Muqarnas

An Annual on the Visual Cultures

of the Islamic World

Editor
Gülru Necipoğlu
Managing Editor
Karen A. Leal

volume 29

Sponsored by
The Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture
at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts

LEIDEN • BOSTON
2012

© 2012 Koninklijke Brill NV ISBN 978-90-04-23420-8

 CONTENTS

Editor’s Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

Gülru Necİpoğlu, Visual Cosmopolitanism and Creative Translation: Artistic Conversations with
Renaissance Italy in Mehmed II’s Constantinople . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .      1

Cristelle Baskins, The Bride of Trebizond: Turks and Turkmens on a Florentine Wedding Chest,
circa 1460 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .     83

Ana Pulido-Rull, A Pronouncement of Alliance: An Anonymous Illuminated Venetian Manuscript for

Sultan Süleyman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    101

Suzan Yalman, ʿAla al-Din Kayqubad Illuminated: A Rum Seljuq Sultan as Cosmic Ruler . . . . . . . . . . . . .    151

Matthew D. Saba, Abbasid Lusterware and the Aesthetics of ʿAjab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    187

Jasmin Badr and Mustafa Tupev, The Khoja Zainuddin Mosque in Bukhara . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    213

Ünver Rüstem, The Afterlife of a Royal Gift: The Ottoman Inserts of the Shāhnāma-i Shāhī . . . . . . . . . .    245

Edhem Eldem, Making Sense of Osman Hamdi Bey and His Paintings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    339

Notes and Sources

Pierre Siméon, Hulbuk: Architecture and Material Culture of the Capital of the Banijurids in Central
Asia (Ninth–Eleventh Centuries) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    385

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 ABBASID LUSTERWARE AND THE AESTHETICS OF ʿAJAB 187

MATTHEW D. SABA

ABBASID LUSTERWARE AND THE AESTHETICS OF ʿAJAB

This article was the winner of the 2010 Margaret B. The distinct color schemes and content identifijied in
Ševčenko Prize, awarded by the Historians of Islamic Art examples like the Louvre Bowl and the Flag-bearer Bowl
Association. are generally assumed to reflect fundamental aesthetic
diffferences and have thus preoccupied art historians
Art history does not yet command the means to integrate and archaeologists for decades. What accounts for such
the industrial arts into the fabric of the societies that pro- variation in wares thought to come from the same area
duced them, and to do that is its primary task.1 of production?6 As I will argue further, there has been
no satisfying explanation for this supposed change in
The group of ceramics often called “Abbasid lusterware,” aesthetic interests, primarily because these arguments
produced in lower Iraq in the ninth and tenth centuries, have done little to account for what was actually taste-
has traditionally been discussed in terms of the difffer- ful or interesting to viewers in the Abbasid period. In
ences within it evident to art historians and archaeolo- this essay, I reformulate the premise outlined above as
gists today.2 The diffferences most frequently identifijied a question: to what extent would the diffferences iden-
fall on two axes of comparison. The fijirst is chromatic, tifijied among Abbasid lusterwares by specialists today
with three widely recognized divisions: polychrome have been pertinent to audiences in Abbasid Iraq? Fol-
(fijig. 1), bi-chrome (fijig. 3), and monochrome (fijig. 2).3 The lowing from this, to what extent can the diffferences in
second is graphic, where a number of motif groups have these two bowls be said to represent a change in aes-
been identifijied that crosscut the recognized chromatic thetic interests? At stake are the terms according to
divisions.4 Two bowls, both housed in the Louvre, ex- which early Islamic ceramics have traditionally been
emplify the two extremes of the group according to this classifijied: e.g., vegetal vs. fijigural; monochrome vs. poly-
understanding. The fijirst (fijig. 1, hereafter the Louvre chrome. By extension, our understanding of the devel-
Bowl) exemplifijies the “polychrome vegetal type.” The opment of Abbasid lusterware, traditionally explained
polychrome and bi-chrome types are usually dated to as part of the larger tendency toward abstraction asso-
the ninth century. This small polychrome bowl has a ciated with early Islamic art, will need to be rethought.
palette of at least four colors: a dominant ruby red, gold, To answer these questions I re-examine the develop-
yellow, and a greenish silver. It is decorated with ten- ment of Abbasid lusterware along the axes of compari-
drils, blossoms, and leaves. The second (fijig. 2, hereafter son outlined above. Regarding the distinction between
the Flag-bearer Bowl) exemplifijies the “monochrome polychrome and monochrome, I argue that the two
fijigural type,” usually dated to the late ninth or tenth types share a basic quality that may have been more per-
century.5 It is larger than the Louvre Bowl, and has only tinent to contemporary viewers than color palette: both
one color of pigment, a highly reflective yellowish have surfaces that appear to change under diffferent con-
brown, painted over an opaque white glaze; it is deco- ditions—they are visually unstable, never appearing
rated with a fijigure holding a flag or standard, set against quite the same. They are both what an Abbasid viewer
a stippled background. might have called abū qalamūn-like bowls (on which

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188 MATTHEW D. SABA

Fig. 1. Polychrome luster bowl (hereafter the Louvre Bowl). Iraq, ninth century, 3.8 cm (height) × 31.7 cm (diameter). Paris,
Musée du Louvre, inv. no. OA 6700. (Photo: Herve Lewandowski, courtesy of Réunion des Musées Nationaux, and Art
Resource, New York)

Fig. 2. Monochrome luster bowl (hereafter the Flag-bearer Bowl). Iraq, late ninth or tenth century, 9.8 cm (height) × 31.7
cm (diameter). Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. no. MAO 23. (Photo: Herve Lewandowski, courtesy of Réunion des Musées
Nationaux, and Art Resource, New York)

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 ABBASID LUSTERWARE AND THE AESTHETICS OF ʿAJAB 189

Fig. 3. Bi-chrome luster bowl excavated at Samarra. Iraq, ninth century, 8.5 cm (height) × 26.7 cm (diameter). Berlin,
Museum für Islamische Kunst, inv. no. Sam. 1102. (Photo: courtesy of Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz)

term see below). I then examine how viewers in ninth By examining the case of Abbasid lusterware, this
and tenth-century Iraq understood this efffect and why essay attempts to address a larger methodological issue
they might have appreciated it so much. I argue that the in the study of Islamic pottery identifijied by Oleg Grabar
reflective, semi-iridescent surfaces of Abbasid luster- long ago and encapsulated in the introductory quote
ware fulfijilled a specifijic expectation that people in above. Grabar pointed out that while specialists are well
Abbasid Iraq had for works of craft, namely that a per- equipped to identify types, workshops, and even “hands”
son should experience pleasurable wonder, expressed specifijic to a time and place, either by taxonomic clas-
by the Arabic term ʿajab, when viewing such objects.7 I sifijication of attributes or by technical studies of glazes
then turn to the modes of decoration employed and and body fabrics, the objects of analysis are rarely con-
argue that both the vegetal designs characteristic of the sidered in light of the interests of the people who pro-
polychrome types and the fijigural subjects that adorn duced and used them.8 The criteria of classifijication are
the monochrome pieces can be seen as strategies derived, rather, from the interests and perceptions of
intended to induce the desirable experience of ʿajab. the specialist or collector, or from the results of mate-
The choice and combination of decorative motifs across rial analysis, and while both the “connoisseurly” and the
the group serve to obscure the viewer’s ability to read “technological” approach are useful for describing the
the designs, and the methods of composition used in breadth and depth of a group of wares, neither success-
the monochrome variety further complicate the expe- fully addresses why the objects appeared the way they
rience of reading the surface by creating a sense of did. I proceed here with the contention that ceramic
motion. Such qualities are consistently described as vessels can furnish a more expansive perspective on the
wonder-producing (ʿajīb) in descriptions of works of interests of the societies who made them than the pre-
craft. cious things frequently chosen as the objects of inter-

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190 MATTHEW D. SABA

pretation in art-historical writing. More widely available East long before the rise of Islam, the range of techniques,
and mobile, these “industrial” products were thus colors, and motifs that appear on these opaque-glazed
informed by and, in turn, informed the interests of a wares was truly unprecedented.
larger set of viewers. Suggestions as to how and why these innovations
took place in Abbasid Iraq have been debated since the
excavations conducted by Friedrich Sarre and Ernst
I. THE PROBLEM OF STYLISIC DEVELOPMENT Herzfeld between 1911 and 1913 at Samarra, where a
range of opaque-glazed vessels were found. The conven-
tional explanation is that potters in Iraq initially cre-
Potters in ninth-century Iraq are credited with the in-
ated the white glaze to imitate imported Chinese
vention of what we call lusterware. At that time, the
porcelain.15 Sarre believed that the entire spectrum of
luster-painting method may have been referred to as
imported T’ang ceramics was copied in local products,
talwīḥ, a term derived from the Arabic lawwaḥa, among
while others argued for a more limited extent of influ-
whose meanings is “to expose to fijire,” and “to make
ence.16 The explanation of this phenomenon solely in
sparkle.”9 The production of lusterware requires two
terms of influence and imitation is unsatisfactory, how-
steps. First, earthenware vessels are coated with an
ever, as it deflects attention from other interesting ques-
opaque white glaze, fijired, and left to cool. Then pig-
tions raised by the Iraqi products. That some of the
ments composed of diluted metallic oxides are painted
opaque-glazed bowls produced in Abbasid Iraq bear
over the glaze and the vessel is fijired for a second time
in a reduction kiln. This second fijiring results in a de- striking resemblances to Chinese products in form, dec-
posit that produces a reflective and often iridescent oration, and surface efffect is clear. Why the residents of
sheen.10 A related technique had been used to decorate ninth-century Iraq would have been so interested in
glass in Egypt and Syria for some time, although the these qualities is an important issue that has yet to be
efffect was diffferent: in that case, metallic pigments ap- fully explored.17
plied to the surface of the vessels were absorbed into Even with the acknowledged debt to Chinese ceram-
the body of the glass during a second fijiring, producing ics, the range of decorations on the surfaces of the
a permanent reddish-brown stain. It was only in ninth- opaque-glazed wares produced in Abbasid Iraq sug-
century Iraq that these metallic pigments were painted gested to art historians that local aesthetic sensibilities
onto the surfaces of glazed ceramics, producing a lus- were at work. While numerous examples of opaque-
trous efffect.11 glazed wares with little to no further embellishment
Both the archaeological record and the material com- exist, potters in Iraq also departed from the Chinese tra-
position of these wares suggest that the luster-painting dition by using the white surface of the vessels as a
technique appeared as part of a range of related inno- medium for colorful decoration, and the motifs and
vations in glazing technology that took shape during themes they chose often bore little resemblance to
the ninth century. Wares coated in an opaque white those that appear on the Chinese wares.18 Nowhere is
glaze of similar composition were also decorated with this more apparent than in the varieties of lusterware,
cobalt-blue, copper-green, manganese-brown, and iron- where pigment was liberally applied to both the inte-
black pigments, which seeped into the glaze during fijir- rior and the exterior.
ing.12 In all known cases, the in-glaze painted wares that As mentioned in the introduction, art historians have
employ cobalt blue are made of the same ceramic mate- identifijied several diffferences among the lusterwares
rial as the luster-painted wares, suggesting a similar, if themselves. While the dating of the various types is still
not identical, place of manufacture.13 Moreover, these tentative (a problem that is beyond the scope of this
in-glaze painted wares have been found at several sites article), it appears that monochrome luster eventually
where lusterware was also unearthed, including eclipsed the polychrome varieties, although the respec-
Samarra, Basra, Susa, Nishapur, Siraf, and Aqaba.14 tive periods in which they were produced may well have
Although glazing technology had existed in the Near overlapped. Questions have thus been raised as to why

