The expansion of European power in the 16th century made Southeast Asia one of the prime destinations for European adventurers, including not only merchants but also Christian missionaries. Profits from overseas trade in exotic goods from this region, such as spices and forest products, attracted European traders to Southeast Asia, long before this commercial activity spiralled and became an integral component of Western colonialism. The desire to convert local people to Christianity also brought priests into various parts of Southeast Asia from the early 16th century.

Western missionaries, diplomats and traders all needed to be able to communicate with the indigenous populations, and dictionaries were essential tools in facilitating their work. In 1522 Antonio Pigafetta, an Italian who joined Magellan’s circumnavigation of the globe, compiled a word-list of Malay with approximately 426 entries. In 1651, the Dictionarium Annamiticum Lusitanum et Latinum, a trilingual Vietnamese-Portuguese-Latin dictionary compiled by Alexandre de Rhodes, was published in Rome for religious purposes. His work contributed tremendously not only to the development of dictionaries in Vietnamese but also to the use of Romanised script for the Vietnamese language (Quốc Ngữ or national language).  Rhodes was a French Jesuit priest and lexicographer who was sent to Vietnam in 1619. His dictionary was later used in the development of a Vietnamese–Latin dictionary compiled by another French missionary, Pigneau de Béhaine, in 1783. The latter work was revised by Jean-Louis Taberd and was published as a Chinese-Vietnamese-Latin dictionary in 1838.

Alexandre de Rhodes, Dictionarium Annamiticum Lusitanum et Latinum. Rome: Typis Sacr. Congreg, 1651. British Library, 70.b.16.

On March 30, 1795, the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO) (National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations) was founded in Paris, with a mission to teach living Oriental languages ‘of recognized utility for politics and commerce’. The British and the Dutch were engaged in similar academic activities, and various centres for research and scholarship in ‘Oriental Studies’ were founded in London, Leiden and overseas. In July 1800, Fort William College was established in Calcutta. Founded by Lord Wellesley, the Governor-General of British India, it emerged as a research and publication centre with a primary aim of training British civilians in languages and cultures of the subjugated country. The College published thousands of books in English, translated from major languages of the Indian subcontinent, including dictionaries of Bengali, Hindustani and Sanskrit.

In Britain, the London Oriental Institution was co-founded by John Borthwick Gilchrist and the East India Company in 1805, primarily as a college to teach Indian languages to civil servants.  Gilchrist had been the first professor of Hindustani at Fort William College in Calcutta. However, as British interests were not only limited to India but also included Southeast Asia , the Council of the Fort William College also recommend that the government of India should compile a similar work in the major languages of mainland and maritime Southeast Asia (then vaguely named collectively as the nations in the Eastern isles, between India and China). Hence, the Comparative Vocabulary of the Barma, Maláyu and Thái Languages by Dr John Leyden was published in 1810.

John Leyden, Comparative Vocabulary of Barma, Maláyu and Thái Languages. Serampore: The Mission Press, 1810.  British Library, 12904.cc.12.

The Comparative Vocabulary has 3166 entries in Burmese, Malay in Jawi script, Thai in Romanised script and English. The entries were not listed in alphabetical order but arranged by topics, such as God, nature, the elements, diseases, trades, commerce, ships, armies and warfare, and government. In the 1830s, Eliza Grew Jones, a Baptist missionary who travelled to Burma and Siam, compiled a handlist of about 8,000 Thai-English words, phrases and terms.  Her original manuscript has now disappeared, but in 1839 the Rev. Samuel P. Robin had made a copy of her work, and this manuscript dictionary is currently held in the Widener Library, Harvard University.

Printing in Thai script in Thailand only began in 1835, when an American Protestant missionary, Dr Dan Beach Bradley (1804- 1873), brought a Thai script printing press from Singapore to the kingdom. This made it possible to publish Thai and multilingual dictionaries, the first appearing in 1854. It was compiled by Auctore D. J. B. Pallegoix, a French missionary to Siam during the mid-1850s. Entries appear in Thai, Latin, French and English and were arranged according to Roman alphabetical order.

D.J.B. Pallegoix, Dictionarium Lingue Thai Sive Siamensis. Paris: Jussu Imperetoris Impressum, 1854. British Library, 825.l.13.

In 1828, A Grammar of the Thai or Siamese Language, written by Captain James Low while he was serving with the East India Company in Penang, was printed in Calcutta. This comprehensive analysis of Thai language can be regarded as one of the earliest textbooks on Thai grammar in a western language. The text also contains Thai script and a long Thai-English vocabulary. Low’s introduction to the book reads: ‘The proximity of the Siamese empire to the British settlements in the Straits of Malacca, and to the lately acquired territory of Tennasserim; the increasing number of Siamese living under British protection in these settlements; and the new political relations which exist betwixt the British and the Siamese courts; have rendered it desirable that facilities should be afforded for the study of the Siamese or Thai language, to those to whom, either from their public or professional situation, a knowledge of it may be advantageous….But it is also manifest, that without the knowledge alluded to, our intercourse with the Siamese must be limited and unsatisfactory, while we cannot expect to gain an accurate acquaintance with their real history and character as a people, or with their ideas, their literature, and their polity. ‘

James Low, A Grammar of the Thai or Siamese Language. Calcutta: The Baptist Mission Press, 1828. British Library, Grammatical Tracts 1827-36, 622.i.28 (3).

As more Westerners travelled to Southeast Asia in the 19th century, dictionaries played a vital part in facilitating dialogue with locals. Some travel journals from this period introduced lists of essential words in local languages. For example, Frederick Arthur Neale, who wrote an account of his visit to Siam in 1840, compiled a list of 100 Thai words and 18 Thai numbers in his Narrative of a Residence at the Capital of the Kingdom of Siam (Neale 1852: 238-241). When Henri Mouhot’s travel diaries of Siam, Laos and Cambodia between 1858-1860 were published in London in 1864, there was a substantial Cambodian vocabulary and list of phrases in the appendix to his book. These linguistic activities by foreign travellers illustrate Western attempts to understand Southeast Asian cultures and languages, even though they were primarily to serve their own political and economic interests.

Further reading:

Mouhot, Alexandre Henri. Travels in the central parts of Indo-China, Cambodia and Laos during the years 1858,1859, and 1860. London, 1864.

Neale, Frederick Arthur. Narrative of a Residence at the Capital of the Kingdom of Siam. London: Office of the National Illustrated Library, 1852.

