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Abstract
Notwithstanding its brevity, Firdausi's account of Iskandar's visit to the Ka‘ba in Mecca was depicted regularly in illustrated manuscripts of the Shahnama from the fourteenth century to early modern times. An examination of these illustrations reveals the extent to which poetical and pictorial narratives diverged over the centuries, with an increasing expansion of the shrine's setting and emphasis on ritual performance and with Iskandar evolving from a passive bystander to a devout hajji. This study also offers a telling instance of the way the representation of a Shahnama scene could be transformed in response to another poetic text, specifically the Khamsa of Nizami.
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- Iranian Studies , Volume 43 , Issue 1: Millennium Of the <span class='italic'>Shahnama Of Firdausi</span> , February 2010 , pp. 127 - 146
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- Copyright © The International Society for Iranian Studies 2010
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1 For the various Persian versions of the Iskandar story, their sources and antecedents, see: Southgate, Minoo S., trans., Iskandarnamah: A Persian Medieval Alexander-Romance (New York, 1978), 167–201Google Scholar; Stoneman, Richard, Alexander the Great: A Life in Legend (New Haven and London, 2008), 24–48Google Scholar, 121–122, 154–164, 178–179, 233–234. See also Watt, M., “al-lskandar,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., 4 (Leiden, 1978): 127b–128aGoogle Scholar; Hanaway, William, “Eskandar-Nama,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 8: 609a–612b.Google Scholar Recent, specialized studies of relevance here include: Hanaway, William, “Alexander and the Question of Iranian Identity,” Iranica Varia. Papers in Honor of Professor Ehsan Yarshater (Leiden, 1990), 93–103Google Scholar; Macuch, Rudolph, “Pseudo-Callisthenes Orientalis and the problem of Dhu'l-qarnain,” Graeco-Arabica, IV (1991): 223–264Google Scholar; Alessandro Magno: storia et mito (Rome, 1995), 177–191Google Scholar; The Problematics of Power: Eastern and Western Representations of Alexander the Great, ed. by Bridges, M. and Bürgel, J. Ch. (Berlin, 1996)Google Scholar; Alexandre le Grand dans les littératures occidentales et proche-orientales, ed. by Harf-Lancner, Laurence, Kappler, Claire and Suard, François (Nanterre, 1999)Google Scholar; Gaillard, Marina, Alexander le Grand en Iran: Le Darab Nameh d'Abu Taher Tarsusi (Paris, 2005), 13–87Google Scholar and 409–422. See also notes 2, 4–6.
2 Noldeke, Th., “Beitrage zur Geschichte des Alexanderromans,” Denkschriften des Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Phil.-hist. Klasse, 38 (Wien, 1890), 50Google Scholar; idem, The Iranian National Epic or The Shahnamah (Philadelphia, 1979), 30, 56Google Scholar; Robert Hillenbrand, “The Iskandar Cycle in the Great Mongol Sahnama,” in Problematics of Power, ed. by Bridges and Bürgel, 209, 211, and 219; Macuch, “Pseudo-Callisthenes Orientalis,” Graeco-Arabica, 258; Alessandro Magno, cat. no. 129.
3 Khaleghi-Motlagh, Djalal and Omidsalar, Mahmoud, eds., Abu'l-Qasem Ferdowsi, The Shahnameh, 6 (New York, 2005), 48–50Google Scholar, verses 627–660; Davis, Dick, trans., Sunset of Empire. Stories from the Shahnama of Ferdowsi, Volume III (Washington, DC, 2004), 70–71.Google Scholar
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5 Davis, Sunset of Empire, 59, 79, 82; Claude-Claire Kappler, “Alexandre dans le Shah Nama de Firdousi: De la conquête du monde à la découverte de soi,” in Problematics of Power, ed. by Bridges and Bürgel, 179–80.