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 ABBASID LUSTERWARE AND THE AESTHETICS OF ʿAJAB 191

these supposedly dramatic shifts in color palette and

decoration occurred. Recent studies of glazing technol-
ogy suggest that the compositions of the pigments and
method of application changed very little from poly-
chrome to monochrome, despite their diffferences in
appearance, precluding the arguments that either the
materials for polychrome were no longer available, or
that the monochrome variety was easier to produce and
thus a more cost-efffijicient choice for potters.19 Alterna-
tively, there is the longstanding but increasingly criti-
cized theory that the adoption of a single golden-brown
color indicated a desire for a product that imitated
metal. According to this model, the polychrome phase
represents experimentation, while the monochrome
phase represents perfection of the technique.20 Aside
from the fact that we have very little surviving metal-
work from the Abbasid period to support this theory,
some of the fijinest examples of luster painting were done
in a polychrome palette that mimics the efffect of mar- Fig. 4. Part of a polychrome luster tile excavated at Samarra.
ble and other precious stones (fijig. 4). These observa- Iraq, ninth century, 16 cm (maximum height) × 16 cm (maxi-
mum width). London, Victoria and Albert Museum, inv. no.
tions suggest that the desire for a product that looked C.620-1922. (Photo © Victoria and Albert Museum)
like metal was not the only motivating factor in the
development from polychrome to monochrome.21
More puzzling for art historians than the change in
color palette, however, has been the diffference in dec- uting their appearance to a foreign population in Iraq,
orative motifs evident between the monochrome and perhaps from Khurasan or Central Asia.23 While some
polychrome types. While the polychrome varieties are of these fijigures do suggest sources from outside Abba-
decorated with vegetal and geometric patterns cover- sid Iraq, this fact alone does not imply a foreign audi-
ing the surface of the vessel, the monochrome luster ence. Precious objects from all corners of the Abbasid
bowls often contain large, centrally placed fijigures Empire entered through the port of Basra during the
whose contours are outlined to distinguish them from ninth and tenth centuries and circulated among the
the surrounding decoration. Various sources have been local population, who took great interest in them.24
suggested for these fijigures, including Central Asian More recently, Oliver Watson has argued that the sty-
Buddhist paintings, astrological images, and talismanic listic diffference between the polychrome and mono-
or apotropaic forms, but no single source or signifijicance chrome varieties should be attributed to a change in
seems to apply to the entire group of monochrome taste within Abbasid Iraq, perhaps related to a change
wares.22 in the source material the potters used as inspiration
There has never been a clear explanation of the dif- for their designs. The specifijics of this change are still
ference in style between the polychrome and mono- unclear, however, for while the designs on the poly-
chrome varieties. The most detailed discussion is still chrome wares may be argued to resemble those used in
Ernst Grube’s survey of Islamic pottery in the Keir Col- contemporary manuscript illumination, suggesting an
lection, published in 1976. While Grube suggests that available source of inspiration, the monochrome vari-
the polychrome type “clearly relates to developments ety has no obvious parallels in the material culture of
in Early Abbasid design,” he considers the fijigures on the Abbasid Iraq.25
monochrome bowls to be “entirely enigmatic,” attrib-

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192 MATTHEW D. SABA

The confusion over the appearance of the mono- II. A SURFACE AS UNSTABLE AS ABŪ QALAMŪN
chrome type stems from an assumption that merits
closer scrutiny. While the polychrome type is easily Although the lusterware of the Abbasid period comes
explained as being “influenced” by the style of other, in several color schemes, the monochrome and poly-
more valuable media, or by “Early Abbasid design” in chrome types share a common surface efffect. The sheen
general, the monochrome wares decorated with fijigures and iridescent colors that appear on the surfaces of
conflict with the tendency toward abstract, non-fijigural these ceramics, often for fleeting moments in the right
decoration assumed for the art of the early Islamic conditions, are two of the most prominent aspects of
world, and especially Abbasid Iraq, in many of the fijield’s the material. This efffect has been best preserved in
foundational studies.26 It is still taken for granted that small fragments, since they have been subjected to the
people in Abbasid Iraq favored abstract, vegetal forms least amount of reconstruction and cleaning. Take, for
and disliked fijigural images, and any deviation from such example, photographs of a polychrome luster fragment
tendencies is construed as a problem. The terms, how- housed in the Victoria and Albert Museum (fijig. 5). For
ever, have been formulated according to polarities such the photograph at left, I held the camera directly above
as “abstract vs. naturalistic,” and “vegetal vs. fijigural,” the fragment. Its surface appears dull and the decorative
both of which assume that such stylistic categories were pattern, a grid with alternating trefoil and crosshatching
as signifijicant to viewers in Abbasid Iraq as they are in motifs, is clearly visible. In the photograph at right, I
art-historical interpretation today. Other potential val- held the fragment in front of my camera, so that it was
ues that may have been more important, such as the exposed to sunlight from a large window behind me. At
surface efffect of the object or the qualities associated this angle, a band of reflected light appears across the
with its materials, have not been taken into consider- surface, nearly obscuring the pattern with a brilliant
ation. sheen. The surface efffects of the monochrome variety
Rather than insist on a universal impulse toward can be just as dramatic, as a fragment from the base of
abstraction or a taste for vegetal decoration that does a bowl, also in the Victoria and Albert, demonstrates
not always reflect what is evident in the material and, (fijig. 6). As in the previous example, the photographs
indeed, the verbal records, it is more logical to begin by were taken at two diffferent angles. In the photograph
looking for concepts or interests demonstrably opera- on the left, the surface of the fragment appears matte,
tive in Abbasid Iraq that resonate with the qualities and the large “peacock-eye” pattern is clearly visible. In
inherent to the objects under discussion here. The the second image, a wash of golds, purples, and blues
remainder of this essay is dedicated to that task. While appears on the surface. Both sets of photographs were
subjectivity is unavoidable in this venture, a closer con- taken without a flash in a room lit only from tall win-
sideration of the terms used in Abbasid Iraq to describe dows lining one wall. Natural light brings out these
and evaluate works of craft highlights aspects of these ephemeral surface efffects most strongly.
pieces that were potentially signifijicant to Abbasid- In both cases, the surfaces of these fragments appear
period viewers.27 As descriptions of ceramic vessels are to change according to the position of the viewer or the
rare in the written sources, I turn to discussions of mate- object, producing brief and unexpected flashes of light
rials with attributes similar to Abbasid lusterware in or color. This type of efffect appears to have appealed to
order to excavate many of these terms. I have limited viewers in the early-Islamic world in a range of materi-
myself to sources from the ninth through early eleventh als. An oft-quoted passage from the eleventh-century
centuries, as well as later works that cite earlier refer- Safarnāma (Book of Travels) of Nasir-i Khusraw (d.
ences, such as the classical dictionaries. While dispa- between 1072 and 1078) serves as a good example. The
rate, these sources offfer new perspectives on the appeal passage comes in a discussion of Cairo and its markets:
of lusterware to viewers in Abbasid Iraq that will help In Old Cairo they make all types of pottery (sefālīneh)28
explain how these objects developed. so fine and translucent that you can see your hand behind
them when held up to the light. From this [material] they

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 ABBASID LUSTERWARE AND THE AESTHETICS OF ʿAJAB 193

Fig. 5. Fragment of a polychrome luster vessel excavated at Samarra (shown from two angles). Iraq, ninth century, 6 × 5
cm. London, Victoria and Albert Museum, inv. no. C.817-1922. (Photos: Matthew D. Saba, courtesy of the Victoria and Albert
Museum)

Fig. 6. Fragment from the base of a monochrome luster vessel excavated at Fustat (shown from two angles). Iraq, late ninth
or tenth century, 7.3 × 7 cm. London, Victoria and Albert Museum, inv. no. C.1624-1921. (Photos: Matthew D. Saba, courtesy
of the Victoria and Albert Museum)

make cups, bowls, plates and the like, and they color them the vessels. In this case, the word (a contraction of the
so that their color resembles būqalamūn and different col- Arabic phrase abū qalamūn) probably refers to a type of
ors appear at every angle you hold them.29
cloth distinguished by its peculiar iridescent sheen,
I wish to call attention here to the term būqalamūn, since the author earlier defijines it as such.30 As other
which Nasir-i Khusraw used to describe the surface of scholars have observed, however, abū qalamūn had a

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194 MATTHEW D. SABA

wider semantic range that included a variety of lustrous,

multi-colored materials.31 I will suggest that abū
qalamūn, understood in its broader sense of something
visually unstable or changeable, would have been a
phrase commonly used in Abbasid Iraq to describe the
surface efffects of lusterware. This may lead us to a better
understanding of the appeal of these ceramics to an
Abbasid audience.
References to abū qalamūn in the classical sources
are plentiful and a review of a few of them will serve to
establish the qualities that the term encompassed dur-
ing the early Islamic period. Ibn Manzur (d. 1312), lexi-
cographer and author of the Lisān al-ʿArab (The Tongue
of the Arabs), provides a standard defijinition, as it had
crystallized by the thirteenth century. Though the Lisān
postdates the Abbasid period, its defijinitions are inten-
tionally archaic, incorporating substantial material
from classical Abbasid sources. In his discussion of
qalamūn, for example, Ibn Manzur cites the authority
of al-Sirafiji (d. 979) and al-Azhari (d. 980), author of
Tahdhīb al-lugha (Refijinement of Language). These in
turn cite Sibawayhi (d. 796) and al-Farraʾ (d. 822). Ibn
Manzur writes:
Qalamūn: Many-colored gowns (maṭārif kathīrat al-alwān).
Sibawayhi used [this term] as an example, and al-Sirafi
glossed its meaning [as above]. In the Tahdhīb’s section Fig. 7. Textile fragment: plain cloth, brocaded with silk and
on quadriliteral roots [al-Azhari wrote]: “al-Farra ʾ [said] metal threads. Iraq, ninth century, 16.8 × 10.5 cm. The Cleve-
qalamūn [follows the pattern] fa-ʿa-lūn like the word qa-ra- land Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund, 1950.526.
būs, and it is a place. Others have said that abū qalamūn is (Photo: courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art)
a garment (thawb) that takes on the appearance of various
colors when the sun shines upon it. I do not know why it
is called by that [name]. A person from Egypt told me that ninth-century Iraq is likely, placing it within close his-
abū qalamūn was a type of water bird (ṭāʾir min ṭayr al-māʾ) torical range of the ceramics under discussion and sug-
in which various colors are seen and so the garment was
gesting that this cloth was available in lower Iraq, where
likened to it ….32
the wares were made.34 Here, the author defijines abū
As in Nasir-i Khusraw’s text, the fijirst meaning given is qalamūn as “a regal Byzantine tapestry” (min al-zalālī
for a type of textile, here with a possible etymology al-khusruwānī al-rūmī) of deep red, purple, and green
stemming from an animal with iridescent feathers.33 threads whose color varies with the intensity of the sun-
The qualities of being multi-colored and of having a light.35 Though references to the cloth called abū
surface that appears to change color are mentioned. An qalamūn do not allow for defijinite identifijication of ex-
earlier reference from Abbasid Iraq provides more amples in extant collections, art historians have noted
detail on the textile called abū qalamūn. The text is a that a class of textiles attributed to Iraq bears a resem-
short treatise on mercantile terminology titled Kitāb blance in both its color palette and shimmering surface
al-Tabaṣṣur bi’l-tijāra (Reflections on Commerce), at- to descriptions of abū qalamūn cloth (fijig. 7).36
tributed to al-Jahiz (d. 868–69). It is a matter of debate Several references show that the term “abū qalamūn,”
whether or not Jahiz wrote it, but an attribution of late or “būqalamūn,” was applied to a range of other irides-

