Ibrahim Mirza
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Ibrahim Mirza, Solṭān Ebrāhīm Mīrzā, in full Abu'l Fat'h Sultan Ibrahim Mirza (; April 1540 – 23 February 1577) was a
Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
prince of the
Safavid dynasty The Safavid dynasty (; , ) was one of Iran's most significant ruling dynasties reigning from Safavid Iran, 1501 to 1736. Their rule is often considered the beginning of History of Iran, modern Iranian history, as well as one of the gunpowder em ...
, who was a
favourite A favourite was the intimate companion of a ruler or other important person. In Post-classical Europe, post-classical and Early modern Europe, early-modern Europe, among other times and places, the term was used of individuals delegated signifi ...
of his uncle and father-in-law Shah Tahmasp I, but who was executed by Tahmasp's successor, the Shah
Ismail II Ismail II (; born Ismail Mirza; 31 May 1537 – 24 November 1577) was the third shah of Safavid Iran from 1576 to 1577. He was the second son of Tahmasp I with his principal consort, Sultanum Begum. On the orders of Tahmasp, Ismail spent twenty ...
. Ibrahim is now mainly remembered as a patron of the arts, especially the
Persian miniature A Persian miniature (Persian language, Persian: نگارگری ایرانی ''negârgari Irâni'') is a small Persian painting on paper, whether a book illustration or a separate work of art intended to be kept in an album of such works called a ...
. Although most of his library and art collection was apparently destroyed by his wife after his murder, surviving works commissioned by him include the manuscript of the '' Haft Awrang'' of the poet Jami which is now in the
Freer Gallery of Art The Freer Gallery of Art is an art museum of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. focusing on Asian art. The Freer and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery together form the National Museum of Asian Art in the United States. The Freer and ...
in Washington D.C.


