At about the time of midday prayer I heard a knock at the door. It was Black from long ago, from our childhood. We embraced. He was chill and I invited him inside. I didn』t even ask how he』d found his way to the house. His Enishte must have sent him to question me about Elegant Effendi』s absend his whereabouts. Not only that, he alsht word from Master Osman. 「Allow me to ask you a question,」 he said. 「Acc to Master Osman, 」time「 separates a true miniaturist from others: The time of the illustration.」 What were my thoughts? Listen closely.
Painting and TimeLong ago, as is on knowledge, the illustrators of our Islamic realm, including, for example, the old Arab masters, perceiving the world the way Frankish infidels do today, would regard everything a it from the level of a vagabond, mutt or clerk at work in his shop. Unaware of today』s perspectival
teiques, of which the Frankish masters haughtily boast, their world remained dull and limited, restricted to the simple perspective of the mutt or the shop clerk. Then a great event came to pass and our entire world of illustration ged. Let me begin here.
Three Stories on Painting and TimeALIFThree hundred fifty years ago, when Baghdad fell to the Mongols and was mercilessly plundered on a cold day in the month of Safar, Ibn Shakir was the most renowned and profit calligrapher and scribe not only of the whole Arab world but of all Islamdom; despite his youth, he had transcribed twenty-two volumes, most of which were Korans and could be found in the world-famous libraries of Baghdad. Ibn Shakir believed these books would last until the end of the world, and, therefore, lived with a deep and infiion of time. He』d toiled heroically all through the night by flickering dlelight on the last of those legendary books, which are unknown to us today because in the span of a few days, they were one by oorn up, shredded, burned and tossed into the Tigris River by the soldiers of the Mongol Khan Hulagu. Just as the master Arab calligraphers, ited to the notion of the endless persistence of tradition and books, had for five turies been in the habit of resting their eyes as a precaution against blindness by turning their backs to the rising sun and looking toward the western horizon, Ibn Shakir asded the mi of the Caliphet Mosque in the ess of m, and from the baly where the muezzin called the faithful to prayer, witnessed all that would end a five-turies-long tradition of scribal art. First, he saw Hulagu』s pitiless soldiers enter Baghdad, a he remained where he the mi. He watched the plunder aru of the ey, the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people, the killing of the last of the Caliphs of Islam who』d ruled Baghdad for half a millennium, the rape of women, the burning of libraries and the destru of tens of thousands of volumes as they were thrown into the Tigris. Two days later, amid the stench of corpses and cries of death, he watched the flowing waters of the Tigris, turned red from the ink bleeding out of the books, ahought about how all those volumes he』d transcribed iiful script, those books that were now gone, hadn』t in the least served to stop this horrifying massacre aation, and in turn, he swore o write again. Furthermore, he was struck with the desire to express his pain and the disaster he』d withrough painting, whitil that day, he』d belittled and deemed an affront to Allah; and so, making use of the paper he always carried with him, he depicted what he saw from the t