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150 posts categorized "Middle East"
On December 25, Christians around the world (except most Orthodox Christians) will mark the birth of Jesus Christ, whom they believe to be the son of God and the Messiah. Jesus, who was born in a manger in Bethlehem, grew up speaking a dialect of Aramaic, once the lingua franca of West Asia. The Gospels, which relate Jesus' life and teachings, were written in Greek, but the language that Jesus spoke continued to be used long past his death. Aramaic gradually evolved into various languages, with different speech communities surviving to the present day, albeit none of them in the vicinity of Jesus' birthplace. Linguistic retention has been most tenacious in Mesopotamia, known as Beth-Nahrein (ܒܝܬ ܢܗܪܝܢ; "Between the Rivers"). For those groups that still speak it, language and culture continue to be important aspects of identity, including in the birthday celebrations of the world's most famous Aramaic speaker, Jesus of Nazareth.
A recording of a 2016 Assyrian Church of the East Christmas celebration in Baghdad. (YouTube, uploaded by Rev. Shmoel Maqdis)
From the 1st century CE, an Aramaic language, Syriac, rose to become an important vehicle for Christianity and Christian philosophy in the Middle East. Based on the dialect of Urfa (Edessa/Εδεσσα in Greek, Urhoi/ܐܘܪܗܝ in Syriac), it has been used continuously by Syriac Christians in their liturgy and theological writings, as well as their secular histories and literature, for over a millennium and a half. Syriac Christianity is a rich and varied collection of faith practices, one that incorporates some 11 different churches of various theological and cultural orientations. Some, such as the Syriac Orthodox Church, are in communion with the Armenian, Coptic and Ethiopian Orthodox Churches. The Syriac Maronite Church and the Chaldean Catholic Church are in communion with the Catholic Church based in Rome. Other groups, such as the Assyrian Church of the East, are completely independent of broader structures, while the Mar Thoma Syrian Church of Kerala, India is in communion with the Anglican Church. What they all have in common, however, is their use of one of two Syriac rites, continuing on the religious significance of this Aramaic dialect, even in communities where it was never spoken as a daily language.
An illustration of the Nativity from a 13th century Syriac lectionary copied in Syria or northern Iraq. (Syriac Lectionary, Add MS 7170)
It should be no surprise, then, that Christmas too is described and celebrated in this linguistic relative of Jesus' speech, whether in India, Lebanon, Iraq, or among the diaspora. The story of Jesus' birth is found in the Peshitta, or simplified Syriac translation of the Gospels. Just as in the King James Bible, the Peshitta version provides us with a description of the manger in Luke 2:1, while Matthew 2:11 tells of the visit of the Magi. The British Library holds one of the largest and richest – if not the largest and richest – collections of Syriac manuscripts in the world, which include many copies of the Peshitta. Given the importance of the birth of the Christian Messiah as a milestone in Christian history, some of the works within our collections contain beautifully illuminated and illustrated narrations of the Nativity. One of the most spectacular depictions of the event comes from the manuscript Add MS 7170, a 13th century Lectionary that was copied in northern Iraq near the city of Mosul. The painting shows the Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus lying side by side and watched over by angels, while the Magi arrive bearing gifts. Their presence in a manger is noted by the fact that both a donkey and an ox look down upon the infant, just as enraptured by his being as the humans.
The start of the Gospel of John, with instructions that it is to be read for Christmas, as well as the story of the Nativity in the Gospel of Matthew, from a 15th century Peshitta from Tur Abdin, Turkey (Peshiṭtā, Or. 14365).
The story of the Nativity appears in all of copies of the Peshitta that contain all four of the Gospels, just as it does in all versions of the New Testament copied or published in other languages. As time went on, not only the event but its commemoration too became an important part of organizing the teachings and life of the Church and its faithful. In addition to the passages in both Luke and Matthew, whole sections of the Gospels were assigned for reading during the Christmas season. Excerpts from Or. 14365, a 15th century manuscript produced in Tur Abdin, Turkey, show not only Luke 2:1-10, telling the story of the Nativity, but also the header of the Gospel of John, which is intended to be read at Christmas. It features an intricate geometrical pattern of interlacing red, green and yellow bands, and is accompanied by a cloth thumb-tab, indicating that this section was indeed meant to be found and actively read by literate believers.
The cover of a collection of Christmas stories for children translated from English into Swadaya (neo-Aramic from northwestern Iran). (Lilā Abrāhaām Taymúrāzi, Ilānā qaṣomā d-'i'dā za'orā (Ṭahran : Ṭabíʿā b-Maṭbāʿtā d-síʿtā sefrāytā d-ʿālíme atúrāye b-ziqtā minyānā d-trín, 1959) (YP.2018.a.1677).
Christianity has been a cornerstone of Aramaic-speakers' identities right up to the present. As Adam H. Becker has explored in his book Revival and Awakening: American Evangelical Missionaries in Iran and the Origins of Assyrian Nationalism, the 19th century brought an onslaught of American and British Protestant missionaries to northern Iraq and western Iran. This added a new layer to the relationship between history, language, religion and ethnicity in the region. European and American insistence on linking the ancient Assyrian Empire with contemporary Aramaic speakers, as well as the importation of European Christmas traditions, allowed for new means of celebrating the holiday alongside traditional ones. The British Library holds small but notable collections of contemporary poetry and prose works in Classical Syriac as well as the neo-Aramaic languages Turoyo and Swadaya. Within these, some include works dedicated to the celebration of Christmas. Writing targeted at children is especially rich with examples, as the holiday – beloved by children – also provides a good opportunity to teach these endangered languages to future generations. Some poems come with imagery that is clearly influenced by Western European symbolism, including Christmas trees and a portly, jolly and bearded Santa Claus. In mid-20th century works, such as the pamphlet above produced in Tehran, this is a reflection of the influence of British and American missionaries in the homeland of many neo-Aramaic speakers. Christmas stories were translated from English into the Swadaya dialect of the Urmia Region, ensuring a transfer of Euro-American Christmas traditions and symbols to a part of the Assyrian people.
A song about Father Christmas in from an anthology of children's verse in Classical Syriac published in the Netherlands. (Murat Can, Zmiroṯo d šabre men Beṯ-nahrin : 41 zmiroṯo lan nacime b Surayt (Enschede : Ganaṯ Šarwoye, 1998). (YP.2018.b.125)
The gradual infiltration of European ideas about Christmas also occurred because of the geography of Syriac Christian communities. Although originally from West Asia, more people who identify as Assyrians or Syriacs might live in the diaspora than do in the homeland. Conservative guesses are that half the community live outside of West Asia, with the United States and Sweden the largest populations. The British Library's collections feature numerous works published by authors or community groups in Sweden, the Netherlands and Germany, many of them focused on the preservation and promulgation of culture and language. The example above, sourced from the Netherlands, shows the use of images familiar to anyone who might have grown up in Western Europe or North America, alongside a Turoyo song about Father Christmas.
News from Baghdad's Assyrian community, including a piece on female students' Christmas party in December 1973. ("Akhbar al-mujtama'at al-āthūrī", Múrdinā Atúrāyā, Issue 3-4 (Baghdād : al-Nādī al-Thaqāfī al-Āthūrī, April 1974). (ZP.9.b.189)
In the homeland, Christmas continues to be celebrated and woven into contemporary culture, despite the numerous pressures exerted on Aramaic speakers to go into hiding or depart. In the 1970s, the Assyrians of Baghdad openly celebrated Christmas as a group event, as seen in the community news section of the periodical Múrdinā Aturāyā (The Educated Assyrian). In December 1973, female Assyrian students marked the occasion with a party that included dance and song, among other entertainment. Christmas was not only a chance to mark the passage of time and to celebrate the birth of Christ, but also an opportunity to take stock and look towards the community's future.
The Iran-Iraq War, decades of sanctions, unrest in the south-east of Turkey, and, eventually, the rise of Islamic State in Syria and Iraq have all led to a drastic reduction in the presence of Syriac Christians in their homeland, as well as the celebration of Christian festivities there. Nonetheless, communities remain, and occasionally grow, allowing for Christmas Mass to be sung across the region. This year, too, the Nativity will be celebrated, in Syriac, in churches from Ainkawa to Adelaide, Mardin to Malmö, and Qamishlo to Kerala. Neither time nor distance can erase the sense of hope and yearning for peace represented by the celebration of Christmas.
Dr. Michael Erdman, Turkish and Turkic Collections Curator, British Library
Posted by Michael Erdman at 1:00 AM
Manuscripts, Middle East, Religion, Syriac
Buddha From Kashgar to Istanbul
This is the eighth of a series of blog posts accompanying the British Library exhibition on Buddhism, 25 Oct 2019 – 23 Feb 2020.
In 1911-12, Ahmet Refik (Altınay) published the Büyük Tarih-i Umumî, a compendious history of the world. Much of the material was far from ground-breaking. Similar to broader Ottoman historiography of this period, the sections on the ancient Mediterranean and the cultures and civilizations of Europe were taken, largely unchallenged, from French, English and German sources. What is noteworthy, however, is the self-assured manner in which the ancient history of the Turks as a nation is outlined in the Tarih. This was a continuation of a new trend in history-writing stemming from the mid-19th century. As Büşra Behar Ersanlı explains, it was based upon Western European sources – especially the work of Léon Cahun – but it was clearly repurposed for the growth in national consciousness among Turkic intellectuals in the Ottoman Empire.
Among these new perspectives was a fresh look at religion. Islam was a key component of Ottoman statehood, especially since Sultan Murad I declared himself Caliph in 1517. Ahmet Refik, however, problematized these links, highlighting the fact that, despite a clear overlap between Turkicness and Islamic identity, the two were far from identical. In addition to Islam, different Turkic peoples had embraced Animism (sometimes in the form of Tengrism), Zoroastrianism, Manichæism, various forms of Christianity, Judaism and Buddhism over the course of their recorded history. Indeed, Ahmet Refik remarks that:
"The Turks and the Mongols are not a religious people. The religious imagination, zeal and abundant inquiry that was so strong among the Arabs, Iranians and Slavs was unable to have an important influence on the thoughts of the Turks, Mongols or Manchus. The religion that was most appropriate to the nature of the Turks was the faith of the Buddha. In nature, thought and temperament, the Turks were Buddhist. The one encompassing [space] that would have kept the Turks living in complete comfort would have been the faith of the Buddha." (Ahmet Refik, Büyük Tarih-i Umumi: IV Cilt, 277)
Contemporary understandings of the history of the Turkic peoples, and of religion across Eurasia, assign much of Ahmet Refik's supposition and the assumptions upon which it is based to the realm of untruth. Nonetheless, it does highlight a fact that cannot be ignored: for a millennium and a half, Buddhism has and continues to be a core component of many Turkic communities across the Central Asia and Siberia.
