Abstract
What can paintings tell us about the past they pretend to depict, no matter how faithfully or fancifully, and the breadth of life they hide under a brilliant and dazzling surface? Today historians understand the image to be a helpful research tool since it is clear that the reading of the past passes not only through texts but also through the images it produced. This paper analyses an intriguing, yet enigmatic, miniature painting that was presumably produced in Aq Qoyunlu Tabriz around the end of fifteenth century and is currently pasted onto a page in the famous album H.2153 (Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi, Istanbul). Conventionally known as The Monastery by historians of Islamic art, the painting depicts a beautifully decorated polygonal building hosting a puzzling community of learned men, beggars, mystics, women, and children who appear to live together in an atmosphere of religious tolerance, study, and reciprocal understanding. Many readings of the painting have been attempted since the 1980 conference ‘Between Iran and China’ (Percival David Foundation, London), and yet no agreements have been reached on its interpretation. Was it a ‘utopian’ artist’s dream, a complex style exercise for the practices developed in a royal kitabkhana, or perhaps a ‘realistic’ representation of an actual place? Although this short article cannot provide final answers to these questions, through an artistic and historical analysis it aims to demonstrate the dynamic richness of life on the borders, (i.e. in Central Asia) where different cultures and creeds met to create phenomena of hybridization.
This article is based partly on previous research conducted at the Department of History of Art, University of Genoa, Italy, in 2004 and 2005 on the artistic corpus attributed to Ustād Muhammad Siyah Qalam. I want to thank my former advisor Laura E. Parodi for her support and for the numerous inspiring conversations we enjoyed during these years. I wish also to express my gratitude to Margaret Shortle (Boston University, Department of History of Art and Architecture; and Freie Universitaet, Berlin) for her acute remarks on this paper and for her help in correcting my English. Finally, I am particularly grateful to Pier Giorgio Borbone (University of Pisa, Dipartimento di Scienze Storiche del Mondo Antico) for his invaluable comments and suggestions and for having shared his profound knowledge of the medieval history of Eastern Christianity with me. The images included in the present article were taken from the exhibition catalogue Turks. A Journey of a Thousand Years, edited by David J. Roxburgh (see note 2 for details). Every effort has been made to contact the copyright holder of these images, who has unfortunately remained elusive.
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Notes
- 1.
I have transcribed and translated the inscription leaving the two lateral portions disjointed as they appear written in the titled panel: “Dar in dayri kih mā-rā jām dādand/kitabat-i zeh massīḥa bar in kohan dayr ast kih nā-umid nabāshi kih ‛āqibat khayr ast/zih ‛Issā va zih Maryam kām dādand,” i.e. In this monastery where we were given the cup/There is an inscription by (or of) the Messiah on this old monastery––do not be without hope, for the end is well/Our desires were fulfilled by Christ and Mary. Compare this transcription with the one in Barbara Brend, “Christian Subjects and Christian Subjects: an Istanbul Album Picture,” in Islamic Art. An Annual Dedicated to the Art and Culture of the Muslim World, ed. Ernst J. Grube and Eleanor Sims (New York: Islamic Arts Foundation, 1981), 121. I want to thank Shahrokh Razmjou (British Museum, Department of the Middle East) for his help with the Persian transliteration and, especially for the thoughtful and inspiring discussions we had about the painted cycle decorating the central building. It is particularly noteworthy that the inscription is written in verse, which suggests that the text was a poetic quotation. Nonetheless, the precise reference to in dayri (this monastery) should support the possibility that the inscription was created specifically for this painting, which raises more questions, in particular regarding its possible patron. The reference to the cup (jām), a well-known and extensively used poetic image in Classical Persian mystical poetry, could also suggest a mystical reading of the inscription, if not of the entire painting. The cup, though, appears as a literary topos also in Eastern Christian texts, as, for instance, in a Nestorian text written in Turkic from Karakhoto (in western Inner Mongolia, China) see Peter Zieme, “A Cup of Cold Water. Folios of a Nestorian-Turkic Manuscript from Karakhoto,” in Jingjiao. The Church of the East in China and Central Asia, ed. Roman Malek (Sankt Augustin: Institut Monumenta Serica, 2006), 341–345. To my knowledge, no scholar has attempted to identify a specific text of reference for this inscription insofar as the inscription has not gained much attention from art historians, and has passed rather unnoticed. In both cases, a more careful study of the inscription (whose position within the painting is central and seems to have a specific purpose) and its possible identification would provide important clues to uncovering the meaning of the Monastery and even to identifying its hypothetical patron. I want to thank Sunil Sharma (Boston University, Department of Modern Languages and Comparative Literature) for his helpful comments on this inscription (private correspondence).
- 2.
I had the opportunity to examine it directly in 2005 at the exhibition Turks. A Journey of a Thousand Years, 600–1600, held at the Royal Academy of Arts, 21st January–12th April 2005; see David J. Roxburgh, ed., Turks. A Journey of a Thousand Years, 600–1600 (London: Royal Academy of Arts, 2005), 148–255. The Monastery was exhibited outside Turkey for the first, and so far, only, time at this exhibition. I wish to express my gratitude to the curator of the exhibition, David J. Roxburgh (Harvard University, Department of History of Art and Architecture) for having provided a wider European audience the unique opportunity to see so many invaluable artworks from the collections at the Topkapı Museum.