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 ABBASID LUSTERWARE AND THE AESTHETICS OF ʿAJAB 195

cent, or multicolored, reflective materials. Al-Biruni al-Zaman al-Hamadhani (d. 1008). In the Maqāmat
(d. after 1050), citing his Iraqi predecessor al-Kindi al-Makfūf, a traveler comes upon a clearing where he
(d. 866), uses the term to designate a particular hue of sees a blind man singing for a group of spectators. The
yellow corundum. The būqalamūn-colored variety, traveler feels pity for the man and offfers him a dinar.
al-Biruni writes, “contains every color, from light-reds After the performance, however, the man is exposed as
to yellows to greens and greenish-blues; these colors Abu al-Fath al-Iskandari, the anti-hero of the Maqāmāt
appear on it when it is moved.”37 In his Murūj al-dha- known above all for his trickery. The traveler exclaims:
hab (Meadows of Gold), Masʿudi (d. 956) described a “By God, you’re Abu al-Fath!” to which he responds:
type of gemstone known as bāqalamūn, which dis- I am abū qalamūn!
played diffferent colors, specifijically reds, greens, and yel-  I come in every color
lows, according to the angle from which it was seen.38
Jabir ibn Hayyan, an alchemist or possibly a name Choose a base living
 For your age is base
referring to a group of alchemists active in the late
eighth and early ninth centuries, used the term in the Repel time with stupidity
title of a treatise: Kitāb Abī qalamūn. This piece is now  For time is a kicking camel
lost, but several of Jabir’s extant works make reference Don’t fool yourself with reason
to it. In one instance, Jabir wrote, “I derived a name for  For reason is insanity45
my book from [abū qalamūn’s] type: that is, that which
What emerges from these references is that the term
has many changes in color (talawwun).”39 More inter-
abū qalamūn was associated with a variety of materials
estingly for our purposes, in the manual on coloring
and species, and even a personality type, all character-
glass titled Kitāb al-Durra al-maknūna (Book of the Hid-
ized by the quality of changeability. In Abbasid Iraq, abū
den Pearl), Jabir listed a type of lustrous stain whose
qalamūn was a flexible term used to signify shiftiness
hue was “abū qalamūn.” In the instructions he mentions
or instability, and it was regularly employed to describe
that the abū qalamūn-colored stain continuously
visual efffects. While it is unlikely that we can label a
changes color.40
surviving object as abū qalamūn, we could say that both
Abū qalamūn was also used to refer to animals with
the polychrome Louvre Bowl and monochrome Flag-
iridescent plumage or skin. In addition to the reference
bearer Bowl are abū qalamūn-like. Like the sherds
to a bird in the Lisān al-ʿArab cited above, Ibn al-Hay-
shown above, the Louvre Bowl appears dull under some
tham (d. ca. 1040) mentions in his Kitāb al-Manāẓir
conditions while it glimmers under others. The Flag-
(Optics) a “species” called abū qalamūn, which appeared
bearer Bowl has a similarly unstable surface, due to its
to change color according to the angle of the viewer.41
high metallic sheen: at each angle, light is reflected and
While the animal was not specifijied, the editor of the
a diffferent section of the surface gleams. In both cases,
text suggests that it refers to a chameleon, fabled in Ara-
what is visible at one angle is washed away by light and
bic lore for its ability to change colors (talawwun),
color at another.
which may have occasionally gone by this nickname.42
If a taste for the abū qalamūn-like was alive in Abas-
In other instances, it was used for a mollusk whose
sid Iraq—and indeed, as I shall argue, rather strong—
beard was used to weave an expensive cloth called “sea
then these two bowls may be seen as attempts to
wool” (ṣūf al-baḥr).43 Muqaddasi (d. after 990) reported
produce the same desirable efffect rather than as aes-
that the cloth was golden colored and appeared to
thetically incompatible. But fijirst, it will be helpful to
change color every hour.44
turn to several contemporary discussions of light and
The semantic range of the term was not limited to
color to see how viewers may have understood the
materials and wildlife, however. “As shifty as abū
cause of these unstable visual efffects.
qalamūn” was an epithet for someone considered fijickle
or two-faced, with a personality that was always chang-
ing. This usage appears in the Maqāmāt of Badiʿ

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196 MATTHEW D. SABA

III. ON THE EXPLANATION OF Though not all of his writings on optics survive, a pre-
ABŪ QALAMŪN-LIKE COLORS occupation with the question of color is manifest in the
work of al-Kindi, the so-called “Philosopher of the
Today we understand the color of an object to be de- Arabs,” who resided in Baghdad for most of his adult
pendent on the light reflected or transmitted from its life.49 From extant treatises and later Latin translations
surface that then enters our eyes. In my descriptions of of his work, for example, it is clear that al-Kindi viewed
the abū qalamūn-like surfaces of lusterware bowls, I color as an accident, only potential in a colored body
made use of standardized terms like “iridescence” that until actualized by light. According to al-Kindi, for a
assume such an understanding of color. There was no body to be colored, it must be solid and obstruct rays
universal term for iridescence in Abbasid Iraq, however. emanating both from luminous bodies and from the
Rather, phrases such as “talawwana alwānan” (to change eye. The apparent coloration of transparent bodies was
between many colors) and “tarāʾā bi-alwān shattā” (to explained as an efffect of rays emanating from behind
take on the appearance of various colors) were used to it.50 Thus, the blue of the sky is not the color of the sky
describe the ephemeral colors of the abū qalamūn- itself (made up of air, a colorless body), but is an efffect
like.46 Descriptions of phenomena like iridescence dif- caused by the interaction of luminous rays from stars
fered from viewer to viewer and the resulting and from elements that surround the earth.51
expressions, often awkward and phrased with difffijiculty, Al-Kindi’s explanation of color relates to his general
suggest that the relationship between cause and understanding of vision: he defended the theory of
efffect—between light, material, color, and appear- extramission, in which the act of seeing was understood
ance—was not completely resolved in the minds of as the result of rays that emanate from the eye outward
contemporary viewers. toward the visible object.52 Al-Kindi was not alone.
It would be an exaggeration to draw such conclusions Hunayn ibn Ishaq (d. 877), another scholar active in
from phrasing alone. A survey of scientifijic texts pro- ninth-century Baghdad, also subscribed to a theory of
duced during the fijirst centuries of Islam, however, sug- vision through extramission. For Hunayn, both light and
gests that the explanation of color was indeed a source visual rays act upon the air, transforming it into an
of contention among scholars. Under the patronage of instrument of sight. Hunayn also specifijies in his writ-
the caliphs, Abbasid Iraq saw the translation of numer- ings that the colors in a colored body act upon the air,
ous scientifijic and philosophical texts into Arabic from transforming the transparent body and endowing it
Greek, Syriac, and Pahlavi, a project that sparked signif- with their qualities, which enables us to perceive them.
icant interest in theories of color and related questions Thus, a white garment under the canopy of a leafy tree
regarding vision.47 Two matters regarding the ontology appears green in bright sunlight, since the air between
of color were of primary concern in these texts, as well tree and garment takes on the green of the leaves.53
as in the works of the Arabic scholars who translated The group active in the tenth century and collectively
them. The fijirst was whether color should be considered known as the Ikhwan al-Safaʾ (Brethren of Purity) also
essential to a colored body or merely an accident explained color as an accident, but a “spiritual accident”
(ʿaraḍ), meaning, in this case, a sensible attribute not (ʿaraḍ rūḥānī), as opposed to a corporeal accident (ʿaraḍ
inherent to the substance of the thing itself. The second jusmānī). The Ikhwan discuss the matter in some detail
question had to do with the perception of color: how in an epistle on sensation.54 Any physical body, they
did a color reach the surface of the eye and how did the explain, is composed of primordial matter (hayūlā), and
eye then diffferentiate between colors?48 There was to “forms” (ṣuwar), which, for the Ikhwan, included width,
be no universal consensus on the answer to these ques- length, and depth. Anything beyond this (e.g., color or
tions until centuries later, but some examples from the any other sensible attribute) should be considered “acci-
major authorities active between the ninth and elev- dents entering on the body, supplemental to its exis-
enth centuries reveal various opinions that were prop- tence as a body, fulfijilling it.”55 Two sorts of perceptible
agated in the Islamic world. color are then further distinguished: “natural color”

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 ABBASID LUSTERWARE AND THE AESTHETICS OF ʿAJAB 197

(lawn ṭabīʿī) and “accidental color” (lawn ʿaraḍī). Visu- ers of this opinion believe it to be. For irises are due only to
ally-complex, transparent bodies like gemstones and reflection, and reflection can take place only from a partic-
glass, were explained as having “accidental color”: ular position and not from all positions. Irises that appear
in the feathers of some animals are due only to reflection
As for transparent bodies, these are the heavens, fire, air of lights from the surfaces of the feathers of these animals,
and water, and some earthly bodies like rock-crystal, rubies, and for this reason the forms of these irises vary with the
glass, and other things like that. Transparent bodies do not lights. Thus when these animals, in whose feathers irises
have a natural color. A natural color is that which is insepa- appear, change their position with respect to the eye, or
rable from the body (mulāzim li’l-jism), like the blackness when the eye changes position with respect to them, the
of the eye, the whiteness of snow, the yellowness of saffron, forms of their irises undergo visible changes …. This is not
the redness of safflower, or the greenness of plants. As for the case with colors that exist in colored bodies.61
accidental color, it is like the blue seen in the atmosphere
or in deep water.56 In the following pages, Ibn al-Haytham describes light’s
efffect on the perception of color, maintaining that color
Interestingly, the theory that color could be an accident exists on the surface of any non-transparent body in
was supported by pointing to the surface efffects of abū actuality but that its appearance is afffected by the qual-
qalamūn-like materials. Such explanations are evident ity of light shining upon it. Furthermore, he writes spe-
in the writings of al-Biruni, for example. In his descrip- cifijically that abū qalamūn (the cloth) and abū
tion of the iridescent hue of yellow corundum (cited in qalamūn-like materials, such as the feathers of pea-
the previous section), al-Biruni explains: “What al-Kin- cocks, appear to be diffferent colors at diffferent times of
di said regarding the colors that appear upon movement day, but that this is due to the lights shining upon
indicates that they are not within it themselves but are them.62
rather signs (makhāyil) [like those in] abū qalamūn and The examples cited above speak to the fact that the
abū barāqīsh.”57 “Abū barāqīsh” is not precisely defijined cause of color was a problem that was still subject to
by al-Biruni, but he does mention that it has color- debate in Abbasid Iraq, much like the question of vision
changing feathers, and from later defijinitions it is pos- itself. Moreover, the examples brought forth by Ibn al-
sible to surmise that the term refers here to a bird with Haytham, the Ikhwan, and al-Kindi show that explana-
iridescent plumage.58 tions of the nature of color were complicated by
At approximately the same time that al-Biruni was observations of visual phenomena like the occasional
writing, Ibn al-Haytham presented in his Optics a quite coloration of translucent substances and iridescence.
diffferent conclusion regarding the nature of color. His In other words, the explanation of visually unstable, abu
explanation of color strikes the reader as closer to our qalamūn-like surfaces, a category that I have argued
own. This is due to the fact that his overarching theory should include lusterware, appears to have been an
of vision was based on intromission, the notion that especially intriguing and perplexing subject for intel-
sight is the result of luminous rays entering the eye. The- lectuals in the early Islamic world. As we will see, the
ories of intromission had been advanced in the Arabic- difffijiculty in understanding the cause of abū qalamūn-
speaking world before Ibn al-Haytham (by Ibn Sina [d. like colors may have been one of the very qualities that
1037], for example), but his explanation was to be far made them immensely appealing to people in Abbasid
more influential.59 In a statement opposing the conclu- Iraq.
sions of al-Kindi and al-Biruni, Ibn al-Haytham rejects
the analogy made between the prismatic colors seen on
the surfaces of abū qalamūn-like materials and the col- IV. ʿAJAB-PRODUCTION AS ARTISTIC EXCELLENCE
ors of other opaque objects.
Some people believed that color has no reality itself, and There was something particularly attractive about the
that it is something that comes about between the eye and illusive and difffijicult-to-describe surfaces that reflected
the light just as irises60 come about, and that color is not a light and showed the type of colors that the Ikhwan
form in the colored body. But the matter is not as the hold- called accidental (ʿaraḍī), al-Biruni called “signs” or

