Studia Islamica, 2004

The Story of Portraits of the Prophet Muhammad

The earliest representation of the Prophet Muhammad known to us

today appears in a mid-thirteenth century illustrated manuscript in Persian
entitled "The Poem of Warqa and Gulsha." Several Arabic texts dated as
early as the tenth century mention the existence of painted portraits of
Muhammad, as well as of Jesus and several figures from the Old Testa-
ment. The setting for these paintings is the Byzantine realm at the time of
the emperor Heraclius (r. 610-641) and during the lifetime of the Prophet
(d. 632) when Islam took over most of the Near East. The purpose of this
essay is to define the story and its variants, to make suggestions for its
visual and literary sources, and to outline some of its implications for the
history of art and culture.
Let us begin with a story found in two treatises written by two different
authors. One is the Dalci'il al-Nubuwwah, "Proofs (or signs) of prophe-
thood," written by Abi3 Bakr Ahmad b. al-Husayn al-Bayhaqi, a Shafi'ite
collector of traditions, born in Khorasan, who spent some time in Mekka and
died in Nishapur in 1043.2An almost identical story can be found in a book
with the same title written by a contemporary of al-Bayhaqi, AbG Nu'aym
al-Isfahani (died in 1058).'
The story goes that one Hishlm b. al-.As al-Umawi, a member of a lea-
ding aristocratic Mekkan family involved in trade and early Islamic politics,
went with another man from the tribe of Quraysh to see Heraclius in order
to convert him to the new faith and to transmit a letter from the Prophet. In

1. Priscilla Soucek, "The L ~ f eof the Prophet", in P. Soucek (ed.), Content and Context of the Vis~ralArts
In the Islnmic World, University Park, 1988.
2. Al-Bayhaqi, DolB'il 01-Nffbuwwoh,ed. 'Abd al-Mu'ti Qala'ij~,Be~mt,1985, I, p. 384-391. C. Broc-
kelmann, Gescl~ichteder nrobischen Lfteratftr,Leiden, 1937-1942, I , p. 446-447, Supplement I, p. 618-619;
F. Sezgin, Geschichte des nrabrschen Schriftunu, Leiden, 1987. Al-Bayhaqi records the story in a chapter in
the book whlch is entitled "What IS known about the picture ( s i r o h )of the Prophet Muhammad together with
the plctures of prophets before him in Syria." This chapter comes after a long descnpuon of the physical fea-
tures, favorite clothing, and behavioral pracuces of the Prophet, and follows a section dealing with Muharn-
mad and the Old and New Testaments.
3. Abii Nu'aym al-Isfahani, DolB'11ol-N~fbftwwnh, ed. M. al-Qala'anji, Damascus, 1970, p. 55-64. The
passage occurs in a section where the author describes the variety of prophetic signs associated with Adam.
 OLEG GRABAR - MlKA NATIF

Constantinople the two Mekkans came into the presence of Heraclius4 He

was seated on a cushion (fircish).' The "patriarch" of the Rum6 was with
him, and his clothes, everything in his audience hall (majlis), and everything
around him were all red, no doubt reflecting the purple associated with the
Byzantine emperor. Questions were posed by ~ e r a c l i u sregarding the prac-
tices and beliefs of Islam.'
Their second meeting with Heraclius took place at night in a beautiful
place (rnanzil) with many separate lodgings (nuzlil), creating or suggesting a
dramatic setting for the event to come. At some point Heraclius called for an
amazing ('azirnah) gilded (mudhahhabah) object (shayy) shaped like a cube
(ka-hai'ah al-rab'ah). It had many small compartments (buylit) with ope-
nings (abwcib). He opened a compartment and took out a black piece of silk
(harirah sawdci'; AbO Nu'aym and several other sources use the word hir-
qah meaning a "piece of cloth," instead of harirah, silk) and spread it out.'
To the surprise of the Mekkan visitors, there was a red picture on it (slirah)
of a "man with large eyes, amazing buttocks ('ailyatayn), and a long neck;
he was beardless but wore two braids (dapratcin), the best God had made."
Heraclius asked whether they knew who this was? They said that they did
not. He said: "This is Adam, peace be upon him, and he is well endowed
with hair." A second compartment had a piece of black silk with a white pic-
ture of a man "with curly hair like that of cats, red eyes, a large head, and a
handsome beard." This was Noah. The next cubicle contained another piece
of black silk. On it there was a man with white complexion, beautiful eyes,
a smooth forehead, long cheeks, a white beard, who looked as though he
were smiling. This was Abraham. Then there came a white picture (no silk
is mentioned) for which no bodily or facial features are provided in either
text. Heraclius asked whether they knew him and the visitors said: "Yes, this
is Muhammad, the Prophet of God." And they began to weep, the typical
4. Vers~onsof this story appear in Ibn Is'hbq, Sirnt Rasril Allah, tr. A. Guillaume, The Life o f M u h n n ~ -
nlad, Oxford, 1978, p. 652-659; TabaS, In, p. 99ff This ep~sodeof Muhammad's envoy submitting the let-
ter to Heracl~ushas been illustrated as late as in nineteenth century Kashmir (Manuscript in the Briush
Library, or. 2936, for. 126v, a Hnn~ln-rHaydart dated 1815) and has been reproduced In Nora Titley, Per-
srnn Painting and 11sInflriences, London, 1983, pl. 44 and p. 212. See also K. Adahl, "A Copy of the Divan
of Mir Ali S h ~ Nava'i",
r in Robert H~llenbrand(ed.), Persian Painting. Studies in Honor of Basil W Robin-
.son, London, 2000, p. I I, fig. 12. For an interesung analysis of various accounts of the story and their unders-
tanding as a h~storicalrather than myth~calevent, see Patricia Crone, Meccnn Trade and the Rise ojlslarn,
Princeton, 1987, p. 219ff.
5. The exact location of the meeting poses a b ~ oft a problem, but, as we shall see later. it is a fictional
location evoking the myth about Constantinople developed by early Islamic imagination.
6. We assume it is a religious authority because of the addition of "Rum", rather than a secular gover-
nor. as the Arabic word bntraqi?nh could mean either.
7 There are several versions of these discussions, which have been the subject of scholarly Investiga-
tions for their theological and historical content. The latest is Nad~ael-Cheikh, "Muhammad and Heraclius.
a Study ~nLegitimacy." Strrdin Islnnticn, 89, 1999, where most of the sources and bibl~ograph~cal references
can be found. see especially p. 19.
8. For the many words for a piece of cloth with comparable meanings, see Franz Rosenthal. Four Stit-
dres or1 Art nnd Liierorirre in Islonl. Le~den,197 1, p. 62
 THE STORY OF PORTRAITS OF THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD

