art, trade and culture in the islamic world and beyond€¦ · art, trade and culture in the...

Art, Trade and Culturein the Islamic World and Beyond

From the Fatimids to the Mughals

Studies Presented to Doris Behrens-Abouseif

Edited by

Alison Ohta, J.M. Rogers and Rosalind Wade Haddon

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An octagonal Kufic inscription with the names of the Prophet, the four righteous caliphs and six of the ṣahāba (Companions of the Prophet) is found on the left side of the mihrab of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque in Istanbul. Its patron, Sultan Ahmed I, belonged to the Khalwati Sufi order and the octagonal form of the inscription closely resembles the octagonal Khalwati rose, a symbol of the order. An identical Kufic octagon is also found in the Mamluk Qartawiyya Madrasa, built by the governor of Tripoli, Amir Qaratay, between 1316 and 1326. There is no apparent evidence linking Amir Qaratay to the Khalwati order but it is well known that Khalwati shaikhs had close relationships with the Mamluk ruling classes in the fourteenth century. This paper compares these two octagonal Kufic inscriptions found in Tripoli and Istanbul and discusses their significance.

The resemblance between two octagonal Kufic inscriptions, one on the southern wall of the Mamluk Qartawiyya Madrasa

in Tripoli, built by Amir Qaratay between 1316 and 1326 [Figure 1],1 and the other on the left side of the mihrab of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque in Istanbul, built between 1609 and 1616 [Figure 2], deserves some attention.2 This type of geometric Kufic composition is called ma‘qilῑ, also known as kūfῑ al-murabba‘ or bannā’ ῑ.3 This particular example is arranged to form an octagon on whose centre the terminals of the letters converge. It contains the names of the Prophet Muhammad, the four righteous caliphs and six of the first ṣahāba (companions of the Prophet): Muhammad (d.632), Abu Bakr (d.634), ʿUmar (d.644), ʿUthman (d.656), ʿAli ibn Abu Talib (d.661), Talha ibn ʿ Ubaydallah (d.656), Zubayr ibn al-ʿAwwam (d.656), Saʿd ibn Abu Waqqas (d.674), Saʿid ibn Zayd (d.673), ʿAbdallah ibn Masʿud (d.650), and ʿAbd al-Raḥman ibn ʿAwf (d.652).

The Octagonal Kufic Inscription in the Qartawiyya Madrasa and its Counterpart in the Sultan Ahmed Mosque

b o r a k e s k i n e r

Figure 1.Kufic octagon on the southern wall of the Qartawiyya Madrasa,

Tripoli, 1316–1326. After Salam-Liebich, H. The Architecture of the

Mamluk City of Tripoli, p.11.

Figure 2.Kufic octagon on the left side of the mihrab of the Sultan Ahmed

Mosque, Istanbul, 1609–1616. Photograph by Bora Keskiner.

t h e o c t a g o n a l k u f i c i n s c r i p t i o n i n t h e q a r t a w i y y a m a d r a s a a n d i t s c o u n t e r p a r t i n t h e s u l t a n a h m e d m o s q u e

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Names of important religious figures were used as talismanic formulae for their protective power and were written on amulets, magic bowls, and monuments from the mid-thirteenth century onwards.4 For instance, the Kufic inscriptions on the dome of the Karatay Madrasa in Konya (1251–1252) include the names ‘Muhammad, Abu Bakr, ʿUmar, ʿUthman, ʿAli, Daʾud, ʿIsa, and Musa’.5 The octagonal form of these two Kufic compositions from Tripoli and Istanbul also has a talismanic significance. The use of octagons for their talismanic value stretches back to ancient times and was commonplace in Roman and Byzantine cultures.6 In Islamic art, octagons with complex geometrical motifs resembling the Kufic octagon come to the fore in the decorative repertoire of thirteenth-century metalwork associated with Mosul workshops.7

Two octagonal Kufic seals bear the same composition as the two monumental octagons. The first is attached to a ring in the Khalili Collection,8 and the second was offered for sale at Bonhams auction rooms in London.9 These two seals may provide a link between the two Kufic octagons from the Mamluk and Ottoman worlds. [Figure 3] They bear the same text as the two monumental octagons and show that the composition was applied to portable objects and was probably introduced to both the Mamluks and Ottomans through a similar prototype.

