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Calligraphic Representations of the Prophet

rvin Cemil Schick

I would like to begin my remarks by stressing that Islamic calligraphy signifies not onlythrough the textit embodies, but often also through itsform. I am certainly not the first topropose this. Oleg Grabar spoke of what he called the semantic-slash-iconographicfunction of writing, though he unfortunately did not adequately elaborate this idea. IreneBierman wrote of the aesthetic function of public writing, in which style and materialsconvey messages about hierarchy, power, and patronage. And Yasser Tabbaa discussedthe transition from angular to cursive script in book making, and from floriated kftothuluth in public writing, asstrategic weapons in the doctrinal wars then raging betweenthe beleagured Abbasid caliphate and the rising Shiite threat to its survival.

Still, the role ofform as an element of thepolysemy of Islamic calligraphy remainsunderstudied. Indeed, calligraphy itself is woefully neglected. What has been done so farhas, for the most part, been eitherepigraphic, in the sense of cataloguing the texts ofinscriptions; orpaleographic, in the sense of attempting to trace the origins of Arabicwriting; orhagiographic, in the sense of repeating ad nauseam a repertoire of biographiesand legends concerning the sayings and doings of famous calligraphers. Very little hasbeen done to understand what calligraphy is, what calligraphy means, and whatcalligraphy does.

I will approach the subject of calligraphic representations of the Prophet in three stages.

First, I will try to substantiate the claim I have just made, that calligraphy means not onlyas textbut also asform. Second, I will describe examples in which important historical ormythical individuals have been represented through calligraphy. And third, I will focusspecifically on calligraphic representations of the Prophet.

Now, I am sure most of you are quite familiar with the calligraphic pictures, 1 sometimescalled calligrams or pictorial calligraphies, 2 that one finds throughout the Muslim world,and particularly in Turkey, Iran, and India. 3 Although these are quaint and certainlydeserve serious study, in most cases there is no relationship between the textand itsshape. 4 Whether the inscription has been moulded into a ewer or an elephant, a mosque

or a falcon, one cannot speak here of a dialogue between form and content.In other cases, however, this is not so. Consider this work5 by the Turkish calligrapherMustafa Halim zyazc, who lived between 1898 and 1964. Halim Efendi has beencalled the foremost Turkish calligrapher of the twentieth century. He was a student ofseveral of the best known practitioners of his day, including Hmid Ayta, Hasan Rza,Kmil Akdik, smail Hakk Altunbezer and Mehmed Hulsi Yazgan. I am onlymentioning this to emphasize that Halim Efendi was not some marginal or folk artist, but,


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quite to the contrary, very much a classically trained mainstream calligrapher. Dated1348 A.H. (192930 C.E.), this panel is composed of two parts. The text in the form of ahand is a well-known verse from the Qurn, which reads: wa m arsalnka illrahmatan lil-lamn (And we have not sent you but as mercy to the worlds) (al-Anbiy 21: 107). It is spoken by God to the Prophet Muhammad, and is taken to meanthat the latters mission is evidence of Gods grace. Under the hand are two lines ofpoetry in Turkish, which say:

Ne kadar mznib olsam da yine olmam gam-nkHccet-i rahmet iken elde: Ve m erselnk(e)

No matter how great a sinner I may be, I do not grieveSo long as proof of mercy is in hand: And we have not sent you

The Quranic verse stating that the Prophet has been sent to humanity by God as an act ofmercy is written in the form of a hand, just as the affirmation it represents is in hand by

virtue of the sacred revelation. Here, the text and the image share a single referent, andthe meaning of the textcorresponds exactly to the meaning of the image into which thetext has been woven.

Another example of a work of calligraphy that means not only through its textual contentbut also through itsform is this panel 6 by Elhac Mehmed Nazif Bey, who lived between1846 and 1913. Nazif Bey was also a highly respected academic (for lack of a betterterm) calligrapher, one who has been labeled the apex of Ottoman thuluth. The panel isdated 1319 A.H. (19012 C.E.), and features a short poem in Turkish extolling the virtuesof theBasmala. The poem is of no great literary value, and reads as follows:

Alem kaldrsa bir yerde kaan sultn- BismillhOlur lhutiyn ryi-i dvn- BismillhSrt- Mstakymi anla hatt- istivsndanVarr Allha doru menhec-i sn- Bismillh

As soon as SultanBismillh raises his flagThe angels become the pillars of the court ofBismillhInterpret its equator as the Srat- MstakmThe short route ofBismillh leads towards God

As you know, the phrase al-irat al-Mustaqm, or the straight path, appears in the veryfirst chapter of the Qurn, and is taken to mean the true faith, i.e. Islam. In addition,however,sfs believed that there is a bridge by this name that every soul is required tocross after death; it is thinner than a hair and more trenchant than a sword, in the wordsof the poets, and those who fail to reach the other side will fall down into the eternal firesof Hell. Those who can cross the bridge, on the other hand, will reach the side of God. Inthe poem, a visual analogy is drawn between the bridge ofiratand the words Bismillh,


