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    Sufism and the Aesthetics of Penmanship in iraj al-Shirazi’s Tuhfat al-Muhibbin (1454) Cart W. ERNST University oF Nort CAROLINA Arabic calligraphy has exerted its enchantment over many generations of writers and readers alike. Despite the existence of numerous treatises in Arabic and Persian on the techniques of penmanship, hearkening back to the methods developed by the great callig- raphers of the ‘Abbasid era such as Tbn Mugla (4. 940) and Yaqat (d. ea. 1297), few authors have attempted to explain the aesthetic and spiritual bases of the art of the pen.! A master calligrapher from Shiraz, Siraj al-Shirazi, composed one such work under the title Tuhfat al- muhibbin (“The Bounty of the Lovers") in the Deccan kingdom of Bidar in 1454.? Although this work has not attracted much scholarly attention, it is a rich source for the early history and understanding of the cultural significance of the Arabic script.” In this work the author reveals the intimate relationship of his art to Sufism, as expounded by his teacher, a callig- rapher descended from the famous Persian Sufi, ROzbihan al-Baqli (d. 1209). Here I would like briefly to describe the contents of this guide to the art of penmanship and analyze the extent to which Sufi teachings play a role in the aesthetics of this calligrapher, that is, the form of artistic judgment and interpretation that he brings to the understanding of the art of the Arabic script. The author of this treatise gives his complete name as Abii Da Ya‘qab ibn Hasan ibn Shaykh, known as Siraj al-Hasani al-Shirizi; for convenience, I refer to him as Siraj. Unfor- tunately we do not have any detailed information about him from any other source than his own writing, The Bounty of the Lovers. There he states that this text was composed in 858/ 1454 in Mubammadabad (better known as Bidar), capital of the Indian kingdom of th Bahmani sultanate, where he had traveled from his homeland in Shiraz, The text itself was dedicated not to any reigning monarch, but (o his Sufi teacher in India, Amir-zida Muhibb An earlier version of this paper was presented atthe Dar al-Athar alIslamiyya Museum in Kowait on May 12, 2008. 1, For one example, see Carl W. Emst, “The Spirit of Islamic Calligraphy: Baba Sha Isan's Ada al- Masha)" JAOS 112 (1992): 279-86. Fora comprehensive survey of Arabic penmanship, see Sheila S. Blt, ffamic Calligraphy (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press, 2006). 2. Yatgab ibn Hlasan Siri Shires, Thr a-muhibbin (dar ant Kushniist vo Tarif manawa) ed Muhammad ‘Taqi Dinish-Puzhth, Kardmat Ra‘né Husaynl, and Tra) Afshar, Daftar Nashr-i Miraih-i Maktab, ‘Uti o Funiin, 8 (Tehran: Nugta, 1374/1997). In my translations from this Persian text, Arabi passages are printed in bold. The translation of Arabie uff as "bounty in the ttle reflects Lane's definition: “a gratuitous git, or favour, cor a bounty, or benefit... a gift nat given to any one before” (B, W. Lane, Arabie-English Lexicon (Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 1984), 208, 4, Francis Richard, “Nast al-Soltni, Nasir al-Din Mozaheb et la biblioth®que 4’ Ebrahim Solin a Siri,” Studia tranica 30 (2001): 87-104; Yves Porter, “La réglue (mastar): de la «formule d’ atelier» aux jeux de esprit” Studia fslamica 96 (2003): 55-74, esp. 57-58: Rugayya ADI I-Qisin, “Thulh;” Dénishndimai jahan-t ‘slam, found at hupzivw.eneyelopsedisislamica.com/madkhal2.php?side4266, more extensive references ate found in Viad Atenas, “Hypercaligraphie: Le phéaoméne ealligraphique &l'époque du sultanat mami, Moyen- Orient, XIlle-XVle sitele” (PhD. dis., Eeole pratique des Hautes Etudes / Section des Sciences historiques et philologigues, Paris, 203), accessible at hip:/vaqwaq info/atanasiv2003phd put Journal of the American Oriental Society 129.3 (2009) 431 432 Journal of the American Oriental Society 129.3 (2009) Chart 1, The Descendants of Razbihan al-Baqit Rozbihin al-Bagli al-Shirazi (1128-1209) Fakhr al-Din Ahmad ibn