Pir Budaq and the Formation of Turkmen Arts of the Book

chapter 9 “Many a Wish Has Turned to Dust”: Pir Budaq and the Formation of Turkmen Arts of the Book

David J. Roxburgh*

[A]nd our reason for relating this narrative is as follows. Before now the late padishah Babur Mirza intended to complete this eloquent book, which is attributed to the “Treasure of Ganja,” scatterer of riches from the treasure house of the Khamsa, Sultan of Poets Nizami, and com- manded Azhar, who was one of the rarities of his age in calligraphy, to copy it. Not yet had [Babur Mirza] plucked the rose of desire from the garden of completion when the barren wind of autumn of fate left not a leaf on the tree of his life.

Thereafter, Pir Budaq Mirza was seized by the same desire [to have the work completed]. Still unsuccessful, he withdrew the foot of his life into the skirt of death, and he too, not having quaffed of this goblet, carried the baggage of existence to the waystation of nothingness.

Thereafter, Sultan Khalil, son of Sultan Hasan, desired to have it completed. He had it copied by Anisi, who had snatched the ball of precedence from his peers; and for the painting he commis- sioned Master Shaykhi and Master Darvish Muhammad, who were second only to Mani. Scarcely had one of the “Five Treasures” been completed when the patrol of misfortune shackled the hand of his prosperity, and he too stopped in the lane of annihilation, turning over his workshop to his brother Yaʿqub. He too strove to have it finished and exerted much effort, but suddenly the victor death seized him by the collar, and he too stepped into the wilderness of nonexistence.

In accordance with the saying, “Many a wish has turned to dust” none of them was able to achieve this goal or drink in fulfillment from the goblet of completion. Although all wished it, it was but in their keeping during their days. [However], in the felicitous time of the Leader of Mankind, His Exalted Highness, Shadow of God, Refuge of the World, who was prefigured in the Qurʾanic verse “and mention in the book of Ishmael,” … bestower of crowns and thrones … in accordance with God’s word, “the earth shall be inherited by my pious servants,” it was completed as wished through the care and concern of His August Majesty.1

* I am grateful to several colleagues for the help and exper- tise that they so freely offered when I was researching and memorable graduate seminars. Our study culminated writing this essay. I would like to thank Frantz Chaigne, with a visit to the “Timur and the Princely Vision” exhibi- William Granara, Tom Lentz, Gülru Necipoğlu, Annie tion in Washington, d.c., where Renata and I toured the Vernay-Nouri, Simon Rettig, András Riedlmayer, William galleries on its last day. Robinson, Sunil Sharma, Shreve Simpson, Abolala 1 Istanbul, Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi, H. 762, fols. 316b–17a. Soudavar, Zeren Tanındı, Wheeler M. Thackston, and Translated by Wheeler M. Thackston, Album Prefaces and Deniz Türker. My interest in the Timurids and Turkmens Other Documents on the History of Calligraphers and had its genesis in the spring of 1989 in one of Renata’s Painters (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 50.