- 3.
Brend, “Christian Subjects,” 121–129.
- 4.
The Nestorians still form part of the Syrian tradition of Eastern Christianity, and they belong to what is now called the Church of the East. Their name comes from Nestorius (c. 386–c. 451 AD), who was the Archbishop of Constantinople between 428 and 431 AD, and whose theological doctrine of the double nature of Christ was condemned and declared as heretic at the First Council of Ephesus in 431. After the condemnation many of his supporters fled the Eastern Roman Empire and relocated in Sassanid Persia, which was then expanding into Central and South Asia and China and where Christian communities of Nestorian confession still exist today. The term ‘Nestorian’ is actually a sensitive one: used first as a doctrinal label by the adherents to the doctrinal thesis advanced by Nestorius (who never defined himself as a Nestorian), it then became a disparaging term used by opponents to emphasize the connection of the Church of the East with an heretical doctrine, although many writers from the Middle Ages onwards seem to have used the term ‘Nestorian’ in a rather neutral, conventional manner, see David Wilmshurst, The Ecclesiastical Organisation of the Church of the East, 1318–1913 (Leuven: Peeters Publisher, 2000), 4. Many scholars today have rejected the term because of its vague nature and its historically derogatory meaning. The Church of the East has itself rejected the label ‘Nestorian.’ In this paper, the adjective ‘Nestorian’ along with other doctrinal denominations, such as Jacobites, is used as a conventional term with no critical or polemical undertone; see further footnote 35. For more about the Nestorian church and its history, see, for instance, Richard Foltz, Religions of the Silk Road: Overland Trade and Cultural Exchange from Antiquity to the Fifteenth Century, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1999), 341–345; Eastern Christianity, The Cambridge History of Christianity, ed. Michael Angold, vol. 5 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 373–403. The two honorific inscriptions say “al-sulṭān al-‘aẓam al-khāqā(n),” i.e. the Most Mighty Sultan, the Khaqan; Brend, “Christian Subjects,” 121.
- 5.
Brend, “Christian Subjects,” 125–126. On this point, Brend seems to partially agree with Ivan Stchoukine and Richard Ettinghausen. Both scholars have, in fact, proposed ascribing the Monastery, along with many other paintings pasted in the Istanbul albums H.2152, H.2153, H.2154, and H.2160, to late fourteenth-/early fifteenth-century Central Asia or Transoxiana (Samarqand or Herat in early Timurid times; Stchoukine also advanced the hypothesis of a Turkestani school of painting for part of the Siyah Qalam’s corpus), see Ivan Stchoukine, “Notes sur des peintures persanes du Sérail de Stamboul,” Journal Asiatique 226 (1935): 117–140 and Richard Ettinghausen, “Some Painting in Four Istanbul Albums,” Ars Orientalis 1 (1954): 91–103.
- 6.
The historical period was characterised by political turmoil, uncertainty, and rapid changes of power in Iran and Central Asia. For a general overview, see Peter Jackson ed., The Cambridge History of Iran vol. 6, The Timurid and Safavid Periods (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986,) 147–188; and more recently John E. Woods, The Aqquyunlu. Clan, Confederation, Empire, Revised and Expanded Edition (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1999).
- 7.
See Roxburgh, Turks, 432. The dating and attribution of the Monastery to the middle of the fifteenth century was established on the basis of comparison with works by the Turkmen painter Shaykhi, who was active between 1450 and 1500.
- 8.
This album, along with its sister albums H.2152, H.2154 and H.2160 (all preserved in the collection of the Topkapı Palace Museum in Istanbul), was the subject of the symposium organised by Ernst J. Grube held at the Percival David Foundation, London, in June 1980; proceedings were published in the first issue of the periodical Islamic Art, see Ernst J. Grube et al., eds., Islamic Art. An Annual Dedicated to the Art and Culture of the Muslim World, (New York: Islamic Arts Foundation, I, 1981). Many essays in the volume focus on the enigmatic figure of Ustād Muhammad Siyah Qalam (lit. Master Muhammad of the Black Pen). This group of paintings, as well as a large number of other artworks pasted in the above-mentioned albums, shows a remarkable, almost unique, level of visual complexity within Islamic art and Persian painting; they combine Persian calligraphy and painting, Chinese details, and European styles using a variety of different painting techniques. Due to its stylistic and iconographic features, the Monastery is commonly connected to the Siyah Qalam paintings.
- 9.
Muraqqa‘ literally means “that which has been patched together.”
- 10.
- 11.
See Roxburgh, The Persian Album, 22.
- 12.
- 13.
For more visual references, see Brend, “Christian Subjects,” 122.
- 14.
This hypothesis was first advanced by Richard Ettinghausen, “Some Paintings,” 97–98.
- 15.
Or perhaps a Transfiguration of Christ, due to the presence of three standing figures.
- 16.
For some rather loose comparisons see the remnants of the Nestorian wall paintings from Qoço (in the vicinity of today’s Turfan, Xinjiang or Chinese Turkestan, China), dated to the late ninth century. For recent comments on the archaeological findings of Qoço, see Pier Giorgio Borbone, “Les églises d’Asie Centrale et de Chine. Etat de la question à partir des textes et de découvertes archéologiques. Essai de synthèse,” in Les églises du monde syriaque, ed. F. Briquet Chatonnet, Études syriaques 10 (Paris: Éditions Geuthner, forthcoming).