Riizbihan (ca. 1174-1247) Sadr al-Din Ibrahim ibn Fakhr al-Din Abmad Rizbihin II (1218-1286) yharaf al-Din Ibrahim ibn Sadr al-Din (ca. 1300) 5, Sadr al-Din ibn Sharaf al-Din Ibrahim Ruzbihan IL 6, Sadr al-Din Razbihan al-Shirazt (IV? ca. 1400] Allah, son of Khalil Allah and geandson of the well-known Persian Sufi master Shah Ni‘mat Alla Wali, Moreover, he informs us that the tite of his treatise was adopted from an iden tically named work by the famous Sufi of Shiraz, Shaykh Riizbihan al-Bagli.t master in the art of calligraphy, whom he mentions frequently (thirteen times in the text), was Sadr al-Din Razbihan Shirazi, a descendant of the Sufi master, Siraj refers to his teacher with utmost reverence, calling him “the seal of the calligraphers” (Karam al-khaggain).$ To judge from what we know about the family of Ritzbihan in Shiraz, Siraj’s master in calligraphy was probably a fifth-generation descendant. Ruzbihan's great-grandson Sharaf al- Din Ibrahim ibn Sadr al-Din “Ruzbihan al-Thani” (ie., Rizbihan II, active in 700/130) had son named Sadr al-Din bin Sharaf al-Din Ibrahim “Rozbihiin al-Thalith” (Rozbihan 1D, but the time interval is too long to make it possible for the latter to have been the teacher of Siraj, who must have been educated at the latest by the beginning of the fifteenth cen- tury. Therefore it seems likely that it was one generation later (at least) that the calligrapher Sadr al-Din RUzbihan appeared, who would thus have been Razbihan IV, or conceivably, a generation later, Rizbihan V (see Chart 1).6 ‘The vocabulary and style of Ya‘qub ibn Hasan’s text frequently show strong resemblances to the writings of Razbihan, so there is no question about the affiliation of this calligraphic work with the mystical schoo! of Shirtz Yet Siraj also makes clear that after his arvival in India he formed new attachments with a different Sufi lineage, the Ni‘matullahi order, established by Shah Ni‘mat Allah Wali (1330- 1430). When the Bahmant sultan Abmad Shah Wali (r, 1422-1436) acceded to the throne, one of his early gestures was to send a delegation to Kerman to invite Shah Ni‘mat Allah to come to the Deccan to establish his spiritual influence there, While the shaykh (who would have been over ninety years old at this time) declined this invitation, he did send a disciple (o initiate the sultan into the order; Ahmad Shah, not satisfied, entrusted another delegation with a second invitation to the shaykh, who this time agreed to send his grandson Nar Allah. (d. 1430) in his place. The latter was graciously received and married into the royal family. Then Shah Ni‘mat Allah, just prior to his death, appointed his son Khalil Allah (1373-1455) as his successor. After a brief sojourn in Herat at the invitation of Shahrukh, Khalil Allah made his way to the Deccan, probably arriving in Bidar by 1436, along with his two sons; the elder of these, Shah Muhibb al-Din (1427-1502), succeeded him as head of the Ni‘matullahis 4, Fora short Arabic excerpt from this lost work, see Muhammad agi Danish-Puzhoh, Rizbifian-nama (Tehran ‘Anjuman-i Athae-i Mill, 1969), 276, consisting of stories and sayings about great lovers. 5. Siraj also cites as one of his teachers Mawling Sharaf al-Din Amira, a calligrapher separated by one inter- mediary from the great Yagit, addressing him by the ttle “the master of the calligraphers” (shaykh al-Rhattatn, p. 245); the closing lines of the treatise appear to refer (by the use of the same title) to the same individual's in- cipient departure on pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina (p. 291), 6. For further details, see Carl W. Emst, Ruzbihan Bagll: Mystical Experience and the Rhetoric of Sainthood in Persian Sufism (London: Curzon Press, 1996), chat 1, xxi Enst: Sufism and the Aesthetics of Penmanship 433 in India,? Both of Khalil Allah's sons followed Nar Allah’s example by marrying into the Bahmani royal family. Siraj pays tribute (pp. 51-52) to both Muhibb al-Din and his father Khalil Allah as his new spiritual guides in the