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Lot Essay
The Mi’raj is regarded as one of the most important moments in the life of the Prophet Mohammed. In the Qur’an, sura al-‘Isra alludes to the fact that Allah transported ‘his servant Muhammad by night from the Masjid al-Haram to the Masjid al-Aqsa, whose surroundings we have blessed, so that We may show him some of Our signs’. Though traditions vary, most take this to be a reference to the Prophet being miraculously taken from Mecca to Jerusalem and thence to Heaven. According to al-Tabari (d.923 AD), this should be interpreted literally, as a physical journey made by the Prophet while awake and riding on Buraq, often depicted as a horse with a human head. Over centuries, further traditions crystalised around the Mi’raj, adding further details to the events of the night such as Muhammad’s encounter with the angel Jibra’il, Gabriel in the Judeo-Christian tradition, and introducing Buraq, who served as the Prophet’s mount to take him on his journey. Soon, the Mi’raj came to be regarded as the ultimate demonstration of the Prophet’s unique place in the divine order.
As the Mi’raj became more firmly entrenched in the Islamic tradition, so it began to appear in illustrated manuscripts. The earliest known depiction of the Mi’raj is a group of fragmentary paintings from an Ilkhanid pictorial cycle, which are found in one of the Topkapi albums (acc.no.H.2154, fol.107a, discussed in Christiane Gruber, The Timurid ‘Book of Ascension” (Mi’rajnama), Valencia, 2008, p.255). The discussion of the Mi’raj in the Makhzan al-Asrar by Nizami Ganjavi gave artists an opportunity to further refine the depiction of the miraculous event. Illustrations to Khamsa manuscripts often included a painting of the Prophet flying above Mecca on Buraq, as on a remarkable painting in the Keir Collection (B.W. Robinson, Islamic Painting and the Arts of the Book, London, 1976, no.III.207, colour plate 19). In such manuscripts, the depiction of the Mi’raj was generally restricted to a single painting, which attempted to convey the full wonder of the Prophet’s journey – and the richness of the hadith concerning it – in one image.
This folio comes from an extraordinary manuscript, richly illustrated and entirely dedicated to the hadith about the Mi’raj. To our knowledge, it is unique apart from a ‘sister manuscript’, written around two decades earlier, in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris (acc.no.suppl.turc.190). That is the Mi’rajnama of Shah Rukh, probably completed for the Timurid prince in Jumada II AH 840/December 1436 AD. In a discussion of the Mi’raj in Islamic art for the second edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam, B. W. Robinson wrote of the Shah Rukh Mi’rajnama that it is ‘one of the finest and most original sets of miniatures in the whole of Persian painting’ (B.W. Robinson, ‘The Mi’radj in Islamic art’, Encyclopaedia of Islam, second edition, 1993, Vol. VII, p.104). The manuscript from which our folio comes, a near-copy of the Shah Rukh Mi’rajnama, casts further light on the art of painting in the eastern Islamic world in the fifteenth century. Though it has been only partially published, thanks to the work of Christiane Gruber and Eleanor Sims we can better understand its relationship with the Shah Rukh Mi’rajnama, as well as what both manuscripts can tell us about early depictions of this pivotal moment in the life of the Prophet.
THE MANUSCRIPT
One of the reasons why this manuscript is so significant is because its patron is otherwise so poorly documented. This opening folio of the manuscript has an illuminated shamsa which indicates the patron to have been Sultan Abu Sa’id Gurakan, a great-grandson of Timur, who wrested control of Herat from the Qara Quyunlu confederation in 1458. In Herat he is reported to have established a court which – in the finest Timurid tradition – was generous in its support of the arts (Eleanor Sims, “The Nahj al-Faradis of Sultan Abu Sa’id ibn Sultan Muhammad ibn Miranhshah, Journal of the David Collection, 4, Copenhagen, 2014, p.96). The surviving evidence of his patronage, however, is very slim. Survivors include a Qur’an copied in his name in AH 845 / 1441-2 AD in the St Andrews University Library (acc.no. MS19(0)/29); a set of astronomical tables in the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts, Saint Petersburg (acc.no.MS C1843); an illustrated copy of the Conference of the Birds in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (acc.no.SBB Oct.268); and a book of love poetry in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin (acc.no.Per.149). The quality and content of this manuscript, evident from the present lot, makes it a real outlier among his commissioned works - it must have been one of the most impressive pieces of work to have been produced at his court.
