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Qavam al-Din ibn Zayn al-Din Shirazi: A fifteenth-century Timurid architect

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2016

Donald Wilber
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Extract

Monuments of the Timurid period, erected in Iran and in Turan between 1370 and 1506, display inscriptions in Arabic and Persian which contain the names of ninety artisans, nearly all of which are followed at the end of the line by the Muslim lunar date. Many of the names are followed by occupations and about half by the addition of a nisbah, or place of birth. The occupations include master workman, architect, builder, carpenter, cabinet maker, stone carver, painter or decorator, tile cutter, mason working with mud brick, blacksmith and potter. In many cases the names were preceded by expressions of humility, such as ‘poor servant’ or ‘weak slave’ and followed by terms of religious piety.

Type
Research Article
Information
Architectural History , Volume 30 , 1987 , pp. 31 - 44
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 1987

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References

Notes

1 Allen, Terry, A Catalogue of the Toponyms and Monuments of Herat (Cambridge, Mass., 1981 (xerox) ). No. 486 gives Primary source 1. in translationGoogle Scholar.

2 Pope, A. U., ed., A Survey of Persian Art (Oxford, 1938), pp. 1016, 1124-26, 1133, 1791, fig. 424, pis 428-36Google Scholar; Sykes, P. M., ‘Historical Notes on Khurasan’, Journal ofthe Royal Asiatic Society, October 1910, pp. 1139, 1146-48Google Scholar; Khan, Sani’ al-Dawlah Mohammad Hasan, Merat al-Boldan iv (1880), 120-21Google Scholar; idem., Matla’ al-Shams, 11 (1886), 146-47.

3 Pope, A. U., Survey of Persian Art, pp. 1128-29, 1134, figs 404-07, pl. 487eGoogle Scholar; Saljuqi, F., Khiyaban (in Persian) (Kabul, 1343/1964)Google Scholar; Yate, C. E., ‘Notes on the City ofHirat’, Journal Royal Asiatic Society, Bengal, LVI, pt 1 (1887), 84–106 Google Scholar; Khanikoff, N., ‘Lettre à M. Reinaud’, Journal asiatique, 5th ser. xv (1860), 537-43Google Scholar; Lezine, A., ‘Herat: Notes de Voyage’, Bulletin d’Etudes Orientales, xviii (1963-64), 127-45Google Scholar.

4 Golombek, L., The Timurid Shrine at Gazur Gah (Toronto, 1969)Google Scholar; Saljuqi, F., Gazurgah (in Persian) (Kabul, 1341/1962)Google Scholar.

5 A. U. Pope, Survey of Persian Art, pp. 1126-28, 1134-36, 1142, fig. 402; Herzfeld, E. E., ‘Damascus, Studies in Architecture’, 11, Ars Islamica, x (1943), 20–21 Google Scholar; O’Kane, B., ‘The Madrasa al-Ghiyasiyya at Khargird’, Iran, xiv (1976), 79–92 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem., ‘Tayabad, Turbat-i Jam and Timurid Vaulting’, Iran, XVII (1979), 175-77; Pope, A. U., Persian Architecture: the Triumph of Form and Color (1965), pp. 197-98, pl. VIII, figs 192-93, 259-60Google Scholar.

6 Qavam al-Din Zayn al-Din Shirazi is mentioned with a somewhat different approach in the forthcoming book, The Timurid Architecture of Iran and Turan, by Lisa Golombek and Donald Wilber, to be published by the Princeton University Press.