- 17.
For a short description of this specific theme in Persian painting, see, for instance, Eleanor Sims, Boris I. Marshak, Ernst J. Grube, ed., Peerless Images (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 115–120.
- 18.
One seems to hold his belt. Interestingly, the belt is a common trope for depicting Christians in Classical Persian poetry (I am grateful to Margaret Shortle for having brought this to my attention).
- 19.
See Brend “Christian Subjects,” 123 (image reproduction 439). The Anthology or Miscellany of Iskandar ibn ‘Umar Shaykh, Timur Lang’s grandson, was copied in Shiraz between 1410 and 1411 (London, British Library, Add.27261).
- 20.
For a very recent study of the literary sources and archaeological sites concerning Christian communities in Central and East Asia between the fourth and the thirteenth centuries, refer to Borbone, “Les églises d’Asie Centrale et de Chine.”
- 21.
Written references to the naqūs appears also in Rashid al-Din’s Jāmi‘ al-tawārīkh, see for instance Borbone, “Les églises d’Asie Centrale et de Chine.” For a description of semandron, check “Semantron or Semanterion,” in A Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, ed. William Smith and Samuel Cheetham (New York: Kraus Reprint Co., 1968), 2: 1879, and Dimitri Conomos. “Semandron,” in The Encyclopedia of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, ed. John Anthony McGuckin (Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 2: 559.
- 22.
William of Rubruck, The Journey of William of Rubruck to the Eastern Parts of the World, 1253–1255, ed. and trans. William Woodville Rockhill (London: Hakluyt Society, 1941), 144–145. William of Rubruck visited the Mongol court of Möngke in Qaraqorum at the behest of King Louis IX of France. The idolaters in Rubruck’s text have been previously identified as Buddhists.
- 23.
Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, Storia dei mongoli, ed. Ernesto Menestò et al. (Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull’alto Medioevo, 1989), 327. On the same issue, see Brend, “Christian Subjects,” 127n5–128n22.
- 24.
An interesting comment on the shape and the typology of these bells was made by Andrews (building on Brend’s paper). First of all, we need to consider that the bells seem to be out of context with reference to a Nestorian or Armenian monastery and that only the Greeks of Gazaria and the Rutenians used bells outside the sphere of influence and jurisdiction of the Catholic Church (Pre-Reformation times, see William of Rubruck, The Journey, 144–145; William of Rubruck, The Mission of Friar William of Rubruck. His Journey to the Court of the Great Khan Möngke, 1253–1255, trans. Peter Jackson. With the assistance of David Morgan for the introduction, notes and appendices (London: Hakluyt Society, 1990), 150–152. Thus, Andrews suggests a Chinese origin for the bells (gong typology), in relation to artistic depictions of religious themes in Central Asia, he finally affirms that “given the Uyghur text (reference to the use of strings of bells in Buddhist Uyghur context) I have quoted on strings of bells––surely a rather unique arrangement––an image taken from somewhere within the Uyghur sphere of influence seems the most probable.” Brend “Christian Subjects,” 127.
- 25.
Concerning Rubruck’s methods and approaches, as appearing in his report, see Guillaume de Rubrouk, Voyage dans l’empire mongol, 1253–1255, ed. and trans. Claude-Claire and René Kappler (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale Édition, 1993), 23–33. For some insights into medieval travel literature and travelogues as research material, see for instance Reisen in Reale und Mythische Ferne: Reiseliteratur in Mittelalter und Renaissance, ed. Peter Wunderli (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1993); Geraldine Heng, Empire of Magic. Medieval Romance and the Politics of Cultural Fantasy (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), 1–15, 239–466; Michael Uebel, Ecstatic Transformation. On the Uses of Alterity in the Middle Ages (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005); Jean-François Kosta-Théfaine, Travels and Travelogues in the Middle Ages (New York: AMS Press, 2009).
- 26.
See, for instance, Michele Bernardini, and Donatella Guida, I Mongoli. Espansione, imperi, ereditá, 360–363 (Turin: Piccola Biblioteca Einaudi, 2012).
- 27.
See, for instance, Michael Uebel, Ecstatic Transformation, 85–150. See also Prester John, the Mongols, and the Ten Tribes, ed. Charles Beckingham and Bernard Hamilton (Aldershot: Variorum, 1996).
- 28.
From the beginning of the second century AD, Mosul, nowadays northern Iraq, was quite a lively Christian centre where different Christian confessions, from Nestorians (also known as Assyrian Church of the East, Eastern Syrians or Duophysites) to Jacobites (Syrian Orthodox Church, or Monophysites, or also, more correctly Miaphysites, as the Armenian Orthodox Church), gathered and lived together, though not always peacefully. The name Jacobite (from the Bishop of Edessa Jacob Baradaeus, ca. 490–578) precisely stands for Syrian Orthodox Church (professing monophysitism). At the beginning of its history the term Jacobite was accepted with pride by some members of the religious community, later it was mainly used pejoratively by enemies of monophysitism. In this paper the term (like the term Nestorian) is used as a convention and for the sake of brevity without any polemical undertones. For Mosul and its history, see Encyclopaedia of Islam Online, 2nd ed., s.v. “Al-Mawsil,” by Clifford E. Bosworth and E. Honigmann, accessed July 25, 2012, http://referenceworks.brillonline.com.ubproxy.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/al-mawsil-COM_0717; For the Jacobites, the Syrian Orthodox Church and the Christian communities in the Middle East and Central Asia, see John P. Meno, “Syrian Orthodox Church,” in Encyclopaedia of Christianity, ed. Erwin Fahlbusch et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 5: 281a–285b; John F. Healey, “Jacob Baradaeus,” in The Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity, ed. Ken Parry et al. (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1999), 261–262; Robin Darling Young, “Jacob Baradaeus,” in Encyclopaedia of Early Christianity, ed. Everett Ferguson (New York: Garland Publishing 1998), 1: 601; Ian Gillman and Hans Joachin Klimkeit, Christians in Asia before 1500, (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999).
