Daily grace

Leaf from a poetic manuscript

Calligraphy: 1556–57, Bukhara, Central Asia; Borders: late 16th or early 17th century, India

ink and gold on paper

Taken from a manuscript of five long rhyming poems by the 15th-century Persian mystic Abd al-Rahman Jami, this page shows part of Jami’s most celebrated poem, based on the biblical encounter between Zulaykha and Joseph, who was sold into Egyptian slavery by his brothers. (Zulaykha is the name given to the wife of Pharaoh’s chief guard, Potiphar, by Islamic commentaries on the Koran.) In Jami’s poem, the story serves as an allegorical introduction to Sufism, a mystical branch of Islam that seeks to find truth through personal experience of God. This manuscript was transcribed by Mahmud ibn Ishaq al-Shihabi, a master of nasta‘liq, a flowing, calligraphic form of Persian.