Description
Mughal India, 17th century or possibly 18th century Rare talismanic shirt in thick cotton, composed of six rectangular sections sewn together, finely inscribed in black, red and beige ink (possibly a trace of gold paint) with Qur'anic verses in square compartments, the Shahada in two large roundels on the front, a verse from Sura Yusuf (XII, 64) on the reverse, and the litany of the Divine Names of God (al-asma' al-husna) written in bihârî on the border. Height 51.5 Width 75 cm. (wear, partially faded decoration, small tears, seams, missing parts - notably a strip missing from the left sleeve - and stains) Provenance according to family tradition : - Mohammed Alim Khan collection (1880-1944), Bukhara, present-day Uzbekistan ; - Jamshed Khan collection, Qamari, Afghanistan ; - by descent, Mourid Ahmad collection, Strasbourg, France. A C14 report from the Ciram laboratory in Bordeaux confirms the 17th century dating, with a convincing interval from 1635 to 1706. Worn next to the skin, under clothing or under armor, talismanic shirts were supposed to offer spiritual protection and shield against danger, illness, bewitchment or injury, whether sentimental or warlike. Their function seems to have varied from period to period and region to region. Several examples of Indian, Ottoman or Safavid shirts have come down to us, most often completely covered with Koranic inscriptions, names of gods, prayers, numbers and magic squares. Eloïse Brac de la Perrière ("Les tuniques talismaniques indiennes d'époque pré-moghole et moghole à la lumière d'un groupe de Corans en écriture bihârî", in: Journal Asiatique, 297/1, 2009, pp. 57-81 and more precisely pp. 62-63) has catalogued some fifteen Indian talismanic tunics dating from the 15th-early 16th century Sultanate period. These tunics have identical decoration to the one presented here, both in the organization of the partitioning of the texts in the squares, roundels and border, and in the religious inscriptions, but they seem to be made of a finer cotton than that of this tunic. Most of these tunics are preserved in important Islamic art collections, such as: - Musée national des Arts Asiatiques-Guimet, Paris (inv. no. MA 5680), India 15th-early 16th century; - Furusiyya Art Foundation (inv. no. R-785), Delhi Sultanate, 15th century (see the exhibition catalog L'Art des chevaliers en pays d'Islam. Collection de la Furusiyya Art Foundation, Bashir Mohamed (Ed.), Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris, 2007, cat. 322, p. 335); - The al-Sabah Collection, Kuwait National Museum, Kuwait (inv. no. LNS 114 T) India, probably 16th century; - Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. no. 1998.199), North India or Deccan, 15th-early 16th century. Three other similar Indian shirts attributed to the 17th century also went on sale at Christie's in London over thirty years ago (November 21, 1986, lot 84; April 30, 1992, lot 78 and April 27, 1993, lot 38). Other folders with a slightly different organization of inscriptions are held in the Khalili Collection, including two attributed to 16th-17th-century Safavid Iran (inv. no. TXT 76 and TXT 77) and one from Central Asia, signed by the Yasawiyyah Sufi brotherhood (inv. no. TXT 230) (See David Alexander, The Arts of War. Arms and Armour of the 7th to 19th centuries, The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, Vol. XXI, Nour Foundation, Azimuth Editions, London, 1992, cat. 33-34, pp. 78-80 for the two Iranian pieces and Killian Lécuyer's dissertation, Les objets à valeur magique et apotropaïque en Asie Centrale. Recherches préliminaires et approche historiographique. Mémoire de Master 2 sous la direction de Eloïse Brac de la Perrière, Sorbonne Université, June 2022, fig. 28, p. 68 and cover for the Central Asian folder). The last emir of the Manghit dynasty in the Central Asian emirate of Bukhara (1911-1920), Mohammed Alim Khan (Bukhara, 1880 - Kabul, 1944) dreamt one night that he would receive a gift from the Prophet Mohammad, brought to him by an Arab. Two days later, an Arab arrived at the gates of his palace, carrying the talismanic shirt, then mysteriously disappeared. After being deposed by the Soviets at the end of August 1920, Alim Khan took refuge in Afghanistan, where he was sheltered for a year by Jamshed Khan, governor of Qamari in Kabul province, who welcomed him as a member of his family. Jamshed Khan is probably a descendant of the famous Safavid officer Jamshed Khan, who led the elite qollar-aghasi corps (1663-16