6 Davis, Sunset of Empire, 9–10; idem, “The Aesthetics of the Historical Sections of the Shahnama,” in Shahnama Studies I, ed. by Melville, Charles (Cambridge, 2006), 119–123CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hillenbrand, “Iskandar Cycle,” 221. See also: Doufikar-Aerts, Faustina C. W., “A Legacy of the Alexander Romance in Arab Writings: Al-Iskandar, Founder of Alexandria,” in The Search for the Ancient Novel, ed. by Tatum, James (Baltimore, 1994), 330Google Scholar; idem, “Alexander the Flexible Friend: Some Reflections on the Representation of Alexander the Great in the Arabic Alexander Romance,” Journal of Eastern Christian Studies, iii (2003): 203.Google Scholar
7 Abel, Le Roman d'Alexandre, 85; Macuch, “Pseudo-Callisthenes Orientalis,” Graeco-Arabica, 259.
8 Wensinck, A. J., “Hadjdj,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., 3 (Leiden, 1979): 33b–37bGoogle Scholar; Martin, Richard C., “Muslim Pilgrimage,” Encyclopedia of Religion, 11: 338a–346aGoogle Scholar; Hawting, Gerald, “Pilgrimage,” Encyclopaedia of the Qur'an, 4: 91b–100aGoogle Scholar; Kamal, Ahmad, The Sacred Journey, being Pilgrimage to Makkah (New York, 1961)Google Scholar; Peters, F. E., The Hajj: The Muslim Pilgrimage to Mecca and the Holy Places (Princeton, 1994).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
9 Discussion of Firdausi's sources is beyond the scope of this article and appears in much of the literature already cited. Stoneman (Alexander the Great, p. 31) specifies that the poet drew on the ninth-century Arab author al-Dinawari for Iskandar's pilgrimage to Mecca, and further (p. 159) that the earlier Arab writer ‘Umara ibn Zayd has Iskandar visiting Mecca. Dinawari does say that Iskandar “performed the Hajj of the House of God.” Abu Hanifah Ahmad ibn Dawud Dinawari, Al-Akhbar al-tiwal, ed. by al-Mun'im Amir, ‘Abd and al-Din al-Shiyal, Jamal (Cairo, 1960), 33–34.Google Scholar My thanks to Mohsen Ashtiany for this reference.
10 Esin, Emel, Mecca the Blessed, Madinah the Radiant (New York, 1963), 18–22Google Scholar; Peters, The Hajj, 3–9.
11 Khaleghi-Motlagh and Omidsalar, eds., Abu'l-Qasem Ferdowsi, 6: 48–50, verses 631–633, 659.
12 Kappler, Claude-Claire, “Alexandre le Grand et les Frontières,” in Frontières terrestres, frontières celestes dans l'antiquité, ed. by Rousselle, Aline (Paris, 1995), 371–385.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
13 Kappler, “Alexandre dans le Shah Nama de Firdousi,” 189; see also Gaillard, Alexander le Grand en Iran, 55.
14 For anthropological discussions of the hajj as a rite of passage, see: Roff, William R., “Pilgrimage and the History of Religions: Theoretical Approaches to the Hajj,” in Approaches to Islam in Religious Studies, ed. by Martin, Richard C. (Tucson, 1985), 78–86Google Scholar; Young, William C., “The Ka'ba, Gender, and the Rites of Pilgrimage,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, 25 (1993): 286.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
15 Kappler, “Alexandre le Grand et les Frontières,” 384; Davis, “The Aesthetics of the Historical Sections of the Shahnama,” 119–121; Yuriko Yamanaka, “Ambiguité de l'image d'Alexandre chez Firdawsi: les traces des traditions sassanides dans le Livre des Rois,” in Alexandre le Grand, ed. by Harf-Lancner et al., 341–353.
16 Most appear in The Shahnama Project (http://Shahnama.caret.cam.ac.uk, accessed April 2009), the ambitious, on-line successor to Norgren, Jill and Davis, Edward, Preliminary Index of Shah-nameh Illustrations (Ann Arbor, 1969).Google Scholar The database also includes some eighteenth- and nineteenth-century illustrations of the episode, along with others of problematic dating and iconography, which will not be considered here. Unless otherwise noted, the illustrations cited in this article are reproduced under “Iskandar visits the Ka‘ba” in The Shahnama Project (hereafter SnP). Due to space constraints here, further bibliographic citations will be limited to works not included in SnP. The following discussion continues that begun in Clinton, Jerome W. and Simpson, Marianna S., “Word and Image in Illustrated Shahnama Manuscripts,” in Shahnama Studies, I: 231–233Google Scholar, and is preliminary to a more detailed study, currently in process.
17 Further research is required to determine whether this statistic is simply a matter of Shiraz's status as Iran's most prolific and continuously-active site of illustrated manuscript production over the centuries or whether Iskandar's visit at the Ka‘ba had a special significance for Shirazi painters, patrons and customers.
