‘Abd al-Rashīd Deylamī

‘Abd al-Rashīd Deylamī, known by the honorifics Rashīdā and Āqā Rashīd, was among the most renowned nasta‛līq calligraphers of the eleventh century in Iran and India.

He was the nephew of Mīr ‛Emād Ḥasanī*, the great calligrapher of the era of Shah ‛Abbās I* (r. 1588–1629/996–1038), and his family belonged to the Deylamī lineage of Qazvin. His mother, the sister of Mīr ‛Emād, was a Sayyeda (a female descendant of the Prophet Muhammad), and ‛Abd al-Rashīd himself occasionally signed his works as “Ḥasanī” and “Sharīf”; therefore, his father too must have been among the Ḥasanīd descendants.¹ The date of his earliest known work, copied in 1591/1000, indicates that he was likely born in the last quarter of the tenth century (around 1572/980).² In Iran he was mostly called “Āqā Rashīdā,” while in India he was known as “Āqā” and “Āqā Rashīd”.³

‛Abd al-Rashīd learned the method and rules of nasta‛līq under Mīr ‛Emād, and he achieved such mastery that Mīr ‛Emād used to write on the margins of his calligraphy exercises the phrase “Mashq-e Sām Narīmān” (meaning: a heroic and perfect model of writing). After the murder of Mīr ‛Emād in 1615/1024, he lived in hiding for a period, and during this time he practiced calligraphy extensively, writing one thousand and five hundred Varaq-e Samarqandī (fine Samarqandī sheets of practice writing).⁴ Until about 1625/1034, he produced manuscripts in various Iranian cities, including Isfahan and present-day Behshahr,⁵ although the sources provide no explicit information regarding the exact period of his residence in Isfahan. He then, influenced by the fame of the artistic patronage of the Indian rulers, migrated to India, and after residing in Kashmir and Lahore, he joined the court of Shah Jahān (r. 1627–1658/1037–1068) in Akbar-ābād (Agra).⁶ The inscription of the seal formula, “Bande-ye Shah Jahān ‛Abd al-Rashīd Deylamī 1631/1040,” on a copy of gulshan-e rāz preserved in the Gulestān Palace, also confirms his entry into Shah Jahān’s court in the early years of his reign.⁷

Shah Jahān appointed him as his royal calligrapher and the tutor of his son Dara Shukūh, and assigned him a monthly stipend of 1,500 rupees. Jahān-Ārā Baygum also granted him estates and buildings in Akbar-ābād, Shāh Jahān-ābād, and Lahore.⁸ In 1638/1048, ‛Abd al-Rashīd became the sheriff of the Royal Library, was placed among the commander of nine-hundred (high-ranking nobles of the Mughal administrative-military system with the rank of nine hundred).⁹ Jughtāʾī, based on the chronicle ‛amal-e ṣāleḥ, notes that in 1648/1058 he was appointed as the private librarian, replacing ‛Abd al-Raḥmān and Dīyānat Rāy, and the impression of his seal on a copy of the dīvān of sulṭān Hussein Bāyqurā also confirms this appointment.¹⁰

After a time, ‛Abd al-Rashīd submitted a petition to Shah Jahān, in which he referred to the hardships endured by the family of Mīr ‛Emād in Safavid Iran and reminded the emperor of his twenty-three years of service in the Mughal court. In this petition, he requested that he be permitted to spend the final years of his life in Akbar-ābād or Lahore, a request that shows he was by then seeking greater peace of mind and an opportunity to devote himself to personal work and teaching.¹¹ According to the report of merʾāt al-‛ālam, it appears that after this date he entered the service of the imperial household and royal establishments (buyūtāt) of Akbar-ābād.¹²

During the reign of Aurangzeb (r. 1658–1707/1068–1118), “Abd al-Rashīd remained one of the distinguished masters of calligraphy and court tutors, and he taught Zīb al-Nesā’, the daughter of Aurangzeb, along with other Mughal princesses and princes. He lived in Agra in wealth and comfort until the end of his life, and although many buildings are reported to have been attributed to his name, none of them survive today.¹³

‛Abd al-Rashīd was the principal promoter of the calligraphic style of Mīr ‛Emād in India and trained numerous students, among them Dara Shukūh, Mīr Ḥājī, the adopted son of ‛Abd al-Rashīd, Muhammad-Sa‛īd Ashraf Māzandarānī, Chender- bahān Munshī, Sanj-bahān, ‛Abd al-Raḥmān and ‛Abd al-Raḥīm Farmān-nevīs, Mīrzā Kāẓem and his son Muhammad-Amīn Mashhadī, Zīb al-Nesā’ Baygum, and Jahān-ārā Baygum.¹⁴ He was a master of khafī-nevīsī (minute, small-scale nasta‛līq calligraphy) executed with a two-dang reed pen (a fine, narrow-nib pen), and Kanbū¹⁵ praises the elegance of his dawāʾer (circular letter-forms and curves) and maddāt (elongated horizontal strokes), and his gentle disposition and pleasant speech.