An early 20th-century view of Buddhism's impact on the Turkic peoples, from an Ottoman perspective. (Ahmet Refik, Büyük Tarih-i Umumi: IV Cilt (Istanbul: Kitabhane-yi İslam ve Askeri, İbrahim Hilmi, 1328 [1912]), p. 277. ORB.30/8834)
The Turkic peoples had likely encountered Buddhists and Buddhism by the middle of the first millennium CE. Chinese accounts from as early as the 6 th century speak of the translation of Buddhist texts into a language used by the Turks (although this was likely Sogdian). At least one inscription, as well as the construction of temples and statuary, testify to Buddhism's importance during the Second Kök Turkic Khaganate (678-747 CE). It likely coexisted with Tengrism, the Turkic animistic belief system, during the early period, and later competed with Manicheanism for followers among the Uyghurs, Qarluqs and other Turkic peoples. It was eventually Buddhism that won out as the primarily religion of the Uyghurs in the 10th century, motivating the creation of numerous Buddhist religious manuscripts, some of which survive into the present.
The Uyghurs came to prominence after overthrowing the Qarluq and other Turkic polities in the 8th century CE and entering into an alliance with the Chinese monarchy. The earliest probable Turkic Buddhist texts, which come from Uyghur settlements in present-day Mongolia, made use of an archaic Turkic dialect also seen in the Runic texts of the Orkhon inscriptions . Such examples are exceptionally rare, leading some scholars to suppose that Buddhist production in Turkic languages during this period was minimal. This contrasts with later items from the Tarim Basin in present-day Xinjiang – including those found in the British Library's collections – which demonstrate a much more contemporary dialect. This dialect is not directly related to today's Uyghur language, part of the Karluk sub-family of languages. Rather, it is likely an earlier form of Western Yugur , a small language belonging to the Siberian sub-family, spoken today in Gansu Province, China. As can be seen from the images below, the British Library texts are far too fragmentary to provide a clear picture of Buddhist practice in Uyghur, but they do establish that it existed.
Fragments of 9th-century Buddhist texts in Uyghur (Or. 13085A and Or. 13085C).
A guide to the Uyghur script, used in many Turkic Buddhist texts. (Khoja Abduqayyam, Qădimqi Uyghur yazma yadikarliqliridin tallanma (Urumchi: Shinjang Khălq Năshriyati, 1983), p. 125). ITA.1990.a.20).
In the late 10th and early 11th centuries CE, the Qarakhanids, a Turkic community to the west of the Uyghur state, converted to Islam. This placed them in opposition with the primarily Buddhist Uyghurs, adding a religious element to socio-political and economic conflict in Central Asia. The Qocho Kingdom – a successor state of the Uyghur Khanate – continued to be a stronghold of Buddhist practice even after the conversion of the Qarakhanids and the invasion of the Mongols – themselves Buddhists – in the 13th century. The ultimate blow was dealt by the Chagatai Khanate in the late 13 th and early 14th centuries. A successor state of the Golden Horde, the Chagatai state was a fierce defender of the Chinggisid legacy. Nonetheless, the ascension of Muslim Khan Tughluq Timur to the throne in the second half of the 14th century spelled the beginning of the end for widespread Buddhist practice among the region's Turkic peoples. It also saw a linguistic shift in which the Siberian Turkic language of the original Uyghur populations was gradually supplanted by a Karluk one closely linked to Chagatai, the literary language of Turkic Central Asia .
Chagatai Khan, seated amongst counsellors, from the 16 th-century manuscript called the Nusratname, also known as the Qissa-yi Chingiz Khan (Or. 3222).
The collapse of the Qocho Kingdom did not mean the end of Turkic peoples' relationship to Buddhism. For one, the Western Yugurs, linguistic if not ethnic descendants of the first Uyghurs, continue to practice the faith. But they are not the most numerous Turkic-speaking adherents. Buddhism also thrives among the Tuvans, a Turkic people whose titular homeland – the Tyva Republic – is nestled between Russia, China and Mongolia. Approximately 62% of the population of Tyva Republic identifies as Buddhist, with the most widespread practice a form of Buddhism similar to the one found in Tibet. As ethnic Tuvans make up 82% of the Republic's population, the proportion of Buddhists among the Tuvans is likely far higher than the percentage of the entire Republic's population. Buddhism co-exists with Tengrism and other forms of animistic belief, highlighting the blending of religious traditions among the region's Turkic inhabitants. Materials within the British Library's Turkic collections point to the revival and flourishing of various aspects of these belief systems following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Appreciation of the art, poetry and philosophy of Tuvan Buddhism shows up in both popular publications and in scholarly ones, as seen below.
A painting of the Balden or Palden Lhama by a Tuvan artist. ( Shagaanyn︠g︡ dȯzu̇ bolgash ëzu-chan︠g︡chyldary : Shagaa baĭyrlalynga turaskaatkan Tȯgerik shirėėnin︠g︡ materialdary; Kyzyl, khooraĭ 2015 ch. (Kyzyl: Tuvinskiĭ institut gumanitarnykh i prikladnykh sot︠s︡ialʹno-ėkonomicheskikh issledovaniĭ, 2015). YP.2019.a.4289).
Materials from a conference on Buddhist and other indigenous faith practices in Kyzyl, Tyva ( Tȯȯgu̇ge Dai︠a︡myshaan - Kelir U̇ezhe : Bėėzi kozhuunun︠g︡ 260 bolgash Khemchik kozhuunnun︠g︡ 250 oi︠u︡ncha turaskaatkan ėrtem-praktiktik konferent︠s︡ii︠a︡lardary. 2014 chyldyn︠g︡ okti︠a︡brʹ 24, 2015 chyldyn︠g︡ aprelʹ 29. Chadaana khooraĭ (Kyzyl: OAO Tyvapoligraf, 2015). YP.2019.b.473).
The Tuvans, together with the Western Yugurs, as the two majority-Buddhist communities in the Turkic World. There is, however, another part to the story regarding the interaction between the Turkic peoples and the Buddhist faith. In the 17th century, a Buddhist Mongolic-speaking group known as the Oirots migrated from present-day eastern Kazakhstan to the Volga Region, where they established the Kalmyk Khanate. In doing so, they entered into an alliance with Russia, and pushed out Muslim Turkic communities, particularly the Nogais and the Karakalpaks. They battled the Kazakhs and Bashkirs and assisted in Russian campaigns against the Safavids and Ottomans, but under Catherine the Great their autonomy was eventually abolished and their Khanate absorbed into the Russian Empire. The great 17 th-century Ottoman chronicler Evliya Çelebi provided Ottomans with considerable information about the Kalmyks in the seventh volume of his Seyahatname, but nowhere does he mention that they were Buddhist. He frequently refers to them as küffar, or infidels, pointing out both their animistic beliefs and another belief system, which he equates with the "hulûlî" heterodoxy, combining a belief that God is inside the individual with reincarnation. He also gives a fairly comprehensive description of a pilgrimage site linked to Kalmyk ancestor worship. It houses the statue of an "angel without wings" and is topped by a bronze dome. Neither the Buddha, nor connections between this system of religious belief and those found further east, are ever mentioned. Nevertheless, it does appear that 17th century Ottomans were still introduced to the particularities of Kalmyk Buddhist practice thanks to the writings of this intrepid traveler.
Today, Kalmykia, found just south of Volgograd, is Europe's only Buddhist-plurality territory. Nearly 48% of Kalmykia's population identifies as Buddhist. Kalmykia's capital, Elista, provides a centre for the practice of Tibetan-derived Buddhism as well as the publication of a plethora of Buddhist material. Examples in the British Library collections point to the increased importance afforded the documentation of these traditions, and of the role that Buddhism plays in the expression and development of contemporary Kalmyk cultural and spiritual life.
Portraits of Kalmyk practitioners of Buddhism, along with descriptions of local interpretations and practices of the faith. ("Khranitel'nit︠s︡a vechnosti - Bochkaeva Nogan Kornusovna", (Elitsa?: [publisher not identified], [2016?]). YP.2019.a.1453)
Ahmet Refik might have waxed lyrical about the similarities between Buddhist and traditional Turkic worldviews, but he clearly failed to grasp the living, dynamic nature of that linkage. Buddhism has impressed its stamp on the social, linguistic, political, economic and cultural development of the Turkic peoples. The British Library's collections related to such topics, in turn, demonstrate that this is an ongoing relationship, one that is certain to continue motivating cultural production across Eurasia.
Johan Elverskog, Buddhism and Islam on the Silk Road (Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 2010). YC.2015.a.4835
Johan Elverskog, Uygur Buddhist Literature, Silk Road Studies: I (Turnhout: BREPOLS, 1997). ORW.1998.a.251
Juten Oda, A Study of the Buddhist Sūtra called Säkiz Yükmäk Yaruq or Säkiz Törlügin Yarumïš Yaltrïmïš in Old Turkic, Berliner Turfantexte: XXXIII (Turnhout: BREPOLS, 2015). YD.2017.b.44
Margit Kőves, Buddhism Among the Turks of Central Asia (New Delhi: International Academy of Indian Culture and Aitya Prakashan, 2009). YP.2010.b.482
Xavier Tremblay, "The Spread of Buddhism in Serindia – Buddhism among Iranians, Tocharians and Turks before the 13th century," in ed. Ann Heirmann & Stephan Peter Bumbacher, The Spread of Buddhism (Leiden: Brill, 2007), pp. 75-130.
Posted by Michael Erdman at 3:56 PM
Buddhism, Central Asia, Middle East, Religion, Turkish
A testament to diversity: Kurdish manuscript collections at the British Library
In the exhibition Writing: Making Your Mark, we explored the connections between power and the written word. The use of writing can be an exceptionally efficient means of expanding a state's sovereignty far beyond the reach of its armies. Similarly, when a particular community or government chooses to use a particular script or language, it bestows upon that means of expression a sheen of officialdom and prestige synonymous with state sponsorship.
The opening pages of Mam û Zîn by Ehmed Xani, copied in 1221 AH/1806-7 CE (Or. 11996, ff. 1v-2r)
What does this have to do with the British Library's holdings of Kurdish manuscripts? For starters, it helps us to understand the context within which they were created. Unlike Ottoman Turkish, Arabic or Persian, Kurdish was not the language of a widespread, long-lasting Imperial power. As a result, prior to the end of the 20th century, it was not employed over long periods of time as a vehicle for the creation of state documents, or a state-sponsored literary corpus. Moreover, Kurdish was not the liturgical language of a large religious community with a long tradition of written cultural production. Hebrew might not have been a state language for thousands of years before the creation of the State of Israel, but its use as a liturgical language by Jews around the world helped ensure the creation of a hefty corpus of both religious and secular material in it. The same can be said, to a lesser extent, for Syriac. Kurdish was thus doubly disadvantaged in finding patronage for the creation of a large written canon prior to the 20th century, and as a result, we are left with relatively fewer manuscripts in it than compared to Ottoman Turkish, Arabic, Persian, Armenian, Hebrew or Syriac.
