Verso, detail

An illuminated folio from the Kitab-i Nauras of Ibrahim Adil Shah (cat.5)

Copied by Mir Khalilullah Shah But-shikan

Deccan, Bijapur, dated AH 1027/AD 1617
Text: last line of Song 40, Song 3b (Karnati)
Ink with two-tone gold on paper
Page: 8⅛ x 4⅜ in (20.6 x 11 cm)
Text area: 5¼ x 2¼ in (13.4 x 5.6 cm)

Provenance:
Acquired from Jagdish Mittal, Hyderabad, November 1969

Exhibited:
The Indian Heritage, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1982

Published:
Skelton, The Indian Heritage, London, 1982, no.43, p.37; Haidar, “The Kitab-i Nauras, Key to Bijapur’s Golden
Age”, in Haidar and Sardar (eds.), Sultans of the South, Arts of India’s Deccan Courts, 1323-1687, New York, 2011,
pp.26-43; (reference) Schimmel, Calligraphy and Islamic Culture, 1990, p.186, note 262
Verso
Recto
This ravishingly illuminated folio is from an important royal copy of the Kitab-i Nauras of Sultan Ibrahim Adil
Shah (r.1580-1627). The text is a composition of devotional songs and couplets composed by the Sultan in
which he describes and explores a rich world of personal and religious allusions that encapsulate his eclectic and
original character. It is written in Dakhni and is preserved in several early manuscripts. This leaf comes from a
lavish and highly original copy, now dispersed, of which other folios are in the National Museum, Delhi, and
which has recently been studied in detail and published by Navina Haidar (Haidar 2011).

The manuscript was completed in 1027 (1617) and among the folios in Delhi is the colophon page, which tells
us that the manuscript was copied by the leading court scribe Mir Khalilullah Shah. This calligrapher, also known
as Amir Khalil Qalandar, was of Persian origin from Bakharz and a disciple of Sayyid Ahmad Mashhadi. He
worked at the court of Shah Abbas in Iran before leaving for pastures new in India, where he arrived at the court
of Ibrahim Adil Shah in 1596. He was much admired by the Sultan, who not only gave him the name Padishah-i
Qalam (Emperor of the Pen), but employed him as a diplomatic envoy (Haidar 2011, p.29). Examples of his
hand were so sought after that a single page was said to command a price equivalent to a fine Arabian horse
(Schimmel 1990, p.70; this is a very considerable price for a single page of calligraphy – a fine Arabian horse
now can fetch many tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars). A page of poetry by Khalilullah is in an
album in the Islamische Museum, Berlin (I.4596, fol.11, see Hickmann and Enderlein 1979, no.30).

One of the notable aspects of this manuscript is the exquisite gold illumination between and around the lines of
nast‘aliq script, and the present leaf is a particularly good example. It is remarkable in several ways, for not only
is it extremely finely painted on a minute scale (the text area in total is only 5¼ x 2¼ in (13.4 x 5.6 cm)), but it
is also highly original, both in its composition and for the fact that it occupies the space within the ruled borders,
rather the margins around them, as was the much more usual practice for manuscript illumination.

To begin with the latter point, while single pages of calligraphy mounted into albums often had the interlinear
spaces illuminated, it was much rarer for complete manuscripts to be so decorated, even those that were
illustrated with miniatures. There are some examples of manuscripts of Persian poetry, as well as a few
Qur’ans, with illumination in the interior of the page (Lentz and Lowry 1989, pp.78-79; Soudavar 1992, p.117,
332; Wright 2008, pp.138-9), but by far the more usual design scheme was to illuminate the margins around
the text area, and either to leave the text area plain or perhaps to use gold-sprinkling or gold-flecking as a
decorative motif (Soudavar 1992, pp.117, 333; Stronge 2010, pp.111, 116). Even in manuscripts that were
illuminated within the borders of the text area, the illumination was usually restricted to the opening and closing
pages, and to chapter or section headings. Here the normal arrangement is reversed, so that not only is the main
illumination found within the text area, but the borders are gold-flecked and the script itself within the reserved
cloud-bands is only very sparsely gold-sprinkled.

The originality of this approach sets this manuscript apart from the vast majority of Perso-Indian manuscripts, as
well as from other manuscripts of Bijapuri or Deccani origin. Other copies of the Kitab-i Nauras were generally
much plainer (Haidar 2011, fig.3), as were courtly manuscripts of other texts (Haidar 2011, fig.4: Hutton
2011, figs.1, 22, 23, 26; Leach 1995, vol.II, pp.822, 839, 840, Zebrowski 1983, fig.132). The closest local
comparables are two album leaves of Bijapur or Golconda origin, some of which feature text panels round the
edges and the central panels filled with fine illumination of animals and birds amongst wooded landscapes in gold
on red and black grounds (Sotheby’s 2011, lot 102; Christie’s, New York, 12 September 2012, lot 610, see
figs.1-2 below). Even in these, the character of the illumination is much more stylized and closer to Persian
prototypes than here.

