The changing iconography of Nizami manuscripts in the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal book cultures

Abstract

This thesis scrutinizes illustrated manuscripts of Nizami’s Khamsa produced or refurbished in Safavid, Ottoman, and Mughal realms between 1450-1600, in order to understand how the iconographic pool, the illustrative programs and approaches to illustration of the book cultures of these realms were inspired by and responded to the Timurid manuscripts of the same book. To this aim it studies ten manuscripts from the aforementioned four dynasties and compares their illustrative programs and thematic agendas. The main argument of the thesis is that each of the three early modern Muslim empires constructed their relationship to the Timurid heritage in a different way determined by their chronological and geographical position vis-à-vis the Timurid dynasty and their divergent cultural trajectories. The study reveals that the relationship of Safavid painting to Timurid painting developed in terms of a relationship between practitioners of the art and their tradition, while Ottoman and Mughal gaze to Timurids was largely dynastic. Whereas Ottomans aspired to Timurid cultural prestige and competed with them in their products, Mughals’ genealogic relationship to the latter led them to emphasize the relationship in their painting and proclaim it with a sense of pride. The study contributes to the existing scholarship in its nuancing of the relations among these dynasties and approaching the matter through illustrations to a single text, of which illustration was in itself demonstrative of a specific relationship to Timurid legacy, and of which content deepened the intellectual aspect of the paintings with its discussions of visual arts.