Sud Chonchirdsin, Curator for Vietnamese

In my last post, I discussed the Bugis diary of Sultan Ahmad al-Salih Syamsuddin of Bone (r.1775-1812) in south Sulawesi (Add. 12354), which has just been digitised. As well as documenting the day-to-day activities at the court, royal Bugis and Makassarese diaries were designed with blank pages between each year, which could be used for notes on important events and copies of letters and treaties, as well as songs and poems, and drawings and designs.


A decorative calligraphic heading (kepala surat) to be positioned at the top of a letter, in the form of a ship made out of the pious Arabic phrase, Qawluh al-haqq wa-kalamuh al-sidq, ‘His Word is The Truth and His Speech Veracity’, drawn on a blank page in Ahmad al-Salih’s diary. British Library, Add. 12354, f. 118v.

Ahmad al-Salih’s diary is one of a number of official diaries from the court of Bone acquired by John Crawfurd, who led the British expedition against Bone in 1814. During his twenty years of service in the East India Company, stationed in Penang, Java and Singapore, Crawfurd built up an important collection of Malay, Javanese and Bugis manuscripts, which he sold to the British Museum in 1842, and which are now held in the British Library. Crawfurd used his manuscripts extensively to support his research on the history and culture of the Malay world, leading to numerous publications including the three-volume History of the Indian archipelago (1820) and A grammar and dictionary of the Malay language (1852). Crawfurd could read and speak Malay and Javanese, but not Bugis.  Soon after acquiring manuscripts from the royal library of Bone, he appears to have commissioned Malay translations of some of the most important historical notes, documents and letters recorded in the Bugis diaries. Among the Malay manuscripts in the British Library which have recently been digitised are three volumes of Malay translations of Bugis documents from Crawfurd’s collection, mostly dating from around 1814.

The first manuscript, Add. 12396, contains translations in a locally-tinged Malay of Makassarese and Bugis texts, covering the early histories of the kingdoms of Gowa and Bone in the 17th century (ff. 1v-23v).  The volume also contains miscellaneous notes on Arung Palakka and the countries defeated by him (f. 23r), and a copy of the momentous treaty of Bungaya of 1667, marking the defeat of Makassar by combined Dutch and Bugis forces from Bone under Arung Palakka. Other contents include juridical regulations, and sayings and teachings of former rulers of Wajo, Tallo' and Bone.

A list of the kings of Bone, some with indications of the number of years of their reigns, apparently made during the reign of Matinroe riRompegading (Ahmad al-Salih Syamsuddin), who died in 1812. British Library, Add. 12396, f. 25r (detail).

A second volume, Add. 12389, contains translations from Bugis diaries from the court of Bone between the years 1759-1775, 1804-1811, and 1805-1807, and from the notes and letters written on the blank pages left between years in the diaries. Topics covered include meetings of high court officials and representatives of other Sulawesi states; envoys of the Dutch authorities to the court of Bone (f. 40r); the ceremony of the investiture of the ruler or Arumpone (f.42v); and records of dreams (f. 56r). Notable in the diary of Sultan Ahmad al-Salih were reports from visitors and returned pilgrims about the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, and in this volume too is recorded, probably early in 1806, news of the Wahhabi takeover of the Hijaz.


Malay translations of notes from Bugis diaries from the court of Bone. On the right hand page is a note on a visit of an honoured guest from Mecca named Ibrahim Zayn al-‘Abidin, a descendant of the famous Sufi scholar Ahmad al-Qushashi (d.1660), who tells of the Wahhabite actions in Mecca and Medina in demolishing venerated tombs save only for that of the Prophet himself (Maka datang Syaikh Madinah Ahmad Kusasi yang punya cucu dan Ibrahim Zainal Abidin namanya … itu pula yang khabarkan dari Abdul Wahab merusakkan Makkah dan Madinah … maka dirubu(h)kan semuanya kubur dari Makka dan Madina tinggal kuburnya Nabi Muhammad yang tiada dirubuh …). Although this diary entry is undated it probably occurred in early 1806 as it follows a report of flooding on 22 December 1805 following 17 days of heavy rain (f. 57r). British Library, Add. 12389, ff. 58v-59r.

 A third manuscript, Add. 12399, contains fragments of Malay hikayat, mostly religious stories on ‘Alī, Fāṭima and the mi’rāj of the Prophet, as well as translations of letters from Bugis and Makssarese, dating from 1813 to 1814.


Copies of letters translated into Malay from Bugis. That on the left hand page is addressed affectionately to an elder female (Bahwa peluk cium kepada nenenda …) and is dated 18 January 1814.  British Library, Add. 12399, ff. 54v-55r.

Further reading

Rahilah Omar, The history of Bone AD 1775-1795: the diary of Sultan Ahmad as-Salleh Syamsuddin. [Ph.D. thesis].  University of Hull, 2003. [Available for download from the British Library ETHOS site.]

M.C.Ricklefs & P.Voorhoeve, Indonesian manuscripts in Great Britain: a catalogue of manuscripts in Indonesian languages in British public collections.  Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977.

John Crawfurd and Malay studies. Blog post, 27 May 2014.

Annabel Teh Gallop, Lead Curator, Southeast Asia

Related articles

The Bugis diary of the Sultan of Boné

John Crawfurd and Malay studies - Asian and African studies blog

The last king of the independent state of Avadh (Oudh), Muḥammad Vājid ʿAlī Shāh (1822-87, r. 1847-56), poetically known as Akhtar, regarded the arts of poetry and formal prose as an integral part of his self-expression and prerogative as a trendsetting, enlightened ruler and patron. Although Vājid ʿAlī Shāh's literary compositions are numerous, the British Library’s Persian and Urdu collections presently hold only a small number of these works, some of which are unique and are illustrated below:


'Vājid ʿAlī Shāh enthroned with attending maidservants,' a painted lithograph included in the heavily embellished Tāʾrīkh-i Mumtāz or ‘the choicest of histories,’ comprising the dethroned king’s Persian and Urdu letters and poems addressed to his consort Mumtāz Jahān the Iklīl Maḥall Ṣāḥibah (BL Or. 5288, f. 12v)

Preface (right) and painted frontispiece of 'Vājid ʿAlī Shāh seated with attendants' (left) pasted over the lithograph's original title page, from the Baḥr-i Ulfat or ‘the ocean of love’, an Urdu romantic mas̲navī  in the dāstān tradition  (BL Or.70.c.3, frontispiece)

