Each degree of existence is the mirror of the degrees beneath it ⦠[this refraction continues] until it reaches the Master of Existence (sayyid al-wujÅ«d), Peace and Blessings upon him! For he is the Universal Mirror. All those who are your superiors are, for you, so many mirrors; their gaze sees into you according to how well-polished the mirror is. And this is what the [Prophet] is alluding to when he says âThe believer is the mirror of the believerâ.
AndÅ«sÄ«, TaâsÄ«s
âµ
Many articles have been written that seek to assess what might be defined as the âpiety of the calligrapherâ in Islam. It has already been demonstrated that behind the institution of other branches of Islamic knowledge it is possible to find traces of devotional and ethical practices based on attachment to the Prophet; this is also true in the case of calligraphy. Two important articles discuss the spiritual conception of calligraphy in the Muslim east. First, Annemarie Schimmel, in her study on the âprimordial pointâ, quotes an eighteenth century NaqshbandÄ« calligrapher, MustaqÄ«mzÄde, who explains the spiritual compass of individual letters through the secrets contained in the numerical values of the Arabic alphabet: âAnd how could one deny the mystical meaning of letters and calligraphy [â¦] since the numerical value of the word khaá¹á¹Äá¹ equals that of the full profession of faith, namely, 619, and the second half of the shahÄda, Muḥammad RasÅ«l AllÄh, is equal to al-kÄtib, the scribe, 454?â1 According to this sacred numerology, the scribe is identified with the profession of faith. Does Muḥammad therefore represent both a source of inspiration and a goal to be attained through the practice of the art of writing? A few centuries earlier, the Persian poet JÄmÄ« (d. 898/1492) expressed the symbolism of letters by establishing a parallel between the name of the Prophet, âAḥmadâ, and the first letter of the alphabet, alif:2
In a poem by BÄbÄ ShÄh Iá¹£fahÄnÄ« (d. 1587â88), the ÄdÄb al-mashq, Carl W. Ernst also found a symbolic conception of the calligraphic art, one whose rules are here interpreted as so many images of the initiatic journey. Ernst writes that the âÄdÄb al-mashq belongs to a special class of writings by calligraphers about calligraphy, but it stands out by its relatively greater emphasis on the internal aspects of the artâ.3 The Prophet is remarkably present throughout this poem. The calligrapher offers him a special blessing and recognises his central place in the âBook of Existenceâ: the Prophet is the source of the cosmological principles of the âWell-Guarded Tabletâ and the âReed Penâ. BÄbÄ ShÄh Iá¹£fahÄnÄ« emphasises the purity that the calligrapher must attain (for purity of art derives from the purity of the artistâs heart) and reveals the secrets of the calligraphic art. He also proposes an initiatic method that leads the disciple to realise the mashq khayÄlÄ«, a completely interiorised calligraphic practice: here the disciple no longer follows an established external model for his calligraphy, but only an inspiration that comes exclusively from within. From this will spring a beauty that is no longer imitative but the product of an inner contemplation. Ernst concludes his study by postulating that the diffusion of Sufism must have had a profound influence on Persian calligraphers and their circles. The conclusions reached by Christiane Gruber on the basis of research conducted for her monograph on the history of visual representations of the Prophet in Islamic art confirm this.4
Nonetheless, one question remains: would it be possible to find parallels from the western part of the Muslim world for these quotations from eastern and Persian sources? Does Maghribi Sufism encounter the calligraphic art? More precisely, did this encounter take the form of a calligraphic expression in which the Prophet played a central role? We can now respond to these questions in the affirmative. In 2009 Moroccoâs Ministry of Habous and Islamic Affairs published a volume containing the opening pages and paintings from the DhakhÄ«rat al-muḥtÄj, a summary in several dozen volumes of prayers on the Prophet, richly illustrated with figures symbolically representing the metaphysical and cosmic aspect of the ḥaqÄ«qa muḥammadiya, Muḥammadan Reality.5 In his note at the beginning of the edition, the Minister for Religious Affairs, Ahmed Toufiq, emphasises that the publication of this work, along with the facsimile reproduction elsewhere of other illuminated manuscripts from the culture of devotion to the Prophet in Maghribi Islam (al-JazÅ«lÄ«âs DalÄʾil al-khayrÄt and al-QÄá¸Ä« Ê¿IyÄá¸âs ShifÄʾ) aims to âbring out a particular aspect of Moroccan culture: a deeply rooted and defining piety that comes from the profound attachment that Moroccans feel for the blessed person of the Prophetâ.6 This attachment, supported by the milieu of the zawÄyÄ, also contributed to the development of the art of the book in Morocco. Specifically, the DalÄʾil and the DhakhÄ«ra demonstrate a particular aesthetic, thanks to which certain aspects of the Prophetâs physical being can be expressed in a symbolic or allusive manner without ever literally being represented. These works were fundamental in the history of prophetology in the Maghrib and beyond, but we must also speak of the work of a less well-known calligrapher: AbÅ« al-QÄsim al-QandÅ«sÄ« (d. 1278/1861 in Fez). Each of the authors of the present chapter came to his work independently: Francesco Chiabotti discovered the SharÄb Ahl al-á¹£afÄ (published by ḤammÄdÄ« in 2008 and then cited by Ruggero Vimercati Sanseverino in his history of Sufism in Fez) while he was trying to establish a corpus of Islamic sources on the Names of the Prophet Muḥammad (asmÄʾ al-nabÄ«). The originality and audacity of the masterâs doctrine demanded further study. Hiba Abid was studying the calligraphy of QandÅ«sÄ«âs DalÄʾil al-khayrÄt as part of her doctoral thesis, and was struck by the calligrapherâs strong personality.7 ḤammÄdÄ« then made important advances in the study of the Kenadsa region and society, and the ZÄwiya ZiyÄniyya from which QandÅ«sÄ« came. The next step in the rediscovery of the Kenadsa master was the research on manuscripts undertaken by Abdulaziz Suraqah, along with his translations, including an English version of the SharÄb and the publication online of several passages from QandÅ«sÄ«, with the aim of reviving interest in the masterâs work.8 The present contribution springs from an extensive preliminary examination of manuscripts attributed to QandÅ«sÄ«, undertaken during several trips to Rabat financed by the ANR/DFG PROPHET project.9 The questions that project is examining helped guide the approach adopted in our work: we seek to understand how a nineteenth century spiritual man could envisage his art as the emanation of a specific kind of prophetology, and of an intimate relationship with the person of the Prophet. We use two methods: Francesco Chiabotti examines QandÅ«sÄ«âs life and his relationship with the Prophet, and presents the texts in which calligraphy becomes an initiatic art, one through which man can achieve full realisation under the Prophetâs own guidance. In the second part of the chapter these doctrinal elements are put side by side with the authorâs manuscript and calligraphic production. Here Hiba Abid undertakes a paleographic study on al-khaá¹á¹ al-qandÅ«sÄ«, in order better to define the extent of rupture and continuity between QandÅ«sÄ«âs work and the Maghribi calligraphic school.
Fez, QandÅ«sÄ«âs painting at the tomb of Moulay Idris, photo by Francesco Chiabotti
1 Seeing the Prophet. Biographical Elements10
QandÅ«sÄ«âs first biographers highlight the discreet nature of this characterâs life, drawing a portrait of a master whose spiritual work remained largely unknown outside a small group of disciples, until the time, towards the end of his life, when his states of extreme ecstasy revealed the nature of his sanctity and his teaching. His doctrine, especially his prophetology, springs from visionary and ecstatic experience. His first biographer, Muḥammad al-FÄá¹imÄ« al-SqallÄ«, presents QandÅ«sÄ« as one of the Solitary Ones of his time (min al-afrÄd), who was touched by the mystical divine and then put the experience into writing. The biographer leaves the nature of these writings fairly vague, speaking only of a notebook containing QandÅ«sÄ«âs inspirations.11 The exploration of the manuscripts attributed to the master allows us to understand the nature of his writing better: at times it does approach ecstasy, thus confirming al-SqallÄ«âs impression. The second aspect of QandÅ«sÄ«âs life that is mentioned in his biography is his activity as a calligrapher. His calligraphy became part of spiritual life in Fez: âhe was in the habit of writing down, in a majestic and pleasant style, QurʾÄnic verses, acts of faith or similar things; these would be hung in saintsâ tombs. He was the one who created the Name of Majesty that is hanging in the tomb of Moulay IdrÄ«s.â Muḥammad b. JaÊ¿far al-KattÄnÄ« specifies that this large drawing of Godâs name, AllÄh, is in the place where the RisÄla (al-QayrÄwÄnÄ«âs?) is read, between the prayers for sunset and night.12 Most of this information is also presented by JaÊ¿far b. IdrÄ«s al-KattÄni, who was QandÅ«sÄ«âs disciple, in his biographical collection on the saints of Fez, SharÄb al-Muḥtaá¸ir. He does add a few precious details on QandÅ«sÄ«âs life; for example, his origins in the region of Kenadsa (al-QanÄdisa), a palm grove oasis about a dayâs journey from Figuig. He says that the hidden aspects of the masterâs personality remained unknown to most people,13 despite the fact that Sufi masters had recognised his spiritual rank and been taught by him. He mentions the title of QandÅ«sÄ«âs treatise, al-TaʾsÄ«s, extracts of which were published by Muḥammad b. JaÊ¿fÄr al-KattÄni in his Salwat al-anfÄs. The Salwa gives an explanation for the typology of QandÅ«sÄ«âs sanctity: âhis state was that of the people of Blame (malÄmatÄ«). He displayed acts and words that were externally incongruous, but internally just, by which he hid himself from the rest of mankind.â14 The sources agree on his profession: he sold herbs in the herb market. Decades after QandÅ«sÄ«âs death, JaÊ¿far b. Muḥammad al-KattÄnÄ« still knew the works of his that were conserved in part in the KattÄnÄ«âs private library and was thus able to consult texts that QandÅ«sÄ« had copied. He mentions the well-known copy of the QurʾÄn in twelve volumes, the final volume of which he was able to consult; he also cites a certain number of copies of al-JazÅ«lÄ«âs DalÄʾil al-KhayrÄt, two of which are still extant. QandÅ«sÄ« died at the end of 1861 (JumÄdÄ al-Å«lÄ 1278 H). The exact location of his grave is unknown. KattÄnÄ«âs sources say he is buried in the BÄb Fâtūḥ cemetery, in the plot of the SarrÄj family.15 QandÅ«sÄ«âs presence in KattÄnÄ«âs memoirs is mostly due to his ties with Muḥammad b. al-KabÄ«r al-KattÄnÄ« (d. 1277/1872), who was initiated into the á¹arÄ«qa qÄdiriyya by QandÅ«sÄ«. His influence is mostly apparent in the doctrine of Muḥammadan Reality, and subsequent studies could well go into more detail on the reach of his transmission. The KattÄniyya library possessed numerous manuscripts by QandÅ«sÄ«, now held in the National Library in Rabat.
The information in these biographical notices is important because it indicates the aspects of the masterâs personality that made the biggest impression on his contemporaries. But none of them address the central element of QandÅ«sÄ«âs life: his perpetual relationship with the Prophet. In order to grasp the modalities of this relationship, we must examine the writings of the master himself, for disseminated throughout the margins of QandÅ«sÄ«âs manuscript we can find personal notes bearing witness to his visionary universe that is defined by the omnipresence of the Prophetic reality. We will now return to the story of his life and allow him to speak for himself.