61
Mughal India, 17th century or possibly 18th century Rare talismanic shirt in thick cotton, composed of six rectangular sections sewn together, finely inscribed in black, red and beige ink (possibly a trace of gold paint) with Qur'anic verses in square compartments, the Shahada in two large roundels on the front, a verse from Sura Yusuf (XII, 64) on the reverse, and the litany of the Divine Names of God (al-asma' al-husna) written in bihârî on the border. Height 51.5 Width 75 cm. (wear, partially faded decoration, small tears, seams, missing parts - notably a strip missing from the left sleeve - and stains) Provenance according to family tradition : - Mohammed Alim Khan collection (1880-1944), Bukhara, present-day Uzbekistan ; - Jamshed Khan collection, Qamari, Afghanistan ; - by descent, Mourid Ahmad collection, Strasbourg, France. A C14 report from the Ciram laboratory in Bordeaux confirms the 17th century dating, with a convincing interval from 1635 to 1706. Worn next to the skin, under clothing or under armor, talismanic shirts were supposed to offer spiritual protection and shield against danger, illness, bewitchment or injury, whether sentimental or warlike. Their function seems to have varied from period to period and region to region. Several examples of Indian, Ottoman or Safavid shirts have come down to us, most often completely covered with Koranic inscriptions, names of gods, prayers, numbers and magic squares. Eloïse Brac de la Perrière ("Les tuniques talismaniques indiennes d'époque pré-moghole et moghole à la lumière d'un groupe de Corans en écriture bihârî", in: Journal Asiatique, 297/1, 2009, pp. 57-81 and more precisely pp. 62-63) has catalogued some fifteen Indian talismanic tunics dating from the 15th-early 16th century Sultanate period. These tunics have identical decoration to the one presented here, both in the organization of the partitioning of the texts in the squares, roundels and border, and in the religious inscriptions, but they seem to be made of a finer cotton than that of this tunic. Most of these tunics are preserved in important Islamic art collections, such as: - Musée national des Arts Asiatiques-Guimet, Paris (inv. no. MA 5680), India 15th-early 16th century; - Furusiyya Art Foundation (inv. no. R-785), Delhi Sultanate, 15th century (see the exhibition catalog L'Art des chevaliers en pays d'Islam. Collection de la Furusiyya Art Foundation, Bashir Mohamed (Ed.), Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris, 2007, cat. 322, p. 335); - The al-Sabah Collection, Kuwait National Museum, Kuwait (inv. no. LNS 114 T) India, probably 16th century; - Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. no. 1998.199), North India or Deccan, 15th-early 16th century. Three other similar Indian shirts attributed to the 17th century also went on sale at Christie's in London over thirty years ago (November 21, 1986, lot 84; April 30, 1992, lot 78 and April 27, 1993, lot 38). Other folders with a slightly different organization of inscriptions are held in the Khalili Collection, including two attributed to 16th-17th-century Safavid Iran (inv. no. TXT 76 and TXT 77) and one from Central Asia, signed by the Yasawiyyah Sufi brotherhood (inv. no. TXT 230) (See David Alexander, The Arts of War. Arms and Armour of the 7th to 19th centuries, The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, Vol. XXI, Nour Foundation, Azimuth Editions, London, 1992, cat. 33-34, pp. 78-80 for the two Iranian pieces and Killian Lécuyer's dissertation, Les objets à valeur magique et apotropaïque en Asie Centrale. Recherches préliminaires et approche historiographique. Mémoire de Master 2 sous la direction de Eloïse Brac de la Perrière, Sorbonne Université, June 2022, fig. 28, p. 68 and cover for the Central Asian folder). The last emir of the Manghit dynasty in the Central Asian emirate of Bukhara (1911-1920), Mohammed Alim Khan (Bukhara, 1880 - Kabul, 1944) dreamt one night that he would receive a gift from the Prophet Mohammad, brought to him by an Arab. Two days later, an Arab arrived at the gates of his palace, carrying the talismanic shirt, then mysteriously disappeared. After being deposed by the Soviets at the end of August 1920, Alim Khan took refuge in Afghanistan, where he was sheltered for a year by Jamshed Khan, governor of Qamari in Kabul province, who welcomed him as a member of his family. Jamshed Khan is probably a descendant of the famous Safavid officer Jamshed Khan, who led the elite qollar-aghasi corps (1663-16