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198 MATTHEW D. SABA

“hints” (makhāyil), and Ibn al-Haytham called irises wonder from something is to be both confused and
(taqāẓīḥ). Al-Biruni writes that the colors that “appear delighted by it.67
between the eye and the eye of the sun,” like those of Continuing with his defijinition, Ibn Manzur states
abū qalamūn are “as beautiful as can be” (ʿalā aḥsan mā that: “man experiences wonder at something if its
takūn), and Ibn al-Haytham specifijically mentions iri- impression upon him is great and its cause is hidden.”
descence in his Optics, in a section on the perception The literary critic Jurjani (d. ca. 1078) had similarly writ-
of beauty.63 ten that ʿajab was “a change in the soul (nafs) through
Iridescent surfaces seem to have held substantial something the cause of which is unknown and is out of
intellectual and aesthetic interest for people in the early the ordinary.”68 The ʿAjāʾib al-makhlūqāt (Wonders of
Islamic world, but why exactly? Masʿudi offfers a clue in Creation), the fijirst known systematic exposition on
a description of Indian peacock feathers, whose irides- wonders in the Islamic world, compiled by Qazwini
cence, or “color-changing” (talawwun), he has just lik- (d. 1283), begins with the defijinition: “ʿajab is a state of
ened to the surface efffect of the gemstone he calls bewilderment that comes to people due to their inca-
bāqalamūn: pability of knowing the cause of something.” Ibn Man-
The talawwun of this type of gemstone—I mean bāqa-
zur thus explains that “the attribution of ʿajab to God is
lamūn—is like the talawwun of peacock feathers … In India, considered to be metaphorical because the causes of
I have seen colors on [peacocks] that become apparent to things are not hidden from Him and taʿajjub arises from
the sense of sight upon close scrutiny of them.64 They are things whose causes are hidden and have not been dis-
imperceptible and innumerable (lā tudrak wa-lā tuḥṣā), cerned.”69
and they do not resemble any other color, since the colors ʿAjab, then, is a desirable feeling that stems from
in their feathers follow successively in a wavelike motion one’s own inability to fully comprehend an event,
(tamawwuj). This [effect] is due to their grandeur, their
object, or phenomenon because it is perceived as too
large bodies and wide feathers, for peacocks in India are
of a wondrous quality (shaʾn ʿajīb).65 strange, too great, or too complicated. Masʿudi thus
found “ʿajīb” a fijitting word to depict the surfaces of pea-
For Masʿudi, the iridescent plumage of the peacock is cock feathers: the numerous colors were difffijicult to
not merely beautiful (ḥasan), but wondrous (ʿajīb). ʿAjīb describe and, as I have suggested, their cause was prob-
derives from the root ʿ-j-b, which also gives rise to the ably not fully understood by most people at the time.
nouns ʿajab and taʿajjub (wonder, astonishment, amaze- Masʿudi was, of course, not the only one to express
ment). While ʿajab and ʿajīb may not be especially pre- wonder at the abū qalamūn-like plumage of peacocks.
cise terms, their frequent occurrence in medieval Arabic In medieval compendia of wonders, the peacock almost
descriptions of craft and expressions of beauty suggests always made the list. In his ʿAjāʾib al-makhlūqāt, Qazwini
that it is worthwhile to look more closely at what qual- wrote that the peacock was the “most beautiful” among
ities were considered to provoke ʿajab. How was the birds and the “most excellent in terms of color.” He
experience of ʿajab described, and what was said to explained that it was surely a sign for believers of God’s
cause it? wisdom, for how else were its wondrous patterns
In his Lisān al-ʿArab, Ibn Manzur fijirst defijines ʿajab as (nuqūsh ʿajīb) and varied colors created within an egg,
“the denial or refusal of something that appears to you when it took the labors of many skilled artisans to make
due to its lack of ordinariness (qillat iʿtiyādihi),” and lumps of gold from the earth into attractive objects?70
again as “perceiving that a thing is unfamiliar (ghayr God is the paradigmatic artisan because His creations
ma ʾlūf) and abnormal (ghayr muʿtād).”66 For the verb are more ʿajīb.
taʿajjaba (to experience ʿajab), the Lisān offfers as syn- A sermon attributed to ʿAli ibn Abi Talib (d. 661) con-
onyms tafattana (to experience fijitna, or chaotic temp- tains a vivid description of the wondrousness of the pea-
tation) and taṣabbā (to experience ṣabwa, or a child-like, cock. This work was collated in 1010 by al-Sharif al-Radi
uncontrollable desire). The intensive form aʿjabahu is of Baghdad (d. 1016), in his compilation titled Nahj
glossed as “it delighted him” (sarrahu). To experience al-balāgha (Way of Eloquence).71 ʿAli begins by calling

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 ABBASID LUSTERWARE AND THE AESTHETICS OF ʿAJAB 199

attention to birds in general as examples of God’s won- (bahara al-ʿuqūl), preventing description of a creation that
drous creations.72 They are, he explains, a visible testa- He revealed to [our] eyes so that they might perceive it as
ment to God’s fijine craftsmanship (ṣanʿa).73 Again, the a definite, created, formed, and colored entity! [Glory to
Him] who has incapacitated tongues from giving a con-
metaphor of craft is employed and God is the arch-arti-
cise description of it, and paralyzed them, preventing them
san. The peacock is then distinguished as the most won- from conveying its characteristics!77
drous (al-aʿjab) among birds, and though the author
refers to the peacock’s elegant strut and lustful vigor, The peacock is a tangible entity there for eyes to see, yet
the most ink is spilled on its coloration and sheen: it overwhelms the mind and defijies description. It is
You would think the bases of the feathers to be the teeth sheer sensual inundation: the abū qalamūn-like colors
of combs made of silver, and those wondrous (ʿajīb) moons overload the intellect with more data than it can pro-
and suns, which have sprouted atop them, to be pure gold cess. That is precisely why it is al-aʿjab, the most won-
and chunks of emerald. If you were to compare them with drous, of birds.
that which grows in the earth, you would say, “a bouquet In the passages above, it is the unstable, inexplicable,
gathered of blossoms from every spring.” If you compared abū qalamūn-like efffect of color-changing and of sheen
it to clothing, it would be richly patterned vestments or
fine Yemeni cloaks. If you likened it to jewelry, it would
that is particularly ʿajab-inducing. Given this interest,
be multi-colored stones girded with bejeweled silver….The it is noteworthy that the surfaces of the bowls under
back of the neck is like an ewer, and the place from where consideration are often decorated with more explicit
the neck begins to the belly is the hue of the wasima plant visual links to peacock-plumage. Art historians have
from Yemen.74 It is like silk covering a polished mirror: it suggested, for example, that the eye-shaped motifs that
is as if it is covered in a black veil except that, due to the adorn the surfaces of many lusterware bowls, both in
excess of its sheen (kathrat māʾihi) and strength of its lus-
the Abbasid era and in later periods (as in fijig. 6), may
ter (shiddat barīqihi), it seems a verdant green is mixed in.
Along the openings of its ears, there is a daisy-colored line have been intended to represent peacock feathers, thus
as fine as a pen stroke, snowy white. Its brightness (bayāḍ) accentuating the analogy between the bowls’ iridescent
glistens through the darkness around it. How few colors surfaces and the plumes.78 This interpretation could be
are there that it did not take in portion and improve in extended to the use of the herringbone patterns and
terms of the amount of its polish (ṣiqāl) and luster (barīq), overlapping shingle-shaped motifs that fijigure promi-
and glitter (baṣīṣ) and brilliance (rawnaq)? Like scattered
nently in the polychrome wares of ninth-century Iraq
blossoms that neither the rain of spring nor sun of summer
has weathered….If you studied one of the hairs from its (fijig. 8). That these would have suggested plumage to
feathers closely, it would show you the red of a rose and their original audiences is supported by the fact that
then the green of an emerald and then again the yellow of they not only appear alone as a pattern but occur regu-
refined gold.75 larly on renderings of birds’ wings in the monochrome
The sermon is written to provoke wonder through allu- wares (fijig. 9), as well as in metalwork of the early Islamic
sions to the fantastic and the sensual. The abū qalamūn- period (fijig. 10).79
like sheen of the feathers is particularly emphasized, It is evident from medieval Islamic discussions of
with no less than fijive words from separate roots used crafts and their fijine attributes that ʿajab or taʿajjub was
to describe it: barīq, rawnaq, ṣiqāl, bayāḍ, and baṣīṣ. an appropriate and, moreover, desirable reaction on the
Reflectiveness in general emerges here as a signifijicant part of those beholding such objects. In her study of geo-
ʿajab-inducing quality.76 ʿAli ends with a description of metric ornament in Islamic architecture, Gülrü
the experience of ʿajab: Necipoğlu has stressed that in many classical Islamic
theories of aesthetic perception, a reaction of “pleasur-
How can those of profound sagacity come to describe
able wonder” stemming from extended contemplation
this, or the most gifted minds attain it? [How can] the
expressions of one describing it even hope to form a fit-
of works of craft was sought after.80 One implication of
ting description? The smallest fraction of it has disabled these theories, Necipoğlu proposes, is that the modes
imaginations (awhām) from grasping it and tongues from of ornament that began to develop in Abbasid Iraq,
describing it. Glory to Him who has overwhelmed minds characterized by intricate and infijinitely extendible geo-

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200 MATTHEW D. SABA

Fig. 8. Fragment of a polychrome luster vessel found at Bahnasa, Egypt. Iraq, ninth century, 12.7 cm (maximum width).
London, Victoria and Albert Museum, inv. no. C.763-1921. (Photo © the Victoria and Albert Museum)

Fig. 9. Monochrome luster jar. Iraq, late ninth or tenth century, 28.2 cm (height) × 23.2 cm (diameter). Washington, D.C.,
Smithsonian Institution, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery: Purchase, F1953.90. (Photo: courtesy of the Freer
Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery)

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 ABBASID LUSTERWARE AND THE AESTHETICS OF ʿAJAB 201

Fig. 10. Octagonal platter with image of a simurgh (detail of

central medallion on the right). Iran, tenth or eleventh cen-
tury, gilt silver, 35.8 cm (diameter). Berlin, Museum für Isla-
mische Kunst, inv. no. I. 4926. (Photo: courtesy of Bildarchiv
Preussischer Kulturbesitz)

metric modules, could be seen as a “willful complica-

man who appeared to be making a gesture with his hands
tion of vision” in order to induce a reaction of ʿajab.
at the viewer. After that, the viewers’ attention was diverted
The epistles of the Ikhwan al-Safaʾ support this the- away from the colored images and towards his, and there
ory. In an epistle on the applied crafts (al-ṣanāʾiʿ was taʿajjub due to his creation being ʿajīb, and the beauty
al-ʿamaliyya),81 the Ikhwan explain that while some of its gesture (ḥusn ishāratihi) and the form of its move-
works of craft are elevated due to the material from ment (hayʾat ḥarakatihi).83
which they are made, or to the fact that they satisfy a
need, others are of value “by way of the craft itself” (min The work of art, in this case a drawing, is judged by its
jihat al-ṣināʿa nafsihā).82 Like music and juggling, paint- ability to induce taʿajjub in passers-by. Bright and shiny
ing is one such craft: it has no inherent monetary or colors appear here again on the list of qualities that are
practical value, but is considered valuable because of considered ʿajīb. An additional item may also be added
its ability to produce ʿajab in the viewer: to our list of wonder-inducing qualities: it is the illusion
of movement that makes the charcoal-drawing more
As for the craft of the painters, they do nothing more than ʿajab-inducing than the colorful pictures.
imitate existent forms, be they natural, artificial, or of the In the tradition of Arabic poetry, the idiom of ʿajab
soul, yet their skill is enough to draw the viewer’s eyes to is also used to convey the impression that praiseworthy
[the depiction] and away from the existent thing itself due
works of craft made on those who beheld them. An
to taʿajjub regarding its beauty and brilliant appearance. It
also happens that the difference between artisans can be excellent example is a poem by Ibn al-Rumi (d. 896)
quite large. It has been said that a man from one place or describing a wine cup, supposedly written for Abu
another used to paint images and likenesses (ṣuwar wa- al-Hasan ʿAli al-Munajjim (d. 888–89), a courtier at
tamāthīl) in bright pigments and beautiful, luminous col- Samarra and son of the famous Baghdadi astronomer
ors, and that viewers who saw them experienced taʿajjub, Yahya al-Munajjim. The poet opens by depicting the
due to the [image’s] beauty and brilliance. But there was cup as a wonder of nature too difffijicult to describe with
deficiency in his work such that a skilled and talented art-
words:84
ist passed by, stopped to closely scrutinize them, and then
wished to offer a critique; so he took a piece of charcoal 1. Oh marvel of marvels! (badāʾiʿ)
from the road and depicted next to those images a Zanji   It captivates every intellect, attracts every eye