18 There seem to be no representations of Iskandar setting out for Mecca with his troops or eliminating the followers of the tyrant Khuza‘a. There is an early seventeenth-century illustration (Tehran, Gulistan Museum, ms 2250, fol. 396r) identified in SnP as “Iskandar on the Throne of Hindustan.” The painting's iconography and incorporated verses (Abu'l-Qasem Ferdowsi, ed. by Khaleghi-Motlagh and Omidsalar, 6: 49, vv. 637–643) suggest, however, that it actually depicts Iskandar meeting Nasr.
19 This text-image placement belies the notion that the verse closest to or just above an illustration—now often called the break-line verse—is also the critical verse that determines its iconography. Hillenbrand, Robert, “New Perspectives in Shahnama Iconography,” in Shahnama: The Visual Language of the Persian Book of Kings, ed. by Hillenbrand, Robert (Aldershot, 2004), 2–4Google Scholar; Mehran, Farhad, “The Break-line Verse: The Link between Text and Image in the ‘First Small’ Shahnama,” in Shahnama Studies, I: 151–169.Google Scholar The issue of text-image placement for the Iskandar/Ka‘ba illustrations is taken up in the more detailed study cited in note 16.
20 Istanbul, Topkapi Saray Muzesi, H. 1479, fol. 170v.
21 Wensinck, A. J. and Jomier, J., “Ka‘ba,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., 4 (Leiden, 1978): 317a–322bGoogle Scholar; Hawting, Gerald R., “Ka‘ba,” Encyclopaedia of the Qur'an, 3: 75a–79b.Google Scholar See also sources cited in note 8, and Young, “The Ka'ba, Gender, and the Rites of Pilgrimage” for further description of the Ka‘ba, including the kiswa.
22 As, for instance, given by Nasir-i Khusrau, Ibn Jubair and Ibn Battuta following their pilgrimages to Mecca in 1050, 1184 and 1326 respectively. Thackston, W. M., trans., Naser-e Khosraw's Book of Travels (New York, 1986), 71–80Google Scholar (at the end the author refers to Yemenis carrying daggers at the Ka‘ba, which may explain the armed men in the 1330 illustration); Gaudefroy-Demombynes, Maurice, trans., Ibn Jobair, Voyages, IV–V (Paris, 1949), 94–120Google Scholar; Gibb, H. A. R., trans., Travels [of Ibn Battuta], I (Cambridge, 1958), 188–205Google Scholar and 242–48 (on p. 247 the kiswa is described as made of black silk lined with linen and embroidered in white with the beginning of sura 5, verse 100). See also Peters, The Hajj, 71–72 and Farooqhi, Suraiya, Pilgrims and Sultans: The Hajj under the Ottomans, 1517–1683 (London and New York, 1994), 14–26.Google Scholar
23 The artistic representation of the Ka‘ba seems to have been little studied, and the most substantial overview remains Ettinghausen, Richard, “Die bildliche Darstellung der Ka'ba im Islamischen Kulturkreis,” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft, n.s. 12 (1934): 111–137.Google Scholar For the earliest known images: Vincenzo Strike, “A Ka‘ba Picture in the Iraq Museum,” Sumer, 32 (1976): 195–201. For fifteenth- and sixteenth-century illustrations: Uluç, Lale, Turkman Governors, Shiraz Artisans and Ottoman Collectors (Istanbul, 2006), 394–404Google Scholar; Christiane J. Gruber, “The Prophet Muhammad's Ascension (Mi'raj) in Islamic Art and Literature, ca. 1300–1600” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 2005), 255–270. For a selection of early modern images: Earthly Beauty, Heavenly Art: Art of Islam, ed. by Piotrovsky, Mikhail B. and Vrieze, John (Amsterdam, 2000), 77–86.Google Scholar See also n. 25.