Biography

Ibrahim Mirza was a grandson of the founder of the Safavid dynasty,
Ismail I Ismail I (; 17 July 1487 – 23 May 1524) was the founder and first shah of Safavid Iran, ruling from 1501 until his death in 1524. His reign is one of the most vital in the history of Iran, and the Safavid period is often considered the beginn ...
(1487–1524) by Ismail's fourth son, prince Bahram Mirza Safavi (1518–1550), who was governor of Khorasan (1529–32),
Gilan Gilan Province () is one of the 31 provinces of Iran, in the northwest of the country and southwest of the Caspian Sea. Its capital is the city of Rasht. The province lies along the Caspian Sea, in Iran's Region 3, west of the province of ...
(1536–37) and
Hamadan Hamadan ( ; , ) is a mountainous city in western Iran. It is located in the Central District of Hamadan County in Hamadan province, serving as the capital of the province, county, and district. As of the 2016 Iranian census, it had a po ...
(1546–49), and also a commissioner of manuscripts. Two of his uncles and two of his brothers were to rebel against Tahmasp. Ibrahim Mirza, however, who grew up at court, was a long-time favourite of Tahmasp, and remained loyal, and was appointed governor of
Mashhad Mashhad ( ; ), historically also known as Mashad, Meshhed, or Meshed in English, is the List of Iranian cities by population, second-most-populous city in Iran, located in the relatively remote north-east of the country about from Tehran. ...
at the age of 16, arriving there in March 1556. The appointment had a nominal element — Tahmasp himself had received his first governorship at the age of four — but was also political, connected to Ibrahim Mirza's mother, who came from the
Shirvanshah The Shirvanshahs (Arabic/) were the rulers of Shirvan (in present-day Azerbaijan) from 861 to 1538. The first ruling line were the Yazidids, an originally Arab and later Persianized dynasty, who became known as the Kasranids (also referred t ...
dynasty. In 1560 he married Tahmasp's eldest daughter by a concubine, Gawhar Sultan Begum (died 1577); they had one daughter, Gawhar Shad Begum (died 1587). Around the end of 1562 he was travelling to
Ardabil Ardabil (, ) is a city in northwestern Iran. It is in the Central District (Ardabil County), Central District of Ardabil County, Ardabil province, Ardabil province, Iran, serving as capital of the province, the county, and the district. The ...
to take up the governorship there, when he was reported to the shah for his reaction to a joke that angered the shah, and the appointment was switched to the much less important governorship of Qa'en, in Khorasan. In 1564 and 1565 he had to suppress a major tribal revolt of the Takkalu, who used a slave army numbering 10,000. After a few years, Shah Tahmasp's anger had subsided, and Ibrahim Mirza was re-appointed Governor of Mashhad by 1566. He was removed again "within a year or two, apparently for his failure to assist in rescuing the shah’s besieged son, Solṭān Moḥammad Mīrzā". He was sent to govern Sabzavār until 1574 when, by now 34, he was recalled to the capital at
Qazvin Qazvin (; ; ) is a city in the Central District (Qazvin County), Central District of Qazvin County, Qazvin province, Qazvin province, Iran, serving as capital of the province, the county, and the district. It is the largest city in the provi ...
to serve as grand master of ceremonies ('' eshīk-āqāsī-bāshī''). When Tahmasp died in 1576, Ibrahim Mirza was involved in the struggles at court over the succession, finally supporting the successful
Ismail II Ismail II (; born Ismail Mirza; 31 May 1537 – 24 November 1577) was the third shah of Safavid Iran from 1576 to 1577. He was the second son of Tahmasp I with his principal consort, Sultanum Begum. On the orders of Tahmasp, Ismail spent twenty ...
, who appointed him keeper of the royal seal (mohrdār). On 23 February 1577, Ibrahim Mirza he was killed in Qazvin, along with several other princes, by order of Ismail II in a general clear-out of potential rivals.Simpson As the new shah, Ismail II, who may have been mentally unstable after spending 20 years in prison, had soon alienated the
Qizilbash Qizilbash or Kizilbash (Latin script: ) ; ; (modern Iranian reading: ); were a diverse array of mainly Turkoman "The Qizilbash, composed mainly of Turkman tribesmen, were the military force introduced by the conquering Safavis to the Irani ...
who were powerful at court and especially his influential sister
Pari Khan Khanum Pari Khan Khanum (; August 1548 – 12 February 1578) was a Safavid Iran, Safavid princess, daughter of the second Safavid , Tahmasp I, and his Circassians, Circassian consort, Sultan-Agha Khanum. She was her father's favourite child and allowed ...
. The Qizilbash had begun to look to Ibrahim Mirza as a possible replacement for Ismail, who died on 24 November, supposedly after consuming poisoned
opium Opium (also known as poppy tears, or Lachryma papaveris) is the dried latex obtained from the seed Capsule (fruit), capsules of the opium poppy ''Papaver somniferum''. Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid mor ...
.


