Epilogue

THIS BOOK HAS uncovered the aesthetic variety and documentary richness of the Islamic arts of the book of the late medieval Lands of Rūm and produced new ways of understanding this material in its proper cultural and intellectual contexts. It has done so by considering the manuscripts as ‘whole’, complex objects. This approach has entailed looking closely at the codicological and visual properties of the manuscripts themselves, reading their inscriptions and analysing this material within a framework that accounts for patronage beyond dynastic confines – a facet that is sometimes overlooked in the wider scholarly field of Islamic art history. The manuscripts discussed here show that some of Rūm’s cities (particularly Konya) were home to dynamic artistic communities that consisted of local and émigré craftsmen, including converts to Islam and, possibly, Christians. This material also reveals that patrons were often drawn from the political classes, but were, generally speaking, otherwise not well-known from historical sources. In some cases, patrons’ affiliations and intellectual interests challenge simplistic or unambiguous conceptions of the ‘frontier’ and the role of ‘Turkishness’ in late medieval Rūm....

Introduction

THIS BOOK CONSIDERS a complex artistic medium in a complex historical and geographical setting. It is about illuminated Islamic manuscripts produced in the Lands of Rūm between the 1270s and S1370s – a time of profound political fragmentation and frequent outbreaks of violence. In addition to analysing the manuscripts’ visual and physical characteristics, this study considers their production and patronage circumstances and what these may reveal about the wider contemporary artistic, intellectual and cultural context. Most of the fifteen illuminated manuscripts discussed are religious in nature and include Qur’ans and Sufi texts. However, advice literature and historical chronicles also form part of the corpus. All of the manuscripts are dated or dateable, and all are written in either Arabic or Persian. Most were produced in Konya, the former capital of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rūm, although some were copied in other towns, such as Sivas and İstanos (today known as Korkuteli)....

Illuminated Manuscripts in Late Thirteenth-century Konya

This chapter initially focuses on two manuscripts – a small Qur’an and a monumental Masnavi of Jalal al-Din Rumi. Both were produced in 1278, soon after Rum was formally incorporated into the Ilkhanid empire. After discussing their visual properties in depth, the author uses the manuscripts’ production information to analyse the nature of production and patronage in late medieval Konya. This chapter introduces many key themes that are developed throughout the rest of the book, including the role of the Mevlevis in artistic production, the itinerancy of artists, and cosmopolitan nature of Rum’s towns. Based on the examination of these manuscripts, the chapter contends that several currently unidentified or misidentified manuscripts were also produced in Konya. Through an illuminated copy of Ibn Bibi’s Seljuk chronicle produced around 1282, the chapter also considers the part that Ilkhanid officials played in manuscript patronage in Rum.

Early Fourteenth-century Manuscripts from Konya and Sivas

The second chapter concerns manuscripts produced in Konya between 1311 and 1332. This period roughly coincides with the rise of the Turcoman principalities (beyliks) on Rum’s political scene and the final decades of Ilkhanid rule which ended in 1335 with the death of the ruler Abu Saʿid. The seven core manuscripts that comprise the focus of this chapter were produced for Turcoman princes and Mevlevi dervishes. The manuscripts produced for Turcoman (Ashrafid and Qaramanid) patrons include al-Fusul al-Ashrafiyya and a large two-volume Qur’an. Works closely connected to the Mevlevis include a copy of the Intihanama by Sultan Walad, a Masnavi of Jalal al-Din Rumi, and a Masnavi of Sultan Walad. Also discussed is a Masnavi of Jalal al-Din Rumi from Sivas, which had been previously neglected by scholarship. This chapter expands the analysis concerning Mevlevi involvement in illuminated manuscript production that was introduced in Chapter One. It also discusses the historiography of the Turcoman principalities, a thread that will be taken up in Chapters Three and Four.

Saūtıū ibn Hḥ asan: A Mevlevi Patron of Erzincan

The fourth and final chapter focuses on the patronage of one individual, who emerges from surviving material as the most prolific manuscript patron of late medieval Rum. The three manuscripts discussed in this chapter were commissioned by Sharaf al-Din Sati ibn Hasan, an amir, history writer and Mevlevi devotee. The key manuscripts are a copy of the Masnavi of Sultan Walad from 1366, a two-volume Divan-i Kabir from 1368 and a 1372 copy of the Masnavi, both by Jalal al-Din Rumi. Several manuscripts belonging to Sati’s son, Mustanjid, are also considered. Although a production centre is not named in the manuscripts, the patron and his family were based in Erzincan. This chapter outlines and contextualises the political and cultural activities of Sati and Mustanjid and considers where the manuscripts may have been produced. Moreover, the distinctiveness of the manuscripts’ illumination, and the patron’s connection to the Jalayirids, generates a discussion concerning the relationship between the arts of the books of Rum and the Mongol successor states.

Two Manuscripts from South‑western Rūm

Chapter Three discusses two modest manuscripts that were produced for Hamidid beys in the mid-fourteenth century. These manuscripts, both copies of Najm al-Din Razi Daya’s Mirsad al-ʿIbad min al-Mabdaʾ ila al-Maʿad, were produced in İstanos (now known as Korkuteli) in 1349 and 1351. This chapter, which shifts focus from Konya to western, coastal Rum, explores the ‘mirrors for princes’ (nasihatnama) genre in more depth, the cultural and economic characteristics of the immediate area and the possible impact of bubonic plague on artistic production.