- 29.
Brend, “Christian Subjects,” 124. For a thirteenth-century description of Mar Mattai monastery, see Jules Leroy, Moines et monastères du Proche-Orient (Paris: Horizons de France, 1958) and Gérard Troupeau, “Les couvents chrétiens dans la littérature arabe,” La Nouvelle Revue du Caire I (1975): 270. For the two famous Jacobite lectionary manuscripts mentioned by Brend, see London, British Library, Add. 7170, and Add. 7154 and Rome, Vatican Library, Vat. Syr. 559. For iconographic references (pictures in b/w), see the iconographic apparatus included in Grube et al., Islamic Art, figs 423, 425, and 426; see also G. de Jerphanion, Les miniatures du manuscrit syriaque N° 559 de la Bibliothèque Vaticane (Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1940).
- 30.
The figure of the young man clothed in yellow and blue with his left hand on his cheek (foreground, on the left of the central hexagonal building) is visibly floating: his bare feet appear to stand on the architectural background; in addition, his posture and gesture quite closely resemble the canonical iconographic schema used to depict the figure of Saint John Apostle flanking the cross.
- 31.
The man’s posture can be also seen as a posture of argumentation; for a complete catalogue of hands and body gestures and their symbolic meaning in medieval manuscripts, see François Garnier, Le langage de l’image au Moyen Age. Signification et symbolique (Paris: Léopard d'or, 1982), 165–178 and 209–211.
- 32.
In this case, the matching between historical data and records and the suggested chronology for the Monastery seems to be extremely unlikely in a matter of plain chronological distance. For the Messalian sect and its history, see Antoine Guillaumont, “Messaliens,” in Dictionnaire de Spiritualité, ed. M. Villet et al., (Paris: G. Beauchesne et ses fils, 1980), 10: 1074–1083. For a sketchy outline of the history of Messalians, see Everett Ferguson, “Messalians,” in Encyclopaedia of Early Christianity, ed. Everett Ferguson (New York: Garland Publishing, 1997), 2: 747a.
- 33.
See, for instance, the painting Black Dervish or Giant (H.2153, fol. 23r). For image reference, see Mine Haydaroǧlu, ed., Ben Memed Siyah Kalem, insanlar ve cinlerin ustasi. I. Mehmed Siyah Kalem, Master of Humans and Demons (Istanbul: Yayina Hazirlayan, 2004), 152. See also the catalogue entries in Roxburgh, Turks, 164–168.
- 34.
If we look at the general attire and garments wore by the black man, the saffron scarf over the shoulders, for instance, resembles a typical Buddhist-Chinese iconographic feature. For some photographic references see Jacques Giès, Laure Feugère, and André Coutin, Painted Buddha of Xinjiang: Hidden Treasures From the Silk Road (London: The British Museum, 2002).
- 35.
Washington, Arthur and Sackler Gallery, MS. S 86.0105 and Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, inv. No M 73.5.412; Images in Sheila Blair, A Compendium of Chronicles. Rashid al-Din’s Illustrated History of the World, vol. 27 of The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art Series (London: Nour Foundation, 1995), 94 and 104.
- 36.
Modern commentators have positioned this centre in the region of Kopal, in present-day south-eastern Kazakhstan. The city should probably be identified as Qayaligh, mentioned in Juwaynī and in Al-‘Umarī, see Gugliermo di Rubruck, Viaggio in Mongolia (Itinerarium), ed. Paolo Chiesa (Rome: Fondazione Lorenzo Valla, Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 2010), 416. On the Uyghurs and their relationship with Buddhism, see for instance Johan Elverskog, Buddhism and Islam on the Silk Road, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2010), 150–151, 180–182, 192, 200. For a general overview of the political and religious history of Uyghurs, Buddhist, and Muslim communities in Central Asia, see again Elverskog, Buddhism, 117–243; Dolkun Kamberi, “Uyghurs and Uyghur Identity,” Sino-Platonica Papers 150 (2005): 1–47; Denis Sinor, Geng Shimin, and Y. I. Kychanov, “The Uyghurs, the Kyrgyz and the Tangut (eighth to the thirteenth century),” in The Age of Achievement: A.D. 750 to the End of the Fifteenth Century, ed. Muhammad S. Asimov and Clifford E. Bosworth, History of Civilizations of Central Asia, vol. 4, pt. 1 (Paris: UNESCO Publishing, 1998), 191–214.
- 37.
