PREVIOUS NEXT NEW SEARCH

Selections of Arabic, Persian, and Ottoman Calligraphy

Click on picture for larger image, full item, or more versions    [Rights and Reproductions]
  
thumbnail

Quatrain on unity of lovers

AUTHOR/CREATOR
Calligrapher: Pir Muhammad b. Dust Muhammad

CREATED/PUBLISHED
unknown

NOTES
Dimensions of Written Surface: 7.8 (w) x 15.5 (h) cm

Script: nasta'liq

This calligraphic fragment includes an iambic pentameter quatrain, or ruba'i, on the primordiality of a lover's affection. Beginning with an invocation to "God, the Glorious" (huwa al-'aziz), the verses read:

Khurram kasi ka bar sar-i bazar 'ashiqi / Jan dar ghammat badad u ghammat-ra bi-jan kharid / Imruz nist dar sar-i Salman hadis-i ‘ishq / Kizad mara u 'ishq-i tura ba ham afarid

How good is that person in the bazaar of love / He died for your sadness and bought your sorrow with his heart / It is not today that the story of love in Salman's heart (began) / God created me and my love of you in tandem

The verses are executed in black nasta'liq script on a beige paper framed by a pasted border decorated with interlacing leaf and vine motifs.

In the bottom horizontal panel, the calligrapher Pir Muhammad b. Dust Muhammad states that he wrote (katabahu) the piece. In the lower left corner of the text panel, he also specifies that he has copied the handwritting (naql min khatt) of the master teacher (ustadh al-kamil) Muhammad 'Ali Bukhari. Pir Muhammad b. Dust Muhammad's statement suggests that he may have used a calligraphic specimen by (his?) teacher as a model for his own, either adapting it or copying it directly. Unfortunately, as neither calligrapher appears recorded in historical sources, it is difficult to suggest a date of execution and a provenance for this piece.

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

MEDIUM
10.2 (w) x 20.2 (h) cm

CALL NUMBER
1-89-154.182

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

DIGITAL ID
ascs 228
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.amed/ascs.228

PREVIOUS NEXT NEW SEARCH