplicate for himself and sending the original as a gift to Jahângir; see Riazul-Islam, Indo-Persian Relations (Tehrân: Iranian Culture Foundation, 1970), p. 72.

141 The Maleki calendar is described as one attributed to the Saljuq Soltân Malekshâh (r. 1072-92).

142 All tabulations and numbers are given with abjad (Arabic) letters rather than in decimal numbers. The numbers are expressed sexagesimally (i.e., in base 60, with degrees, minutes, and seconds). The trigonometric functions are tabulated per degree (increasing horizontally) and per minute in the vertical column. The values for an arc of x-degrees and y-minutes are written in black. The values in the second column written in red are the differential quantities to be considered for each additional second. The trigonometric tables have the merit of being accurate up to five sexagesimal places. See "Islamic Mathematics and Astronomy," in D. A. King, Islamic Mathematical Astronomy (London: Variorum Reprints, 1986), p. 217.

143 These tables aroused the interest of Western scholars as early as 1650 when John Greaves edited portions of the work under the title Epochae celebriores ex traditione Ulug Begi; in 1655 there appeared the Tabulae longitudinis et latitudinis stellarum ex observatione Ulug Begi by Thomas Hyde. The explanatory part of the work was edited with an introduction by Sedillot (Paris, 1847), and a French version by the same scholar was published in 1853. C. Rieu, Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the British Museum (reprint; Oxford: Alden Press, 1966), vol. 2, pp. 454-57; and Sotheby's, October 13, 1980, lot 91.

144 Undermining the efforts of his father and brothers to validate the house of Teymur through Islamic means, the appearance of the epithet gurkân after Ologh Beyg's name in the opening shamsé restates Teymurid legitimacy as derived through marriage with the house of Changiz. (Like many other Teymurid princes, Ologh Beyg had married a Changizid princess.)

145 See, for instance, the colophon of Bâysonghor's 1430 Shâhnâmé (Golestân Library, Tehrân, no. 716, illustrated in a facsimile reprint published in Tehrân by Offset Press, 1971). By the fifteenth century the word soltân had lost its original meaning as an epithet of the king. Many princes of the house of Teymur used the title, perhaps as rulers of their own fiefdoms.

146 The manuscript contains all the text and tables pertaining to the chapters and sections enumerated in the introduction but ends abruptly with the last table, without a colophon page.

147 E. S. Kennedy, "A Letter of Jamshid al-Kashi to His Father," Orientalia 29 (1960), p. 200. I am grateful to T. Lentz for referring me to this document.

148 For Ghiyâsoddin Jamshid's important contributions to mathematics and astronomy see E. S. Kennedy, "The Exact Sciences in Timurid Iran," Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 6, pp. 568-80.

149 Kennedy, "A Letter of Jamshid al-Kashi to His Father," p. 193. Ologh Beyg's prodigious memory is further attested by Ghiyâsoddin's assertion that he knew most of the Qorân by heart.

150 Although the use of the term mowlânâ for respected scientists as well as artists was becoming fashionable, its use by a king in naming his subjects acknowledges great respect.

151 Eventually `Ali-ye Qushchi joined the Ottoman court, where he compiled a treatise called Mohammadiyyé, in honor of S“ltan Mohammad; see F. Rahman, "`Ali Q–sji," Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. 1, p. 876.

152 See B. Gray, ed., The Arts of the Book in Central Asia, 14th-16th Centuries (Paris: Unesco, 1979), p. 70, for a binding of similar design on a manuscript dated 1463 at Baghdad, presently kept at the Topkapi Sarây Library, Istanbul (R.1021).

153 Another inscription mentions that it belonged to a certain Soleymân in the days of Soltân Mohammad the Conqueror, but the date in abjad gives 1726.

154 See M. M. Ashrafi, "Where Was the Portrait of Ulugh Beyk Painted?" Iranian Studies 21, nos. 1-2 (1988), p. 24; B. W. Robinson, Islamic Painting and the Arts of the Book (London: Faber and Faber, 1976), pp. 150-51.