In a note conserved in the autograph pages of manuscript 399K in the National Library in Rabat, he indicates his ancestry as follows: âMuḥammad b. al-QÄsim b. Aḥmad al-QandÅ«sÄ«, son of the pious saint known by the name of SayyidÄ« Aḥmad, who is buried in Béchar, near Kenadsa. I am a descendant of the Aws and the Aná¹£Är [â¦].â16 QandÅ«sÄ«âs ways of writing his fatherâs name demonstrate the difficulty we face in trying to recover details of his life: ḤammÄdÄ« finds three variants (QÄsim, al-QÄsim, AbÅ« l-QÄsim), all of which appear in the autograph manuscripts.17 As one works on QandÅ«sÄ«âs Åuvre, one begins to understand that such uncertainty is an important aspect of his way of writing. As we shall see, he admits that he does not pay attention to the formal side of writing. The copyist of the manuscript of the SharÄb ahl al-á¹£afÄ claims to have corrected the language in the text to make it conform to the rules of Arabic grammar.18 But uncertainty is not just a linguistic problem: it also opens the door to a world in which the Prophet himself is communicating and establishing identity. In the colophon of the large QurʾÄn in twelve volumes, he signs himself Muḥammad b. AbÄ« l-QÄsim al-QandÅ«sÄ« manshaʾan: he comes from Kenadsa, where he grew up before migrating to Fez. In Kenadsa, he was initiated into the ShÄdhiliyya-NÄá¹£iriyya-ZiyÄniyya Sufi Path by the master Muḥammad, called (al-madÊ¿Å«) Ibn Ê¿Abd AllÄh, from the lineage of nÄá¹£irÄ« ziyÄnÄ« masters.19 But to this he adds that he is descended from the Medinese tribe of the Aws, something that has been communicated to him in an unveiling (kashf) by the Prophet himself.20 In other texts he specifies that this unveiling took place in a dream vision (ruʾyÄ):21 â[â¦] Know that thou art descended from the Aná¹£Är, and among the Aná¹£Är, [from] the Aws [â¦]â In this dream the Prophet explains how the Medinese reached the land of Béchar, and then Kenadsa. He tells QandÅ«sÄ«: âthe Aná¹£Är are my support and my well-beloved ones; thou art one of them by the surfeit of love thou bearest me and by the abundance of the prayers thou addressest to me. Only the Devil could contest thine ancestry; have a care never to doubt it!â22 An account of a second vision follows, in which QandÅ«sÄ«âs spirit accomplishes a mystical ascension to the seventh heaven â normally associated with Abraham â where he encounters the Prophet sitting on a carpet. The Prophet then takes the shape of a white pearl (durra bayá¸Äʾ), while QandÅ«sÄ« perceives himself as resplendent lights.23
In other passages, Qandūsī emphasises the opposition he has had to face from the people of Fez, who were clearly not ready to take his word for all this, even though, for our author, the communication came directly from the Prophet. He insists on the question of ancestry in his principal work, the Taʾsīs, in which he adds a few words received from the Prophet:
Among the graces that the Very Generous One (al-KarÄ«m, God) has granted me: confirmation directly from the Prophet of my descent (nasab). We are close to him as much through our descent as through our merit (nasab wa-ḥasab); we know this thanks to the words he (peace and blessings upon him) addressed to us: âThou art truly my son (anta waladÄ« ḥaqqan), if thou desirest speak; or if thou preferest, be quiet.â I then [wanted] to complain to my Master about certain people who contested my descent, but before I could even bring it up he replied: âThose people are demons among the djinns and humankind, do not feel oppressed because of their hearts.â And with his noble tongue he told me, âI love thee, and I love those who love thee.â On another occasion he again spoke to me, saying, âI am your guarantor, fear nothing.â I am only recounting this with the aim of spreading knowledge of Godâs good actions (al-taḥadduth Ê¿an niÊ¿mat AllÄh), [and] as a sign of gratitude to Him [â¦]24
We can find echoes of this confirmation from the Prophet in other, similar, accounts of the visions or dreams of masters, in which they found themselves in the personal presence of the Prophet, and had experiences that formed the basis of, or transformed, their identities. For example, the case of Emir Abdelkader (d. 1883) is well known. In the mawqif 13, he says: â[â¦] I was invoking Allah when I was overwhelmed by sleep. I had a vision in which the noble person of the Prophet blended with my own self to such an extent that we became a single being: I looked at myself and I saw him, transformed into me.â25 In the mawqif 83, the Emir describes several encounters with the Prophet â first hearing him, and later seeing him. The first word he received from the Prophet once he had arrived in Medina and was standing in front of the Rawá¸a was: âThou art my son and I am satisfied with you!â26 Since at least the time of Ê¿Abd al-Ê¿AzÄ«z al-DabbÄgh (d. 1717), then of TijÄnÄ« and Aḥmad b. IdrÄ«s, fÄsÄ« Sufism was characterised by a direct attachment to the Prophet. Ruggero Vimercati Sanseverino has studied the relationship between this phenomenon and the foundation of new spiritual Paths. In the cases of the Emir and of QandÅ«sÄ«, the Prophetâs intervention is not linked to the establishment of a âMuḥammadanâ order; nevertheless, QandÅ«sÄ«âs Prophet-oriented Sufism is part of the history of the ṬarÄ«qa muḥammadiyya. Vimercati recalls AbÅ« SÄlim al-Ê¿AyyÄshÄ«âs (d. 1090/1679) definition:
It is called al-Muḥammadiyya because of our lord Muḥammad, may salvation and the peace of God be upon him. It is special because of the attachment to him, even though all the Paths come from him. The adept progresses through his rectitude and in conformity with the QurʾÄn and the sunna, and through the fact of his devotion to the prayer on the Prophet until love for him takes possession of the adeptâs heart, and his entire conscience is submerged in veneration for him. Then he trembles when he hears [the Prophetâs] name, and the vision of the Prophet takes over his heart; the Prophetic form (mithÄl) then appears before his inner eye, and God fills him with His interior and exterior blessings. He ascribes no merit to any creature but the Prophet, and sees him when awake as much as in dreams, and asks him for what he desires.27
Please note that QandÅ«sÄ« himself ended his second copy of the TaʾsÄ«s with a reflection on the Muḥammadan Path. He speaks of his treatise as âthis noble Muḥammadan flowâ (hÄdhÄ al-fayḠal-sharÄ«f al-muḥammadÄ«). The TaʾsÄ«s carries the Muḥammadan stamp, that:
Stamps with its seal (á¹ÄbiÊ¿) everything that it seals, but nothing can seal it. Its coin is pure gold and a crown decorated with diadems [â¦] The âMuḥammadanâ station surpasses all other stations, its aspiration is Muḥammad, it sees only Muḥammad, it desires nothing but Muḥammad, it is annihilated only in Muḥammad, its Paradise is Muḥammad, its life is Muḥammad, its food, its drink, its drunkenness and its sobriety are Muḥammad.28
Let us return to QandÅ«sÄ«âs reasons for settling in Fez. In the 1899 codex in the National Library of the Kingdom of Morocco there is an autograph page by QandÅ«sÄ«, published by ḤammÄdÄ«, in which he recounts the following:
When I entered into the Holy Idrisid Presence(al-ḥaá¸ra al-idrÄ«siyya, the town of Fez) â may peace, mercy and Godâs blessing be upon it and on its inhabitants! â after a period of wandering and privation (siyÄḥa wa-tajrÄ«d) that led me to decide to visit [Moulay IdrÄ«s II] in order to go to the Home of God and seek shelter and refuge there, [then] on behalf of my Master [the Prophet] â peace be upon him! â I received direct permission to remain in the presence of the Sultan of the people of God, Moulay IdrÄ«s â may God be satisfied with him, and with us through him! â in the supreme service of God (al-jÄnib al-Ê¿alÄ« bi-llÄh). My Master assured me that I would obtain the divine grace that I was seeking, which is granted to the pilgrim who decides to remain in the Temple of Mecca. He also assured me that this reward was reserved for me, by his side. So I obeyed the order. I was then given permission to marry and to work as a seller of herbs in the souk. And then I married according to the sunna of God and his Prophet [â¦]29
We know little about QandÅ«sÄ«âs life and training before he arrived in Fez. An autobiographical note contained in BNRM 1688 D is, however, eloquent on how he had amassed his esoteric knowledge on the personal realisation of Muḥammadan Reality. After having acquired the science of Letters from his masters, QandÅ«sÄ« recounts having been âtaken awayâ (jadhb) from this science by God, through the Prophet, who drew him into the science of Absolute Unity (Ê¿ilm al-waḥda), steeped in the Reality of Muḥammad:
I rid myself of all other knowledge beyond this one, I wanted nothing else in its place, nevermore did I turn towards the applications [of the science] of names since the theophany of the essence of the Named One. [â¦] Everything that is not the source of Muḥammadan essence is but an outer crust (qishr). Since God plunged heart, intellect, and spirit in the direction of the Well-beloved Lover, Peace and blessings upon him, the secret of his reality shines brightly on the essence of my reality; thanks to this, God has made me so that I need no other but him (aghnÄnÄ« bihi Ê¿an ghayrihi). [â¦] Muḥammad is our Prophet and the essence of our first original determination (taÊ¿ayyununÄ al-awwal al-aá¹£lÄ«), the substance of our primordial matter (hylé, hayÅ«lÄ), the flood that overflows from the Holy presence of our Lord through the intercession of His first original determination [â¦] in us he is the first, the last, the apparent, the hidden, it is he who brings about his own epiphany in us. In our hearts, God mentions nothing except Muḥammad; no one other than Muḥammad adores God in our primordial matter (hylé). Nothing stirs in us except Muḥammad, all that rests in us is only Muḥammad. All that thine eyes can see, of that of which God has determined the existence, proceeds only from Muḥammad, whether through uniting or separating.30
After this passage, the initiatic journey is described as a voyage through symbolic letters to discover their kernel, which is âthe Masterâ, the Prophet:
O thou who wanderest on earth, on sea and in deserts, the earth and the sea are within thee! Travel through thine earth and sea, board the vessel of thine ocean, thou shalt find in thyself that which will guide thee, thou carryest in thyself the pearl and the hyacinths, the pure gold, the antimony, the coral, thou hast Paradise and Inferno within thee, soulâs desire and eyeâs delight. Cease being (zul Ê¿anka), thou shalt see thine earth and thy sea, thou art thine own veil, correct the letter of thy nÅ«n31 if thou desirest thy grace, set thyself in motion, lower thy voice. The one whose being has truly been absorbed is the one who has made the reality of his letter nÅ«n disappear, who has fathomed his earth as well as his sea, and has resolved the enigma of his manifest form â the one who has broken its crust and eaten its kernel. Thy crust is the letter of thy nÅ«n and thy kernel is thy Master, the letter hÄʾ of thine end (intihÄâuka). The letter hÄʾ cannot be found unless the letter nÅ«n disappears. Thy hÄʾ is thy treasure, the nÅ«n is thy veil, the nÅ«n is thy passion, the hÄʾ thy secrets, the nÅ«n thy fire, the hÄʾ thy Paradise, the nÅ«n is thine external form. The hÄʾ is thy life, the nÅ«n is thy soulâs aspect (nafsÄniyyatuka), the hÄʾ thy spiritual aspect, the nÅ«n is thine earthly kingdom, the hÄʾ thy celestial reign, the nÅ«n is thy night, the hÄʾ thy day, the nÅ«n is thy sight, the hÄʾ thy clairvoyance, correct thy gaze, open thy clairvoyant gaze! Leave the earth and travel in thy heaven, be like a celestial bird [â¦].32
Fez remained the site of QandÅ«sÄ«âs âsimpleâ life as a seller of herbs and calligrapher. This was the town of Moulay IdrÄ«s, to whom he vowed a particular devotion â as an autograph poem demonstrates.33 He must have been writing his works during much of the time he was in his shop (he produced nearly two thousand folios; these havenât yet been systematically recorded). At the end of his TaʾsÄ«s he himself says:
O thou who shalt find this document, to whom God has granted clairvoyance! If thou seest errors therein, correct them! The unlettered one has a great many excuses, he knows no part of the external sciences, and still less of grammar! [â¦] The state of the reunited opposites, the physical and the intelligible, is very subtle [â¦] I have composed this book in the herb-sellersâ souk, where I buy and sell to earn my living. I write, and a client comes to me and asks for a dirham of absinthe, of thyme, of fenugreek, of nigella. So then I put down the page, I serve the client, then I return from [the world of] the senses to [that of] the spirit, for if it hadnât been through Godâs power I could never have written a single word on my own, because bringing opposites together is difficult, and opposites can only be united with the support of God and his Envoy ⦠This is something that is well-known among the masters and the initiates (al-qawm), that the spiritual sense is like a bird; as soon as something from the world that we apprehend with our senses disturbs it, it quickly flies away â¦34
Writing is the fruit of divine inspiration, and of spiritual support from the Prophet, as QandÅ«sÄ« avers in another collection of various notes: âAll of the essential truths (ḥaqÄʾiq) contained in this blessed collection come directly from the inspiration that God has granted us and from the support of my Master, peace and blessings upon him, and the same is true of all our other works.â35 The souk is also a place where the Prophet â QandÅ«sÄ«âs interior Prophet â can manifest himself and come to meet our author. A personal note relates his waking encounter with the Prophet:
After having said my afternoon prayer, I was sitting in my stall in the herb sellersâ souk. I was seized by a state that was imperceptible to all others. Therefore, seized by such a state, I rose and left my shop to go to the great mosque, I mean the QarawiyÄ«n, without even perceiving that I had been seized. I found him [the Prophet] â peace and blessings upon him â seated with the four Caliphs â may God be satisfied with them, ÄmÄ«n! â So I sat down facing him, and he said, âFrom me and for me! (minnÄ« ilayya)â [â¦] From him I received the prayer of the Divine Essence (al-á¹£alÄt al-dhÄtiyya). He said to me â peace and blessings be upon him â âRepeat this:
O God, grant thy uniting grace to the resplendent, essential, perfect light, the secret of which circulates within existence.36
He repeated this phrase three times, and I in my turn recited it three times while he listened to me. He told me: âI have established thee in the Station of the Choice (maqÄm al-takhyÄ«r); if thou desirest to speak, speak, if thou desirest to remain silent, remain silent. [â¦].â I remained there, sitting with him until the call to the sunset prayer, then I rose to pray with the men [â¦]. He went out with his companions. His Noble Image (ṣūratuhu al-sharÄ«fa) stayed with me until I performed the night-time prayer [â¦]37
This âresplendent lightâ mentioned above is the form in which QandÅ«sÄ« perceived himself during his Ascension (described above). Without saying so explicitly, he identifies with the Prophetic manifestation. Another manuscript bears witness to QandÅ«sÄ«âs attachment to this prayer received directly from the Prophet. In a commentary in which QandÅ«sÄ« explains his ties of love with the Prophet, he writes: âWhen thou sayest âO God, grant thy uniting grace to the resplendent, essential, perfect light [â¦]â, this light is a pure love, the contemplation of which plunges thee into a direct vision of the well-beloved until thou seest the beauty of everything that exists, included within his Presence and never separate from it, because it encompasses the whole.â38 In the manuscript this vision is followed by a second account: QandÅ«sÄ« relates that one of his acquaintances, the brother in God, the sayyid, the faqÄ«r Aḥmad b. Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄn al-QandÅ«sÄ«,39 came to visit him while he was asleep in the morning after sunrise, and announced to him âBe aware that my Master â peace and blessings be upon him â has sent me to bring you the good news that while youâre awake you will meet him!â QandÅ«sÄ« confirms that he met the Prophet again in the QarawiyÄ«n, in the miḥrÄb.