reaction to a strong visual impression in most texts of the time. Heraclius

then stood up, sat down again, and said: "Is this indeed who it is?" The mer-
chants replied: "This is who it is, as though we were looking at him." And
Heraclius spent an hour looking at the image. Then he said: "this is the last
of the compartments, but I hastened to show it to you, so you could see what
matters to you."
Then Heraclius opened a compartment with a piece of black silk on
which there was a picture of a dark body (Lidmci' sahmci'); there was a man
with curls like a cat's, sunken eyes, a steely gaze, overlapping9 teeth and
tight lips as though he were angry. This was Moses. At his side there was
another picture of someone resembling him, except that his head was
"oiled,"'" his forehead wide, and he was cross-eyed. This was Aaron, the son
of Imran. In the next compartment, there was a piece of white silk with a pic-
ture of a brown-skinned, lanky man, standing as though he were angry. This
was Lot. Then came another piece of white silk with the picture of a white
man with red lips, an aquiline nose, light cheeks, and a handsome face. This
was Isaac. The next compartment also contained a piece of white silk with a
picture of a man resembling Isaac except for a mole on his lower lip. This
was Jacob. Yet another cubicle had a piece of black silk with the picture of
a white man with a handsome face, aquiline nose, beautiful posture, and
light on his face, which seemed reddish, full of piety, and showed humility.
This was Isma'il, "the ancestor of your Prophet," as Heraclius said. There
followed a piece of white silk with the picture of a man with a face like the
sun. This was Joseph. The next image was on white silk and showed a thin-
legged man in red with his eyes closed, a large belly, portly, and girded with
a sword. This was David, looking like a woman according to AbQ Nu'aym.
Then came a piece of a white silk, simple cloth according to AbQ Nu'aym,
with the picture of a large man with a big posterior and long legs, riding a
horse. This was Solomon. And finally Heraclius showed them a piece of
black silk with a white picture of a young man with a striking black beard,
much hair, beautiful eyes, and a handsome face. This was Jesus.
The two travelers asked whence these pictures came, and Heraclius ans-
wered that they had been made by order of the Lord for Adam, who had
asked to see the prophets who would follow him. God transmitted these pic-
tures to him and they were in Adam's treasury in the West (maghrib al-
shams). Alexander the Great took them from there and handed them over to
the prophet Daniel. " "And they will not leave Heraclius until he dies." The
travelers then returned to Mekka, told their story to AbQ Bakr (the first
9. Hamidullah translates rnirror6kib in this fashion, but the implication of the term for teeth remains
unclear to us. M. Hamidullah, "Une Ambassade du Caliphe Abou Bakr auprbs de I'Empereur Htraclius et le
Livre byzantin de la PrCdication des destinies", Folio Orienlnlin, 2, 1960, p. 29-42.
10. This is how Hamidullah translated rnidhrin.
I I. According to one version it was Daniel who had these images put on silk; according to another story
the silks came from Paradise.
 OLEG GRABAR - MIKA NATIF

caliph, 632-634 C.E.) who cried upon hearing it and confirmed for them that
the Prophet had told him that Christians and Jews had in their possession
descriptions of His characteristics (nu 't).
The narrative just described forms what we will call our basic story deri-
ved from hadith -related writing and intended primarily for pious readers
seeking to immerse themselves in the literature-that had grown around the
life and character of the Prophet and the proofs of his mission.12In this par-
ticular format, the story would have existed with relatively minor variants
around 1000. Al-Bayhaqi's primary concern was to delineate and emphasize
what has been called the "prophetic persona" of Muhammad, that is to say
the sum of miraculous features and physical or moral attributes which justi-
fied his mission. 'I The purpose of the story was to demonstrate that Chris-
tians knew well that the final revelation of Islam was coming.
Al-Bayhaqi and Abii Nu'aym actually provide two other stories involving
pictures of Muhammad.'' The second story goes back through a long isnrid to
a Mekkan merchant who was a contemporary of the Prophet.'Wne day, the
merchant found himself in Busra in southern Syria. There, a group of Chris-
tians who had heard of something new being prophesied in Arabia took him
by the hand to a monastery (dayr) in which there were sculptures (tamrithil)
and paintings ( ~ u w a r )They
. asked him whether he recognized the Prophet
among the personages represented. He answered negatively. So they took him
to a second and larger monastery with many more sculptures and paintings.
They asked again whether he saw the Prophet's picture and he said he was
"confronted with the depiction (sifah) of the Prophet of God and with his pic-
ture (sliratihi). And I was also confronted with the depiction and picture of
AbO Bakr standing next to the Prophet of God."I6 Yet another version of the
story is provided by al-Bayhaqi, going back to the same original source but
with a different chain of references. It relates that a merchant from Mekka who
had gone to Syria was taken to a private house (manzil) with paintings
( p w a r ) ,one of which was identified by him as being of the Prophet."
Al-Bayhaqi's text has attracted some scholarly attention. Thus over forty
years ago, Mohamrnad Hamidullah translated one of these texts into
French. l 8 His concern was that of a diplomatic historian trying to distinguish
12. The most useful introduction to this l~teratureis found In Annemarie Schimmel, And M~rhnnlrnadis
His Messenger, Chapel Hill, University of Nonh Carolina Press. 1985.
13. Uri Rubin. Tlie Eye of the Beholder, Princeton, 1995, p. 16.
14. See notes 2 and 3.
IS. Although it cannot be dated, the isniid may suggest that the story was known as early as circa 900.
16. The two texts of Al-Bayhaqi and Abii Nu'aym are not identical in every detail and it is possible that
a careful comparison of the two may establish the exact or likely wording of the original, but these conside-
rations of textual accuracy in every detail are not our objective in this essay. The closeness between the two
texts has already been recognized by Annemarie Schimmel, And Muhon~rnodis His Messenger, op. cif ,
p. 32-34 and Ali S. Asani. Celebraring Muhnnimnd, Images of rhe Prophet in Poprrlnr Mirslint P i e h , Colum-
bia, S.C., 1995. p. 64-65,
17. S. Bashear. '''Il~e Mission of Dihya al-Kalbi and the Situation in Syria", Jerrrsalen~Sfirdies in Ara-
bic iind Islani, 14, 1991. mentions the story on p. 102, but without comment
I8 M Hamidullah. "Une Ambassade du Caliphe Abou Bakr", op cit.
 THE STORY OF PORTRAITS OF THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD

facts from fiction in the formal and informal relationship between the Pro-
phet and the first caliphs on the one hand, and the various rulers of the world
about to become Muslim, on the other.I9 He was also concerned with the
broader question of the universality of early Islam and the ways in which it
sought to convert others, especially the People of the Book, and to be reco-
gnized by the latter as the legitimate culmination of their revelation. Howe-
ver, he was not particularly interested in the artistic implications of the story
nor in tracing its sources in history or literature.
Other scholars have referred occasionally to these texts, although in brief
manner. For example, Marius Canard discussed al-Dinawari's story in a sur-
vey of Arab-Byzantine cultural relations; 20 Priscilla Soucek referred to the
same text but in relation to fascinating series of representations of the Pro-
phet in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Persian manuscript^,^' and David
Roxburgh also mentioned al-Dinawari around the much later concept of the
sandiq al-shahhdah "Chest of Witnessing" developed in sixteenth century
discussions of painting. 22 None of these studies, however, have investigated
the sources of the story in its own time and its implications for the history of
art and culture.
The story was not unique to the eleventh century; there are three earlier
versions of it in very different literary genres which introduce several twists
to the plot. Two out of the three do not refer to Heraclius by name but only
mention a certain "King of Rum," and the third one changes the setting com-
pletely, transferring the event to the Far East.
The first, found in al-Dinawari's Al-Akhbhr al-.Tiwhl, was completed
around 895, over a century before al-Bayhaqi and Abfi Nu'aym. It is a work
of historical belles-lettres known among modern hstorians for its inclusion
of old Iranian material within adab literature, which was based mostly until
that time on Arabian sources.23The story appears at the beginning of the
book, in the midst of a section dealing with the King-Prophet David. Accor-
ding to it, a certain 'Abd al-Malik b. al-SPmit recalled that Abfi Bakr sent
him to the king of Rum in order to convert him to Islam or else to declare
war on him. He took off to Constantinople and met with an unnamed king.
The ruler asked the envoy about matters pertaining to Islam and dismissed
him for the day. When he met the envoy again, an attendant (khzdim)
19. M. Hamidullah, Doc~imentssrrr la drplomarie mrrsrilmane d 1'6poque drr prophBre er des khalifes
orrhodo.res, Paris, 1935; M. Hamidullah, "La Lettre du Prophkte i HCraclius et le sort de I'originai", Arabica,
2, 1955, p. 97-1 10. See also S. al-Jaburi, "The Prophet's letter to the Byzantine emperor Heraclius," Ham-
dardIslarnicrrs, 1978; Louis Pouzet. "Le hadith d'H6racliusW,in P. Canivet and J.-P. Rey-Coquais, Lo Syrie
de Bymnce d l'lsianz, Damascus, 1992, p. 59-65.
20. Marius Canard, "Quelques 'B cBtC' de I'histoire des relations entre Byzance et les Arabes", repr. in
Canard, Bgzance er les Musrrlnlans drr Proche-Orienr, London, 1973, XV, p. 99-100.
21. Priscilla Soucek, see note 1
22. David J. Roxburgh, Prefacing the Image: rhe Writing of Art Hirtoy in sirteenth C e n r ~ r yIron, Lei-
den, 2001, p. 170ff.
23. Ahmad b. DL'ud al-DinawarT, AkhbBr a/-TiwB1, ed 'Abd al-Mu'nim Amin, Tehran, 1960, p. 18-19.
 OLEG GRABAR - MlKA NATIF