This unusual colophon synopsizes the convoluted for understanding the Turkmen contribution. One history of a copy of Nizami’s Khamsa (Quintet) by is a forward-looking teleology that begins with the naming its patrons, calligraphers, and painters. early-fifteenth-century Timurid courts, chiefly of The backbone of the history is a line of patrons Herat and Shiraz, and casts Turkmen patrons as who ruled the Timurid, Turkmen (Qaraqoyunlu, critical agents in the mediation of artistic tradition “Black Sheep,” and Aqqoyunlu, “White Sheep,” and achievement (transmitted by artists and callig- confederations), and Safavid dynasties of Iran, raphers). However, their role in this aesthetic refor- Afghanistan, and Central Asia, namely, Abu al- mation is somewhat ambiguous and has not been Qasim Babur (d. 1457), Pir Budaq (d. 1466), Khalil fully explored.2 The second perspective is also tele- (d. 1478), Yaʿqub (d. 1490), and Ismaʿil (d. 1524). ological, but functions retrospectively. Looking The rhetoric of the colophon is clear. Each back from a terminus in the early Safavid period, patron had inherited the book and added to its scholars identify the many shifts stimulated by prestige, making for it an august pedigree, but died Turkmen patrons and changes wrought by their before completing it. It was Shah Ismaʿil (r. 1501– artists and calligraphers as constitutive of a 24), founder of the Safavid dynasty, whose patron- age brought the book to fruition (though even this 2 Scholarship on the Turkmen arts of the book, and their boast is not truthful since the illustration of the connections to Timurid manuscripts, started in earnest manuscript was never finished). From a Safavid with the work of Ivan Stchoukine, but was considerably perspective, the preceding bibliophile patrons sim- expanded and refined by B.W. Robinson. The most impor- ply held the Khamsa “in their keeping,” a phrasing tant of Stchoukine’s pioneering studies are: “La peinture à that implies both Shah Ismaʿil’s creative superior- Yazd au milieu du xve siècle,” Syria 40, 1–2 (1963): 139–45; ity and that he was predestined to finish the work. “Les peintures turcomanes et ṣafavies d’une Niẓāmī One of the most interesting aspects of this achevée à Tabriz,” Arts Asiatiques 14 (1966): 3–16; “La pein- Khamsa of Nizami is that it foregrounds transmis- ture à Baghdād sous Sulṭān Pīr Būdāq Qāra-Qoyūnlū,” Arts Asiatiques 25 (1972): 3–18; and “Le Khamseh de Niẓāmī, H. sion, which is conceived as a history of both creat- 753, du Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi d’Istanbul,” Syria 49, 1 (1972): ing and ownership. The colophon narrates a his- 239–46. Robinson’s works are too many to cite here. For tory that can be seen among the pages of the book, good syntheses of his thoughts about the Turkmen, from visible through changes in the style of nastaʿlīq cal- the Qaraqoyunlu through the Aqqoyunlu, see B.W. ligraphy—from the hand of Azhar to that of ʿAbd Robinson, “The Turkman School to 1503,” in The Arts of the al-Rahim al-Khvarazmi (known also as “Anisi”)— Book in Central Asia 14th–16th Centuries, ed. Basil Gray and changes in the pictorial modes of its painters. (Paris: unesco, 1979), 215–47; and B.W. Robinson, Two main periods of execution can be identified Fifteenth-Century Persian Painting: Problems and Issues (New York: New York University Press, 1991), chap. 2. from the stylistic features of the paintings: the Useful overviews of the political and artistic transi- Turkmen-period paintings executed by Shaykhi tions evident from the 1450s onward include: Thomas W. and Darvish Muhammad under the Aqqoyunlu Lentz and Glenn D. Lowry, Timur and the Princely Vision: rulers Khalil (r. 1478) and Yaʿqub (r. 1478–90), and Persian Art and Culture in the Fifteenth Century (Los the Safavid-period paintings added during the Angeles and Washington, d.c.: Los Angeles County reign of Shah Ismaʿil. Although the formal features Museum of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian of the Khamsa were predominantly Turkmen, the Institution, 1989), 239–49; Priscilla Soucek, “The New York colophon stresses continuity and, as noted above, Public Library ‘Makhzan al-asrār’ and Its Importance,” Ars Orientalis 18 (1988): 1–37; Barbara Brend, Perspectives on pins the successful completion of the work on Persian Painting: Illustrations to Amīr Khusrau’s Khamsah Shah Ismaʿil. (London: Routledge Curzon, 2003), esp. 101–8; and Sevay This copy of Nizami’s Khamsa offers a potent Okay Atılgan, “Kitap sanatları açısından Timurlu- introduction to the arts of the book at the Turkmen Karakoyunlu İlişkileri,” in Ölümünün 600. Yılında Emir courts. There are two current art historical models Timur ve Mirası (Istanbul: msgsü Yayınları, 2007), 313–29.