William of Rubruck, The Journey, 146–147. For translation, comparison, and up-to-date references, see also, William of Rubruck, The Mission, 153–154, and especially, Guglielmo di Rubruck, Viaggio, 116,118, 120–121. About Uyghurs and their religious status, see Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, The Journey of Friar John of Pian de Carpine, as narrated by Himself, in William of Rubruck. The Journey, 17, and footnote 4, Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, Storia dei mongoli, 255–256, and Guglielmo di Rubruck, Viaggio, 417–421 (commentary to chapters XXIV and XXV).
- 38.
See Guglielmo di Rubruck, Viaggio, 38.
- 39.
For the travelling of the image of the breastfeeding mother, see Monica Juneja, “The Breast-Feeding Mother as Icon and Source of Affect in Visual Practice––a Transcultural Journey,” in Emotion in Rituals South Asian and European Perspectives on Ritual and Performativity, ed. Axel Michaels and Christoph Wulf (New Delhi: Routledge, 2012), 407–443.
- 40.
See, for instance, Wassilios Klein, “Central Asian Religious Geography between Fact and Fiction in the Catalan Atlas (1375),” Hallesche Beiträge zur Orientwissenschaft 35 (2003): 377–403. See also Encyclopaedia of Islam Online, 2nd ed., s.v.. “Dayr,” by D. Sourdel, accessed July 19, 2013, http://referenceworks.brillonline.com.ubproxy.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/dayr-SIM_1768.
- 41.
I owe this suggestion to Pier Giorgio Borbone.
- 42.
Brend, “Christian Subjects,” 124.
- 43.
See, for instance, Jackson, The Timurids, 76–80, 374–377. For more general questions concerning Timur and his ruling strategies, see ibid., 51–57, 83–97.
- 44.
Ruy González de Clavijo, Embassy to Tamerlan, 1403–1406, trans. Guy le Strange, (London: R. Routledge, 1928), 130. Original version in Castilian in Clavijo dated 1532 (fol. 25); critical edition, Ruy González de Clavijo, Embajada a Tamorlán. Estiduo y edición de un manuscrito del siglo XV, ed. Francisco López Estrada (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Instituto Nicolàs, 1943), 89–90. Here Clavijo does not appear to be a completely reliable source as the Genoese. For instance, coeval sources and diplomatic reports often depict them as Timur’s allies, see Adam Knobler, “The Rise of Timur and Western Diplomatic Response,” in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, series 3, 5/3 (1995): 341–349; and Michele Bernardini, “Tamerlano, i Genovesi e il favoloso Axalla”, in Europa e islam tra i secoli XIV e XVI––Europe and Islam between 14th and 16th centuries, ed. Michele Bernardini et al. (Naples: Istituto universitario orientale, 2002), 391–426. See also Marie-Mathilde Alexandrescu-Dersca, La campagne de Timur en Anatolie (1402) (London: Variorum Reprints, 1977), 8–53. As for the sources in Arabic and Persian concerning the relationship between Timur and the Christian communities, Ibn ‘Arabshāh describes them in dramatic, yet conventional terms. Other royal sources and chronicles such as the Zafarnama compiled by Shāmī and Yazdī, for instance, do not report the episode connected to the destruction of churches in Erzincan, and refer to Taharten of Erzincan as a loyal ally of Timur against Bayazed. See Nizām al-Dīn Shāmī, Histoire des conquêtes de Tamerlan intitulée Zafarnāma. Texte persan du Ẓafarnāma, ed. Felix Tauer (Prague: Orientální Ústav, 1937), 1: 103–104, 217–220, 246ff.; and Sharaf al- Dīn ‛Alī Yazdī, Zafarnāma, ed. Mīr Muhammad Sādiq Sa‛īd (Tehran: Kitābkhāna, Mūza wa Markaz-i Asnād-i Maglis-i Sūrā-i Islāmī, 2008), 1: 577–582, 770–771, 779 and ibid., 2:1014–1018, 1026–1028, 1033–1040 to give a few textual references. For more about the political role of Taharten of Erzincan, see Michele Bernardini, “Motahharten entre Timur et Bayezid: une position inconfortable dans le remous de l’histoire anatolienne,” in Syncrétismes et Hérésies dans l’Orient Seldjoukide et Ottoman (XIVe-XVIIIe siècles), ed. Gilles Veinstein, Collection Turcica 9 (Leuven: Peeters, 2005), 199–212. Also, the Bavarian Johann Schiltberger mentions Erzincan in his memoires in a rather casual and cursory way, see Johann Schiltberger, The Bondage and Travels of Johann Schiltberger, a Native of Bavaria, in Europe, Asia, and Africa, 1396–1427, 21, 43, 89 (London: Hakluyt Society, 1879). Another sources of interest for the war campaigns of Timur in Anatolia and the Caucasus is the Armenian Thomas of Medzoph, who actually reported on the same episode of Erzincan as mentioned by Clavijo in his contemporary chronicle on the history of Armenia in the fifteenth century, see Félix Nève, “Études sur Thomas de Medzoph, et sur son historie de l’Arménie au XVe siècle,” in Journal Asiatique V/6 (1855): 248–49; and Félix, Nève, Exposé des guerres de Tamerlan et de Schah-Rokh dans l’Asie Occidentale d’après la chronique arménienne inédite de Thomas de Medzoph, Mémoires couronnés et autres mémoires publiés par l'Académie royale des sciences, des lettres et des beaux-arts de Belgique 11, (Ghent: Hayez, 1861), 34–36, 59, 68–69. See also folios 34 and 35 from the full English translation of Thomas’s chronicle available online at: http://rbedrosian.com/tm3.htm. For more about Taharten and his alleged cooperation in the destruction of the churches of Erzincan, see Dal mare di Alboran a Samarcanda. Diario dell’ambasciata castigliana alla corte di Tamerlano, ed. Anna Spinelli (Ravenna: Fernandel Scientifica, 2004), 141n20.