brought an object ('Litidah) with many compartments (buylit) and each com-
partment had a small door. He opened a door and took out a black piece of
cloth (khirqah), on which there was a representation (slirah) in white of the
likeness (hiyah) of a man with "a face more beautiful than that of most
people, and round like the full moon." He asked the envoy if he recognized
the person. The envoy said no. The emperor explained that this was Adam.
He opened another door and took out a black piece of cloth with a represen-
tation in white of an old man (shaykh) with a beautiful face but with a scowl
(taqtib), as though he were grieved and distressed. It was Noah. Then he
opened another door and pulled out a black piece of cloth with a representa-
tion in white, which was the picture of the Prophet Muhammad. Upon seeing
this picture the envoy wept. The emperor said, "What is the matter with
you?" The envoy answered "This is the representation of our Prophet
Muhammad." The king asked, "By your religion is this indeed the represen-
tation of your Prophet?" The envoy replied, "Yes, this is the representation
of our prophet, as though he were alive." And the king folded the piece of
cloth and put it back in its compartment. He then said, "This was the last of
the compartments." After showing a series of pictures of Abraham, Moses,
David, Solomon, and Jesus, he explained to the envoy that "these pictures
came in the possession of Alexander the Great, and kings inherited [the box]
after him until it came down to me."
The second early version of the story occurs in the first of the "great des-
criptions of the world" which were among the most original works of Abba-
sid literature. It is Ibn al-Faqih's geography or Kitzb al-BuldLin, completed
around 890-95.'4 The story is included in a general description of "Rum,"
specifically the Byzantine world, but it does not contain details absent from
Dinawari and others and, once again, does not mention Heraclius by name.
The third early account of our story is the most unexpected one, as it is
set in China. Its most easily available text occurs in Mas'Odi's celebrated
Murlij al-Dhahab ("Golden Meadows"), completed before 956. 22 Mas'cdi
mentioned an Arab from the tribe of Quraysh, the tribe of the Prophet, who
managed to ingratiate himself with the king of China. At some point in their
conversation, the king asked his visitor: "Would you recognize your master
(srihib), that is to say the Prophet, if you saw him?" He replied, "How could
I since he is with God?" The king then said: "I do not mean his [person], I
24. Ibn al-Faqih, Kitcib a/-Brildcin, ed. YQsuf al-HLdi, Beirut, 1986, p. 187-189; tr. H. Masse, Abrigi du
Livre despays, Damascus, 1977, p. 169-171, based on a less complete text, but whose lacunae d o not appear
in the passage which concerns us. Andre Miquel, LA Giogrnphie humnine du monde rnrrsrilrnan jrrsqu'ao
nlilieri du xf sikcle, I , Paris, 1975, p. 458ff.. discusses these stories in relationship to the establishment of
Muslim legitimacy.
25. Al-Mas'ildi, Miirrijal-Dhahab, ed. C. Pellat, Beirut. 1965-1979, I, p. 345. Translated into French by
C. Pellat, Les prairies d'Or, Paris, 1962. 1, p. 128 ff. The text was mentioned without comment by T. Kha-
lidi, lslon~icHistoriography, Suny press, 1975, p. 107, and already discussed by P. Soucek, "The Life of the
Prophet" Ahrnad M. H. Shboul, A/-Mas'ridiand his World, London, 1979. p, ff discusses Mas'iidi's sources,
but does not seem to give special attention to our story.
 THE STORY OF PORTRAITS OF THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD

am talking of his portrait ( ~ G r a h ) . ""Of

~ ~ course," said the Qurayshite. The
king had a box (safat) brought to him and he took from it a scroll of paper
(darj) and said to the interpreter: "Show him his master." The Qurayshite
immediately recognized the images of the prophets and began to mumble a
prayer of praise for them. The king asked how he recognized the prophets.
He answered, "By what was depicted of their thingx2' Noah shown entering
the Ark, Moses with his rod and the children of Israel, Jesus on a donkey and
accompanied by apostles." Over each portrait there was a long inscription
mentioning the prophet's genealogy, his land, age, and all thlngs dealing
with his pr~phecies.~' The prophet Muhammad was on camelback, surroun-
ded by his companions wearing beduin shoes made of camel skin and too-
thpicks made of the bark of palm trees hanging from their belts. The narra-
tor cried at the sight of the image of the Prophet. He added that he saw
images of several prophets making a ring with their thumb and forefinger,
implying thus that the creation is one, or pointing their forefinger to the sky,
as though wanting to inspire in men the fear of what is above.
Mas'iidi's information derived, as he acknowledged himself, from a less
well-known text dated to 916, by one Abii Zayd Hassan from Siraf, the great
port city on the Persian gulf. Abii Zayd had copied and enlarged an account
of a trip to China by an Arab merchant named Sulayman which had taken
place in 851.'9 It is in Abii Zayd's addition of 916 to Sulayman's original
that the story of images of prophets is found with nearly all of the same
details as in Mas'iidi's text.
The importance of the "Chinese" versions of the story lies in two features.
One is that their setting is the Chinese imperial court, and they do not imply or
suggest an attempt at conversion by Arabs nor any particular interest in Islam
on the part of the Chinese. The story is like an anecdote from literature dealing
with marvelous things or events (ajh'ib), which was common at the time.
The second feature is more specifically visual in its import. The images
were painted on paper rather than silk, perhaps identifying a technique more
exclusively associated with China at that time, and the iconography is more
elaborate than that in the Heraclius version. Prophets are not identified by
the physical characteristics of individual persons' but by activities and attri-
butes typical for them, such as Noah's ark, Christ entering Jerusalem, and
the Prophet Muhammad riding on a camel, surrounded by his Beduin com-
26. The passage is in fact a bit cryptic, but this interpretation is the one proposed by Pellat and the most
acceptable one.
27. Again a cryptic passage. The text is "biman suwwara min amrhim". Our translation follows a sug-
gestion made by Michael Cook to read it as b i d (rather than biman) and seems preferable to Pellat's,
although it requires a slight alteration to the Arabic text.
28. The text does not specify the language of the inscription (Arabic or Chinese).
29. G. Ferrand. Voyage du marchand arabe Sulayman en Inde et en Chine, Paris, 1922; J . Sauvaget,
Relation de la Chine et de I'lnde, Paris. 1948, edited and translated only the part attributed to Sulayman.
Important comments on the story in D. D. Leslie, Islom in Traditional China, Canberra, 1986, esp. p. 38-39.
 OLEG GRABAR - MIKA NATIF

