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Notes on a Zīlū Fragment dated 963/1556 in the Islamic Museum, Cairo
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2022
Extract
A Zīlū fragmentin the Islamic Museum, Cairo (figs. 1-3) is one of the oldest known carpets that can at present be firmly attributed to Islamic Iran. The Cairo Zīlū is one of three extant dated and inscribed pieces commissioned in 963/1556 as vaqf, or an endowment, for the Masjid-i Jāmi’ of the Nūrīyyah Khānāqāh in Taf t, a village approximately 26 kilometres southwest of Yazd. A second fragment was discovered in the Shah Vali Mosque in Taft; it has been described and illustrated by Afshar. Ettinghausen has discussed the third fragment, which appeared on the Tehran art market in 1954; its present location is unknown.
- Type
- Medieval and Safavid Carpets and Textiles
- Information
- Iranian Studies , Volume 25 , Issue 1-2: The Carpets and Textiles of Iran: New Perspectives in Research , 1992 , pp. 37 - 42
- Copyright
- Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1992
Footnotes
*
For permission to examine and photograph this fragment (inv. no. 14511) in 1981,1 am indebted to the staff of the Islamic Museum, particularly to Dr. Abdul Raouf, then Director, and to Mr. Rifat Abdul Azim, Curatorial Assistant.
References
1 This fragment was presented to the Museum by Muhammad Hasan Bek circa 1942. It has previously been described as ”…a so-called ‘saff’ (row) prayer rug of woven cotton representing five neighbouring mihrabs with a dating inscription referring to the month of Ramadan in the year 963 AH (July 1556).“: Mostafa, M. Turkish Prayer Rugs (Cairo, 1953), p. 17Google Scholar.
2 The date of an inscribed zīlū fragment discovered in the congregational mosque at Maibud, which was previously published as 808/1405 by Afshār, I., Yādgārhā-yi Yazd (Tehran, 1348Sh/1969), vol. I, p. 86, no. 44/5 and p. 492Google Scholar (illus.); and Wilber, D.N., “A Very Old Flatweave?” Hali, III/4 (1981), p. 309Google Scholar (illus.); and noted as such by Golombek, L. and Wilber, D.N., The Timurid Architecture of Iran and Turan (Princeton, 1988), vol. I, p. 397Google Scholar; O'Kane, B., Timurid Architecture in Khurasan (Costa Mesa, Ca., 1987), p.54, n. 7Google Scholar; Beattie, M.H., “A Note on Zilu”, Flatwoven Textiles, ed. Cootner, C. (Washington, D.C., 1981), pp. 169-170Google Scholar; and Mackie, L.W., “Covered with Flowers: Medieval Floor Coverings Excavated at Fustat in 1980”, Oriental Carpet and Textile Studies I (1985), p. 34, n. 14Google Scholar; has recently been revised to 1188/1774: ”… (In this fragment) The first two digits of the date 1188, as well as the Iām-altf of al-thānī and the alif of tahrīran, appear on one side in red, rather than white, on a blue ground, and in blue upon red on the reverse; the latter is seen in fig. 4. The date is not, however, clearly distinguished in the black and white illustration in Yādgārhā-yi Yazd“: A. Ittig, in I. Afshar, “Zīlū”, p. 36, n. 40 in this volume; see also Afshar, “Zīlū”, op.cit., fig. 4.
3 A sufi hospice. For a summary of the activities traditionally associated with this type of building, see Golombek, and Wilber, op. cit., vol. I, pp. 48-49Google Scholar; and O'Kane, op. cit., p. 23.
4 Yādgārhā-yi Yazd, op.cit., vol. I, pp. 420-21, no. 244/6 and p. 636 (illus.); Afshar, “Zīlū', pp. 35-36.
5 Ettinghausen, R., “(Review of) Erdmann, K., Der orientalische Knüpfteppich”, Oriens, XI (1958), pp. 261-2Google Scholar and figs. 2-3.
6 For a discussion of architectural prototypes for this design, see Denny, W. B., “Saff and Sejjadeh: Origins and Meaning of the Prayer Rug,“ Oriental Carpet and Textile Studies, III/2 (n.d, 1990?), pp. 93-104.Google Scholar
7 Ettinghausen, op. cit., fig. 2. Unfortunately this device is not clear in the black and white illustration.
8 This structure is described in greater detail by S. Sherrill, “Carpets. V. Flat-Woven”, Encyclopedia Iranica, vol. IV, fasc. 8, p. 855 and fig. 94. Afshar, “Zīlū”, fig. 1 and Beattie, op. cit., fig. 4, illustrate zīlūs on the loom in which the dyed wefts used for patterning are clearly visible. In contrast, Wulff, H., The Traditional Crafts of Persia (Cambridge, Mass., 1966), p.211Google Scholar, describes the zīlū he saw being woven as warp-faced.
9 Commission formulae in zīlū, unlike those generally seen in other types of carpet, are usually woven into the side borders, rather than at the upper edge: see Beattie, op.cit., pp. 171-72 and figs. 5-6.
10 Ettinghausen, p. 262. The translation of this inscription is transliterated as published by Ettinghausen. Only the last part of this inscription is visible in the accompanying illustrations, ibid., figs. 2-3.
11 Prof. Roger M. Savory has suggested that the phrase be interpreted as ”…the exalted ‘Alīd hospice named Nūrīyya…“: Personal communication to the author, December 31, 1990.
