them, and then wished to offer a critique; so he took a piece of charcoal from the
road and depicted next to those images a Zanji man who appeared to be making a
gesture with his hands at the viewer. After that, the viewer’s attention was diverted
away from the coloured images and towards his, and there wasta’ajjub[wonder]
due to his creation being‘ajib[wondrous], and the beauty of its gesture and the
form of its movements.^38
As in the story about Mani, competition emerges through happenstance, as
the artist better able to fool the eye upstages that which previously appeared
sufficient. Yet the demonstration is not merely visual: the newfigure,
characterized as foreign through emphasis on his dark skin (zanji), ges-
tures toward the viewer, undermining its illusionism by making the layers
of deception apparent. The realism of the charcoal image renders its deceit
apparent.
The theme of art as fruitful deception also recalls the Quranic tale of
Bilqis’s conversion by attempting to wade in glass (discussed inChapter 4.1).
Visuality in general may be suspect in its production of false icons, but it
serves as a bridge toward recognition of the invisible form of the divine. This
doubled gaze resembles a mirror in which we see not the representation, but
the representation of the representation, as in the competition of the artists
or the Simurgh (discussed inChapter 3.3).
The shift from representation in the sense of the image, re-presentation
in the mirror, and political representation becomes clear through the
attribution of the invention of the mirror to Alexander earlier in the
Nizami’sBook of Alexander.^39
As Alexander became the key of the world, his sword began to shine like a mirror,
and the world was as the bride of this mirror as she prepared herself for the
unveiling. Mirrors were unknown before Alexander and were initially prepared
through his wisdom. Thefirst try failed. One poured silver and gold in a mold and
polished the casting, but one could not see one’s own form. Then followed
experiments with all other metals. Each showed distorted images until iron came
into use, when the image shown from the substance. As he polished it, the black-
smith who made it became a painter, because the essence of things delighted and as
the metal shone it showed all forms just as they are. Then they gave the mirror all
possible forms, in which no real image emerged. If it was wide, then it showed one
wide, if one looked at it oblong, it lengthened the forehead. A square appeared
cross-wise, a hexagon deformed. As one made the form round, a shape was
achieved with no deformity. Wherever one stood, the reflection was evenly good,
so one left it at that.(^38) Saba,2012: 201. (^39) This legend is not in Pseudo-Callisthenes.
146 Seeing through the Mirror