Roy Mottahedeh. ̔Aja’ib in the Book of Qazwīnī

Roy Mottahedeh
Roy Parviz Mottahedeh is the Gurney Professor of History at Harvard University. He has written extensively on the history of the Middle East in the 10th and 11th centuries CE. His publications include Loyalty and Leadership in an Early Islamic Society, The Mantle of the Prophet, and Lessons in Islamic Jurisprudence. He has written numerous articles on the social, intellectual and political history of the Middle East from the 7th century to the present.
̔Ajā’ib in the Book of Qazwīnī
One of the best known and most lavishly illustrated books of the pre-modern Arabic tradition is ̔Ajā’ib al-Makhlūqāt by Qazwīnī, written in the 13th century CE. This encyclopaedia of the world of creation has a special interest in the “marvels,” the fabulous animals, plants and people, assumed to exist in the world. Islamic painters from the 13th to the 19th century portrayed these “creatures” in their work. The illustrations in Qazwīnī’s manuscripts help us understand the way in which painters of the time visualized both familiar creatures, such as the cat, and fabulous creatures, such as the unicorn. Qazwīnī’s text conveys the way in which a Muslim intellectual mentally organised (and also disorganised) creation. The illustrations also tell us about the varied imaginative worlds of the artists.