Taʾsīs II fol. 77a. The encounter with Shamharūsh
Fez is also the setting for another extraordinary visionary encounter, with the long-lived jinnÄ« ShamharÅ«sh (Figure 2), who met the Prophet Muḥammad in person and, because of this, is a á¹£ahÄbÄ«.40 Let us note that (in the copy of the TaʾsÄ«s made by GhumÄrÄ«) the jinnÄ«âs name is richly calligraphed and detached from the rest of the writing. This graphic process highlights the passage into a parallel world:
One night, I saw in the specular world (al-Ê¿Älam al-mirÄʾī) the Master ShamharÅ«sh the Jinn, the Prophetâs Companion, in a pleasant form, in the town of Fez near the entrance to the mosque that is in âJanyÄraâ street, to the right of the fountain called the miÊ¿rÄá¸, which everyone in Fez knows.41 He addressed me: âO thou!â; âHere is where I am!â, I replied. He continued, âI see that thou lovest to pray on Godâs envoy, therefore I wanted to grant thee a privilege that springs from his grace, and that I have never granted to anyone else except for the shaykh TÄwdÄ« b. SÅ«da,42 who received it from me, and I wish to transmit it to thee as well. Except for the two of you, no one has received it from me since I received it directly from the Prophet. Here it is: One day I was speaking with the Prophet â peace and blessings be upon him â about the merits of prayer. He asked me, âIf a man has been written down as damned even in his motherâs belly, is there any remedy for his damnation?â I replied, âGod and his Prophet have greater knowledge!â [The Prophet] continued, âIf the man has been written down as damned even in his motherâs belly, and he is born into the world and engages in praying upon me, this request for grace will transform his damnation into bliss in the Hereafter.43
QandÅ«sÄ«âs visions must have been numerous; for example, he recounts having suffered unbearable pain from an abscess in his jaw, near his temple. He was obliged to stay in bed, not eating or drinking except for a little bit of soup (ḥarÄ«ra). Then he turned away from the physician:
I concentrated my energy on the freshness of my eyes, he who is the supreme doctor (al-á¹abÄ«b al-aÊ¿áºam). The bitterness of pain was softened until I could no longer feel it. Then the Master of Existence came to me after I had said the night prayer, when I was lying on my bed half asleep (but more awake than asleep) [â¦] I saw him in front of the bed on which I lay, seated facing me. He spoke to me â peace and blessings upon him â âGod will heal thy pain in an instant, by His strength and His power.â [The Prophet] took an instrument [â¦] of light out from under his cloak and asked me to open my mouth.44
Another very sacred place in Fez, BÄb Fâtūḥ cemetery, is also mentioned in QandÅ«sÄ«âs manuscript notes. He claims to have received a special type of prayer on the Prophet âin the presence of the people of God, in BÄb Fâtūḥ, in Fez, in the morning of Friday, the seventh day of the month of Muḥarram 1274/1857â. This prayer is a variation on the Prayer of âDivine immensityâ (al-á¹£alÄt al-Ê¿aáºÄ«miyya) transmitted by another master from Fez and a contemporary of QandÅ«sÄ«âs, Aḥmad b. IdrÄ«s (d. 1253/1837).45
There are several remarkable elements in these accounts, only parts of which we have translated. First, they confirm the concealed nature of QandÅ«sÄ«âs states. The notion of love is also central. The life of the master from the herb sellersâ souk is governed by this reciprocal bond of love and desire between himself and the Prophet. QandÅ«sÄ«âs accounts of his visions (in a wakeful or in a sleeping state) end with a short note on a period of three consecutive months during which he lived in an intoxication of ecstasy that led him to contemplate the Prophet in himself. However, he cannot and will not recount what he experienced, for the men of his day are no longer suited to receiving such inspiration.46 Taking up a theme that is very old, but is strongly re-affirmed and actualised by our author, he observes that now and henceforth God has veiled the hearts of mankind, preventing them from knowing holiness: âthe greatest of saints live among them, but men do not perceive them.â47
An apparent contradiction attracts our attention. QandÅ«sÄ« declares himself to be a descendant of the Aws, but at the same time the Prophet apparently confirms that he has Sharifian ancestry (anta waladÄ« ḥaqqan, in the TaʾsÄ«s; minnÄ« ilayya, in this last passage). ḤammÄdÄ« says that the KattÄnÄ« are wrong to think that QandÅ«sÄ« is a sharÄ«f. In fact, his fusion with the Prophetic being goes beyond the question of genealogy. At heart, by affirming that QandÅ«sÄ« is of him and returns to him, the Prophet is referring to the doctrine described in the TaʾsÄ«s, according to which everything comes from the metaphysical reality that is the Prophet. These encounters are moments of full realisation of this elective and ontological bond. QandÅ«sÄ«âs Sufism is a path that blends art, devotion to the Prophet, and esoteric sciences behind the veil of the simple life of a shopkeeper in the souk. We have already observed how this occultation in the eyes of other people is wished for by our author. He also emphasises that he moves in the circles of trades and corporations. QandÅ«sÄ« draws on the life of a small shopkeeper in the souk for his metaphors and symbols, and for the advice he offers. For example, in a passage in the TaʾsÄ«s he asserts that the master craftsman (muÊ¿allim al-á¹£anÊ¿a) benefits from an initiatic secret comparable to that of the spiritual master. The apprenticeâs mastery may go beyond that of the artisan, just as the discipleâs spiritual degree may outstrip the masterâs.48 The reasoning behind this analogy once again goes back to the ontological âfirst determinationâ that is Prophetic reality. Specifically, QandÅ«sÄ« refers to âthe derivation of secrets and lightâs penetrationâ (ishtiqÄq al-asrÄr wa-infilÄq al-anwÄr), the expression with which the á¹¢alÄt mashÄ«shiyya begins.49 Different trades and occupations draw their secrets from this initial division of the original secret, the Prophetâs secret; he is the âprimordial handfulâ (qabá¸a).50 The SharÄb ahl al-á¹£afÄ is a little manual composed by our author, in which he proposes an original method for practising the prayer on the Prophet (al-á¹£alÄt Ê¿alÄ al-nabÄ«); this requires one to transform all of lifeâs events numerically into a specific number of prayers on the Prophet. For example, he advises readers to change the price of a purchase or the address of a shop into a corresponding number of prayers in order to receive the Prophetâs blessings.51 This path is evidently rooted in QandÅ«sÄ«âs surroundings and class, although the notables of his time also associated with him. The Vizier IdrÄ«s b. IdrÄ«s, of whom we will speak in the second part of this chapter, commissioned from him the great QurʾÄn in twelve volumes. Al-ManÅ«nÄ« says that QandÅ«sÄ« corresponded with the governor (Ê¿Ämil) of Fez, IdrÄ«s b. Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄn al-SarrÄj al-ḤumayrÄ« (d. 1887/1304). This correspondence is said to have been collected by QandÅ«sÄ«âs disciple, Vizier Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-á¹¢anhÄjÄ« al-FÄsÄ« (d. 1891/1309), who offered QandÅ«sÄ« the title al-Fatḥ al-quddÅ«sÄ« fÄ«-mÄ fÄá¸a bihi SayyidÄ« Muḥammad al-QandÅ«sÄ«. This text is said to have been found in the possession of a family from Marrakesh, but we do not know its present location.52 However, the attribution to QandÅ«sÄ« of the ijÄza in the DalÄʾil given to Sultan Moulay SulaymÄn b. Muḥammad is not authentic; QandÅ«sÄ«âs name does not appear anywhere in this work.53
Finally, the emphasis on the form adopted by the Prophet (a white pearl, or simply the ânoble imageâ, ṣūratu-hu al-sharÄ«fa) is linked with the efforts QandÅ«sÄ« invested in retransmitting these images through his manuscripts, and in his symbolic designs (graphics, graphemes, calligraphic style). It is through this visual and aesthetic fusion that the link between the spiritual master and the master calligrapher is created. In the next section we will examine a number of important passages.
2 Making the Prophet Visible: Calligraphy as a Means of Spiritual Realisation
The first text we will examine is quoted at the head of this chapter, and it defines the âuniversal mirrorâ (mirʾÄt al-kull), an absolutely pure surface that is the origin of everything and towards which every image returns by refraction. This way of presenting the ḥaqÄ«qa muḥammadiyya is both well-established in Maghribi ShÄdhili Sufism (we have mentioned its expression in the opening of the á¹£alÄt mashÄ«shiyya) and also very personal, for it springs from the âvisionaryâ sensibility of a calligrapher. QandÅ«sÄ« demonstrates this great sensitivity to forms in his best-known works: his monumental QurʾÄn and his copies of al-JazÅ«lÄ«âs DalÄʾil al-KhayrÄt are those that we will examine here. Let us take as an example the name of the Prophet and its link to the name of majesty, AllÄh. GhumÄrÄ«âs copy of the TaʾsÄ«s contains a passage on the esoteric meaning of the grapheme âMuḥammadâ. As with the encounter with the jinn ShamharÅ«sh, the writing in this passage changes its appearance and the name of the Prophet, the tetragram âMuḥammadâ (Figure 20.3), is highlighted in red. This passage describes the nobility of the human being, whose physical form derives from that of the name Muḥammad. QandÅ«sÄ« goes further. By transforming the letters, he relates the name Muḥammad to the name AllÄh. To differing degrees, all existence derives from the name âMuḥammadâ:
The name Muḥammad comes from the Name of majesty, âAllÄhâ. The tail comes from the alif, for humans have a tail like all the other animals, but it is not apparent, because this makes [humans] look more perfect. The two arms and the two legs come from the two lÄms. The letter hÄâ is the head. The Name of majesty is made manifest in the form of the name âMuḥammadâ. It also appears in the fingers of the hand [â¦]54
Beings come from the letters of the name Muḥammad. Some of them come from the ḥÄâ, some from the double mÄ«m, some from the dÄl, some come from two letters and some from three. Human beings come from the four letters, because God linked Adam and his descendants to His Well-Beloved Muḥammad.55
Taʾsis II, fol. 83a. The tetragram âMuḥammadâ
This quest for understanding through the realisation of the superior meaning of the name of the Prophet is also at the centre of QandÅ«sÄ«âs SharÄb. In this text he transmits his particular understanding of the QurʾÄnic verse âTo God belong the Names Most Beautifulâ (Q 7 : 180, Arberry):
If we enlarge our reflection on this noble verse we observe that its ocean is immense and takes in not only the 99 names of God related by tradition (al-wÄrida). In reality, grace attains the name by which the 100 names are completed, and that name is the name of His well-beloved Muḥammad, peace and blessings upon him! â for the name of His well-beloved is never separated from the name of God. [â¦]56
He who knows the name of Muḥammad â peace and blessings upon him! â in its essence and not merely by its attributes knows the supreme name of God, for the name of the well-beloved is the essence of the divine names [â¦]. For he who invokes God by the name of His well-beloved â peace and blessings upon him! âwill see his prayers answered.57 [â¦]
The names all together are the name of the well-beloved, and the name of the well-beloved is the supreme name of God.58
From this realisation of the name of God is born a particular method for the practice of the prayer on the Prophet, which we have mentioned above: each moment of daily life can be linked to the name of the Prophet through a numerical calculation and a specific number of prayers. This âunionâ between the names of God and of Muḥammad is explained masterfully by QandÅ«sÄ« in a special prayer called âThe Great Elixirâ. Its opening lines refer again to alchemical elements already mentioned in an autobiographical passage on the realisation of the inner Prophet:
O God, grant Thy uniting grace, Thy salvation and Thy blessing to the one in whose name Thou hast poured the ambrosia of Thy supreme name AllÄh, our master Muḥammad, Godâs Envoy! These two noble and majestic names were exalted above all other noble names. They are the root of every branch, the quintessence of every essence, the supreme wine of all wines, the secret of every secret, the knowledge of all knowledge, the wisdom of all wisdom, the light of all lights, the elixir of all elixirs, the alchemy of all alchemy, the red sulphur of all red sulphurs, the theriac of all theriacs, the magnet of all magnets, the antimony of eyes, the hyacinth of all Brahmanic hyacinths, the pearl of all pearls, the jewel of all jewels, the gem of all gems, the carnelian of all carnelians, the coral of all corals, the peridot of all peridots, the pure gold of all pure gold, the pure silver of all pure silver, the silk of all silks, the brocade of all brocades, the musk of all musks, the camphor of all camphors, the perfume of all perfumes, the fragrance of all fragrances, the balm of all balms, may God grant him His uniting grace and salute him, along with his family.