Two pages of poetry in Gorani from the Gorani anthology in safina format. Copy dated 1197 AH/ 1782-4 CE (Or. 6444, f. 11r and f. 55r)
Indeed, the British Library holds a total of 8 manuscript texts in Kurdish, compared to the estimated 4000 items in Turkic languages. Of these, only 6 are volumes composed entirely, or nearly entirely, of poetry written in Kurdish. The best known of these is Or. 6444, a codex of Gorani poetry, which was transliterated and translated by Mr. Anwar Soltani, and eventually published as a bilingual edition entitled Anthology of Gorani Kurdish Poetry (YC.1999.b.8850). Some of the poetry included in the volume was composed by well-known Kurdish authors. None of them, however, is as famous as Ehmed Xanî, the author of the Kurdish epic Mam û Zîn, which the Library holds in manuscript form under the shelfmark Or. 11996. This work is a meditation on forbidden love, but it also encapsulates some of the core themes of a nascent Kurdish national identity. Mam û Zîn has been copied and published numerous times, especially since the creation of a de-facto Kurdish entity in Northern Iraq following the first Gulf War, when the Kurdish publishing industry blossomed. Nonetheless, this manuscript recension brings to life a historical dimension of the development of Kurdish literacy in the Middle East, while also acting as a window onto Xanî's poetical genius.
Two better-preserved pages of the Seyfu'l-mulûk showing a fully-vocalized rendering of the Kurmanji text. Copy dated 1286 AH / 1869-70 CE (Or. 8208, ff. 45v-46r)
Among the other Kurmanji Kurdish manuscipts is Or. 8208, a poem known as Seyfu'l-Mulûk, or The Sword of Kings. The Library's copy is badly damaged, and although the text is largely legible, many of the pages have lost their edges, in some cases depriving readers of complete words of phrases. This story is set in Egypt, where the action revolves around the adventures of a particular prince, but the origins of the tale are Persian. Versions of the Seyfu'l-Mulûk can be found across the Islamic world, and this Kurdish version attests to the manner in which such texts were accepted and assimilated into broader Kurdish creative culture.
A section of the Gorani translation of Khvurshīd-i Khāvar, early 19th century (Add MS 7829, ff. 91v-92r)
A folio of Bahrām va Gulandām translated into Gorani showing a later addition to the text, early 19th century (Add MS 23554, f. 37r)
Other items within the Kurdish collections are translations of well-known Persian works into the Gorani dialect. Add MS 7829 presents us with two stories: that of Leyla and Mecnun; and another of Khvurshīd-i Khāvar. Add MS 7826, in contrast, is a Gorani translation of Khusraw va Shīrīn. Finally, Add MS 23554 is the story of Bahrām va Gulandām, yet another Persian epic of reasonable fame amongst Middle Eastern communities. The simple production of all three manuscripts, as well as the lack of information about the copyist or where they were created, lead us to believe that they were part of a broader reading culture among Kurdish speakers. They might not be remarkable items of art and luxury, but their construction and formatting provide us with valuable information about the manner in which Kurds read and shared literature in their native tongue, all while remaining part of a broader West Asian cultural space.
The start of the earliest Kurdish-Arabic dictionary in verse, the Nûbihara Biçûkan, composed by Ehmed Xanî. 18th century (Or. 5932, f. 9v)
The opening part of the Edîqeya Îmanî, a didactic poem composed by Ehmed Xanî. 18th century (Or. 5932, f. 14v)
The last item in the collections containing Kurdish poetry is Or. 5932. It contains two Kurmanji Kurdish poems among various other works in Arabic, Ottoman Turkish and Persian. The first Kurmanji Kurdish work is the Nûbihara Biçûkan, composed by Ehmed Xanî as a means of teaching the Arabic language to Kurdish students at madrasas. The second is known as the Edîqeya Îmanî, another didactic work originally composed by Ehmed Xanî. The Edîqeya was also traditionally used as a starter text by Kurdish students at madrasas. The inclusion of these two particular poems in the codex is apt, given that the final text is an Arabic didactic poem aimed at helping Persian-speaking students learn the Arabic language; a mandatory subject for anyone studying the Qur'an.
One of the most challenging aspects of creating a cohesive and cogent collection of Kurdish works is the dialectical differences that exist between Kurdish speech communities. Today, there are two main dialects, or languages (the distinction is far from hard and fast), spoken and written across the Middle East. Kurmanji is the dominant Kurdish language in North and West Kurdistan, primarily spoken by Kurds in Turkey, Syria and Armenia, as well as parts of northern Iraq and north-eastern Iran. Sorani, by contrast, is used primarily in Central and East Kurdistan, covering northern Iraq and western Iran. Today, Kurmanji in Turkey and Armenia is written in Latin script, while Sorani in Iraq and Iran is written in Arabic script (as is Kurmanji in Syria). Cyrillic script was used in Armenia prior to 1991, but Armenian Kurds and Yezidis have since switched to the Latin standard. Add to this a plethora of local dialects that differ, in various degrees, from the commonly used lects of Amed (Diyarbakır), Slêmanî and Hêwler, and the related but distinct Zazaki and Gorani languages, and you get the totality of the Kurdophone sphere. All of this leads to a situation of remarkable diversity within the written corpus, one not usually seen in that of a state language. All texts in the British Library's Kurdish manuscript collections are written in Arabic script, which bedevils the task of the cataloguer. They are faced with the exceptionally difficult task of properly identifying the dialect of the text, in addition to the other pertinent information relating to the manuscripts, without the handy tool of state-sponsored standardization usually employed when cataloguing published works.
A page of the Persian-Laki dictionary featuring terms in both languages written in neat nasta'liq. Dated 1811 CE (Add MS 26319, ff. 2v-3r)
A page of the English-Kurdish wordlist featuring terms of common usage. Early 19th century (Add MS 26319, ff. 9v-10r)
Linguistic diversity, far from being a hindrance, enriches our collections. In addition to the variety of dialects reflected in the poetic works, the British Library also holds a number of handwritten wordlists of Kurdish dialects in Iraq and Iran. The first of these, found under the shelf mark Add MS 26319, round out the collections and help to bolster our corpus of scholarly material relating to the Kurdish linguistic space. The codex is one that was created by the last owner of the manuscripts - C. J. Erskine - prior to its purchase by the British Museum in 1865. It holds an English-Kurdish glossary, as well as Persian-Laki Kurdish and Persian-Ardalani Kurdish (possibly a reference to Gorani) wordlists. While far from serious linguistic treatises on Kurdish dialectology or grammar, they do nonetheless provide a look at some of the pre-standardization aspects of Kurdish speech communities. They point to the ways in which linguistic diversity among the Kurds was conceived, sometimes by Western Orientalists, and sometimes by Kurds themselves. Such glossaries were a common phenomenon among British military and colonial officials, and more official versions were often published by governmental agencies. One need only look at IOR/L/MIL/17/15/52, a mass-produced multilingual volume entitled "Vocabularies: English, Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Armenian, Kurdish, Syriac" (digitised as part of the Qatar Digital Library), to see their importance within the context of the late British Empire.
Together, this motley collection of holdings produced by Kurds and colonial administrators provides a unique entry point to pre-20th century Kurdish cultural life. A lack of state sponsorship deprived Kurdish communities of some of the resources needed to create a written canon on the scale of the Persian, Arabic or Ottoman Turkish ones. It did not, however, stops the Kurds from seeking to write down, share and disseminate texts, and to preserve their cultural production for future generations. The British Library is lucky to be custodian of a small snapshot of such dynamics, which it aims to make available to all those seeking to understand better the history of Kurdish cultural expression.
The author would like to thank Mr. Yakup Aykaç of Artuklu Mardin Üniversitesi for his great help in the identification and description of Kurmanji Kurdish works within the British Library's collections.
Michael Erdman, Turkish and Turkic Collections Curator, British Library
Posted by Ursula Sims-Williams at 1:14 AM
Iran, Manuscripts, Middle East, Persian
The Star Tablet of the Bab
A second post by our guest contributor the Baha'i scholar Dr. Moojan Momen celebrates the bicentenary of the birth of the Bab with an account of one of our most important manuscripts, the Star Tablet written in his own hand.
Today—29 October 2019—Baha'is around the world are commemorating the bicentenary of the birth of the Bab. He was the first of two figures whom Baha'is regard as the founders of their faith. The Bab was the forerunner, preparing people for the appearance of Baha'u'llah, whose teachings Baha'is follow.
The British Library holds one of the world's best collections of Babi and Baha'i manuscripts. Among the most important of these is one in the handwriting of the Bab himself. It is in the shape of a five-pointed star, called a haykal or temple, because it is representative of the head, two arms and two legs of the human form. However, to appreciate this manuscript, it is necessary to understand something of its context.
The Haykal, the Star Tablet of the Bab (BL Or 6887). Public Domain
The Bab
The Bab first announced his mission in 1844 in the city of Shiraz in Iran. During a brief, six-year ministry, he stirred up a great deal of controversy and consternation—especially among the religious leaders of Iran—with his claims and the writings he produced in support of these. For most of the years up to his public execution in 1850, the Bab was under house arrest or in prison, while thousands of his followers were also killed.
It was not just that the Bab's claim to be the Twelfth Imam or Imam Mahdi, the messianic figure expected by the Shi`i Muslims of Iran, was highly audacious. But, just as Jesus had refrained from conforming to the expectations of the Jews for a military messiah who would lead them to victory over the Romans and establish the dominion of their people, the Bab did not comply with the expectation of Shi`i Muslims that the Twelfth Imam would lead them to a great victory over their enemies and would establish their religion throughout the world. Instead, the Bab interpreted the Traditions (hadīth) that led to these expectations in a spiritual sense and proclaimed that his words were Divine Revelation and he was the inaugurator of a new religious dispensation superseding Islam.
The Shrine of the Bab and the terraces above and below it at night. Copyright © Bahá'í International Community
The Creation and Significance of the Haykal
In several of his works, the Bab gives instructions for the writing of a haykal, the pentagram or five-pointed star. In the Persian Bayan he states that the five lines that make up the frame of the pentagram create six chambers. In the Persian and Arabic alphabet, each letter has a numerical value and this fact was used a great deal by the Bab. Five is the numerical equivalent of the letter H and six the numerical equivalent of the letter W. Together they represent the word Huwa which means "He" and is a common way of referring to God in Islamic mystical literature.[1] The word "Bab" is also equivalent to 5 (B=2, A=1, B=2). The five lines are the outer or manifest and the six chambers created are the inner or hidden. Thus the Bab (= 5) is the outer appearance or Manifestation of the Unseen and Unknowable Divinity (Huwa). In Babi and Baha'i scripture, the Bab is called a Manifestation of God, which should be understood as the Manifestation of the Names and Attributes of God (not that he is an incarnation of God). Indeed, for Baha'is, the prophet-founders of all of the religions have an equal station as Manifestations of God.