155 Other pages from the same manuscript are in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (14.552; A. Coomaraswamy, "Les miniatures orientales de la collection Goloubew au Museum of Fine Arts de Boston," Ars Asiatica 13 [Paris: Editions G. Van Oest, 1929], no. 19), and the Keir collection (Robinson, Islamic Painting, no. III.76).

156 The manuscript is part of the collection of Islamic manuscripts in the Academy of Sciences of the Uzbek SSR, Tashkent. For reproductions, see A. M. Ismailova, Oriental Miniatures (Tashkent: Gafur Gulyam Literature and Art Publishing House, 1980), nos. 24-26.

157 This was the preface originally written circa 961 for Abu-Mansur Mohammad b. `Abdorrazâq, the governor of Tus, in a prose version of the Shâhnâmé, prior to Ferdowsi's version composed in verse.

158 The modern scholar M. Bayâni mentioned a certain Esmâ`il al-Hosayni who had copied a manuscript comprising, in part, sections of the Shâhnâmé, the Khamsé of Nezâmi, and the Masnavi of Attâr, in the Trk ve Islam Eserleri Mzesi, Istanbul, which can be dated to the fifteenth century. He praised the high quality of the reqâ` script used in the writing of the sectional headings; see Bâyani, vol. 1, p. 66.

159 The frontispiece of a manuscript of Sa`di's Bustân dated A.H. 846/1442, in the Istanbul University Library (no. F1412, fol. 2a, unpublished), uses the same composition but without the unconventional margin decoration.

160 See I. Stchoukine, Les peintures des manuscrits timurides (Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1954), pl. 27.

161 See, for instance, a very similar illustration for a 1441 Shâhnâmé, BibliothŠque Nationale, Paris (Suppl. Persan 493, fol. 98), reproduced in ibid., pl. 36.

162 In a decree addressing the judges and issues of jurisprudence, a generic form of which is copied in the Jâme`ottavârikh, Il-Khân Ghâzân declared that "as the great edict (yarligh) of Changiz Khân stipulates that judges (qâzis), religious leaders, and the sayyeds were exempt from all taxations, we hereby confirm their tax-exempt status"; see Rashidoddin, Jâme`ottavârikh, p. 427.

163 The epithet Abu-Eshâq (Father of Isaac) is frequently encountered in conjunction with the name Ebrâhim (Abraham), following the tradition set by the Old Testament story of the prophet Abraham, father of Isaac, in the Qorân.

164 B. Lawrence, "Abu Eshâq Kâzar–ni," in Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. 1, pp. 274-75, where the number of converts ranges from 24,000 to 100,000.

165 Ebn-e Batuta, Voyages (Paris: Editions Anthropos/Unesco, 1979), vol. 2, pp. 90-91.

166 A study to be published by Chen Da Sheng of the Fujian Academy of Social Sciences reveals a large number of tombstones found in China with Persian names, mostly in coastal areas. For traders of Iranian origin settled in India, see R. Ferrier, "Trade from the Mid-14th Century to the End of the Safavid Period," Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 6, p. 422. For Persians settled in Siam (Thailand), see Ibrahim ibn Muhammad, The Ship of Sulaiman, trans. John O'Kane (New York: Columbia University Press, 1972), p. 94.

167 Batuta, Voyages, vol. 4, pp. 89, 271.

168 Unfortunately the section mentioning the name of `Abdollâh (lines 49-53) is not original. This is evident from the two half-seal impressions affixed at the top and bottom of this section (connecting it to the preceding and following sections), which are obviously crude imitations of the original; much inferior calligraphy; and a higher number of lines per section. It might, however, be a genuine later copy. All following remarks are based on lines lying outside this section. `Abdollâh's appointment at line 64 reads: "Be-khal`at-e khelâfat-ye kholafâ-ye morshediyyé sharaf-e ekhtesâs yâft" (He was honored to don the robe of the successors to the guide [Shaykh Abu-Eshâq]).

169 The title `alamdâr, when used (line 68) with khâneqah/dârân khâneqah (keepers) and khâdemân (servants), must have been associated with a special rank and responsibility other than standard-bearing since the khalifé was also empowered to dispose of those `alamdârs "who deviate from the shari`at" (line 70).