24 Edinburgh, University Library, MS Arab 20, fol. 47r. For a color reproduction: Sims, Eleanor, Peerless Images: Persian Painting and its Sources (New Haven and London, 2002), 134.Google Scholar
25 Medieval Muslim pilgrimage certificates also include schematic representations of the Ka‘ba, along with other holy sites, which conceivably could have been a source for the Il-Khanid (as well as later) imagery, a possibility requiring further research. Aksoy, Sule and Milstein, Rachel, “A Collection of Thirteenth-Century Hajj Certificates,” in M. Ugur Derman armagani, ed. by Cemil Schick, Irvin (Istanbul, 2000), esp. 111–112Google Scholar; Sourdel, Dominique and Sourdel-Thomine, Janine, Certificats de Pèlerinage d'Epoque Ayyoubide (Paris, 2006), 227–245Google Scholar; Roxburgh, David J., “Pilgrimage City: Representations of Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem,” in The City in the Islamic World, ed. by Holod, Renata et al. (Leiden, 2008), esp. 765–774.Google Scholar
26 The following remarks pertain to Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, 22-1948, fol. 18v, attributed to c. 1435, and Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, s.p. 493, fol. 342r, dated 844/1441. The iconography of Istanbul, Suleymaniye Library, Haci Beşir Aga, ms. 486, fol. 400r, dated 843/1440, is similar to the first mode of later Turkman scenes to be discussed below.
27 Neither scene includes the kiswa's inscription band, although in the 844/1441 illustration two half-verses cut across the shrine above the door, perhaps signifying the hizam.
28 See the references in note 8, and also Wensinck, A. J. and Jomier, J., “Ihram,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., 3: 1052b–53b.Google Scholar
29 Istanbul, Topkapi Saray Muzesi, H. 1489, fol. 332r, dated 887/1482–83 (included without reproduction in SnP); Oxford, Bodleian Library, Elliott 325, fol. 388r, dated 899/1494; Los Angeles, Los Angeles Museum of Art, M.75.5.462, datable to c. 1490 and its sky filled with swirling white clouds (not included in SnP; see Islamic Art: The Nasli M. Heeramaneck Collection, ed. by Pal, Pratapadiya (Los Angeles, 1973)Google Scholar, cat. 197). This mode is anticipated in an illustration of 843/1440, cited in note 26, which, however, may have been repainted.
30 In the 899/1494 illustration the top of the doorway is hidden by the kiswa, while the c. 1490 scene has an inscription panel above the doorway but no knockers. None of these three illustrations includes the Black Stone.
31 Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Museum of Art, ms 1963/1.65, fol. 346r. Ibn Battuta provides a detailed account of the mosque's outer perimeter and surrounding buildings, Gibb, trans., Travels [of Ibn Battuta], 201–204. See also Kamal, The Sacred Journey, 36, for a modern description.
32 London, British Library, Add. 27261, fol. 6r. Lentz, Thomas W. and Lowry, Glenn D., Timur and the Princely Vision (Washington, DC, 1989)Google Scholar, cat. no. 35. For this and comparable mi‘raj scenes, see Uluç, Turkman Governors, 394 and 399 and color fig. 299, and Gruber, “The Prophet Muhammad's Ascension,” 256–265 and figs. 5.3–5.7.
33 And also the burial site of Ibrahim's wife and son. The spaces and structures near the Ka‘ba are described by Nasir-i Khusrau, Ibn Jubair, and Ibn Battuta: Thackston, trans., Naser-e Khosraw's Book of Travels, 78–79; Gaudefroy-Demombynes, trans., Ibn Jobair, Voyages, 4: 99–101; Gibb, trans., Travels [of Ibn Battuta], 198–201.
34 British Library, Add. 27261, fols. 362v–363r. For a color reproduction: Sims, Peerless Images, 135. I am grateful to Eleanor Sims, Muhammad Isa Waley, Oleg Grabar and Patricia Crone for their thoughts about this illustration and its text, and especially to Christiane Gruber for a copy of her dissertation, with much insightful discussion (“The Prophet Muhammad's Ascension,” pp. 259–261). While the overall setting here is recognizable from later representations and even from the complex as it exists today, further research may determine the extent to which the Miscellany composition corresponds to the mosque's structure in the early fifteenth century.