Indian environment, and it is striking that he makes no € to the ruling sultan, ‘ALP al-Din Abmad I(r, 1436-1458). Aside from these declarations of Sufi discipleship, Siraj offers little by way of historical information about his times, Si to have copied (presumably in Shiraz) a manuscript of the Zafar-nama of Sharaf al-Din Yazdi (d, 1454), a Persian biography of Tima, in a manu- script dated 1437.8 The only other near-contemporary figure that he mentions is Torahim ibn Shahrukh (1394-1435), a TimOrid prince known for his patronage of art and architecture; ij mentions him as both a connoisseur and practitioner of calligraphy, as well as being the sponsor of numerous building projects in Shiraz, including a mosque known as the Dar al-Safa-yi Sultani, From the Timirid author Qadi Ahmad we know that this building was one of several in Shiraz (including the tomb of the poet Sa‘di) that featured the prince's own calligraphy; unfortunately, a rebellious governor destroyed Ibrahim’s mosques at the end of the sixteenth century.® Siraj also remarks that Ibrahim’s court was adorned by a calligrapher such as his own teacher, Sadr al-Din Ruzbihan. ° His familiarity with a Timatid prince de- ceased two decades before the composition of his treatise, together with the dating of his Zafar-naima manuscript, suggests that Siraj may have been in his youth when Ibrahim was active in Shiraz (1415-1435); thus the Tifat al-muhibbin would have been the product of his maturity, though the chronology must admittedly remain speculative at this point.!! Siraj was an example of the extraordinary movement of talent from Iran to India that formed a dominant cultural trend from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century, Particularly in the Deccan at an early stage, but later on in the Mughal regions of northern India as well, the wealthy courts of India proved an irresistible draw to numerous writers and intellectuals fiom Persia. ? Schimmel describes the “influx of calligraphers” to the Bahmant kingdom as characteristic of this period.!? The tomb of the Bahmani sultan Ahmad Shah I in his new capital of Bidar is particularly impressive, and it is noteworthy for its extensive inscriptions, including lengthy quotations from the Persian poetry of Shah Ni‘mat Allah, as well as two spiritual genealogies of the shaykh’s Sufi lineage in the central dome. 4 Schimmel considers the madrasa built in Bidar in 1472 by the minister Mahmtid Gawan (d. 1481, who arrived in the Decean in 1453, only a year before Siraj’s treatise was written) as one of the master- -es of monumental calligraphy of that era; it included compositions by ‘All al-Safi, whose 7. Muhammad Suleman Siddigi, The Bahmani Snfis (Delhi: Warah-i Adabiyat-i Delli, 1989), 78-83, 8, According to Mahdi BaySint, this manuscript copied by Siraj was in the Majlis Hbrary in Tehran, though Iraj Afshr was unable to locate it, eading him to speculate that it may have been in another library but mistakenly cited by Bayan! (Nulyar, 36). Siraj refers to Yazdi (p. 171) with language indicating thatthe latter was still iving at the time of the book's composition. For an illustration from this manuscript, see Blair, 264, fg. 7.10, 9. Calligraphers and Painters: A Treatise by Qadi Ahmad, son of Mir Munsht (circa A.H. 1019/A.D. 1606), tr. V. Minorsky (Washington, DC. Smithsonian Institution, 1959), 28, 69-71 10. Tubfar, 141. For a manuscript of Rumi's Mathnav! commissioned by this prince in Shiraz in 1419, see Annemarie Schimmel, The Triwmphal Sun: A Study of the Works of Jalaloddin Rumi (Albany: State Univ, of New York Press, 1993), 11 1. Priscilla P Soucek, “Ibrahim Sultan’s Military Career," in fran and Iranian Studies: Essays in Honor of taj Afshar, ed. Kambiz Eslami (Princeton: Zageos, 1998), 24~41 12. Carl W. Emst, “Deccan I, Political and Literary History.” Eneyelopaedia franca (Costa Mesa, Cal: Mazda Publishers, 1995), 7: 181-85. 