Miraj Nameh

A detail of the book

Miraj Nameh (Mirâj Nâmeh) was a Turkish illustrated book of the fifteenth century, contains a magnificent paintings and artworks, made by a Turkish painter and artist. Although little is known about his life and work, his only book that has transcended so far, has prompted great curiosity and admiration between art lovers and history, while anger and suspicion in the religious extremist followers of Islam^{[citation needed]}.

Work

The most important work that has come to this is his book "The miraculous journey of Mohammed", which tells the ascension of Muhammad to heaven and which was composed between 1436 and 1437 (840 in the Islamic calendar)^[1]

Inspired by the first verse from the Sura XVII, "al-Isra", the Koran, which has "praised be He , who led his servant by night from the holy mosque in Mecca to more distant temple of Jerusalem, whose surroundings … blessed." The "trip of the night" appears as a climb during which the angel Gabriel to Muhammad led the "holy mosque in Mecca to" the most distant mosque "in Jerusalem, and thence to the Seventh Heaven, where they received the founder of Islam in ecstatic contemplation of the divine essence. In the first centuries of the Hegira, this story led to the creation of other Arab popular stories and then, after theological progress, mystics and literary, were gradually integrated into the eschatological Muslim belief.

Composed by the poet Mir Haydar, with calligraphy by Malik Bakhshi of Herat, written in eastern Turkish and scored in the Uighur script, this manuscript is decorated with illustrations of sixty-one Miraj Nameh. These paintings have before our eyes, between the wonderment or distress, the steps that marked the miraculous journey of Mohammed, first by the celestial regions woven with gold and blue and populated with multicolored angels with wings, and then in the hellish world of shadows, frequented by the demons that tortured and curse.

This masterpiece among illustrated manuscripts of Islam, was created in the fifteenth century in the workshops of sacred manuscripts of Herat in Khorasan, at the request of Shah Rukh, son of Timur the Lame.^{[citation needed]} Subsequently, was bought in 1673 in Constantinople, the famous translator of The Thousand and One Nights, Antonie Galland (1646-1715).. Taken to France, the book was stay in the library of Colbert. Now, the manuscript is protected in the National Library of France, ranked among the "Supplements Turks" with the number 190.

Prohibition of his work

Despite its importance, his work has fallen into the cursed, the prosecution and prohibition^{[citation needed]}, because, in his book, makes physical representations of people sacred to Islam, both human and metaphorical look at objects^[2], something that is taboo in that religion. The problem affected and affects other artists^[3]. Because of all this, today is an almost unknown author.

Influences from the West

Have been perceived similarities in the illustrations of the manuscript of Nameh with images of The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, speculated that the author was able to draw Turkish in it, especially in Chapter hell, to compose some drawings in the book.

References

1. ^ Miraj Nameh: Recit de l'ascension de Mahomet au ciel, compose ah 840 (1436/1437), texte iran, publie pour la premiere fois d'apres le manuscript... Ecole des langues orientales, Paris) ISBN 90-6022-255-5
2. ^ In an engraving of the book, called "The tree of Mohammed", the originator of Islam is represented alongside a tree rubies, sapphires and emeralds, may be an equivalent of Turgo tree that stands in the center of Muslim paradise. Watch image
3. ^ See other cases and examples

Bibliography

• Nameh, Miraj: "The Miraculous Journey of Mahomet . Introduction and commentaries by Marie-Rose Séguy (1977) Ed Braziller (George) Inc., US ISBN 0-8076-0868-8
• Hillenbrand, Robert: Persian Painting: From the Mongols to the Qajars (Pembroke Persian Papers) Ed. IB Tauris (2001) ISBN 1-85043-659-2

External links

• Book illustrators
• More images from the book
• The book at Amazon