The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Hajj and the Arts of Pilgrimage | |
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Curators | Nasser D. Khalili (founder) Nahla Nassar (curator and registrar) [1] Qaisra Khan (curator) [2] |
Size (no. of items) | 5,000 [2] |
Website | www |
The Khalili Collection of Hajj and the Arts of Pilgrimage is a private collection of around 5,000 items [2] relating to the Hajj, the pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca which is a religious duty in Islam. It is one of eight collections assembled, conserved, published and exhibited by the British scholar, collector and philanthropist Nasser Khalili; each collection is considered among the most important in its field. [3] The collection's 300 textiles include embroidered curtains from the Kaaba, the Station of Abraham, the Mosque of the Prophet Muhammad and other holy sites, as well as textiles that would have formed part of pilgrimage caravans from Egypt or Syria. It also has illuminated manuscripts depicting the practice and folklore of the Hajj as well as photographs, art pieces, and commemorative objects relating to the Hajj and the holy sites of Mecca and Medina.
Part of the collection was exhibited at the British Museum in 2012 and it has lent objects for exhibition in other countries. It is documented in a 2022 single-volume summary, with a 7-volume comprehensive catalog in the works. [4] [5] Alongside the Topkapı Palace museum, it has been described as "the largest and most significant group of objects relating to the cultural history of the Hajj".
The Hajj (Arabic : حَجّ) is an annual Islamic pilgrimage to the sacred city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia, [7] the holiest city for Muslims. Hajj is a mandatory religious duty for Muslims that must be carried out at least once in their lifetime by all adult Muslims who are physically and financially capable of undertaking the journey, and can support their family during their absence. [8] [9] [10]
Hajj is one of the Five Pillars of Islam, alongside Shahadah (confession of faith), Salat (prayer), Zakat (charity), and Sawm (fasting). The Hajj is a demonstration of the solidarity of the Muslim people, and their submission to God (Allah). [9] [11] The word Hajj means "to attend a journey", which connotes both the outward act of a journey and the inward act of intentions. [12] In the centre of the Masjid al-Haram mosque in Mecca is the Kaaba, a cubic building known in Islam as the House of God. [13] [8] The cloth covering of the Kaaba is known as the kiswah and is changed each year. [14] A Hajj consists of several distinct rituals including the tawaf (procession seven times counterclockwise round the Kaaba), wuquf (a vigil at Mount Arafat where Mohammed is said to have preached his last sermon), and ramy al-jamarāt (stoning of the Devil). [8] [15]
The British-Iranian collector Nasser Khalili has assembled, conserved, published and exhibited eight art collections, including the largest private collection of Islamic art. [16] [3] Patricia Scotland, Secretary-General of the Commonwealth of Nations, has described Khalili's collection as, alongside the Topkapı Palace museum in Istanbul, "the largest and most significant group of objects relating to the cultural history of the Hajj". [17] Baroness Amos, Director of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, has described it as "the greatest collection of objects related to Makkah [Mecca] and the Hajj." [18] Its objects range from the 8th to the 20th century and from Morocco in the West to China in the East. [19]
In 2022 the publisher Assoulyne has released a 408-page volume documenting the collection's 5,000 objects, authored by one of the curators, Qaisra M. Khan. [20] [21] The Hajj collection has been documented in a series of ten volumes which are due for publication in 2022. [2] [22]
The collection includes more than 300 textiles made for holy sites. [2] As well as the textiles themselves, the collection has archival material including ledgers and photographs from the Cairo workshops where the textiles are produced for Mecca and Medina. [2]
A mahmal is a passenger-less litter usually carried on a camel among a caravan of pilgrims. These would bear the name of the Ottoman ruler, symbolising their protection of the holy places. [23] The collection has seven mahmal coverings from caravans that would have set out from Egypt or Syria; the earliest was made in 17th century Istanbul at the request of Mehmed IV. Standing 355 centimetres (140 in) high, its silk is embroidered in silver and silver-gilt wire. [24] [25] The most recent mahmal covering, from the end of the 19th century, bears the name of Abdul Hamid II. [24]