170 Line 68: "Dar atrâf va navâhi-ye `âlam nozurât va hessé-ye moqufât mi-setând" (He gathered pledges and offerings from all over the world).

171 Lines 54, 77.

172 Batuta, Voyages, vol. 2, p. 64.

173 B. O'Kane, Timurid Architecture in Khurasan (Costa Mesa, Calif.: Mazda Publishers, 1987), p. 92.

174 G. Doerfer, "Âltun Tamghâ," in Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. 1, p. 913.

175 The gold seal itself was also referred to with the epithet homâyun; ibid.

176 The character "sin" in the word qodessa is written wrongly.

177 A. H. Morton, "The Ardabil Shrine in the Reign of Shâh Tahmâsb I," Iran 12 (1974), pp. 58-64.

178 Zahiroddin Mohammad Bābor, Baburnama, trans. A. Beveridge (Lahore: Sangemeel Publications, 1979), p. 300.

179 M. E. Subtelny, "Scenes from the Literary Life of Timurid Herat," in Logos Islamikos: Studia Islamica in Honorem Georgii Michaelis Wickens, Papers in Medieval Studies (Toronto: University of Toronto, 1984), p. 144. I am grateful to T. Lentz for providing me with this article. Interestingly, the names of most of the singers in Vāsefi's list include the term hāfez, which indicates that they were Qorān reciters by day and singers by night.

180 Ibid., pp. 146-47.

181 Trans. W. Thackston from Asnād va mokatebāt-e tārikhi-ye Iran (Iranian historical documents and official letters), ed. A. H. Navā'i (Tehrān: Bongāh-e Tarjomé va Nashr-e Ketāb, 1341), p. 437. The text describes the gold coins as florins, the Florentine ducat used by the Ottomans. The Āq-Qoyunlu ruler Soltān Ya`qub (r. 1478-90) conveyed ten thousand gold shāhrokhis to Jāmi "to buy the pearls of his prayers"; see V. Minorsky, Persia in A.D. 1478-1490: An Abridged Translation of Ruzbihan Khunji's Tārikh-i `Ālamārā-yi Amini (London: Luzac, 1957), p. 60.

182 Bayāni, vol. 1, p. 247. The correspondence does not indicate the name of the Teymurid prince.

183 Ghiyāsoddin b. Homām Khāndamir, Habibossiyar (Dearest of the chronicles), ed. Mohammad-e Dabir Siyāqi (Tehrān: Khayyām Books, 1974), vol. 4, p. 135.

184 The accession of Persian kings to the throne is usually referred to as enthronement; however, the strong emphasis placed on the crown in this painting has prompted the use of the term "coronation."

185 Khāndamir, Habibossiyar, vol. 4, p. 25.

186 Mirzā Mohammad-Haydar Dughlāt, A History of the Moghuls of Central Asia Being the Tarikh-i-Rashidi, trans. E. Denison Ross, ed. N. Elias (reprint; London: Curzon Press and Barnes and Noble, 1972), p. 83.

187At this point (circa 1469) there was only one crown prince; Mohammad-Hosayn Mirzā had not yet been born.

188 During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, as contenders for the throne sought the Mongol legitimacy still deemed necessary for rule, symbols of kingship became important substitutes for a lack of birthright. The parasol became so important a symbol that it was sent by rulers to their vassals for investiture (much like the robe of investiture sent by the earlier `Abbāsid caliphs to regional rulers). Khāndamir recounts that the Jalāyerid Soltān Ahmad sent "a parasol and other emblems of kingship" to confirm the enthronement of the Qara-Qoyunlu Turkaman Pir-Budāq, son of Qara Yusof; see Khāndamir, Habibossiyar, vol. 3, p. 576.

189 Trans. W. Thackston.

190 For the notion of the soltān as the Shadow of God on Earth and the upholder of the Muslim religion, see A. K. S. Lambton, "Quis Custodiet Custodies?" Studia Iranica 5 (1956), pp. 138-39.

191 Khāndamir, Habibossiyar, vol. 4, p. 105.

192 Baburnama, p. 258.

193 Khāndamir, Habibossiyar, vol. 4, p. 137.

194 Other works by Mansur have yet to be identified, but it is possible that some of the original paintings in a Golestān manuscript of 1468 are by him (cat. no. 214).