The similarities between illustrations in Abu Sa’id Gurakan’s Nahj al-Faradis and the Shah Rukh Mi’rajnama are so great that Eleanor Sims suggests that the artists involved in the former must have copied directly from the latter. The main difference between the two manuscripts is textual. Abu Sa’id’s manuscript included text from the Nahj al-Faradis, which was written in the second quarter of the 14th century by al-Sara’i. Shah Rukh’s manuscript, instead, included an account of the Mi’raj in Chagatai Turkish, with an additional seven images of hell included in the text. Though the difference is hard to explain, both are essentially books of hadith concerning the Mi’raj, illustrating the events of the night in a very similar manner.
The manuscript alone does not give any explanation as to why it should have been commissioned. Christiane Gruber suggests that it may have been to celebrate of the birth of the ruler’s son, Mirza Baysunghur, in 1466. According to textual evidence, this event was accompanied by months of festivities which Gruber identifies as ‘the only large and extended ceremonial event recorded during Abu Sa’id’s rule’ (Gruber, op.cit., p.335). She particularly notes the court historian Khwandamir’s comment that a certain Khwaja ‘Ali received a reward for painting 32 different court craftspeople, and suggests that this master may well be the same ‘Ali al-Sultani who signs several of the paintings in this manuscript, including two folios in the David Collection (acc.no.14 / 2012r and v; published Eleanor Sims, op.cit., cat.no.s5 and 6, pp.125-8) and a third in The Al-Thani Collection (published Treasures of the al-Thani Collection at the Hôtel de la Marine, Paris, 2021, p.277). Khwandamir’s report may therefore allow us to suggest both the name of the artist and a possible date of completion. Certainly, it must have been finished before the death of Abu Sa’id in February 1469.
Though it was completed in Afghanistan, the manuscript did not remain there long. Book stamps in the manuscript indicate that it was in the library of the Ottoman Sultan Selim I, who ruled for only a short period between AH 918 / 1512 AD and AH 926 / 1520 AD. It is likely around that time that glosses were added to the top of each page in Ottoman Turkish, explaining the contents of each scene to readers unfamiliar with Chagatai (Sims, op.cit., p.92). Since similar Ottoman inscriptions appear on the Shah Rukh Mi’rajnama, Sims suggests that the manuscripts must have remained together, perhaps arriving in Istanbul with the Timurid princes who fled Herat in AH 913 / 1507 AD, when the Shaybanids conquered the city (Sims, op.cit., p.97).
THE ILLUSTRATIONS
The illustrations on our folio depict a crucial moment in the Mi’raj. After having met some of the earlier prophets and led them in prayer in Jerusalem, the Prophet Muhammad ascended a ladder and journeyed through the seven levels of heaven. At each level, he meets a succession of prophets: Adam in the first; Yahya and Zakariyya in the second; in the third, Ya’qub, Yusuf, Dawud and Suleyman. Leaving them, the Prophet, Buraq, and Jibra’il – the angel Gabriel in the Judeo-Christian tradition - arrive at the fourth level. In an edited translation given by Christiane Gruber, what follows is narrated as follows:
‘Gabriel knocked at the gates and cried out. The angels rejoiced and, as it opened the gate, it greeted me. It said “O Muhammad, welcome, may you be honoured by the graces of the Lord Most High’ (based on translations by Abel Pavet de Courteille, Wheeler Thackston, and Max Scherberger; published Gruber, op.cit., p.360)
The illustration on the recto of our folio depicts both Jibra’il and the Prophet extending their hands as though in supplication. Facing them, on the left-hand side of the page, is the group of angels mentioned in the text welcoming the newcomers. Marie-Rose Seguy points out that the angels appear bare-headed as a sign of deference (Miraj Nameh: Miraculous Journey of Mahomet, Paris, 1993, pl.19). This may be interpreted as a visual reference to the Qur’anic verses in which Allah commanded the angels to prostrate themselves before Adam, the first of the Prophets, another visual signifier of Muhammad’s precedence among those who had gone before (Qur’an II, sura al-Baqara’, v.34).