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202 MATTHEW D. SABA

2. So complete in beauty and elegance eye describes as “very much alive,” are imbued with a
  That one describing it cannot give a fitting descrip- sense of movement: the fijigures appear to be advancing
   tion and retreating, and the gestures appear real. Even after
He continues, focusing especially on the cup’s translu- he reaches out and touches the paintings, the pleasur-
cence. Here, it is the surface efffect of the material rather able illusion continues, the poet imagining that Khus-
than the material itself (he never specifijies what it is) raw Parviz is actually there offfering him a drink. He
that is of primary interest: again expresses bewilderment at the paintings, asking
5. Crafted from a substance, clear by nature himself in line 34: “Is this a dream that closed my eyes
  Not clarified through the process of alchemy to doubt?”
6. The eye penetrates right through it, so that you see [the Both Buhturi’s poem and Ibn al-Rumi’s were descrip-
  eye] tions of the ʿajab experienced when viewing works of
  Missing [the cup], due to the thinness of its walls craft; at the same time, these poems were themselves
7. Like air without dust motes mixed with light works of craft, made to provoke ʿajab. They are exam-
  Nay—finer than that and clearer ples of a new style of poetry, cultivated in Baghdad and
later at the Abbasid court in Samarra, whose very aim
As a fijinal example of the importance of ʿajab to the
was to astonish the audience through the use of inge-
evaluation and description of works of craft, I would like
nious turns of phrase and rhetorical conventions. This
to quote the Abbasid court poet al-Buhturi (d. 897–98)
style, dubbed badīʿ by the Abbasid prince and poet Ibn
on the wall paintings in the Arch of Khusraw at Ctesi-
al-Muʿtazz (d. 908), was replete with trickery and word-
phon.85 Built by the Sasanians before the rise of Islam, play such as the use of antithesis (muṭābaqa) along with
the Arch (actually the vault of a monumental iwan in a paronomasia (tajnīs), so that two words that sounded
larger palace complex) was well known to the Abbasids similar but had opposite meanings would appear in the
and widely considered a wonder of craftsmanship.86 same line, or two semantically-unrelated words of the
Buhturi’s detailed description comes in the middle of same root would be used together, showing the poet’s
the poem: ability to manipulate the Arabic language.88 Another
21. It [the hall] would inform you of a troop’s wonders tactic of the new generation was the use of unexpected
(ʿajāʾib), metaphors that destabilized traditional imagery, such
   Their record does not grey with obscurity as when the poet Bashshar ibn Burd (d. ca. 783) some-
22. When you see the panel [depicting] the Battle of what infamously compared the strength of his lover’s
  Antioch perfume to the smell of onions.89 Jurjani explains the
   You tremble among Byzantines and Persians attraction of unexpected comparisons and images in
23. The Fates stand still, while Anushirvan terms of their ability to elicit ʿajab in his analysis of a
   Leads the ranks onward under the banner
poem in which the petals of a narcissus are compared
24. In a deep green robe over yellow.
   It appears dyed in saffron. fijirst to gemstones and then to flames:
25. Men in combat are under his command If a thing manifests from an unknown place or is extracted
   Some are quiet and hushed. from an unmined source, then the soul experiences more
26. Some are intense, rushing forward with spear-points. longing for it and it is more worthy of [the soul’s] infatua-
   Others are cautious of them, using shields. tion. The effect of taʿajjub and finding something strange
27. The eye describes them as very much alive is similar when you find something in a place that is not its
   They signal to one another mutely [usual] place, or if you discover something that was non-
28. My wavering (irtiyābī) about them increases existent or unknown to begin with. If someone were to
   Until my hands establish them [as being inani- liken the narcissus to other plants or to grant it a likeness
   mate] through touch.87 with something colorful, you would not find strangeness
(gharāba) in it, and this example would not be considered
The wonders of the building and its decorative program beautiful.90
confound the poet’s senses. The paintings, which the

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 ABBASID LUSTERWARE AND THE AESTHETICS OF ʿAJAB 203

Badīʿ, of course, not only means “new,” but “marvelous” range of subject matter and styles that have tradition-
and “amazing”: it is a synonym of ʿajīb. In Abbasid Iraq, ally been interpreted as representing diffferent aesthetic
just as there was an appreciation for visual phenomena sensibilities. Keeping in mind the expectations and
and works of art that befuddled the intellect, so too was interests outlined above, however, the seemingly dispa-
there a notable taste for poetry that genuinely surprised rate themes and modes of composition employed in
or even shocked the audience: excellent art produced these bowls may, in fact, be seen as complementary
ʿajab. expressions of a similar concern with the ʿajīb.
The surface of the Louvre Bowl is covered with fleshy
V. ABBASID LUSTERWARE AND THE AESTHETICS blossoms and tendrils. Adding to the somewhat chaotic
OF ʿAJAB efffect of these motifs is the application of diffferent col-
ors of luster that are encouraged to bleed into one
This essay has thus far been largely concerned with de- another. At the base, a blossom is one of the few forms
veloping a vocabulary appropriate to understanding to emerge relatively easily out of the sea of curves and
lusterware and other works of craft made in Abbasid spirals. The motif is simply constructed: a central tear-
Iraq. I began with the observation that the vocabulary drop flanked by two volute-like forms. In the latter, ruby
used to describe the development from polychrome to red runs into a brighter yellow orange and swirls of moss
monochrome (“less colorful,” “more abstract,” “fijigural green appear in the yellow stain at the tips of the volutes’
instead of vegetal”) led to the conclusion that the later spirals. It is difffijicult to tell where one shape ends and
types were aesthetically incompatible with the former. the next begins, and colors often merge seamlessly into
In the previous section, it emerged that in early-Islamic one another. The phrase Masʿudi used to describe the
Iraq works of craft were expected to be able to elicit wondrous qualities of the peacock comes to mind: lā
signifijicant reactions of ʿajab in viewers, and that objects tudrak wa-lā tuḥṣā—these patterns are indecipherable,
and monuments were often judged according to this the shapes innumerable. The methods of composition
criterion. Some of the qualities consistently described and coloration on this bowl make the design difffijicult to
as ʿajīb included surface efffects like reflection or irides- perceive without extended, close observation, suggest-
cence, a sense of movement, and the unexpected fusion ing the same “willful complication of vision” identifijied
of forms or images. Taken together, these characteristics as an ʿajab-producing strategy in other forms of art men-
form what I will call an “aesthetics of ʿajab”—a set of tioned in the previous section.
expectations, informed by contemporary interests, to Even the choice of patterns in some of the poly-
which Abbasid lusterware could be held. chrome vessels may be seen to evoke opposing sensa-
Again comparing the Louvre Bowl and the Flag- tions, thus encouraging prolonged, active engagement
bearer Bowl, it is clear that the qualities of both speak on the part of the viewer. Pointed herringbone patches
to the aesthetics of ʿajab. Despite their change in pal- are juxtaposed with rounded leaf-like forms (as in fijig.
ette, they share an aspect that was perhaps of greater 8), and curvilinear flowers alternate with rectilinear dia-
interest to an Abbasid-period audience: they are, as dis- mond patterns (as in fijig. 3). The tactile sensations
cussed earlier, both abū qalamūn-like. The descriptions evoked by some of these patterns, ranging from rough
of other abū qalamūn-like objects in the sources cited (the stippled surface in fijig. 4) to soft (the fleshy leaves
above suggest that the appeal of these pieces derived depicted in fijig. 1), encourage the viewer to reach out and
precisely from the enigmatic nature of the subtle trans- touch, suggesting again an interest in visual trickery and
formations in color and light seen on their surfaces. prolonged contemplation. It is interesting to note that
Each vessel, with its brilliant, visually unstable surface, the juxtaposition of variegated patterns such as these
defijies succinct explanation. The surface efffect was was, in fact, a wondrous quality of marble paneling
important to the design of these bowls, but it was not praised in descriptions of architecture during the Abba-
the only component of their visual appeal. Abbasid lus- sid period and, contemporaneously, in Byzantine litera-
terwares are covered with motifs encompassing a wide ture.91 In a poem describing the al-Kamil palace, built

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204 MATTHEW D. SABA

by the Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil (r. 847–61), Buhturi that he could paint a dancer as if she were emerging
calls attention to the decorations of the interior, point- from the wall, he was one-upped by the second, who
ing toward the juxtaposition of patterns in the stone: claimed that he could paint the dancer as if she were
19. Its roofs raised to the gusting winds retreating into the wall. The latter was dubbed aʿjab
   The marvels (ʿajāʾib) of its fantastic beauty (more wondrous) by the crowd, perhaps because it was
  resplendent a less common efffect. Both, however, elicited wonder
20. As if the glass wall of its interior though the illusion of movement engendered by the lay-
   Were waves beating upon the seashore ering of colors (white on black and yellow on red).
21. As if the striped marble Though it is risky to take this anecdote as evidence
   Where its pattern meets the opposite prospect
of extant techniques, the use of contrasting colors to
22. Were streaks of rainclouds arrayed between clouds,
  dark and light create a sense of depth would have been one strategy
   And striped, coming together and mingling…92 available in contexts where single-point perspective
was not employed, and this strategy is actually evident
While the designs on the polychrome specimens added in the monochrome fijigural lusterware bowls. Restrict-
to the wondrous, abū qalamūn-like surface efffect ing the color palette allowed the potter to experiment
through their complexity and variety, a diffferent strat- with such techniques in order to convey a sense of
egy appears to have been at work in the monochrome motion in the designs, making an otherwise unremark-
types like the Flag-bearer Bowl, although it would have able image more wondrous.
been no less wondrous to Abbasid-period viewers. In Even in the Flag-bearer Bowl the sense of outward
this example, the fijigure is quite clearly rendered, and motion is unstable. Inside the flag, white patches appear
actually seems to leap out of the bowl. This efffect is due that complicate what is intended as foreground and
to the use of patches of stippling to create the illusion
background. The large white circle in the center of the
of a background. The painter has also left white spaces
flag could be read as a hole cutting through the fabric,
around the main fijigures (the flag bearer, the peacock,
revealing white ground behind with raised patches of
the vegetal form on the right-hand side, and the flag),
stippling and pseudo-Arabic script; or it could be read
which are, by contrast, rendered in fat strokes of luster.
as a decoration on the flag. The block of white with
The result of this technique is that one layer momen-
forms resembling Arabic letters to the right of the pea-
tarily appears to be on top of the other, raising the
monochrome fijigures up offf the surface, toward the cock is similarly unstable: it can be viewed as either
viewer. white on gold or gold on white.
In the descriptions of wondrous objects discussed The tendency toward fijigure-ground ambiguity is
above, the illusion of movement is mentioned consis- more pronounced in a bowl excavated at Susa and now
tently as a wonder-producing quality. The peacock and housed in the Louvre (fijig. 11), where one’s initial impulse
other abū qalamūn-like surfaces are characterized by is to read the design on the front as white palmette
changes in color and the appearance of sheens that rep- motifs with gold pseudo-script on a gold ground.94 From
resent one sort of motion. Buhturi describes the vivid this perspective, the design is executed in reserve,
gestures of the apparently advancing and retreating sol- meaning that the painters had completely reversed the
diers: this sense of motion is the primary cause of the relationship that governs the more easily legible pieces,
poet’s amazement at the images. The Ikhwan al-Safa ʾ which feature fijigures painted in luster against a white
also identify the illusion of movement in the depiction ground with stippling. Turn these bowls over, however,
of a man rendered in charcoal as a source of ʿajab. and the opposite pertains: the backs of almost all mono-
Indeed, motion fijigures prominently in the oft-quoted chrome bowls are decorated with quick brush-strokes
passage from Maqrizi’s Khiṭaṭ (fijifteenth century) of luster, re-establishing the gold-on-white relationship
describing a contest held by the Fatimid vizier al-Yazuri overturned in the front. The relationship between fore-
(r. 1040–58) in which two painters were each asked to ground and background is thus never quite stable on
submit an image for judgment.93 After the fijirst boasted the surfaces of the monochrome bowls.

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 ABBASID LUSTERWARE AND THE AESTHETICS OF ʿAJAB 205

Fig. 11. Fragmentary monochrome luster bowl excavated at Susa. Iraq, late ninth or tenth century. Paris, Musée du Louvre,
inv. no. MAO S. 454. (Photo: Claire Tabbagh, courtesy of the Musée du Louvre / Réunion des Musées Nationaux)

The potential to destabilize fijigure and ground on the a hallmark of the Abbasid period, is characterized by
surfaces of vessels rendered in only one color of luster the use of repeat-patterns loosely based on vegetal
is taken yet a step further in a group of monochrome forms that are carved into the surface with beveled
wares found in several collections characterized by veg- edges, making it difffijicult for the viewer to discern fore-
etal designs that completely dissolve foreground and ground and background. Ernst Herzfeld, the fijirst to
background. For example, the design of a bowl in the explain the development of this style in an Islamic con-
David Collection (fijig. 12)95 can be read two ways: as a text, understood its emergence and spread as the result
series of white s-hook tendrils on a golden ground or as of a Muslim aversion to images and a Semitic impulse
a vine composed of long leaves with volutes at one end toward abstraction.97 While the “Islamicness” of this
painted on a white ground. They are both equally con- style has rightly been contested, Herzfeld’s ideas still
vincing, and as viewers shift their perspective back and remain influential today.98 It makes more sense in light
forth between the two possibilities, one appears to rise of the evidence presented above, however, to under-
up from the ground while the other recedes. Not only is stand the proliferation of strategies for fijigure-ground
the design characterized by complete visual instability, reversal apparent in the Beveled Style and in other
but it also provides the illusion of unceasing forward- forms of Abbasid material culture, such as the mono-
backward motion. chrome luster bowls discussed above, as a response to
The pattern on this bowl immediately recalls the so- an increased interest in the ʿajab-producing qualities of
called “Beveled Style” of carved architectural decora- motion and visual complexity. This could be achieved
tion, fijirst identifijied in the stuccos of Samarra but also in the depiction of both fijigural and non-fijigural subject
attested in carved and painted woodwork, as well as in matter.
marble and rock crystal dating from ninth- and tenth- The seemingly disparate range of styles and motifs
century Iraq and Egypt.96 This style, long understood as represented by the Abbasid lusterware housed in muse-

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206 MATTHEW D. SABA

Fig. 12. Monchrome luster bowl. Iraq, late ninth or tenth century, 6 cm (height) × 20.5 cm (diameter). Copenhagen, the
David Collection, inv. no. 26/1962. (Photo: Pernille Klemp, courtesy of the David Collection)

ums today may, then, be understood as speaking to the CONCLUSION

same underlying motivation: the creation of a product
that is ʿajīb. The polychrome and monochrome types When viewed in terms that reflect the interests of
may have diffferent colors and motifs but both have sur- people who lived during the Abbasid period, the various
faces as unstable as abū qalamūn. The complex and con- types of Abbasid lusterware do not appear to be aes-
trasting, difffijicult-to-read vegetal forms often used in the thetically incompatible with one another, but rather
polychrome varieties, the monochrome motifs that represent a set of diffferent approaches, evolving over
destabilize fijigure-ground relations, and the mono- time, to producing ʿajab, the experience of being plea-
chrome fijigures that appear to jump out of the bowl: all surably wonder-struck. The survey of texts and objects
suggest strategies intended to complicate the reading conducted here suggests that surface efffects like reflec-
of the overall design on the piece in question. The tion, sheen, and iridescence were considered to be par-
designs are complex, full of movement and pleasurable ticularly conducive to eliciting this reaction in viewers.
contrasts. Abstract or naturalistic, vegetal or fijigural, Also important were the use of complex, difffijicult-to-
monochrome or polychrome, they can be seen as an decipher motifs, the creation of a sense of motion, and
attempt to fulfijill what has emerged as a far more impor- the juxtaposition of dissimilar patterns, textures, and
tant expectation of art in the Abbasid period. forms.