13. Annemarie Schimmel, Calligraphy and Islamic Culture (New York: New York Univ, Press, 1984), 69, 14, Khwaja Muhammad Ahmad, “Calligraphy.” in History of Medieval Deccan 1295-1724, vol. 2, Mainly (Cultural Aspects, ed. H. K. Sherwani and P. M, Joshi (Hyderabad: Government of Andhra Pradesh, 1974), 411-22, esp. 415-17; G. Yaadani, Bidar: Its History and Monuments (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1947), 114-29. 434 Journal of the American Oriental Society 129.3 (2009) work also adored edifices constructed by the Ottoman emperor Mehmet the Conqueror. ? It is tempting to speculate that the work of a calligrapher like Siraj, who was so closely connected to elite circles among the Bahmanis, may have formed a part of the inscriptions found in the monuments of Bidar. It would have been natural, for example, for Siraj to have been involved in the calligraphic program attached to the tomb of the reigning Bahmani sultan Ahmad IT, whose death took place only four years after the composition of the Tilfat al-muhibbin. ® Even more importantly, Siraj would have had a keen interest, if not an active hand, in the calligraphic decoration on the four-story (Hindi au-khandi) shrine of the father of his Sufi mentor, Shaykh Khalil Allah, who died in 1455.!7 This tomb features a re~ markable monumental inscription in thulth style, signed by another calligrapher from Shiraz, one Mughith al-Qari. Begley calls this “one of the great masterpieces of monumental Islar calligraphy in India,” and Michell and Zebrowski concur that it is “among the greatest epi- graphic inscriptions of Indian and Islamic art.”!® And one also wonders if the teachings of Siraj would have had an impact on the Bahmant sultan Mahmiid Shah (t, 1482-1518), a cal: ligrapher whose work adorns the Sharza Gate of Bidar fort, in an inscription dated to 1503."° The text of Tihfat al-muhibbin exists in a unique manuscript, dated probably to the eigh- teenth century, which claims to be copied from the author’s autograph although itis written in an ordinary hand; the manuscript exhibits archaic orthographic practices that have been modernized by the editors in the printed edition, This document was aequired by the French Orientalist Anquetil du Perron in India in the 1790s, and it is preserved today in the Biblio- théque Nationale in Paris (suppl. persane 1086). It was first noticed among modern scholars by Muhammad Taqi Danish-Puzhth, who enlisted the support of Karamat Ra‘nd Husayni and Iraj Afshar for its publication in a critical edition (with an introduction by Afshar) pub- lished in 1997, as part of a long-standing project to publish all available Persian texts on calligraphy. It is considered to be the second-oldest independent treatise on the Arabic script to be written in Persian, after the work of ‘Abd Allah Sirafi Tabrizé (14th century), which Siraj quotes repeatedly.2° The Tihyfat al-muhibbin was a product of the sophisticated calli- graphic milieu of Shiraz, which was an important international center for the production of fine manuscripts; as Qadi Ahmad remarked, in compatison to the calligraphers of Shiraz, “most of the renowned calligraphers in Fars, Khurasan, Kirman, and ‘Iraq ‘are eaters of crumbs from their table’.”?! Vlad Atanasiu has compared the Tufat al-muhibbin, as a wide- ranging manual of calligraphy, to the encyclopedic Subhi al-a‘sha of the Mamluk author al-Qalqashandi: “Both distinguish themselves in calligraphic literature, as much Persian as 15, Schimmel, 69 16, Yazdani, 129-31, with plates LXXVI-LXXVI, Unfortunately the tiles of this tomb have been largely de~ stroyed by time, 17. Tbid., 141-43, with plates LXXXI-LXXXV. 18, W.E. Begley, Monumenval Islamic Calligraphy from Indfa (Villa Park, IN: Islamic Foundation, 1985), 58; George Michell and Mark Zebrowski, Architecture and Art of the Deccan Sultanates (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Pros, 1999), 121 19, Yazdani, 12, with plate Mf; Khyvaja Muhammad Ahmad, "Two Inscriptions from Bidar Moslemica (1925-26): 17-19. 