"Muhammad Revives the Sick Boy", Folio from a Falnama (Book of Omens) of Ja'far al-Sadiq

Two Folios from a Falnama: 50.23.1 and 35.64.3

Massumeh Farhad, Serpil Bağci, and others have substantially clarified the context and meaning of the manuscript of the Falnama (Book of Omens) from which the large illustrations 50.23.1 and 35.64.3 come.[1] Farhad and Bağci have identified four Falnama manuscripts from Safavid Iran and Ottoman Turkey, produced in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, including the dispersed copy attributed to Iran during the reign of Shah Tahmasp (1524–76).[2] The images from this Falnama, including this folio and 35.64.3, differ from other Safavid manuscript illustrations most obviously in their large size and in the scale of their pictorial elements. Yet, the use of these pictures for bibliomancy (fortune-telling with books) also affected the format of the manuscript and the relationship of images to text. As Farhad and Bağci have noted, each illustration in the dispersed Falnama precedes the text, which contains poetic couplets and prognostications in prose—an indication that the pictures could be interpreted with or without the aid of the text on the facing page. Although each image essentially stands alone and is not linked by a narrative thread to the text and image that precede or follow it, the subject matter of the dispersed Falnama illustrations does fall into definable categories, including "Muhammad and his descendants; tombs and sanctuaries; the Abrahamic prophets; sages, heroes, and villains; and eschatological themes."[3]

The practice of bibliomancy involved first making a wish or asking for guidance, then opening the book at random to a picture and the text facing it, which the seeker would interpret in light of his question. Seventeenth-century travelers describe diviners in public places in Iran and Turkey using images (but not text) to make prognostications for passersby. The arrangement of the Falnama from which these images come would have instead enabled an individual to consult both image and text without the need for an intermediary. According to Farhad and Bağci, Shah Tahmasp, the likely patron of this Falnama, was known to hold divination sessions with the women of the Safavid court. Such a large-scale Falnama would have suited these gatherings, since a group would have no trouble seeing whatever details were being employed to interpret the omen.

This folio, "Muhammad Revives the Sick Boy" appears in the section of the Falnama that Farhad and Bağci call "Islamic Traditions."[4] The painting, which has suffered from abrasion and being folded in half, depicts a figure whose face is veiled and encircled in a flaming aureole standing at the feet of a shrouded, gray-skinned youth in a coffin. The boy leans one arm on the side of the coffin while a bearded man supports his head. This scene has been described as Christ raising Lazarus,[5] but when images of the biblical prophets appear in the Falnama, they do not have veiled faces, while the Prophet Muhammad and the Imams do. The iconography accords better with one of the Traditions of the Prophet Muhammad. The story concerns Umma Mabid, the old woman shown here squatting before Muhammad and beseeching him to cure her son, which through prayer he succeeded in doing. As with other Falnama illustrations, the bystanders, including a bearded king, gesture and observe with amazement the main event, here the "miracle" Muhammad has performed.

Stuart Cary Welch and others have attributed the paintings in the dispersed Falnama to Aqa Mirak and ‘Abdul ‘Aziz, two of Shah Tahmasp’s court painters, but their authorship cannot be confirmed by any text or inscription. Nonetheless, many details of the ruined architecture, complete with storks’ nest and snakes, recall a painting from Shah Tahmasp’s Khamsa of Nizami (1539–43) assigned to Aqa Mirak by Welch.[6] Painted ten to fifteen years after the Khamsa, the Falnama marks a change in style that accompanies its distinct function. Not only are the folios significantly larger than those of earlier royal Safavid manuscripts, but so too are the figures and other pictorial elements, which are also closer to the picture plane than in either Tahmasp’s Shahnama or his Khamsa. Likewise, landscape elements have been simplified, as if to provide a backdrop and not a source of distraction from the main subject.

Sheila R. Canby in [Ekhtiar, Soucek, Canby, and Haidar 2011]

Footnotes:

1. Massumeh Farhad, Serpil Bağci, and others: Falnama: The Book of Omens. Exhibition Catalogue, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington, DC. 2009.