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 ABBASID LUSTERWARE AND THE AESTHETICS OF ʿAJAB 207

While the reflective, semi-iridescent surfaces of for providing measurement information on the sherds housed
Abbasid lusterwares are unique to the medium, other there. Julia Gonnella and Christa Kienapfel of the Museum für
Islamische Kunst in Berlin graciously helped me obtain pho-
characteristics of these pieces that have been identifijied tographs of objects in that collection. Support for photograph
as ʿajab-inducing are shared with diffferent types of craft. reproduction costs was provided by the University of Chicago,
For example, the interest in fijigure-ground reversal and and Christine Mehring, Joel Snyder, and Joyce Kuechler of the
a sense of motion is amply evident in fragments of Department of Art History were pivotal in helping me secure this
funding. In the article, translations of texts are my own unless
carved stucco and wood dating from the ninth and otherwise noted.
tenth centuries that once covered architectural sur-
faces. Thus, while lusterware has been particularly ger- 1. Oleg Grabar, “Between Connoisseurship and Technology:
mane to this discussion, the “aesthetics of ʿajab,” if A Review,” Muqarnas 5 (1988): 8.
2. The term “Abbasid lusterware” is not intended here to
fleshed out further, could be a productive framework imply the patronage of the Abbasid court itself. Rather,
for understanding broader developments in the mate- I will use “Abbasid” in this essay to refer to this group of
rial culture of Abbasid Iraq that are not limited to one lusterwares because they were produced in the Abbasid
medium or type of object. Empire, which was established in 750 in Iraq and remained
the dominant political power in the eastern Islamic world
In taking up Grabar’s challenge to further integrate
until the middle of the tenth century. While the distribu-
one type of pottery into the fabric of the society in tion of these wares was by no means limited to Abbasid
which it was produced and used, I hope to have made lands, archaeological excavations show that it was avail-
a case for further research on ceramics and other “indus- able for use in many of its cities, including the ninth-cen-
trial arts” as a way to establish resonances between tury capital of Samarra, as well as Susa (a regional center),
and Siraf (a port city). For fijinds from Samarra, see Friedrich
material culture and the history of aesthetic experience. Sarre, Die Keramik von Samarra (Berlin, 1925), 36–43; for
Ceramics are justifijiably valued by archaeologists and Susa, see Monique Kervran, “Les niveaux islamiques du
art historians for the evidence they provide regarding secteur oriental du Tépé de l’Apadana,” Cahiers de la Délé-
the movement of goods, the history of technology, and gation Archéologique Française en Iran 7 (1977): 75–161; for
Siraf, see David Whitehouse, “Islamic Pottery in Iraq and
the dating of buildings and sites. As I have argued in this the Persian Gulf: The Ninth and Tenth Centuries,” Annali
essay, their form and decoration can also speak volumes dell’Istituto Orientale di Napoli 39 (1979): 45–61.
about the aesthetic interests alive in the societies that 3. This division was fijirst suggested by Ernst Kühnel in “Die
produced them and even the sorts of aesthetic experi- ʿabbâsidischen Lüsterfayencen,” Ars Islamica 1, 2 (1934):
149–59. This article has been translated into English by
ences possible among the people who used and took Christiane J. Gruber and Jonathan M. Bloom as “ʿAbbasid
pleasure in them. Lustrewares,” in Early Islamic Art and Architecture, ed.
Jonathan M. Bloom (Aldershot, U.K., and Burlington, Vt.,
Department of Art History, 2002), 87–95.
4. For a discussion of motif groups, see Robert Mason, Shine
University of Chicago Like the Sun: Lustre-Painted and Associated Pottery from the
Medieval Middle East (Costa Mesa, Calif., 2004), 25–28.
5. The relative chronology of polychrome, followed by bi-
chrome and then monochrome was suggested in Kühnel,
NOTES “Die ʿabbâsidischen Lüsterfeyencen.” For more recent dis-
cussions of the chronology, see Oliver Watson, Ceramics
Author’s note: I would like to thank Persis Berlekamp, Richard from Islamic Lands (London, 2004), 183, and Mason, Shine
Neer, and Barry Flood for providing criticisms on this paper at Like the Sun, 29–31, and table 3.2. Jessica Hallett has sug-
various stages, as well as the members of the 2010 selection com- gested that the chronology be modifijied to bi-chrome fol-
mittee for the Margaret B. Ševčenko Prize for their comments. lowed by polychrome and then monochrome, based on
The attendees of the 2010 Historians of Islamic Art Association comparisons between the bi-chrome luster and luster-
(HIAA) majlis in Chicago and the 2011 symposium of the Ernst- stained glass from the eighth-century. See Jessica Hallett,
Herzfeld-Gesellschaft in Berlin also provided valuable feedback “Trade and Innovation: The Rise of a Pottery Industry in
and suggestions. Special thanks go to Mariam Rosser-Owen for Abbasid Basra” (PhD diss., University of Oxford, 1999).
facilitating access, on more than one occasion, to the ceramic 6. A parallel can be drawn here to the interpretation of the
collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, giving me the slip-painted wares produced in tenth-century Khurasan. In
opportunity to observe specimens of lusterware up close, and this case, two roughly contemporary types, one with fijigural

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208 MATTHEW D. SABA

decoration and the other adorned with Arabic calligraphy, Jawharī Nīshābūrī, Javāhirnāma-i Niẓāmī, ed. Īraj Afshār
were assumed to be aesthetically incompatible and to rep- (Tehran, 1383 [2004]), 352.
resent the tastes of diffferent social groups. See Richard 10. The luster-painting technique employed in thirteenth-
W. Bulliet, “Pottery Styles and Social Status in Medieval century Iran is described in a lapidary written in the late
Khurasan,” in Archaeology, Annales, and Ethnohistory, ed. thirteenth or early fourteenth century. See Abū al-Qāsim
A. Bernard Knapp (Cambridge, 1992), 75–82. For a criti- al-Kāshānī, ʿArāyis al-javāhir wa-nafāyis al-aṭāyib, ed. Īraj
cism of this interpretation, see Oya Pancaroğlu, “Serving Afshār (Tehran, 1345 [1966-67]), 338–47. These instructions
Wisdom: The Contents of Samanid Epigraphic Pottery,” in have been translated by James W. Allan as “Abū’l-Qāsim’s
Studies in Islamic and Later Indian Art from the Arthur M. Treatise on Ceramics,” Iran 11 (1973): 111–20. Detailed dis-
Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums (Cam- cussions of the technique include Alan Caiger-Smith, Lus-
bridge, Mass., 2002), 59–75 tre Pottery: Technique, Tradition, and Innovation in Islam
7. Several scholars have pointed to the ubiquity of the idea and the Western World (London, 1985), 210–20.
of wonder in Arabic and Persian discussions of craft, sug- 11. For luster-stained glass and its possible connections to lus-
gesting its potential signifijicance in understanding develop- ter-painted pottery, see Carl Johan Lamm, Oriental Glass
ments in visual art in the medieval Islamic world. See espe- of Mediaeval Date Found in Sweden and the Early History of
cially Oleg Grabar, The Mediation of Ornament (Princeton, Lustre-Painting (Stockholm, 1941), 18–29. For a discussion
N.J., 1992), 85–86, and Gülru Necipoğlu, The Topkapı Scroll: of the technique of luster painting on glass, see Stefano
Geometry and Ornament in Islamic Architecture. Topkapı Carboni and David Whitehouse, Glass of the Sultans (New
Palace Museum Library MS H. 1956 (Santa Monica, Calif., York, 2001), 34–35 and 199–201.
1995), 213–14. The usefulness of ʿajab as a concept in the 12. For a discussion of the styles and techniques related to
study of Islamic aesthetics is debated in Nasser Rabbat, cobalt-painted wares, see Vera Tamari, “Abbasid Blue-on-
“ʿAjīb and Gharīb: Artistic Perception in Medieval Arabic White Ware,” in Islamic Art in the Ashmolean Museum, Part
Sources,” The Medieval History Journal 9, 1 (2006): 99–113. Two (Oxford, 1995), 117–45.
More recently, Persis Berlekamp has explored the role of 13. Basra, Iraq has been suggested as the specifijic place of
ʿajab in Islamic wonders-of-creation manuscripts, both as manufacture for these wares, based on petrographic anal-
a sought-after aesthetic experience provided for the reader ysis of kiln furniture attributed to the site in comparison
and as an idea employed by the authors of these books to with examples of the pottery itself. See Robert Mason and
organize and understand God’s Creation. See Persis Berle- Edward Keall, “The ʿAbbāsid Glazed Wares of Sīrāf and
kamp, Wonder, Image and Cosmos in Medieval Islam (New the Baṣra Connection,” Iran 29 (1991): 51–66. For a more
Haven, 2011), especially “A Question of Approach,” 8–22. detailed characterization of the ceramic body fabric associ-
8. In recent surveys of Islamic ceramics, both style and tech- ated with Basra, see Mason, Shine Like the Sun, 37–44.
nology are used to classify the material. In Ceramics from 14. For an overview, see Alastair Northedge and Derek Kennet,
Islamic Lands, for example, Watson organizes the range “The Samarra Horizon,” in Grube, Cobalt and Lustre, 21–35.
of wares represented in the Al-Sabah Collection accord- A relative chronology based on the Susa material is given
ing to technological families (e.g., opaque-glazed wares vs. in Kervran, “Les niveaux islamiques.”
underglaze painted wares) and, within these, according 15. Archaeological evidence for the importation of Chinese
to style (e.g., slip-painted wares with calligraphic designs ceramics into the Abbasid Empire during the ninth century
vs. slip-painted wares with abstract designs). For a similar is available from Samarra and Siraf. For Samarra, see Sarre,
approach, see also Ernst J. Grube, ed., Cobalt and Lustre: Die Keramik von Samarra, 54. For Siraf, see David White-
The First Centuries of Islamic Pottery, The Nasser D. Khalili house, “Chinese Stoneware from Siraf: The Earliest Finds,”
Collection of Islamic Art 9 (London, 1994). In Shine Like in South Asian Archaeology: Papers from the First Interna-
the Sun, Mason relies more heavily on the analysis of tional Conference of South Asian Archaeologists Held in the
shapes and glaze composition to construct chronological University of Cambridge, ed. Norman Hammond (London,
sequences of ceramics. 1973), 241–55. For a larger history of Chinese ceramics in
9. This term is attested in a recently discovered treatise attrib- the Persian Gulf, see Axelle Rougelle, “Les importations de
uted to Jābir ibn Ḥayyān (fl. late eighth or early ninth cen- céramiques chinoises dans le Golfe arabo-persique (VIIIe–
tury), titled Kitāb al-Durra al-maknūna, copied in a thir- XIe siècles),” Archéologie Islamique 2 (1991): 5–46.
teenth-century manuscript: Paris, Bibliothèque nationale 16. Sarre, Die Keramik von Samarra, 71. See also Yolande Crowe,
de France, Ms. Arabe 6915. See Ahmad Y. Al-Hassan, “An “Early Islamic Pottery and China,” Transactions of the Ori-
Eighth Century Arabic Treatise on the Colouring of Glass: ental Ceramic Society 41 (1975–77): 263–78, and Alastair
Kitāb al-Durra al-maknūna (The Book of the Hidden Pearl) Northedge, “Friedrich Sarre’s Die Keramik von Samarra in
of Jābir ibn Ḥayyān (c. 721–c. 815),” Arabic Sciences and Perspective,” in Continuity and Change in Northern Meso-
Philosophy 19 (2009): 121–56. The term is also attested in potamia from the Hellenistic to the Early Islamic Period, ed.
later lapidaries, e.g., Abū Rayḥān Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad Karin Bartl and Stefan R. Hauser (Berlin, 1996), 229–58.
al-Bīrūnī, Kitāb al-Jamāhir fī al-jawāhir, ed. Yūsuf al-Hādī 17. On “influence studies” in art-historical scholarship, see
(Tehran, 1995), 430; and Muḥammad ibn-i Abī al-Barakāt “Excursus against Influence,” in Michael Baxandall, Pat-