panions. Concrete gestures of piety such as pointing a forefinger upward or

making a ring with two fingers suggest Christian or possibly Buddhist models
for images that would have been preserved in China. Whatever the origin of
the alleged images, whether Christian or Buddhist, their invention and the
translation of the story into a Far Eastern context remains a peculiarity.
A much later version of the presence of an image of Muhammad in
China appears in a post-Ming (i.e. after 1644) source. The chronicle relates
that in 587 (! sic)" a Chinese emperor sent an ambassador to invite the Pro-
phet Muhammad to China. According to this source, Muhammad instead
sent a portrait of himself, painted so as to disappear after a certain time from
the unspecified material on which it had been painted. This precaution was
inspired by his fear that the emperor might be tempted to worship the
image." Then, in another account for which no date is provided, the empe-
ror Hiuan-Tsong received a painting of the Prophet. He hung it in his abode
and adored it. Immediately the image disappeared, as it had done its job of
converting the emperor.32
Narratives related to our basic story can be found in historical works and
in the special genre of the Q i ~ a sal-Anbiyi', "Stories of the Prophet," on
which much has been written recently." All these sources contain physical
descriptions of the prophets which coincide only partly with those of al-Bay-
haqi or of Dinawari. Yet some provide concrete additions to our main story.
Thus, in his historical treatise al-Tabari (d. 923) relates that Adam saw in the
right hand of God "a picture of Adam and all his progeny and there was writ-
ten down with God the term (of life) of each man,"" but there is no indica-
tion of the material on which this painting was found. Similarly, in a medie-
val Jewish legend God revealed to Adam the names of the prophets,
teachers, and other religious leaders and heroes to come. This information
was depicted on a curtain hung in front of God."

30. The mistake in dates is explained by Leslie, p. 70, as a misunderstanding resulting from a calendar
reform in 1384.
31. P. Darby de Thiersaut, Le Mahonlhrisn~een Chine er dons le Turkesran Orienrol, Paris, 1878, I ,
p. 27-28, from a literary anthology attributed to one Hang-Chi-Tsee and entitled Too-korc-orren-rsy, as uans-
cribed in 1878. We thank Dr. Michal Biran for her help with the Chinese source.
32. Darby de Thiersaut. 11, 23, from a very late text known as Hiiihui-guan-lai. Leslie, p. 73. Heather
Egan, a graduate student at the Johns Hopkins University, provided us with a suggested comparable account
of the disappearance of images of saints on the Last Day when the world would have lost any need for their
initial purpose of replacing the saints; Elbert Dahl, "Heavenly Images; the Statue of Ste Foy in Conques."
Acra ad Archaeologiam er Arrirrm Perrinenris, V , 1978, p. 180.
33. Among the latest. Rachel Milstein, Karin Ruhrdanz, Barbara Schmitz. Stories of rhe Prophets, Illus-
trated Monuscriprs ofQisas al-Anbiyl' (Costa Mesa, 1999) deals with manuscripts of the sixteenth and later
centuries, but contains a useful introduction to earlier literature. For earlier sources see R. G. Khoury, Les
Ligendes prophiriques dons 1'Islam, Wiesbaden. 1978.
34. Tabari, V m . Suny. 1997, p. 327ff.
35. Louis Ginsberg, The Legends of rhe Jews, Philadelphia, 1968, I , p. 61.
 THE STORY OF PORTRAITS OF THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD

According to al-Tha'8labi (d. 1035), God "dropped (haba.ta) a box

from Paradise to earth, in which (there were) pictures (suwar) of the
(~ciblit))~
prophets from his (Adam's) sons onward." It (the tciblit) contained compart-
ments (buylit) equivalent to the number of prophets, and the last compart-
ment with Muhammad's picture was of red ruby, where he is shown stan-
ding in prayer. To his right there was a mature man. On his forehead was
written: "This is the first one from his people who followed him, AbQ Bakr
the pious." On the left stood al-FarQq ('Umar) with an unspecified inscrip-
tion on his forehead. And behind him stood DhQ al-Nurayn-'Uthmbn-who
had married two daughters of the Prophet.)' The box is further described as
being three by two cubits, made of some rare wood, and covered or inlaid
with gold." And finally al-Kisi'i, writing in the early thirteenth-century,
mentions the coffer (tiiblit) of Adam opened by Abraham, which contained
the books of Adam and of Seth.'9 He then adds that God gave Adam a white
cloth or felt (numat) with the representations (suwar) f; the prophets and
pharaohs one after the other. The prophets go from Adam to Muhammad and
descend from Seth, while the pharaohs are secular rulers descending from
Cait~.~'
We can propose that by 900 such a story circulated among writers of
every major literary genre. It related that amidst the many attributes demons-
trating Muhammad's calling as a prophet, there were images of the Prophet
together with representations of other prophets, and sometimes even of the
first caliphs. These are unexpected attributes when one considers the reluc-
tance of early Islam to represent people in a religious context.
Another curious feature of these paintings is that nothing is said about
their makers. Except for the Chinese version, the implication is that they
were part of a divine creation of signs identifying a selection of major heroic
and sacred figures. These personas were transformed by Muslims into a suc-
cession of prophets to whom divine revelation was given. By the time the
stories circulated, no claim was made that these images still existed, if they
ever did, since the point they made-the place of Muhammad in a succes-
sion of prophets going back to Adam-had been established by the very
existence of a large Muslim state. Furthermore, when found in religious or
36 The word is also used to indicate the Ark of the Covenant.
37. In later times, especially under the Ilkhanids, images were made of various genealogies of the Pro-
phet. An interesting example of one can be found in fol. 157v in the Freer Gallery of Art's translation of
Tabart by Bal'ami; see Theresa Fitzherbert, Bal'ami's Tabor?, Dphil. Univ of Edinburgh. 2001, p. 167ff and
P. Soucek, "Life of the Prophet", p. 195-198.
38. Al-Tha'blibi, Qisaj al-Anbiyi', Bulaq, 1869, p. 210. The story is obviously related to sunni revival
polemics, as Adam was transformed in the eleventh century into a sunni hero. Jean-Claude Vadet, "La
Ugende d'Adam chez al-Kisa'i", Studia Islamica, 42, 1975, p. 5-38. C. Schock, Adam im Islam, Berlin,
1993. Neither author mentions the coffer (tabit).
39. Al-Kisb'i, The Tales of the Prophets, tr. W . M . Thackston. Boston, 1978, p. 76.
40. Ibid., p. 82. On various details of al-fisb'i, see the many studies by J i b Pauliny in Graecolatina et
Orienmlia, vols. 1-8, 1964-1976). which do not mention this cloth with images.
 OLEG GRABAR - MIKA NATIF