Use of the octagon in both the Qartawiyya Madrasa and the Sultan Ahmed Mosque appears to be primarily about its talismanic, protective power. But its application in the Sultan Ahmed Mosque may further be related to its design, which resembles the octagonal symbol of the Khalwati Sufi order, the so-called Khalwati rose (halveti gülü). [Figure 4] There are many types of Sufi roses, each symbolising a different Sufi order and/or sub-branch, which are traditionally embroidered on the headgear of the shaikhs of the order.10

A Kufic Khalwati rose carved in stone is located at the entrance of the mausoleum of Nasuhi Mehmed Efendi (d.1718),11 in Üskudar, Istanbul.12 This rose also features angular lines with small squares on the edges, creating a Kufic inscription which gives the tawhīd formula (the Islamic declaration of faith in God’s unity): Lā ilāha illa Allāh (There is no God but Allah). Yahya Agah ibn Salih al-Istanbuli in his treatise on Sufi costumes and rituals, Mecmū‘atü’z Zerāif Sandūkatü’l Ma‘ārif, provides drawings of many Sufi roses including the Khalwati rose.13 This is an octagonal composition containing angular lines with small squares on the edges, creating a Kufic inscription which contains the tawhīd formula. Besides its octagonal form, the Khalwati rose in the nineteenth-century Ottoman historian Yahya Agah ibn Salih al-Istanbuli’s treatise bears a close resemblance to the

Figure 3.Timurid seal with a Kufic octagon. Bonhams London, Islamic and

Indian Art, 4 October 2011, lot 193. Photograph courtesy of Bonhams.

Figure 4.The Khalwati rose. After Atasoy, N., Derviș Çeyizi – Türkiye’de Tarikat

Giyim Kușam Tarihi, p.218.

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roses, those including inscriptions are rare. The Khalwati rose is one of the very few that comprise calligraphy within them.18

The person responsible for the selection and application of the inscriptions must have been Kalender Pasha, the building supervisor of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque.19 His interest in the Kufic script can be observed in two other Kufic inscriptions in the mosque, besides the octagon. The first is the four-time repeated square Kufic al-Ḥamdulillāh located on the two southern pillars facing the mihrab. The second is the basmala located in the centre of the mihrab of the sultan’s private lodge (hünkār mahfili). Kalender Pasha was a master of the paper-cut technique and a paper-joiner (vaṣṣāl). He compiled three court albums as well as a Falnama, all of which are preserved in the Topkapı Palace Museum Library.20 He states in his preface to album B.408 that Sultan Ahmed himself gave a collection of images and calligraphies and ordered him to make an album in which they could be preserved. Kalender Pasha’s interest in Kufic can be observed in the marginal decoration of this album: in the margins of fol.6a he used a framing border in reversed Kufic which contains the Āyat al-Kursī.21 The full-page paper-cut geometric designs in the same album can also be

talismanic octagon in the Sultan Ahmed Mosque along with its Kufic script.

Sultan Ahmed I (r.1603–1617), was a member of the Khalwati order and his esteemed spiritual mentor (pīr) Aziz Mahmud Hudai (d.1628), was the shaikh of the Jalvatiya, a sub-branch of the same order.14 During the conflict between the orthodox, ‘shari‘a-guided’ Kadizadeli group and the Sufi Sivasi group who followed the Khalwati shaikh Abdulmecid Sivasi (d.1639), the sultan supported the latter and his followers.15 Furthermore, he appointed Abdulmecid Sivasi as the preacher in the mosque bearing his own name, the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, just after its completion in 1617, which then became an important centre for the Khalwatis.16

The calligraphic design in the octagon beside the mihrab in the mosque indeed resembles the calligraphic design in the Khalwati rose. Members of the Khalwati order believe that the founder of the order, ʿUmar al-Khalwati (d.1397), was authorised spiritually by the Prophet to wear headgear (taj) which had one of the letters of the Arabic alphabet, dal, repeated 40 times.17 Although there is a rich variety of Sufi

Figure 5.A collection of Kadiri roses. After Atasoy, N., Derviș Çeyizi

– Türkiye’de Tarikat Giyim Kușam Tarihi, p.215.


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Figure 6.Sultan Ahmed I’s calligraphy album, Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Istanbul, inv. no.H.2171, Fol.73b.

Photograph courtesy of the Topkapı Palace Museum.

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1. Amir Shihab al-Din Qaratay ibn ʿAbdallah al-Nasiri al-Ashrafi al-Jukundar al-Hajib. He was governor of Tripoli twice: first from 1316 to 1326 and then from 1332 to 1333; Salam-Liebich, H., The Architecture of the Mamluk City of Tripoli, Cambridge Mass., 1983, p.107.

2. I would like to thank Dr Lale Uluç for kindly sharing her thoughts and proof-reading this paper. I also owe thanks to Professor Nurhan Atasoy, Professor Baha Tanman, Dr Side Emre, Dr Venetia Porter, and Mr Garo Kurkman for their insightful remarks.

3. Serin, M., and Yusuf Z., ‘Kufi’, Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslam Ansiklopedisi, vol.26, Ankara, 2002, p.344.

