Arts of the Book in Islamic Cultures

Service Description

This course provides an introduction to the material and visual culture of the Islamic book, from the 14th to the 18th century, focusing predominantly on Ottoman and Safavid manuscript traditions. Students will explore the full lifecycle of the codex—from paper making, calligraphy, and illumination to narrative painting, binding, and archival preservation. By situating manuscripts within their wider royal, religious, and cross-cultural contexts, this course examines the political and artistic dialogues between Ottoman and Safavid centers such as Istanbul, Baghdad, Tabriz, Shiraz, Qazvin, and Isfahan, offering foundational tools for primary-source visual analysis. Session 1: Origin Stories: The Oldest Illustrated Manuscripts from Islamic Cultures Session 2: Anatomy of the Codex: Materials, Paper, and Bookmaking Techniques Session 3: The Pen and the Brush: Arts of Calligraphy and Illumination Session 4: Who Pays for All This? Patronage and Workshop Dynamics Session 5: Early Safavid Masterpieces: The Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasp, and Ibrahim Mirza’s Haft Awrang Session 6: Illustrated Histories: Ottoman Historical Painting and the Royal Workshop Session 7: Painted Cosmos: Religious and Scientific Manuscript Illustrations Session 8: An Entangled World: Mughal, Deccan, and Shaybanid Connections Session 9: Late Safavid Innovation: Reza Abbasi and the Rise of Single-Page Drawings in Isfahan Session 10: Afterlives of Manuscripts: Collecting, Conserving, and Curating in Modern Institutions Özlem Yıldız received her PhD in Art History at Temple University in 2026. She holds an MA in History of Art and Architecture of the Islamic Middle East from SOAS University of London, and another MA in History from Sabancı University. Her doctoral thesis, titled “Illustrating the Lives of the Prophets in Sixteenth-Century Islamic Manucripts”, examines Safavid and Ottoman illustrated manuscripts of Qiṣaṣ al-Anbiyā’ (Tales of the Prophets) and related texts in a semiological framework, around the themes of sign, gender, intertextuality, and politics. Dr. Yıldız held research fellowships at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and at ANAMED (Koç University Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations). Her research has been supported by The Historians of Islamic Art Association, The Barakat Trust, and TÜBİTAK (The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye), among other institutions.