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 ABBASID LUSTERWARE AND THE AESTHETICS OF ʿAJAB 209

terns of Intention: On the Historical Explanation of Pictures in Fatimid Cairo that would have been available for sale
(New Haven, 1985), 58–62. along with monochrome luster-painted ceramics. Either
18. Watson, Ceramics from Islamic Lands, 183. way, the two wares are closely related in terms of technol-
19. Trinitat Pradell et al., “The Innovation of Lustre: Iraq 9th ogy and surface efffect. For a discussion of this matter, see
and 10th centuries ad,” Journal of Archaeological Science Lamm, Oriental Glass, 44.
35, 5 (2008): 1201–15, and Hallett, “Trade and Innovation,” 29. Nāṣir-i Khusraw, Nasir-i Khusraw’s Book of Travels =
134–35. Safarnāmah, ed. and trans. Wheeler Thackston (Costa
20. E.g., Caiger-Smith, Lustre Pottery, 31. Mesa, Calif., 2001), 70. This translation difffers slightly from
21. Watson, Ceramics from Islamic Lands, 47. Thackston’s.
22. Géza Fehérvári, “Two Early ʿAbbāsid Lustre Bowls and the 30. Nasir-i Khusraw defijines būqalamūn as follows: “In the city
Influence of Central Asia,” Oriental Art 9, 1 (Spring, 1963): of Tinnis they weave a cloth called būqalamūn, which is
79–88; Johanna Zick-Nissen, “Medieval Ceramic Bowl found nowhere else in the world. It is a colorful cloth that
Decorations Interpreted as Constellations,” in Memorial appears to be a diffferent color at every time of day. It is
Volume of the VIth International Congress of Iranian Art and exported to the East and West from Tinnis alone. The ruler
Archaeology, Oxford, September 11–16, 1972, ed. M. Y. Kiani of Byzantium, they say, sent a message to offfer the Sultan
(Tehran, 1976), 349–67; and Ulrike al-Khamis, “The Iconog- of Egypt a hundred towns for Tinnis. The sultan refused,
raphy of Early Islamic Lusterware from Mesopotamia: New knowing he wished to procure qaṣab (a type of fijine linen)
Considerations,” Muqarnas 7 (1990): 109–19. and būqalamūn from it”: ibid., 49–50.
23. Ernst J. Grube, Islamic Pottery of the Eighth to the Fifteenth 31. For the various meanings for the term, see A. J. W. Huis-
Century in the Keir Collection (London, 1976), 45. man, Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition (henceforth
24. For example, the central fijigure on a monochrome luster EI2) (Leiden, 1954–2005), s.v. “Abū Ḳalamūn”; and Lamm,
bowl in the Ashmolean Museum has been identifijied as Oriental Glass, 39–44. For abū qalamūn as a term used to
deriving from representations of Bodhisattvas in the Cen- describe the surface efffect of luster, see Fahmida Suleman,
tral Asian tradition (published in James W. Allan, Islamic “From Shards to Bards: Pottery-Making in Historic Cairo,”
Ceramics [Oxford, 1991], 8, and discussed in Fehérvári, in Living in Historic Cairo: Past and Present in an Islamic
“Two Early ʿAbbāsid Lustre Bowls”). While such an image City, ed. Farhad Daftary, Elizabeth Fernea, and Azim Nanji
may have been considered “foreign” in an Islamic context, (London and Seattle, 2010), 138. A more extensive discus-
Hindu and Buddhist images that had been plundered as sion is provided by Suleman in her doctoral thesis, “The
booty did circulate during the Abbasid period and were Lion, the Hare and Lustre Ware: Studies in the Iconogra-
not unknown to the population of Iraq. See Finbarr Barry phy of Lustre Ceramics from Fāṭimid Egypt (969–1171 ce)”
Flood, Objects of Translation: Material Culture and Medieval (DPhil thesis, University of Oxford, 2004), 46–49.
“Hindu-Muslim” Encounter (Princeton, N.J., 2009), 26–37. 32. Abū al-Faḍl Jamāl al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Mukarram ibn
Among others, Flood highlights an anecdote recorded by Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, 15 vols. (Beirut, 1955–56), 13:347.
Masʿudi in which an image of a four-armed goddess sent 33. A list of references to abū qalamūn (the cloth) is given in
to Iraq by the governors of Sistan in 896 was publicly dis- R. B. Serjeant, Islamic Textiles: Material for a History up to
played in Basra as well as in Baghdad before being melted the Mongol Conquest (Beirut, 1972), 142–45, 212–13.
down for use as coinage. Its aesthetic interest was appar- 34. Abū ʿUthmān ʿUmar ibn Baḥr al-Jāḥiẓ, Kitāb al-Tabaṣṣur
ently so great among locals that the population of Bagh- bi’l-tijāra, ed. Ḥasan Ḥusnī ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Tūnisī
dad nicknamed it “shughl,” which loosely translates as “a (Cairo, 1935). The text has been translated into French
distraction.” by Charles Pellat in “Ǧāḥiẓiana, I: Le Kitāb al-Tabaṣṣur
25. Watson, Ceramics from Islamic Lands, 47. bi-l-tiǧāra attribué à Ǧāḥiẓ,” Arabica 1, 2 (May 1954): 153–65.
26. For example, as articulated by Ernst Herzfeld in his semi- For the attribution to ninth-century Iraq, see André Miquel,
nal article, “Die Genesis der islamischen Kunst und das La géographie humaine du monde musulman jusqu’au milieu
Mshattā-Problem,” Der Islam 1, 1 (1910): 27–63, 115–44. This du 11e siècle, 4 vols. (Paris, 1967–88), 1:110–11, 332–33. See also
idea was later elaborated in his introduction to Der Wand- David Jacoby, “Silk Economics and Cross-Cultural Artistic
schmuck der Bauten von Samarra und seine Ornamentik Interaction: Byzantium, the Muslim World, and the Chris-
(Berlin, 1923), 4–9. tian West,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 58 (2004): 221. A tex-
27. For an exercise demonstrating both the potential of such tile called būqalamūn is also mentioned in descriptions of
an approach and its inherent difffijiculties, see Baxandall, wealthy homes in Baghdad. See, for example, Muḥammad
Patterns of Intention, 105–16. The importance of consider- ibn Aḥmad ibn al-Muṭahhar al-Azdī, Ḥikāyat Abī al-Qāsim
ing historically specifijic aesthetic categories in the study of al-Baghdādī, ed. Adam Mez (Heidelberg, 1902), 32.
Islamic art is demonstrated in Necipoğlu, Topkapı Scroll, 35. Jāḥiẓ, Kitāb al-Tabaṣṣur bi’l-tijāra, 22.
esp. 185–96. 36. For other examples of this variety, see Ernst Kühnel, “Abba-
28. This term (also written sofālīneh) is usually translated as sid Silks of the Ninth Century,” Ars Orientalis 2 (1957):
“pottery,” but in this context it is also possible that it refers 367–71. Our Louvre Bowl was also recently compared to
to opaque glass paste painted with luster, a product made descriptions of the cloth called abū qalamūn, due to its

© 2012 Koninklijke Brill NV ISBN 978-90-04-23420-8

210 MATTHEW D. SABA

color palette and surface efffect. See Reflets d’or: D’Orient 48. See Alfred Morabia, EI2, s.v. “Lawn.”
en Occident, la céramique lustrée IXe–XVe siècle; Musée de 49. For a bibliography of works attributed to al-Kindi, see
Cluny, Musée national du Moyen Age, 9 avril–1er septembre Pinella Travaglia, Magic, Causality, and Intentionality: The
2008, ed. Xavier Dectot (Paris, 2008), 20. Doctrine of Rays in al-Kindī (Florence, 1999), 103–46.
37. Bīrūnī, Kitāb al-Jamāhir, 149. The Arabic reads: “yūjad 50. Morabia, EI2, s.v. “Lawn.”
fīhi kull lawn min khalūqiyya wa’l-ṣufra wa’l-khuḍra wa’l- 51. Travaglia, Magic, Causality, and Intentionality, 70. The
samāwiyya turā fīhi hādhihī al-alwān ʿinda taḥrīkihi.” treatise in which this theory was advanced is titled Fī
Al-Biruni quotes al-Kindi extensively throughout the ʿillat al-lāzuwardī alladhī yurā fī al-jaww fī jihat al-samāʾ
Kitāb al-Jamāhir, citing a now-lost book on stones as a wa-yuẓannu annahu lawn al-samāʾ (“On the cause of the
primary source (see Kitāb al-Jamāhir, 103). For more on deep-blue that is seen in the atmosphere toward the sky
al-Biruni’s sources, see Syed H. H. Nadvi, “Al-Bīrūnī and and is thought to be the color of the sky”). It has been trans-
His Kitāb al-Jamāhir fī-Maʿrifah al-Jawāhir,” in Al-Bīrūnī: lated into English by Otto Spies, in “Al-Kindi’s Treatise on
Commemorative Volume; Proceedings of the International the Cause of the Blue Colour of the Sky,” Journal of the
Congress Held in Pakistan on the Occasion of the Millenary Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, n.s., 13 (1937):
of Abū Raihān Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Bīrūnī, 973–ca.1051 7–19.
A.D.: November 26, 1973 thru’ December 12, 1973, ed. Hakim 52. See David C. Lindberg, Theories of Vision from al-Kindi to
Mohammed Said (Karachi, 1979), 530–39. Kepler (Chicago, 1976), 19–24.
38. Abū ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī al-Masʿūdī, Murūj al-dhahab 53. Ḥunayn ibn Iṣḥāq, The Book of the Ten Treatises on the Eye,
wa-maʿādin al-jawhar, ed. Yūsuf Asʿad Dāghir, 4 vols. (Bei- Ascribed to Hunain ibn Is-Hâq (809–877 A.D.): The Earliest
rut, 1965) 1:419. Existing Systematic Text-book of Ophthalmology, ed. and
39. For this quote, see Paul Krauss, Jābir ibn Ḥayyān: Contribu- trans. Max Meyerhof (Cairo, 1928), 37–38. For the influence
tion à l’histoire des idées scientifijiques dans l’Islam, 2 vols., of Galen on Hunayn’s theory of sight, see Lindberg, Theories
Mémoires de l’Institut d’Égypte 44 and 45 (Cairo, 1943–44), of Vision, 33–42.
1:24, no. 41 and n. 2. According to Kraus, the book probably 54. Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ, Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ wa-Khullān
discussed the qualities of the “seven metals” (al-asjād) and al-Wafāʾ, 4 vols. (Beirut, 1957), 2:396–416.
their transformation (ibid., 24). 55. Ibid., 2:398: “aʿrāḍ dākhila fī al-jism zāʾida baʿda kawnihi
40. Al-Hassan, “An Eighth Century Arabic Treatise,” 143. jisman mutammima lahu.”
41. A. I. Sabra, ed. and trans., The Optics of Ibn al-Haytham, 56. Ibid., 2:399–400
Books I–III: On Direct Vision, 2 vols. (London, 1989), 1:202 57. Bīrūnī, Kitāb al-Jamāhir, 149. Makhāyil, the word used to
(Bk. II, 3[218]). describe the ephemeral colors seen upon the surface of
42. Sabra suggests that abū qalamūn should here be translated the stone, is the plural of makhīla and can mean a sign,
as “chameleon,” based on Ptolemy’s use of the chameleon indication, or token of something not present. For example,
in his discussion of color, from which Ibn al-Haytham the word was sometimes used to mean a rain cloud, since
explicitly draws: see notes in Sabra, Optics of Ibn al-Hay- clouds bear the sign of oncoming rain but are not rain
tham, 2:101. I thank Fahmida Suleman for pointing me to themselves. See Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, 11:227.
this reference. For the chameleon in Arabic sources, see 58. For the meanings of this term, see F. Viré, EI2, s.v. “Abū
Charles Pellat, EI2, s.v. “Ḥirbā.” For an Abbasid-period barāḳish.”
description of the chameleon’s coloration, see al-Jāḥiẓ, 59. Lindberg, Theories of Vision, 61–67.
Kitāb al-Ḥayawān, ed. ʿAbd al-Salām Muḥammad Hārūn, 60. Taqāzīḥ (sing. taqzīḥ), is translated here as “iris,” in the
8 vols. (Cairo, 1938–45 [2nd ed. 1965–69]), 6:363. sense of a band or ring of prismatic color, not referring to
43. For a discussion of cloth made from the beards of fan mus- the flower or to the anatomical membrane in the eye.
sels (mollusks of the genus Pinna) and its relationship to 61. Sabra, Optics of Ibn al-Haytham, 1:48 (Bk. I, 3[132]), and
the term abū qalamūn, see Berthold Laufer, “The Story of notes in 2:39-40. This is Sabra’s translation of the Arabic
the Pinna and the Syrian Lamb,” The Journal of American text.
Folklore 28, 108 (April–June 1915): 103–28. 62. Ibid., 1:55 (Bk. I, 4[25]).
44. Serjeant, Islamic Textiles, 196–97. 63. Ibid., 1:202 (Bk. II, 3[218]). On Ibn al-Haytham’s writings
45. Badīʿ al-Zamān al-Hamadhānī, Maqāmāt, ed. Muḥammad regarding beauty in the Kitāb al-Manāẓir, see Necipoǧlu,
Abduh al-Maṣrī (Beirut, 1924), 86. Topkapı Scroll, 189–90, 201–4.
46. The former phrase is used in the defijinition of abū qalamūn 64. The term employed here for close scrutiny, “taʾammul,”
provided in the Kitāb al-Tabaṣṣur bi’l-tijāra, and the latter is also used by Ibn al-Haytham to mean contemplative
in the Lisān al-ʿArab. perception (idrāk bi’l-taʾammul); it is contrasted with per-
47. On the history and cultural impact of the Abbasid transla- ception by mere glance or intuitive perception (idrāk bi’l-
tion movement, see Dimitri Gutas, Greek Thought, Ara- badīha). Contemplation is required for the viewer to per-
bic Literature: The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement ceive the “true form” of the object by singling out each of
in Baghdad and Early ʿAbbāsid Society (2nd–4th/8th–10th its properties and identifying them. See Sabra, Optics of Ibn
centuries) (London, 1998). al-Haytham, 1:207–9 (Bk. II 4[1–5]), and notes in 2:102–4.

