Ustad Muhammad Siyah Qalam (Muhammad, proficient in drawing) worked in the 15th century. It is not clear whether he lived early or late in the century or where he came from. It has been hazarded that he was an eastern Turk of Uyghur origin due to the realism and grotesqueness of much of the subject matter of his drawing. Certainly his work was eclectic and drew on far eastern Mongol and Turkman influences as well as Ottoman ones.
Much of his work is collected in the Istanbul Albums in the Topkapi Sarayi Library and shows his diverse styles. He drew figures, demons, dragons and, as in this folio, real and imagined wildlife. A number of examples of the latter (H.2153) show spotted wolves in various positions and the position of a cat (H.2153, f.21r.) bears a strong similarity to that of the hyena in the present folio. A leaf of very similar size and format is in the Los Angeles County Museum suggesting that a number of these wildlife pictures were possibly collected in an album at one time.

Emel Esin, Muhammad Siyah Qalam and the Inner Asian Turkish Tradition, Islamic Art I, New York 1981, pp.90-105, figs.183, 444-7
Sotheby's, London, 12 October 1990, lot 143 and 29 April 1992, lot 306
E.Grube: Herat, Tabriz, Istanbul. The development of a pictorial style, Paintings from Islamic Lands, Ed. R. Pinder-Wilson, Oxford 1969, pp.85-109