The Bab specifies that the pentagram should be carried by men about their person. For women, he gives a different design of six concentric circles, thus forming five spaces in which his verses should be written. Thus the same pattern of five and six also are created in this way. This could be seen as a symbol of the fact that women and men are equal but different.[2] The haykal (temple) represents the temple of a human being, the Perfect Man, and the circle represents the Sun of Truth—both of these representing the Manifestation of God, the Bab.
Dā'ira (Circle), drawn according to the instructions given by the Bab. From Qismatī az Alvāḥ-i Khaṭṭ-i Nuqṭah-'i Ūlā va Āqā Sayyid Ḥusayn Yazdī ([Tehran?]: n.pub., n.d.), p. 11. Image Courtesy of the Afnan Library
The wearing of amulets containing passages of the Qur'an as a protective talisman is a common custom among Muslims, usually believed to bring good luck or to give protection. The Bab did not prohibit such practices but rather wanted to educate his followers gradually away from them. He saw their function more as a spiritual protection rather than a physical one. He wanted to direct the thoughts of his followers towards their symbolic meaning, towards God and the Manifestation of God, who guides humanity. In the Persian Bayan, the Bab states that the six chambers within the pentagram and the five partitions made by the six circles in the dā'ira should be filled with verses from his writings, but he leaves the creator of the pentagram free to choose which writings to place there. The important point that the Bab makes in this passage, however, is that the purpose of this is not to achieve some magical effect but rather that what is written on the paper should appear in the soul of that person.[3] In other words that they should become the embodiment of the Divine attributes contained in the passages from his writings. And so, men are called the "possessors of the pentagram (haykals)" and women are called the "possessors of the circle (dā'ira)", not just because that is what each carries but because the Manifestation of the Names and Attributes of God is enshrined within the heart of each individual.[4] Baha'u'llah was later to put this more succinctly thus (Arabic Hidden Words, no. 13):
Turn thy sight unto thyself, that thou mayest find Me standing within thee, mighty, powerful and self-subsisting.
The second important point that the Bab makes in this passage is that his intention in asking his followers to carry these pentagrams and circles is that by having their attention constantly turned towards God, his followers will, in the day when the next Manifestation of God appears, immediately turn to him.
The British Library haykal of the Bab
The haykal which the British Library holds (Or 6887) is on a large sheet of pale pink paper (27.5cm x 40.5cm) in the exquisitely beautiful and carefully written handwriting of the Bab. Although the words are written very small—such that a magnifying glass is necessary to read it—almost every word is clearly legible and elegantly formed. There is no indication of the person for whom this haykal was written. It is possible to speculate that it was written towards the end of the Bab's life because it is similar in wording to such works as the Kitāb al-Asmā' and the Panj Sha'n, which were written while the Bab was imprisoned in isolated fortresses in the northwest of Iran in the last three years of his life.
Close-up of the Haykal of the Bab at twice magnification showing the detail of his writing (BL Or 6887). Public Domain
In many religions, there is a tradition of repetitive chanting of short significant phrases; for example dhikr in Sufism, hesychasm in Orthodox Christianity and mantras in Hinduism and Buddhism. This haykal of the Bab is similar in that it comprises repetitions of short rhymed and rhythmical sentences. As with many other writings of the Bab, it is clear that the words are intended to be chanted out loud and experienced as much as understood. The performative aspect is at least as important as the intellectual. The performative nature of the Bab's own composition of such works and the effect it had on others can be gleaned from an incident that is recorded about him. This occurred in Isfahan in the house of the Imam-Jum'ih (the leader of Friday prayers), one of the religious dignitaries of the city, which at that time was the foremost centre for religious studies in Iran. The Bab was accommodated in this house for the first period of his stay in Isfahan and many of the clerics and religious students in the city would come in the afternoons and evenings to hear him speak and to ask him questions. When asked to reveal a commentary on the Sūrat al-ʻAṣr (Qurʻan 103), the Bab began to chant and:
They seemed as if bewitched by the magic of His voice. Instinctively they started to their feet and, together with the Imám-Jum'ih, reverently kissed the hem of His garment. Mullá Muhammad-Taqíy-i-Haratí, an eminent mujtahid, broke out into a sudden expression of exultation and praise. "Peerless and unique," he exclaimed, "as are the words which have streamed from this pen, to be able to reveal, within so short a time and in so legible a writing, so great a number of verses as to equal a fourth, nay a third, of the Qur'án, is in itself an achievement such as no mortal, without the intervention of God, could hope to perform." (The Dawn-Breakers, (ed. and trans. Shoghi Effendi), p. 202
The content of the haykal may be described as a paean of praise to God. The words consist of repeated rhymed and rhythmic sentences, such as:
All the kingdoms of the heavens and the earth and whatsoever lieth between them are God's, and His power is supreme over all things.
Unto God belong the kingdoms of the heavens and the earth and whatsoever lieth between them, and He, in truth, is potent over all things.
Nothing whatsoever can escape His knowledge.
Unto God belong the kingdoms of the heavens and the earth and whatsoever lieth between them, and He, in truth, hath knowledge of all things.
Nothing whatsoever in the whole of creation can thwart His Purpose.
He calleth into being whatsoever He willeth at His behest.
Given what has been said above about the Bab's stated intention that these haykals be a constant reminder to his followers about the need for them to watch attentively for the coming of "Him whom God shall make manifest" and to obey him when he comes, we can read the Words "On that Day" as meaning "On the Day of the coming of 'Him whom God shall make manifest'". In addition, given that the most manifest aspect of God is the Manifestation of God (the founder-prophets of the major religions), the words "the Kingdom [or sovereignty or dominion, mulk] shall be God's, the Incomparable, the Most Manifest" also points to "Him whom God shall make manifest", the next of these Manifestations of God to come after the Bab. And so this key sentence that frames all the other sentences in this haykal can be considered to say: "On the Day of the coming of Him whom God shall make manifest, sovereignty shall belong to him."[5] Baha'u'llah claimed, and Baha'is believe that, "He whom God shall make manifest" is Baha'u'llah. For example, Baha'u'llah wrote in the Kitab-i Aqdas (ʻthe Most Holy Book'):
O people of the Bayan [followers of the Bab]! Fear ye the Most Merciful and consider what He [the Bab] hath revealed in another passage. He said: "The Qiblih [direction of prayer] is indeed He Whom God will make manifest; whenever He moveth, it moveth, until He shall come to rest." Thus was it set down by the Supreme Ordainer when He desired to make mention of this Most Great Beauty [i.e. Baha'u'llah himself].
Moojan Momen, Independent Scholar
Peter Smith, "An introduction to the Baha'i Faith" in British Library, Discovering Sacred Texts
Moojan Momen, "Baha'i sacred texts," in British Library, Discovering Sacred Texts
––––, "Central figures of the Baha'i Faith," in British Library, Discovering Sacred Texts
––––, "Marking the bicentenary of the birth of the Bāb"
[1] Persian Bayan, vahid 4, chapter 5.
[2] To be more precise, the Bab says that each circle is a unity (vāhid, numerologically equivalent to 19) and so the five circles are equivalent to lillāh (for God, numerologically equivalent to 95). Thus both the pentagram (Huwa) and the circle (lillāh) are pointers to God.
[4] Nader Saiedi, Gate of the Heart ([Waterloo, Ont]: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 2008), pp. 329-330.
[5] I am grateful to Dr Omid Ghaemmaghami for his suggestion regarding this point and for his assistance with the provisional translation of these passages.
Arabic, Iran, Middle East, Persian, Religion, Sacred texts
Arts of the South Asian Sultanates at the British Library
The British Library holds one of the richest and most diverse collections of fifteenth-century South Asian manuscripts belonging to the sultanates. In association with a recent symposium, Connected Courts: Art of the South Asian Sultanates hosted at Wolfson College, Oxford, from 20-21 September, the library held a study session for a group of scholars who work on manuscripts, literature, and architecture. This viewing session provided a rare occasion for researchers of varying disciplines to share ideas on these manuscripts and discuss the interplay of different traditions.
Fig. 1. Frontispiece of Shāhnāmah of Firdawsī, Bidar or Shiraz, 1438, Folio: 27 x 16 cm (BL Or 1403)
An initial group of manuscripts invited us to consider how and where the Persian narrative tradition spread across South Asia. Persian literature was certainly known, copied and enjoyed in India since at least the late thirteenth century. However, the earliest surviving manuscripts date to the fifteenth century. A copy of the Shāhnāmah of Firdawsī (Or 1403, fig. 1), dated 1438, contains illustrations that do not fit with contemporary Persian painting traditions, and has no colophon providing a provenance. Certain scholars have concluded this manuscript must have been produced elsewhere. There are various factors that suggest a South Asian origin, perhaps the Deccan region under the Bahmani sultanate. An intervention in the preface recounts Firdawsī's journey to India and his visit to the Delhi court, not usually found in Persian copies of the Shāhnāmah.
Fig. 2. Sharafnāmāh of Niẓāmī, Bengal (Gaur?), 1531. Iskandar shares the throne with Queen Nushabah. Folio: 31 x 20 cm (BL Or 13836, f. 37v)
Another manuscript viewed at the session was a copy of the Sharafnāmāh (Or 13836, fig. 2), dated 1531 and produced for Sulṭān Nuṣrat Shah, ruler of Bengal (r. 1519-38). The text is from Niẓāmī's Khamsah (Quintet), and is the first half of the Iskandarnāmah that describes the conquests of the Alexander the Great, the last poem of the quintet. This slim volume contains nine vibrant paintings that show the assimilation of both Indic and Persian artistic traditions. Such adaptations were common to several fifteenth-century manuscripts from the Indian sultanates.
Fig. 3. Anthology of Persian Poetry, Jaunpur, India, beginning of the fifteenth century, Folio: 37 x 26 cm (BL Or 4110); Qur'ān, India, ca. 1450-1500, Folio: 26.5 x 18.4 cm (BL Add 5548-5); and Kalpasūtra and Kālakācāryakathā, dated 1427 (BL IO San 3177)
Within the second grouping of manuscripts a Qur'ān (Add 5549) was juxtaposed with an anthology of Persian poetry (Or 4110), and a Sanskrit work of Jain scriptures, all created in fifteenth-century India (IO San 3177) (fig. 3). Although each of these manuscripts is written in a different language they come into dialogue in their use of script and ornament. The Qur'ān's interlinear Persian translations are inscribed in the naskhī-dīvānī script similar to the Persian anthology of poetry. The illumination and deep red and orange floral ornament used in the Jain Kalpasūtra and Kālakācāryakathā bear striking resemblances to illumination in the Persian anthology and Qur'ān. While we know such similarities exist in theory, viewing these manuscripts together highlights these connections and opens new paths for research.