2. Ibid., p. 28.

3. Ibid., p. 34.

4. Ibid., p. 117.

5. According to Metropolitan Museum records, a label on the back of the frame reads, "Jesus, la tête nimbée de la flamme prophétique ressuscitant Lazare qui sort de son tombeau, en présence du roi des Juifs et de nombreux personnages qui témoignent leur stupéfaction de ce miracle." See also Tokatlian 2007, pp. 56–57.

6. Welch 1979, pp. 138–41.


Muhammad Heals the Sick Boy

The subject of this illustration traditionally has been identified as Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, but it probably represents one of the Prophet Muhammad's miracles.[1] According to the 1594–95 Siyer al-nebi (Life of the Prophet), on his migration from Mecca to Medina, Muhammad stopped at the tent of the poor, elderly woman Umma Mabid and healed her ailing sheep. She then begged Muhammad to resuscitate her paralyzed son, which he did by reciting a long prayer. The grateful mother and son converted to Islam.[2]

According to Islamic belief, the prophet denied that he had the ability to perform miracles other than revealing the word of God (Koran 6:50), which is regarded as the supreme miracle. Subsequent accounts of his life, however, are replete with references to supernatural events, such as the celebrated miraj (night journey)[3] and the splitting of the moon.[4] The prophet's healing of Umma Mabid's son must have been another popular story, for it is included in the Dresden Falnama and the Siyer al-nebi, the illustrated Ottoman biography of Muhammad.[5]

Instead of setting the event in front of Umma Mabid's tent, the Falnama artists selected a ruined structure as the backdrop of the moment of divine intervention. As the crouching Umma Mabid asks for assistance, the veiled figure of the Prophet raises his hands in prayer, and the boy, with a help of a turbaned man, lifts his head out of a coffin. A crowd, including an elegantly dressed and crowned figure, witnesses the event with astonishment and wonder. With the veiled Prophet standing in the center, the subtly balanced composition effectively conveys the power of this quite miraculous moment.

Massumeh Farhad in [Farhad and Bagci 2009]

Footnotes:

1. The accompanying text has not yet been located. Rachel Milstein, Karin Rührdanz, and Barbara Schmitz, in Stories of the Prophets: Illustrated Manuscripts of Qisas al-anbiya (Costa Mesa: Mazda Publishers, 1999), p. 67, have also identified the protagonist as the Prophet Muhammad, but they do not mention the particular scene. Apart from the figure of the elderly woman, the fact that the protagonist's face is veiled suggests he must represent an Islamic rather than an Abrahamic prophet. A closely related composition is included in the Khalili Falnama (MSS 979, f. 11b), but the accompanying text (f. 12a) and marginal inscription (f. 11b) identify the protagonist as Isa (Jesus) who cures the son of an old woman. This seems to conflate the story of Umma Mabid and Lazarus. For the Dresden illustrations, see below.

2. Mustafa Darir, Kitab-i siyer-i nebi. Paygember efedimizin hayati, ed. M. Faruk Gürtunca (Istanbul: Ülkü Matbaasi, 1962), vol. 2, pp. 450–55. The siyer-i nebi illustration, which is part of volume 3, is now in the New York Lbrary, Spencer Collection, Turk, MS. 3, f. 320b; see Barbara Schmitz with contributions by Latif Khayyat, Svat Soucek, and Massound Pourfarrokh, Islamic Manuscripts in the New York Public Library (New York: Oxford University Press and New York Public Library, 1992), p. 250; Zeren Tanindi, Siyer-i Nebi: An Illustrated Cycle of the Life of Muhammad and its Place in Islamic Art (Istanbul: Hürriyet Vakfi Yayinlari, 1984), pl. 44. According to Gottfried Hagen, the story is also included with some variation in Qadi Iyad's Al-Shifa. Reportedly, during the hijra, an old woman's son dies, and as she was blind and helpless and complained bitterly about her fate, the Prophet brought her son back to life. I am most grateful to Professor Hagen for sharing his views on this topic.