pious contexts, all these stories are associated with the Christian world and
through it with an older history whose details are quite hazy even when they
involved Daniel and Alexander the Great in the possession and preservation
of the images.
The public for these stories was Muslim even though the text deals with
Christians. The original pictures of the prophets in the stories had been made
neither by nor for Muslims. They fulfilled two purposes within an Islamic
religious culture. One was to demonstrate that non-Muslims have known
from the very beginning of time the eventual arrival of the Prophet Muham-
mad, thanks to a divinely provided list accompanied with-images. The
second is that this knowledge was restricted to prophets and to rulers until
the time of Heraclius when the pictures were shown to new Muslims and
could then vanish. The historical veracity of the stories did not need to be
demonstrated through the preservation of the documents themselves. Impor-
tant as their role had been in establishing the truth of Muhammad's mission,
they themselves were no longer needed, and the knowledge of their exis-
tence was far more important than the act of seeing them.
For art historians and for historians of Islamic culture, however, the
question remains of what inspired in the tenth century, if not earlier, the
development of the story. Our efforts in trying to provide an answer have
taken many directions and brought about several tentative hypotheses.
Narrative literature focused around portraits4' may be a fruitful source.
The legend of Alexander the Great was popular with all medieval cultures
since the fourth century C.E., mostly through the romance known as that of
Pseudo-Callisthenes, available in Arabic through a translation from the
Syriac supposedly made in the ninth century. 1n it a Persian ambassador
arranges for a painter to make a portrait of Alexander and to bring it to
Darius, who could thus recognize Alexander when the latter visited the Per-
sian camp in disguise. In the story, Darius does not use his knowledge to
capture Alexander. Similarly, in a more romantic vein, queen Candace of
Ethiopia obtains from a Greek at her service an exact portrait of Alexander.
When the latter arrives, once again incognito, she shows him his portrait, but
refuses to recognize him publicly because she fears for his life. 42 Much later,
Ferdosi's Shahname picks up that story and adapts it to Kaidafa, the queen
of Andalus, who instructs a painter to "make a full length picture, showing
his (Alexander's) face and bearing"43 which she uses later to recognize
Alexander in disguise at her court."
41. By the word portrait we mean a painting of a person from which he or she can be identified through
his or her individual physical characteristics.
42. Pseudo-Callisthbne, Le Roman d'Alexondre, Paris, 1992, p. 4, 23, 61ff, 100ff; George Cary, The
Medieval Ale.mnder, Cambridge, 1956, p. 119-120 and 219.
43. A. G. Warner and E. Warner, The Shahnama of Firdaicsi, VI, London, 1912, p. 121ff.
44. Funhemore, the Persian epic occasionally makes reference to portraits hanging in the halls of
palaces As a parallel example see also vol. I. London, 1905, p. 260-261.
 THE STORY OF PORTRAITS OF THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD

Using portraits as a literary device has grown more popular since the
twelfth century. Thus, the lyric poet Nizami, who used oral or written tales dea-
ling with pre-Islamic Persian history, utilized portraits in several episodes. Bah-
ram Gur, for example, discovers a palace with the portraits of the seven women
he is destined to meet; Khosro hangs pictures of himself in the garden visited
by Shinn hoping to induce her to love him." Both stories were often illustrated
in manuscripts. The discovery of one's love through a picture is a known but
not very common device in the folk literature of India,46but hardly known
el~ewhere.~' A thirteenth-century book of popular tales in Arabic contains a few
episodes dealing with Alexander the Great or with Sasanian kings in which por-
traits are hung on trees. They mention a dome, as well as a locked room, cove-
red with paintings of Alexander the Great, a sword with a picture of Khosro put
secretly on its scabbard, and Shapur finding portraits of himself made for a
Roman e m p e r ~ r During
.~ the same period and perhaps even earlier, heroic
epics also in Arabic were developed around the story of Baybars or the great
hero of the Anatolian frontier al-~afal.They include references to paintings on
walls of buildings or on scrolls depicting the heroes thernsel~es.~~
None of these literary devices are truly similar to the use of the portraits
of prophets in our story. But it is not altogether excluded that generalized
folk themes of secretly made portraits and of their unexpected discovery
could have been adapted to a demonstration of Muhammad's prophethood.
This repeated theme of an image of the Prophet made for and kept by a non-
Muslim ruler can also be found in Maqrizi's account. He reports a curious
tale in which the muqawqis, or Christian ruler of Egypt received a letter from
the Prophet inviting him to convert to Islam. After reading the letter, he met
alone with Muhammad's emissary and pulled from a basket a piece of cloth
(samat)on which there were pictures of the prophets, and on a separate piece
of cloth there was a portrait of the Prophet of God. The envoy did not see
the cloth, but he was asked to describe the Prophet as the muqawqis checked
the verbal description against the representation in front of him. He confir-
med that the description was accurate, but never showed the picture to the
envoy. 'O
An even more peculiar event which follows our schema is related in a
book of the eleventh century which contains stories and aphorisms dealing
with human and prophetic qualities. The last Sasanian king, Shiroye, is said
to have sent to the Prophet a painter who made a picture of Muhammad. The
painting was brought back to the king who put it on his p i l l o ~ . ~ '
45. Among many versions, Nizami, Haft Payknr, tr. Julie Scott Meisami, Oxford, 1995, p. 51-53.
46. Sith l%ompsonand Jonas Balys, The Oral Tales of India, Bloomington, 1958, p. 407.
47. Sith Thompson, Motif-index of Folk-Literature, reprinted, Bloomington, 1989, index volume.
48. Ren6 Khawam, Le Livre des Ruses, Paris, 1976, p. 229,247-248,266, 301,310.
49. M. C. Lyons, The Arabian Epics, Cambridge, 1985, esp. vol. III, p. 88,341,363,434,466,554.We
would like to thank Professor Remke KNk for bringing this book to our attention.
50. Maqrizi, Kitab 01-Muqaffa' 01-Kabir, ed. M. al-Yalawi, Beirut, 1991, 3, p. 25.
51. Manstr al-Abi, Nafhr a/-Ditrr,Tunis, 1983, p. 171.
 OLEG GRABAR - MIKA NATIF