Patron of the arts

Like other Safavid princes Ibrahim Mirza practiced as a poet, artist and
calligrapher Calligraphy () is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a pen, ink brush, or other writing instruments. Contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined as "the art of giving form to signs in an exp ...
, and was a patron of poets, musicians and other artists, but he was especially important for the atelier he maintained for the production of
illuminated manuscript An illuminated manuscript is a formally prepared manuscript, document where the text is decorated with flourishes such as marginalia, borders and Miniature (illuminated manuscript), miniature illustrations. Often used in the Roman Catholic Churc ...
s. When Shah Tahmasp, previously the leading patron of Persian painting at the time, ceased to commission manuscripts in the 1540s, Ibrahim Mirza's workshop was for a period the most important in Persia. As a poet he wrote several thousand lines, in
Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
and Turkish. The Freer Jami contains statements, by the two calligraphers who copied the text, that it was copied at Mashhad. Another source states that one of them, Malik al-Daylami, went with Ibrahim Mirza to Mashhad in 1556, and stayed for 18 months, before being recalled by the shah. He also tutored Ibrahim in calligraphy. Despite requests from the prince, Malik was not allowed back to Mashhad before his death in 1561 or 1562. The second calligrapher, Shah Mahmud Nishapuri, who had written the last major commission of Tahmasp, the '' Khamsa of Nizami'',
British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...
Or. 2265, died in Mashad in 1564 or 1565. There are 28 full-page miniatures, none signed or dated, but modern attributions (not always finding consensus among scholars) have been made to artists including Shaykh Muhammad, an important artist who is recorded as joining Ibrahim Mirza in Sabzavar, and after Ibrahim's death returned to working for the shahs. Shaykh Muhammad may have been responsible for the individualized faces in certain pictures, atypical of Persian painting, and looking forward to the
Mughal miniature Mughal painting is a South Asian style of painting on paper made in to miniature (illuminated manuscript), miniatures either as book illustrations or as single works to be kept in albums (muraqqa), originating from the territory of the Mughal Emp ...
, a tradition that was beginning just in these years. Other artists from Tahmasp's atelier joined the service of the Mughal emperor
Humayun Nasir al-Din Muhammad (6 March 1508 – 27 January 1556), commonly known by his regnal name Humayun (), was the second Mughal emperor, who ruled over territory in what is now Eastern Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Northern India, and Pakistan from ...
. Indeed, one artist, Mirza Ali, is claimed by Stuart Cary Welch and others to have contributed to the Freer Jami, while the theory of Barbara Brend that he was the same person as Abd al-Samad would place him working for Humayun and his son
Akbar Akbar (Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar, – ), popularly known as Akbar the Great, was the third Mughal emperor, who reigned from 1556 to 1605. Akbar succeeded his father, Humayun, under a regent, Bairam Khan, who helped the young emperor expa ...
in just these years, first in
Kabul Kabul is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province. The city is divided for administration into #Districts, 22 municipal districts. A ...
and then in India. Another artist who worked for the prince was Ali Asghar, father of
Reza Abbasi Reza Abbasi (), also known as Aqa Reza ( – 1635), was the leading Persian miniature, Persian miniaturist of the Isfahan School during the later Safavid period, spending most of his career working for Shah Abbas I. He is considered to be the l ...
, the leading artist of the next generation, who was born around 1565, perhaps at Mashhad. Welch suggests that some paintings were made in Qazvin by older artists, such as Aqa Mirak and Muzaffar Ali, who remained there and sent to Mashhad.,Welch, 24 but the account by another of the prince's calligraphers, Qazi Ahmad, though admittedly full of extravagant praise, makes it clear that Ibrahim Mirza took a good-sized contingent of artists and craftsmen with him to his posts, and spent much time among them. Other artists working on the manuscript have been given the titles of painters A and D, from their work on earlier manuscripts for Tahmasp. Ibrahim Mirza may also have commissioned manuscripts in Qazvin in the 1570s, the best period of production there. The miniatures in the book are crowded with figures, and in the example opposite textiles, too much so for many critics,. It appears Ibrahim Mirza identified himself with
Yusuf Yusuf ( ') is a male name meaning " God increases" (in piety, power and influence).From the Hebrew יהוה להוסיף ''YHWH Lhosif'' meaning " YHWH will increase/add". It is the Arabic equivalent of the Hebrew name Yosef and the English na ...
(
Joseph Joseph is a common male name, derived from the Hebrew (). "Joseph" is used, along with " Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the modern-day Nordic count ...
) and the images of him are probably intended as portraits. The manuscript has been described as "the last truly great one produced under the Safavid dynasty". For Barbara Brend:
Superficially the illustrations to Jami's stories are very similar to those of works for Tahmasp; they are complex compositions of a high level of finish, but there are more figures which are slightly grotesque, more youths with a slightly louche, pussycat smile, and a palette which admits more brown and purple tertiary colours. The eye is pulled restlessly over the page from detail to detail. It is as though the painters had lost confidence in the power of the ostensible narrative subject to interest the viewer, and were searching for other means to hold the attention. Innocence had been lost; the classic works would continue to be illustrated, but only as a vehicle for the painters' skill; they seem no longer to have a mythic hold on the imagination. The future of painting was to lie in more realistic subjects, though their treatment often disguises that realism from us.
After Ibrahim Mirza was murdered, his wife, who only survived him by three months, is recorded as destroying his library and personal possessions, washing the manuscripts in water, smashing what was probably
Chinese porcelain Chinese ceramics are one of the most significant forms of Chinese art and ceramics globally. They range from construction materials such as bricks and tiles, to hand-built pottery vessels fired in bonfires or kilns, to the sophisticated Chinese ...
, and burning other things. She also washed out a
muraqqa A Muraqqa ( , ) is an album in book form containing Islamic miniature paintings and specimens of Islamic calligraphy, normally from several different sources, and perhaps other matter. The album was popular among collectors in the Islami ...
or album, containing miniatures by Behzad among others, which her husband had compiled and given her for their wedding. Perhaps she did not want anything to fall into the hands of her brother, who had ordered his death, and who did take over the prince's atelier. Only two manuscripts commissioned by Ibrahim Mirza have survived, the Freer Jami and a much more "modest" manuscript of 1574, now in the Topkapi Palace in
Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...
, with just two illustrations. In 1582 his daughter compiled a book containing his poetry, with some miniatures, which survives in two copies, one in the
Aga Khan Museum The Aga Khan Museum is a museum of Islamic art located at 77 Wynford Drive in the North York district of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The museum is dedicated to Islamic art and objects, and it houses approximately 1,200 rare objects assembled by Sh ...
and the other in the
Golestan Palace The Golestan Palace (, ''Kākh-e Golestān''), also transliterated as the Gulistan Palace and sometimes translated as the Rose Garden Palace from Persian language, was built in the 16th century, renovated in the 18th century and finally rebuilt ...
library in
Tehran Tehran (; , ''Tehrân'') is the capital and largest city of Iran. It is the capital of Tehran province, and the administrative center for Tehran County and its Central District (Tehran County), Central District. With a population of around 9. ...
.Simpson
1582 album
Aga Khan Museum The Aga Khan Museum is a museum of Islamic art located at 77 Wynford Drive in the North York district of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The museum is dedicated to Islamic art and objects, and it houses approximately 1,200 rare objects assembled by Sh ...
File:Muzaffar Ali 1539.jpg, Freer Jami, attributed to Muzaffar Ali File:Продажа ишака. Хафт Ауранг, Джами. 1556-65. Фрир..jpg, Freer Jami, attributed to Mirza Ali File:Youth at chess with suitors - Haft Awrang.jpg, Detail from the Freer Jami