- 45.
Officially, the main focus of and reason for Timur’s politics was the spreading and the defending of Islam against the infidels and as such he has been described consistently as a ghazi (a warrior of Islam) in Timurid royal chronicles. A justification for Timur’s ruthlessness in his war campaigns was of central importance for the establishment of Timur’s authority in Central Asia and for the development of his political vision; turning a war of conquest, with all its burden of violence and atrocities, into a jihād was an operation seen as vital. Power legitimacy and authority had, in fact, to rely on both personal charisma and on adherence and respect of Islamic law. Repeatedly accused by his opponents of being merely a savage and ravaging nomad conqueror of obscure origin, more similar to a Mongol warrior than to a Muslim ruler, Timur faced the dangers and the political consequences of these allegations (indeed not so remote if we think of the Indian campaign, 1398–1399), which could have considerably diminished his political claims and lowered his status and legitimacy among both his equals and the subjected populations. Thus, the historical sources and war chronicles (ghazavāt) commissioned by him and by his heirs do not fail to mention the pious reasons leading Timur’s war campaigns. See, for instance, Ghiyāth al-Din ‘Alī Yadzī, Le gesta di Tamerlano, ed. Michele Bernardini (Milan: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 2009) for a coeval source commissioned by Timur himself. Nevertheless, strictness and even ruthlessness against the conquered populations (different for religious or ethnic reasons) were part of a precise political and economic strategy to control an empire that was as vast as it was unstable; see Jackson, The Timurids, 373–382, 412–427; K. Z. Ashrafyan, “Central Asia under Timur from 1370 to the Early Fifteenth Century,” in The Age of Achievement: A.D. 750 to the End of the Fifteenth century, ed. Muhammad S. Asimov and Clifford E. Bosworth, History of Civilizations of Central Asia, vol. 4, pt. 1 (Paris: UNESCO Publishing, 1998), 319–345; R. G. Mukminova, “The Timurid States in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century,” in The Age of Achievement: A.D. 750 to the End of the Fifteenth century, ed. Muhammad S. Asimov and Clifford E. Bosworth, History of Civilizations of Central Asia, vol. 4, pt. 1, (Paris: UNESCO Publishing, 1998), 347–363; Beatrice Forbes Manz, The Rise and Fall of Tamerlane (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 90–106, and Beatrice Forbes Manz, Power, Politics and Religion in Timurid Iran (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 13–48, 146–177. For details on the socio-political relationships between the Timurids and the religious classes, see ibid., 209–244. For Timur and his relationship with the Genoese communities of the Black Sea, see Bernardini, “Tamerlano, i Genovesi.” Regarding art historical issues, it is worth noting that we do not have evidence, apart from the written sources and historical accounts, of painting production in Timur’s time in Samarqand and of Timur’s own patronage (if we exclude architecture). The most striking and beautiful paintings and miniatures belong to the Jalayirid school of Baghdad during the reign of the last official ruler, Sultan Ahmad Jalayir (1382–1410). Sources mention the presence of paintings (hanged paintings in a Chinese manner) and also wall paintings (frescoes?) in palaces built by Timur’s order; however, none have survived. If we consider the production of the early Shahrukh’ and Ulugh Beg’s reigns, the quality is incomparable to that of the Monastery.
- 46.
Basil W. Robinson, Fifteenth-century Persian Painting (New York: New York University Press, 1991), 45–49.
- 47.
See Basil Gray, “History of Miniature Painting, the Fourteenth Century,” in The Arts of the Book in Central Asia, 14 th –16 th centuries, ed. Basil Gray (Paris-London: UNESCO Publishing, 1979), 93–120; and Blair, A Compendium of Chronicles. It is also important to note that the so-called pax mongolica was everything but firm (from a political point of view) in the territories controlled (or supposed to be controlled) by the Ilkhanid government. In fact, the Ilkhans controlled only certain portions of their empire, leaving the administration of other regions to local clans formally recognising the Ilkhanid authority but in reality quite independent from the dynasty. In addition, dynastic contrasts and disputes were common during the whole reigning period as a result of the rather unclear Mongol system of succession.
- 48.
For the history of the city of Tabriz and a short bibliography, see Encyclopaedia of Islam Online, 2nd ed., s.v. “Tabriz,” by Vladimir Minorsky and Sheila Blair, accessed July 25, 2012, http://referenceworks.brillonline.com.ubproxy.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/tabriz-COM_1137. For information about travellers’ accounts, see internal references of the entry.
- 49.