20, ‘Tula, 23. A few Persian works on calligraphy, none composed before the sixteenth century, are noticed by C.A, Storey, Persian Literauure: A Bio-Bibliographical Survey (London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1977), 11.3: 382 87. The text of Sirai's Adab-i kat has been edited by Najib Mayil Harawi, Kitab-arayr dar tamaddun- iat (Mashhad: Bunyad-i Paahhesh-ha-yi Islami, 1372/1993), xli-xlii, 13-32, 21, Minorsky, te, 67 (also mentioning as a leading calligrapher of Shirkz Mawland RU identical with Siefjs teacher, Sadr al-Din Ruzbihan); Atanasiu, 64-65, igraphia Indo: in, most probably Erwsr: Sifism and the Aesthetics of Penmanship 435 Mamluk, by the variety and clarity of the information that they give, sometimes unpublished, well as by a more personal and less rigid style:"22 Since this work is still not well known, I provide here a brief description of its con- tents. The lengthy text of the Tuhfar al-muhibbin (over 250 pages in the published edition) is divided into the following sections: Opening sermon (pp. 39-44) Reasons for the composition of the book (pp. 45~53) Adornment (tawshift) “explaining the excellence of calligraphy and clarifying that itis the noblest of arts” (pp. 55-60) Preface “explaining the placement of the script and the pens” (pp. 61-66) Discourse 1, “explaining the conditions of the pen and its qualities, the trimming of the pen, and mention of the composition of inks, tools, and materials for writing, and the manners of the scribe,” in five chapters (pp. 67-112) Discourse 2, “explaining the manner of placing the script, the names of the scripts, and the clarification of their principles and rules in isolation and in combination,” in eight chapters (pp. 113-273) Conclusion, “explaining certain forms of words and expressions that should be written in a [par- ticular} style of writing,” in two chapters (pp. 275-90). Thus it can be seen that the text is extensive and covers a large variety of topics beyond the scope of this analysis. The Tulfat al-nuhibbin is @ learned and intensely inter-textual work, with many quota- tions and references to sources in both Arabic and Persian. It contains 69 quotations from the Quran, 52 hadith, 72 Arabic sayings and proverbs, and over 50 Arabic poems, The bi: lingual sensibility of Siraj is frequently evident, particularly in the more orate sections, in long Persian sentences that employ as many as four separate Arabic phrases, plus perhaps a Persian verse or two, each of which operates as a noun in extended and elaborate meta- phors that are exceedingly difficult to translate. ‘There are many dozens of lines of Persian poetry, including 48 citations of the poetty of Hafiz, making this one of the earliest sources to quote extensively from the work of the great Persian poet, who had died barely sixty years previously, perhaps within the author’s lifetime, As was common, Siraj only occasion- ally names the authors of the verses and sayings he quotes, though one can recognize certain well-known lines from figures such as Hallaj or Rimi, Siraj quotes liberally from the Arabic ‘grammarian Ibn al-Hajib (d. 1249) and his work al-Shafiyya, to establish basic linguistic concepts of the relationship between words and writing (pp. 118, 276). Siraj also repro- duces four extracts from separate biographies of calligtaphers from Tbn Khallikan’s (d. 1289) famous Arabic biographical dictionary Wafayat al-a'yan. The names of famous early Sufis, and poets appear in the text, including Abti Sa‘id, Ruwaym, Wasiti, Shibli, Sa‘di, and Rimi, with the most frequently quoted Persian poets being Qasim-i Anvar (d. 1433-34) and Mu hammad Shirin Maghribi (4. 