AN OTTOMAN SILK KAABA KISWA SAMADIYAH BY AZIZ EFENDI, TURKEY, EARLY 20TH CENTURY

An Ottoman Kaaba kiswa brocade or samadiyah, of square form placed always on the four corners of the Kaaba.
Embellished in gilt wires on a black silk with a large roundel enclosing in thuluth script al-Fathia, to the centre the Basmallah. All surrounded by flower sprigs and arabesque on a black silk ground.
112 by 115 cm.

CATALOGUE NOTE
Mehmed Abdulaziz Efendi, born in Maçka in 1871, his family moved to Istanbul. Aziz Efendi completed his primary education in 1885 and started to learn calligraphy from Ahmed Arif Effendi of Plovdiv, he also studied at Hat Mektebi School. He graduated in 1894 and continued to practise under the supervision of Muhsinzade Abdullah Hamdi Efendi until 1896.
In 1921, King Fuad of Egypt invited him to Cairo, where he transcribed the Quran and gilded the result. After completing his mission, he remained in Egypt, where he worked as a teacher and contributed to the establishment of schools to improve Arabic fonts. He returned to Istanbul in 1932, where he died two years later. Two of his calligraphic panels are hanging in the Grand Mosque of Bursa, Turkey. He transcribed 11 copies of the Quran in his lifetime, a number of hilyas and other textual compilations.