Cambridge History of Iran 6, 166–168, and 182–184. While, the Āq Qoyūnlū Turkmen were most probably adherents of Sunni Islam as linked with Sufism during the times of Uzun Hasan and his son Ya‘qub, the religious affiliation of the Qarā Qoyūnlū Turkmen is more difficult to define. On the one hand, the selection of names of the last members of the Qarā Qoyūnlū dynasty seems to indicate a possible preference towards Shī’sm, on the other hand, the presence of coins dating to the reign of Jahān Shāh (1439–1467) bearing the names of the four rāshidūn, would partially invalidate this hypothesis; see, Encyclopaedia of Islam Online, 2nd ed., s.v. “Ḳarā-Ḳoyunlu,” by F. Sümer, accessed July 1, 2013, http://referenceworks.brillonline.com.ubproxy.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/kara-koyunlu-SIM_3892. See also Minorsky’s article, “Jihān-Shāh Qara-Qoyunlu and his Poetry,” in Vladimir F. Minorsky, Medieval Iran and its Neighbours, preface by Charles E. Bosworth (London: Variorum Reprints, 1982), XII; and Woods, The Aqquyunlu, 33–34.
- 50.
See, for instance, Najwa al-Qattan, “Dhimmis in the Muslim Court: Legal Autonomy and Religious Discrimination,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 31/3 (1999): 429–444. For a general study on the position of Christians under Muslim domination, see also Sidney H. Griffith, “Christians under Muslim Rule,” in Early Medieval Christianities, c. 600–c. 1100, ed. Thomas F. X. Noble and Julia M. H. Smith, The Cambridge History of Christianity, vol. 3 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 197–212.
- 51.
For a book of fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) written by an Abbasid qadi see, Abū Yūsuf Ya‘qūb, Kitāb al-kharaj, trans. E. Fagnan (Paris: P. Geuthner, 1921). Concerning the so-called pact of ‘Umar, Micheau says “It is significant that the earliest version of the so-called pact of ‘Umar should date precisely from the twelfth century, since it was taken as authoritative when it came to establishing dhimma status,” see François Micheau, “Copts, Melkites, Nestorians and Jacobites,” in Eastern Christianity, ed. Michael Angold, The Cambridge History of Christianity, vol. 5, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 381. Regarding the pact of ‘Umar, see Encyclopaedia of Islam Online, 2nd ed. s.v. “Umar (I) b. al-K̲h̲aṭṭāb” by Giorgio Levi Della Vida and Michael Bonner, accessed 25 July 2012, http://referenceworks.brillonline.com.ubproxy.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/umar-i-b-al-khattab-SIM_7707. For the status of the dhimmis, see Encyclopaedia of Islam Online, 2nd ed., s.v. “D̲h̲imma” by Claude Cahen, accessed 25 July 2012, http://referenceworks.brillonline.com.ubproxy.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/dhimma-SIM_1823; Encyclopaedia of Islam Online, 2nd ed., s.v. “Djizya” by Claude Cahen, Hali̇l İnalcik, and Peter Hardy, accessed 25 July 2012 http://referenceworks.brillonline.com.ubproxy.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/djizya-COM_0192.; Charles E. Bosworth, “The Concept of Dhimma in Early Islam,” in Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire: The Functioning of a Plural Society ed. Benjamin Braude and Bernard Lewis (New York: Holmes & Meier Publishing, 1982), 1:37–51; Youssef Courbage, and Philippe Fargues, Christians and Jews under Islam (London: I.B. Tauris Publishers, 1995); Robert Hoyland, Seeing Islam as Others saw it. A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam (Princeton: Darwin Press, 1997 ); The Encounter of Eastern Christianity with Early Islam, ed. Emmanouela Grypeou, Mark Swanson, and David Thomas (Leiden: Brill, 2006). More bibliographical references in the footnotes to the article by Griffith, “Christians under Muslim Rule.”
- 52.
“[…] ces ouvrages étaient essentiellement des anthologies des poètes musulmans ayant composé des vers bachiques ou érotiques, à l’occasion d’un passage ou d’un séjour dans un couvent chrétien qu’ils nomment dans ces vers. L’originalité de ces anthologies est que les vers, au lieu d’être groupés par poète, y sont groupés par couvent, et c’est la raison pour laquelle elles sont intitulées: “Livre des Couvents”.” Troupeau, “Les couvents chrétiens,” 265. See also Hilary Kilpatrick, “Kitāb al-diyārāt,” in Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History, ed. David Thomas, and Alex Mallet (Leiden: Brill, 2010), accessed July 25, 2012, http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/christian-muslim-relations/kitab-al-diyarat-COM_23244. For the text in Arabic of the Kitāb al-diyārāt, see Abū al-Hasan ‘Alī , Kitāb al-diyārāt (Baghdad: Al-Masrif, 1931) and George Awwad, The Shabushti’s Book of Monasteries (Baghdad: Gorgias Press, 1966). For some additional information, see also Steve Cochrane, “Historical Overview of Inter-Faith Relations in the Islamic Countries: The Presence of Christian Monks and Monasteries as Signposts of Faith” (paper presented at the Bangalore Pre-Centenary Edinburgh 2010 Study Conference, held at the United Theological College, Bangalore, July 17–19, 2009), accessed July 25, 2012, http://www.edinburgh2010.org/fileadmin/files/edinburgh2010/files/docs/1._Steve_Cochrane.doc.; see also Aziz Atiya, A History of Eastern Christianity (London: Methuen, 1968), 189n3. On the role of Christian monasteries in Egypt, Syria, and Iraq, see also Micheau, “Copts, Melkites, Nestorians and Jacobites,” 397–401 (for additional bibliography, see internal reference).