O God, grant Thy uniting grace, Thy salvation and Thy blessing on he whose name, Aḥmad, you have steeped in the secret of Thy name, the All-Merciful, through LÄ ilÄha IllÄ llÄh Muḥammadun rasÅ«l AllÄh.59
The bond between Godâs name and the Prophetâs, and the anthropomorphic form of the latter, are ancient themes, which can be found, for example, in the Sharaf al-Muá¹£á¹afÄ, by KhargÅ«shÄ«, a Nishapurian master who died in 1015â16. KhargÅ«shÄ« devotes a chapter in his book to the question of the Prophetâs names, and maintains that the name âMuḥammadâ derives from the praise-names âal-ḤamÄ«dâ and âal-MaḥmÅ«dâ. Then he cites a poem that he attributes to AbÅ« ṬÄlib, which gives the impression that the privilege implicit in such a name was already evident when the Prophet was born: âIn order to magnify him, God derived his name from His Name. The Master of the Throne is MaḥmÅ«d, and this one is Muḥammad!â Then KhargÅ«shÄ« establishes a parallel between each letter of the name Muḥammad and the human body.60 Much has been written about the relationship between the Prophetâs names and those of God. Ê¿Abd al-KarÄ«m al-JÄ«lÄ« (d. 1424), in his KamÄlÄt, affirms explicitly that the name AllÄh is the name Muḥammad. Another, later, master of the Akbarian school, Ê¿Abd al-GhÄnÄ« al-NÄbulusÄ« (d. 1143/1731), gives a detailed explanation in a text devoted to the esoteric explication of the âpillarsâ of Islam. In one chapter, he sets himself to explaining the inner and hidden meaning of the profession of faith: lÄ ilÄha illÄ llÄh Muḥammad rasÅ«l AllÄh. Although, according to external law, each part of the profession of faith has its own status and implications (divine unicity and affirmation of the prophecy), their true esoteric meaning is unique and indivisible:61
God has made Muḥammad manifest among us and Muḥammad has likewise made God manifest among us, like the light that cannot be known without darkness, or shadows that cannot be known away from the light. For this reason, God states that âhe who obeys the Envoy has obeyed Godâ. [â¦] He who meditates will see that the whole universe is in accordance with the Muḥammadan form and the word of majesty (Ê¿alÄ al-ṣūra al-muḥammadiyya wa lafáºat al-jalÄla). If it was not thus, no superior reality could establish itself in this world, and for this reason those who held that âthe name is the essence of the namedâ spoke the truth, for otherwise, if it was not its essence, the image of the named would not be able to impose itself in the heart of the person hearing the name. The entire world is the form of the name Muḥammad and the form of the name Muḥammad is the form of the name AllÄh [â¦]62
As well as casting light on the âgenealogyâ of a doctrine, in such texts it is also interesting to note what was unique to QandÅ«sÄ«. And it is the graphic approach that is our masterâs defining quality. Although ideas around the esoteric ties between the divine and the Muḥammadan realities, as made manifest in their names, are already present in earlier esoteric literature, QandÅ«sÄ« realises these concepts through and in his calligraphy. One example of these ties is an introductory page preceding his personal copy of the DÄlÄâil al-KhayrÄt, MS 399K, which we will shortly examine in greater detail (see Figures 22â27).
The border between being and writing is a subtle one; the calligrapher wants to become writing. In one passage in the Taʾsīs, the practice of calligraphy and the craft of the copyist become symbolic images of the spiritual master:
The spiritual master undoes the knots of the discipleâs inner being (bawÄá¹in), he acts within him like a skilled copyist who perfectly masters the art of [resolving] difficulties around terms and letters, one letter at a time (ḥarfan ḥarfan). He knows how to open their hollow eyes (fatḥ Ê¿uyÅ«nihÄ al-mujawwafa).63 He knows which letter needs one dot, which other letter needs two or three dots. [He knows which letter] deserves to be written in silver and which other deserves gold. Every shape has an intelligible meaning, willst thou understand this? Therefore, respect the holiness of the masters if thou desirest that thy writing be drawn in pure gold (dhahab ibrÄ«z). Do not stop short at the colours of the illuminations (zakhÄrif) until thou art written down in Gold, for [writing in Pure Gold] never fades and nothing can corrupt it. Therefore, be alert to the subtle art (tadqÄ«q) of the master.
This is very far from being an abstract metaphor. It is important to note that QandÅ«sÄ« never created the illuminations in his calligraphed copies; their appearance shows that they are someone elseâs work. Gold is used in them, but it is not applied by his hand. This transformation of the being into writing is what the calligrapher asks from God in prayers such as those we cite above. This identification of the body with the writing process recurs in one late passage in the TaʾsÄ«s, in which the metaphor employed is that of writing out the QurʾÄn on wooden tablets (lawḥ, pl. alwÄḥ). This traditional method for the teaching and learning of the QurʾÄn (in which passages are written, read, corrected and re-written by the students, and then erased to make way for the next passage), becomes the symbol of the purification of the body through the double labour of erasing and re-writing. In this passage the supreme master is the Prophet himself:
[â¦] Go find the master of the children at the QurʾÄnic school, attach thyself to him and observe how he is with the children, how he educates them and how the children recite [the QurʾÄn written down on] their tablets before erasing it. [Observe] how they erase the tablets, and how they rub the clay upon them, and how they dry them. [â¦] Imagine thyself as one of these children before the master. If thou dost not manage to imagine thy master, [know that] in fact he is the Prophet. Begin by reciting whatâs on the tablet, look with thine own eyes and recite [to thy master] what is written there [â¦]64
This passage carries on over several pages. As with the prayer of transformation presented above, for each part of the body QandÅ«sÄ« describes the process of âreadingâ its contents to the master, and then the correction, the erasing and the final re-writing. The human being is re-written by the âMuḥammadan inkâ.65 In this section we are examining QandÅ«sÄ«âs calligraphic style in order better to understand the link between the spiritual conception of writing extolled in the texts and the calligraphic Åuvre of the master.
3 The Formation of the âkhaá¹á¹ al-QandÅ«sÄ«â
Aside from his importance in Moroccan religious life, QandÅ«sÄ« also distinguished himself through his calligraphic talent. In fact, he changed the pre-modern codes of calligraphy in the Maghrib. In his hagiographical dictionary, al-KattÄnÄ« briefly mentions QandÅ«sÄ«âs calligraphic works, including his copies of the QurʾÄn and of the famous book of prayers on the Prophet, the DalÄʾil al-KhayrÄt, by the Moroccan mystic Muḥammad b. SulaymÄn al-JazÅ«lÄ« (d. 869/1465):
He had a particularly beautiful and well-made line, which he used when he wrote out several DalÄʾil, and I was told that he had also written out a QurʾÄn in twelve volumes that people say is unequalled anywhere on Earth.66
Oddly, in spite of the exceptional nature of QandÅ«sÄ«âs art and of the innovations he introduced into the eighteenth and nineteenth century maghribÄ« ways of writing, relatively few copies of works formally identified as being by him exist today. Equally, there are few writings in existence that give us information on his activities as a copyist, apart from the scattered remarks the calligrapher left in the margins or introductory pages of his manuscripts, and a few commentaries by hagiographers or modern specialists in Moroccan books. Among the latter, FawzÄ« Ê¿Abd al-RazzÄq67 and Muḥammad al-ManÅ«nÄ«68 mention a copy of the QurʾÄn signed by the masterâs hand in 1266/185069 and seven manuscripts of the DalÄʾil al-KhayrÄt, some of which were made for the royal family. However, F. Ê¿Abd al-RazzÄq gives neither catalogue numbers nor the location in which the copies of the DalÄʾil are preserved, while Muḥammad al-ManÅ«nÄ« wrongly attributes to QandÅ«sÄ« several copies of the DalÄʾil that are held in the Royal Library.
In order to grasp QandÅ«sÄ«âs creative process, we have decided to limit this study to two copied texts signed by the calligrapher â these are representative of his art and yet they reveal two distinct approaches. The first manuscript, a QurʾÄn in twelve volumes from the Royal Library in Rabat (reference 12613) was the result of an official commission, while the second, the DalÄʾil held in the National Library of the Kingdom of Morocco under the reference 399K, seems to have been produced by the calligrapher for his personal use.
The QurʾÄn 12613 was finished on a Friday at the end of the month of ShawwÄl 1266/September 1850, in response to a commission from a certain IdrÄ«s b. Muḥammad IdrÄ«s al-Ê¿AmrÄwÄ« al-ZammÅ«rÄ« al-IdrÄ«sÄ« (d. 1295/1878), as the colophon at the end of the twelfth volume states (ff. 138aâ138b). The patron is not unknown to us: he was a scholar and diplomat in the service of the Makhzen and came from one of the grandest families of Fez. Born in 1208/1794, he was the son of Muḥammad b. IdrÄ«s al-Ê¿AmrÄwÄ« (d. 1263/1847), who himself became the personal secretary of the Alawite Sultan MulÄy Muḥammad b. Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄn (r. 1238â1276/1822â1859). As early as 1277/1860, IdrÄ«s b. Muḥammad b. IdrÄ«s al-Ê¿AmrÄwÄ« was Minister of Foreign Affairs under the reign of Mohammed IV (r. 1276â1290//1859â1873); the following year he was sent as the Sultanâs emissary to France, in order to report back on the progress of modernisation at the time of the industrial revolution. He spent some time in Paris, and visited the Château of Versailles, the Paris Mint, the National Library and the official printing works of the French Government. In his report on the journey, Tuḥfat al-malik al-Ê¿azÄ«z bi-mamlakat BarÄ«z (The Jewel of the well-beloved King in the Kingdom of Paris),70 he devotes several pages to the printing press, which he sees as one of the French technological advances that could profitably be developed in the Sharifian Empire.71 At the same time, he was also worried that such technological progress could not be adapted to an Arabo-Muslim society. His account of his trip does reveal that in spite of his strong attachment to local religious traditions, al-Ê¿AmrÄwÄ« felt a certain attraction to modernity.
This makes it easier for us to understand why such a dignitary, close to the Makhzen, would want to acquire a manuscript of the QurʾÄn from QandÅ«sÄ«, whose style he must have recognised and appreciated as being singular and innovative for the period. As the calligrapher says in the colophon, the QurʾÄn was finished in 1266/1850, about ten years after al-Ê¿AmrÄwÄ«âs departure for France in spring 1277/1860. The quality of its execution is remarkable, both as regards the materials used for its illuminated decorations and for the originality of its calligraphic style. Each of the ten volumes still preserved at the Ḥasaniyya72 opens with a double page of text, the treatment of which is distinguished not only by its thick and mannered writing in a style unique to QandÅ«sÄ«, but by the illuminated decoration that frames the text (Figures 20.14â16). It was usual in QurʾÄnic manuscripts over several volumes to insert an ornamental and calligraphic accent in the first double page spread of each section.73 In QandÅ«sÄ«âs pages the writing, despite the monumentality and excessive thickness of the line, has a fluid vibrancy as a result of the shifting balance between the thickness of the letters and their slender, very sinuous tails. In order to achieve this effect, QandÅ«sÄ« traced the outline of the letters, and their tails, with a fine black quill, and, very certainly, painted in these outlines with a pointed brush (Figures 20.4 and 20.5). This technique is uncommon in Maghribi manuscripts. It can be found for much earlier periods in the Muslim West, and was used to remarkable effect in the famous âNannyâs QurʾÄnâ (Muṣḥaf al-ḤÄá¸ina) copied in 410/1019â2074 by the nanny of the Zirid Emir al-MuÊ¿izz b. BÄdis (r. 407/1016â454/1062), in which the entire text has been traced according to this process.75
In the rest of this text QandÅ«sÄ« sets the paintbrush aside and traces the words with a reed pen, on a smaller scale â about nine lines per page. (Figure 20.17). At first glance the completely original nature of the calligraphy (through the great plasticity of the formation of letters) might lead one to question its origins, and its links with local Maghribi traditions. However, careful observation allows one to uncover the calligrapherâs attachment to the classical principles of the way of writing called maghribÄ« al-mabsÅ«á¹. The ordinary writing on these pages takes its form from the handwriting that was often used in medieval Maghribi QurʾÄns, as evidenced, for example, by the atrophied tails of certain letters, the particular punctuation of the letters fÄâ and qÄf, the large opening in the nÅ«n and that of the Ê¿ayn/ghayn.76 QandÅ«sÄ« even refers to an ancient form of maghribÄ« to draw the hamza, marking the hamzat al-waá¹£l with a large orange (or, less frequently, yellow) dot and the hamzat al-qaá¹Ê¿ with a green dot. It is clear that we can assume that the herb-seller benefited from a solid apprenticeship in Maghribi calligraphy, and that he takes care, in this official commission, to perpetuate its codes while adopting his own personal style.