Painted frontispiece of  'Vājid ʿAlī Shāh seated with attendants' (right) followed by the lithographed text's embellished title page (left), from the Daryā-yi Taʿashshuq or ‘the impassioned sea’, another Urdu romantic mas̲navī in the dāstān tradition (BL Or.70.c.5, frontispiece)

Opening from the Ṣawt al-Mubārak or ‘the auspicious voice,’ an important Persian prose treatise on the South Asian musical tradition and its relationship with literary tropes (BL 14835.e.1, p.2)

Beginning of the Urdu prose preface from the Dīvān-i Parīshān or ‘the dishevelled collection [of verse]’, a small Persian and Urdu dīvān notable for its idiosyncratic calligraphy, possibly by the king himself (BL Or.8648, ff. 1v-2r)

Two new sources
The British Library additionally possesses two contemporary Persian histories recording events from Vājid ʿAlī Shāh’s brief reign which deserve renewed attention having come to light as a result of our work on Charles Storey's unpublished catalogue descriptions (see our earlier blog A newly digitised unpublished catalogue of Persian manuscripts). The first of these is the history Sulṭān al-Ḥikāyāt or  ‘the ruler of stories,’ composed by Lāl-jī of Karrā in 1853 (BL IO Islamic 3902).

Page from the Sulṭān al-Ḥikāyāt showing the beginning of the first discourse, copied in 1893 by Muḥammad ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz of Ghāzīpūr from a manuscript in the library of the deceased Mawlavī Sayyid Imdād ʿAlī Khān and then dispatched to Britain for the collector, Orientalist scholar, and retired civil servant of British India, William Irvine (BL IO Islamic 3902, f. 6r)

Commencing with a brief introduction, Lāl-jī records his reaction to reading a contemporary history, the Mirʾāt al-Ishtibāh of Mawlavī Fakhr al-Dīn Ḥusayn Dihlavī commissioned by the last Timurid or Mughal Emperor, Bahādur Shāh II (d. 1862), styled in simple prose with a straightforward chronological structure. Noting the narrative complexity and difficult prose of Avadh’s official courtly histories, Lāl-jī determined to recast them with a similar emphasis on factual data, brevity, and dates according to the lunar Hijrī calendar with conversions to the Gregorian equivalent. Beginning with the history of Avadh from the origins and ascendance of Vājid ʿAlī Shāh’s ancestors, the narrative continues at a rapid pace until the period of the king’s reign; closing with the arrival in Lucknow of William H. Sleeman for his tour of Avadh.

The second of these works is the Ījāz al-Siyar or  ‘the epitome of biographies’ (BL IO Islamic 3886), by the little-known author, Pūran Chand. Described as a “history of Oudh,” the work is in reality much harder to categorise. It may be a unique work, and its condition indicates that it had not progressed much beyond the stage of a brouillon. Its folios are filled with corrections and marginal additions by several hands ranging in quality, from bold scribal nastaʿlīq to a more practiced shikastah hand.

Beginning of the Ījāz al-Siyar showing the opening preface with copious marginal additions. The work was written for Vājid ʻAlī Shāh and copied ca. 1851 (BL IO Islamic 3886, f.1r)

Pūran Chand’s preface describes the Ījāz al-Siyar as the abridgement of an as yet undiscovered, prolix chronicle, entitled the Sulṭān al-Siyar or  ‘the ruler of biographies’), commissioned officially and supervised personally by Vājid ʿAlī Shāh. However, the Ījāz al-Siyar is itself most unlike an annalist chronicle. Firstly, there is little coherence within and between its numerous sections or bāb. Secondly, its sections are not in any particular chronological order. Thirdly, its sections alternate irregularly between unrelated accounts in prose and lengthy citations of chronogrammatic poems or tāʾrīkh.

Rather than a chronicle per se, the distinctly encyclopaedic Ījāz al-Siyar lends itself to being interpreted as an anthology of supplementary abstracts and assembly of discrete compositions for the greater, narrative chronicle, the Sulṭān al-Siyar. Reinterpreted this way, the work functions in much the same way as the Āʾīn-i Akbarī complements and supplements the famous Mughal chronicle, the Akbarnāmah of Shaykh Abū al-Fazl. Taking into account the sheer length of the Ījāz al-Siyar, comprised of over 300 densely-written folios, one can only image the length and scope of the official regnal chronicle that it supplements.

For scholars of Persian literature and South Asian history, both the Sulṭān al-Ḥikāyāt and Ījāz al-Siyar deserve to be studied in detail as works that, in their own different ways, present much valuable information on an important period of history and literary efflorescence.

 
Further reading

Rosie Llewellyn-Jones, The last king in India: Wajid 'Ali Shah, 1822-1887. London: Hurst & Company, 2014

Sâqib Bâburî, Asian and African Studies

The official diaries maintained in the Bugis and Makassarese courts of south Sulawesi constitute a uniquely rich source of data for the history of Indonesia, for no other Muslim kingdoms in Southeast Asia are known to have instituted such a meticulous practice of record keeping. The diary tradition appears to have begun in the early seventeenth century, coinciding with the Islamisation of the states, but was also strongly influenced by intellectual contact with Europeans, principally the Portuguese, for the diaries are predominantly ordered by the Christian calendar.


Bugis diary of Sultan Ahmad al-Salih of Bone, showing the entries for January and February 1789. British Library, Add. 12354, ff. 105v-106r.

The British Library holds eleven volumes of court diaries in Bugis, all from the kingdom of Bone (see Ricklefs & Voorhoeve 1977: 27-35).  The earliest (MSS Bugis 1), covering the dates 1660 to 1696, is that of Arung Palakka, the 16th ruler who engineered the spectacular rise of Bone in the 17th century by allying himself with the Dutch to defeat the kingdom of Makassar in 1669.  Other diaries, some kept by senior court officials, cover the periods 1714 through to 1809, albeit with some gaps.  One of the most important Bugis diaries in the British Library, Add. 12354, has just been digitised. This is the diary of Ahmad al-Salih Syamsuddin, who ruled as the 22nd sultan of Bone from 1775 until his death in July 1812. An adherent of the Khalwatiyya Sufi brotherhood, Ahmad al-Salih was renowned for his religious learning, and was the patron of an exceptionally fine illuminated Qur’an manuscript (Gallop 2010). He began writing the diary in his own hand on 1 January 1775, and continued until the end of 1795. His diary was recently the subject of a doctoral dissertation by Rahilah Omar (2003), and the comments below are largely based on Rahilah’s pioneering study.