195 The calligraphic panels in this painting are of outstanding quality. The writing is calligraphy in the true sense, made in one stroke and not "drawn" as done by many painters. The inscriptions on the building and the green cushions are in a majestic reyhān, and on the dais panel, they are in an elegant naskh. Both Behzād and Shāh-Mozaffar incorporated fine calligraphy in their paintings. Behzād's skills were formed under the tutelage of Āqā Mirak, the head of Soltān Hosayn's library-workshop and known to be a fine calligrapher. Shāh-Mozaffar's painting and calligraphic apprenticeship must have been with his father. Direct influence is evident from comparison of the calligraphy on the green cushion in cat. no. 29 with Shāh-Mozaffar's doorway panel in The Two Wrestlers (cat. no. 36a). The composition, the choice of the reyhān script, and especially the treatment of the letters "lām-alef" are very similar.

196 The word tabbākh, "the cook," following `Abdollāh's name is not an epithet. With the Persian "-e," meaning "son of," it refers to `Abdollāh's father, who operated a dokkān-e āshpazi, a kind of restaurant; see Bayāni, vol. 2, p. 360.

197 A native would not usually include his nesbat (name indicating place of origin) while residing in his home city. The A.H. 873/1468 calligraphy is reported by Bayāni to be in an album in the Topkapi Sarāy Library, Istanbul (H.2153); see Bayāni, vol. 4, p. 83.

198 Baburnama, p. 262.

199 Bābor says that when Khadijé Beygom returned to Herāt, Soltān Hosayn married her and "made her a great favorite" and "very dominant indeed she became later on." Ibid., p. 268.

200 Lentz and Lowry, p. 360; trans. W. Thackston.

201 After the defeat of Mohammad-e Sheybāni by Shāh Esmā`il in 1510, Badi`ozzamān Mirzā is known to have been at Esmā`il's court in Tabriz. He was still there when the Ottoman Salim I occupied the city after the battle of Chāldorān in 1514 and was subsequently moved to the Ottoman court, where he died shortly later.

202 See Lentz and Lowry, p. 207, no. 111.

203 See M. Y. Kiani, "Do banā-ye tārikhi-ye hāshiyé-ye Khazar" (Two historical monuments by the Caspian sea), Muzehā [Tehrān], no. 5 (1362), pp. 34-44.

204 Ibid.

205 Among others, Badi`ozzamān Mirzā and the Mughal emperor Homāyun had their books carried along when fleeing their capitals; see Abol-Fazl-e `Allāmi, Akbar-nama (Book of Akbar) (reprint; Delhi: Rare Books, 1972), vol. 1, p. 219.

206 Khāndamir, Habibossiyar, vol. 4, p. 362. Māni, the third-century religious reviver who founded Manicheism, was reputed to have lavishly illustrated his own book, the Artang.

207 I. Stchoukine, Les peintures des manuscrits timurides (Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1954), pp. 120-41.

208 C. Rieu, Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the British Museum (reprint; Oxford: Alden Press, 1966), vol. 4, pp. 164-66. On his mother's side Mirzā Mohammad-Haydar Dughlāt was of Chaghatāyid descent. His father and grandfather had successively married into the families of the Chaghatāyid khāns, thus acquiring the title gurkān. Mohammad-Haydar Dughlāt himself married the sister of Soltān Sa`id Khān, the Chaghatāyid ruler of Kāshghar.

209 The Tārikh-e Rashidi was dedicated in absentia to `Abdorrashid Khān, Soltān Sa`id Khān's son and successor, whom, in deference to his father, Mohammad-Haydar Dughlāt still considered his nominal overlord.

210 For the Jalāyerid connection to the house of Hulāgu, see chap. 3, n. 83.

211 By `Erāq, Mohammad-Haydar Dughlāt means western and central Iran, the domain of the Jalāyerids as successors to the Il-Khānids. The term is used as distinct from Khorāsān, or eastern Iran.

212 "Tārikh-e Rashidi (Rashidi chronicles)," ed. M. Shafi, Oriental College Magazine 10, no. 3 (1934), pp. 166-69.