35 Nasir-i Khusrau gives a precise description of the placement of the Ka‘ba's double-door, as well as its material, dimensions, two sets of knockers in the form of silver rings (one large pair “attached to the door too high for anyone to reach…”), two other, smaller rings (“attached to the doors such that anyone could reach them”) and schedule of regular openings. Thackston, , trans., Naser-e Khosraw's Book of Travels, 76 and 79–80.Google Scholar Ibn Battuta also describes the door, and both he and Ibn Jubair elaborate on the moveable wooden staircase and the manner of opening the Ka‘ba. Gibb trans., Travels [of Ibn Battuta], 194–195 and 247, Gaudefroy-Demombynes, , trans., Ibn Jobair, Voyages, 5: 110–111.Google Scholar Although part of a semi-circular knocker is faintly visible on the right-hand side of the Ka‘ba door in the Miscellany panorama, no such detail is apparent on the door's left-hand side. (By contrast, two doorknockers are clearly rendered on the outer gateway on the facing folio.) In other words, the hajji here does not appear to be grasping the Ka‘ba knocker; indeed, his hand seems to rest on a brown object resembling a piece of cloth. There is one point in the tawaf ritual, however, during which pilgrims press up against a specific location called al-multazam (place of holding), located between the Ka‘ba's door and the Black Stone. They may also reach up and/or cling to the door threshold. Kamal, Sacred Journey, 51–52; Abdul-Rauf, Muhammad, “Pilgrimage to Mecca,” National Geographic, 154 (November 1978), 593Google Scholar; de Vitray-Meyerovitch, Eva, La Mecque. Ville sainte de l'Islam (Paris, 1984), 117.Google Scholar
36 Istanbul, Topkapi Saray Muzesi, H. 1496, fol. 432r, dated 868/1464 (included without reproduction in SnP); Dublin, Chester Beatty Library, Per. 157.370, dated 995/1480.
37 In the 885/1480 illustration these pilgrims are joined by Iskandar's courtiers and attendants, including one bearing a chest, possibly in reference to the monies that Iskandar's treasurer distributes during the Ka‘ba visit, and another holding a robe, perhaps either Iskandar's cloak or a robe of honor to be presented to Nasr.
38 Istanbul, Topkapi Saray Muzesi, H. 1507, fol. 368r, dated 900/1494 (included without reproduction in SnP). This illustration lacks steps so Iskandar must reach up to the Ka‘ba from the ground. A similar treatment appears in London, Khalili Collection MSS 713, fol. 412r, dated 890–91/1485–86 (unpublished), where the Ka‘ba appears in the middle of a landscape and without any enclosing walls. The illustration does, however, include a cluster of buildings and a minaret, and thus combines the two pictorial modes commonly found in Turkman manuscripts. I am grateful to Nahla Nassar for bringing this work to my attention.
39 Sims, Peerless Images, 135. See also Shani, Raya Y., “Paradise Glimpsed by the Muslim Believer at Prayer,” in Image and Meaning in Islamic Art, ed. by Hillenbrand, Robert (London, 2005), 109–128.Google Scholar
40 Ganjavi, Nizami, Layli va Majnun, ed. by al-Muhammad Ayati, ‘Abd (Tehran, 1370/1991), 39–43Google Scholar; Dols, Michael, Majnun: The Madman in Medieval Islamic Society (Oxford, 1992), 325.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
41 Adamova, Adel T., “The Hermitage Manuscript of Nizami's Khamsa dated 835/1431,” Islamic Art, V (2001), 65Google Scholar and fig. 25. For another translation, see Turner, Colin, Layla and Majnun by Nizami (London, 1997), 35.Google Scholar
42 Livia Beelaert, Anna, A Cure for Grieving: Studies on the Poetry of the 12th Century Persian Court Poet Khaqani Sirwani (Leiden, 2000), 156.Google Scholar
43 Nizami Ganjavi, Sharafnama, ed. by Vahid Dastgirdi (Tehran, 1330/1956), 272–273; Clarke, H. Wilberforce, trans., The Sikandar Nama e Bara or Book of Alexander the Great (London, 1881), 446Google Scholar; Bürgel, J. Christoph, trans., Nizami, Das Alexanderbuch. Iskandarname (Zurich, 1991), 184–189.Google Scholar
44 Young, “The Ka'ba, Gender, and the Rites of Pilgrimage,” for the general, gendered interpretation. Earlier writers also characterized the Ka‘ba as a bride: Ibn Battuta, Gibb, trans., Travels [of Ibn Battuta], 188. For the Ka‘ba in Nizami's Layla wa Majnun, see Dols, Majnun, 336; Beelaert, A Cure for Grieving, 145; Seyed-Gohrab, Ali Asghar, Layli and Majnun: Love, Madness and Mystic Longing in Nizami's Epic Romance (Leiden and London, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, passim.
45 Dodkhudoeva, Larisa, Poemy Nizami v srednevekovoy miniaturnoy zhivopsi (Moscow, 1985)Google Scholar, scenes 123 (Majnun at the Ka‘ba) and 246 (Iskandar at the Ka‘ba). The connection between Iskandar at the Ka‘ba in Shahnama and Khamsa manuscripts already has been made by: Hillenbrand, “The Iskandar Cycle,” 211; Alessandro Magno, cat. 129; Clinton and Simpson, “Word and Image in Illustrated Shahnama Manuscripts,” 231–233.