12 Yādgārhā-yi Yazd, vol.I, pp.420-21; Afshar, “Zīlū”, p. 36.
13 For illustrations of the zīlū loom, see Afshar, “Zīlū”, fig. 1; Beattie, figs. 3 and 4; and Wulff, op. cit., fig. 294. The components of the zīlū loom are described by Wulff, pp. 210-11. 14 Carpet looms may be set up either vertically or horizontally. For illustrations of various types of vertical and horizontal looms used for carpet weaving, see Wulff, figs. 280, 199 and 302.
15 Shepherd, D., “Sasanian Art”, Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 3(2), ed. Yarshater, E. (Cambridge, 1983), p. 1109Google Scholar and pls. 110-111; Allgrove McDowell, J., ‘Textiles”, The Arts of Persia, ed. Ferrier, R. (New Haven and London, 1989), p. 152Google Scholar and n. 9.
16 Volgelsang-Eastwood, G.M., “Zīlū Carpets from Iran”, Studia Iranica, vol. 17, fasc. 2 (1988), p. 234.Google Scholar
17 Vogelsang-Eastwood, op. cit., p. 230.
18 Ibid., p. 226. “Ibid.,p.226.
19 Ibid., 230, n. 27.
20 Ibid., fig. 2.
21 Afshar, I., “Zīlū”, pp. 31 -35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
22 The following translation of this passage is given in O'Kane, p. 54, n. 7: “Even when the height of the garden (palace) had not reached one gaz the exterior revetment of banna'itechnique and the interior tiled dadoes (had been started). The stone masons were cutting stones and the painters were designing paintings. The carpenters were engaged in cutting wood and in making ivory and wood inlay for the doors; the weavers of zīlūs measured all the rooms to make a Zīlū for each. Torches were lit at night and important amirs were assigned to supervise each task so that in the course of sixteen days and nights a palace of that length and width and an aivan of that height were completed.“
23 Mustaufī, Muhammad Mufīd, Jāmi ‘-i Mufīdī, ed. Afshār, I. (Tehran, 1340/1961), vol. III/1, p. 57Google Scholar. This is the source to which Afshar refers in his note on the two Khānish Bigums: Yādgārhā-yi Yazd, p. 410, n. 1; see also ibid., p. 415.
24 Yādgārhā-yi Yazd, pp.419-20. According to the Jāmi ‘-i Mufīdī, op. cit., vol. III/2, p. 686, Khānish Bigum's mosque was built on the qiblah side of a khānaqāh originally constructed for Shāh Ni'matullāh Vālī. Although nothing remains of the khānaqāh itself, the mausoleum of Shāh Khalīlūllāh, which is still standing, may be part of that complex: Golombek and Wilber, vol. I, p. 410, cat. no. 216. The mosque commissioned by Khānish Bigum can probably be identified as the present Shah Vali mosque, where one of the 963/1556 zīlū fragments was discovered and which lies to the southwest, that is on the qiblah side, of what was the site of Shāh Ni'matullāh's khānaqāh: ibid., cat. no. 217.
25 Rumlu, Hasan, A Chronicle of the early Safawis, being the Ahsanu't-tawārīkh of Hasan-i Rūmlū, trans. Seddon, C. N. (Baroda, 1931-34), vol.II, p.253Google Scholar, n. 2. I am indebted to Prof. Roger Savory for this reference.
26 Monshi, Eskandar, History of Shah ‘Abbas the Great (Tārīkh-e ‘Ālamārā-ye ‘Abbāsī), trans. Savory, R. M. (Boulder, Co., 1978), vol. I, pp. 219Google Scholar and 340. I am indebted to Prof. Savory for this reference.
27 Yādgārhā-yi Yazd, p. 410, n. 1; Jāmi ‘-i Mufīdī, vol. III, pp. 62, 68.
28 For discussion of and references to the links between the early Safavids and the Ni'matullāhī orders, see Arjomand, S. A. The Shadow of God and the Hidden Imam (Chicago and London, 1984), pp. 116-118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also , R. M., “The Emergence of the Modern Persian State under the Safavids”, Īrān Shināsī, vol. II/2 (1971), pp. 21-22Google Scholar and n. 39, reprinted in idem, Studies on the History of Safavid Iran (London, 1987).
29 Keyvani, M., Artisans and Guild Life in the Later Safavid Period (Berlin, 1982), pp. 44Google Scholar; 50-51; 144; 168; 170-71 and 275.
30 Bonine, M. E. Yazd and its hinterland. A central place system of dominance in the Central Iranian Plateau (Marburg/Lahn, 1980), p. 101Google Scholar.
31 The significance of nisbahs in craftmen's signatures is discussed in Golombek and Wilber, vol. I, p. 67 and O'Kane, p. 39. 32 Beattie, pp. 170-71 and figs. 3-4; Afshar, “Zīlū”, fig. 1; Bonine, op. cit., pp. 132; 167.
33 See above, n. 32.
34 Afshar, “Zīlū”, p. 36, n. 40 and figs. 1-4; Beattie, p. 170 and figs. 2, 5 and 7.
35 Ettinghausen, p. 261; Briggs, A., ‘Timurid Carpets I. Geometric Carpets”, Ars Islamica, vol. VII (1940), pp. 20-54Google Scholar.
36 Ettinghausen, ibid