4. Caanan, T., ‘The Decipherment of Arabic Talismans’, in Savage-Smith, E. (ed.), Magic and Divination in Early Islam, Farnham, 2004, p.143. This talismanic text appears to have been favoured by the Mamluks; a second Kufic inscription is located above the entrance doorway of the Taynal Mosque in Tripoli, built in 1336.

of the design of Kadiri roses may have inspired him. His open-mindedness may be related to his partiality towards the Bektashi Sufi order, known for its unorthodox and tolerant view point.27 Kalender appears to be the earliest of many artists who employed Sufi roses in their works, both for their decorative and spiritual value.28

The second album he prepared for Sultan Ahmed I contains further proof of the sultan’s interest in the Khalwati order.29 It includes a petition (fol.27b) written by one of the leading sixteenth-century Khalwati shaikhs, Ibrahim Gulshani (d.1534), addressing Sultan Suleyman I (r.1520–1566). Since the album consists of calligraphic samples, many executed by renowned masters, the location of Gulshani’s petition in the album implies the sultan’s wish to preserve the handwriting of the famous Khalwati shaikh.

Although Khalwati shaikhs had close relations with the Mamluk ruling class in the fourteenth century, there is no apparent evidence linking Amir Qaratay to the Khalwati order.30 The Mamluk use of the octagon in the Qartawiyya Madrasa therefore appears to be only about its protective talismanic value. Its counterpart in the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, on the other hand, can be interpreted as a royal memento located just next to the mihrab of the imperial mosque to show Sultan Ahmed I’s partiality towards the Khalwati order. Use of the octagon in both regions points to a shared taste spanning the centuries and broad geographical areas.

considered the work of Kalender Pasha, who states in his preface that he ‘decided to compile the album to demonstrate his knowledge of geometry and construction’.22 Kalender’s geometric designs appear to be more than a demonstration of his mathematical skills, since the majority are almost identical to the symbol of a second Sufi order, the Kadiri rose. [Figure 5]

The Kadiri Sufi order has many sub-branches and every sub-branch uses the rose, with slight changes in its design. All, however, have a common main structure resembling a multi-pointed star, albeit with a few exceptions. Yahya Agah bin Salih al-Istanbuli’s above-mentioned treatise provides the drawings of seven different Kadiri roses.23 Among Kalender’s paper-cut designs, nine have striking resemblances to Kadiri roses. [Figure 6] Four of these are in Ahmed I’s calligraphy album H.2171 (fols.1a–b, 73a–b) and five are in album B.408 (fols.5a, 29a–b, 30 a–b).24 Seven of these nine designs are in the multi-pointed star form and two consist of repeated patterns. These two in album B.408 (fols.29b and 30a)25 are designed with intertwining circles which at first glance appear not to be related to Kadiri roses but their design seems to be related to the decoration of a circular Kadiri rose, the so-called kız gülü, which features intersecting lines.26

Kalender’s above-mentioned works in the albums that he prepared for Sultan Ahmed I and the Kufic octagon in the same sultan’s mosque, the building of which he supervised, indicate his, and perhaps also Sultan Ahmed I’s, interest in different Sufi orders and their roses. The richness and variety

Notes

5. Blair, S., Islamic Inscriptions, Edinburgh, 1998, p.88; Schimmel, A., Calligraphy and Islamic Culture, New York, 1984, p.11.

6. Pitarakis, B. ‘Light, Water, and Wondrous Creatures: Supernatural Forces for Healing’, in Pitarakis, B. (ed.), Life Is Short, Art Long: The Art of Healing in Byzantium, exhibition catalogue, Istanbul, 2015.

7. Julian Raby in his essay on the Mosul school of metalwork notes: ‘The octagon motif appears on at least thirteen items over the course of three decades from the 1220s to the 1240s.’ For images of the octagon motifs on 13 different pieces see, Raby, J., ‘The Principle of Parsimony and the Problem of the “Mosul School of Metalwork”’, in Porter, V., and Rosser-Owen, M. (eds.), Metalwork and Material Culture in the Islamic World – Art, Craft and Text, London, 2012, pp.31, 32, 75.

8. The catalogue entry by Mariam Wenzel ascribes the ring to fourteenth- or fifteenth-century Iran, see Wenzel, M., Ornament & Amulet – Rings of the Islamic Lands, in Raby, J. (ed.), The Nasser D Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, vol.16, Oxford, 1993, p.119.


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20. Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Istanbul, court albums: inv. nos.B.408, B.409, H.2171; Falnama, inv. no.H.1703, Çağman, F., Kat’ı – Osmanlı Dünyasında Kağıt Oyma Sanatı ve Sanatçıları, 2014, pp.153–61.

21. Qur’an 2:255.

22. Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Istanbul, inv. no.H.2171, fol.21b.