Detail of the outlining of letters in QurʾÄn 12613, from vol. 12, f. 12a
Detail of the outlining of letters in QurʾÄn 12613, vol. 11, f. 36a
Apart from a parsimonious use of gold and coloured inks in the titles, vocalisation marks and diacritical marks, QandÅ«sÄ«âs work is resolutely sober in appearance, in contrast to the great finesse of its execution (Figure 20.17). In addition, it may appear surprising that the separators between the verses are absent throughout all twelve volumes. We are tempted to ascribe this intentional restraint on the part of the calligrapher to the above-cited observations that he formulated in the TaʾsÄ«s, on the importance of avoiding all distraction of the spirit that might be caused by the zakhrafa (illumination) and the colours in manuscripts, and of avoiding all excessive use of these techniques.
Essentially, it is through his tracing of the name Muḥammad that he enhances these pages and gives free play to his art. In the Muḥammad, al-Fatḥ and al-AḥzÄb Suras, he brings out the Prophetâs name by amplifying the size of its letters and painting it using a technique similar to that employed for the first double page of each volume (Figures 20.6 and 20.8). For another occurrence he uses a no less original approach, tracing the contours of the name Muḥammad in bright red ink and painting it in with black, thus giving it volume and making it stand out (Figure 20.7).
All of these practices contribute to enchanting the eye when it sees the Prophetâs name, and to making its letters stand out from the rest of the text. Whatâs more, the structure of the consonantal skeleton (rasm) of the name itself is surprising, to say the least. The initial mÄ«m floats above the letter ḥÄʾ. This latter is designated by two curls that mirror each other, creating an additional echo in the negative space between the black lines. The great plasticity of the letters, especially the mÄ«m above the ḥÄâ, and the Ê¿ayn in a median position, almost suggests recognisable forms or images. In the colophon of this QurʾÄn, QandÅ«sÄ« devotes a few lines to the hidden powers of letters, and some of these passages recall the idea of the anthropomorphism of writing that he developed in his treatise, al-TaʾsÄ«s. Indeed, in f. 138a, he compares the letters of the QurʾÄn to a fountain (al-khaṣṣa) from which gushes (al-dÄfiqa) the power of their hidden meanings (sirr al-ḥurÅ«f), like a spring (âayn) from which everyone can drink. Thus, one should drink from each letter as much as one wants (ighraf minhu mÄ shiâta) in order to achieve healing from all diseases and from anything else (wa-stashfi bihi min amrÄá¸ika wa-min kulli mÄ shiâta).77
Writing âMuḥammadâ â vol. 9, f. 46b
Writing âMuḥammadâ, vol. 11, f. 14a
Writing âMuḥammadâ â vol. 11, f. 36a
If we examine the shapes of letters carefully, bearing this in mind, certain comments can be made (Figure 20.11): The grapheme
At each appearance of the letter Ê¿ayn the two strokes that form it are extended so that they skim the base-line, making the letter look like a stylised fountain, as described in the colophon, where he compares the shapes of letters to that of a spring, âÊ¿aynâ in Arabic (Figure 20.20). This sort of treatment of writing is rare in the Muslim west, unlike in the Mashriq, especially in Iran, where calligraphers conceived pictorial writing; there the border between writing and painting is very permeable.78 As early as the tenth/sixteenth century, zoomorphic calligraphy, formed by a word or phrase (often a pious formula) that was stretched and deformed so as to depict an animal figure, was very popular in Iran. Another technique, micrography, also consisted of the formation of an image from a written text, using a microscopic handwriting called ghubÄrÄ«.79 Although our calligrapherâs graphic experiments were more restrained than those eastern creations, his observations on the anthropomorphism of letters, as expressed in his TaâsÄ«s and reiterated in the colophon of this QurʾÄn, remain no less original in the Maghribi calligraphic tradition.
This QurʾÄn displays many aesthetic qualities, but in addition, our copyist uses the final two pages of the twelfth volume to tell readers of its talismanic functions. In the colophon he specifies that these twelve volumes are laden with blessings (baraka) for whoever carries them, turns their pages, or reads them. It will ensure the healing of all sickness, preserve from âall troublesâ, protect from demons (al-shayÄá¹Ä«n), permit victory in battle (ḥamalahu li-l-ḥarb wa-nawÄ bihi Ê¿azÄ«mat al-juyÅ«sh), and even ward off the danger of drowning at sea (ḥamalahu fÄ« safÄ«na li-l-najÄt min al-gharÄq fi-l-baḥr). We can assume that the realisation of a copy of the QurʾÄn that is explicitly endowed with such thaumaturgical and protective properties is the result of a clearly expressed desire on the part of the person commissioning the work and we know of the diplomatic activities and extensive (and sometimes dangerous) European journeys undertaken by IdrÄ«s b. Muḥammad IdrÄ«s al-Ê¿AmrÄwÄ« al-ZammÅ«rÄ« al-IdrÄ«sÄ«.80
4 Forming the Letter, an Act of Prophetic Devotion
The second manuscript we examine in this study, the copy of al-JazÅ«lÄ«âs DalÄʾil al-KhayrÄt [399K in the National Library of the Kingdom of Morocco] also contains talismanic elements. KitÄb DalÄʾil al-KhayrÄt wa ShawÄriq al-anwÄr fÄ« dhikr al-á¹£alÄt âalÄ al-NabÄ« al-mukhá¹Är (The signs of benefits and resplendent lights in the enunciation of the prayer in honour of the chosen Prophet) is a collection of prayers and invocations of the Prophet that was put together towards the middle of the ninth/fifteenth century by the Moroccan mystic Muḥammad b. SulaymÄn al-JazÅ«lÄ« (d. 869/1465). Unusually, the book contains illustrations representing the funerary chamber of the Prophet in the Medina mosque, and it rapidly became one of the most popular devotional books in the entire SunnÄ« Muslim world; reading it was considered to bring numerous blessings, as was the act of copying it.81
QandÅ«sÄ« himself seems to have devoted much time and affection to copying this breviary, if we are to believe the tally established by specialists in Moroccan books, of seven copies by QandÅ«sÄ«. Some of these were made for the royal family, or for important dignitaries in the Kingdom. We can assume that manuscript copy 634J in the National Library of the Kingdom of Morocco, finished in 1267/1850, was created for an important commissioner; it employs expensive materials and completely original and complex techniques or writing; it also features an abundance of illuminated decoration, certainly by an artist other than QandÅ«sÄ« (Figure 20.20). As well as wanting to create beautiful copies of the DalÄʾil al-KhayrÄt, our calligrapher also demonstrates a real care for the authentic transmission of this manual of taá¹£liya on the Prophet, and seems to have a remarkable mastery of its text (Figure 20.21). In his copy 399K (Figure 20.22), he inserts numerous marginal annotations in order to provide the reader with precise information about the hadiths on which the prayers in the book are based.82 Another sort of note refers to the autograph copy of the book of prayers (al-nuskha al-sahliyya),83 in order to attest to the authenticity and conformity of the text that he has re-read, corrected, and copied.
This preoccupation with conforming to the autograph copy demonstrates the extent of QandÅ«sÄ«âs familiarity with al-JazÅ«lÄ«âs text. This also seems to have been recognised by his contemporaries, who ask him to re-read copies of the breviary made by other hands, in order to verify that they are authentic. We have identified a note in QandÅ«sÄ«âs hand just after the explicit of another copy, certainly not made by him, of the collection of prayers, DalÄʾil 5920, held in the Royal al-Ḥasaniyya Library and dated DhÅ« al-QaÊ¿da 1200/August 1786.84 The calligrapher has added a few lines in which he attests to the conformity (tahqÄ«q, taá¹£dÄ«q) of this copy to the autograph copy that is authoritative (taḥqÄ«q sanadihi), and assures the reader that he has completed an expert re-reading and careful correction of the copy. Amine Hamidoune, in his thesis, alerts us to the presence of two other Moroccan copies of the book of prayers that contain similar attestations from QandÅ«sÄ«, the DalÄʾil 7959 in the Royal al-Ḥasaniyya Library, and J634 in the National Library of the Kingdom of Morocco, dated Friday 4 Muharram 1267/9 November 1850.85 Incontestably, our calligrapher was considered to be a legitimate muḥaqqiq of the DalÄʾil al-KhayrÄt.
f. 69a: Marginal gloss about the autograph copy
f. 87b: Marginal glosses about the autograph copy
Examples of crossing out and clumsiness in the DalÄʾil al-KhayrÄt 399K
Among all the copies of the DalÄʾil attributed to QandÅ«sÄ«, manuscript 399K from the National Library of the Kingdom of Morocco is the most singular, differing in several ways from most of his other artistic production. Unlike in the works we have evoked above, here the calligrapher undeniably frees himself from the habitual modalities of copying and illustration for a book of prayers, and also from the classical norms of Maghribi writing. This can probably be explained by the fact that QandÅ«sÄ« made this copy for himself, as he says in the colophon: katabahu li-nafsihi (f. 154a); this formula was used in Arabic manuscripts copied by someone for his own use.86 This allows us to understand the presence of a plethora of marginal inscriptions throughout the book, along with the evident clumsiness of his writing of the main text. The calligrapherâs line is often irregular, and the shape and lengths of the joins between the letters of individual words are not harmonised. On some pages he squeezes the words together, when the space remaining to finish a line is too small (al-tabyÄ«n, f. 174b), and in several other places he has crossed out segments (Figure 20.12). All this leads one to conclude that QandÅ«sÄ« made this copy quickly, without an initial assessment of the page layouts.
This copy opens with several pages covered with prayers, alongside accounts of events in the religious life of Fez, or of the calligrapherâs mystical experiences. Following this we find a series of pages covered with illuminations and writings, the sometimes uneven treatment of which, as in the rest of the book, indicates that they were very probably executed by the calligrapher himself. The first double carpet-page centres on a rectangle between two horizontal bands, containing a title announcing the Prophetâs genealogy (Figure 20.23). This is part of a cycle of complex illuminated calligraphic compositions. QandÅ«sÄ« is almost certainly the author of the paintings evoking the figure of the Prophet, because their style corresponds so closely with that of the text and the illuminations. Pages 17b and 18a contain a topographical view of the sanctuary in Mecca and an interior view of the mosque in Medina (Figure 20.24). The latter image is made from an intimate view-point, but the former allows the reader to see the monument in Mecca in its entirety, with the different elements of its architecture set around the Kaâba, which is at the centre of the composition. These illustrations are followed by a representation of the Prophetâs sandals (ff. 18bâ19a), among the most popular relics in Islam, particularly venerated in the Maghrib and since the medieval period (Figures 20.26 and 20.27).87 Prophetic traditions describe the Prophetâs sandals (niÊ¿Äl) in detail, and have been recounted in qaá¹£Äʾid that explain their benefits.88 Travellers from the Maghrib went to Damascus, where the sandal attested to have belonged to the Prophet was held, in order to make precise drawings of it. These drawings were considered to have thaumaturgical and healing properties similar to those of the object itself.89 As a result, images of the relic began to circulate, especially in North Africa and al-Andalus; such images were regularly included in works of devotion to the Prophet, such as the DalÄʾil al-KhayrÄt.
In our copy, two representations of the relic are placed vertically, on facing pages (18bâ19a), framed by a wide yellow band with oblique segments in black. In the centre of each image is an oval cartouche surrounded by a red band in which is a monumental inscription in yellow thuluth:
This formula is frequently associated with the drawings of the sandals in copies of the DalÄʾil al-KhayrÄt, and bears witness to the intense devotion to the Prophet that is expressed through the contemplation of his relic.
After these images, QandÅ«sÄ« inserts an imposing and surprising passage of writing in black ink that covers two successive double-page spreads, 19bâ20a (Figure 20.26) and 20bâ21a (Figure 20.27). He uses the same technique as in QurʾÄn 12613 but amplifies it still further here: he traces the contours of the letters, their sinuous extremities, and the vocalisation (á¸amma, fatḥa) and diacritical (shadda) marks with a fine reed pen, before blocking in the large surfaces in black with a paintbrush.
The first double page (Figure 20.26) features the basmala and the profession of faith, which extends from the right-hand side of the first page to the second page. For the first three letters of the basmala, the copyist stretches the vertical tail of the mÄ«m along the whole height of the page, so that it lies beside and to the left of the rest of the basmala, forming, with the final mÄ«m of âal-raḥīmâ, two parallel lines. In contrast with this pageâs parallel vertical lines, formed by the stems of the letters (bi in bismillÄh, the alÄ«f lÄms of al-raḥmÄn and al-raḥīm), the left-hand page offers a denser, more âenvelopingâ composition, obtained by the pronounced and repeated curves in the letters lÄm and alÄ«f, and the rÄâ of rasÅ«l, which rolls itself around the sÄ«n and the wÄw and ends with a sinuous descending tail; finally, the lÄm embraces the name of âAllÄhâ.
