Persian Miniatures [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION Scholarly interest in Persian miniatures is of fairly recent date. It is not much more than fifty years since art historians and scholars of Islam began to make a study of the arts and crafts in Islamic countries and, in this context, also of one of the most outstanding branches of their artistic culture — the illuminated manuscript and the book illustrated with miniatures. Frequently included in this broad stream of Islamic art is the Persian miniature, as a glance at the bibliography will show. Under the special conditions created by the expansive militancy of the Arab followers of the Prophet, all spiritual life developed from the middle of the 7th century, within the wide geographical boundaries of the Arab Caliphate: the Arabs, rude inhabitants of the desert, conquered nations with ancient and highly advanced cultures and welded them for a time into a certain unity, thanks to the imposition of a common religion - Islam - and a common official language - Arabic. In view of these circumstances, it is difficult to attribute the specific contribution made by the many and various nations of the Caliphate to the common cultural fund of this powerful mediaeval empire. Indeed, scholars are still not unanimous as to where they should assign those notable Persian poets, phi-