1408), both extremely popular in Sufi circles of the fifteenth century, But greater prominence is undoubtedly given to the masters of Arabic calligraphy, particularly bn Mugla, Ibn al-Bawwab, and Yaqat al-Musta‘simi. In his review of the origins and history of the Arabic script, Siraj covers well-known legendary territory, but his distinctive approach is well illustrated by his detailed account of the ‘Abbasid vizier Ibn Mugla and his role in the standardization of the geometrical basis 2, Atanasiu, $4, with additional comments on calligraphic exchanges between Mamllk Egypt and the Indian sultanstes 436 Journal of the American Oriental Society 129.3 (2009) of Arabic writing, Siraj describes the early scripts known as Kufic and ma‘qili, which were understood to be composed entirely of straight lines (particularly the latter, associated with a script composed of bricks).2 Like many other authorities, Siraj credits the fourth caliph, ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib, with a major role in the development of the early Arabic script; he is said to have employed a style in Kufic that was one-sixth curved but predominantly straight. Drawing upon an otherwise unknown account that he attributes to Sirafi,* Siraj describes the role of Ibn Mugla in introducing the circular element as a major feature of Arabic script, considering this an innovation of truly cosmic significance.?* I quote this passage at length, since it illustrates not only the concept of the circle as integral to the new form of Arabic script, but also because of its distinctive employment of Sufi-style quotations of prophetic hadith with a strong cosmological flavor And since by the principles of wisdom it is demonstrated that God (glory be to the Most High) created the world in a circular form, even so the explanation of this meaning has occurred in the ‘words of the sages: “The world is a eirele, the earth is a dot, the heavens are bows, acci- dents are arrows, and man is a targets so where is one to flee?” ‘This is based on the judg- ment that, “The best of shapes is the shape of the circle.” ‘The master Abii “Ali Muhammad ibn ‘AI ibn al-Hlusayn ibn Mugla the scribe (may God have merey on him) reatized that writing could be made circular. He transmitted that method of [round] Kutic in this fashion that is now current, so that it would be related to the ereation of the Earth, which is the principle of all principles, ‘And Khwaja ‘Abd Allah Sirafi (may God refresh his spirit) has an epistle on the science of \writing, and he maintains that the cause of the transfer of script from the [square] Kuli to the round was that on a certain day one of the children of the Caliph, to whom the master Abi ‘Ali [ibn Mugla] attended as a tutor, went out fora stroll, At the time of his return, the Caliph asked his child whether he had brought back any keepsake or gift as a companion from his outing, ‘The son of the Caliph, after presenting his respects, observed, “I overheard a couple of verses from a lover, which I recall as follows My lover’s teeth are in the form of the sin, And his mouth’s shape is like a rounded mim. ‘Together they spell poison (sam); amazing, by my life! After [ tasted it, there was no doubt.” 4B USE jpall pullSy IS cualS 0 98 oe 4p@b Yaad LI) ake bee Wi gu ld ‘The Caliph considered these verses, and to one of his dear ones remarked, “The poet has compared the mouth of his beloved to a mim, and now your mouth is round, but the Kutie ni is not round at all, so the poet has foolishly said nothing,” In the midst of this thought, he summoned Abii ‘Ali ibn Muhammad [iba Mugla} and he entered into discussion with him on this subject. The master replied that if the Caliph was so in- clined, he would consider the subject further. Exerting his creativity in the manner that the poet had versified and by the method that was in accord with the verses, he made his proposal, and sought a space of forty days, according to the [prophietic] saying, “Anoint yourself with the of God” (takhallagit bi-akhlag allah). He made use of the flashes of divine lights and wanation from the contents filled with grace of {the divine saying,] “I kneaded the 23. Wheeler M. Thackston, Album Prefaces and Other Documents on the History of Calligraphers and Painters (Leiden; Brill, 2001), n. 4, reports that ma‘gill is “named after Nahr al-Ma‘qil at Basra in southern Iraq.” 24, This narrative does not occur in the brief Adab-i Khayp of Sirafl, so perhaps another (lost) treatise isin