The verso of the folio depicts the meeting which took place in the fourth level of heaven between Muhammad and ‘Isa – Jesus in the Judeo-Christian tradition - in the bayt al-ma’mur. The scene is located in an architectural setting, with a pair of columns dividing the space into three arched sections. To the right, the Prophet – mounted on Buraq – looks in on the scene, arms crossed over his chest in respect. In the left-hand arch is a group of five bare-headed angels, with their arms folded, though the lowered position of the hands is more suggestive of submissive obedience. In the centre of the composition, Jibra’il talks to ‘Isa, who wears a brown cloak, and indicates with his right hand over his left shoulder. This tripartite composition – with the Prophet on the right being introduced to a figure on the left, with Jibra’il in between apparently explaining each one – is fairly commonly-encountered in the Nahj al-Faradis. It can be seen, for instance, on the depiction of the Prophet Muhammad encountering the angel of half-fire and half-snow in the David Collection (acc.no.13 / 2012v, published Sims, op.cit., p.121). That illustration finds its counterpart in the Shah Rukh manuscript, along with similar illustrations depicting the Prophet being introduced to various Prophets such as Isma’il, Nuh, and Lot.
The bayt al-ma’mur, often translated as ‘the frequented house’, is often understood to be a prototype of the Ka’ba in heaven, located directly above the Haram in Mecca. In many accounts of the Mi’raj, it is described as the place where the Prophet was tested by being presented with three cups, containing wine, honey and milk and asked to choose - having chosen the milk, he is allowed to continue on his journey (Gruber, op.cit., p.341). According to Marcus Fraser, most hadith do not mention the presence of Jesus in the bayt al-ma’mur, but the Ottoman Turkish inscription above is unambiguous that this is who the figure in the drown cloak represents (Marcus Fraser, ‘Four Folios from the Nahj al-Fardis, the Paths of Paradise’, in Treasures of The Al-Thani Collection at the Hôtel de la Marine, Paris, 2021, p.269).
The interior of the bayt al-ma’mur is here depicted as an architectural setting. In both the Shah Rukh Mi’rajnama and the Nahj al-Faradis, there are a number of scenes which take place in interiors. In the Mi’rajnama, indoor scenes include the depiction of the Prophet’s house and his leading prayers in Jerusalem. The folios of the Nahj al-Faradis which have come to light include only a small number with architectural detail, but they include an example depicting two outdoor pavilions in Paradise, which like our folio are decorated with intricate tilework with kufic inscriptions above the arches (published Treasures of the al-Thani Collection at the Hôtel de la Marine, Paris, 2021, p.277). Sims identifies the influence of Jalayirid manuscript illustration in the rich textures of the tilework, which in its intricacy prefigures the work of Bihzad (Sims, op.cit., p.114).
RELATIONSHIP WITH THE SHAH RUKH MI’RAJNAMA
Though the Shah Rukh Mi’rajnama is almost complete, there is a lacuna of approximately two folios in the middle of the manuscript. These are the folios dealing with the fourth heaven, including the Prophet’s meeting with Jesus, his encounter with the angel Azra’il, and the arrival at the ‘white sea’. We know of their loss because of a description which was prepared by the French orientalist Francois Pétis de la Croix (b.1653) when the Shah Rukh Mi’rajnama was in the collection of the French finance minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert (d.1683). Since Colbert acquired the manuscript in 1675, meaning that this description must have been written between 1675 and Pétis de la Croix’ death in 1713. Though it is not clear exactly when these two folios became separated from the manuscript, they must have been there in the late 17th century as they were included in the description.