Detail from an ornamental calligraphic design, found on a spare page at the end of Sultan Ahmad al-Salih’s diary. British Library, Add. 12354, f. 201v (detail).

Sultan Ahmad al-Salih’s diary was prepared according to the standard format for official Bugis diaries. Large folio-sized sheets of high-quality European, usually Dutch, paper were bound in volumes, with one page allocated to each calendar month of the year. At the top of the page was written in red ink on the right the year in the Christian era in ‘European’ numerals, and on the left the Portuguese name of the month in the adapted form of the Arabic script called Jawi. In the middle, in black ink, was inscribed the equivalent month, not according to the Hijrah era as might be expected, but according to the Ottoman ‘Rumi’ solar calendar.  Each Friday (Jumaat) is highlighted in red, with an elaborate knotted final letter, ta marbuta. One line was allocated for each day of the month, also written in European numerals. Following the end of one year, and the start of a new one, two pages were left blank. These pages could be filled with notes or copies of letters or other important documents, or sometimes doodles and interesting examples of designs.


The first entry in Sultan Ahmad al-Salih's diary: on 1 January 1775 he wrote, in Bugis and Arabic, ‘I started writing this diary. God's blessing. There is no god but God, Muhammad is His Messenger.’  At top left in red is the month Janir (from the Portuguese Janeiro); in the middle is the Ottoman month Kānūn al-thānī; on on the right is the year in the Christian Gregorian era, hir 1775. British Library, Add. 12354, f. 6v (detail).

Daily entries in the diary are written in the Bugis language, and in the Bugis script of Indic origin, but with occasional conventional pious phrases in Arabic, such as baraka Allah, ‘God’s blessing’. As Bugis script is written from left to right while Arabic is written from right to left, a certain amount of planning was needed on the part of the writer to estimate exactly how much room to leave in order to fit in a phrase in Arabic.  Some pages have lines left blank on days when no entry was made. On particularly busy days, entries could easily stretch to more than a line, and extra text was fitted in by making judicious right-angled turns wherever spaced allowed, resulting in labyrinthine patterns across the page.


Sultan Ahmad al-Salih noted on a spare page in his diary the milestones of his personal life: at the top, his marriage to I Tenripada on 3 November 1774, followed by the dates of the births of six of his children, starting with Siti Fatimah at 7 a.m. on Monday 27 Syaaban 1189, equivalent to 23 October 1775. British Library, Add. 12354, f. 184v (detail).

Apart from major political events, in his diary Ahmad al-Salih also comments on the wide range of economic activities in Bone, from wet-rice cultivation to fish-farming, with information on taxes levied on land and river tolls, and the role of slavery. Hobbies and pastimes such as horse riding, sailing on the river, cock fighting and literary pursuits are all noted. Religious festivals are described, and a steady stream of people come to request permission from the sultan to perform the pilgrimage to Mecca (and in 2013 Ahmad al-Salih's diary was selected for display in the British Museum exhibition, Hajj: journey to the heart of Islam). There is information on an exceptionally varied number of subjects, from bride prices to infant mortality. Over the twenty years covered in the diary Ahmad al-Salih documents 89 births in court circles, including 11 deaths and the reasons for these, whether premature delivery or stillbirth (Rahilah 2003: 206). Rahilah has commented that the sultan's remarks are generally factual and he rarely makes personal comments. Nonetheless, amongst the births he describes, only in the case of his own wife does he depict the agony of a woman in labour, noting on 16 December 1794, 'Puang Batara Tungkeq screamed as she suffers [a terrible] stomach pain'. Luckily, the delivery of the baby went well, and the sultan expressed his gratitude and fondness with a gift: 'After 2.00 [p.m.] Puang Batara Tungkeq gave birth to a baby boy ... I gave her two jemma [court maids] as a sign of good wishes for her health' (Rahilah 2003: 205). This is just one of the wealth  of details contained in Sultan Ahmad al-Salih's diary on all aspects of life – political, diplomatic, religious, economic, social and cultural – in Bone in the late 18th century, as uncovered in Rahilah Omar's study.

Further reading

Rahilah Omar, The history of Bone AD 1775-1795: the diary of Sultan Ahmad as-Salleh Syamsuddin. [Ph.D. thesis].  University of Hull, 2003. [Available for download from the British Library ETHOS site.]

M.C.Ricklefs & P.Voorhoeve, Indonesian manuscripts in Great Britain: a catalogue of manuscripts in Indonesian languages in British public collections.  Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977.

Annabel Teh Gallop, The Boné Qur’an from South Sulawesi.  Treasures of the Aga Khan Museum: Arts of the book and calligraphy, ed. Margaret S. Graves and Benoît Junod.  Istanbul: Aga Khan Trust for Culture and Sakip Sabanci University & Museum, 2010, pp.162-173.

Annabel Teh Gallop, Lead Curator, Southeast Asia

On the 21 November 1903, George Curzon, the Viceroy of Britain’s Indian Empire, held an ostentatious ceremony aboard the Argonaut while anchored of the coast of Sharjah in the Persian Gulf. In attendance were all the rulers of the Trucial Coast (now the United Arab Emirates) along with other guests from the region. The Durbar (Persian darbār 'court'), as such performances were known, was part of a tour of the Gulf that was conceived by Curzon as a way of shoring up the frontiers of the Indian Empire against the threat of the other European powers.
 

Lord Curzon’s Durbar aboard RIMS Argonaut, Sharjah (British Library, Photo 49/1(7))

This kind of ritual was a feature of rule borrowed by the British from the Mughal emperors they had replaced in India. It was an act of royal incorporation, designed to establish, legitimise, and entrench the hierarchies of empire. A photograph from the Dane collection at the British Library shows Curzon, enthroned at centre stage, surrounded by the symbols of Indian (the carpets, the guard of men behind) and British monarchical (the crowns in the roof of the tent, the Christian cross) authority. To the Viceroy’s right sit the Arab dignitaries. Some, deprived of chairs, are kneeling or sitting on the floor.

Curzon had held a much grander version of the durbar in Delhi earlier that year to mark the coronation of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra as Emperor and Empress of India. The ‘Official Directory of the Delhi Coronation Durbar ’ tells us that, from the Gulf region, only the Sultan of Muscat’s son and some of the tribal leaders of the Aden Protectorate attended this lavish expression of imperial rule; a reflection of where the Gulf and its rulers stood within the colonial order.