Other textiles include coverings used on the Kaaba, on the Prophet's Mosque in Medina, or in the Prophet's tomb. [2] Some served as bags for the key to the Kaaba. [2] The covering of the Kaaba, replaced annually, is known as the kiswah and the ornate curtain that covers its door is a sitarah , also known as a burdah or burqu'. [26] A sitarah for the Kaaba, 499 centimetres (196 in) high, dates from 1606. Made in Cairo, it was commissioned by Ahmed I. [27] [28] Others, similarly embroidered with multiple verses from the Quran, were commissioned by Abdülmejid I [29] [26] and Mahmud II. [30] The internal door of the Kaaba, the bab al-tawbah, has its own textile covering which was similarly made in Cairo and replaced annually. The collection has examples from the 19th and early 20th centuries. [31] [32]
The Prophet's Mosque includes the tomb of Muhammad and, between the tomb and the minbar (pulpit), the Rawḍah ash-Sharifah (Noble Garden), carpeted in green. Sitarahs cover the minbar and some internal doors of the mosque, the metal grille around his tomb, and the doors of the Rawdah. The collection includes several of these sitarahs from the 18th century onwards. [2] A red silk sitarah 280 centimetres (110 in) high was made in Istanbul in the early 19th century. It bears the cartouche of Mahmud II who commissioned it for the Rawdah. [33] [34] A section of curtain for the tomb, made in Istanbul in the 18th century, has calligraphed inscriptions in silver-wrapped silk thread on a deep red background. [35] [36] This is one of eight surviving pieces of a single textile; another is in the collection of the Topkapı Palace in Istanbul. [37] [35]
The Maqam Ibrahim (Station of Abraham) is a small square stone in the Masjid al-Haram mosque which, according to Islamic tradition, bears the footprint of Abraham. [38] It used to be housed in a structure that had its own kiswah (textile covering) made in Cairo and replaced every year, as happens now for the Kaaba. The collection includes a section from one such late-19th-century kiswah, 200 centimetres (79 in) high, of black silk with silver and gold wire embroidery. [39]
Talismanic cotton shirts are inked with prayers, quotes from the Quran, and schematic illustrations of the holy sanctuaries at Mecca and Medina, similar to what would appear on a pilgrimage certificate or illuminated manuscript. [40] [41] One in the collection dates from the 16th or early 17th century [40] and another from the 18th or late 17th. [41] Others, from the 16th century and 17th century Ottoman Empire, are calligraphed with many names of Allah in bright colours as a kind of protection for the wearer. [42] [43]
The collection includes a folio from a 16th-century manuscript of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh (Book of Kings), depicting Alexander the Great kneeling in prayer at the Kaaba among other pilgrims. [44] [45] He is often portrayed in Islam as having performed a Hajj. [44] [45]
Anis Al-Hujjaj (Pilgrim's Companion) is a seventeenth century account of a Hajj undertaken in 1677 by Safi ibn Vali, an official of the Mughal court. The document gives advice to pilgrims about the journey. As well as showing diagrams of the routes and places of the Hajj, the illustrations colourfully depict the pilgrims travelling, living together in camps, and taking part in the Hajj rites. [46] The Khalili collection includes an exemplar, thought to originate from Gujarat, which consists of 23 folios including nine half-page and eleven full-page illustrations. [47] Another illuminated guide for pilgrims is the Futuh al-Haramayn of Muhi Al-Din Lari; the collection has exemplars from 16th century Mecca and late 18th or 19th century India. [48] [49]
Although it is rare for Qurans to include depictions of the holy sites of Mecca and Medina, the collection includes examples from the late 18th century that do so. [50] [51] [52] The Dala'il al-Khayrat by Muhammad al-Jazuli is a very popular prayer book. The collection includes multiple exemplars, illuminated with diagrams of holy sites. [53] [54] [55] [56] [57] A late 18th or early 19th century exemplar is presumably the source of a pair of detached pages depicting the holy sanctuaries of Mecca and Medina. [58] [59]