The following double page (Figure 27) is devoted to the names of AllÄh and Muḥammad, written in a thicker, more monumental mode than the preceding pages. This composition is strongly reminiscent of a calligraphed sign bearing the monumental inscription AllÄh, created by QandÅ«sÄ« for the mosque of Moulay IdrÄ«s II in Fez (see Figure 20.1 above).90 In manuscript 399K the divine name is deployed in a manner that is equally imposing, and takes up almost the entirety of the double page spread, while the name of Muḥammad is tucked in under the final ha of AllÄh, thus accentuating (as Blair has pointed out) its semantic importance.91 Here, with the mÄ«m floating above the ḥa, the rasm of the name Muḥammad is identical to what we have observed in QandÅ«sÄ«âs other productions, as if he had codified this way of writing the name. Here, however, the exceptionally monumental nature of the writing, and its great plasticity, particularly in the tracing of the Prophetâs name, liken this more to a painting intended to be seen and contemplated than to words meant to be read. In this way the calligrapher transcends the acts of writing and reading, showing us something beyond just the word as a word.92 This is underlined in the blocks of very small writing, similar to a ghubÄrÄ« (munammal), disseminated in the spaces left between the stems of the letters (alÄ«f and lÄm) and under the final hÄ (Figure 20.13). In these we can read the following:
AllÄhumma, O Lord, I ask you by Thy Name AllÄh AllÄh AllÄh: hold my heart, my spirit, my intellect, my spiritual energy, my reflection, my conscience, my bones, my fingers, my brain, my veins, my blood, my flesh, my skin, my hair, and my nails by the light of Thy immense and majestic Name AllÄh AllÄh AllÄh in order that its tint should correspond to the tint of the love that I bear Thee and to the love of Thy Envoy â peace and blessings be upon him, his family, and his companions, O All-Merciful One! Thy Word is truth! âWe have taken on the colouration of God; and who better than God to offer such a tintâ?93 (Q 2 : 138), ÄmÄ«n! [â¦].
QandÅ«sÄ«âs prayer in microscopic writing between the stems of monumental letters, f. 20b
This is a very elaborate prayer. It springs from the practice of calligraphy and draws on the main ritual formulas of Islam. But the calligrapher fills the voids between the letters with a request for a physical transmutation through which each detail of his body will take on the tint (á¹£ibgha) that God attributes to Himself in the QurʾÄn. The passage would gain in clarity if we translated á¹£ibgha as âcolourâ, but (speculatively) the implication may also be drawn, from the insistent use of black in these pages, that in this world the light of the Name of God can only be represented by its opposite, darkness. The QurʾÄnic passage to which QandÅ«sÄ« refers, verse 2:13894 is, according to early commentators, part of an anti-Christian polemic: the á¹£ibgha is said to be an âunctionâ used to baptise newborns. God attributes the âbest of unctionsâ to himself. The term also refers to a dye used to mark the foreheads of the faithful, and has previously been understood in an allegorical manner: ṬabarÄ« (d. 310/923), among others, understands the term to signify the Abrahamic religion (ḥanÄ«fiyya) or primordial nature (fiá¹ra).95 Sufi commentators see it as spiritual âmarkâ; for QushayrÄ« (d. 1074), âthe á¹£ibgha of spirits and of the intimate secrets is the light of spiritual realisationâ (anwÄr al-taḥqÄ«q).96 For QandÅ«sÄ«, this metaphor becomes a physical process, transfiguring his being.
By choosing this term whose common meaning is âcolourationâ, QandÅ«sÄ« establishes an immediate link between the technique used to elaborate the name of AllÄh and the Prophet on the one hand (black paint applied with a brush), and his ardent supplication, on the other.
Unlike the preceding examples, which were produced in response to a commission, the DalÄʾil al-KhayrÄt 399K was the result of an act of personal devotion on the part of the calligrapher. It bears all the signs of having been executed by QandÅ«sÄ« with the aim of bringing himself closer to the figure of the Prophet, and gaining access to the divine presence. Its iconography multiplies indicators of the Prophetâs presence such as his tomb, sandal, minbar, miḥrÄb, family tree, etc. Aesthetically, this manuscript announces itself through its concept of a calligraphic style that is unprecedented in the history of Maghribi writing and was elaborated specifically to express QandÅ«sÄ«âs piety. Writing down the Prophetâs name, and that of AllÄh, is indeed considered by copyists to be an act of piety that is full of benefits. Elsewhere, Prophetic traditions celebrate the benefits assured to the copyist who writes the basmala in a beautiful hand. Ê¿AlÄ« b. AbÄ« ṬÄlib records the Prophet as having used these words (which are widely read and commented on, notably by Ibn KhaldÅ«n in his Muqaddima):97 âman kataba bismillÄhi l-raḥmÄn al-raḥīm bi-ḥusni al-khaá¹á¹i, dakhala al-jannata bi-ghayri ḥisÄbâ (Whosoever writes the basmala in a beautiful hand [ḥusn al-khaá¹á¹] will enter Paradise without judgement).98 Here this means shaping the pious formulas, and the names of Muḥammad and AllÄh, with a tool, the paintbrush, that is exceptional in the Muslim West; for QandÅ«sÄ« this unusual approach is justified by his hope of being soaked in the light of the Ism al-JalÄla in the same way as he soaks his paper with black paint.
Finally, the general impression of neglect of the rules for laying out a page, for writing or for the design of the decoration, of which we have spoken above, leads one to believe that QandÅ«sÄ« was working in a hurry. Is it therefore possible that he made this copy in a state that could be called ecstatic, inspired by luminous visions? The malÄmatÄ« calligrapher provides accounts of visionary episodes of this sort in the pages preceding the text of the DalÄʾil, in which he evokes, among other experiences, the moment the Prophet appeared to him and conversed with him, one day when he was sitting in his stall in the Fez herb market.
5 Conclusion
Muḥammad b. al-QÄsim b. Aḥmad al-QandÅ«sÄ«âs Åuvre is a precious study resource for both Islamologists and historians of Islamic art. For the former it contains the prolific literary production by the malÄmatÄ« himself, most of which has not yet been printed or published; it has much to contribute to the study of Sufi doctrines and practices in thirteenth/nineteenth century Morocco. This Åuvre also asks important questions about the circulation and mixing of knowledge, styles and ideas, making possible â indeed, necessitating â the breaking down of barriers between different approaches and methods. In the same way, the historian of Islamic art finds the opportunity to study the circumstances of the emergence of an aesthetic and way of writing that were completely novel in the history of art in the Maghrib, a cultural space that is generally held to be very conservative artistically. Whatâs more, nowhere else in the Moroccan context is it possible to read the original work of the artist in the light of his own comments on calligraphic practice, which appear in filigree in his treatises, or in the margins and colophons of his manuscripts; this information is all the more valuable for being rare even in the eastern part of the Muslim world, where, despite the existence of treatises devoted to the production of inks or to bookbinding, theoretical texts on the art of calligraphy are few. This is in contrast with the situation in the Mashriq, where numerous such texts were produced from as early as the fifth/eleventh century;99 the genre flourished there during the eleventh/seventeenth century. This means that QandÅ«sÄ«âs remarks in his al-TaâsÄ«s â few and tenuous though they are â on the subjects of the use of colours, or the ways of shaping letters, make an incalculable contribution to the history of cultural attitudes to the art of calligraphy in the Maghrib.
An approach combining Islamology, codicology and the history of Islamic art has allowed us to bring out QandÅ«sÄ«âs doctrinal positions, which bridge the gap between a classical religious training, as revealed by his reading and his teachings, and, breaking through in his accounts of his ecstatic states or his encounters with the jinn ShamharÅ«sh, a concept of Islam that is often less dogmatic. As we have seen, this synthesis in his thinking is also confirmed in his calligraphic art, in which, beyond the seeming rupture represented by his monumental and mannered graphic style, he is perpetuating the traditional graphic principles of the maghribÄ«, and even reverting to archaic rules, particularly in his twelve-volume QurʾÄn.
Additional Figures
Illuminated opening pages of volume 9 of the QurʾaÌn 12613, SuÌra 30, ff. 1bâ2a, al-HÌ£asaniyya Royal Library
Illuminated opening pages of volume 11 of the QurʾaÌn 12613, SuÌra 46, ff. 1bâ2a, al-HÌ£asaniyya Royal Library
Illuminated opening pages of volume 12 of the QurʾaÌn 12613, SuÌra 62, ff. 1bâ2a, al-HÌ£asaniyya Royal Library
Double page of text of volume 12 of the QurʾaÌn_SuÌra 62, 63, ff. 4bâ5a, al-HÌ£asaniyya Royal Library
Double page of text with suÌra golden title of volume 12 of the QurʾaÌn 12613, SuÌra-s 68, 69, ff. 38â39a, al-HÌ£asaniyya Royal Library
Writing of the Ê¿ayn in volume 9 of the QurʾaÌn 12613, SuÌra 37, al-HÌ£asaniyya Royal Library_109b
Illuminated double frontispiece of the DalÄʾil al-KhayraÌt J634, National Library of the Kingdom of Morocco, ff. 1bâ2a
Double page of text with the use of gold and coloured inks and ornamental motives, DalÄʾil al-KhayraÌt J634, ff. 59bâ61a, National Library of the Kingdom of Morocco
Illuminated opening pages of the text of the DalÄʾil al-KhayraÌt K399, National Library of the Kingdom of Morocco, ff. 20bâ21a
Double frontispiece of the DalÄʾil al-KhayraÌt 399K, f. 12bâ13a, National Library of the Kingdom of Morocco
Representations of the sanctuaries of Mecca and Medina in the DalÄʾil al-KhayraÌt 399K, ff. 17b, 18a, National Library of the Kingdom of Morocco
Representations of the Prophetâs sandals (al-naâl al-nabawi)Ì in the DalÄʾil al-KhayraÌt 399K, ff. 18bâ19a, National Library of the Kingdom of Morocco
Monumental writings of the basmala and the profession of faith in the DalaÌâ ʾil al-KhayraÌt 399K, f. 19bâ20a, National Library of the Kingdom of Morocco
Monumental inscription of the names of AllaÌh and the Prophet, DalÄʾil al-KhayraÌt 399K, ff. 20bâ21a
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Hamès, C. âLâusage talismanique du Coranâ, in Les usages du Livre saint dans lâislam et le christianisme, Revue de lâhistoire des religions, 218/I (2001), 83â95.
Hamès, C., ed. Coran et talismans. Textes et pratiques magiques en milieu musulman, Paris, Karthala, 2007.
Hamidoune, Mohamed Amine, âLa pratique de la âprière sur le prophèteâ en Islam: Analyse philologique et implications doctrinalesâ, thèse de doctorat sous la direction de Denis Gril, Université Aix-Marseille, 2012.
ḤammÄdÄ« al-IdrÄ«sÄ«, âA. ḤÄá¸irat al-qanÄdisa wa-zÄwiyatu-hÄ al-ziyÄniyya al-shÄdhiliyya bi-hÄdhihi al-á¹£aḥrÄâ al-jazÄʾiriyya. TÄrÄ«kh wa-manÄqib, BÅ«saÊ¿Äda, Algeria, 2013.
ḤammÄdÄ« al-IdrÄ«sÄ«, âA. Al-FayḠal-quddÅ«s fÄ« tarjamat al-Ê¿arif bi-llÄh sayyidÄ« Muḥammad b. al-QÄsim al-QandÅ«sÄ«, DÄr wÄyt DarÄ«m li-l-nashr wa-l-intÄj, Algiers, 2018.
Juynboll, G. H. A. Encyclopedia of Canonical Ḥadīth, Leiden, Brill , 2007.
Khemir, S. âThe Art of the Bookâ, in J. Dodds, ed. Al-Andalus: The Art of Islamic Spain, (exhibition cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1 Julyâ27 September 1992).
Le Baot, M. âQuelques variantes de la âprière de la Lumière essentielleâ du Cheikh Abu-l-Hassan Al-Châdhilîâ, online, https://leporteurdesavoir.fr/quelques-variantes-de-la-priere-de-la-lumiere-essentielle-du-cheikh-abu-l-hassan-al-chadhili, consulted 30 January 2020.
Maarouf, M. âSaints and Social Justice in Morocco: An Ethnographic Case of the Mythic Court of Sidi Å amharÅ«Å¡â, Arabica, 57 (2010), 589â670.
Margoliouth, D. S. âThe relics of the Prophet Mohammedâ, The Muslim World, 27, Hartford (1937), 20â27.
al-ManÅ«nÄ«, M. al-Maá¹£Ädir al-Ê¿arabiyya li-tÄrÄ«kh al-Maghrib, ManshÅ«rÄt kulliyyat al-ÄdÄb wa-l-Ê¿ulÅ«m al-insÄniyya, University of Rabat MuḥÄmmad V, Rabat, 1990
al-ManÅ«nÄ«, M. TarÄ«kh al-wirÄqa al-maghribiyya: sinÄÊ¿at al-makhá¹Å«á¹Ät al-maghribiyya min al-Ê¿aá¹£r al-waṣīṠilÄ al-faá¹ra al-muÊ¿Äá¹£ira, RabÄt, ManshÅ«rÄt Kulliyyat al-ÄdÄb wa-l-Ê¿ulÅ«m al-insÄniyya, 1991.
Meri, J. W. âRelics of Piety and Power in Medieval Islamâ, Past and Present, n° 10, Supplement 10 (2010), Oxford University Press, 106â112.
Rosenthal, F. Ibn Khaldûn, The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, Princeton University Press, 1967.
