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Lot Essay
Inscription:
The inscription contains four of the ninety-nine names of Allah 'Oh the Most Holy! Oh the Ever-Yearning! Oh the Ever-Bestowing! Oh the Ever-requiting!'
This textile comes from the bands which are hung around the Ka’aba, known as the hizam. As early as the Umayyad period, there are accounts of embroidered bands being hung around the Ka’aba, with devotional inscriptions as well as the name of the incumbent caliph. By the Ottoman period, a pair of hizam would be hung on all four sides of the Ka’aba above the doors sharing a continuous inscription between them, with a roundel such as this would have been found at the end of each.
In the Topkapi Palace Museum, there is a complete set of eight bands dating from the year AH 1256/1840 AD. Each of these terminate with a roundel containing Qur'an.XVII, sura al-Isra, v.84. It is only on later examples, such as a hizam dated to AH 1307/1890 AD, that there is a roundel containing the same names of Allah which are inscribed on the present lot (Hülya Tezcan, Sacred Covers of Islam’s Holy Shrines with samples from the Topkapi Palace, Istanbul, 2017, p.283, cat.67). Another hizam, also in the Topkapi Palace, ends with a similar roundel, though the sparser inscription and wider borders suggest that our example predates it (Hülya Tezcan, op.cit., p.284, cat.68). Possibly closest of all is the example in the Nasser D. Khalili Collection, which hung on the Ka’aba in the late 19th century and has a similar border design (acc.no. TXT 251). The presence of other roundels, cut from their original setting, in the Topkapi Palace also demonstrates that a hizam was often cut up when it was taken down to be distributed among distinguished pilgrims and dignitaries (Hülya Tezcan, op.cit., p.77, fig.46). A similar example was sold in these Rooms, 7 April 2021, lot 11.
The inscription contains four of the ninety-nine names of Allah 'Oh the Most Holy! Oh the Ever-Yearning! Oh the Ever-Bestowing! Oh the Ever-requiting!'
This textile comes from the bands which are hung around the Ka’aba, known as the hizam. As early as the Umayyad period, there are accounts of embroidered bands being hung around the Ka’aba, with devotional inscriptions as well as the name of the incumbent caliph. By the Ottoman period, a pair of hizam would be hung on all four sides of the Ka’aba above the doors sharing a continuous inscription between them, with a roundel such as this would have been found at the end of each.
In the Topkapi Palace Museum, there is a complete set of eight bands dating from the year AH 1256/1840 AD. Each of these terminate with a roundel containing Qur'an.XVII, sura al-Isra, v.84. It is only on later examples, such as a hizam dated to AH 1307/1890 AD, that there is a roundel containing the same names of Allah which are inscribed on the present lot (Hülya Tezcan, Sacred Covers of Islam’s Holy Shrines with samples from the Topkapi Palace, Istanbul, 2017, p.283, cat.67). Another hizam, also in the Topkapi Palace, ends with a similar roundel, though the sparser inscription and wider borders suggest that our example predates it (Hülya Tezcan, op.cit., p.284, cat.68). Possibly closest of all is the example in the Nasser D. Khalili Collection, which hung on the Ka’aba in the late 19th century and has a similar border design (acc.no. TXT 251). The presence of other roundels, cut from their original setting, in the Topkapi Palace also demonstrates that a hizam was often cut up when it was taken down to be distributed among distinguished pilgrims and dignitaries (Hülya Tezcan, op.cit., p.77, fig.46). A similar example was sold in these Rooms, 7 April 2021, lot 11.