Another original feature is the particular manner and content of the illumination. Rather than the stylized gold
and polychrome scrolling flowers and stems, palmettes and arabesques, or sometimes plain gold, that was the
norm in most interlinear illumination, we have here a much more naturalistic display of trees, birds and animals
executed in two shades of gold with the forms delineated in black. Although painted on a minute scale, Haidar
Detail of the illumination on the present folio Detail of the illumination on the present folio

Detail of the illumination on the present folio

1. Illuminated album page, Bijapur or 2a-2b. Illuminated album page, Bijapur or Golconda, circa 1600. Christie’s, New
Golconda, circa 1600. Sotheby’s, London, 6 York, 12 September 2012, lot 610
April 2011, lot 102
points out that several species of plant, animal and bird are recognizable. The overall effect is lyrical and almost
musical in itself: there is a palpable sense of noise from the verdant, jungly tree-scape, which is intensified by the
fact that it is corralled within the ruled borders of the page, like a walled garden bursting with lush vegetation
and chattering birds. There is an additional level of artistic paradox in the illumination, since the scale of the
forms is so small that one has to look very closely indeed to make them out, as if the artist is requiring the
viewer (the Sultan) to interact with the manuscript on an intimate and intense level.

There are several Bijapur paintings of the late 16th century early 17th century that contain specific elements of
foliage that relate to the illumination here, although it is often difficult to visually isolate the relevant features,
set as they are amidst complex compositions with many landscapes elements as well as figures, and painted
mostly in dark shades of green (see Zebrowski 1983, pls.VIII, IX, XIV, fig.75). In addition, there is a more
distant link to the border illumination of certain pages of royal Mughal manuscripts and albums of the same
period, including the so-called Gulshan Album (see Tehran 2005, section on Gulshan album, p.106 and detail)
and a Shahnama/Garshaspnama (see Leach 1995, vol.I, pp.327-9; Pal 1993, no.68; Leach 1986, no.21, Colnaghi
1976, no.88, see also fig.3 below), both made for Jahangir between 1605 and 1620. However, although many
of the elements are similar, the character of the Mughal examples is quite different from the present work, being
more formal and studied and lacking the spontaneous intensity of the Deccani example (fig. 4).

As Haidar mentions (p.34), certain elements of the illumination seem to be influenced by early 15 th century
Turkman or Persian drawing, particularly some of those found in a remarkable set of albums divided the
Topkapi Saray Library, Istanbul (Fateh Albums, H.2152, H.2153, H.2154, H.2160) and the Diez Album in the
Staatsbibliothek, Berlin (Lentz and Lowry 1989, p.164, as cited by Haidar, but also Roxburgh 2005, fig.53,
pp.84, 101; Lentz and Lowry 1989, pp.182 (cat.76), 204 (cats.104, 105); Islamic Art 1981, figs.166, 167;
Ipsiroglu 1964 , pls.XXXIX, see also fig.5-6 below). In addition, vignettes in early 15th century manuscripts
show close affinity to aspects of the present illumination (see Richard 1997, p.58, see figs 7-8 above). The
potential influence of Turkman painting on early Deccani art, both in general and in relation to specific
compositional elements, has been mentioned in the past (inter alia, Fraser in Sotheby’s 2011B, p.22, lot 8;
Welch 1997, p.25-26; Zebrowski 1983, pp.17, 19, 95, 112, 153-155, 170-172), and the link in this case seems
clear.
3a-b. Details of the borders of a text page from a royal 4a-b. Details of the present folio
Garshaspnama, Mughal, circa 1610. Private Collection

5. Details of an album leaf, 6a-c. Details of the present folio

Iran, early 15th century.
Topkapi Saray Library, H.2152,
fol.86a

7. Details of an album leaf, Iran, early 15th century. 8. Detail of the present folio
Topkapi Saray Library, H.2152, fol.86a
However, there may be a further way in which the art of the Turkman courts made itself felt in this copy of the
Kitab-i Nauras. The colophon page of this manuscript has a decorative motif in which sprays of foliate tendrils
spring from red baluster-form vase which is illuminated with gold arabesques (fig.9 below). Haidar comments
(pp.28-29) that this is one of the most original aspects of the manuscript, and one which influences architectural
decoration at Bijapur in the following generation (pp.28-29, 40-41). This decorative motif is certainly rare, but
interestingly, similar designs can be found on Turkman manuscripts, specifically a small group of anthologies,
some in safina form, from western Iran in the middle decades of the 15th century (Roxburgh 2005, pp.154-155;
Roxburgh 2005b, p.237, see figs.9-10 below).

9. The colophon page 10a-d. Details of illuminated panels in an Anthology of Poetry, poetry, Yazd, 1431. British Library, Or.8193
from the present
Kitab-i Nauras.
National Museum,
New Delhi

This reference to earlier Persian motifs adds a further level of interest to this remarkable copy of the Kitab-i
Nauras, and no doubt an extra level of sophistication to its original context in Bijapur in 1617, where knowledge
and understanding of Persian and Turkman cultural prototypes was a respected and admired quality. No doubt
the artist and the patron were fully aware of this. And yet despite these links to earlier motifs, and indeed more
loosely to contemporary Mughal illumination, the character of the decoration of this manuscript, as well, of
course, as the text itself, is manifestly Deccani and exudes that indefinable but distinctive quality of richness and
intensity that is so much part of Deccani art.