"The Concourse of the Birds", Folio 11r from a Mantiq al-Tayr (Language of the Birds)

The Concourse of the Birds

The manuscript from which this painting comes was produced in 1483 at the Timurid court of Sultan Husayn Baycara at Herat. It contains four illustrations that may or may not be by the hand of Bihzad, the most famous artist of that era, but represent his innovative, perfectionist style. For some reason, although the scribe, Sultan 'Ali Mashhadi, apparently left spaces for more illustrations, they were not completed in the fifteenth century. Following the Safavid conquest of Iran in the early sixteenth century, Bihzad was appointed director of the royal kitab-khaneh. Additionally, the Safavids took control of Herat and the royal Timurid library came into their possession. What remains unknown is whether this manuscript was somehow kept in Herat and entered the library of Shah 'Abbas when he was living there in the 1570s and 1580s or whether it was already in the Safavid royal library in Qazvin when he became shah in 1587. In any event, the manuscript was one of those that Shah 'Abbas donated to the Ardabil Shrine in 1607–8. How it left the library of the shrine is unclear, since it aparently was not one of the 166 manuscripts that were acquired by Count Suokhtaline in 1828 and are now in the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg.

This painting illustrates a point in 'Attar's mystical manuscript when the birds assemble to discuss their journey in search of a king. Here the hoopoe standing on a rock at the right addresses the other birds as one initiated into the 'way of spirital knowledge', and urges the birds to seek the Simurgh, their true king.[1] At the upper right a man holding a musket with a large barrel gazes at the scene from behind the rocks. The composition, with the different species of birds silhouetted on a blue ground, jutting rocks above and at the lower left, a towering plane tree extending into the margin, and a gold sky, is extremely rich in detail and color harmonies.

Both the musket, which is of a type made only from the late sixteenth century, and the signature of the artist, Habib Allah, on a rock between the duck and the geese confirm that this is one of the Safavid additions to the manuscript.[2] According to the contemporary biographer and historian Qadi Ahmad, Habib Allah of Saveh lived in Qum where he presumably came to the attention of the governor Husayn Khan Shamlu. In 1606 Qadi Ahmad added that Husayn Khan Shamlu 'attached him to his person when he went to Herat, but the felicitous Prince took him away from the khan and now he is in the capital Isfahan, employed by the court department as a painter'.[3] Anthony Welch has interpreted this as meaning that Habib Allah joined Husayn Khan Shamlu by 1578 and then transferred to the service of the seven-year-old Prince 'Abbas before 1581, when 'Abbas was taken to Mashhad by Murshid Quli Khan.[4] However, this explanation confuses Husayn Khan Shamlu with Sultan Husayn Khan Shamlu, who was governor of Qazvin but was murdered in 1580–81. As Barbara Schmitz has noted, the more likely sequence of events is that Habib Allah went to Herat in 1598 when Husayn Khan Shamlu became governor. Probably in 1601, but certainly before 1606, the artist joined the service of Shah 'Abbas.[5] Since the reference to Habib Allah working in Isfahan comes from the 1606 recension of Qadi Ahmad's text, the artist could have added his illustrations to the Mantiq al-Tayr at any point between 1598 and 1606.

The Safavid additions to this manuscript are painted in a conservative style, not the new mode that was introduced at Isfahan by artists such as Riza-yi 'Abbasi and Muhammad Qasim. Grube and others have suggested that the commissioning of Safavid illustrations that incorporate the figural groupings and scale of Timurid painting in this manuscript reflects a broader interest in emulating the Timurids that is found in manuscript illumination and architecture as well as painting.[6] Shah 'Abbas may have recalled the Timurid buildings of Herat from his childhood and the reputation of artists such as Bihzad and sought to replicate these monuments and luminaries in his own era. However, simultaneously his artists and architects were creating a new style that would come to be identified with Shah 'Abbas and by extension with the brilliance of his reign.

Sheila R. Canby in [Canby 2009]

Footnotes:

1. Attar, Farid ud-Di. The Conference of the Birds, trans. C.S. Nott, Boulder, CO, 1971, 11–12.

2. Grube, Ernst J. The Language of the Birds: The Seventeenth-Century Miniatures. Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, new series, vol. 25, no. 9, 1967, pp. 339–52.

3. Qadi Ahmad, Calligraphers and Painters: A Treatise by Qadi Ahmad, Son of Mir Munshi (circa A.H.1015/A.D. 1606), trans. V. Minorsky, Washington, D.C. 1959, p. 191.

4. Welch, Anthony, 'Painting and Patronage under Shah 'Abbas I'. Studies on Isfahan, Part II. Iranian Studies, summer-autumn, 1974, vol. VII, nos. 3–4, pp. 482–3.

