admin According to David Lockhart Lorimer, Bakhtiari poetry “reveals the real interests and outlook, and something of the experiences, of the Bakhtiari people”. He is clear that it is “the genuine product of the Bakhtiari mind” and that it owes nothing to any other poetic conventions. Laments are the most common type of poem, with grief …
Engelbert Kaempfer was a German physician who traveled to Persia with a Swedish embassy in 1683. He is best known, in Persia, for his descriptions of the court of Shah Abbas II and of Persepolis, where he was the first person to identify the inscriptions as a form of writing. He lodged in Isfahan for …
This week, it’s the viewings for the Islamic sales in London. It’s your chance to see high quality Islamic objects up close! If you’re nice, the sales ladies will probably even let you touch! There’s lots – but maybe the highlights for me include: At Sothebys (click here to get to the e-catalogue, then search …
When I visited Bedasht, I was taken to see a very lovely little namaskhane (literally ‘prayer house’) – with images of Abul Fazl (just in case any of you still think images are taboo in Islam), and with much more space for women than for men. There’s also a mosque – this was the only …
In 1896, three British men set off on “the longest bicycle ride ever attempted, just 19,237 miles over continuous new ground” – including a ride through Persia. John Foster Fraser’s account of the two year trip is full of colonial-style anecdotes (many of which are a little too close to racism for many modern readers). …
The New Year starts at 05.14 on 20 March in London: click here for the time in other places. To see a very lovely video on the Zoroastrian celebration of New Year, please click here. This video says that the celebration of New Year came even before the time of Zoroaster; and explains how the …
I’ve always wanted to know exactly when (and how) the famous star tiles were taken off the Khargird madreseh. You can see some of the tiles in London (in the V&A and also in the British Museum); in the Met in New York; and in the David Museum in Copenhagen. If you have (lots of) …
The 1910 Munich exhibition is renowned for its innovative ‘white wall’ display of Islamic objects, elevating individual pieces from an element within the faux-oriental ‘fairytale’ set-pieces of earlier exhibitions to works of art displayed in a gallery. At the time, though, perhaps this wasn’t so clear. EM Troelenberg suggests that: “[t]he best way to proceed …
Michele Membré was a Venetian Cypriot, tasked by the Venetian Doge with delivering a letter. This letter, hidden in a book binding, urged Shah Tahmasp to help Venice by attacking the Ottoman Sultan Suleyman from the East. Membré (eventually) reached Tahmasp’s military camp (urdu), and his description of this is uniquely detailed. Membré recording seeing …