BY 'IMAD AL-HASSANI, SAFAVID IRAN, LATE 16TH CENTURY

Mir 'Imad was born around the year AH 961/1553-4 AD in Qazwin, the capital of Safavid Iran. He moved to Tabriz where he was apprenticed to the master Muhammad Husayn Tabrizi, moving back to the capital on completion of his studies in AH 981/1573-4 AD. He became an itinerant craftsman, as was the custom among his profession, accepting commissions as he moved from one town to the next. Later in life he set out for the hajj and remained in the region for several years, working in Aleppo before returning to Iran in 1005/1596-7. His great rival as court calligrapher, 'Ali Reza-i Abassi, gradually replaced him in the Shah's favour and, in the increasingly extreme Shi'ite environment of the court of Shah 'Abbas, he was accused of Sufism and Sunnism. He was murdered in AH 1024/1615 AD by an agent of the Shah.