AN OTTOMAN TALISMANIC SHIRT (JAMA) WITH EXTRACTS FROM THE QURAN AND PRAYERS, TURKEY, 17TH-18TH CENTURY

A large cotton shirt (jama) covered with text written in a variety of scripts, including thuluth, and square Kufic, in assorted colors, arranged in numerous panels, roundels, cartouches and lines.

The inscriptions include quotations from the Quran, chapters II, (Al-Baqara), part of verse 137; XLVIII (Al-Fath) verse 3; XVII (Al-Isra’), part of verse 79; XIII (Al-Ra’d), part of verse 28; III (Al-‘Imran), part of verse 160 and invocations to God in mirrored form and the Beautiful Names of God (asma’ al-husna) in individual roundels and squares. They are written in a variety of styles (including thuluth, naskh, angular Kufic (ma’qali)), and different forms: large (jali), small (khafi), minute (ghubar), mirrored (muthanna); reserved against black or minute (ghubar) text and in many colors and sizes. Those in angular Kufic (in squares, octagons, bands and in colours or reserved against black) contain: the shahada; the names God and Muhammad (4 times); the names Muhammad and the four Orthodox Caliphs; ‘Praise be to God’ (4 times); Quran, chapter II (Al-Baqara), verse 255; CVII-CXIV (Al-Ikhlas, Al-falaq, Al-nas) and II (Al-baqara), verse 285.
170 by 130 cm.

This is an unusual and finely executed Quran jama. The basic layout related to other jamas of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, with a large number of panels and roundels containing Quranic quotations, pious phrases, prayers and talismanic numbers, but here their arrangement is unusually varied and inventive, with a number of distinctly Ottoman features such as the architectural references on the reverse of the jama with a large door flanked by Kufic cartouches on two sides and tilework above. What is also particularly noteworthy is the accomplished quality of the calligraphy, which is executed in a number of different scripts, and retains a confident aesthetic in even its most minute form. The amalgamation of all the decorative and calligraphic styles is a technique visible on other comparable talismanic shirts including the jama of Cem Sultan.