Shah Jahan, Mughal Emperor, in durbar in the Diwan-i-Am at Delhi (British Library, Add.Or.3853)

Several years later, the Government of India wrote to the Political Residency at Bushire requesting that they revise the ‘extracts from the Alqabnamah’ that relate to the Gulf. The Alqabnamah (Persian alqābnāmah 'book of titles'), first compiled in 1865, was a register of Indian princes containing information on the correct title and form of address to be used for each. It included such details as the number of guns in a ruler’s salute and the material used for the bag that carried their correspondence.

The 1935 edition of the Alqabnamah (British Library, IOR/R/15/1/734)

Between 1912 and the end of British rule in India in 1947, numerous revisions of the Alqabnamah were made. The discussion over these revisions reveals how the British viewed the political landscape in the Gulf. The evolution of the list shows the shifts in that landscape. From early on there is a clear hierarchy that is reflected in the distinctions accorded to each ruler, such as the terms of address used and with whom they could correspond with.

In 1912, Muscat was the only authority that could receive a letter from the Viceroy himself. This honour was granted to Bahrain and Kuwait five years later. The highest ranking officer that Qatar and the Trucial shaikhs would ever receive letters from was the Political Resident.

The wording used when addressing these rulers was also a matter that warranted much attention. During a clean-up of the register in 1925, Francis Prideaux, the Political Resident, initiated a discussion over the use of the term sa‘ādah, equivalent to ‘excellency’ or ‘grace’. Mirza ‘Ali, a Residency assistant, suggested that the word be used for Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar. However, James More, the Political Agent at Kuwait, questioned whether Qatar qualified as an ‘excellency’. The Agent at Bahrain, Clive Daly, balked at the idea that the term be used for the Trucial shaikhs, arguing that their ‘position and political importance’ was ‘considerably less’ than that of the rulers of Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar, and that it would be ‘unnecessarily flattering’. By 1935 Bahrain and Kuwait were being addressed as ‘Your Highness’ while Qatar remained ‘Your Excellency’.

Extract from a letter from James More, Political Agent at Kuwait, outlining his suggestions for the correct forms of address for the rulers of Najd, Muscat, and Kuwait, 21 February 1926 (British Library, IOR/R/15/1/237, f. 80)

This order of importance can be explained by the political situation in the Gulf at the time. Bahrain was of economic significance to the British and its position made it an important transit point and base for naval operations. Up until the end of the First World War, Kuwait had an ambiguous relationship with Ottoman Turkey and it remained a potential entry point into the Gulf for other powers that the British wished to exclude. The promise of oil in all three countries was also a major factor.

The number of guns in a ruler’s salute reflects this same order. The Sultan of Muscat enjoyed the rare privilege of a twenty-one gun salute, putting him on a par with the most senior of Indian princes. Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar were each given seven guns. The Trucial Shaikhs, safely bound by century-old treaties and not deemed powerful enough to either be a problem or to offer any sort of advantage, were given the lowest salute of three guns each (except Abu Dhabi, which received five guns).

Extract from the 1935 edition of the Alqabnamah, showing the Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar entries (British Library, IOR/R/15/1/734)

Political changes in the region can also be detected in changes to the register. The Shaikh of Mohammerah (now Khorramshahr), for example, appears early on. At a time when Britain was seeking to maintain their economic dominance of south-western Persia, the Shaikh was given honours equivalent to those of Bahrain and Kuwait, sometimes higher. In 1926, however, following political centralisation under Reza Shah, the Shaikh lost most his power and the British lost their foothold in the area. Mohammerah was subsequently removed from the list.

Curzon’s tour of the region and the inclusion of its rulers in the Alqabnamah were both part of a process of locating the Gulf within Britain’s Indian empire. They are incidences of the Gulf’s incorporation into a system of ‘indirect rule’ that was born after the Great Rebellion of 1857 and was based upon more ‘traditional’ and ‘ancient’ articulations of authority. They placed each ‘princely state’ of the Persian Gulf within the colonial hierarchy, and helped to establish and normalise a regional order that reflected the political changes that occurred.

Many of the documents and photographs mentioned here, including copies and extracts from the Alqabnamah, are being digitised as part of the British Library Qatar Foundation Partnership and will be available online through the Qatar Digital Library.

Primary Sources
British Library: India Office Select Materials, Dane Collection: ‘Photographs of Lord Curzon’s tour in the Persian Gulf, November, 1903’, India Office Records and Private Papers Photo 49/1
British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, ‘File 13/166 Forms of addresses while corresponding with native chiefs in the Gulf’, IOR/R/15/1/237
British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, ‘List Showing the Names, Titles and Modes of Address of the More Important Sovereigns, Ruling Princes, Chiefs, Nobles etc., Having Relations with the Indian Governmen, Alqabnamah’, IOR/R/15/1/734
British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, ‘Official directory of the Delhi Coronation Durbar: 3 copies’, Mss Eur F112/466

Further Reading
David Cannadine, Ornamentalism: How the British Saw Their Empire, (London, 2001)
Bernard Cohn, Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge: The British in India, (Princeton, 1996)
Encyclodædia Iranica, ‘ALQĀB VA ʿANĀWĪN: titles and forms of address, employed in Iran from pre-Islamic times’
Thomas Metcalf, Ideologies of the Raj (The New Cambridge History of India), (Cambridge, 1995)
Kristopher Radford, ‘Curzon’s Cruise: The Pomp and Circumstances of Indian Indirect Rule of the Persian Gulf’, The International History Review, Vol. 35, Iss. 4, (Jul 2013)
John M. Willis, ‘Making Yemen Indian: Rewriting the Boundaries of Imperial Arabia’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 41 (2009), pp. 23-38

 

John Hayhurst, Project Officer – Gulf History Specialist, BL/QF Partnership
[email protected]

 

Related articles

George Percy Churchill’s Biographical Notices of Persian Statesmen and Notables

Christmas and New Year in the Persian Gulf: Protocol and Ceremony

Three interesting portraits on ivory of Mughal ladies of the imperial zenana were acquired by the Visual Arts section in 2012, now numbered Add.Or.5719-5721.  All three were mounted in one frame with pasted down inscriptions below relating to the subject and the artist, while attached to the back of the frame were three envelopes which once contained the miniatures and which were written further particulars.  The paintings were sold in Delhi in these envelopes in 1900 by Sultan Ahmad Khan, who styles himself the son of one painter Muhammad Fazl Khan and grandson of another painter Muhammad ‘Azim, both of whom are named as artists in the inscriptions.  The purchaser must have put them into their present gilt frame and fortunately also preserved the various inscriptions and attestations.  All three are supposed to be portraits of some of the wives of the Mughal Emperor Akbar II (r. 1806-37).  For a more correct appreciation of who they might be, we rely on that invaluable on-line resource, The Royal Ark.  None of these ladies’ names unfortunately appears among the numerous wives of Akbar II, but that does not necessarily detract from the validity of the inscriptions of artistic interest. 