Fig. 4. Wild ass or tomb, definitions of 'gūr' in Miftāḥ al-Fuz̤alā (Key of the Learned) by Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad Dā'ūd Shādiyābādī, Mandu, India, ca. 1490, Folio: 33 x 25.4 cm (BL Or 3299, f. 248v)
A final grouping brought together three manuscripts from the court of Malwa. Beyond the Ni'matnāmah (Book of Delights), the British Library holds a few other manuscripts associated with the court of Malwa, based primarily in the capital of Mandu, each of which is entirely unique. The multilingual intellectual Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad Dā'ūd Shādiyābādī authored both of these manuscripts. The first is a multilingual Persian illustrated dictionary known as the Miftāḥ al-Fuz̤alā (Key of the Learned, Or 3299, fig. 4) and the second is a Persian adaptation of al-Jazarī's twelfth-century book of automata, the 'Ajā'ib al-Ṣanā'ī (Wonders of Crafts, Add 13718). This group of manuscripts from Malwa revealed how rich the libraries of fifteenth-century India were—long before the Mughals—and how we can place the Ni'matnāmah within a larger context.
The opportunity to view these manuscripts with other specialists in the field allowed us to imagine more vividly the inter-connected world of the sultanates, and will no doubt inspire further research. We are grateful to Ursula Sims-Williams, Malini Roy, and Saqib Baburi for their help in organizing this session, and the support of the Barakat Trust, Khalili Research Centre, and Iran Heritage Foundation.
On BL Or 1403:
Brend, Barbara, "The British Library's Shahnama of 1438 as a Sultanate manuscript." In Facets of Indian Art, eds. Robert Skelton et al (London: V&A, 1986), pp. 87-93.
Firouzeh, Peyvand. "Convention and Reinvention: The British Library Shahnama of 1438 (Or. 1403)." Iran (2019):1-22.
On BL Or 13836:
Skelton, Robert, "A Royal Sultanate manuscript dated 938 A.H./1531-2 A.D." In Indian painting: Mughal and Rajput and Sultanate Manuscripts (London: Colnaghi, 1978), pp. 135-144.
On naskhī-dīvānī:
Brac de la Perrière, Éloïse, "Bihârî et naskhî-dîwânî: remarques sur deux calligraphies de l'Inde des sultanats." In Ecriture, calligraphie et peinture, Studia Islamica, eds. A.L. Udovitch et H. Touati (Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 2003), pp. 81-93.
On the Ni'matnāmah:
Skelton, Robert, "The Ni'matnama: A Landmark in Malwa Painting." Marg vol. 12 no. 3 (1959): 44-48.
Titley, Norah, The Ni'matnama Manuscript of the Sultans of Mandu: The Sultan's Book of Delights (Oxford: RoutledgeCurzon, 2005).
Vivek Gupta, SOAS University of London, History of Art and Archaeology; British Library PhD Research Placement
Dr Emily Shovelton, Research Associate, The Khalili Research Centre, University of Oxford
Posted by Ursula Sims-Williams at 12:12 AM
Arabic, Art, Jainism, Middle East, Persian, South Asia
Marking the bicentenary of the birth of the Bāb
Today's post coincides with the launch of the British Library's new learning resource Discovering Sacred Texts and exhibition of Sacred highlights in the British Library's permanent Treasures Gallery. Our guest writer is the Baha'i scholar Dr. Moojan Momen who writes about the three unique works of the Bāb and Bahā'u'llāh, the twin founders of the Baha'i Faith which are on display for the first time.
A section of a tablet hand written by the Bāb in the form of a five pointed star (BL Or 6887). Public Domain
October 2019 marks 200 years since the birth of Sayyid 'Alī Muḥammad Shīrāzī (1819-1850), known as the Bāb (the Gate), one of the two founders of the Baha'i Faith. A merchant from Shiraz, Iran, the Bāb founded his own distinctive religious movement as well as preparing his followers for the coming of "Him whom God shall make manifest," Bahā'u'llāh (1817-1892). Both the Bāb and Bahā'u'llāh are considered by Baha'is as Manifestations of God, intermediaries between God and humanity, who reveal God's will for the age in which they come. Muhammad, Jesus Christ, Moses, Zoroaster, Krishna and the Buddha are also considered by Baha'is as Manifestations.
Western responses to the Bāb
Accounts of the life of the Bāb and the brutal treatment meted out to his followers, made a profound impression both in Iran and further afield, especially in the West, where many thought the story of the Bāb reminiscent of that of Christ. Gobineau's Religions et Philosophies dans l'Asie Centrale (1865) was the most influential volume in carrying the story to Western minds. The poet Matthew Arnold wrote in 1871 that "most people in England have a least heard the name" of the Bāb,[1] an indication of how deeply his fame had penetrated into far-off societies. An ongoing survey has discovered that almost 1,400 articles about the Bāb movement appeared in the Western press between 1845 and 1859. With his books such as A Year Among the Persians (1893), Cambridge orientalist Edward G. Browne did much to familiarise readers with the Bāb's "gentleness and patience, the cruel fate which had overtaken him, and the unflinching courage wherewith he and his followers, from the greatest to the least, had endured the merciless torments inflicted upon them by their enemies."[2]
Writing in 1925, French writer Jules Bois recalled:
All Europe was stirred to pity and indignation over the martyrdom of the Bāb…among the littérateurs of my generation, in the Paris of 1890 the martyrdom of the Bāb was still as fresh a topic as had been the first news of his death. We wrote poems about him. Sarah Bernhardt entreated Catulle Mendès for a play on the theme of this historic tragedy…[3]
Another influential figure whose attention was captured by the Bāb and Bahā'u'llāh was Tolstoy, who wrote that the Baha'is
have a great future…because they have thrown away the artificial superstructures which separate [the religions] from one another and are aiming at uniting all mankind in one religion…And therefore, in that it educates men to brotherhood and equality and to the sacrificing of their sensual desires in God's service, I sympathize with [it] with all my heart.[4]
Bābī and Bahā'ī Scriptures
The religion founded by the Bāb and Bahā'u'llāh is very much a religion of the Book. Baha'is believe that central to all the world's great faiths, the power of the "Word" inspires human beings to develop their noblest qualities and create new patterns of society. Baha'i scriptures consist of the words of the Bāb and Bahā'u'llāh that were immediately written down, authenticated, and shared far and wide.
Iranians considered calligraphy the highest art form and the Bāb's own calligraphy is of exceptional quality. His works were often composed in the shape of a five-pointed star, called a "Temple" (ḥaykal) because of its resemblance to the human form. The British Library holds an example of such a manuscript in the Bāb's own handwriting, the only known copy of this work.
The handwriting of the Bāb in the form of a five pointed star, the ḥaykal (BL Or 6887). Public Domain
The Bāb placed a great emphasis on perfection and refinement. "Whoever possesseth power over anything," He wrote, "must elevate it to its uttermost perfection that it not be deprived of its own paradise."[5] He gave the example of a piece of paper upon which some words have been written. The 'paradise' of that paper is to be adorned with gold illumination and patterns. In trying to bring all things to perfection, a human being is replicating the work of God, who brought into being the whole of creation in such a state. These ideas of the Bāb continue to influence the Bahā'ī community, especially in the building of Bahā'ī houses of worship around the world.
The Baha'i House of Worship in Delhi, India. Copyright © Bahá'í International Community
Encounter with an Irish doctor
Considered a heretic, the Bāb was put on trial in July 1848 and bastinadoed. An Irish physician resident in Tabriz, Dr. William Cormick treated the Bāb's wounds and left this account of him:
He was a very mild and delicate looking man, rather small in stature and very fair for a Persian, with a melodious soft voice, which struck me much…In fact his whole look and deportment went far to dispose one in his favour.[6]
Dr William Cormick. Courtesy of Connections
The Bāb was executed in 1850. Thousands of Babis were also killed, many of them in the most gruesome ways.
It was while incarcerated in 1852 in a subterranean dungeon in Tehran that one of the most distinguished of the Bāb's followers, Bahā'u'llāh (his title means "the Glory of God"), had a spiritual experience that is regarded as the birth of his own prophetic mission. He was subsequently exiled to Baghdad, beginning a 40 year period of banishment and imprisonment at the hands of the Persian and Ottoman authorities.
The Writings of Bahā'u'llāh
In Baghdad, Bahā'u'llāh wrote a number of major works, such as The Seven Valleys and The Hidden Words, as well as his foremost theological treatise, the Kitāb-i Īqān (the Book of Certitude). After ten years, ahead of a further exile, Bahā'u'llāh declared himself to be "He whom God shall make manifest" that the Bāb had foretold. From Edirne in what is now European Turkey, Bahā'u'llāh announced himself to be the Promised One prophesied in all religions and proclaimed his mission in letters to the world's major kings and leaders, including Queen Victoria, Napoleon III, Tsar Alexander II and Pope Pius IX.
Bahā'u'llāh too was an exceptional calligrapher. The British Library has in its collection an example of some of his handwriting exercises as a child.
Calligraphic exercises of Bahā'u'llāh when a child (BL Or 11098). Public Domain
On many occasions his writings came into being in an extraordinary manner. Firstly, his secretary would have ready a number of reed pens and stacks of large sheets of paper. Bahā'u'llāh would then dictate to his secretary, speaking rapidly or chanting without pause. Such was the speed with which these verses had to be captured on the paper that they were only readable by the scribe himself.
Revelation Writing: the script developed by Bahā'u'llāh's secretary as a shorthand for taking his dictation (BL Or 16641). Public Domain
Later, the secretary would copy out what he had written in a legible handwriting. Bahā'u'llāh then approved the text. This version would then be copied and shared throughout the Middle East, and even as far afield as India, Burma (Myanmar) and China. Many Bahā'īs would bind collections of these writings into finely decorated volumes.
Illumined leaf from a volume of Bahā'u'llāh's writings (BL Or 7852, ff. 1-2). Public Domain
Encounter with E.G. Browne
Finally imprisoned by the Ottoman authorities in the walled city of Akka (Acco), Bahā'u'llāh, wrote the most important of his works, the Kitab-i Aqdas (the Most Holy Book). In 1877, he moved to a mansion outside the city where he was visited in 1890 by Professor Edward G. Browne, who described the impression Bahā'u'llāh made upon him:
Portrait of Prof. E.G. Browne at about the time he visited Bahā'u'llāh. Public Domain, Courtesy of Moojan Momen
The face of him on whom I gazed I can never forget, though I cannot describe it. Those piercing eyes seemed to read one's very soul; power and authority sat on that ample brow; while the deep lines on the forehead and face implied an age which the jet-black hair and beard flowing down in indistinguishable luxuriance almost to the waist seemed to belie. No need to ask in whose presence I stood, as I bowed myself before one who is the object of a devotion and love which kings might envy and emperors sigh for in vain!
A mild dignified voice bade me be seated, and then continued:- "Praise be to God that thou hast attained!... Thou hast come to see a prisoner and an exile.... We desire but the good of the world and the happiness of the nations; yet they deem us a stirrer up of strife and sedition worthy of bondage and banishment.... That all nations should become one in faith and all men as brothers; that the bonds of affection and unity between the sons of men should be strengthened; that diversity of religion should cease, and differences of race be annulled—what harm is there in this?... Yet so it shall be; these fruitless strifes, these ruinous wars shall pass away, and the 'Most Great Peace' shall come..." [7]
Bahā'u'llāh's shrine outside of Akka is considered the holiest place in the world by Baha'is. On Bahā'u'llāh's instruction, the remains of the Bāb, which had been hidden in Iran for 50 years, were transferred to the Holy Land. In 1909 they were interred in a simple mausoleum on the slopes of Mount Carmel across the bay from Akka. They now rest beneath a majestic golden domed shrine, surrounded by exquisite terraced gardens.