213 Ibid.

214 The first drawing, Mohammad Ascending on Borāq (fol. 40b), is illustrated in L. Binyon, J. V. S. Wilkinson, and B. Gray, Persian Miniature Painting (London: Oxford University Press, 1933), pl. 95. The other (fol. 86a, unpublished) is a portrait of Seyfol-Moluk, who seems to have the physical features of Bāysonghor himself.

215 The portrait of Seyfol-Moluk is typical of the early Teymurid style, while in the other drawing Mohammad's face, hair, and turban are treated in a Jalāyerid or early Turkaman fashion. The angel Gabriel's clothing, especially its hanging ribbonlike sashes, are in the style of Homāy and Homāyun in a Garden (Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, Inv. 3727), datable to the first half of the fourteenth century; see Lentz and Lowry, p. 117. Despite Mohammad-Haydar Dughlāt's allusion to Shāh-Mozaffar's pen drawings, these two drawings are so removed from the Herāt style of the 1470s and 1480s that, unless Shāh-Mozaffar was copying earlier subjects, the attribution to him must be disregarded. If they are copies of earlier subjects, then they are difficult to accept as representative of his painting style.

216 Mohammad-Haydar Dughlāt recorded the following about Darvish Mohammad: "He is my master, and a pupil of Shāh-Mozaffar. He has no equal in thinness (bāriki) of brush and has surpassed even Shāh-Mozaffar. However, [his paintings] display little maturity, elegance (andām), and grace. His combat scenes are quite immature. He has made a picture of a rider who has picked up a lion on a spear: the entire [picture] fits on the end of a grain of rice." See Tārikh-e Rashidi, pp. 168-69.

217 Attribution to Shāh-Mozaffar of another painting in the Rylands Layla va Majnun (fol. 34a) is tentative, as I have not been able to personally examine the manuscript.

218 Figs. 8 and 9 have been attributed to Herāt, circa 1485, in consideration of stylistic similarities with paintings from the Chester Beatty Khamsé and the Rylands Layla and Majnun. I am indebted to Zeren Tanindi for sending me slides of the Topkapi manuscript together with a copy of her article in which she detailed the close affinity among figs. 8-11. See Z. Tanindi, "A Fifteenth-Century Manuscript of Humāy u Humāyun," Persica 8 (1979), pp. 129-35.

Robinson believes that fig. 10 and fol. 34a of the Rylands Layla va Majnun are from a manuscript that was once part of the set of Navā'i works, dated 1485, copied for the crown prince Badi`ozzamān Mirzā (Bodleian Library, Oxford, Ms. Elliot 287, 307, 339, 408). See B. W. Robinson, Persian Paintings in the John Rylands Library (London: Sotheby Parke Bernet, 1980), p. 116. For the attribution of fig. 11 (to Behzād), see F. R. Martin, The Miniature Painting and Painters of Persia and India and Turkey from the 8th to the 18th Century (reprint; London: Holland Press, 1968), pl. 77.

219 For cat. no. 36a, see E. J. Grube, The Classical Style in Islamic Painting: The Early School of Herat and Its Impact on Islamic Painting of the Later 15th, 16th, and 17th Centuries (Lugano: Edizioni Oriens, 1968), no. 36.1, and E. de Lorey, "Behzad: Le Gulistan Rothschild," Ars Islamica 4 (1937), p. 133; and for fig. 11, see Martin, Miniature Painting and Painters, pl. 77.

220 See, for example, Two Camels Fighting of the Golshan album (no. 1663-64, fol. 6), Golestān Library, Tehrān. Behzād stated that he made the painting at the age of seventy (circa 1535); see Binyon et al., Persian Miniature Painting, pl. 87.

221 A. S. Melikian-Chirvani argues that the "moon face" archetype in Persian poetry had its origins in the worship of Buddha in northeastern Iran, where at first the light of the moon was equated with the beauty of the glimmer of silver statues of the Buddha; eventually the moon became a synonym of beauty. See idem, "Le buddhism dans l'Iran musulman," in Le Monde Iranien et l'Islam (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1974), vol. 2, pp. 51-54.