#herat

muhammad's ascension to heaven (1. muhammad visits the hell for misers; 2. muhammad's encounter with an angel in the shape of a gigantic white cock who keeps track of time and calls the faithful to prayer; 3. muhammad at the gates of hell)

miniatures from a copy of mahmud al-bulgari's nahj al-faradis (the paths of paradise), a work dealing with the prophet muhammad’s mystical ascension to heaven, which takes him to both paradise and hell. on his journey, muhammad is mounted on the winged creature buraq and accompanied by the archangel gabriel/jibril. this particular (since dismembered) manuscript was commissioned by the timurid ruler abu said mirza and created by al-sarai in herat (timurid empire, modern day afghanistan), c. 1465

Opaque watercolour, ink, gold and silver on paper

Herat, Afghanistan, 1523-24

Artist: Shaykhzada

A common symbol for the Sufi search for divine knowledge was wine, which with its properties of loosening one's hold on reality, helped the mystic to achieve a state bordering on spiritial ecstasy. Since the orthodox tenets of Islam forbade wine-drinking, it often occurred in remote wineshops, run by certain non-Muslims generally known as Magians.

by Phyllis Chesler

Last night, I watched a haunting short film up on Chai Flicks about the hidden Jews in Mashhad. Did my disappointed-in-me Iranian colleague know that in 1839, after Muslims stormed the Jewish ghetto, burned synagogues, and murdered Jews, they forced the surviving Iranian Jews to convert to Islam, who were then known as “Jadidol-eslam.” However, Jews had to live in a ghetto, practice Judaism secretly, were not allowed to pay for something with coins that their Jewish hands had touched--no, they first had to drop the coins into water to cleanse it from their Jewish flesh. When it rained, Jews were not allowed out because the Muslim Iranians believed that if the rain had first touched a Jewish body, it would contaminate their pure Muslim bodies. But matters worsened in Mashhad, and Iran’s Jews fled to Herat in Afghanistan, where they could practice Judaism more openly.

However, alas, Herat was only a temporary haven, and many Iranian Jews fled back to Mashhad and on to Turkmenistan, Russia, Palestine, and America. By the 1920s, the Afghan King Nadir Shah held Herat’s remaining Jews hostage and took over their (and the Afghan Hindu’s) enormously successful businesses as traders and bankers. (I know this because my Afghan then-father-in-law became one of the three principals in the new National Bank--for Muslims only.)

The Mashhadi Jews of Herat were reduced to lives of squalor. Jewish women had to be veiled when and if they left home. Even the emancipator King Amanullah, and after him, Nadir Shah, and his son, Zahir Shah, were all pro-German; by the 1930s, Afghanistan was in league with the Nazis. In fact, Afghanistan sheltered Nazi fugitives after the war. Eventually, Afghanistan’s Jews managed to get out/were allowed to leave.

New article!

In her first article for Along the Silk Road on Persian miniature painting, Dr. Shadabeh Azizpour discusses master Kamal al-Din Behzād (1456–1535). He was one of the most prominent painters (naqqāshs) active in the artistic circles of Herat and Tabriz during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, under the Timurid and Safavid dynasties.

جفا مکن که جفا رسم دلربایی نیست

don't be cruel, it's not how you win someone's heart

جدا مشو که مرا طاقت جدایی نیست

don't leave me, I couldn't bear it

عبید، پیش کسانی که عشق می‌ورزند

Ubayd, for those who truly cherish love,

شب وصال کم از روز پادشایی نیست

A night together is as glorious as a a king's reigning day 

عبید زاکانی

Ubayd Zakani (14th century)