The Shrine of the Bāb on Mount Carmel. Copyright © Bahá'í International Community
Today, Baha'is, who number several millions and live in nearly every country in the world, are engaged with their friends and neighbours in a collaborative programme that aims to develop the spiritual and material prosperity of their communities.
[1] Matthew Arnold, "A Persian Passion Play", The Cornhill Magazine, vol. 24 (London, 1871, pp. 668-71), p. 668; also in Matthew Arnold, Essays in Criticism (London: MacMillan, 4th ed. 1884, repr. 1902), p. 226.
[2] Edward Granville Browne, A Year among the Persians (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, new ed. 1926), p. 330.
[3] Jules Bois, "The New Religions of America. III – Babism and Bahaism", Forum, vol. 7 (Concord, NH, USA, July, 1925), pp. 1-10.
[4] Paul Birukoff, Tolstoi und der Orient: Briefe und sonstige Zeugnisse über Tolstois Beziehungen zu den Vertretern orientalischer Religionen (Zurich: Rotapfel, 1925), pp. 99-100; translated in Moojan Momen, The Bábí and Bahá'í Religions, 1844-1944: Some Contemporary Western Accounts (Oxford: George Ronald, 1981), p. 55.
[5] "The Bāb, Persian Bayān, Vāḥid 4, Chapter 11". Translated in Nader Saiedi, Gate of the Heart ([Waterloo, ONT]: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 2008, p. 255.
[6] Edward G. Browne, Materials for the Study of the Bábí Religion, p. 262.
[7] ———, A Traveller's Narrative Written to Illustrate the Episode of the Báb, vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. xxxix-xl.
Arabic, Iran, Middle East, Persian, Sacred texts
Emanating light: Illumination in Islamic manuscripts
Without the ability to travel time it may forever be impossible to restage the medieval and early-modern viewing conditions of Islamic manuscripts. Whereas in paintings books are often shown being enjoyed outdoors, architecture can offer insights into the experience of manuscripts indoors.
Fig. 1: Mullah holding a book. Bijapur, c. 1610 (British Library, J.25, 14). Public domain
Consider the wholly illuminated central prayer niche (miḥrāb) at the Jāmi' Masjid of Bijapur in Deccan India (mosque: 1576; miḥrāb: 1636) (fig. 2). The entire niche is covered with calligraphy and micro-architectural details that are a mise en abyme within the mosque. Hanging lamps and manuscripts that likely represent the Qur'ān fill smaller niches at the dado level flanking both sides of the central niche. The books bear gilt bindings and the lamps have delicate golden tassels that accentuate their light-giving quality. The simple juxtaposition of lamps and books reminds us that the viewers of these manuscripts did not encounter them under the harsh lighting of today's modern libraries. In an assessment of illumination, the problem of light is inescapable.
Fig. 2: Detail of Miḥrāb of the Great Mosque of Bijapur, 1636. Photograph: Vivek Gupta
Generally, manuscript illumination is a practice where reflective substances have been applied to the surfaces of books. These surfaces include the binding, support (paper, parchment), and the edges of the support. While illumination is most commonly associated with gold, other metals including silver and tin are also used to create lustre. I refer here to gold as shorthand, but the material was in fact a liquid gold or alloy that was malleable to various surfaces and showed a variety of hues. This material can be flattened, painted, scattered, and pricked to create different effects on the surface of a support (fig. 3).
Figs. 3a and 3b: Shamsah (sunburst) and Heading of the Kulliyāt-i Amīr Khusraw Dihlavī, 1517 (British Library Add. 21104). Public domain
Illumination occurs everywhere on the page: its edges, borders, line rulings (jadval), rosettes (shamsahs), frontispieces (sarlawḥs), headpieces ('unvāns), headings, interlinear space, the writing itself, and even the edges (fig. 4). There is no authoritative handbook for these terms in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Urdu, etc., and this nomenclature has evolved with convention. For example, the term 'unvān has caused some confusion. The word literally denotes 'title,' and therefore I have used it for headpiece. In the British Library's Persian manuscript catalogue edited by Rieu, 'unvān denotes anything from illuminated headpiece to frontispiece (single or double page) to heading. Beyond references to illuminators (mudhahhib), the practice of illumination (tadhhīb), other words formed with the Arabic root dh-h-b or the Persian word zar, the textual record offers remarkably little prescriptive terminology for illumination. Even less defined are the names for particular illuminated patterns. While some of these patterns have analogues in architectural ornament, they do not always seamlessly translate to book decoration. For this reason, one safe compromise is to use English words, yet this can often be dissatisfying.
Fig. 4: Gilded edge of manuscript, Kulliyāt-i Amīr Khusraw Dihlavī, 1517 (British Library Add. 21104). Public domain
Regardless of the lack of an established technical vocabulary, illumination and light (nūr) are everywhere in Islamic art and architecture. This is best attested by the Qur'anic Light verse (24:35) that begins, "God is the light [nūr] of the heavens and the earth; the likeness of His light is a niche [mishkāt] wherein is a lamp [miṣbāḥ]," which frequently graces miḥrābs. Widespread lamp imagery such as that found in Bijapur's Jāmi' Masjid also alludes to it. When books like the Qur'an or poetry reflected light through their illumination, this took on a divine significance. Through technologies such as multi-spectral imaging it may be possible to recover how premodern manuscripts looked by candlelight and evaluate the effects of how different lighting changed the experience of these books. Collaborations between architectural historians and scientists have started to reveal how sites such as the Mosque of Córdoba looked when lit with early Islamic glass lamps (Kider, Fletcher, Yu, Holod, Chamlers, and Badler, 2009).
Fig. 5: Ascension (mi'rāj) of the Prophet forming the sarlawḥ (frontispiece) of the Khamsah (Quintet) of Amīr Khusraw Dihlavī, 1571 (British Library Add. 22699). Public domain
In painting, illumination has been applied to nearly all forms. Fire, the sun, skies, and halos are popular gold elements. In her several articles and books on images of the Prophet Muhammad, Christiane Gruber has demonstrated how this tradition evolved. On the double-page frontispiece of the Khamsah (Quintet) of Amīr Khusraw Dihlavī dated 1571 from Safavid Qazvin (Fig. 5), gold is deployed profusely in a scene showing the Prophet's ascension (mi'rāj). In the flowering cartouches in the borders, the swirling clouds, and the fire they cast upon the Prophet and his steed Burāq, this page is fully illuminated. The dramatic interplay of these gold swirls and lapis blue surface would have created a startling effect especially if this page were viewed in low light. In experiencing the open book, the light of Muhammad (nūr Muḥammad) would have certainly shone onto the viewer.
Figure 5: Shrine of Aḥmad Shāh (r. 1422–1436), Ashtur, Bidar. Photograph: Vivek Gupta
The study of book illumination should be placed in an expanded visual context that also includes architecture. In an early fifteenth-century Deccan shrine/tomb initially studied by Helen Philon (2000), I later drew comparisons between its domed apex and specific Indian maṇḍalas or yantras that Philon previously compared to Islamic talismanic bowls as well. Yet, the entirety of the shrine is covered in gold illumination. One of the clearest comparisons between the apex and a manuscript would be an illuminated shamsah or starburst. The completely calligraphed golden dome when lit with lamps would reflect light onto visitors below.
Illumination in Islamic manuscripts thus is no simple matter. Here, I have tried to make its obvious connection to light both practically and spiritually. While the majority of my research for the British Library has involved developing a method to catalogue illumination in Persian manuscripts (ca. 100 manuscripts completed), I do sometimes imagine the buildings and spaces in which they once were read, enjoyed, and seen. For, illumination allowed books to emanate light.
With thanks to Umberto Bongianino, Eleanor Sims and Ursula Sims-Williams.
Use #BL_IslamicIllum to share your favourite examples of illumination at the library and follow @_nainsukh for more!
Vivek Gupta, SOAS University of London, History of Art and Archaeology; British Library PhD placement
Akimushkin, Oleg F. and Anatol A. Ivanov. 1979. "The Art of Illumination." In The Arts of the Book in Central Asia, 14th-16th Centuries, ed. Basil Gray, London: Serindia, 35-57.
Brend, Barbara. 2015. "The Management of Light in Persian Painting." In God is the Light of the Heavens and the Earth: Light in Islamic Art and Culture, eds. Jonathan Bloom and Sheila Blair, New Haven: Yale University Press, 198-229.
Gruber, Christiane. 2019. The Praiseworthy One: the Prophet Muhammad in Islamic texts and images. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Waley, Muhammad Isa. 1997. "Illumination and its Function in Islamic Manuscripts." In Scribes et manuscrits du Moyen-Orient, eds. François Déroche and Francis Richard, Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale de France, 87-112.
Wright, Elaine. 2018. Lapis and gold: exploring Chester Beatty's Ruzbihan Qur'an. London: Chester Beatty Library in association with Ad Ilissvm.
Arabic, Architecture, Art, Iran, Middle East, Persian, Research collaboration, South Asia
The first Iranian newspaper: Mirza Salih Shirazi's Kaghaz-i akhbar
Todays guest blogger is Borna Izadpanah, PhD Candidate, University of Reading. Borna is a typeface designer and researcher based in London. He is currently a PhD candidate at the Department of Typography & Graphic Communication, University of Reading working on the history of typographic representation of the Persian language.
Left: the 1829 lithographed portrait of Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ Shīrāzī by Karl von Hampeln. Courtesy of The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia; right: the 1868 statue by John Henry Foley of Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ Shīrāzī in the Asia group of the Albert Memorial, Kensington Garden. Photo by the author
In 1837, the first Iranian newspaper was published in Tehran by Mīrzā Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ Shīrāzī, one of five students dispatched to England under the patronage of the crown prince ʻAbbās Mīrzā with the mission to acquire a knowledge of modern European sciences. Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ kept a journal of his time in England that lasted from 1815 to 1819, a manuscript of which is currently held at the British Library (BL Add. 24,034).
Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ's journal reveals significant information regarding his interest in the 'art of printing', which led him to an apprenticeship under an English printer and typefounder (most likely Richard Watts). He also recorded an account of his encounter with newspapers in London. Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ translated the word newspaper into Kāghaz-i akhbār [literary news-paper]. Perhaps, for this reason, Kāghaz-i akhbār (and often Akhbār-i vaqāyiʿ [news of events]) is used in most sources to refer to his untitled newspaper.