3. See cat. 22 in this volume;TSM H.1702, f. 37b; Dresden E445, f. 22b.

4. TSM H.1702; Dresden E.445, f. 14b.

5. Curiously, the Dresden Falnama includes two scenes of miraculous healings (ff. 8b and 17b). The composition of folio 17b relates closely to the one in the dispersed copy and the accompanying text identifies the veiled figure as Muhammad. The second example, which has no related augury, omits the figure of the crouching woman, and the youth is lifted out of the ground.

Inscription: Behind the page in Arabic language and in Nastaʻliq script
چه آمدست بفال تو هیچ میداني
شکوه آصفي و شوکت سلیماني
درین دو روزه فال نکو بیاری بخت
ز طالع تو برون میرود پریشاني
ای صاحب فال بدان که مجلس بهشت آیین حضرت سلیمان پیغمبر علی نبینا و علیه السلم بفال تو بر/
آمده است این فال دلیل جمعیت خاطر و رفع پریشاني باطن و ظاهر است و درین چند روز از بزرگي بتو فایدۀ کلي/
میرسد و از جایی که اصلاً گمان نداشته باشي چیزي بدست تو مي آید و هر غمي که تراست بشادي بدل میشود/
اگر این فال تز براي سفر است بسیار خوب است اما نوعي کن که آغاز سفر تو روز پنجشنبه باشد و اگر از براي بیمار است/
در شب جمعه در مجلسي که جماعتي از مومنان حاضر باشندالتماس فاتحه کن که البته صحتي کامل روي مي نماید و از براي هر/
نیتي دیگر که باشد مثل خرید و فروخت هر چیز و بإجاره چرفتن و بإجاره دادن زمین و باغ و خانه و شریک/
شدن و بسراي نو رفتن و حاجت خواستن از بزرگان و غیر ایشان بسیار بسیار نیکوست بي/
تأمل شروع مي باید کرد اما بازو بند حضرت سلیمان پیغمبر بن داود علی نبینا و علیهما السلم با خود نگاه/
دار تا از شر دیو و پري و آدمي محفوظ باشي و بمراد دل برسي انشاء الله و تعالی و تقدس
Up and down Two Turkish poems.

A.Ghouchani, 2010

Marking: - On back of frame three stickers:
1). Jésus, la tête nimbée de la flamme prophétique, ressuscitant Lazare qui sort de son tombeau, en présence du roi des Juifs et de nombreux personnages qui témoignet leur stupéfaction de ce miracle
2). Chenue. SARL / Layetier Emballeur / 5, Rue de la Terrasse, PARIS (17e) / R.C. SEINE 285.799 B / 14 Oct. 1949 / Monsieur Hindamian / Metropolitain Museum / New York
3). No 2855

[ E. Hindamian, Paris, until 1949; sold to MMA]

Swietochowski, Marie, and Richard Ettinghausen. "Islamic Painting." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, n.s., vol. 36, no. 2 (Autumn 1978). pp. 32–33, 258, ill. p. 32 (b/w).

Welch, Stuart Cary, Sheila R. Canby, and Norah M. Titley. "Masterpieces of Early Safavid Painting, 1501–1576." In Wonders of the Age. Cambridge, MA: Fogg Museum, Harvard Art Museums, 1979. pp. 138–41.

Tokatlian, Armen. Falnamah: Livre Royal des Sorts. Paris: Gourcuff Gradenigo, 2007. no. 22, pp. 56, 57, ill. (b/w).

Farhad, Massumeh, and Serpil Bagci. "Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery." In Falnama: The Book of Omens. Washington, D.C.: Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, 2009. no. 21, pp. 48, 116–17, 258, ill. fig. 3.9, pl. 21.

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. 139A, pp. 209–11, ill. p. 210 (color).

Langer, Axel, ed. "Figurative Representation in Islamic and Christian Cultures." In In the Name of the Image. Berlin: Hatje Cantz, 2022. no. 96, pp. 173–74, ill. p. 173.