SIGNED MUHAMMAD QASIM BIN SHADISHAH, SAFAVID HERAT, 16TH CENTURY

Muhammad Qasim bin Shadishah was one of the leading scribes in nasta'liq in the late Timurid and early Safavid periods. Shams al-Din Muhammad Vasfi has recorded our scribe as a student of renowned calligrapher Sultan 'Ali Mashhadi while Dust Muhammad mentions him as the student of Mawlana Sultan Muhammad Nur and Mawlana Sultan Muhammad Khandan (see Wheeler H. Thackston, Album Prefaces and Other Documents on the History of Calligraphers and Painters, Leiden, 2001, pp.10-11, 21, 25, and 33). Another copy of Amir Shahi's Diwan by Muhammad Qasim bin Shadishah is in the Golestan Palace Library, Tehran, (see Mahdi Bayani, Ahwal wa-Athar-Khushnawisan, vols. 3-4, Tehran, reprint 1363 (1984), p. 808). A further manuscript in his hand was sold at Sotheby's, London, 22 April 2015, lot 103.