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 ABBASID LUSTERWARE AND THE AESTHETICS OF ʿAJAB 211

65. Masʿūdī, Murūj al-dhahab, 1:419. 86. There are reports, for example, that the Abbasid caliphs
66. The following references, unless otherwise noted, come used materials from the palaces at Ctesiphon in their own
from Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, 1:580–82. constructions in Baghdad. For references, see Lionel Bier,
67. For the association between wonder (ʿajab) and pleasure “The Sasanian Palaces and Their Influence in Early Islam,”
(ladhdha), see also Necipoǧlu, Topkapı Scroll, 213. Ars Orientalis 23 (1993): 57–62. The Arch of Khusraw was
68. This and the following defijinition are quoted in Roy Mot- also identifijied as one of the local wonders of Iraq in several
tahedeh, “ʿAjāʾib in The Thousand and One Nights,” in The medieval Arabic geographical works: see Miquel, La géog-
Thousand and One Nights in Arabic Literature and Society, raphie humaine, 4:109.
ed. Richard G. Hovannisian and Georges Sabagh (Cam- 87. The line reads: “yaghtalī fīhimi ‘rtiyābī ḥattā tataqarrāhumu
bridge, 1997), 29–39. yadāya bi-lamsī.” Ali, Arabic Literary Salons, translates it as
69. Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, 1:581. follows: “My wonder about them boils till my hand explores
70. Zakarīya ibn Muḥammad al-Qazwīnī, ʿAjāʾib al-makhlūqāt them with a touch.”
(Lahore, 2004), 453. 88. Ibn al-Muʿtazz lists muṭābaqa and tajnīs as two of the
71. Abū al-Ḥasan Muḥammad ibn Abī Aḥmad al-Sharīf al-Raḍī, fijive “gates” (abwāb) of badīʿ in his Kitāb al-Badīʿ: see Ibn
Nahj al-balāgha, ed. Muḥammad ʿAbduh, 4 vols. (Beirut, al-Muʿtazz, Kitāb al-Badīʿ of ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Muʿtazz;
1954), 2:150–57. Edited from the Unique Ms. in the Escorial, ed. Ignatius
72. Ibid., 150. Kratchkovsky (London, 1935), 36–47. One of the most
73. Ibid., 151. famous examples of this motif is Abu Tammam’s ode on
74. Perhaps a deep indigo color. the battle of Ammuriyya, where he compares the merits
75. Al-Sharīf al-Raḍī, Nahj al-balāgha, 2:153–57. of warriors and men of letters, contrasting the “white
76. This would be consistent with the evidence found in of sword-blades (ṣafāʾiḥ)” and “the black of book-pages
other texts on precious stones. Al-Biruni, for instance, lists (ṣaḥāʾif ).” See Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych, Abū Tammām
intense radiance as being among the unique qualities of the and the Poetics of the ʿAbbāsid Age (Leiden, 1991), 189. For a
ruby: Bīrūnī, Kitāb al-Jamāhir, 122. Precious stones were not suggestion on the possible implications of badīʿ aesthetics
in the interpretation of Abbasid art, see Thomas Leisten,
only shiny, but some believed them to actually radiate light.
“ʿAbbasid Art,” Ḥadīth al-Dār 24 (2007): 50–57.
For a discussion of this idea, see Avinoam Shalem, “Jewels
89. See Nuwas G. Schoeler, “Bashshār b. Burd, Abū al-Atāhiya
and Journeys: The Case of the Medieval Gemstone Called
and Abū Nuwās,” in The Cambridge History of Arabic Litera-
al-Yatima,” Muqarnas 14 (1997): 42–56.
ture: ʿAbbasid Belles-Lettres, ed. Julia Ashtiany et al. (Cam-
77. Al-Sharīf al-Raḍī, Nahj al-balāgha, 1:156–57. bridge, 1990), 275–86.
78. Suleman, “From Shards to Bards,” 138. 90. ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī, Asrār al-Balāgha = The Mysteries
79. Other examples of images of plumage decorated with these of Eloquence, ed. Helmut Ritter (Istanbul, 1954), 118.
motifs include a polychrome luster bowl in the Ashmolean 91. Marble was also praised for its wave-like patterns in Byzan-
Museum, Oxford (1956.63), and a monochrome bowl in the tine descriptions of architecture. On the qualities of marble
Louvre (MAO 131). These are published in Caiger-Smith, emphasized in both Greek and Arabic sources, see Mar-
Lustre Pottery, fijigs. 7 and 8, respectively. cus Milwright, “ ‘Waves of the Sea’: Responses to Marble
80. Necipoğlu, Topkapı Scroll, 204. in Written Sources (Ninth–Fifteenth Centuries),” in The
81. Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ, Rasāʾil, 1:276–295. On the discussion Iconography of Islamic Art: Studies in Honour of Robert Hil-
of crafts in the epistles of the Ikhwan al-Safaʾ, see also lenbrand, ed. Bernard O’Kane (Edinburgh, 2005), 211–21. For
Necipoğlu, Topkapı Scroll, 188 and 199, and Sharbil Dāghir, a more extensive survey of associations carried by marble
al-Fann al-Islāmī fī al-maṣādir al-ʿArabiyya: Ṣināʿat al-zīna and marble-like materials in the Eastern Mediterranean,
wa’l-jamāl (Kuwait: Dār al-Āthār al-Islāmiyya, 1999), 91–120. see also Fabio Barry, “Walking on Water: Cosmic Floors in
82. Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ, Rasāʾil, 1:287. Antiquity and the Middle Ages,” The Art Bulletin 89, 4 (Dec.
83. Ibid., 1:289. 2007): 627–56.
84. Ibn al-Rūmī, Dīwān Ibn al-Rūmī, ed. Ḥusayn Naṣṣār, 6 vols. 92. Julie Scott-Meisami, “The Palace-Complex as Emblem:
(Cairo, 1973–81), 4:1558 (poem no. 1203). Some Samarran Qaṣīdas,” in A Medieval Islamic City Recon-
85. Al-Walīd ibn ʿUbayd al-Buḥturī, Dīwān al-Buḥturī, ed. sidered: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Samarra, ed.
Ḥasan Kāmil al-Ṣayrafī, 3 vols. (Cairo, 1963–64), 2:1152–64 Chase F. Robinson (Oxford, 2001), 73. For the full poem in
(poem no. 470). This poem, one of Buhturi’s most famous, Arabic, see Buḥturī, Dīwān, 3:1646–50 (poem no. 641). This
has been translated into English; it is discussed in Akiko translation is by Meisami.
Motoyoshi-Sumi, Description in Classical Arabic Poetry: 93. This passage has been translated into English and dis-
Waṣf, Ekphrasis, and Interarts Theory (Leiden, 2004), 101–8, cussed numerous times. See Thomas W. Arnold, Painting in
and in Samer M. Ali, Arabic Literary Salons in the Islamic Islam: A Study of the Place of Pictorial Art in Muslim Culture
Middle Ages: Poetry, Public Performance, and the Presenta- (New York, 1965), 22; Richard Ettinghausen, Arab Painting
tion of the Past (Notre Dame, Ind., 2010), 157–60. I quote (Geneva, 1962), 55; and Rabbat, “ʿAjīb and Gharīb,” 101–2.
from Ali’s translation with any modifijications noted and 94. A similar bowl is housed in the Museum für Islamische
glosses placed within brackets. Kunst, Berlin. The bowl is published in The Arts of Islam:

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212 MATTHEW D. SABA

Hayward Gallery, 8 April–4 July 1976, ed. Dalu Jones and before as a major development in the history of vegetal
George Michell (London, 1976), cat. no. 270. ornament by Alois Riegl in his Stilfragen, published in
95. See also a bowl in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art 1893: see Alois Riegl, Stilfragen: Grundlegungen zu einer
(M.2002.1.338) and a bowl in the Al-Sabah Collection (LNS Geschichte der Ornamentik (Berlin, 1893) = Problems of Style:
111C), the latter published in Watson, Ceramics from Islamic Foundations for a History of Ornament, trans. Evelyn Kain,
Lands, cat. E.16 (p. 194). and ed. David Castriota (Princeton, N.J., 1992), 266–72.
96. For the Beveled Style (originally termed the “First Style”), 98. Many surveys of Islamic art still suggest that the Beveled
see Herzfeld, Der Wandschmuck der Bauten von Samarra, Style presents evidence for a Muslim aversion to images
10–14, and following inventory numbers. For the prolifera- and a taste for non-fijigural, abstract compositions. See, for
tion of this style at other sites, see Richard Ettinghausen, example, Richard Ettinghausen, Oleg Grabar, and Mari-
“The ‘Beveled Style’ in the Post-Samarra Period,” in Archae- lyn Jenkins-Madina, Islamic Art and Architecture 650–1250
ologica Orientalia in Memoriam Ernst Herzfeld, ed. George (New Haven, 2001), 59. The idea that the Beveled Style
Carpenter Miles (Locust Valley, N.Y, 1952), 72–83. is inherently “Islamic” is challenged in Terry Allen, “The
97. See Herzfeld, Der Wandschmuck der Bauten von Samarra, Arabesque, the Bevelled Style and the Mirage of an Early
9. A form of the Beveled Style that appears in the ornament Islamic Art,” in Five Essays on Islamic Art (Sebastopol, Calif.,
of the Mosque of Ibn Tulun in Cairo had been identifijied 1988), 1–16.

© 2012 Koninklijke Brill NV ISBN 978-90-04-23420-8