A lady meant to be Shaukat Begum, perhaps the great-granddaughter of Akbar II.  By Muhammad ‘Azim, Delhi, c. 1840-50.  Watercolour on ivory.  106 x 85 mm.  British Library, Add.Or.5719

The first portrait is a half-length of a Mughal lady facing the viewer holding a rose and draped in a red Kashmiri shawl, standing on a terrace with a column and balustrade behind overlooking the trees of a garden.  It is inscribed on the front: Portrait of Shaukat Begum of the harem of Akbar II.  Painted by Mohammed Aizim.  Original picture guaranteed by his grandson Sultan Ahmed Khan.  And on the back: Original picture by Mahommad Aizim artist who died about 1850.  Picture of Shaukat Begum of the harem of Akbar II. Sold and guaranteed by Sultan Ahmed Khan son of Mohommud Fuzul Khan & grandson of Mahomud Aizim Delhi 25 Jan 1900.  The details of the guarantor are also noted in Urdu.  The naturalistic viewpoint and the general setting of the portrait are of course derived from British portraits of the early 19^th century which by this time had been seen in Delhi in considerable numbers.  What the Delhi artists contributed is their exquisite refinement of features and of details of clothing and jewellery.

There seems to be no Shaukat Begum listed among the wives of Akbar II.  However, Nawab Shaukat Sultan Begum Sahiba is listed as a daughter of Mirza Mahmud Shah, the second son of Mirza Babur (1796-1835), who was the seventh son of the Emperor Akbar II.  A very similar portrait on ivory but in an oval frame is in the V & A (IS.529-1950, Archer 1992, no. 259/7), where it is thought to be dated 1860-70, one of a set of portraits depicting Mughal ladies, all unfortunately without inscriptions.  For the artist, see below.

A lady meant to be Akhtar Mahal., one of the wives of Bahadur Shah Zafar.  By Muhammad Fazl, Delhi, c. 1850.  Watercolour on ivory.  Oval, 109 x 85 mm.  British Library, Add.Or.5720

The second of these images is an oval bust portrait of a lady holding a kitten.  Her loose hair is dressed in a rather European manner and she has no veil covering it.  It is inscribed on the front:  Portrait of Aktar Mahal Persian wife of Akbar.  Painted by Mahommed Faizul artist Delhi about 1825.  And on the back: Painted by Mahomed Fuzal portrait of Persian wife of Akbar [damage A]ktar Mahal.  Portrait is painted by Mohommed Faizal painter Delhi.  Zoolfkar Khan miniature painter Delhi [this last seems to be an attestation].  Nawab Akhtar Mahal Begum Sahiba is listed as the eighth wife of Akbar’s son and successor the Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar (r. 1837-58), whom he married in 1847.  She was previously a concubine named Man Bai, which seems to be reflected here in her pose and attire.  Rather than the traditional format as seen in the other two portraits, the artist has been influenced by a more sentimental type of Victorian portrait.  Muhammad Fazl is not an artist about whose work anything is presently known.

A lady meant to be Sharafat al-Mahal, one of the wives of Bahadur Shah.  By Amir al-Din, c. 1850-60, after an original by Muhammad Fazl.  Watercolour on ivory.  87 x 68 mm.  British Library, Add.Or.5721

The third portrait is a half-length of a lady seated before a large cushion holding a necklace of pearls which she has taken from a jewel box.  Behind her are the standard curtain drape and the sky without an intervening balustrade.  It is inscribed in front:  Portrait of Asrafat Mahal wife of Akbar.  From original by Mahommed Faizul by his pupil Amiruddin.  And on the back: Picture of Ashrafat Mahal copy of original copied by Amiruddin pupil of Mahomed Fuzal son of Mahomud Aizim who died about 1850 [with the same guarantor’s details in English and in Urdu as Add.Or.5719 above].  A Nawab Sharafat al-Mahal Begum Sahiba [Moti Begum], a Sayyidani, is listed as the third wife of the Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar.  She was the mother of Mirza Mughal (1817-57), one of Bahadur Shah’s sons most active in the events of 1857 and who was one of the princes shot by Major Hodson on 22 September 1857.  Again the artist’s name is unknown.

Delhi artists in the first half of the 19^th century were catering to a voyeuristic market and many imperial Mughal ladies from Nur Jahan onwards had iconographies set by these artists in this period.  Their features scarcely change from lady to lady – here Shaukat Begum and Sharafat Mahal look very alike with their pale oval faces, long dark hair and similar eyes, noses and mouths – and these features were also used for portraits meant to be of Mumtaz Mahal, Akbar II’s favourite wife and mother of his favourite son Mirza Jahangir, and were continued in portraits meant to be of Zinat Mahal, the favourite wife of the Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar (r. 1837-58).  Earlier Mughal ladies were also given the same treatment – see Archer 1992 pp. 218-23 for the many examples in the V&A.  Those in the India Office Library’s collections are listed in Archer 1972 (pp. 204-08).  Their numbers have been added to since then and will be the subjects of future blogs.

Sultan Ahmad Khan’s inscription in 1900 tells us that he was the son of the artist Muhammad Fazl Khan, whose name is not otherwise known, and the grandson of Muhammad ‘Azim, about whom we know a lot more.  Emily Eden met this artist when travelling with her brother the Governor-General Lord Auckland to Lahore in 1838-39.  On her return in 1839 with her sketchbook full of portraits of the Sikhs she had met at Lahore, she records:  ‘I have had two Delhi miniature painters here translating two of my sketches into ivory, and I never saw anything so perfect as their copy of Runjeet Singh.  Azim, the best painter, is almost a genius;  except that he knows no perspective, so that he can only copy.  He is quite mad about some of my sketches, and as all miniatures of well-known characters sell well, he was determined to get hold of my book’ (Eden 1866, vol. 2, pp. 73-74).  The other painter is Jivan Ram, some of whose work in both oils on canvas and watercolour on ivory has surfaced in recent years and is the subject of a previous blog post and also of a forthcoming article by the present writer.

