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| Fol i o from a di spersed manuscri pt of the Fāl nāma (‘ Book of Di vi nati ons’ ) Qazwi n, I ran; mi d 1550s – earl y 1560s Opaque watercol our, i nk and gol d on paper Page: 59. 5 x 45 cm AKM 96 |
This monumental image comes from a dispersed outsize
manuscript of the Falnama that is thought to have been
commissioned by Shah Tahmasp in the early 1550s, during
a period when the Safavid ruler was becoming increasingly
conservative in his religious outlook and being visited in
dreams by holy figures.
The Falnama, or ‘Book of Divinations’,
was a popular text in sixteenth- and seventeenth-
century Iran and Turkey and was used to predict the
future, or to enable the seeker to decide how to proceed
on a difficult decision.
To use the text, the seeker would
perform ritual ablutions and prayer before opening the
manuscript to a random page, where the resultant verses
would provide an omen that had to be interpreted with
the help of the accompanying image.
While such practices
may seem at first glance hard to square with religious conviction,
the
Falnama
in
fact
contains
important
lessons
in
religion
and
morality,
with
a
focus
on
the
deeds
of
prophets
and
holy
men.
The
accompanying
text
for
this
image,
found
on
the
back
of
the
following
folio explains
the
iconography
of
this painting of a dark-skinned man trying to leave a
majestic mausoleum, as a hand emerges from the grilled
cenotaph and shoots flames towards him, to the horror of
the other visitors to the tomb:
‘O augury user, know that in your augury has appeared the sign of the miracle-manifesting,
Khaybar-conquering two fingers of His Majesty the Lion of God,
the Conqueror >Ali ibn Abu Talib – upon him be mercy and peace –
which appeared from the blessed grave of His Majesty and struck in two
the accursed Murra ibn Qays’
The identity of the wicked Murra ibn Qays remains
unclear, although it has been suggested that he defiled of
the tomb of Ali, the first Shi'i imam, and was cleaved in
half by the two fingers of Ali: the hand of the imam thus
parallels his famous twin-pronged sword, the Dhu l-fiqar .
A separate copy of the Falnama confirms the tomb of Ali
in Najaf as the location of the narrative.
Although heavily schematised, the tiled dome and
two slender minarets with balconies seen in this painting
are quite closely matched in photos of the tomb at Najaf
taken in the 1930s, prior to its more recent renovations.
However, the architectural similarities
between this image and a Falnama painting in the David
Collection, showing the tomb of Imam Husayn, suggest
that this architectural arrangement was a standard model
for representations of Shi'i shrine structures.
As such, the artist may not have been concerned
with
topographical
reality and instead was working
to
a
standardised
type.
In
addition
to
the
external
signs
of
sacred
architecture
–
the
dome
and
the
minarets
–
the
interior
of the tomb in this painting is also hung with
elaborate vase-shaped lamps decorated with tassels. 
The
mystic smoke that fills the tomb appears to be emanating
from
the
flames
of Ali’s
hand
and
the
central
hanging
lamp
simultaneously.
Hanging lamps are prominent in
other images of sacred tombs, both in the Falnama manuscripts
and
elsewhere,
and
countless
images
from
pilgrimage
manuals.
As such, the lamp must
be understood as an important indicator of sacred space in
funerary architecture and its representations.
Book Reference :
Architecture in Islamic Arts Treasures of the Aga Khan Museum by Margaret S. Graves, Benoît Junod, Gérard Friedli
https://www.academia.edu/7471091/Treasures_of_the_Aga_Khan_Museum_Architecture_in_Islamic_arts
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