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by playing on the lengthened arcin the words bismi. In an ordinary text, 7 these wordswould be written with a short arc; however, calligraphers traditionally lengthened the arcwhen writing this particular formula. Such lengthenedBasmalas are very common, andare termed oklu Besmele (Basmala with arrow) in Turkish. With its lengthened arc, whichthe poet qualifies as an equator (hatt- istiv), the formula is likened to the bridge ofiratwhich, going from right to left, leads straight to Allh. 8 So we have here a bit ofvisual iconicity. The formulaBismillh leads the believer to God, and it actually lookslike the very bridge over which the believers soul is to reach God in the afterlife. Butthere is more: in the last line where the poem refers to theBasmala as a short route thatleads to God, the calligrapher has actuallyshortenedthe arc, so that once again the formof the writing echoes the meaning of the text itself.

Let me give you just one more example. These two panels 9 contain the same inscription,l hawla wa l quwwata ill billh (There is no force nor power but from God). Theone on the right is by Neyzen Mehmed Emin Dede, who lived between 1883 and 1945. It

is beautifully written, and eminently legible. The one on the left, on the other hand, is byMustafa Rkm Efendi, quite possibly the greatest of all Ottoman calligraphers. He livedbetween 1757 and 1826, and, educated as a painter as well as a calligrapher,experimented a great deal with unusual, arresting compositions. Here, as you can see, hecollected similarly shaped letters together. In so doing, not only did he create a ratherinteresting, if virtually illegible inscription, but he furthermore arranged the three ls sideby side, under the name Allh, so as to make them appear like three believers turnedtoward God, their hands open in supplication.

For those of you who may be skeptical, let me point out that I am not suggesting that

Rkm necessarily intended for this panel to look like three believers imploring God. Butin a sense, Rkms intentions are irrelevant. This interpretation has been around forseveral generations, and that is what really matters. For many people who have beheldthis work over the years, the script represents three believers praying to God.

I hope you will consider all these examples compelling enough evidence to support theargument that calligraphy can mean through itsform as well as its textual content. Thereare many more such examples, both academic and not. For instance, in many popularpanels 10 declaiming Ah min al-ashq (Ah! [How I have suffered] from love),commonly found in coffeehouses, inns, and shops all over the Ottoman world, the letter

he was shaped like a tearful eye, sometimes pierced by an arrow. This indicates the griefof love which, 11 the poem goes on to say, burns the heart with its heat.

These examples point to the function of calligraphy as icon, a role that has not beensatisfactorily addressed to date. Yet, because of this function, and contra Shakespeare,Whats in a name? can be much more than at first meets the eye.


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Consider these two pages. 12 Beginning in the eighteenth century, it became common inOttoman devotional manuscripts to include a section in which a series of holy names(starting with Allh and Muhammad, and often ending with the Seven Sleepers and theirdog Qitmr) would be placed within large medallions, one name per medallion per page.The fact that these medallions are literally hors-texte already endows them with a certainpictorial quality, but there is more to it than that. In many cases, the medallions appearbelow (or are sandwiched between) a caption that does nothing but state the obvious. 13For example, if the name Muhammad appears in the central medallion, then theaccompanying caption might say something like This is the name of His ExcellencyMuhammad, may prayers to God and peace be upon Him. If the name in the medallionis Ab Bakr, then the caption might say This is the name of His Excellency Ab Bakr,may God be pleased with him. This is a common pattern, and begs the question of whythe captions were added in the first place. After all, if one can read the caption, thensurely one can also read the central medallion. The answer to this puzzle is that the

caption refers in fact to two distinct objects: when it says This, it is referring to themedallion below it; and when it says is the name of Muhammad, it is referring to theproper name of the Prophet. In other words, the medallion is notidentical to the name, itis an image of the name. It is, in fact, an icon. Indeed, in many such books, virtuallyidentical captions 14 accompany pictures in the ordinary sense of the word, e.g. imagesof holy relics such as the mantle of the Prophet or his footprint, or, as you see here, theaxe of Ab Muslim and the date-tree by the Prophets Tomb in Madina. As the word forpicture, resmun, is very similar to the word for name, ismun, the captions both lookand sound almost exactly alike.

In short, just the name 15 of a person can function as an icon, a visual representation.This powerful panel by smail Zhdi, an Ottoman calligrapher who died in 1806, simplylists the names of Al, Hasan, and Husayn, ending with the prayer May God be pleasedwith him. But can one really argue that this is not a portrait of sorts?

