Part 2 (1/2)
The Dedication in the handwriting of the scribe, in ornate gold lettering, reads:
”For his majesty, the AUGUST, the just, the possessor of virtues, the great KHAGAN GHAZI ABD-UL-AZIZ BAHADUR KHAN, may his domain last forever.”
The autograph of the Emperor SHAH JAHAN, the ”GREAT MOGUL”, on the magnificently decorated mount reads:
”In the name of G.o.d compa.s.sionate and merciful this YUSUF-OU-ZALIKHA treasured on the occasion of BLESSED ACCESSION.” (A.D. 1627)
In confirmation of the foregoing, it is of great interest that JAHANGIR makes special reference in his memoirs (Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri) to an incident, as of highest importance, that he was presented by ABD-AL-RAHIM KHAN, KHAN-I-KHANAN, with a superb copy of J'AMI'S poem YUSUF-OU-ZALIKHA, transcribed by MIR ALI SULTANI, ”Prince of Penmen”, and that the gift was appraised at ”a thousand Muhr”.
[Ill.u.s.tration: COMPLETE ILl.u.s.tRATED AND ILLUMINATED Ma.n.u.sCRIPT OF ”YUSUF-OU-ZALIKHA”, BY THE FAMOUS MYSTIC POET J'AMI]
ONE OF THE ILl.u.s.tRATIONS TO THE Ma.n.u.sCRIPT YUSUF-OU-ZALIKHA
ZALIKHA in old age, broken and in poverty, meets YUSUF in the market place in Egypt.
_”Where is thy youth, and thy beauty, and pride?”
”Gone, since I parted from thee,” she replied.
”Where is the light of thine eye?” said he.
”Drowned in blood-tears for the loss of thee.”
”Why is that cypress tree bowed and bent?”
”By absence from thee and my long lament.”
”Where is thy pearl, and thy silver and gold, And the diadem bright on thy head of old?”..._
--Quotation from YUSUF-OU-ZALIKHA (J'AMI).
Translation of R.T. GRIFFITH.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
[Ill.u.s.tration: CHISELLED SILVER BOWL, DECORATED IN FILIGREE AND POLYCHROME ENAMEL. PERSIAN WORK OF THE XVITH CENTURY, PROBABLY EXECUTED IN ASIA MINOR FOR A PRINCELY OTTOMAN PATRON]
[PAGE 23]
and professed unqualified allegiance. A powerful political unity came into existence and continued for a period of SIX centuries uninterrupted. The nations of this united kingdom of ISLAM were thus merged into one unit, under the stimulus of one formal religion, freely transmigrating local ideas. Arts and culture were transformed, but the evolution thus caused by the Religion was essentially political in nature.
”There is no G.o.d but G.o.d,” said the APOSTLE OF ARABIA, but the poet reflected awhile, and his rejoinder was: ”The Ways of G.o.d are as the number of SOULS OF MEN.”
The Prophet's religion was rational, its principles attainable; it secured for the poet social amelioration and physical comfort, but there was a voice from the depth of his soul that he could not silence. It was the voice of mystery; he was concerned with the problems of the ”Wherefore, the Whence, and the Whither”.... Was he not a Son of the land which PLOTINUS visited to learn mystery of the Orient of Old?[9]
[Footnote 9: ”Il prit un si grand got pour la philosophie qu'il se proposa d'etudier celle qui etait enseignee chez les Perses et celle qui prevalait chez les Indiens. Lorsque l'empereur Gordien se prepara a faire son expedition contre les Perses, Plotin, alors age de trente-neuf ans, se mit a la suite de l'armee. Il avait pa.s.se dix annees entieres pres d'Ammonius. Gordien ayant ete tue en Mesopotamie, Plotin et a.s.sez de peine a se sauver a Antioche.”--PORPHYRY ON PLOTINUS: Translation of the Enneads of Plotinus (Bouillet; Paris, 1857).]
We have to look therefore to the RELIGION, ”The Ways” of whose G.o.d ”are as the number of Souls of Men”, to perceive the true nature of the evolution of the artistic expression of these people.
Souls with irresistible cravings for Mysticism, poets, artists, philosophers and the like, discovered for the first time from MUHAMMAD'S formal teachings, which contained certain esoteric elements, that the senses, unreal and phenomenal, have yet an important mission to fulfill in the task which aims to escape from SELF (which is an illusion and the root of SIN, PAIN, and SORROW) and to attain the height where the eternal beauty,
[CONTINUED ON PAGE TWENTY-SEVEN]
”PORTRAIT OF MEHDI ALI GULI KHAN, COMMANDER OF FORTRESS, BY RAMDAS”--A.D. 1630.