Folio 133r of the manuscript copy of Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ's travelogue containing information concerning his encounter with newspapers in London (BL Add. 24,034). Public domain
Before his return to Iran in 1819, Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ, with the help of Richard Watts, purchased a typographic press to be shipped to Iran. Later he established a lithographic press in Tabriz, with a press and equipment that were imported from Russia. A single copy of the first publication from the latter press, a lithographed Qur'ān (Ramaḍān 1249/1834), has only recently come to light and is now preserved at the Majlis Library in Tehran.
Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ's seal which reads al-Wathiq al-rajī Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ 'confident and hopeful [of the forgiveness of the God] Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ' (National Archive FO 60/23). Courtesy of the National Archives, UK.
A few years later, Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ published a newspaper in Tehran under the royal decree of Muḥammad Shāh Qājār. Initially a lithographed Ṭalīʿa [pre-publication advice] of this newspaper appeared between 29 December 1836 and 8 January 1837. In 1945, the Persian journal Yādigār published the entire content of the Ṭalīʿa, the only known copy of which was reportedly in the possession of Ḥāj Muḥammad Āqā Nakhjavānī. According to this Ṭalīʿa, one of the main missions of this monthly newspaper was to educate and inform the residents of the mamālik-i maḥrūsa-i īrān [the guarded domain of Iran] about the news of the Eastern and Western nations. This newspaper was to be distributed to different parts of the country (See Yādigār, 1945).
In 1839, the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society published an article entitled 'Persian newspaper and translation' in which the entire content of Kāghaz-i Akhbār from Muḥarram 1253 (7 April - 6 May 1837) was printed with movable type followed by an English translation. This article also provided a brief description of the newspaper and its editor: 'lithographed and printed at Tehran … under the editorship of Mirza Salih, one of the public secretaries of H. M. the Shah of Persia … two large folios, printed on one side only; it is closely written in a plain hand, and is surmounted by the Persian emblem of the Lion and Sun' (JRAS, 1839, p. 355). Unfortunately no copy of this newspaper survives today in the archive of the Royal Asiatic Society in London.
The typeset reproduction of Kāghaz-i akhbār from Muḥarram 1253 (7 April - 6 May 1837), Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1839). Public domain
Also, in 1839, Richard Wilbraham in his Travels in the Trans-Caucasian Provinces of Russia reported that 'a lithographic press has been established of late year in Tehran … within the past year a newspaper has been printed in the capital' (Wilbraham, 1839, p. 46).
Perhaps the first Persian source that mentioned an existing copy of the Kāghaz-i akhbār was an article entitled 'Gāzit-i āntīka-yi īrān' [antique Iranian gazette] in the Persian newspaper Akhtar, printed in Istanbul in 1876. According to this report, an 'Iranian merchant', had provided Akhtar with an imperfect copy (lacking the first page) of 'an antique Iranian gazette' from approximately 40 years earlier, which contained news of foreign nations including Russia, Turkey, Egypt, Spain, England, and France (See Akhtar, 1876, pp. 2–3).
Finally, in 1968, the leading Iranian newspaper Kayhān for the first time published a rather unclear 'picture of the first and oldest Iranian newspaper'. According to Kayhān, the Iranian scholar Hamīd Mowlānā was granted permission to photograph this 'unique copy' of Kāghaz-i akhbār at the British Museum (Kayhān, 1968). In the following year, a clearer reproduction of the front page of a British Museum copy of Kāghaz-i akhbār (Jumādá al-Ūlá 1253/3 August 1837 - 1 September 1837) appeared in the first published edition of Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ's travelogue, as 'the only extant copy of the newspaper' (See Rā'īn, 1969, p. 27). In fact, this was perhaps the first time that a reproduction of an issue of Kāghaz-i akhbār, which was previously only known through secondary sources, was published.
The Kayhān report entitled 'picture of the first and oldest Iranian newspaper'. The photograph shows Hamīd Mowlānā (left) presenting a facsimile of the Kāghaz-i akhbār to Alī-Qulī Ardalān (3 August 1968)
With regard to the 'discovery' of the Kāghaz-i akhbār at the British Museum there are some conflicting statements. Hamīd Mowlānā later claimed to have 'discovered' two copies of the Kāghaz-i akhbār at the British Museum in 1963 (Mowlānā, 1979, p. 15). However, in his PhD thesis –submitted in the same year– Mowlānā writes that 'today, unfortunately no copy of Akhbar Vaghayeh is extant' (Mowlānā, 1963, p. 200). Moreover, the only copy of Kāghaz-i akhbār that appears in Mowlānā's studies, and seemingly all the subsequent studies of this newspaper, is the same issue from Jumādá al-Ūlá; no visual representation of the second issue of Kāghaz-i akhbār seem to have appeared in any publication to this day.
The reproduction of Kāghaz-i Akhbār from Jumādá al-Ūlá in the first published edition of Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ's travelogue, edited by Ismāʿīl Rāʾīn and published in 1969.
In recent years I have tried to trace the cited copies of the Kāghaz-i akhbār in order to study their printing quality and other aspects of their production which could not be deduced from the existing reproductions. According to my investigation, no archive or library catalogue bears any record of an extant copy of Kāghaz-i akhbār –apart from a microfilm at British Library (Or.Mic.4776) which proves that the British Museum at some point possessed two copies of this newspaper. However, I was unable to find a shelfmark or any reference concerning the current location of these two issues. Thus, this led to the assumption that these copies had been lost or even destroyed.
Ultimately, however, and thanks to Dr Goel Cohen who drew my attention to the studies of another Iranian scholar Alī Mushīrī, I was able to locate the copies of the newspaper, which had been moved from the British Museum to the British Library. This investigation led me to the shelfmark O.P. 3 (13), cited in two Persian articles by Alī Mushīrī (Mushīrī, 1963 & 1964) which are probably the earliest sources to introduce the British Museum copies although they did not actually include any visual representation of Kāghaz-i akhbār.
This post is notably perhaps the first report in which the both known copies of the Kāghaz-i akhbār are shown – particularly in their present condition. They were inserted into a large anonymous volume containing miscellaneous newspapers in Arabic, Armenian, Hebrew, Turkish, Sinhala, Japanese, etc. The two issues are from Rabīʿ al-Thānī 1253 (5 July 1837 - 2 August 1837) and Jumādá al-Ūlá 1253 (3 August 1837 - 1 September 1837). They are completely intact and have been layered by Japanese tissue paper that has stiffened the original paper. This, however, has also desaturated the black printing ink which only appears on one side of the paper.
The Rabīʻ al-Thānī 1253 (5 July 1837 - 2 August 1837) issue of Kāghaz-i akhbār (BL O.P. 3 (13)). Public domain
The Jumādá al-Ūlá 1253 (3 August 1837 - 1 September 1837) issue of Kāghaz-i akhbār (BL O.P. 3 (13)). Public domain
The illustration of the emblem of Iran Shīr va khurshīd [Lion and Sun] with minor variations appears on both issues. The main headline, which is written in riqaʻ style, reads 'news of the month of … of the year … that was printed in Dār al-khilāfa [the abode of the caliphate] of Tehran'. As what seems to be a general rule, the right-hand folio contains the 'news of the Eastern nations' and the left-hand folio contains the 'news of the Western nations.' The main text is written in an elegant nastaʻlīq hand, with the name of cities and countries highlighted in riqaʻ style. The approximate size of a single page is 42 in 27 centimetres.
The emblem of Iran Shīr va khurshīd [Lion and Sun]. Left: Jumādá al-Ūlá issue and right: the Rabīʻ al-Thānī issue. Public domain
Some Persian sources have stated that these issues of Kāghaz-i akhbār were sent to the British Museum by an employee of the British legation in Tehran since they contained the news of the death of the King William IV and the coronation of the Queen Victoria (this is reflected in the Rabīʿ al-Thānī issue). Alī Mushīrī mentions a certain 'Charles Sundt' as the person responsible for sending the papers to England (Mushīrī, 1964, p. 609). I have not been able to find anyone fitting that description, but, it is possible that the person in question, whose name might have been misspelled in the Persian transliteration, is Charles Stuart, the secretary to the British Envoy to Persia, and the author of Journal of a residence in northern Persia and the adjacent provinces of Turkey .
Microfilm containing two issues of Kāghaz-i akhbār (BL Or.Mic.4776)
The manuscript of Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ's journal (BL Add. 24,034)
The anonymous volume containing two original copies of Kāghaz-i akhbār (BL O.P.3)
''Aks-i avvalīn va qadīmītarīn rūznāma-yi īrān dar mu'assisa-yi ʻālī maṭbūʻāt', in Kayhān (Tehran newspaper), 3 August 1968, p. 14.
'Gāzit-i āntīka-yi īrān', in Akhtar (Istanbul newspaper), 15 February 1876, pp. 2–3.
Hamīd Mowlānā, Journalism in Iran: a history and interpretation, PhD thesis, Northwestern University, Illinois, 1963.
— Sayr-i irtibāṭāt-i ijtimāʻī dar īrān, Tehran, 1979.
Alī Mushīrī, 'Avvalīn ruznāma dar īrānī', in Khvāndanīhā, Vol 24, No 29, 1963, pp. 25&46.
— 'Avvalīn ruznāma-yi īrānī', in Sukhan, Vol 14, No 7, 1964, pp. 906–11.
'Persian newspaper and translation' in The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland , Vol 5, No 2, 1839, pp. 355–371.
Ismāʿīl Rāʾīn, Safarnāma-yi Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ Shīrāzī, Rawzan, Tehran, 1969.
'Tārīkh-i rūznāmanigārī dar īrān', in Yādigār, Vol 1, No 7, 1945, pp. 6–17.
Richard Wilbraham, Travels in the Trans-Caucasian provinces of Russia, London, 1839.
With special thanks to Goel Cohen, Gerry Leonidas, Siavush Randjbar-Daemi, Fiona Ross, Graham Shaw and Michael Twyman.
Borna Izadpanah, PhD Candidate, University of Reading
Iran, Middle East, Persian, Printing, Rare books, Writing
Rustam: The Hero with Red Hair
125 More Arabic Scientific Manuscripts in the Qatar Digital Library


Page 2 – Zach Hoyt Banjos Etc.
During the construction of this guitar I also took a bit of time to set up banjo #75, which I had mostly built by the end of March. It ss a stock walnut banjo and is shown on the Banjos page.
The second half of April mostly went into making my third resonator guitar. It was also custom ordered, and was my first roundneck resonator(designed to be played like a regular guitar, not flat on the lap with a steel slide) and first guitar of any kind with a cutaway. It was made from cherry with walnut binding and an ebony fretboard. I didn't make a video of it as I have not learned to play with a bottleneck slide, but when the customer picked it up he seemed to like the sound. It had the same hardware as the two squareneck resonators I built before, using a Beard Original cone and Beard #14 spider, and since the cone and spider are what produce most of the sound it is pretty similar to them, I think.
In May I have two custom banjos to build, and then some extra time due to a cancellation, which I may fill by making a chicken head fiddle and another C scale banjo to have in stock.