46 For examples of Manjun at the Ka‘ba, see: Robinson, B. W., ed., Islamic Painting and the Arts of the Book (London, 1976), 137Google Scholar, cat. III. 12; Adamova, “The Hermitage Manuscript,” 58 and 65; Enderlein, Volkmar, Die Miniaturen der Berliner Baisonqur-Handschrift (Frankfurt am Main, 1970)Google Scholar, fig. 13; and for a Khamsa illustrating both Majnun and Iskandar at the Ka‘ba: Adahl, Karin, A Khamsa of Nizami of 1439 (Uppsala, 1981), 28–29Google Scholar and 34, figs 9 and 19. My appreciation to Firuza Abdullaeva for her advice and assistance in securing the Hermitage illustration reproduced here (Figure 3), as well as her helpful references in the preparation of this article.
47 Adamova, “The Hermitage Manuscript,” 65 and fig. 25. Adamova proposes the Ka‘ba panorama in Iskandar Sultan's Miscellany as the prototype for the Ka‘ba representation in the Khamsa of 835/1431, and further (p. 76) that the Anthology composition in turn may have been based on an earlier, and now lost, illustrated Khamsa.
48 Stchoukine, Ivan, Les Peintures des Manuscrits de la “Khamseh” de Nizami au Topkapi Saray Musezi d'Istanbul (Paris, 1977)Google Scholar, ms. VI.I.17 and pl. XXIXb.
49 For two examples: Lowry, Glenn D. and Cleveland Beach, Milo, An Annotated and Illustrated Checklist of the Vever Collection (Washington, DC, 1988)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, cat. no. 249; Uluç, Turkman Governors, fig. 302.
50 Pair one (with mirror-reversed compositions and many identical details): Princeton University Library, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Manuscripts Division, Princeton Islamic Manuscripts, Third Series 310, fol. 291r, dated 998/1589–90; Tehran, Riza Abbasi Museum, no. 656, fol. 365v, dated 1000/1591–92. Pair two (comparable in many respects, although less twin-like): London, British Library, I.O. Islamic 3540, folio 381r, datable to c. 1590; London, Khalili Collection, MSS 771, a detached illustration datable to c. 1590. My thanks to Eleanor Sims for sharing her discussion of the Khalili illustration in advance of publication.
51 The Khalili illustration does, however, include two domed structures in the foreground that could represent the tops of the mosque gateway or, as seems more likely, smaller structures, such as the well of Zamzam, an identification reinforced by the black circle suggesting a well-head.
52 Thackston, trans., Naser-e Khosraw's Book of Travels, 79. See also Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., 4: 318a.
53 The two pairs differ, however, in their treatment of the kiswa lining and hizam.
54 The pair one scenes include instead a standing man in “street clothes” and with a length of white turban cloth draped over his shoulders, perhaps representing Nasr.
55 As listed in Dodkhudoeva, Poemy Nizami. See also Uluç, Turkman Governors, fig. 303.
56 Uluç, Turkman Governors, 401, caption to fig. 303.
57 Ibid.; Encyclopedia of Religion, 11: 344a; Kamal, Sacred Journey, 68; Peters, The Hajj, 122–124 and passim.
58 Actually there are three figures here, two hermits in striped robes and a visitor in a white turban.
59 Washington, DC, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, S1896.59, fol. 212r, datable to c. 1570-80 (Lowry and Beach, cat. no. 260, without reproduction); Khalili Collection MSS 771. A similar vignette appears in a scene of a dervish at the Ka‘ba in a Kulliyat of Sa‘di from Shiraz, dated 974/1566: British Library, Add. 24,944, fol. 150v (British Library Images On-Line, accessed April 2009). I am grateful to Christiane Gruber for noting this image (“The Prophet Muhammad's Ascension”). See also Uluç, Turkman Governors, fig. 194 for what appears to be yet another example in a Sa‘di manuscript of c. 1570–75.
60 Encyclopedia of Religion, 11: 344a–b; See also: Kamal, Sacred Journey, 87–88; Peters, The Hajj, 125–126, 129–130; Long, David E., The Hajji Today: A Survey of the Contemporary Makkah Pilgrimage (Albany, 1979), 21.Google Scholar
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