So, moving on to the calligraphic representation of holy personages, we see in some casesrepresentations that are morepicture than writing. Here, 16 for example, are Fazl- Hurf(or Falullh of Astarbd, 1339/401394), founder of a schismatic sect that emphasizedletter-symbolism, and the Caliph Al. These portraits are no more than generic images ofwise old men, whose identities depend solely on superimposed inscriptions that bind their

facial features to the letters that spell their names. Thus, on the left, the lettersf,d,and lm correspond respectively to the ears, eyes, and moustache of Falullh. Here 17

are two other images, representing Kutb- Ny Hamza Dede, the chiefnay player ofMawln Jallud-Dn Rm. And here 18 is the Shiite mystic Kazak Abdal, identifiednot by his own name but by his affiliation to the Imams Al, Husayn, and Jafar. In allthese cases, letters are simply used to label otherwise unidentifiable images. In other


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words, these are pictures with captions, and their only noteworthy aspect is that thecaptions are physically integrated into the pictures themselves.

But there are more sophisticated instances of the representation of individuals throughcalligraphy. This famous image, 19 for example, was designed by an Ottoman

calligrapher named Abdlgani in 1763. It survived as a stencil, which the illuminatorOsman Ymni Efendi used to produce several copies including this one dated 1321 A.H.(1903 C.E.). The text forming the bird is a couplet about a certain dervish known in hisday as Seyyid Hasan Leylek Dede. The word Leylek is Turkish for stork; it is saidthat the dervish earned this nickname because he was very tall and lanky. The poem thatcomposes the image celebrates the devotion of this dervish to his master, MawlnJalluddn Rm. It reads as follows:

Ak- Mevln ile hayretzedeMevlev Seyyid Hasan Leylek Dede

Ecstatic with love for MevlnMevlev Seyyid Hasan Leylek Dede

What is most important here is that the text and the image are related at a very basiclevel. The text speaks of a dervish known by the nickname the Stork, and it is alsoshapedlike a stork.

A common calligraphic image that similarly shares a common referent with its text is thelion 20 as a symbol of the Caliph Al. As he was nicknamedHaydarandAsadullhtheformer meaning lion and the latter lion of God, many calligraphic compositionscontaining invocations and prayers to him are shaped like a lion. In other cases, 21 the

letterya in Alis name is forked, to resemble his fabled sword, dhulfiqr.

In this panel 22 dated 1318 A.H. (19001 C.E.) by the Ottoman calligrapher HseyinSt Efendi, the names of the Seven Sleepers and their dog are written in a circularcomposition that conjures them in the cave, as depicted more figuratively in the fifteenth-century miniature on the right, attributed to Mehmed Siyah Kalem.

By far the most common such images, however, are sfinscriptions 23 in whichinvocations to the patron of the dervish order are frequently shaped like the distinctiveheadgear of that particular order. Here, on the left, you see an inscription shaped like theheaddress of the Mevlev dervishes, by the Turkish calligrapher Hmid Ayta, alsoknown as Hmid el-mid, who lived between 1891 and 1982. On the right is aninscription shaped like a Snbl headdress, by the Ottoman calligrapher Him Efendi,who died in 1845. Each inscription contains the name of the patron of its order, followedby a benediction.

So let me finally get to the main topic, calligraphic representations of the Prophet. Giveneverything I have said so far, it will come as no surprise that there are a good number of


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such works, not least because figurative representations of the Prophet were frownedupon, particularly by Sunnis.

As with other holy personages, 24 the name of the Prophet also takes an iconic formwhen written by itself. These are two pages from a devotional manuscript dated 1808 by

Galatal Ahmed Nail Efendi. Here, you see 25 two panels featuring the name of theProphet. The one on the left is from the eighteenth century, and is signed by SeyyidDervi Hseyin. The one on the right is by Ali Alparslan, who only passed away lastyear. Both are, in a sense, portraits. They are not invocations, like Y Muhammad, say,nor supplications, like efaat y Reslallh. They are just names as icons of the Prophet.

But of course things do get much more complicated. Consider these interesting panels 26by the great Ottoman calligrapher Mehmed efik Bey. The one on the left is dated 1292A.H. (1875 C.E.), and the text says Mercy Ali, Fatima, Hasan, Husayn. In other words,it addresses itself to Islams equivalent of the Holy Family, the so-called l-i Ab or

Ahl al-Baytcomprised of the Prophet, his daughter Fatima, son-in-law Ali, and twograndsons Hasan and Husayn. Though the name Muhammaddoes notappear explicitlyon this panel, it is in fact hidden in the composition, as the word mn, mercy, isnumerologically equivalent to it. Indeed, the panel on the right has, under the pear, awell-known poem, which says the following:

mn lfz senin ism-ierfinle msvdirAnnn kn zr mndr Y Reslallh!