Schick, I. C. âThe Content of Form. Islamic Calligraphy between Text and Representationâ, in B. Bedos-Rezak, J. Hamburger, eds. Sign and Design: script as Image in cross-cultural perspective (300â1600 CE), Washington, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and collection, 2016, 173â194.
Schimmel, A. âThe primordial dot: Some thoughts about Sufi letter mysticismâ, JSAI, 9 (1987), 350â356.
Suraqah, A. The Grand Elixir of Invocations. Taken from the book: The Sword of Solicitude for the Seeker of Plenitude (sayf al-âinaya li-murid al-Kifaya), published online, Qandusi Publications, 2017, accessible under https://archive.org/details/TheGrandElixir/mode/2up, last access 24 Feb. 2021.
Toufiq A. âIntroductionâ, in M. SharqaÌwiÌ, DhakhiÌrat al-muhÌ£taÌj fiÌ al-sÌ£alaÌt Ê¿alÄ sÌ£aÌhÌ£ib al- liwaÌâ ʾ wa-l-taÌj: fawaÌtihÌ£ al-asfaÌr, Rabat, WizaÌrat al-AwqaÌf wa-al-ShuʾuÌn al-IslaÌmiyya, 2009.
Vernay-Nouri, A. âMarges, gloses et décor dans une série de manuscrits arabo-islamiquesâ, Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée, 99â100, (2002), 117â131.
Vimercati Sanseverino, R. Fès et sainteté, de la fondation à lâavènement du Protectorat (808â1912): Hagiographie, tradition spirituelle et héritage prophétique dans la ville de MawlÄy IdrÄ«s. Rabat, Centre Jacques-Berque, 2014. Web: <http://books.openedition.org/cjb/498>.
Vimercati Sanseverino, R. âPenser la voie muḥammadienne: Le renouveau soufi à Fès au XIIIe/XIXe siècleâ, Studia Islamica 111 (2016), 109â136.
Waley, M. I. âLâornementation du livreâ, in F. Déroche ed. Manuel de codicologie des manuscrits en écriture arabe, Bibliothèque nationale de France, 2000, 245â271.
Schimmel, âThe primordial dotâ, 352.
Schimmel, âThe primordial dotâ, 356.
Ernst, âThe Spirit of Islamic Calligraphyâ.
Gruber, The Praiseworthy One, especially pp. 155â164, for the NaqshbandÄ« order and its specific book culture.
SharqÄwÄ«, DhakhÄ«rat al-muḥtÄj.
SharqÄwÄ«, DhakhÄ«rat al-muḥtÄj, 9.
Abid, Les DalÄʾil al-KhayrÄt.
We are indebted to Abdulaziz Suraqah, who shared with us some manuscripts he had collected.
The Royal Library (al-KhizÄna al-ḥasaniyya), in the person of its director Ahmed Binbin, and of Khalid Zahri, who at the time was curator of the library, assisted us greatly, and facilitated our access to the manuscripts preserved in their collections. The National Library of the Kingdom of Morocco has also been of great help, and recently digitised and catalogued its manuscripts by QandÅ«sÄ«, most of which come from the KattÄnÄ« collection (shelved under K). Here we would like to offer special thanks to Nozha Bensaadoun, head of manuscripts. The care and solicitude offered us by the personnel of the department were remarkable; Aziz Laghzaoui helped us verify the codices attributed to QandÅ«sÄ«.
Some exploratory work and reconstitution of QandÅ«sÄ«âs life was realised by Ê¿Abd AllÄh ḤammÄdÄ« al-IdrÄ«sÄ« (Al-FayḠal-quddÅ«s) in 2018. We have based our work on sources he discovered, enriched by the publication of autograph biographical documents and completed by notes drawn from QandÅ«sÄ«âs TaʾsÄ«s.
Wa-qad waqaftu Ê¿alÄ juzʾ min wÄridÄtihi, ḤammÄdÄ«, Fayá¸, 7.
KattÄnÄ«, Salwat al-anfÄs, 3:55.
idhÄ jalasa bayna al-nÄs yakhfÄ Ê¿anhum amru-hu.
KattÄnÄ«, op. cit.
Rawá¸at awlÄd SarrÄj. Al-FÄá¹imÄ« adds ânear the mausoleumsâ (bi-l-qibÄb). According to the author of the Salwa, his tomb is covered with zellige tiles.
MS 399 K, National Library of Rabat, fol. 7.
ḤammÄdÄ«, Fayá¸, 21.
QandÅ«sÄ«, SharÄb, 55.
See ḤammÄdÄ«âs research on the ZiyÄniyya zÄwiya in Kenadsa, ḤammÄdÄ«, ḤÄá¸irat al-qanÄdisa.
Al-awsÄ« nasaban kashfan mimmÄ talaqqÄ Ê¿an sayyid [sic] á¹£Älla AllÄh Ê¿alayhi wa-sallam. Muá¹£âḥaf al-QandÅ«sÄ«, MS KhizÄna al-ḥasaniyya 12613â12, fol. 138aâb. The text was published by ḤammÄdÄ«, Fayá¸, 92. The same affirmation occurs in a line in which QandÅ«sÄ« signs a brief note about a prayer received in BÄb Ftūḥ (see below), MS BNRM 1688 D, TaqÄyÄ«d, 10: âMuḥammad b. al-QÄsim al-QandÅ«sÄ« al-Aná¹£ÄrÄ« al-AwsÄ« wa-lÄ fakhr fÄ« taḥqÄ«q al-nasab al-aná¹£ÄrÄ« Ê¿an sayyid á¹£alla AllÄh Ê¿alayhi wa-sallamâ.
MS 399 K, fol. 7: [â¦] min al-ruâyÄ al-sharÄ«fa fÄ« taḥqÄ«q al-nasab al-aná¹£ÄrÄ« [â¦].
MS 399 K, fol. 7a.
MS 399 K, fol. 7b: fa-Ê¿arijat rūḥī ilÄ l-samÄâ al-sÄbiÊ¿a fa-wajadtu-hu á¹£alla AllÄh Ê¿alayhi wa-sallam fÄ« biá¹£Äá¹ wa-huwa al-durra al-bayá¸Äâ bi-jamÊ¿ ahl al-ḥaá¸ra wa-anÄ anwÄr (sic) sÄá¹iÊ¿a.
TaʾsÄ«s I, p. 19 There are two versions of the TaʾsÄ«s. The first was published by Layachi Serbout, the owner of QandÅ«sÄ«âs autograph manuscript; this version was completed in 1252/1837, in the month of DhÅ« al-qÄÊ¿da. The title it was given is: al-TaʾsÄ«s fÄ« al-madÄkhil Ê¿alÄ masÄwÄ« al-dunyÄ wa-mahÄwÄ« IblÄ«s. The publisher established the text and initially printed it on demand, under the title of Satan Tools against the religion of Allah. QandÅ«sÄ«âs name does not appear on the cover, only inside the cover. Despite this lack of academic rigour, which diminished the visibility and distribution of the book (we have observed that the title has since been withdrawn from the site in question), the text is correct, and is accompanied by numerous explanatory notes on the authorâs vocabulary and dialect; it also contains images from the autograph manuscript, and these make it possible to establish its provenance. A second manuscript of the TaʾsÄ«s is preserved in the National Library of Rabat, shelved under 2526 K; this has the title al-TaʾsÄ«s fÄ« masÄwÄ« al-dunyÄ wa-mahÄwÄ« IblÄ«s. This copy was created in 1255/1840 during the masterâs lifetime, by Muḥammad Ê¿Abd al-SalÄm al-GhumÄrÄ«. It is considerably longer than the original 1252/1837 version, which probably means that QandÅ«sÄ« dictated the TaʾsÄ«s, and made commentaries on it to his disciples. In addition, the contents of this second version are sometimes less clear. We will call the first version, from 1252, published by Serbout, âTaʾsÄ«s Iâ, and we will refer to the version copied by GhumÄrÄ« in 1255 only where it contains material that is absent from the autograph text. We will call this second version âTaʾsÄ«s IIâ.
Chodkiewicz, Ãcrits spirituels, 163â65.
Anta waladÄ« wa-maqbÅ«l Ê¿alayya, JazÄʾirÄ«, KitÄb al-mawÄqif, 1: 160.
Vimercati, âPenser la voie muḥammadienneâ, 122. For more on the ṬarÄ«qa muḥammadiyya, see the historic overview in Chih, âA New Historiographical Outlook on the TarÄ«qa Muhammadiyyaâ, in J. Malik and S. Zarrabi-Zadeh, eds, Sufism East and West: Mystical Islam and Cross-Cultural Exchange in the Modern World, Boston â Leiden, Brill, 2019, 104â126.
Fa-á¹uruqÄt hÄdhihi al-risÄla á¹ÄbiÊ¿uhÄ muḥammadÄ« yaá¹baÊ¿u kulla á¹ÄbiÊ¿ wa-lÄ yuá¹baÊ¿u Ê¿alayhi, fa-sikkatuhÄ ibrÄ«zan wa-tÄjan mukallal [â¦] fa-maqÄmu al-muḥammadÄ« aÊ¿lÄ wa-aÊ¿lÄ fa-himmatuhu Muḥammad wa-lÄ yanáºuru illÄ Muḥammad, wa-lÄ Ê¿ishquhu illÄ fÄ« Muḥammad, wa-lÄ yafnÄ illÄ fÄ« Muḥammad, fa-jannatuhu Muḥammad, wa-ḥayÄtuhu Muḥammad, wa-akluhu wa sharÄbuhu wa-sukruhu wa-á¹£aḥwuhu Muḥammad, TaʾsÄ«s II, fol. 159bâ160a.
MS BNRM 1699 D, fol. 1a, passage published by ḤammÄdÄ«, Fayá¸, 63. The passage continues with a list of his children and his wives, with dates of birth and death; a number of his children died when they were very young.
MS BNRM 1688 D, TaqÄyÄ«d, 7 (from the pdf furnished by the library). This is a collection of QandÅ«sÄ«âs writings, notes and more polished texts. The page in question is numbered âfol. 3â, but it is not the third one in the collection; we were unable to consult the codex in question directly.
This is probably a reference to the letter nÅ«n in ânafsâ.
TaʾsÄ«s I, 19â20.
MS BNRM 2127â2 K fol. 15a (l. 1 of the poem): âa-mawlÄya yÄ IdrÄ«s [â¦]â.
TaʾsÄ«s I, 297â298.
MS BNRM 1688 D, TaqÄyÄ«d, 10 (from the pdf): âwa-kullu mÄ hunÄ min al-ḥaqÄʾiq fÄ« hÄdhÄ l-majmÅ«Ê¿ al-mubÄrak fa-kulluhÄ min fatḥ AllÄh Ê¿alaynÄ wa-madad sayyidÄ« wa-kadhÄlika kullu mÄ lanÄ min al-taʾÄlÄ«f fÄ« ghayrihiâ.
AllÄhumma á¹£alli Ê¿alÄ al-nÅ«r al-á¹£Äá¹iÊ¿, al-dhÄtÄ«, al-kÄmil, al-sÄrÄ« sirruhu fÄ« al-wujÅ«d. This formulation has similarities with a prayer attributed to AbÅ« al-Ḥasan al-ShÄdhilÄ«, which is itself attested with numerous variants: AllÄhumma á¹£alli wasallim wa-bÄrik Ê¿alÄ sayyidinÄ Muḥammad al-nÅ«r al-dhÄtÄ« wa-al-sirr al-sÄrÄ« fÄ« sÄâir al-asmÄâ wa-l-á¹£ifÄt. See NabahÄnÄ«, Afá¸al á¹£alÄwÄt, 113â4. See also Le Baot, âQuelques variantsâ.
MS 399K, fol. 7b.
fa-kÄna hÄdhÄ al-nÅ«r ḥubb maḥḠfa-innahu yastaghriquka shuhÅ«duhu fÄ« mushÄhadat jamÄl al-maḥbÅ«b ḥÄttÄ tarÄ jamÄl kull mawjÅ«d mundarij fÄ«hi wa-lam yabraḥ min ḥaá¸ratihi fa-qad ḥawÄ al-kull fa-fham. This commentary is called al-nÅ«r al-sÄá¹i Ê¿ fÄ« l-Ê¿ilm al-nÄfiÊ¿, and is at the beginning of codex 2135K, which also contains another treatise by QandÅ«sÄ«, the BawÄriq al-aḥmadiyya fÄ« l-ḥaraka wa-l-sukÅ«niyya. The passage cited can be found in folio 1a. Abdulaziz Suraqah furnished the transcription of this text.
It would be useful to undertake further research on the presence in Fez of people from al-QanÄdisa.
This jinnÄ«âs nature, role and function have been discussed in several classical sources. See ḤammÄdÄ«, Fayá¸, 57â63 for an overview of this literature. The cave in which ShamharÅ«sh died, on Mount Toubkal in the Moroccan ImlÄ«l region, is much visited; see Maarouf, âSaints and Social Justice in Moroccoâ.
We have been unable to identify this place.