Another illuminated manuscript, consisting of 35 folios, sets out the family tree of the Prophet Mohammed with additional text about his life and companions. It dates from the 14th century Middle East, possibly Syria. [60] A 16th century pilgrimage scroll from the Hejaz region records the rites an unnamed pilgrim conducted, combined with diagrams of the Prophet's tomb and other locations visited. [61]
A panoramic view of Mecca dating from around 1845 is the earliest known accurate depiction of the area around the Masjid al-Haram. [62] The painter, Muhammad ‘Abdallah of Delhi, was the grandson of Mazar ‘Ali Khan, court artist for Bahadur Shah II, the last Mughal Emperor. [6] [62] An earlier, largely inaccurate, representation of Mecca and Medina is given in a 1727 album of architectural drawings by the Austrian architect Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach. [63] A detached plate, carefully hand-coloured, from an 1825 edition of George Sale's English translation of the Quran, gives a plan and view of the Holy Sanctuary in Mecca. [64]
The collection includes a set of the earliest known photographs of Mecca and the Hajj, taken by Muhammad Sadiq, an Egypt-born photographer who was also treasurer of the Egyptian Hajj caravan. In 1880 and 1881, Muhammad Sadiq used glass plate photography to capture the Kaaba and other holy sites in Mecca, Medina, Mount Arafat, and Mina. [65] [66] [6] Other photographers in the collection include Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje, the first European to photograph Mecca [67] and Abd al-Ghaffar, a Meccan doctor who was the first local person to photograph the Great Mosque. [68] [69] Safouh Izzat Naamani (1926–2015) was the first to photograph Mecca from the air and the collection includes an aerial photograph from 1966, showing the then-new covering of the Safa and Marwa hills that pilgrims process between. [70] [71]
Art inspired by the Hajj has continued into the 21st century. One such work is the series of photogravure etchings by the artist Ahmad Mater titled Magnetism I–IV. Using iron filings and magnets, Mater created a scene centered on a black cube which visually evokes the pilgrims walking around the Kaaba. [72] [73]
The coins in the collection range from the Abbasid period of the 7th century to modern times. [74] Many were struck in Mecca or elsewhere in Saudi Arabia. [2] The oldest is a gold dinar from 105 AH (723–4 AD) struck in "the mine of the Commander of the Faithful in the Hijaz". [75]
Other kinds of object in the collection were used during a pilgrimage, depict the holy sites, or otherwise celebrate the Hajj. There are water flasks carried by pilgrims, and Hajj certificates. [2] There are scientific instruments including qibla compasses (for finding the direction of Mecca) decorated with diagrams of the Kaaba. [76] [6] There are hilyes (calligraphic artworks relating the attributes of the Prophet Mohammed) from Ottoman Turkey. [77] [78] [79] After independence in 1947, the State Bank of Pakistan issued Hajj banknotes. These made currency conversion easier for pilgrims and gave the banks more control over their currency. The collection has examples from Pakistan and India. [80] [81]
A single-volume summary of the collection by Qasira Khan, with 300 illustrations, was published in 2022 by Assouline Publishing. [4] [82] An eleven-volume catalogue is scheduled for future publication. [5]
The collection is not on permanent public display, but was the largest lender of objects to a 2012 exhibition about the Hajj at the British Museum. [83] Objects have subsequently been lent to exhibitions in other countries. [2]
In 2021, a dozen objects in the collection were digitised by Google Arts & Culture, creating gigapixel images. These were combined with the collection's own digital images to produce an online exhibit in which readers can zoom in on very fine details. [85]
Mecca is the capital of Mecca Province in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia and the holiest city according to Islam. It is 70 km (43 mi) inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow valley 277 m (909 ft) above sea level. Its metropolitan population in 2022 was 2.4 million, making it the third-most populated city in Saudi Arabia after Riyadh and Jeddah. Around 44.5% of the population are Saudi citizens and around 55.5% are Muslim foreigners from other countries. Pilgrims more than triple the population number every year during the Ḥajj pilgrimage, observed in the twelfth Hijri month of Dhūl-Ḥijjah. With over 10.8 million international visitors in 2023, Mecca was one of the ten most visited cities in the world.