5. Schmitz, Barbara. 'Habib Allah', Ecyclopaedia Iranica, Encyclopaedia Iranica Foundation, New York, 2003, vol. XI, pp. 283–4. Shah 'Abbas visited Herat in 1601. The only problem with this analysis is that 'Abbas is referred to as 'Prince' rather than 'Sah, but this is a minor inconsistency.

6. Grube 1967 (note 2), pp. 244–6; Welch 1974 (note 4), pp. 483–4; Anna Contadini, 'Travelling pattern: a Qur'anic illumination and its secular source', in Safavid Art and Architecture, ed. Sheila R. Canby. London 2002, pp. 60–61.


Four Folios from the Mantiq al-tair


Farid al-din ‘Attar’s epic poem the Mantiq al-tair (Language of the Birds), composed about 1187, is a parable about the desire for union with God that is couched in the terminology of sufism. It describes a physical and spiritual journey through seven valleys by a group of birds that move from their initial quest (talab) to their final goal of annihilation of the self (fana) through unity with God. The stages of their journey are explained through the use of anecdotes.

This copy is notable for its high-quality illustrations produced in two distinct periods and places.[1] The earlier phase, in which most of the text and four of the paintings were executed, is linked to the city of Herat (folios 63.210.28, .35, .44, .49). Its colophon (63.210.1), signed by Sultan ‘Ali al-Mashhadi, dates the work to the first day of the fifth month of the second year of the last ten years preceding 900—that is, to A.H. 892/April 25, 1487 A.D. The later phase occurred about 1600, when the manuscript was refurbished, probably for Iran’s ruler, Shah ‘Abbas I (r. 1587–1629). Elements from this phase include the binding, the illuminated opening folios signed at Isfahan by Zain al-‘Abidin al-Tabrizi, and four of its pictures, one of which is signed by Habiballah (folios 63.210.4, .11, .18, .22). In 1609 Shah ‘Abbas donated this manuscript to the ancestral tomb of the Safavid family at Ardabil.

Sultan ‘Ali al-Mashhadi is known to have worked for Herat’s contemporary ruler, Sultan Husain Baiqara (r. 1470–1506), and for one of its leading intellectuals, Mir ‘Ali Shir Nava’i, whose interest in the theme of this text is signaled by the fact that he composed an analogous poem in Turki titled Lisan al-tair (The Speech of the Birds).

All of the subjects to be illustrated in this copy of the Mantiq al-tair were determined at the time of its copying by Sultan ‘Ali al-Mashhadi in the late fifteenth century, but the manuscript’s first four scenes were not completed until about 1600 in Isfahan. Three of these are frequently depicted in other copies of ‘Attar’s text: the initial gathering of the birds at the onset of their quest (63.210.11) and two scenes from the story of a sufi, Shaikh San‘an, who loved a Christian maiden (63.210.18, .22). These pictures seem to have a clear connection to major themes in ‘Attar’s text, although Habiballah, the artist who signed the "Concourse of the Birds" on a small rock at the center of the picture, has added the superfluous figure of a man holding a rifle.

Two of the manuscript’s remaining four paintings, made toward the end of the fifteenth century in Timurid Herat, present more oblique references to ‘Attar’s text. Both "The Son Who Mourned His Father" (63.210.35) and "The Drowning Man" (63.210.44) have been interpreted as sufi allegories.[2] The other two fifteenth-century paintings (63.210.28, .49) appear to be more illustrative than symbolic. Yumiko Kamada has suggested that these more subtle paintings reflect the appreciation of textual and pictorial intricacy in late fifteenth-century Herat.[3]

Priscilla P. Soucek in [Ekhtiar, Soucek, Canby, and Haidar 2011]

Footnotes:

1. For an overview of publications about this manuscript through 2010, see Kamada, Yumiko. "A Taste for Intricacy: An Illustrated Manuscript of Mantiq al-Tayr in the Metropolitan Museum of Art." Orient: Reports of the Society for Near Eastern Studies in Japan 45 (2010), pp. 129–75.

2. I bid., pp. 136–40, and Kia, Chad. "Is the Bearded Man Drowning?: Picturing the Figurative in a Late-Fifteenth-Century Painting from Herat." Muqarnas 23 (2006), p. 97.

3. Kamada 2010 (footnote 1), pp. 144–49.

Signature: In Persian: "Signed by Habib Allah".

Inscription: In Persian: Painted by order of Shah `Abbas [added when manuscript was remounted]; In Arabic, across tree at left: charitable foundation (waqf)

In Persian in nasta‘liq script:
Attar, Manṭiq al-Ṭayr منطق الطیر story مجمع مرغان (Conference of the Birds) at the beginning of the book.

(Farīd al-Dīn ‘Aṭṭār, Manṭiq al-Ṭayr, ed. Sayyid Ṣādiq Guharīn, Bungāh Tarjama va Nashr-I Kitāb publication, Tehran, 1342/1959, p.39).

