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Selections of Arabic, Persian, and Ottoman Calligraphy

Verses from Nizami's "Divan"

AUTHOR/CREATOR
Calligrapher: Abu al-Ma'ali

CREATED/PUBLISHED
16th-17th centuries

NOTES
Dimensions of Written Surface: 18.7 (w) x 12 (h) cm

Script: nasta'liq

This calligraphic fragment includes several verses from Nizami's (d. 614/1218) "Divan" (Compendium of Poems). Beginning with an invocation to God, the verses then describe how certain things and people fulfill a particular role in the world:

Har sanami-ra ka bar afrukhtand / Jama bar andanza-yi tan dukhtand / Mahram-i dawlat nabavad har sari / Bar-i Masiha nakashad har khari

(For) every idol that they fashioned / They sewed a robe the size of its body / Not everyone can be the confidant of power / Not every donkey can carry Jesus

The verses are executed in dark brown ink on a beige paper framed by a blue border. It is pasted to a larger sheet of beige paper decorated with green flecks of paint and backed by cardboard.

The text is signed by a certain Abu al-Ma'ali, whose name appears in an opposite diagonal at the center of the composition. Although sharing his name with the reputed calligrapher Abu al-Ma'ali 'Izz al-Din 'Abd al-Wahhab Zanjani (d. 606/1292), a disciple of Yaqut al-Musta'simi (Huart 1972, 82), the Abu al-Ma'ali who composed this fragment in nasta'liq script must have been active at a much later date. The composition, which recalls a number of Safavid calligraphic exercises (siyah mashq) in its formal make-up and calligraphic style, must have been executed during the 16th or 17th century.

SUBJECT
Arabic calligraphy
Islamic manuscripts
Islamic calligraphy
Arabic script calligraphy
Illuminated Islamic manuscripts
Nasta'liq

MEDIUM
36.5 (w) x 24 (h) cm

CALL NUMBER
1-04-713.19.37

REPOSITORY
Library of Congress, African and Middle Eastern Division, Washington, D.C. 20540

DIGITAL ID
ascs 030
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.amed/ascs.030

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