The kiswa is the cloth that covers the Kaaba in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. It is draped annually, though the date of draping has changed over the years. A procession traditionally accompanies the kiswa to Mecca, a tradition dating back to the 12th century. The term kiswa has multiple translations, with common ones being 'robe' or 'garment'. Due to the iconic designs and the quality of materials used in creating the kiswa, it is considered one of the most sacred objects in Islamic art, ritual, and worship.
The holiest sites in Islam are located in the Arabian Peninsula. While the significance of most places typically varies depending on the Islamic sect, there is a consensus across all mainstream branches of the religion that affirms two cities as having the highest degree of holiness, in descending order: Mecca, and Medina. Mecca's Al-Masjid al-Haram, Al-Masjid an-Nabawi in Medina are all revered by Muslims as sites of great importance.
Dalāʼil al-khayrāt wa-shawāriq al-anwār fī dhikr al-ṣalāt ʻalá al-Nabī al-mukhtār, usually shortened to Dala'il al-Khayrat, is a famous collection of prayers for the Islamic prophet Muhammad, which was written by the Moroccan Shadhili scholar Muhammad al-Jazuli. It is popular in parts of the Islamic world amongst traditional Muslims—specifically North Africa, the Levant, Turkey, the Caucasus and South Asia—and is divided into sections for daily recitation.
The Kaaba, sometimes referred to as al-Ka'ba al-Musharrafa, is a stone building at the center of Islam's most important mosque and holiest site, the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. It is considered by Muslims to be the Baytullah and is the qibla for Muslims around the world. The current structure was built after the original building was damaged by fire during the siege of Mecca by Umayyads in 683 CE.
Hajj is an annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, the holiest city for Muslims. Hajj is a mandatory religious duty for capable Muslims that must be carried out at least once in their lifetime by all adult Muslims who are physically and financially capable of undertaking the journey, and of supporting their family during their absence from home.
Masjid al-Haram, also known as the Sacred Mosque or the Great Mosque of Mecca, is considered to be the most significant mosque in Islam. It encloses the vicinity of the Kaaba in Mecca, in the Mecca Province of Saudi Arabia. It is among the pilgrimage sites associated with the Hajj, which every Muslim must perform at least once in their lives if able. It is also the main site for the performance of ʿUmrah, the lesser pilgrimage that can be undertaken any time of the year. The rites of both pilgrimages include circumambulating the Kaaba within the mosque. The Great Mosque includes other important significant sites, such as the Black Stone, the Zamzam Well, Maqam Ibrahim, and the hills of Safa and Marwa.
The hajj is a pilgrimage to Mecca performed by millions of Muslims every year, coming from all over the Muslim world. Its history goes back many centuries. The present pattern of the Islamic Hajj was established by Islamic prophet Muhammad, around 632 CE, who reformed the existing pilgrimage tradition of the pagan Arabs. According to Islamic tradition, the hajj dates from thousands of years earlier, from when Abraham, upon God's command, built the Kaaba. This cubic building is considered the most holy site in Islam and the rituals of the hajj include walking repeatedly around it.
A talismanic shirt is a worn textile talisman. Talismanic shirts are found throughout the Muslim world. The shirts can be grouped to four types which differ in style and the symbols used: an Ottoman, a Safavid, a Mughal and a West African one.
Embroidery was an important art in the Islamic world from the beginning of Islam until the Industrial Revolution disrupted traditional ways of life.
Muḥyi al-Dīn Lārī, died 1521 or 1526–7, was a 16th-century miniaturist and writer, best known for his Kitab Futūḥ al-Ḥaramayn, a guidebook to the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina.
The Khalili Collections are eight distinct art collections assembled by Nasser D. Khalili over five decades. Together, the collections include some 35,000 works of art, and each is considered among the most important in its field.