Both during his lifetime and after his death, the calligraphy of ʿAbd al-Rashīd remained a standard of excellence and a criterion of judgment in India. At times his works were purchased for exceedingly high prices, and even some writings of others were sold under his signature.¹⁶

Among the dated and undated manuscripts bearing his signature are: tarjumatu al-ṣalāt, maqālāt-e Kh^wāje ‛Abdullāh Anṣārī, chehel kalema (1623/1032), and the selection from tuhfat al-‛erāqayn of Khāqānī preserved in the Gulestān Palace Library; the dīvān of Avjī-ye Naṭanzī (1633–1634/1042–1043) and the commentary on ṣaḥīfe-ye sajjādīyya (copied in Lahore, 1660–1661/1071) in the Library of the Islamic Consultative Assembly (majlis Library) in Tehran; the dīvān of Hasan Kāshī (1620–1621/1030) in the Institute for Iranian-Islamic Historical Studies in Tehran; and the mathnavī of mann va salvā (1641–1642/1051) in the University of Michigan Library. Furthermore, a large number of his calligraphic panels dated between 1620–1660/1030–1071 are preserved in the National Museum of Iran, the Malek National Museum and Library, the Reza ‛Abbāsī Museum, the National Museum of India in Delhi, the National Library of Iran, the National Library of Russia, the University of Istanbul Library, and the Bodleian Library in Oxford, and in other public and private collections across Iran and the world. ‛Abd al-Rashīd signed his works under various forms such as ‛Abd al-Rashīd, ‛Abd al-Rashīd Deylamī, Rashīdā, and ‛Abd al-Rashīd al-Sharīf al-Ḥasanī.¹⁷

According to the colophons and signatures on his works, ‛Abd al-Rashīd produced manuscripts in many cities. Since his dated works range from 1591/1592–1660/1000–1071, his artistic career extended for more than seventy years. In the last decade of his life, few works are recorded from him, suggesting that in his advanced age he devoted himself less to copying. He died in 1670/1671 (or 1674/1675 according to Ashraf)/1081 (or 1085) in Agra, where he was also buried. Muhammad-Sa‛īd Ashraf Māzandarānī, a student of him, and of Ṣāʾeb Tabrīzī*, in an elegiac piece, referred to the coincidence of the deaths of ‛Abd al-Rashīd and Ṣāʾeb.¹⁸

/Hamid Reza Ghelichkhani & Delaram Kardar Tehran/

Bibliography

Bakhtāvar Khan, Muhammad, merʾāt al-‛ālam: tārīkh-e Aurangzeb, ed. Sājede S. Alavī, Lahore: Edārah-ye Taḥqīqāt-e Pākīstān, University of the Punjab, 1979.

Bayānī, Mahdi, aḥvāl va āthār-e khushnevīsān (Biographies and Works of Calligraphers), Tehran: ‛Elmī, 1984/1363.

Eṣfahānī, Muhammad-Ṣāleḥ b. Abū-turāb, tadhkerat al-khaṭṭāṭīn, ed. Pezhmān Fīrūzbakhsh, in Nāmeh-ye Bahārestān, vol. 6–7, no. 1–2 (2005–2006/1384–1385 Sh.).

Haft-Qalamī Dehlavī, Ghulām-Muhammad, tadhkere-ye khushnevīsān, ed. Muhammad Hedāyat Hussein, Calcutta 1910/1328, Tehran: Rūzane, 1998/1377.

Ghelichkhani, Ḥamīd-Reza, ‘Abd al-Rashīd Deylamī (d. 1081), Tehran: Peykare, 2014/1393.

Jughtāʾī, Muhammad ‛Abdullāh, “khat-e nasta‛līq dar Pakistan va Hend,” trans. Muhammad Ja‛far Javān, hunar va mardum, no. 151, Urdībehesht 1354/May 1975.

Kanbū, Muhammad Ṣāleḥ, ‛amal-e ṣāleḥ, al-musūm be Shāh Jahān-nāme, ed. Vahīd Qurayshī, arranged and annotated by Ghulām Yazdānī, Lahore: Majles Taraqqī-e Adab, 1967–1972.

1. Eṣfahānī, p. 19; Bayānī, vol. 2, p. 396.[↩]
2. Bayānī, vol. 2, p. 398.[↩]
3. Eṣfahānī, pp. 19–20; Haft-Qalamī Dehlavī, pp. 55–60.[↩]
4. Eṣfahānī, p. 19.[↩]
5. Bayānī, vol. 2, p. 399.[↩]
6. Eṣfahānī, p. 20; Jughtāʾī, p. 32.[↩]
7. Bayānī, vol. 2, p. 393.[↩]
8. Jughtāʾī, pp. 32–34; Haft-Qalamī Dehlavī, pp. 56, 95.[↩]
9. Kanbū, vol. 2, p. 250; vol. 3, p. 369.[↩]
10. Jughtāʾī, p. 32.[↩]
11. Ibid., pp. 32–33; Bayānī, vol. 2, p. 394.[↩]
12. Bakhtāvar Khan, vol. 2, p. 489.[↩]
13. Ibid.; Jughtāʾī, p. 33.[↩]
14. Eṣfahānī, p. 20; Haft-Qalamī Dehlavī, pp. 55–56.[↩]
15. Kanbū, vol. 3, p. 344.[↩]
16. Haft-Qalamī Dehlavī, pp. 100, 121.[↩]
17. See: Bayānī, vol. 2, pp. 398–400; Ghelichkhani, pp. 18–20.[↩]
18. Haft-Qalamī Dehlavī, pp. 95–98.[↩]