- 53.
Troupeau, “Les couvents chrétiens,” 271. While examining these texts, it is necessary to keep in mind that a few centuries divide them from the supposed date of the Monastery.
- 54.
Hilary Kilpatrick, “Monasteries through Muslim Eyes: the Diyārāt Books,” in Christians at the Heart of Islamic Rule. Church Life and Scholarship in ‘Abbasid Iraq, ed. David Thomas (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 37. Interestingly, William of Rubruck seems rather critical towards the Nestorians he met in his travel, and accuses them of relaxed, immoral, and unreligious habits, see Guglielmo di Rubruck, Viaggio, 132–134.
- 55.
See, for instance, the rather polemical writings of Bat Ye’or about the status of the dhimmi in Muslim societies (mainly Egyptian and Middle Eastern societies), Bat Ye’or, Dhimmi People, Oppressed Nations (Geneva: Edition de L’Avenir, 1978) and Bat Ye’or, The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians under Islam, (Rutherford NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1985). On the same topic, see Yohanan Friedman, Tolerance and Coercion in Islam: Interfaith Relations in the Muslim Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). On the political role of the Christian dhimmi communities, Igor Dorfmann-Lazarev affirms that “(s)ince non-Muslims were tolerated in the land of Islam as “Detainers of the Book,” it was their patriarchs or catholicoi who were recognised legal chiefs responsible to the Islamic authority. Religious structures were thus the only form of autonomy left to the dhimmi, while they were deprived of the capacity to give their religions political dimension,” see Igor Dorfmann-Lazarev, “Beyond Empire I: Eastern Christianity From the Persian to the Turkish Conquest, 604–1071,” in Early Medieval Christianities, c.600–c.1100, ed. Thomas F. X. Noble and Julia M. H. Smith, The Cambridge History of Christianity, vol. 3, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 77.
- 56.
For the use of tugh in Islamic Central Asia, see for instance Laura E. Parodi, “L’ereditá mongola e altaica nell’Asia Centrale islamica,” in I Mongoli dal Pacifico al Mediterraneo, ed. Giovanna Airaldi, Paola Mortari Vergara Caffarelli and Laura E. Parodi (Genoa: ECIG, 2004), 241–258.
- 57.
For some examples of religious assimilation and cultural accommodation of Christian communities, see Pier Giorgio Borbone, Storia di Mar Yahballaha e di Rabban Sauma. Un orientale in Occidente ai tempi di Marco Polo (Torino: S. Zamorani, 2001), 42–49. See also François Micheau, “Copts, Melkites, Nestorians and Jacobites,” 403.
- 58.
For discussions on transculturality from an art historical perspective, see Monica Juneja, “Global Art History and the Burden of Representation,” in Global Studies: Mapping Contemporary Art and Culture, ed. Hans Belting, Jakob Birken and Andrea Buddensieg (Stuttgart: Hatje Cantz, 2011), 274–297.
- 59.
Concerning Islamic art specifically, a rather recent publication by Bernard Lewis, What Went Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response (2001), highlights the overall importance of disciplines like cultural history and art history in understanding the contemporary socio-political phenomena working on a worldwide basis. Indeed, as Blair and Bloom have pointed out, Islam became extremely prominent in “today’s major new stories. Students and readers look to scholars of all aspects of Islamic civilisation (Islamic art included) to help them understand not only what happened in the past but also what is going on today,” Sheila Blair, and Jonathan Bloom, “The Mirage of Islamic Art: Reflections on the Study of an Unwieldy Field,” The Art Bulletin 85/1 (2003): 176.
- 60.
Concerning the notions of movements and circulation, see the discussion by Flüchter and Schöttli in the Introduction to the present volume (14–16).
- 61.
For a general overview of the spreading and influence of Islam in different cultural contexts; see, for example, Salma Khadra Jayyusi, ed., The Legacy of Muslim Spain (Leiden: Brill, 1992) and Bianca Maria Scarcia Amoretti, ed., La cultura arabo-islamica, Lo spazio letterario nel Medioevo vol. 2, (Salerno: Salerno Editrice, 2003). For some examples of cross-cultural exchanges; see, for instance, David J. Roxburgh, “The ‘Journal’ of Ghiyath al-Din Naqqash, Timurid Envoy to Khan Balïgh, and Chinese Art and Architecture,” in The Power of Things and the Flow of Cultural Transformations, ed. Lieselotte E. Saurma-Jeltsch and Anja Eisenbeiß, (Berlin-Munich: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2010), 90–113 and Lucy-Anne Hunt, “The Syriac Buchanan Bible in Cambridge: Book Illumination in Syria, Cilicia and Jerusalem of the Later Twelfth Century,” in Byzantium, Eastern Christendom and Islam: Art at the Crossroads of the Medieval Mediterranean, ed. Lucy-Anne Hunt (London: Pindar Press, 2000), 2: 23–77.
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Fazio, N. (2015). Across Central Asia: Cultural Crossroads, Religious Interactions? The Monastery, H.2153 fol. 131v, Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi, Istanbul. In: Flüchter, A., Schöttli, J. (eds) The Dynamics of Transculturality. Transcultural Research – Heidelberg Studies on Asia and Europe in a Global Context. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09740-4_10
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