The Anis Al-Hujjaj is a seventeenth-century literary work by Safi ibn Vali, an official of the Mughal court in what is now India. Written in Persian, it describes the Hajj undertaken by him in 1677 AD and it gives advice to pilgrims. Its illustrations depict pilgrims travelling to the holy sites and taking part in the rituals of the Hajj. They are also a visual guide to significant places and people.
A mahmal is a ceremonial passenger-less litter that was carried on a camel among caravans of pilgrims on the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca which is a sacred duty in Islam. It symbolised the political power of the sultans who sent it, demonstrating their custody of Islam's holy sites. Each mahmal had an intricately embroidered textile cover, or sitr. The tradition dates back at least to the 13th century and ended in the mid-20th. There are many descriptions and photographs of mahmals from 19th century observers of the Hajj.
A sitara or sitarah is an ornamental curtain used in the sacred sites of Islam. A sitara forms part of the kiswah, the cloth covering of the Kaaba in Mecca. Another sitara adorns the Prophet's Tomb in the Al-Masjid an-Nabawi mosque in Medina. These textiles bear embroidered inscriptions of verses from the Quran and other significant texts. Sitaras have been created annually since the 16th century as part of a set of textiles sent to Mecca. The tradition is that the textiles are provided by the ruler responsible for the holy sites. In different eras, this has meant the Mamluk Sultans, the Sultans of the Ottoman Empire, and presently the rulers of Saudi Arabia. The construction of the sitaras is both an act of religious devotion and a demonstration of the wealth of the rulers who commission them.
Futuh al-Haramayn is considered the first Islamic guidebook for pilgrimage. It was written by Muhi al-Din Lari and completed in India in 1505–6. The book was dedicated to Muzaffar ibn Mahmudshah, the ruler of Gujarat. No early illustrated Indian copies are known, but later in the 16th century it was widely copied in Ottoman Turkey. The book describes the full rituals of the Hajj in order, and describes the religious sites one can visit.
Muhammad Sadiq Bey was an Ottoman Egyptian army engineer and surveyor who served as treasurer of the Hajj pilgrim caravan. As a photographer and author, he documented the holy sites of Islam at Mecca and Medina, taking the first ever photographs in what is now Saudi Arabia.
The Dar al-Kiswa al-Sharifa, abbreviated Dar al-Kiswa, was an artistic workshop in Cairo, Egypt, which operated from 1817 to 1997. For more than a century, it made sacred textiles for the Islamic holy sites in Mecca and Medina including the kiswah, the ornamental textile covering of the Kaaba which is replaced annually. The kiswah and other sacred textiles were conveyed each year across the hundreds of miles of desert from Cairo to Mecca on camels among the Hajj pilgrims. The workshop also made textiles for royal and state purposes, including military and police uniforms. At its peak at the start of the 20th century, the workshop employed over a hundred craftsmen to make textiles for the holy sites. Egypt sent the kiswah every year with few exceptions until 1962, when the kiswah sent to Mecca was returned unused. From then on, the textiles were made in a dedicated factory in Mecca. The building is now a government storage space.
Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam was an exhibition held at the British Museum in London from 26 January to 15 April 2012. It was the world's first major exhibition telling the story, visually and textually, of the hajj – the pilgrimage to Mecca which is one of the five pillars of Islam. Textiles, manuscripts, historical documents, photographs, and art works from many different countries and eras were displayed to illustrate the themes of travel to Mecca, hajj rituals, and the Kaaba. More than two hundred objects were included, drawn from forty public and private collections in a total of fourteen countries. The largest contributor was David Khalili's family trust, which lent many objects that would later be part of the Khalili Collection of Hajj and the Arts of Pilgrimage.
Hajj certificates are official documents certifying that one has completed the Hajj, the Islamic obligatory pilgrimage to Mecca. The certificates also serve as personal and family mementos used to commemorate their pilgrimage. Certificates have origins in the 11th century and have had many variations in style and content over the centuries.
This article incorporates text from a free content work.Licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.Text taken from The Khalili Collections ,Khalili Foundation.