23. Yahya Agah ibn Salih al-Istanbuli, Mecmū‘atü’z Zerāif ve Sandūkatü’l Ma‘ārif, pp.209–15.

24. Two of these (H.2171, fols.1a and 73b) are published in Çağman, F., Kat’ı –Osmanlı Dünyasında Kağıt Oyma Sanatı ve Sanatçıları, Istanbul, 2014, pp.158–59.

25. Çağman, F., Kat’ı –Osmanlı Dünyasında Kağıt Oyma Sanatı ve Sanatçıları, p.156.

26. For an image of the kız gülü, see Yahya Agah ibn Salih al-Istanbuli, Mecmū‘atü’z Zerāif ve Sandūkatü’l Ma‘ārif, p.209; Atasoy, N., Derviș Çeyizi – Türkiye’de Tarikat Giyim Kușam Tarihi, p.214.

27. Bağcı, S., ‘Presenting Vaṣṣāl Kalender’s Work: The Prefaces of Three Ottoman Albums’, Muqarnas 40, 2013, p.256.

28. An eighteenth-century example is the tughra-shaped composition, signed by ʿAbd al-Qadir, in the Topkapı Palace Museum Library Istanbul, inv. no.Harem 8/582, decorated with a Kadiri rose on its right side. The text of the tughra is a poetic verse from the famous Qaṣīda al-Burda of poet al-Busiri (d.1295). This tughra-shaped composition is a copy after the original by Sultan Ahmed III, located in his imperial tughra album, Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Istanbul, inv. no.A.3653, fol.2a, see Keskiner, B., Ahmed III (r. 1703–1730) as a Calligrapher and Patron of Calligraphy, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, SOAS, University of London, 2012, p.210, http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/15860/.

29. Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Istanbul, inv. no.H.2171.

30. ‘Umar al-Khalwati, the founder of the Khalwati order, moved from Tabriz to Cairo sometime after 1378 and lived there for at least seven years. The governor of Gilan, Sultan Uvays, wrote a letter to the Mamluk sultan, possibly Sayf al-Din Barquq (r.1382–1389), asking his permission for ‘Umar al-Khalwati’s return to Tabriz. The sultan granted permission and sent ‘Umar to Tabriz with royal gifts, see Tayşi, M.S., ‘Ömer el-Halveti’, p.65.

I would like to thank Nahla Nassar for her kind assistance and for providing images of this piece.

9. Bonhams London, Islamic and Indian Art, 4 October 2011, lot 193. I would like to thank Claire Penhallurick of Bonhams for providing the image of this seal. Another early octagonal seal in Kufic, dated 757/1356, is on a decree from the shrine of Shaikh Abu Ishaq, dated 851/1448, see Soudavar, A., Art of the Persian Courts, New York, 1992, p.80.

10. Atasoy, N., Derviș Çeyizi – Türkiye’de Tarikat Giyim Kușam Tarihi, Ankara, 2005, p.213.

11. Nasuhi Mehmed Efendi was the founder of the Nasuhi Dervish Lodge which has not been active since the abolition of the dervish lodges in 1925. The lodge belonged to the Shabaniya sect, a sub-branch of the Khalwati order.

12. Atasoy, N., Derviș Çeyizi – Türkiye’de Tarikat Giyim Kușam Tarihi, p.73. Unfortunately this Khalwati rose was stolen two years ago and is no longer in situ.

13. Yahya Agah b. Salih al-Istanbuli, Mecmū‘atü’z Zerāif ve Sandūkatü’l Ma‘ārif, transliterated by Tayşi, M.S., Istanbul, 2005. The author’s undated copy is in the Suleymaniye Library, Istanbul, Nuri Arlasez, inv. no.2492.

14. Yılmaz, H.K., ‘Aziz Mahmud Hüdai’, Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslam Ansiklopedisi, vol.2, Istanbul, 1988, p.339.

15. Zilfi, M.C. ‘The Kadizadelis: Discordant Revivalism in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul’, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 45, no.4, October 1986, p.252; Ișın, E., ‘Abdülmecid Sivasi’, Yaşamları ve Yapıtları ile Osmanlılar Ansiklopedisi 2, Istanbul, 2008, p.69.

16. Sivasi held this position until his death in 1639, Zilfi, M.C., ‘The Kadizadelis: Discordant Revivalism’, p.256.

17. Tayşi, M.S., ‘Ömer el-Halveti’, Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslam Ansiklopedisi 34, Istanbul, 2007, p.65.

18. Besides the Khalwati rose, roses of the Rifa‘iya, Badawiya, and Sa‘diya orders include inscriptions. See, Yahya Agah b. Salih al-Istanbul, Mecmū‘atü’z Zerāif ve Sandūkatü’l Ma‘ārif, pp.210–15.

19. Fetvacı, E., ‘Enriched Narratives and Empowered Images in Seventeenth-Century Ottoman Manuscripts’, Ars Orientalis 40, 2011, p.245.

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