A folio from the Nahj al-Faradis in the Sarikhani collection corresponds with one of the folios missing from the lacuna. The paintings on the folio depict the angel Azra’il to the recto and the White Sea to the verso (published Sims, op.cit., pp.122-3, figs.17 and 18). The paintings match precisely with Pétis de la Croix’ description of images 21 and 22 from the Shah Rukh Mi’rajnama (quoted in Gruber, op.cit., p.389). It is therefore likely that the paintings on the Sarikhani folio are faithful copies of the lost paintings from the Shah Rukh Mi’rajnama. As Eleanor Sims commented, it is ‘that great rarity: later Timurid versions of lost earlier Timurid paintings’ (Sims, op.cit., p.102). Our folio is another such rarity.
The first of the paintings missing from the Shah Rukh Mi’rajnama, according to Pétis de la Croix, depicts Muhammad arriving at the fourth heaven with angels who meet him with deference, ‘their hands,’ he adds, ‘crossed in the manner of slaves before their masters’. This matches precisely with the pose of the angels on the verso of our folio. To the recto, he adds, he saw ‘Muhammad arriving at a palace, according to the title named the “Beit el Mamoureh”, the place of visitation and habitation, where he confers with Jesus Christ and where he finds a troupe of 70,000 angels who guard the entrance of the palace every day’ (Gruber, op.cit., p.389). Again, the description corresponds precisely with our scene, albeit with the 70,000 angels reduced to a more manageable guard of five. As with the Sarikhani folio, this folio can be used to reconstruct the now-lost paintings which were separated from the manuscript after Pétis de la Croix wrote his description.
Within the pictorial programme of the Shah Rukh Mi’rajnama and the Nahj al-Faradis, the arrival scene on the recto does have a number of similar scenes. Though none of the ‘arrival’ scenes in the Nahj al-Faradis have been widely published, from the Shah Rukh Mi’rajnama, the arrival of the Prophet, Buraq and Jibra’il to the second heaven (f.13r, Seguy plate 11), the third heaven (f.15v, Seguy plate 14), fifth (f.22r, Seguy plate 19), sixth (f.24, Seguy plate 24) all show the group being greeted by angels with heir hands crossed in deference as on our folio. The scene on the verso is much more unusual, and lacks an obvious prototype in the Shah Rukh Mi’rajnama. Given that the prototype page was lost, this painting may be considered the only known treatment of this meeting between ‘Isa and the Prophet Muhammad by a Timurid artist to have survived to this day. Even within this unique and important manuscript, this must therefore be regarded as one of the most significant folios.
As the Mi’raj became more firmly entrenched in the Islamic tradition, so it began to appear in illustrated manuscripts. The earliest known depiction of the Mi’raj is a group of fragmentary paintings from an Ilkhanid pictorial cycle, which are found in one of the Topkapi albums (acc.no.H.2154, fol.107a, discussed in Christiane Gruber, The Timurid ‘Book of Ascension” (Mi’rajnama), Valencia, 2008, p.255). The discussion of the Mi’raj in the Makhzan al-Asrar by Nizami Ganjavi gave artists an opportunity to further refine the depiction of the miraculous event. Illustrations to Khamsa manuscripts often included a painting of the Prophet flying above Mecca on Buraq, as on a remarkable painting in the Keir Collection (B.W. Robinson, Islamic Painting and the Arts of the Book, London, 1976, no.III.207, colour plate 19). In such manuscripts, the depiction of the Mi’raj was generally restricted to a single painting, which attempted to convey the full wonder of the Prophet’s journey – and the richness of the hadith concerning it – in one image.