It is probably this literary path that led to the reappearance of the story in fif-
teenth century Iran. The Timurid historian Mirkhwand reports on the existence
of a "tabut sakinah"(a term used to describe the Ark of the C~venant)~' with pic-
tures of prophets in the possession of Heraclius. His account is then picked up
by the sixteenth century historian of painting and calligraphy Dost Muham-
mad". In the words of the latter, the religious or pious dimension of the story is
less apparent than its value in justifying an art of painting and design going back
to the Prophet's son-in-law Ali and eventually to Mani who lived in the second
half of the third century. Mani was known for his own artistic talents and espe-
cially for his use of images in the propagation of his beliefs, and was a spiritual
forerunner of Persian painting.54
Another avenue in searching for a source of inspiration for our story and its
expansion leads us to the Christian culture surrounding Byzantium. One Byzan-
tine source mentions the alleged existence of a book with illustrations which
may bear some similarity to the portraits of the prophets mentioned in Muslim
accounts. This book is said to have belonged to the emperor Leo VI the Wise
(r. 896-912) who acquired the reputation of a philosopher especially after his
death." m e source itself, from the much later chronicler Nikephorus Gregoras
(d. between 1358 and 1361) relates that the emperor had in his possession an old
book containing "enigmatic letters and obscurisigns [or images] (eikones)" sho-
wing (or suggesting) the succession of rulers to come.56The passage is obscure
but appears to indicate that the book had strange combinations of letters and
signs, which may or may not have been actual pictures, all somehow indicating
future emperors or other rulers not yet in existence. There is no clear implication
of actual representations nor is there a sense of recognition or of definition, as
through some bodily feature or symbol of the individuals involved. It is most
likely that it was a book of magic formulas, perhaps used to make predictions in
the manner of ancient oracles or of the works of Nostradarnus. It only concerns
us because its existence was recognized in the tenth century, the very time of
most Arabic accounts of such stories, and because it deals with the unusual func-
tion of certain visual signs to show future rulers. A Christian version of these sto-
ries may well have existed in Egypt as early as in the ninth century, as has been
shown by Gilbert Dagron, and more specifically associated with the mysterious
52. Mirkhwand Tarikh-I rwzot 01-sofa (Tehran, 1959-60) 2, p. 58. It is interesting to note a visual connection
between Mirkhwand's use of the term for the Ark ot the Covenant and a Jewish glass plate form the third century
A D. Rome which depicts the Ark as a large box with scrolls, similar to what we find in Roman hbraries See L. Cas-
son, Ltbranes 1n the Ancient World (New Haven, 2001). We are grateful to Professor Bowersock for this reference.
53. Dost Muhammad uses the term snnd~lqol-sl~~zirndnh(chest of witnessing) to describe the box. W. Thacks-
ton, Alblrrn Prefaces and Other Docim~entson the Histoq of Calligmphers and Painters (Leiden; Boston, 20011,
p 12 (Persian text).
54. The Manichaean interest in the succession of prophets has been studied by Michel Tardeu, "La Chaine des
F'ropMtes", Cahiers d'Asle Centrale, 1-2, (1996), p. 357-366.
55. HamiduUah, "Une Ambassade du Caliphe Abou B M ' , op. cit., p. 30.
56. Migne, Patrologia Greca, Paris, 1863, vol. 107, p, 1123-1 124. We would like to thank Professor Glen W.
Bowersock for helping in interpreting ttus shofl text.
 THE STORY OF PORTRAITS OF THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD

astrologer known as Stephen of Alexand~ia,~' thus providing a pseudo-scientific

justification for the existence of hidden images.
A more telling Christian parallel is the account of the mandylion of
Edessa. The story is well-known and dates in its first appearance to the
sixth century. There are many variants to it, but its main point is that Jesus
would have given to a messenger of king Abgar of Edessa a piece of cloth
(the Holy Towel or mandylion) with his face imprinted on it.58This relic
was worshipped in Edessa and remained there after the Muslim conquest.
It was moved to Constantinople in 944, where it was kept in the Great
Palace, an event recorded by Muslim as well as Christian sources. It was
eventually looted in 1204 and housed in the Sainte Chapelle in Paris,
whence it disappeared during the French Revolution. The story has often
been illustrated. The earliest remaining instance is from the tenth century
in the monastery of Ste. Catherine in Mt. Sinai, and it shows a face on a
simple ~ 1 0 t hMore
. ~ ~ elaborate "Holy Faces" appear on a number of eas-
tern or western pieces of cloth or in representations from the twelfth-cen-
tury onwards.
Several aspects of the mandylion story are pertinent to ours. Like the
paintings of the prophets, it was the image of a holy figure on cloth. It was
easy to transport, safeguard, and display for private or public purposes. It
could have been a model for the material on which the prophets were shown,
at least in the version of the Muslim story associated with Heraclius. A rela-
ted characteristic is that, like the silks of the Muslim story (which would
have existed from the beginning of time and were made, so to speak, through
divine intervention, by or for God), the mandylion was particularly holy
because it had not been made by human hands, a very special category of
holy images in Byzantine piety. The other aspect is that the story of the man-
dylion involves the Christian population of the Near East in the tenth cen-
tury. The Muslim story could have developed as a parallel to it. But in one
essential aspect the story of the mandylion differs radically from ours. It was
not made as an image of a holy man to come, but was contemporary with the
holy figure and was made at his will. Thus even if some relationship can be
proposed concerning the medium of our images, the substance of these
images is hardly comparable.
A third Christian parallel is at first glance more compelling, at least on
the technical level of the detailed physical characteristics given to prophets.
57. Gilben Dagron, "Les Diseurs d'tvtnements," Milanges offerts d Georges Duby, IV, Aix-en-Provence,
1992
58. There is a considerable literature on the rnandylion since Ernst von Dobschutz' Christusbilder, Leipzig,
1899. For h e latest account, see Aver11Cameron, "The History of the Image of Edessa; the Telling of a Story", in
Changing C111rlrresin Enrly @nsntirrrn, Variorum, 1996). It is interesting to note that, p. 90, in relating the story
in Arabic Christian texts, some authors rejected the wordsirah for it, on the grounds that it was not made by human
hands. For images, see An& Grabar, Lo Sainte Face de Loon, Prague, 193 1
59. K. Weitzmann, ''The Mandylion and Constantine Porphyrogenetes", Cahiers Arch~ologiques,11, 1960.
 OLEG GRABAR - MIKA NATIF

These are illustrated books of the Prophets, a few of which were known in
Byzantium and dated between 850 and 1350.@'They were never very popu-
lar and the illustrations show either busts of prophets in medallions or stan-
ding prophets, at times even shown from the back. The figures are similar to
one another and differ only in their beards (long or short, gray or white). A
curious and related document is a text known as Ulpius the Roman compo-
sed by a monk of Mt. Athos in 993. It contains a description of the bodily
characteristics of prophets, of Jesus, and of a few saint;. None of the cha-
racteristics of prophets shared by the Ulpius text and the Arabic ones corres-
pond to each other. Later descriptions of saints, as Gilbert Dagron has shown,
deal with a realism of fiction, a typology of what he called "portraits-robots"
with variations adapted to a given personage.(" As a literary genre these des-
criptions are comparable to ours, but the manuscript was not meant to be a
model book for images and its impact was extremely limited. It does, howe-
ver, introduce one important theme into our discussion, that of a judgment of
a person's quality which is reflected in his exterior appearance, and suggests
a correlation between physical features and moral personality. This last point
was strongly emphasized by traditional Muslim depictions of the Prophet, of
the first four caliphs, and of imams within the shi'ite traditi~n.~'
One last Christian parallel that can be related to our pictures of Muham-
mad and his ancestors is the category of illustrated genealogies of Christ,
known as the Tree of Jesse. Such genealogical pages usually consisted of a
tree with hanging medallions and name-tags; each medallion contained a
painting of the face of a specific individual. In some cases only the name of
the person was inserted in the medallion, without the figural representation.
Most of these genealogies were made in the western Christian medieval
world, and more particularly the Hispanic world, as in the Mozarabic
manuscripts of Beatus, or in some Armenian manuscripts of the tenth cen-
tury, now di~appeared.~' Perhaps the descriptions of paintings of Muham-
mad's spiritual ancestors in the various Arabic texts mentioned here were
inspired by paintings such as the Tree of Jesse.
The connections that can be established between Christian documents
and the Muslim story are relatively loose. It is difficult to point to a direct
impact of one on the other and the only possible significant conclusion that
can be drawn is the importance of the tenth century in bringing to the fore
60. James Lowden, Illuminated Prophet Books, University Park, 1988.
61. Gilbert Dagron, "L'Image de Culte et le Poraait", in A. Guillou and Jeannic Durand (eds.), By;once
et les Images, Paris, 1991.
62. One curious text dated 1246 mentions the existence of portraits of Ali in Christian buildings. It is
Ibn Abi al-Hadid, Sharh Nahj a/-Baligha, Beyrout, 1965, I, p. 28-29. This reference appears in the doctoral
dissertation of Dr. Shaker Laibi. Artistes er artisans dons I'art islamique (Lausanne. 2003) and we are grate-
ful to the author for this information.
63. Latest bibliography in M. Taylor. "Historiated Tree of Jesse", Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 34-35,
1980-1981; and V. Milanovic, "Tree of Jesse", Zograf, 20, 1989. We are grateful to Lois Drewer for these
references.
 THE STORY OF PORTRAITS OF THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD

similar concerns regarding images of prophets. As Marius Canard has men-

tioned in passing,64both Islamic and Christian attitudes at that time were
affected by popular taste, and possibly popular images were more easily sha-
red than high-level culture.
A later development in the Muslim religious tradition also dealt with des-
criptions of the Prophet and, as we propose, eventually merged with actual pic-
tures of the Prophet. Thls tradition is known as the hilye. The word is an Arabic
one, with a complex set of implications in its meaning: "quality or aggregate of
attributes and qualities, appearance, something pleasing, ~rnarnent."~~ There is
an early hadith in which the Prophet promises that "for him who sees my hilya
after my death it is as if he had seen me myself, and he who sees it, longing for
me, for him God will make Hellfire prohibited, and he will not be resurrected
naked at Doomsday."@The term and the meaning of hilye were carried into Per-
sian and Turkish, but in the latter, sometimes in the early Ottoman period, the
term acquired the specific and primary meaning of the "external personal appea-
rance, form and features, description of the personal virtues and the qualities of
the P r ~ p h e t . "It~came
~ to apply to a body of texts made up of very short sen-
tences describing the Prophet's physical beauty (which attests for his inner qua-
lities) as allegedly recorded by his family members and close friends. The text
of the hilye is thus a verbal image of Muhammad, giving both his physical
appearance and his personality."
The most popular example is the hilye attributed to Ali ibn Abi Talib, the
Prophet's son-in-law and nephew (d. 661), but other descriptions were ascribed
to 'Aisha, the Prophet's wife, and to other c~ntemporaries.~According to Ali's
description, Muhammad was medium-sized with wavy hair (not too curly), his
flesh was firm, his skin was of rosy whiteness, he had large black eyes with long
thick eyelashes, fine hair on his chest, and the "seal of prophecy" between his
shoulder blades. 70
This description of the Prophet turned out to be the basis for the stylized
compositions of single pages commonly known as hilyes, which became
popular in the Ottoman world (Figs. 1-3).7' There, in the sixteenth century,
64. M. Canard, Byionce et les Musrrlmns, op. cit., p. 105.
65. E.W. Lane. An Arabic-English Lexicon. London, 1863-1893.
66.Schimmel, p. 36. Sahvat quotes a slightly different version of the samekdirh. N. F. Safwat, The Art of the
Pen, London, 1996, p. 47 and note 8.
67. New Redhoiise EinWsh-Englirh Dictionary (Istanbul, 1978).
68. A. Schimmel, p. 3436. On the relationship between portraiture and hilye see P. Soucek, "The Theory and
Practice of Portraiture in the Persian Tradition",Muqamas 17 (2MX)), p. 106.
69. A. Schimmel argues that the secalled Ali version appears first in Tirmidhi's Kitib slmmi'il 01-Muslafd.
(ibid, p. 34). Safwat gives a later source which is the Kitrib al-Shifii bi-Ta'rif H~lqlrq01-Mus~afriof al-Qadi 'Iyld
ibn MDsl (d. 1 149). N. F. Safwaf The Art of the Pen, op. cit, p. 46.
70. For a complete description see A. Schimmel, And Muhammad is His Name, op. cit., p. 34, N . F. Safwaf
The A n of the Pen, op. cit., p. 46.
71. A slightly different description of Muhammad was used in Iran in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
to create another hilye, which was usually furnished with a aanslation into Persian. N. F. Safwat, The A n of the Pen,
op. cit., p. 47.
 OLEG GRARAR - MIKA NATIF

calligraphers developed and transformed the text into an ornamented calli-

graphic image eventually perfected by Hafiz Osman, the master calligrapher
of the late seventeenth century. The hilye was used (and still is) as an apo-
tropaic device protecting against evil spirits (such as Satan) that would also
grant the patron and the calligrapher blessings in the afterlife. 72 The making,
owning, or displaying of a hilye was considered to be an act of piety. Howe-
ver, there is very little evidence that it was common before the Ottoman per-
iod in the sixteenth century.
In the Ottoman world hilye literature did not usually yield a pictorial
tradition of portraits of the Prophet, but found its artistic expression in cal-
ligraphy alone. Calligraphy was deemed to represent an idea as the source
of the image, not the image as the source of the idea. 7' It created a concep-
tual representation and not a concrete one like a painting, and left it to the
viewer to imagine or meditate upon the details. But even in Turkey some
of the hilyes took a more illustrative form, such as a nineteenth-century
Ottoman example from the Khalili collection (Fig. 2). This piece includes
the hilye text, passages from the hadith, and Quranic verses, transformed
in part into the relics of Muhammad, the mukhnllafat al-nabawiyyah, such
as his sword, cloak, rosary, banners, seal-ring, and more, all filled with
writing.
In Iran, however, the hilye-s were sometimes accompanied by portraits
of Muhammad or of Ali, and thus belonged to a different visual tradition in
which representational painting played an important part at a popular
Such an example is a late nineteenth century hilye (Fig. 3) which illustrates
a new approach to the genre. At the top of the decorated hilye page is a por-
trait, probably of M~hammad.~"e sits in a European style landscape hol-
ding his sword across his thighs. The text below the portrait provides a des-
cription in Arabic followed by a Persian translation. The inscribed
cartouches in the inner border mention the Prophet and the twelve Imams,
and those in the outer border include the "Throne Verse."76
Paintings of the family of the Prophet and of Ali in particular on can-
vas, mirror cases, or pen-boxes had become popular in Iran and India since
the time of Nasir al-Din Shah (ruled 1848-96) side by side with the rise in
the performance of the ta'ziyeh, the theatrical representation of the dramas
of early shi'ite history. This phenomenon led to a visual tradition, a popu-
72. A. Schimmel, AndM~~honirnadis His Ncrme, op. cit., p. 36; p. 271 note 55.
73. N. F. Safwat, The Art of the Pen, op. c i t , p. 47.
74. /bid., p. 48.
75. Safwat argues that this is a portrait of Ali (ibld., p. 67, cat. 40). His conclusion seems curious since
there is nothing that identifies the figure specifically as Ali, and none of Ali's attributes such as the double-
headed sword, or the sun and the lion are depicted. Stephan Vernoit argues that this portrait is "probably
intended to represent the Prophet Muhammad, although it shows cenam similarities with images of All...".
S. Vernoit, Occidentolism: Itlan~icArr in the I9rh Cenrufy, London, 1997, p. 65, cat. 32
76. /hrii.
 THE STORY OF PORTRAITS OF THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD

lar one, of holy h i ~ t o r y . The

' ~ merging of this visual tradition with the pri-
marily verbal tradition of the hilye found its ultimate contemporary
expression in the images of the Prophet which are available today in shi'ite
Iran. Such an example is a modern print showing an adolescent male in a
sensual pose (Fig. 4). His head bends down toward his left shoulder, his
lips are separated from each other outlining a smile, his eyes carry a lan-
guorous look. The very same image is found on key chains and probably
on other items of common usage. It is, thus, part of ubiquitously distribu-
ted and easily accessible popular imagery present in many parts of the
world. What makes this particular image striking is that the adolescent is
identified through two lines of text in Persian as the youthful prophet
Muhammad at a time before he had been called to prophethood. The ins-
cription indicates that the picture was made in the early seventh century by
the Christian monk Bahirah who lived in southern Syria.78The original
painting from which this print was made is supposed to be located in a
"muze-i Rum," a museum somewhere in the Christian lands. 79 Here again
reappears our main theme of pictures of Muhammad made for, or by, non-
Muslims. However in this case we do have the 'actual' picture and not a
mere description of it.
This picture and its inscription are all the more interesting since the
stories dealing with Bahira and Muhammad known since the eighth cen-
tury do not even imply that the monk made a picture of the Prophet. Thus,
an 'already existing' image made by a non-Muslim had to be invented in
order to justify the existence of the current painting. The modern Iranian
print was not meant to be the illustration of some narrative nor to be a
heroic or symbolic means to glorify a holy personage, but as the repro-
duction of an image made in the early seventh century. It is the represen-
tation of a representation of the Prophet when his role as the last of the pro-
phets was a 'secret' known to "others", and therein lies its commemorative
and pious value.

77. On the ta'ziyah see Ta'ziyeh, Riritol and Drama in Iran, edited by P. Chelkowski, New York, New
York University Press, 1979. For a contemporary use of paintings of holy images see P. Chelkowski, Staging
o Revolution, London, Booth-Clibborn Editions, 2000.
78. In the most celebrated episode, the ascetic Christian monk Bahirah sought out and recognized the
young member of an Arabian caravan of traders as the Prophet to be. He did so by seeing one of several signs
of Prophethood on his body, or else by becoming aware of a cloud that followed him or a branch that moved
with him and provided him with shade. This event has even been illustrated around 1300 in Rashid al-Din's,
Jinli'oi-Towirikh, Edinburgh University Library, Or. 20, fol. 4 5 . See D. T. Rice, Illirstrations to the 'World
Hisfon.' ofRoshid 01-Din (1976). pl. 30, p. 98 for a black & white picture.
79. There are many versions of this story; see A. Abel, "B&irah, in Encyclopedia of Islam, second edi-
tion; and, lastly, S . Gero, "The Legend of the Monk Bahira, the Cult of the Cross, and Iconoclasm", in Cani-
vet and Rey-Coquais, Ln Syrie de Byzance ir l'lslnm, op. cir., p. 47-58. A related story of recognition of
Muhammad as a prophet came later In his life, when already as an adult he once again traveled with a cara-
van and was recognized by a monk called Nastur or Sergius, both names closely associated with sectarian
Christian groups within the Fertile Crescent. References found in Gero's article quoted above.
 OLEG GRABAR - MIKA NATIF

We can then sum up this peculiar development in the story of the repre-
sentations of the Prophet in the following manner. The detailed stories of
early representations of Muhammad were never illustrated, neither was there
any attempt to reconstruct these paintings nor to draw an image of Muham-
mad based on them. Quite the opposite happened in the twentieth century.
In our hypothesis, hilye literature based on alleged contemporary descrip-
tions of Muhammad ended up in the making of images of the Prophet when
Shi'ite culture gave particular prominence to visual expression within the
religious sphere. As a fascinating paradox, the text dealing with images did
not yield a visual tradition, while the text which gathered physical and moral
descriptions of the Prophet by his family and close friends ended up by
yielding a large body of works of art, calligraphy, diagrams, and eventually
figural painting.
Our story began with an account of representations of the Prophet
Muhammad in a pious book of the eleventh century belonging to mains-
tream sunni learning and it ends with a late twentieth century image of the
young Muhammad from shi'ite Iran. Many observations can be drawn from
this story and the various documents we have presented, but we would like
to concentrate on a few, however tentative they may be.
On a cultural level dealing specifically with works of art or of material
culture, our story clearly indicates that the Islamic world had a much more
complicated and sophisticated concern with religious or pious imagery
than is usually suggested. It is curious that in all the stories Muslims do not
ask for the pictures or for copies, and as far as we know, nobody until the
twentieth century tried to recreate them. Real or fictitious, images were
constantly present and active according to social, intellectual, or other
areas of interest that still need i n v e s t i g a t i ~ nThey
. ~ ~ could have been ins-
pired by existing, real models of works of art from many different cultures,
or perhaps they were mnemonic devices created in learned or popular rhe-
toric.
On a philosophical or esthetic level, we would like to point out a termi-
nological distinction. The first of the texts we mentioned differentiates bet-
ween sifah (depiction of physical features) and surah (picture). And in less
clear a fashion, the story of the portraits at the court of China includes a
somewhat obscure distinction between a representation of the Prophet and
the knowledge someone has of what he looked like. This distinction may
well illustrate a significant contrast between two layers in the reality of
images, a layer of physical, tangible presence and that of cerebral know-
ledge, what can perhaps best be described in French as a vue de l'esprit. This
philosophical distinction relates our story and its various implications to the
80. The role of images in the Med~evalIslamic world has been recently discussed by 0. Pancaroglu.
"Signs in the horizons: Concepts of image and boundary in medieval Persian cosmography", RES. vol. 43.
2003, p. 31-41.
 THE STORY OF PORTRAITS OF THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD

problems of art history in contrasting the visible forms of art to the mental
images of those who create them and who contemplate works of art.

Oleg GRABAR
Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton
Mika NATIF
New York University

81. Peter Brown, "Images as substi(utes for writing", in E. Chrysos (ed.), East and West:Modes of Conl-
rnunicnrion, Leiden, 1999, and Hans Belting, "Face or Trace? Open Questions around the Prehistory of
Christ's Icon", P~laeos/avica:Srlrdiesfor Professor I Sev.'enko on his 80th Birrhdny, 10, 2002.
 OLEG GRABAR - MIKA NATIF

Captions

Fig. 1 - Hilya, 19th century, Ottoman Turkey, signed Mehmed Tahir, by

courtesy of The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, CAL 459.
Fig. 2 - Hilye combined with the Relics of the Prophet, 19th century,
Ottoman Turkey, by courtesy of The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic
Art, CAL 44 1.
Fig. 3 - Hilye, 19th century, Iran, by courtesy of The Nasser D. Khalili
Collection of Islamic Art, CAL 60.
Fig. 4 - The Prophet Muhammad as a young man, contemporary print
from Iran
 Article de 0. GRABAR & M.NATIF

Fig. 1 - Hilya, 19th century, Ottoman Turkey, signed Mehmed Tahir, by courtesy
of The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, CAL 459.
 Fig. 2 - Hilye combined with the Relics of the Prophet, 19th century, Ottoman
Turkey, by courtesy of The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, CAL 441.
Fig. 3 - Hilye,19th century, Iran, by courtesy of The Nasser D. Khalili Collection
of Islamic Art, CAL 60.
Fig. 4 - The Prophet Muhammad as a young man, contemporary print from Iran.