Lot Essay
This versified horoscope is dedicated to Sa'd Ullah b. Sharaf al-Mulk and concerns the timings of the seven planets, a chronology of prophets and the successors of the Prophet Muhammad; a chronology of the descendants of Khawarazm Shah Qutb al-Din to Sultan 'Alam; how to take an oath from the movements of the stars; the laws of nature which form a rainbow; a calendar for the coming twelve months with auspicious and inauspicious dates. On f1v. is a letter from an unnamed friend expressing his love and saying how much he misses his friend, which does not appear to be directly connected to the manuscript although it is in the style of one high noble to another and may be by or from the same Sa'd Ullah for whom the horoscope was written. The city where this document was written was razed to the ground by the Mongol hordes in the following year. This manuscript is, therefore, an intriguing relic of the Seljuk period.
This rare and fascinating document provides an example of miniature painting from a period scarce in manuscripts but rich in painting on ceramics. The human figures with their long black braids, Seljuk features and gold-embroidered robes are familiar from contemporary Mina'i pottery. Only one other manuscript from this period survived the Mongol invasions, Varque e Gulshah, now preserved in the Topkapi Serai; the date of this manuscript is unknown, but one possible patron of the manuscript is the Khawarazm Shah Abu'l Qasim Mahmud b. al-Aslan who died in 1193 AD. The miniatures in this manuscript also show the same type of human figure as is found on contemporary ceramics and which appear here. A dragon's head of the type found on f.6r is to be seen engraved on the now destroyed doorway of Talisman in Baghdad, built in 1221 (Talbot Rice, D.: Islamic Art, London, 1965, p.103) and appears in a frontispiece of the pseudo-Galen Book of Antidotes of 1199 in the Bibliotheque National in Paris.
This rare and fascinating document provides an example of miniature painting from a period scarce in manuscripts but rich in painting on ceramics. The human figures with their long black braids, Seljuk features and gold-embroidered robes are familiar from contemporary Mina'i pottery. Only one other manuscript from this period survived the Mongol invasions, Varque e Gulshah, now preserved in the Topkapi Serai; the date of this manuscript is unknown, but one possible patron of the manuscript is the Khawarazm Shah Abu'l Qasim Mahmud b. al-Aslan who died in 1193 AD. The miniatures in this manuscript also show the same type of human figure as is found on contemporary ceramics and which appear here. A dragon's head of the type found on f.6r is to be seen engraved on the now destroyed doorway of Talisman in Baghdad, built in 1221 (Talbot Rice, D.: Islamic Art, London, 1965, p.103) and appears in a frontispiece of the pseudo-Galen Book of Antidotes of 1199 in the Bibliotheque National in Paris.