In both parables, the interplay of dream, palace, sexuality, and idolatry uses
materiality, the image, and the idol. Far from prohibited, they are neces-
sary. They also transcend gender: like Zuleikha, after the shaykh returns to
Mecca, the Christian princess has a dream, converts, and dies on the way to
him. Complicating Merguerian and Najmabadi’s assertion that Jami’s
rendition of Zuleikha punishes female heterosexual desire, comparison
with a similar story of abjection suggests that the gender of the subject
may be irrelevant in relation to the Sufimoral of the tale.^73 Like the images
in the chest of witnessing (seeChapter 7.1), once transgressions have
served their purpose of revelation, they disappear in the act of redemption.
Jami’s emphasis on the theme of visuality frames the issue of the image
within the‘sect of love’in an era of the rapid development of Islamic book
arts, particularly painting. Whereas a generation later, Dust Muhammad
inscribes this discursive environment with a prose apology for the image in
Islamic traditions, Jami uses the poetic frame to reconfigure the apparent
threat of the image as its potential benefit.
The centrality of this discussion to Jami’s work is made clear in one of
the most famous paintings in the canon of Islamic art, an illustration of
Zuleikha chasing Joseph through her palace of love, executed by Bihzad
(1465–1535), one of the most renowned masters of Timurid painting
[Figure 12]. Although the painting illustrates a copy of Sa’di’sBustan,it
includes two verses from Jami concerning painting (indicated by * in the
quotations above), producing an intertextual reading of Sa’di and Jami’s
interpretations within a visual setting.^74. Barry suggests that,“Indeed,
when properly deciphered, Bihzad’s painting of Joseph in Zulaykha’s
Castleeven becomes something like a Rosetta Stone, for our understanding
of medieval Islamicfigurative art, since it yields us an essential key to its
whole code of glyphs.”^75 He argues that the inclusion of these passages
amounted to an allowance for the artist to paint through the recognition of
skill as a gift from God and thus a demonstration of the divine. The
inclusion of the lines as though they were architectural calligraphy likens
the artist to the patron, shifting the attention of the viewer from the patron
to the artist as the keyfigure in the work.^76
Like Dust Muhammad’s discussion of art and artists, this image reflects
contemporary discussions of the image. Yet both works, held in imperial
libraries, had relatively few admirers. In contrast, the extensive circulation
of the poem by Jami, long acknowledged as“the seal of Persian poets,”(^73) Merguerian and Najmabadi,1997: 500–501. (^74) Barry, 2004 : 203. (^75) Barry,2004: 199.
(^76) Balafrej,2019.
250 The Transgressive Image