Miss Eden’s ‘Azim’ is possibly the same as the artist Shaikh ‘Azim, who produced a portrait on ivory of Kate Ford taken on the occasion of her marriage in 1845, and acquired in 2009.  It is inscribed on a backing sheet in English:  ‘Kate Ford. Taken by Sheikh Azim, Delhi, Nov. 13th 1845’; and in faint Persian in red:  kamtarin-i Shaykh ‘Azim musavvir sakin-i Dihli (‘the insignificant Shaykh ‘Azim the painter, resident of Delhi’).  The sitter is Catherine Margaret Ford, daughter of Major-General John Anthony Hodgson (1777-1848), Bengal Army 1800-48, and Surveyor-General of India.  Born in 1823, she was married in Delhi in 1845 to William Ford (1821-1905), Bengal Civil Service 1843-69.  She is seated dressed in a low cut dark blue gown with a Kashmir shawl draped around her.  Her hair is looped in front of her ears in the early Victorian fashion.  A vase of flowers stands on a table behind her.  All this is in the latest taste for female portraiture.

Mrs Catherine Ford, née Hodgson (b. 1823).  By Shaikh ‘Azim, Delhi. 1845.  Watercolour on ivory.  85 x 70mm.  British Library, Add.Or.5641.

This portrait is in a very different style and although Delhi artists were able to change their style at will to suit their patron’s taste, it is possible that it is by a different artist.  There were several artists with similar names working in 19^th century India and further inscriptions need to be discovered on other paintings to verify or disprove this identity.

 

J.P. Losty
Curator of Visual Arts, Emeritus

 

Further Reading:

Archer, M., Company Drawings in the India Office Library, HMSO, London, 1972

Archer, M., Company Paintings:  Indian Paintings of the British Period, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1992

Eden, Emily, Up the Country: Letters written to her Sister from the Upper Provinces of India, London, 1866

Losty, J.P., ‘Raja Jivan Ram:  a Professional Indian Portrait Painter of the Early Nineteenth Century’, in Electronic BLJ, forthcoming

http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/asian-and-african/2014/01/a-new-portrait-miniature-by-jivan-ram-acquired.html

http://www.royalark.net/India4/delhi19.htm

 

In the British administered Persian Gulf, the festive period was a time of celebration for colonial officers and their families, yet it still required the imperial protocol and ceremony that helped to solidify hierarchies of power.

On Christmas and New Year's Day, as on the two major Islamic festivals and the monarch’s birthday, local rulers and notables paid personal calls to colonial officers, and the Residency or Agency building’s flagstaff was ceremonially dressed and decorated. Archival files dealing with general etiquette and procedures observed for the Muslim holidays of Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha contain interesting details about how Christmas and New Year were observed in the Persian Gulf.

'Entrance to Bushire Residency' (Photo 355/1/34)

Christmas Greetings from the Persian Gulf
Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, the Political Agent at Bahrain would receive personal visits from the ruling Al Khalifah sheikhs of Bahrain and local merchants on Christmas and New Year’s Day.

However, calls in person were not possible for the sheikhs of the Trucial Coast (modern-day United Arab Emirates) and Qatar with whom the Political Agent also corresponded, either personally or through a native agent. Therefore, letters and greetings cards were sent instead. Shown here are a few examples sent from Sheikh Sultan bin Saqr Al Qasimi, ruler of Sharjah between 1924-1951.

Two cards from Sheikh Sultan bin Saqr Al Qasimi to the Political Agent, Bahrain (IOR/R/15/2/1942, f. 129v)

With a letter, dated 21 Shawwal 1356 [24 December 1937], offering belated thanks for the Political Agent’s Eid al-Fitr greetings, the Sheikh sent two cards. The first card offers thanks to the Political Agent for his Eid greetings [nashkurukum ‘alá tahni’atikum lanā bihādhā al-‘īd al-sa‘īd] while the second card wishes him a Happy Christmas [‘īd al-milād al-sa‘īd].

Another letter in Arabic, dated 11 Shawwal 1355 [25 December 1936] to the Political Agent contains the following: ‘On the occasion of Christmas [ḥulūl al-‘īd al-masīḥī] I offer you my heartfelt greetings praying to God to give you a long life full of prosperity’.

Letter from Sheikh Sultan bin Saqr Al Qasimi to the Political Agent, Bahrain (IOR/R/15/2/1942, f. 58)

As well as sending his greetings to the Political Agent at Bahrain, Sheikh Sultan bin Saqr would also write to the Political Resident at Bushire, for example his letter of 5 Dhu al-Hijjah 1360 [29 December 1942] wishing him a merry Christmas and hoping that he should ‘enjoy good health and prosperity [kamāl al-ṣiḥḥah wa al-rafāh]’. The Political Resident responded with a letter dated 18 January 1943: ‘I thank you for your wishes for Christmas [‘īd milād sayyidinā al-masīḥ], and hope that you will enjoy good health and prosperity’.

It was also common for Political Agents to receive Christmas greetings from local merchants and notables as well as rulers. An example from Yusuf bin Ahmad Kanoo appears on headed stationary decorated with a star and crescent moon over a palm tree. The Political Agent responded with a quick line to thank him for his ‘kind note of greetings for Christmas and New Year’, and for a delivery of  ‘delicious fruit’ that was sent to mark the occasion.

Card from Yusuf bin Ahmad Kanoo to the Political Agent, Bahrain (IOR/R/15/2/646, f. 26)

A further example is a letter, dated 24 December 1936, received from a prominent Qatari merchant, Salih bin Sulayman al-Man‘i: ‘On the occasion of Christmas [‘īd al-krismas], I write to offer you my heartiest congratulations and pray God to let you have many returns of the day in good health and full happiness’.


Letter from Salih bin Sulayman al-Man‘i to the Political Agent, Bahrain (IOR/R/15/2/1942, f. 48)

Expats and Missionaries
Protestant missionaries of the Dutch Reformed Church in America, known interchangeably as the American or Arabian Mission, were active in the Persian Gulf from the turn of the twentieth century. As well as their (not very successful) proselytizing to the indigenous population, they provided a religious framework for expats and the British colonial establishment residing in the region.

On 23 December 1936, Reverend Gerrit Van Peurseum, a missionary stationed at Bahrain, invited the Political Agent and his wife to a ‘Divine Service’ on Christmas Day at the American Mission. The Political Agent took part in the service by undertaking to read Biblical passages, which included Isaiah 9:2-8 and 11:1-10, and Luke 2:1-22.

