Subject Headings - Calligraphy, Arabic - Calligraphy, Persian - Manuscripts, Persian--Washington (D.C.) - Iran - Afghanistan - India - Arabic script calligraphy - Illuminated Islamic manuscripts - Islamic calligraphy - Islamic manuscripts - Nasta'liq - Poetry Notes - Quatrain praising vision written in Nasta'liq script by the writer (al-katib) Mas'ud al-Tabib who traveled through, Iran, Afghanistan to India. - Dil jaya gham u dida makan-i gawhar ast / Ya'ni gawhar-i vasl-i tu dar chasm tar ast / Dar dil gham u dar dida khayal-i tu dar ast / Zan ruy za dil dida am abadtar ast - Dimensions of Written Surface: 15.9 (w) cm x 24.5 (h) cm - In the lower left corner, the writer (al-katib) Mas'ud al-Tabib has signed his name, along with his diminutive epithets "the weak, the smallest of servants" (al-da'if aqall al-'ibad). The calligrapher's full name was Rukn al-Din Mas'ud al-Tabib, and he was known as a master of the nasta'liq style. Rukn al-Din was nicknamed al-Tabib ("the doctor") as he came from a long line of royal physicians and he himself held high position at the court (divan) of Shah 'Abbas I (r. 1587-1629) in Isfahan (Qadi Ahmad 1959: 169-170). However, since the ruler did not get well after a bout of illness, he requested that Rukn al-Din reimburse his salary and forced him to leave the capital city. The calligrapher headed to Mashhad (northeastern Iran), from where he then journeyed to Balkh (modern-day Afghanistan) and eventually arrived in India (Huart 1972, 221). - One other calligraphic sample by Rukn al-Din Mas'ud al-Tabib is held in the collections of the Library of Congress: see 1-88-154.153 - The heart is a place of sadness and the eye is the site of essence / That means the essence of your arrival is in the wet eye / In the heart (is) sadness and in the eye is the imagining of you / Because my eye is more refined than my heart - The poet describes his crying ("wet eye") upon seeing his beloved, attempting to show that visual imagination is more sensible and responsive than the heart. - This calligraphic fragment includes a quatrain, or ruba'i, praising vision as the most keen of the human senses. The text is written in black nasta'liq script on a beige paper decorated with gold paint. The text panel is framed by two borders in beige and gold and pasted to a blue paper decorated with gold flower and vine motifs. Beginning with an invocation to God as the Glorified (huwa al-mu'izz), the verses read: - Script: nasta'liq - 1-84-154.48 Medium 1 volume ; 27.5 (w) x 39 (h) cm Repository Library of Congress African and Middle Eastern Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA Digital Id https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.amed/ascs.095 Library of Congress Control Number 2019714599 Online Format image LCCN Permalink https://lccn.loc.gov/2019714599 Additional Metadata Formats MARCXML Record MODS Record Dublin Core Record IIIF Presentation Manifest Manifest (JSON/LD)