A History of the World in 100 Objects - Dr Neil MacGregor [206]
In seventeenth-century India, the dialogue between power and faith was as complex and as explosive as it is today. But around 1610 the picture opportunities were very different: no press photographs, no 24-hour television news, just painting, and often painting aimed at a very targeted audience. This miniature from Mughal India embodies a rare, perhaps unique, relationship between the world of the ruler and the realm of faith.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Europe and Asia were dominated by three great Islamic empires: the Ottomans in the Middle East and eastern Europe, the Safavids in Iran, and the Mughals in south Asia, of which the last was by far the richest. It reached its height in the years around 1600 under Emperor Akbar, another contemporary of England’s Elizabeth I, as was Shah Abbas, and it continued to flourish under his son Jahangir, in whose reign our painting was made. The Mughal Empire was vast, stretching from Kabul in Afghanistan in the west across 1,400 miles to Dhaka in modern Bangladesh in the east; but, unlike the Iranian Safavids or the Ottoman Turks, the Muslim rulers of the Mughal Empire governed an overwhelmingly non-Muslim people. Besides Jains and Buddhists, perhaps 75 per cent of their population were Hindu.
Unlike Christians and Jews, Hindus are not recognized in the Qur’an as other ‘people of the book’, so in theory they were not even necessarily to be tolerated by Islamic rulers, as the Mughal emperors always had to be aware. They managed this potential difficulty by adopting a policy of wide religious inclusion. Akbar and Jahangir worked easily with many faiths. They had Hindu generals in their armies, and close contacts with holy men, Muslim or Hindu, were a fundamental part of the life and outlook of the Mughal elite. Regular meetings with religious figures were a political strategy of the state, publicized through visits and through the media of the day – paintings like this miniature.
Miniature painting was an art form popular at courts from London and Paris to Isfahan and Lahore. Mughal miniatures show that Indian painters were well aware of developments in both Persia and Europe. Ours, which is about the size of a hardback book, has been dated to around 1610, and shows an encounter between a rich young nobleman, perhaps a prince of the ruling Mughal Dynasty, and a holy man who has neither wealth nor power. The holy man is on the left, grey-haired, bearded and wearing a relatively simple robe, cloak and turban, with in front of him a forked stick – the distinctive armrest or crutch of the dervish, or Islamic holy man. The young man facing him is wearing a purple costume covered with gold embroidery, a jewelled dagger at his waist (an obligatory accoutrement for a noble) and a green turban, a sign of high status. These two figures, the ascetic dervish and the lavishly dressed prince, kneel on a slightly raised platform in front of a small domed pavilion, clearly an Islamic shrine built around the tomb of some revered religious figure. A delicately painted tree overshadows them, at its base a solitary blue iris. Behind, a rolling green landscape disappears into the distance.
In Mughal painting landscape is often every bit as important as the figures. The Mughals were famous for their ornamental gardens, which were not merely places of pleasure but also physical metaphors for the Islamic paradise. So this landscape is an appropriate setting for our rich young man to be discussing belief with a Muslim teacher. In this idyllic scene power has met piety, and they are in debate.
I asked Asok Kumar Das, an expert in Mughal painting, to tell me about the purpose of the painting and the possible presence of both Muslim and Hindu figures in one painting:
Initially these