Jamiʿ al-Tawarikh:
Images of the Prophet
Christiane Gruber
Synopsis:
Rashid al-Din’s Jamiʿ al-Tawarikh (Compendium of Chronicles) is considered the first universal history ever written. The Edinburgh University Library preserves an exceedingly rare and precious illustrated manuscript copy of this text made in 1307–14 CE and thus dating to the author’s time. Its cycle of paintings depicting the Prophet Muhammad is especially important, as they are among the earliest extant in the history of Islamic book arts and they reveal an interest in narrating and commemorating Muhammad’s life and deeds in visual form. This hands-on presentation of the manuscript focuses on these images to explain their religious motifs and contextual meanings while also addressing questions of image preservation and destruction.
Online Resources:
Rashid al-Din and his Jamiʿ al-Tawarikh
The Jamiʿ al-Tawarikh manuscript in the Edinburgh University Library
References:
Blair, Sheila. A Compendium of Chronicles: Rashid al-Din’s Illustrated History of the World, Nasser D. Khalili Collection, volume 27, ed. Julian Raby. Oxford: Nour Foundation and Oxford University Press, 1995. 
Gruber, Christiane. The Praiseworthy One: The Prophet Muhammad in Islamic Texts and Images. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2019.
Gruber, Christiane. “Between Logos (Kalima) and Light (Nur): Representations of the Prophet Muhammad in Islamic Painting,” Muqarnas 26 (2009): 1–34.
Hillenbrand, Robert. “The Arts of the Book in Ilkhanid Iran.” In The Legacy of Genghis Khan: Courtly Art and Culture in Western Asia, 1256-1353, ed. Stefano Carboni and Linda Komaroff, 134–167. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002.
Natif, Mika. “Rashid al-Din’s Alter Ego: The Seven Paintings of Moses in the Jamiʿ al-tawarikh.” In Rashid al-Din: Agent and Mediator of Cultural Exchanges in Ilkhanid Iran, ed. Anna Aksoy, Charles Burnett, and Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim, 15–37. London: The Warburg Institute, 2013.
Soucek, Priscilla, “The Life of the Prophet: Illustrated Versions.” In Content and Context of Visual Arts in the Islamic World: Papers from a Colloquium in Memory of Richard Ettinghausen, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, 2-4 April 1980, ed. idem, 193–218. University Park and London: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1988.
Talbot Rice, David. The Illustrations to the “World History” of Rashid al-Din, ed. Basil Gray. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1976.
Citation:
Christiane Gruber, “Jamiʿ al-Tawarikh: Images of the Prophet,” Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online, published 2 March 2024.
Christiane Gruber is Professor of Islamic Art and Former Chair in the History of Art Department at the University of Michigan as well as Founding Director of Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online. Her scholarly work (available here) explores medieval to contemporary Islamic art, including figural representation, depictions of the Prophet Muhammad, manuscripts and book arts, architecture, and modern visual and material cultures. Her two most recent publications include The Praiseworthy One: The Prophet Muhammad in Islamic Texts and Images and The Image Debate: Figural Representation in Islam and Across the World, and her public-facing essays have appeared in Newsweek, The Conversation, New Lines, Jadaliyya, and Prospect Magazine, among others. Her current research projects include eco-Islamic art and architecture as well as the visual culture of the Nation of Islam.