AbÅ« Ê¿Abd AllÄh al-TÄwdÄ« b. SÅ«da (d. 1209/1794) directed a NÄá¹£iriyya zÄwiya in Fez (see Vimercati, Fès et sainteté, chapter entitled âLe savant et imÄm de la communautéâ, online at
Qandūsī, Taʾsīs I, 79; Taʾsīs II, fol. 77a.
Qandūsī, Taʾsīs I, 100; Taʾsīs II, fol. 94a.
AllÄhumma á¹£alli Ê¿alÄ sayyidinÄ MuḥÄmmad ḥaqqa qadrihi wa-miqdÄrihi wa-khalqihi wa-khuluqihi al-Ê¿aáºÄ«m wa-Ê¿alÄ Älihi wa-á¹£aḥbihi wa-sallim. QandÅ«sÄ« adds: Wa-hiya miftÄh al-qalb al-muáºlim lam tazal taftaḥuhu min aghlÄqihi ḥattÄ taftaḥahu fatâḥan mubÄ«nan wa-tamlaâahu nÅ«ran wa-sirran kaâanna á¹£ÄḥibahÄ [â¦] tuftaḥu lahu abwÄb al-janna al-thamÄniya yadkhulu min ayyihimÄ (sic) shÄâa. Wa-tarfaÊ¿u qadrahu wa miqdÄrahu wa-taḥsunu khuluquhu wa-khalÄ«quhu ḥisssan wama Ê¿nan wa- AllÄh dhÅ« l-faá¸l al-Ê¿aáºÄ«m. MS BNRM 1688 D, TaqÄyÄ«d, 10 (from the pdf).
Wa-ammÄ al-mushÄhada fiyya lahu â á¹£alla AllÄh Ê¿alayhi wa-sallam â fÄ« ḥÄl sukr alladhÄ« kuntu fÄ«hi fÄ« (â¦?) fÄ« thalÄthat ashhur min rajab ilÄ ramaá¸Än wa-anÄ fÄ« al-sukr fÄ«hi, fa-dhÄlika lÄ yalÄ«qu wa-lÄ yufshÄ liâanna al-qulÅ«b fÄ« zamÄninÄ hÄdhÄ jubilat Ê¿alÄ al-inkÄr wa-l-ḥirs [â¦], MS 399 K, fol. 7b.
ḤattÄ aÊ¿mÄ AllÄh qulÅ«bahum Ê¿an maÊ¿rifat al-awliyÄâ al-kibÄr wa-hum bayna aáºhurihim wa-lÄ shuÊ¿Å«r lahum bihim, MS 399 K, fol. 7b.
Qandūsī, Taʾsīs I, 168.
For more on this prayer, attributed to the Moroccan master Ê¿Abd al-SalÄm b. Masḥish (d. 625/1227), see Hamidoune, La pratique de la âprière sur le prophèteâ en Islam, p. 302.
wa-aá¹£l dhÄlika kulluhu maʾkhÅ«dh min ishtiqÄq al-asrÄr wa-infilÄq al-anwÄr min al-qabá¸a al-muḥammadiyya wa-sÄra sirr dhÄlika fÄ« furÅ«Ê¿ hayÄkil min á¹£inÄÊ¿Ät al-áºÄhir wa-al-bÄá¹in, QandÅ«sÄ«, TaʾsÄ«s I, 168.
QandÅ«sÄ«, SharÄb ahl al-á¹£ÄfÄ, 37 and subsequent.
ManÅ«nÄ«, al-maá¹£Ädir al-Ê¿arabiyya, 2: 134, cited by ḤammÄdÄ«, Fayá¸, 85.
The catalogue of the National Library in Rabat refers to this as a work by Qandūsī; MS 2795 D, fol. 361a.
Qandūsī, Taʾsīs I, 85; Taʾsīs II, fol. 83a.
Qandūsī, Taʾsīs I, 88; Taʾsīs II, fol. 86a.
QandÅ«sÄ«, SharÄb, 27.
QandÅ«sÄ«, SharÄb, 29.
QandÅ«sÄ«, SharÄb, 30. In the TaʾsÄ«s QandÅ«sÄ« also refers to the name Muḥammad as the one-hundredth divine name after the ninety-nine names in the Tradition of the 99 Divine Names; TaʾsÄ«s I, 289.
This extract was edited and translated by Suraqah, The Grand Elixir, 15â16. The Sayf al-Ê¿inÄya is made up of various chapters that bring together particular modes of prayer on the Prophet. The manuscript is preserved in the National Library of Rabat, shelved under 1699 D (majmÅ«Ê¿ awwalu-hu taqÄlÄ«d fÄ« ism AllÄh al-aÊ¿áºam).
al-KhargÅ«shÄ«, ManÄhil al-shifÄ, I, 69.
Wa-ammÄ bayÄn al-ḥÄqÄ«qa fa-inna hÄtayn al-shahÄdatayn tadÄkhalatÄ biḥaythu á¹£ÄratÄ shahÄdatan wÄḥidatan wabaynahumÄ talÄzum maÊ¿nawÄ«.
al-NÄbulusÄ«, AsrÄr al-sharÄ«Ê¿a, 233â236.
Mujawwafa letters, which are rounded, have an âobscureâ side â at least according to an imagined dialogue between this earthly world and the Devil, in the course of which the latter says, âOn the day God created Adam and formed him from clay, I was overwhelmed by jealousy of him. I went towards this form [Adam] and I pricked it lightly in the middle with my beak, and I heard a sort of hollow sound (fa-samiÊ¿tu ḥasÄ«sahÄ mujawwafatan). I realised that I had a way in to each letter that contains a concavity (jawf). I penetrated the letters á¹Äâ, mÄ«m and Ê¿ayn, and I cleaned them out; then a word appeared and I pronounced it. It was the name of all perdition for Adam and his descendants: á¹amaÊ¿, covetousness.â (QandÅ«sÄ«, TaʾsÄ«s I, 255).
Qandūsī, Taʾsīs I, 215.
Wa-maÊ¿nÄ á¸¥ibrika alladhÄ« tuktabu bihi ayá¸an min al-midÄd al-muḥammadÄ«, QandÅ«sÄ«, TaʾsÄ«s I, 219.
wa kÄna lahu khaá¹á¹un ḥasanun jayyidun, kataba bihi Ê¿iddat al-dawÄlÄ«l [DalÄʾil al-KhayrÄt], wa-ukhbirtu anna-hu kataba muṣḥafan fÄ« ithnay Ê¿ashara mujalladan qÄ«la an lÄ yÅ«jad naáºÄ«ruhu fÄ« l-dunyÄ, KattÄnÄ«, Salwat al-anfÄs, III, 54.
Ê¿Abd al-RazzÄq, The Kingdom of the Book, 32.
ManÅ«nÄ«, TarÄ«kh al-wirÄqa, 173â5.
This QurʾÄn 12613 in twelve volumes, held at the Royal al-Ḥasaniyya Library of Rabat.
Published in 1909, the account of the journey has been translated from Arabic to French by Luc Barbulesco under the title Le paradis des femmes et lâenfer des chevaux: relation du voyage dâIdriss al-Amraoui à Paris.
Barbulesco (tr.), Le paradis des femmes, 60â65. When he returned to Morocco, al-Amraoui proposed the idea of installing a printing press to the Alawite Sultan, thus bringing about the creation of the countryâs first printworks in 1864. âOn our part, we pray to God that he should inspire Our Majesty, the Commander of Believers, to endow Morocco with such a printing press, and thus to add to the number of its benefits. He has already left signs of his generous actions, may he thus give new strength to religion and follow in the footsteps of the great Imams. ÄmÄ«n.â
Of the twelve ajzÄâ, only volumes 3 to 12 are still preserved at the library; the first two volumes were offered as a gift by the Royal Library.
Waley, âLâornementation du livreâ, 255.
Déroche, âLes emplois du Coranâ 60; Id. âCercles et entrelacsâ 606â7.
Déroche, âLe Prince et la Nourriceâ 18â33.
Khemir, âThe Art of the Bookâ, 116.
Li-kawnihi al-ghinÄâ yanshaʾu min tajwÄ«f ḥurÅ«fihi kamÄ hum maftūḥīna fa kull-ḥarf yanbaÊ¿u min-hu Ê¿aynan [sic] ka-l-khaṣṣa al-dÄfiqa yashrabu minhÄ kullu man yariduhÄ mimmÄ dhakarnÄhu min qaá¸Äʾ al-ḥawÄâij wa-dafÊ¿ al-maá¹£Äʾib [â¦] kamÄ afá¹£aḥnÄ bihi wa-khtaá¹£arnÄhu tarÄ sirr al-ḥurÅ«f wa-Ê¿adhb mÄʾihim [mÄyihim] al-mutadÄfiq min kulli ḥarf ighraf minhu mÄ shiâta wa-stashfi bihi min amrÄá¸ika wa-min kull mÄ shiâta wa-aqá¸i bihi mÄ shiâta.
Blair, âPictorial writingâ.
Although this tiny writing is mostly encountered in manuscripts produced in Turkey during the tenth/sixteenth century (Vernay-Nouri, âMarges, gloses et décorâ), the technique is very occasionally adopted in a few copies made in the Maghrib. In those instances, it is applied to marginal notes, written in a tiny hand and organised in such a way as to form the shapes of recognisable or ornamental objects. See the collection of texts called KitÄb siḥr al-balÄgha wa-sirr al-barÄâa, by Ê¿Abd al-Malik b. Muḥammad al-ThaÊ¿ÄlibÄ«, probably written in Algeria in 1051 H/1643. Guesdon and Nouri, LâArt du livre arabe, 67.
Although the use of the QurʾÄn as a talisman was strongly condemned by some jurists, the most famous of whom was Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328), the practice became common very early throughout the Muslim world. This may have been (in part) inspired by the last two Suras of the Book (Q 113 and 114), as in the following verses: âI take refuge with the Lord of the Daybreak from the evil of what He has created, from the evil of darkness when it gathers, from the evil of the women who blow on knots, from the evil of an envier when he envies.â (Q 113:1â5, trans. Arberry). In such cases the use of the QurʾÄn as a talisman rests on the recitation of this text, or the writing of it. For more on this, see âLâusage talismanique du Coranâ 83â95; Id. ed., Coran et talismans. (change the font).
For more on the manuscript tradition of the DalÄʾil al-KhayrÄt in the Muslim west, see Abid, âLes DalÄʾil al-KhayrÄtâ.
For example, he attaches the first prayer, al-á¹£alÄt al-Å«lÄ (f. 50a), to the ShifÄʾ and to the Muwaá¹á¹aʾ; the second á¹£alÄt (f. 51a), is attached to the ShifÄʾ, the Muwaá¹á¹aʾ and the Saḥīḥ Muslim, or else to the fifth prayer (f. 52b), in the ShifÄʾ by the QÄá¸Ä« âIyÄá¸.
The copy called âal-sahliyyaâ is the manuscript that would have been copied in 862/1457â8 by Muḥammad al-á¹¢ughayyir al-SahlÄ« (d. 917/1511â12), disciple and close companion of Shaykh al-JazÅ«lÄ«, after this latter had spent several years composing and checking his text. Many manuscripts, especially in the Mashriq, contain marginal references to the nuskha al-sahlÄ«ya in order to attest to the authenticity of the text: Cornell, Realm of the Saint, 177. See also Chapter 3, âLa copie autographe: al-Nuskha al-Sahliyyaâ, in Abid, Les DalÄʾil al-KhayrÄt, I, 64â66.
This manuscript was identified and analysed in Abid, Les DalÄʾil al-KhayrÄt, I, 307 and II, 141â3.
We discovered this information too late to include these versions in the present chapter; we hope to consult and make use of them in future research.
Déroche, âCopier des manuscritsâ, 133â4.
Meri, âRelics of Piety and Powerâ, 106â112; Margoliouth, âThe relics of the Prophet Mohammedâ, 20â27.
Al-MizzÄ«, Tuḥfat al-aá¹rÄf bi-maârifat al-aá¹rÄf, cited in Juynboll, Encyclopedia of Canonical ḤadÄ«th, 321.
Al-MaqqarÄ« Fatḥ al-MutaâÄl, 289.
The original panel executed by Qandūsī has been replaced by a recent reproduction, which hangs on one of the internal walls of the Moulay Idrīs II mosque.
Blair, Islamic Calligraphy, 569.
Gonzalez, âInterprétation phénoménologiqueâ, 162.
Authorâs own translation.
âSibghat AllÄh wa man aḥsanu min AllÄh á¹£ibghatan wa naḥnu lahu âÄbidun.â
ṬabarÄ«, JÄmiâ al-bayÄn, III, 117â20.
QushayrÄ«, Laá¹Äâif al-ishÄrÄt, I, 112.
Rosenthal (tr.), Ibn Khaldûn, The Muqaddimah, 388â9.
Schick, âThe Content of Formâ, 174.
In his poem al-Qaṣīda al-RÄâÄ«ya, Ibn al-BawwÄb (d. 1022) writes as follows: âyÄ man yurÄ«du ijÄdata al-taḥrÄ«ri / wayarÅ«mu ḥusna l-khaá¹á¹i wa-l-taá¹£wÄ«riâ, O thou who aspirest to beautify thy writing/ and desirest the line of beauty [ḥusn al-khaá¹á¹].