The other two paintings on the organ represent this competition. On the
bottom, a Mughal artist kneels before a European, who holds his paints.
The portrait resulting from this interaction appears above, as indicated by
the repetition of the hat above the head of a bald and beardless European.
Rather than humor (as suggested by Wade), the hat’s hovering at an angle
alludes to a common trope of those associated with the‘school of love’
(madhab-i ishq): a man with a crooked hat. A man who wore his hat at an
angle (kajkulahi) indicated openness to worldly pleasures and the seduc-
tion of beauty. He also indicated that he disdained the mere appearances of
moral uprightness and public propriety. The crookedness corresponds
with our current valorization of the word‘queer,’as a transverse way of
looking at and stepping away from social norms. OneHadith(of uncertain
origin) reflects this with the words,“I saw my Lord as a young man, with
his cap awry.”^27 One of the most famous instances of this trope occurs
roughly at the same time as this painting, in theTuzk-i Jahangir, the
memoirs of the sultan Jahangir (r. 1605–1627). The story describes the
interaction between Sayyid Nizam-ud Din Awliya, patron saint of Delhi,
and Amir Khosrau.
One day, Shaykh Nizam al-Din Awliya had placed his cap to the side of his head,
and was sitting on a terrace by the River Jumna observing the spectacle of the
Hindu rituals and devotions. Just then, Khosrau appeared. The Shaykh turned to
him and said,“Do you observe this congregation?”and this hemistich came to his
tongue:
For every people: it’s path, it’sdin,^28 and its prayer-direction [qibla]!
The Mir, without a moment’s contemplation, and with all due decorum,
addressed himself to the Shaykh with the completing hemistich:
I have set myqiblahstraight in the way of the crooked-hatted.^29
Why depict the European as crooked-hatted? The painting seemingly
advocates an encounter with the other through incorporation rather than
toleration. Just as crooked-hattedness suggests the wisdom to move
beyond the known, its attribution to the European suggests wisdom in
transgressing the restrictions of cultural habit. Perhaps a‘tip of the hat’to
the antinomian wisdom hinted at by Nizami’s allusion to Diogenes, it
embraces difference despite the apparent danger of change. The artist
emphasizes European norms in his depiction of the musical story of(^27) Schimmel, 1979 : 131; see Hoffman-Ladd, 1992 : 90.
(^28) Although generally translated as‘religion,’al-dincan also connote‘way of life’(Ahmed, 2015 :
187 – 188).
(^29) Ahmed, 2015 : 203.
86 The Insufficient Image