tended here. 25. See also Blair, 157-60. Eawst: Sufism and the Aesthetics of Penmanship 437 clay of Adam with my hands for forty days” (Khammartu finata Gdam bi-aydayya arba‘ina sabahian). le took a period of forty days in a retreat of meditation to imagine the kneading of the clay of letters possessing elegant forms, transferring them from the lines of Kufic to the heavenly form of round and circular lines (pp. 120-21). ‘Thus Ibn Mugla’s development of the new forms of the Arabic script is depicted as a result of a meditative retreat that imitates the divine creativity, which is invoked by the hadith gudsi, an extra-QuPanic saying of God related by the Prophet Muhammad, in which God describes kneading the clay of Adam with his own hands for forty days, as a preparation for the creation of humanity. Siraj's detailed discussions of later masters of calligraphy after Ibn Mugla (pp. 124-34), the different varieties of script (pp. 135-46), and the specific oral teachings of his masters (pp. 262-71) are certainly worthy of further study as part of the larger history of Aral calligraphy. In any case, itis clear that he regards the Abbasid vizier as in many respects the founding figure in this tradition. The role of Ibn Mugla, as transmitted by Ibn al-Bawwab, is decisive in the third chapter of Discourse 2, which presents the principles of writing on the geometrical basis of the dot produced by the tip of the reed pen, Here (pp. 147-75) Siraj proceeds through the Arabic alphabet, following the alphabetical order based upon similarity of letter shapes that is still in common use today. In each case he opens his discussion with a series of poetic and mystical remarks, frequently in rhyming prose with metaphors based on writing, employing words that begin with or contain the letter under consideration; he then moves on to technical considerations of the size and shape of the letters as measured by the dot. In each case he includes an Arabic quotation describing the shape of the letter, using technical terms that are clearly derived from Ibn Mugla: munkabb or oblique, mustalgi or inclined, munsafify or horizontal, and muntasib ot upright. With minor variations, nearly identical language is found in the description of letters according to the system of Ibn Mugla as preserved in the monumental encyclopedia of Mamliik chancery practice, the Subh al- a’shd of al-Qalgashandi. Whether Siraj had direct access to the work of al-Qalqashandi or knew the writings of Ibn Mugla via other sources, cannot presently be established, but it is clear that both authors are referring to the very same principles. As an example of Siraj’s presentation, his description of the letter fa will suffice: Pa? is the index (fihrist) of the collection of benefits (fawa?id) and the introduction to the col- lected poems of excellences and rarities (fada’il wa-fur@id), like the inner heart (fi?ad) among trustworthy people (aftl-i wafa?) and the cardium in the body of the masters of purity (arbab-i safi?). (Persian verse] ‘Since revealing her head from the collar of thought (/ikr), She has thrown a world into consternation. ‘And in the deserts (fayafd, there is desire for the cavalry captain of the knights (farisiin) of the field of gnosis, and the victors (@izdn) of the plains of secrets. The manifestations of its rules and principles have been clarified by the explanation, “the fa? is a shape composed of three lines: oblique, inclined, and horizontal (munkabb, mustalgi*, munsafil).” Its head should be rounded, and the space in the head should resemble the grain of a pear seed. Its neck is one dot, 26, Abmad ibn Ali al-Qalgashandi, Subh al-a‘vhd fi sanaar al-insha?, ed, Muhammad Hlusayn Shams al-Dio (15 vols., Beirut; Dir al-Kutub al-‘limiyya, 1987-1989), 2: 30-37. Lam greatly indebted to Ahmed Moustafa for drawing my attention to this important source and making it available (o me, His forthcoming monograph on Tba Mala (co-authored with Stefan Sper), entitled The Propher of Handwriting, i a major contribution