Sultan Ali el-Meşhedi

İslam Ansiklopedisi Muhittin Serin

He was born in Mashhad. Although sources give different years for his birth, most researchers record that he was born in 841 (1437). His father died when he was seven years old, and he grew up under the care and upbringing of his mother. During his madrasa education, he became interested in calligraphy. He practiced writing on his own for a while. The famous calligrapher of the period, Azhar-i Tabrīzī, who saw his work with great determination in this regard, taught him the rules and subtleties of nesta'liq (ta'liq) script. Some researchers say that he learned nesta'liq calligraphy from Azhar-i Tabrīzī's student Hāfiz Haji Muhammad in the traditional style (Habībullah Fezāilī, p. 470), and that he took the writings of both Ja'far-i Tabrīzī and Azhar-i Tabrīzī as examples and perfected his calligraphy, breaking new ground in nesta'liq, hafī and jali scripts and influencing calligraphers. For this reason, he was given the titles "sultânu'l-khattâtîn, qiblatu'l-kuttâb, zubdatu'l-kuttâb, nizâmuddin".

When Sultan Ali's fame reached the Khorasan region, Sultan Hussein Baykara invited him to Herat and appointed him as a calligrapher in his private library. After this date, Sultan Ali added the title "kâtibu's-sultânî" to the signature of his writings. In the meantime, he met Vizier Ali Shîr Nawâî and wrote his works in nesta'liq calligraphy. Among these, the only copy of his divan written in 870 (1465-66) is in Leningrad Saltykov-Chedrin State Library ( no. 546). The only known copy of Nawāʾī's Nawādir al-nihāye is preserved in the Bīrūnī Institute of Orientalism of the Uzbekistan Academy of Sciences in Tashkent. Sultan Ali also befriended Abdurrahman al-Jāmī in the palace and wrote many of his works in nesta'liq. In 902 (1497), he copied Amîr Hüsrev-i Dihlevî's Hasht Bihisht in the same calligraphy (TSMK, Treasury, no. 676). Ali Mashhadī, who lived in prosperity and splendor at the court of Hussein Baykara for many years and was respected and esteemed, left Herat when Shāhī Beg Uzbek (Shaybānī Khan) became sultan after the death of Sultan Hussein and went into seclusion in Mashhad. He died there on 9 Rabi al-Awwal 926 (February 28, 1520) and Ali Mashhadī was buried near the shrine of Imam Reza. His tombstone was written by his student, Muhammad Ibrīshīmī.

Sultan 'Ali Mashhadī is one of the calligraphers whose works are among the most numerous in European museums and libraries. Among them are two verses in a muraqa' in The British Library (Or., nr. 11839), many nesta'liq verses among the albums in the collection titled Islamic Manuscripts British Royal (RCIN 1005038, 1005039, 1005067, 1005068), and his Khamse-i Nawâî in nesta'liq script in the same collection (RCIN 1005032), among his beautiful works. There are also four qit'a in nesta'lik straight and horizontal qit'a in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris.

Ali Mashhadî left many works in the form of inscriptions, plates, muraqqa' qit'a and books. In the city of Herat, he left an inscription on marble to the west of the tomb of Ḥāja 'Abdullah al-Ansārī and the tombstone of Mirza Hārūn's children, inscriptions in the palace named Bāghi Murād and its garden, and Rubāʿiyyāt-ı Khayyām, Abdurrahman al-Jāmī's Tuḥfatu'l-aḥrār, Nizāmī al-Ganjvī's Makhzenu'l-asrār, Hāfiz al-Shīrāzī's Dīwān, and Shāhī's Turkish ghazals are among the works that reveal Sultan Ali's power and art in nesta'liq script. In the Leningrad Library, there is an important work written by Ali Mashhadī when he was sixty-four years old, Risâle-i Manẓûm der ʿIlm-i Khaṭṭ-ı Nestaʿlîḳ, Ṣirâṭu's-suṭṭûr (Qawâʿid-i Khuṭṭûṭ), which consists of 300 couplets in masnavi style. This copy was published in facsimile by the Russian scholar Galina Kastinova in 1957 with an introduction. In Aḥwāl u Ās̱ār-i Ḫoshnuvīsān, Mehdī Beyānī recorded many of Ali Mashhadī's works that he was able to identify in museums and libraries around the world (I-II, 255-266).

Ali Mashhadī, who is also mentioned among the poets of his time and is known to have written poems in Persian and Turkish, had an extraordinary reputation thanks to his proximity to an art-loving ruler, his long life, his friendship with Ali Shīr Nawāʾī and ʿAbd al-Rahman al-Jāmī, as well as his good morals and raising many students. Shah Mahmûd Naîshâbûrî, Sultan Muhammad Nûr, Sultan Muhammad Handan, and Muhammad Ibrîshîmî are among his famous students. Maqsud ʿAli Turk from the Ottoman Empire and ʿAbd al-Wāḥid Mashhadī, who traveled to Istanbul from Iran and received favor at the court of Suleiman the Magnificent, are also mentioned among Sultan Ali's students.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Kādī Aḥmad Qummī, Calligraphers and Painters (tr. V. Minorsky), Washington 1959, pp. 100-106; Mehdī Beyānī, Aḥvāl ü Ās̱ār-ı Ḫoşnüvīsān, Tehran 1363 hş, I-II, 241-266, 918; Ālī, Menākıb-ı Hünerverān, pp. 10, 32, 34, 35; Müstakimzāde, Tuhfe, p. 691; Habībollāh Fezāilī, Aṭlas-ı Ḫaṭ, Isfahan 1362 hş, pp. 462, 470; Habîb, Hat ve Hattâtân, İstanbul 1305, pp. 197-199; Muhittin Serin, Calligraphy and Famous Calligraphers, İstanbul 2010, pp. 319-321; Muhammad Isa Waley, "Islamic Manuscripts in the British Royal Collection", Manuscripts of the Middle East, VI (1992), Leiden 1994, pp. 5-40.