A. Ghouchani, 2011

Marking: Seal (affixed throughout the manuscript): Shah Abbas

Shah Abbas I, Isfahan, Iran (ca. 1600–1609; presented to Shrine of ShaikhSafi Al-Din, Ardabil, Iran); Shrine of Shaikh Safi Al-Din, Ardabil, Iran(ca. 1609–sack of Ardebil, 1826); M. Farid Parbanta(until 1963; sale, Sotheby's, London,December 9, 1963, no. 111, to MMA)

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Masterpieces of Fifty Centuries," November 14, 1970–June 1, 1971, no. 157.

The Hagop Kevorkian Special Exhibitions Gallery, New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Princely Patrons: Three Royal Manuscripts of the Timurid Dynasty," March 4–June 4, 1995, no catalogue.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Rumi and the Sufi Tradition," October 23, 2007–February 3, 2008, no catalogue.

London. British Museum. "Shah Abbas : The Remaking of Iran," February 19, 2009–June 14, 2009, no. 82.

"Sufi Narratives." Hali vol. 191 pp. 66–71, ill. fig. 3.

Grube, Ernst J. "The Language of the Birds: The Seventeenth-Century Miniatures." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin vol. XXV, no. 9 (May 1967). pp. 342–43, ill. figs. 4 (color), 5 (b/w).

Metropolitan Museum of Art. Masterpieces of Fifty Centuries: the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1970. no. 157, p. 180, ill. (b/w).

Swietochowski, Marie. "The Historical Background and Illustrative Character of the Metropolitan Museum's Mantiq al-Tayr of 1483." In Islamic Art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, edited by Richard Ettinghausen. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1972. pp. 46–47, ill. p. 46 (b/w).

Swietochowski, Marie, and Richard Ettinghausen. "Islamic Painting." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, n.s., vol. 36, no. 2 (Autumn 1978). pp. 2–3, ill. p. 3, frontispiece (color).

Ferrier, Ronald W., ed. The Arts of Persia. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989. p. 213, ill. pl. 28 (b/w).

de Montebello, Philippe, and Kathleen Howard, ed. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide. 6th ed. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1992. pp. 324–25, ill. fig. 31 (color).

Alexander, David, Maktabat al-Malik Abd al-Aziz al-Ammah, Daniel S. Walker, and Helmut Nickel. Furusiyya. The Horse in the Art of the Near East, edited by David Alexander. vol. 1. Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: King Abdulaziz Public Library, 1996. p. 202.

Hillenbrand, Robert, ed. "Studies in Honour of Basil W. Robinson." In Persian Painting from the Mongols to the Qajars. Pembroke Persian papers, vol. 3. London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 2000. p. 284.

Sims, Eleanor, B. Marshak, and Ernst J. Grube. "Persian Painting and its Sources." In Peerless Images. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002. no. 250, pp. 329–30, ill. p. 329 (color).

Babaie, Sussan, Kathryn Babayan, Ina Baghdiantz-McCabe, and Massumeh Farhad. "New Elites of Safavid Iran." In Slaves of the Shah. Library of Middle East history, vol. 3. London; New York: I. B. Tauris, 2004. ill. fig. 13 (b/w).

Barry, Mike, and Stuart Cary Welch. "et l'Enigme de Behzad de Herat (1465–1535)." In L'Art Figuratif en Islam Medieval. Paris: Flammarion, 2004. pp. 372–73, ill. p. 273 (color).

Kia, Chad. "Is the Bearded Man Drowning? Picturing the Figurative in a Late-Fifteenth-Century Painting from Herat." Muqarnas vol. 23 (2006). pp. 85–105.

Lewisohn, Leonard, and Christopher Shackle, ed. "the art of spiritual flight." In Attar and the Persian Sufi Tradition. London; New York: The Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2006. p. 164, ill. pl. 1 (color).

Canby, Sheila R. Shah 'Abbas: The Remaking of Iran. London: British Museum Press, 2009. no. 82, pp. 170–71, ill. (color).

Kamada, Yumiko. "An Illustrated Manuscript of Mantiq al-Tayr in the Metropolitan Museum of Art." Orient vol. XLV (2010). pp. 142–43, 170, 174, ill. fig. 6.

Ekhtiar, Maryam, Priscilla P. Soucek, Sheila R. Canby, and Navina Haidar, ed. Masterpieces from the Department of Islamic Art in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1st ed. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2011. no. 127D, pp. 188–90, ill. p.189 (color).

Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2012. p. 139, ill. (color).

Mumtaz, Murad. Faces of God : Images of Devotion in Indo-Muslim Painting, 1500–1800. Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section II South Asia, vol. 39. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2023. p. 164, ill. fig. 69.