Portraits of the Imāms Ḥasan (d. 670), Ḥusayn (d. 680), Shāfi`ī (d. 820) and Abū Ḥanīfa (d. 767), with `Abbāsid revolutionary Abū Muslim (d. 755) (recto), and `Abbāsid Caliphs al-Manṣūr, Hārūn al-Rashīd and al-Ma’mūn, with rulers Būya and Aḥmad Sāmānī (verso), from the genealogy (silsilanāma), Cream of Histories (Zübdet-üt Tevarih)

Abū Ṭālib Iṣfahānī

Portraits of the Imāms Ḥasan (d. 670), Ḥusayn (d. 680), Shāfi`ī (d. 820) and Abū Ḥanīfa (d. 767), with `Abbāsid revolutionary Abū Muslim (d. 755) (recto), and `Abbāsid Caliphs al-Manṣūr, Hārūn al-Rashīd and al-Ma’mūn, with rulers Būya and Aḥmad Sāmānī (verso), from the genealogy (silsilanāma), Cream of Histories (Zübdet-üt Tevarih). This portrait folio is from a book produced in Baghdad in 1598 (CBL T 423). The text and its family tree diagrams together provide a visual synopsis of universal history, presenting the Ottoman sultanate as its culmination. Here, the author lays out history as a genealogical tree with portrait medallions. This tree follows the sequence of Islam's prophets (starting with Adam, up to the Prophet Muḥammad), as well as kings and rulers, from ancient pre-Islamic Iran, then selectively through Islamic history up to the Ottoman dynasty. Two other known copies are dated to the same year (1006H), and also made in Baghdad: the political issue of righteous Ottoman power was of importance to the city, governed by the Sunni Ottoman empire, with a Shi`i majority population, and located between the Ottoman and (Twelver Shi`i) Safavid empires. Folio, ink, colours and gold on paper, Turkish text in black and red naskh script, diagrammatic family tree with labelled portrait medallions of the Imāms Ḥasan (d. 670), Ḥusayn (d. 680), Shāfi`ī (d. 820) and Abū Ḥanīfa (d. 767), with `Abbāsid revolutionary Abū Muslim (d. 755) (recto), and `Abbāsid Caliphs al-Manṣūr, Hārūn al-Rashīd and al-Ma’mūn, with rulers Būya and Aḥmad Sāmānī (verso), folio from the Cream of Histories (Zubdat al-tavārīkh, Zübdet-üt Tevarih), dedicated to Ottoman Sultan Meḥmed III (r. 1595-1603), copied by Abū Ṭālib Iṣfahānī (signs and dates the codex, CBL T 423, fol. 14r), Baghdad, Iraq, dated Shawwal 1006H, May 1598.