This folio comes from an extraordinary manuscript, richly illustrated and entirely dedicated to the hadith about the Mi’raj. To our knowledge, it is unique apart from a ‘sister manuscript’, written around two decades earlier, in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris (acc.no.suppl.turc.190). That is the Mi’rajnama of Shah Rukh, probably completed for the Timurid prince in Jumada II AH 840/December 1436 AD. In a discussion of the Mi’raj in Islamic art for the second edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam, B. W. Robinson wrote of the Shah Rukh Mi’rajnama that it is ‘one of the finest and most original sets of miniatures in the whole of Persian painting’ (B.W. Robinson, ‘The Mi’radj in Islamic art’, Encyclopaedia of Islam, second edition, 1993, Vol. VII, p.104). The manuscript from which our folio comes, a near-copy of the Shah Rukh Mi’rajnama, casts further light on the art of painting in the eastern Islamic world in the fifteenth century. Though it has been only partially published, thanks to the work of Christiane Gruber and Eleanor Sims we can better understand its relationship with the Shah Rukh Mi’rajnama, as well as what both manuscripts can tell us about early depictions of this pivotal moment in the life of the Prophet.
THE MANUSCRIPT
One of the reasons why this manuscript is so significant is because its patron is otherwise so poorly documented. This opening folio of the manuscript has an illuminated shamsa which indicates the patron to have been Sultan Abu Sa’id Gurakan, a great-grandson of Timur, who wrested control of Herat from the Qara Quyunlu confederation in 1458. In Herat he is reported to have established a court which – in the finest Timurid tradition – was generous in its support of the arts (Eleanor Sims, “The Nahj al-Faradis of Sultan Abu Sa’id ibn Sultan Muhammad ibn Miranhshah, Journal of the David Collection, 4, Copenhagen, 2014, p.96). The surviving evidence of his patronage, however, is very slim. Survivors include a Qur’an copied in his name in AH 845 / 1441-2 AD in the St Andrews University Library (acc.no. MS19(0)/29); a set of astronomical tables in the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts, Saint Petersburg (acc.no.MS C1843); an illustrated copy of the Conference of the Birds in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (acc.no.SBB Oct.268); and a book of love poetry in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin (acc.no.Per.149). The quality and content of this manuscript, evident from the present lot, makes it a real outlier among his commissioned works - it must have been one of the most impressive pieces of work to have been produced at his court.
The similarities between illustrations in Abu Sa’id Gurakan’s Nahj al-Faradis and the Shah Rukh Mi’rajnama are so great that Eleanor Sims suggests that the artists involved in the former must have copied directly from the latter. The main difference between the two manuscripts is textual. Abu Sa’id’s manuscript included text from the Nahj al-Faradis, which was written in the second quarter of the 14th century by al-Sara’i. Shah Rukh’s manuscript, instead, included an account of the Mi’raj in Chagatai Turkish, with an additional seven images of hell included in the text. Though the difference is hard to explain, both are essentially books of hadith concerning the Mi’raj, illustrating the events of the night in a very similar manner.
The manuscript alone does not give any explanation as to why it should have been commissioned. Christiane Gruber suggests that it may have been to celebrate of the birth of the ruler’s son, Mirza Baysunghur, in 1466. According to textual evidence, this event was accompanied by months of festivities which Gruber identifies as ‘the only large and extended ceremonial event recorded during Abu Sa’id’s rule’ (Gruber, op.cit., p.335). She particularly notes the court historian Khwandamir’s comment that a certain Khwaja ‘Ali received a reward for painting 32 different court craftspeople, and suggests that this master may well be the same ‘Ali al-Sultani who signs several of the paintings in this manuscript, including two folios in the David Collection (acc.no.14 / 2012r and v; published Eleanor Sims, op.cit., cat.no.s5 and 6, pp.125-8) and a third in The Al-Thani Collection (published Treasures of the al-Thani Collection at the Hôtel de la Marine, Paris, 2021, p.277). Khwandamir’s report may therefore allow us to suggest both the name of the artist and a possible date of completion. Certainly, it must have been finished before the death of Abu Sa’id in February 1469.
Though it was completed in Afghanistan, the manuscript did not remain there long. Book stamps in the manuscript indicate that it was in the library of the Ottoman Sultan Selim I, who ruled for only a short period between AH 918 / 1512 AD and AH 926 / 1520 AD. It is likely around that time that glosses were added to the top of each page in Ottoman Turkish, explaining the contents of each scene to readers unfamiliar with Chagatai (Sims, op.cit., p.92). Since similar Ottoman inscriptions appear on the Shah Rukh Mi’rajnama, Sims suggests that the manuscripts must have remained together, perhaps arriving in Istanbul with the Timurid princes who fled Herat in AH 913 / 1507 AD, when the Shaybanids conquered the city (Sims, op.cit., p.97).
