As Zuleikha expresses her passion when Yusuf enters her chamber, the
paintings apparently multiply. Sexual desire metaphorically expresses the
agency of the image. Just as, in Nizami’sShirin and Khosrau, the dream of
Khosrau enables the materialization of Shapur’s paintings for Shirin,
Zuleikha’s dream comes alive in paintings. Like Shirin, Yusuf cannot resist
the powerful images.
So she made known her pain
To Joseph and her lust–
But Joseph glared as if within himself
And held aloof from fear of broil
And stared down at the chamber’s rug–
And saw himself and her! in imagery depicted,
Embroidered on the carpet’s silk,
Hugging each other, breast against her breasts–
From such a picture, swift! He turned his glance
And saw himself depicted everywhere:
If he looked at the door, if he looked on the wall,
He saw his cheek coupled to hers in twin roses:
And lifted his face to his God in the heavens
And saw the same scene on the ceiling.^48
The infinite multiplication of the image suggests a dizzying hall of mirrors
resembling Yusuf’s description of the infinity of creation. It also reflects
wall painting as a normal element in palace design, exemplified by the
suratkhana(picture house or portrait gallery) of Baysunghur ibn Shahrukh
(d. 1433) and other Timurid palaces.^49
Like the secret room in Bahram Gur’s palace, here painting embodies
desire (SeeChapter 7.4b). However, rather than situating love of the beloved
within a scaled cosmos in which the physical world represents the micro-
cosm in macrocosm, Jami focuses on the experience of longing itself by
transposing the physical experience of lust onto the transcendent desire for
union with the divine. This sexualization may reflect the open discussion of
sexuality in Timurid literature, exemplified by Muhammad ibn Muhammad
al-Nafzawi’searlyfifteenth-centuryThe Perfumed Garden of Sensual Delight.
Unlike in the Judaic versions, Zuleikha’s lust is neither sinful nor
treacherous, but a model for how humans must transcend natural sexual
desire, regulating it through spiritual union with the divine. Yusuf
embodies this overwhelming confluence of sexuality with spirituality.
Jami inverts the plain narrative of good against evil, malefidelity against(^48) Barry,2004: 204–206. (^49) Lentz,1993: 254; Karev,2005.
238 The Transgressive Image