I meant to make this post two weeks ago, but time slipped away. In March I started with a custom banjo, #70, a 12″ walnut A scale.
#s 73 and 74 were also walnut stock banjos, shown on the Banjos page.
I also had the chance to make a replacement copy of a badly broken and even more badly repaired banjo neck, the customer sent me the pot and the remains of the neck, which he had bought somewhere, and I copied the neck design fairly closely.
In non-banjo news I also had time to build another chicken head fiddle(fiddle #19), for a customer who was waiting for it. This is similar to the previous chicken head fiddle I made in January except it has a jatoba fingerboard instead of hop-hornbeam.
Banjos #39 and #40 are now 25% off, at $648 and $633 respectively. I'm just trying to move them out to make room for new projects, and they've been around for 16 months now. They're both shown on the Banjos page.
During February I made 6 banjos, of which 3 were custom made to order, 2 were in-stock instruments and 1 was for the BanjoHangout free drawing which is happening now.
#65 was a custom D scale mini banjo, my first with an 8″ pot. The rim is one of Mark Hickler's partial internal resonator rims that he makes so well.
#66 is the giveaway banjo, pictures are below in a recent post.
#67 is a walnut 12″, shown on the Banjos page of this site.
#68 is a cherry 10″ C scale, also shown on the Banjos page.
#69 is a custom banjo with a 12″ internal resonator pot with one of my Whyte Laydie tone rings. It is the first time I have ever used Rocklite Ebano, which is a new ebony substitute that was quite easy to work with and looks very much like ebony. The customer was very enterprising and bought the Rocklite for the fretboard and the peghead overlay all the way from England and brought them out here when he came to visit before he ordered his banjo. I'll be offering Rocklite soon as an option on the Custom Banjos page.
I put 5 coats of Tru Oil finish on the banjo on Sunday and put it together today.
It has a curly walnut peghead overlay and the fretboard is streaky ebony. It's a bit hard to see the streaks in the pictures. I like scoops better now that I have the power fretting saw set up so I don't have those annoying little bits of fret slot showing on the partial frets.
The bottom of the tone ring is visible under the flesh hoop of the head.
I recently went to using screws to fasten the brass plates rather than double sided tape, but the screws are so short that I have a hard time holding onto them to get them started.
Now that the finishing is done the bookmatched resonator back is more apparent.
The armrest is of the type pioneered by Jason Romero, though not as nice as his, I am sure.
I made a quick video demonstration of this banjo after I got it set up tonight. I moved my right hand up and down a bit to try to show some of the range of sounds that this banjo can make. I hope that perhaps someone will come by before the drawing who can really play and will let me make a video of them playing this banjo, but we don't get a lot of visitors this time of year.
On Tuesday I sanded the back of the resonator flat on the 12″ disc sander and then used the table router to put a 1/4″ radius on the corners.
On Thursday I drilled a 3/4 hole for the dowel stick using the Shopsmith.
I carved the hole out to a square shape using a 1/2″ chisel and a mallet, but I didn't get any pictures of that. On Friday I sanded the outside with the random orbit sander and the inside with the oscillating spindle sander.
I also used the Shopsmith to drill the endbolt hole which can be seen in this picture. I use extra long 10-24 hanger bolts with a standard endbolt knob, or whatever that round part is properly called. It's a lot easier than making a square blind hole into the inside of the tailblock and using a normal length hanger bolt, and the end result is equally good, as far as I can tell. This morning I hand sanded the rim, neck and armrest to 400 grit and right after lunch I put on the first coat of Tru Oil.
I'll be getting it all put together on Tuesday or Wednesday if all goes according to plan, and I'll post some pictures and a quick video of the completed banjo as soon as it's all ready.
I haven't been posting any new banjos on the Banjos page lately, but it's not that I haven't been making banjos, they've just all been custom ones built to order lately. #60 was a full fretted version of #59 with a Kershner tailpiece.
#62 is an ash 12″ made with all local woods from here on the farm. It went up to TAUNY (tauny.org) in Canton along with my first chicken head fiddle to be part of an exhibit on local instruments, and will be back in late fall. I didn't think to take pictures before I sent it off.
#63 is like #60, but with a 29″ scale length so it can be tuned down to E. Like a longneck, but with the 5th string still at the 5th fret like a regular banjo.
#64 through #68 will all be done by the end of this month, if all goes according to plan.
Tonight I cut the fret slots using an adapted Worx mini saw with a .023″ blade, and a homemade fixture. I've been using this setup for about a year. It's faster than slotting by hand and also enables me to make partial slots in the area of the scoop, so that there is no unfilled bit of slot showing after the frets go in.
I had to cut the first slot twice since the first time it wasn't quite deep enough, so that is why that slot looks slightly wider than the others.
The rest of the fretting process I use is still the same as last year' journal shows. I moved on to the resonator back and started by trying to find something that looked right in my walnut boxes. I found a piece that had a very mild curl and some color streaks and marked out two quarters, by first drawing around the inner and outer rims and then using a framing square to make a 90 degree angle between the ends at 6″ on both sides of the square.
I did some of the cutting out on the bandsaw and used the scroll saw for the inner parts so as not to waste any of the rest of the board. With a 10 TPI blade it cuts pretty fast, though of course not like the bandsaw. I cut a bit outside the marks to leave some margin for alignment. Then I put the rip fence on the bandsaw and sliced each piece in half, so I could bookmatch the two sides of the resonator back. I really like having the rip fence on this bandsaw, it's self-aligning and as long as I remember to keep my feed speed down and use a sharp blade I can get quite accurate cuts.
Then I drew a centerline along the pot back, after ensuring it was flat on the 12″ sanding disc on the Shopsmith. I used the disc sander also to true up the ends of the back pieces and fine tune them till they fit tightly together all the way around. This required several trips back and forth from the sander to the pot till it all looked right.
Tonight I didn't work long on the pot and then I had to let the glue dry. First I set the outer rim on top of the inner rim and used a mini tape measure to get it as perfectly centered as I could, and then drew around the blocks and laid out the cut line.
Then I took it to the bandsaw and cut away most of the inner rim, leaving just over 1/4″ of wood except where the ears are that join the outer blocks. When cut the inner rim can be set inside the outer one and rotated into place. I thought of this method back when I made my first IR rim as a way to get the glue onto the surfaces and not have it be scraped off during assembly.
I trimmed the edges of the ears the last bit with the bandsaw and then marked the excess height of the ears above the blocks and trimmed it off with a router, carefully.
Then I used the 1″ belt sander to smooth off the outside of the inner rim and put glue on the mating surfaces of the blocks and ears and put the rims together. I checked them carefully against the aluminum plate and then with a straightedge.
Once the excess glue became rubbery I cleaned it off the joints with a chisel and set the assembly aside overnight. Tomorrow I will put the back on.
Yesterday I sanded the 7 rings flat and glued them into stacks, and last night I rolled the tone ring parts and the tension hoop. The ring roller is new to me last fall, prior to that I bent tension hoops by hand. It's fun to use, as it takes a job that required a lot of effort and was inexact and makes it effortless and precise. I buy brass in 7 foot lengths, and each length will do two 11 or 12 inch banjos without too much waste. The ring roller does the whole bend in one pass, so it is quite fast. I have a plan to make it so that I know exactly where to set the roller for each type of product, but I haven't gotten it done yet so for now I eyeball it. The scalloped truss is made from 3/16×5/8″ brass.
The top hoop is 1/4″ round brass.
There are little spots in the rollers for the round brass to ride in.
I used the bandsaw to cut the unbent end off each piece and then used my handy list of measurements to find the correct length. I have a piece of 1/4″ aluminum plate that I use for gluing and soldering and other odd jobs. The brass turns red when it's just about ready for the solder.
Today I used a sewing tape on the inside of the scalloped truss to mark the high points, and then used a plastic lid to draw a nice arc between them.
Then I used the bandsaw to roughly cut the scallops. I wear a welding glove on my left hand since that side can get a little warm as each cut comes off the blade. That hand is behind the blade so it is relatively less unsafe to wear a glove on that hand. I am not suggesting that anyone try this at home, as they say.
Then I used the spindle sander first with coarse and then with fine grits to clean up the bandsaw cuts, and used the fine drum on the inside and outside of the ring.
Then I put the rim blank on the aluminum faceplate and turned it, and fitted the tone ring to the rim.
Then I mounted the inner rim on an old particle board faceplate and turned the face and the inside only. I use the ruler to see when the inside of the rim is straight and parallel with the tubes of the Shopsmith bed. I have to move my head to see both parts of the yardstick, so the camera can only see part of the job at a time.
My last step for now was to mark the outer rim at the point where the centerline of the neck and the tailpiece will be, and install blocks in those places. I used the sander to match the outside of the blocks to the rim and to put a shallow angle on the inside of the blocks. The reason for will become clear tomorrow when the inner rim goes in.


Remember that humility involves not emphasising your own achievements but acknowledging those of your host....so be mindful of doing a bit of research beforehand.
Humility is also a realisation that you don't know everything and that people from different cultures may view the world very differently from you. For instance, westerners tend to highly value freedom while those from Asia place a higher importance on security. This one difference in mindset can completely change your interactions.
Freedom tends to be very individualistic while security has a more group mindset. For example, a person from Asia is very concerned about their job security and working for a prominent successful company. Westerners tend to be more loyal to their career path and taking the next steps forward.
From an interaction perspective, when you ask an Asian to "sponsor a project" internally in their organisation then it's a REALLY big thing. They are essentially being asked to trust that you will deliver results….because if you don't then their job security may be on the line.
Understanding these little but also substantial differences in culture is sometimes hard and requires all of us to be humble in the recognition of our differences. It's sometimes tough being an alien in another country but it can also be extremely fulfilling.
From a writing perspective I find that fleshing out a culture is one of the most interesting things that I do. It's a great challenge to alter actions, language and behavior of characters to reflect a culture.
I would encourage everyone to attend conferences like DomainFest as I believe that it will not only be an outstanding event but an opportunity to learn a little about the diversity of cultures in the world.


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Fluid Artology
William Bennette Butcher Jr. aka (Bill) has been an artist in his own right for many years, he has been known as the best drywall man on the east coast. He has worked in the construction industry for many years. With true craftmanship, he has built things from step stools, houses to hospital wings... He truly takes pride in his work and has recently taken his artistry to the canvas.
Bill has lived and loved in the state of Virginia his entire life. He and his wife Tonya enjoy traveling to many different areas in the US and abroad.
Bill is inspired by his love of nature and it truly shines in his work.
You can purchase his work online through this site or visit him at any upcoming art show. You can find Bill's show schedule at the top of this site.
If you are ever in Northern VA reach out and visit his studio.
Want to chat with Bill? email him at BillButcherArt@gmail.com
Bill & Tonya in Jupiter FL
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Fluid Acrylic Painting
Acrylic paint is mixed with a pouring medium, making it more fluid. This mixture is then poured onto the canvas an manipulated to create a one of a kind masterpiece.
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