THE ILLUSTRATIONS
The illustrations on our folio depict a crucial moment in the Mi’raj. After having met some of the earlier prophets and led them in prayer in Jerusalem, the Prophet Muhammad ascended a ladder and journeyed through the seven levels of heaven. At each level, he meets a succession of prophets: Adam in the first; Yahya and Zakariyya in the second; in the third, Ya’qub, Yusuf, Dawud and Suleyman. Leaving them, the Prophet, Buraq, and Jibra’il – the angel Gabriel in the Judeo-Christian tradition - arrive at the fourth level. In an edited translation given by Christiane Gruber, what follows is narrated as follows:
‘Gabriel knocked at the gates and cried out. The angels rejoiced and, as it opened the gate, it greeted me. It said “O Muhammad, welcome, may you be honoured by the graces of the Lord Most High’ (based on translations by Abel Pavet de Courteille, Wheeler Thackston, and Max Scherberger; published Gruber, op.cit., p.360)
The illustration on the recto of our folio depicts both Jibra’il and the Prophet extending their hands as though in supplication. Facing them, on the left-hand side of the page, is the group of angels mentioned in the text welcoming the newcomers. Marie-Rose Seguy points out that the angels appear bare-headed as a sign of deference (Miraj Nameh: Miraculous Journey of Mahomet, Paris, 1993, pl.19). This may be interpreted as a visual reference to the Qur’anic verses in which Allah commanded the angels to prostrate themselves before Adam, the first of the Prophets, another visual signifier of Muhammad’s precedence among those who had gone before (Qur’an II, sura al-Baqara’, v.34).
The verso of the folio depicts the meeting which took place in the fourth level of heaven between Muhammad and ‘Isa – Jesus in the Judeo-Christian tradition - in the bayt al-ma’mur. The scene is located in an architectural setting, with a pair of columns dividing the space into three arched sections. To the right, the Prophet – mounted on Buraq – looks in on the scene, arms crossed over his chest in respect. In the left-hand arch is a group of five bare-headed angels, with their arms folded, though the lowered position of the hands is more suggestive of submissive obedience. In the centre of the composition, Jibra’il talks to ‘Isa, who wears a brown cloak, and indicates with his right hand over his left shoulder. This tripartite composition – with the Prophet on the right being introduced to a figure on the left, with Jibra’il in between apparently explaining each one – is fairly commonly-encountered in the Nahj al-Faradis. It can be seen, for instance, on the depiction of the Prophet Muhammad encountering the angel of half-fire and half-snow in the David Collection (acc.no.13 / 2012v, published Sims, op.cit., p.121). That illustration finds its counterpart in the Shah Rukh manuscript, along with similar illustrations depicting the Prophet being introduced to various Prophets such as Isma’il, Nuh, and Lot.
The bayt al-ma’mur, often translated as ‘the frequented house’, is often understood to be a prototype of the Ka’ba in heaven, located directly above the Haram in Mecca. In many accounts of the Mi’raj, it is described as the place where the Prophet was tested by being presented with three cups, containing wine, honey and milk and asked to choose - having chosen the milk, he is allowed to continue on his journey (Gruber, op.cit., p.341). According to Marcus Fraser, most hadith do not mention the presence of Jesus in the bayt al-ma’mur, but the Ottoman Turkish inscription above is unambiguous that this is who the figure in the drown cloak represents (Marcus Fraser, ‘Four Folios from the Nahj al-Fardis, the Paths of Paradise’, in Treasures of The Al-Thani Collection at the Hôtel de la Marine, Paris, 2021, p.269).