The word Mercy is equivalent to your noble nameThat is why the lovers cry is for mercy, O Messenger of God

In other words, the name Muhammad does not have to be written for the calligraphy torepresent him! The leaves on the pear at right read Y Sayyidal-Awwaln wal-hirn, atitle of the Prophets that makes it certain that the prayer is addressed to him.

Though it does not tie in directly with our topic, I want to draw your attention to anotherinteresting detail in the panel on the left. As you can see, the first letter of the nameFatima is inside the first letter of the name Ali. What is interesting is that the name of thefirst letter of Ali, ayn, is a homonym of the Arabic word for eyethat is, the organ ofsight. Furthermore, there is, in both Arabic and Turkish, the expression to be insomeones eye, which means to be loved, to be esteemed, to be valued. So by placing

Fatima into the ayn/eye of Ali, this inscription is in fact giving the message that theProphets daughter was greatly beloved and esteemed by her spouse, the Caliph Ali.Visually, the calligraphic composition makes Fatima the apple of Alis eyeanexpression that has the same meaning in Turkish (Alinin gz bebei) as it does inEnglish. That both 27efik Bey and other calligraphers repeated this motif, which isactually rather awkward from a purely calligraphic point of view, suggests that I am notreading too much into this work.


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would hang down in waves. His face was not overly plump, nor was it fleshy,yet it was somewhat circular. His complexion was rosy white. His eyes werelarge and black, and his eyelashes were long. He was large-boned and broad-shouldered. His torso was hairless except for a thin line that stretched downhis chest to his belly. His hands and feet were rather large. When he walked,he would lean forward as if going down a slope. When he looked at someone,he would turn his entire body towards him. Between his two shoulders was theSeal of Prophethood, and he was the last of the prophets.

That these panels were intended as portraits is clear not only from this descriptive text,but also from the fact that the components of the panel were named (from top to bottom)bamakam (head station),gbek(belly), kuak(belt), and etek(skirt).

Now, the Arabic word ilyah refers to the features or appearance of a person, and theOttoman compounds hilye-ierfe (noble hilye) and hilye-i saadet(felicitous hilye)

denote the features or appearance of the Prophet Muhammad. Tim Stanley has suggestedthat while the hilye may have arisen as the Muslim counterpart of the Orthodox Christianicon, in view of the fact that a figural representation of the Prophet would have beenfrowned upon in the Sunni tradition, it was most likely inspired by the celebrated poem ofthe sixteenth-century Ottoman poet Hakn Mehmed Bey known asHilye-i Hakn. Thislatter was in turn based on a possibly spurious tradition, according to which the Prophet isreported to have said:

Whoever sees my hilye after me is as though he has seen me. And whoever istrue to me, God will spare him the fire of Hell, and he will not experience thetrials of the grave, and he will not be driven naked on the Day of Judgement.

If Hfz Osman did indeed draw his inspiration from theHilye-i Hakan, then he createdhis hilye panels primarily as objects of contemplation: whoeversees my hilye, were thewords reportedly spoken by the Prophet, not whoever reads my hilye. Once again, then,the hilye is meant not so much to be read, as to be seen. As such, it is an image, albeit onemade up of plain text.

The composition invented by Hfz Osman was widely imitated 31 throughout theeighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. However, there are some very interestingvariations as well. For example, 32 two calligraphic giants of the early nineteenth

century, Mahmud Celleddn (on the left) and Mustafa Rak

m (on the right), are united inthis slide. Both cypresses filled with microcalligraphy and bands of calligraphysurrounding the central medallion also show up in the works of later artists. A number33used the form of the imperial cypher, the tura, like Kebecizde Mehmed Vasfi Efendi inthe early nineteenth century. Microcalligraphy was perfected by Fehmi Efendi in theearly twentieth. And some emphasized the Prophet not only in the text, but also in theform of the hilye, as with this 34 work by brahim Sukt dated 1243 A.H. (1827 C.E.).


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Hilyes were also sometimes written in book form, as in this one 35 by Yedikuleli SeyyidAbdullh, who lived between 1670 and 1731. The text reported from the Caliph Ali is inthe circular medallions, while selections from theHilye-i Hakanappear in the columnsabove and below them. This little book also contains hilyes that is, word portraits ofthe four Rightly Guided Caliphs, for example 36 Uthman and Ali on these two pages.Another book, this one by the eighteenth century Ottoman calligrapher known as DerviAli the Second, 37 contains hilyes within naturalistic flowers typical of manuscriptillumination of the period. These are the portraits of Abu Bakr and Umar. And as thepractice became more widespread, hilyes were also written for various prophets, 38 forexample Adam and Noah here.

In short, calligraphy provided many opportunities for visual representation which, if notexactlyfigurative in the usual sense of the word, certainly added much expression to thetextual contents of the works. Many individuals were physically represented throughcalligraphy, notably the Prophet, and I do not doubt that most believers were thus able to

imagine him not only as the Messenger of God, but as a person as well. 39

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