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Lot Essay
Inscription:
The main chevron with the shahada, with Qur'an, sura al-baqara, v.144 above and the tasbih below. Between the chevrons, lanterns with 'Oh the Ever-Bestowing!' and 'Oh the Most-Compassionate!' and roundels with 'Oh the All-Sovereign!' and 'Praise be to Allah!'
In the Ottoman period, red silks with zig-zag patterns in an ivory-coloured embroidery were woven to hang on the interior of the Ka’aba. Beginning with purely inscriptional examples in the sixteenth century, the designs became increasingly elaborate as can be seen from the present example. The lamps between the chevrons seem to hang from a loop created by the letters themselves. The Qur’anic verse is also deliberately chosen for its reference to the qibla, exhorting believers to ‘turn your face towards the Holy Mosque’. There are more than forty examples of red-ground silks of this type in the Topkapi collection, of which some are published by Hülya Tezcan (Sacred Covers of Islam’s Holy Shrines with samples from the Topkapi Palace, Istanbul, 2017, pp.200-01, cat.30).
The main chevron with the shahada, with Qur'an, sura al-baqara, v.144 above and the tasbih below. Between the chevrons, lanterns with 'Oh the Ever-Bestowing!' and 'Oh the Most-Compassionate!' and roundels with 'Oh the All-Sovereign!' and 'Praise be to Allah!'
In the Ottoman period, red silks with zig-zag patterns in an ivory-coloured embroidery were woven to hang on the interior of the Ka’aba. Beginning with purely inscriptional examples in the sixteenth century, the designs became increasingly elaborate as can be seen from the present example. The lamps between the chevrons seem to hang from a loop created by the letters themselves. The Qur’anic verse is also deliberately chosen for its reference to the qibla, exhorting believers to ‘turn your face towards the Holy Mosque’. There are more than forty examples of red-ground silks of this type in the Topkapi collection, of which some are published by Hülya Tezcan (Sacred Covers of Islam’s Holy Shrines with samples from the Topkapi Palace, Istanbul, 2017, pp.200-01, cat.30).