The interior of the bayt al-ma’mur is here depicted as an architectural setting. In both the Shah Rukh Mi’rajnama and the Nahj al-Faradis, there are a number of scenes which take place in interiors. In the Mi’rajnama, indoor scenes include the depiction of the Prophet’s house and his leading prayers in Jerusalem. The folios of the Nahj al-Faradis which have come to light include only a small number with architectural detail, but they include an example depicting two outdoor pavilions in Paradise, which like our folio are decorated with intricate tilework with kufic inscriptions above the arches (published Treasures of the al-Thani Collection at the Hôtel de la Marine, Paris, 2021, p.277). Sims identifies the influence of Jalayirid manuscript illustration in the rich textures of the tilework, which in its intricacy prefigures the work of Bihzad (Sims, op.cit., p.114).
RELATIONSHIP WITH THE SHAH RUKH MI’RAJNAMA
Though the Shah Rukh Mi’rajnama is almost complete, there is a lacuna of approximately two folios in the middle of the manuscript. These are the folios dealing with the fourth heaven, including the Prophet’s meeting with Jesus, his encounter with the angel Azra’il, and the arrival at the ‘white sea’. We know of their loss because of a description which was prepared by the French orientalist Francois Pétis de la Croix (b.1653) when the Shah Rukh Mi’rajnama was in the collection of the French finance minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert (d.1683). Since Colbert acquired the manuscript in 1675, meaning that this description must have been written between 1675 and Pétis de la Croix’ death in 1713. Though it is not clear exactly when these two folios became separated from the manuscript, they must have been there in the late 17th century as they were included in the description.
A folio from the Nahj al-Faradis in the Sarikhani collection corresponds with one of the folios missing from the lacuna. The paintings on the folio depict the angel Azra’il to the recto and the White Sea to the verso (published Sims, op.cit., pp.122-3, figs.17 and 18). The paintings match precisely with Pétis de la Croix’ description of images 21 and 22 from the Shah Rukh Mi’rajnama (quoted in Gruber, op.cit., p.389). It is therefore likely that the paintings on the Sarikhani folio are faithful copies of the lost paintings from the Shah Rukh Mi’rajnama. As Eleanor Sims commented, it is ‘that great rarity: later Timurid versions of lost earlier Timurid paintings’ (Sims, op.cit., p.102). Our folio is another such rarity.
The first of the paintings missing from the Shah Rukh Mi’rajnama, according to Pétis de la Croix, depicts Muhammad arriving at the fourth heaven with angels who meet him with deference, ‘their hands,’ he adds, ‘crossed in the manner of slaves before their masters’. This matches precisely with the pose of the angels on the verso of our folio. To the recto, he adds, he saw ‘Muhammad arriving at a palace, according to the title named the “Beit el Mamoureh”, the place of visitation and habitation, where he confers with Jesus Christ and where he finds a troupe of 70,000 angels who guard the entrance of the palace every day’ (Gruber, op.cit., p.389). Again, the description corresponds precisely with our scene, albeit with the 70,000 angels reduced to a more manageable guard of five. As with the Sarikhani folio, this folio can be used to reconstruct the now-lost paintings which were separated from the manuscript after Pétis de la Croix wrote his description.
Within the pictorial programme of the Shah Rukh Mi’rajnama and the Nahj al-Faradis, the arrival scene on the recto does have a number of similar scenes. Though none of the ‘arrival’ scenes in the Nahj al-Faradis have been widely published, from the Shah Rukh Mi’rajnama, the arrival of the Prophet, Buraq and Jibra’il to the second heaven (f.13r, Seguy plate 11), the third heaven (f.15v, Seguy plate 14), fifth (f.22r, Seguy plate 19), sixth (f.24, Seguy plate 24) all show the group being greeted by angels with heir hands crossed in deference as on our folio. The scene on the verso is much more unusual, and lacks an obvious prototype in the Shah Rukh Mi’rajnama. Given that the prototype page was lost, this painting may be considered the only known treatment of this meeting between ‘Isa and the Prophet Muhammad by a Timurid artist to have survived to this day. Even within this unique and important manuscript, this must therefore be regarded as one of the most significant folios.