tothe under- standing of the origins and significance of Arabic seript, and I am grateful to both authors for sharing their work \with me and for commenting on an earlier draft ofthis article. The editors of Mfr al-muhibbin have conveniently assembled Sirgj's Arabic quotations of Tbn Mugla’s definitions in a separate index (pp. 350-51), 438 Journal of the American Oriental Society 129.3 (2009) and the measure of its height is equivalent to the hi sreater than fourteen dots.27 ‘Thus the basic catalog of letters in Siraj’s presentation is a combination of aesthetic asso- ciations, sharpened by a poetic and mystical vocabulary, along with technical descriptions of the formation of the letters in terms of dots, as well as sometimes picturesque descriptions of the shapes, While Siraj is clearly indebted to Ibn Mugla’s formulation of “proportional script” (al-khatt al-mangib), he does not systematically integrate its geometrical principles, but rather concentrates on what Ahmed Moustafa and Stefan Sperl have called “measure- ments reflecting the actual appearance of letter shapes in different script styles.”"8 At this point, I would like to turn to the longest sections of the book, the fourth chapter of Discourse 2, which contains a lengthy section (pp. 176-232, amounting to one-fourth of the entire text) that describes all possible two-letter combinations of the letters of the Arabic alphabet and their symbolic meanings. It is here that we see Siraj increasingly engaging his repertory of mystical interpretations as a demonstration of a Sufi approach to penmanship. After a brief discussion of the ali, which does not connect to succeeding letters, Siraj under- takes a consideration of the different shapes and letter combinations with the ba? (and by implication its sisters 1a? and tha”), and he follows a similar descriptive pattern with jim, dal, and sin. Thus he informs us that one form of the dai resembles the shape of a gourd or cup, leading to a recollection of some wine verses; then he points out that another form of the dl is shaped like a sheep's lung, which only suggests the meat of good living, But the Jast form of the dal is like the flint of a tinderbox, which is capable of igniting an internal heat from the fire that Moses saw on Mount Sinai, as recalled in the QuPan (20:10). Similarly, with the letter sin Siraj describes various letter combinations in different scripts; but when he reaches the combination of sin plus ya’, he remarks, “The wise man who is the master of ecstasy becomes thoughtful about the inverse of the form of sin ya’, with the sparks of the lights of blessings from its recitation as ya? sin” (p. 182), which is, of course, the title of sura 36 of the Quran. In this way Siraj establishes the principle that a letter combination itself may lead to unsuspected meanings by its permutations or other hidden implications, Sufi language starts to become more evident in the discussion of the letter sad, where Siraj refers (p. 183) to “the clever and noble ones, who ate in conformity with the exegesis (istinbaf) of subtle points and the extraction (istikhraj) of hidden meanings from forms.” He increasingly cites poetic references suggested by the letter at hand, using formulas such as, “it comes to mind” (ba-khafir dyad) to introduce the free association, Sometimes a two-letter com word, stich as fa? plus ya, which yields the word sayy or “fold- 27, Tuhfat al-mubibbin, 162, quoting Sub), 2: 34, with a minor variation: al-Qalqashandi says the composition of fe? as four lines, adding one that is upright (muntasib) Stefan Sperl comments, “Munkabb lierally means ‘fall- ing on one’s face” and hence refers to an oblique stroke extending between the upper left and the lower right ‘Mustalgi means ‘Falling on one's back’ and henee refers to an inclined stroke pointing in the opposite direction, i.e, extending between the lower left and the upper right, Muursayi: means horizontal (lit, lying stretched out on the

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