Notes


References

*Abisaab, Rula Jurdim, ''Converting Persia: religion and power in the Safavid Empire'', I.B.Tauris, 2004, , 9781860649707 *Babaie, Sussan, ''Slaves of the Shah: new elites of Safavid Iran'', I.B.Tauris, 2004, , *Brend, Barbara. "Another Career for Mirza Ali?" in Newman, Andrew J. (ed), ''Society and culture in the early modern Middle East: studies on Iran in the Safavid period, Volume 1998'', Volume 46 of ''Islamic history and civilization'', BRILL, 2003, , *"Islamic" - Brend, Barbara. ''Islamic art'', Harvard University Press, 1991, , 9780674468665 *Simpson, Marianna S., ''Ebrāhīm Mīrzā'' in
Encyclopedia Iranica An encyclopedia is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge, either general or special, in a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles or entries that are arranged alphabetically by artic ...
, 1997
online text
accessed February 25, 2011 *Soudavar, Abolala, ''The Age of Muhammadi'',
Muqarnas Muqarnas (), also known in Iberian architecture as Mocárabe (from ), is a form of three-dimensional decoration in Islamic architecture in which rows or tiers of niche-like elements are projected over others below. It is an archetypal form of I ...
, 2000
PDF
*Titley, Norah M., ''Persian Miniature Painting, and its Influence on the Art of Turkey and India'', 1983, University of Texas Press, 0292764847 *Welch, Stuart Cary. ''Royal Persian Manuscripts'', Thames & Hudson, 1976,


Further reading

* hardback:


External links



Online exhibition of the Freer Jami {{DEFAULTSORT:Ibrahim Mirza Safavid princes 1540 births 1577 deaths Safavid governors of Mashhad 16th-century people from Safavid Iran Patrons of the arts