Order of Service, Christmas 1936 (IOR/R/15/2/646, f. 128)

However, relations with the missionaries were not always straightforward. Dr Rev Louis P. Dame, another missionary stationed at Bahrain, wrote an annoyed letter to the Political Agent on Easter Sunday 1934 complaining that the Agency flags had been raised earlier that week for a ‘Moslem holiday’ (Eid al-Adha), but, as he wrote, ‘To-day is a Christian holiday, shouldn’t they be displayed also!’ The Political Agent wrote back with a one line response that ‘the flags of this Agency are displayed on the Christian holiday of Christmas.’

Letter from L. P. Dame to the Political Agent, Bahrain (IOR/R/15/2/646, f. 40)

Indeed, the missionaries were viewed with some scorn since their practices and hymns were different from those to which some were accustomed. In his diaries, Charles Dalrymple Belgrave, the Adviser to the Government of Bahrain, describes the missionaries as ‘frigid’ and ‘tiresome’. In several entries on Christmas, he notes how they ‘annoyed everyone by singing some tiresome American hymns with no words or tune that anyone had ever heard before’ and how they provided ‘a very dull uninspiring service and unchristmassy hymns’.

The reality was that Belgrave, and most likely the British colonial establishment in the Persian Gulf, viewed the Mission’s Americaness with a degree of cultural snobbery. In addition, this was tinged with recurring suspicions that they were representing American geopolitical interests in the region, or, worse, they harboured secret loyalties to Germany due to their Germanic origins (see earlier post on American propaganda in post-war Bahrain). In another diary entry in 1926, Belgrave remarks: ‘[…] a long solo sung by a female with a dreadful voice and a German accent, and a sermon in broadest American which lasted half an hour’. We can only imagine what Belgrave would make of the prevalence today of ʻO Christmas Treeʼ based on the German song ʻO Tannenbaumʼ or the quintessentially ‘Christmassy’ and American ʻAll I Want for Christmas Is Youʼ by Mariah Carey.

Primary Sources
British Library, ‘File 27/2 I Etiquette’ IOR/R/15/2/646
British Library, ‘File G/7 I ʻId calls, letters and notices’ IOR/R/15/2/1942
British Library, ‘File G/7 II ʻId calls, letters and notices’ IOR/R/15/2/1943
University of Exeter, Special Collections, ‘Belgrave Diaries’, Papers of Charles Dalrymple Belgrave, 1926-1957

Daniel A. Lowe, Arabic Language and Gulf History Specialist (@dan_a_lowe)

Related articles

George Percy Churchill's Biographical Notices of Persian Statesmen and Notables

In a previous blog (Fashion in 14th century Mosul) we wrote about three leaves loaned to an exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery in London from the British Library's copy (Or.14140) of the Arabic treatise ‘Ajā’ib al-makhlūqāt wa-gharā’ib al-mawjūdāt (عجائب المخلوقات وغرائب الموجودات), an encyclopaedic work on cosmology, generally referred to as Wonders of Creation, by Zakarīyā ibn Muḥammad al-Qazwīnī (c. 1203-83). This is the first work to deal with this subject in an exhaustive and systematic way in the Islamic world; it enjoyed great popularity and was translated into Persian and Turkish.

Fabulous giant bird illustrating the story of the how the man from Isfahan was rescued from a desert island and carried to safety by clinging to the bird's leg  (Or.14140, f. 39r)

I am delighted to announce that all 135 folios of Or.14140, containing 368 miniature paintings, have now been uploaded to the Qatar Digital Library, a project of the British Library Qatar Foundation Partnership to digitise the British Library’s Arabic scientific manuscripts (see Arabic scientific manuscripts go live in Qatar Digital Library).


ʻAmr ibn al-ʻĀs, conqueror of Egypt in AD 640-42, advises on how to restore the waters of the river Nile. The brick structure in the water is a Nilometer, a device for measuring the water flow in the flood season (Or.14140, f. 62v)

There are very few early Arabic copies of this text, and this manuscript is thought to have been produced in Mosul at the very beginning of the 14^th century. According to the undated colophon, it was copied from a manuscript copied by the author himself. The British Library purchased it from a London dealer in 1983. Originally, when the manuscript was produced in the 14^th century, it was a bound codex. When it came into the library the manuscript had lost its binding, and the leaves were in such a bad condition that each one required extensive conservation. Each leaf was painstakingly conserved, individually encased in plastic sheeting and framed in a card mount. It is now stored in eight boxes. It took a dedicated conservator almost four years to complete this project. Although it is now mounted in separate frames, its original codex format is preserved in the digital version which can be read from beginning to end in one sequence.

Once it was in a fit condition for study, Dr Stefano Carboni was able to conduct exhaustive research of the manuscript’s artistic contents. He identified the subject matter of each painting, and placed the manuscript within the art historical traditions of its age.  His descriptions are available in his thesis and are due to be published as a book in 2015 (see Further reading).

King Solomon sitting on his throne surrounded by Jinns with angels above (Or.14140, f. 100r)

This treasure of the British Library’s Arabic manuscript collection, also known as the London Qazwīnī, is best known for its miniature paintings. Covering a wide range of subjects, including such things as wildlife, plants, legendary beasts, mythical figures and daily life, the illustrations show influence from Byzantine painting traditions and display aspects of fourteenth-century costume and architecture. The manuscript is also a fascinating source for historians of Islamic art, and folios are often requested for exhibitions in the UK and abroad. Now you don’t need to wait for an exhibition to see this fantastic manuscript.

 

Further reading

Stefano Carboni, “The London Qazwini: An Early 14th Century Copy of the ʿAjāʾib al-makhlūqāt,” Islamic Art: An Annual Dedicated to the Art and Culture of the Muslim World 3, 1988-89, pp. 15-31.
—, “The Wonders of Creation and the Singularities of Ilkhanid Painting: A Study of the London Qazwini British Library Ms. Or. 14140,” Ph.D. diss., School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1992. Download free from British Library Electronic Theses Online Services (ETHoS).
—, The 'Wonders of Creation': a Study of the Ilkhanid 'London Qazwini', Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2015.

 

Colin F. Baker, Lead Curator, Middle Eastern Studies

Related articles

Arabic scientific manuscripts go live in Qatar Digital Library

Fashion in 14th century Mosul: a new exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery