Whether of the fine, or of the large naskh-i ta‘liq, The original inventor was Khwaja Mir Ali
From his fine intellect, he laid down the rules of the new script From naskh and from ta‘liq
—Sultan Ali Mashhadi, Sirat al-sutur, 1514
Biographies of calligraphers and treatises composed in sixteenth-century Iran credit Mir Ali Tabrizi (active circa 1370–1410) with the “invention” of the nasta‘liq script. For this distinction he later received the prestigious title qudwat al-kuttab (“model for the scribes.”) Mir Ali Tabrizi was active in the royal workshop in Tabriz under the reign of the Jalayrid sultan Ahmad, who died in 1410. The renowned calligrapher transmitted his art to his son Abdallah. He in turn was the master of Ja‘far Tabrizi, who popularized nasta‘liq in eastern Iran at the Timurid court of Herat after 1420.
Little is known about Mir Ali’s life and work. According to legend, he created the new script after Ali ibn Abi Talib, cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad, appeared to him in a dream. Ali, who is traditionally seen as the very initiator of calligraphy in Islam, told Mir Ali Tabrizi to draw letters that look like the wings of flying geese. Nasta‘liq allegedly came into existence from that directive. Scholars have recently argued, however, that the script in fact emerged gradually in the second half of the fourteenth century in the cities of Shiraz and Tabriz.
At present, the only known signed work in the world by Mir Ali Tabrizi is the Freer Gallery of Art’s copy of Khusraw u Shirin by the Persian author Nizami.
Mir Ali Tabrizi’s signature appears in this colophon. It is the only known signed work by the master calligrapher.
This copy of the celebrated romance between Khusraw and Shirin by the author Nizami (died 1209) is the only known work signed by Mir Ali Tabrizi. The colophon (lower right image) not only mentions Tabriz, the capital of the Jalayirid sultanate, as the place where the manuscript was completed, but it also provides the full name of its master calligrapher: Ali ibn Hasan. Al-Sultani, the honorific epithet (laqab) placed after his name, indicates Mir Ali occupied a prominent position in the royal workshop or he worked directly for Sultan Ahmad Jalayir. Mir Ali Tabrizi’s nasta‘liq handwriting exemplifies the script used between 1370 and 1410 in the Jalayirid centers of Tabriz and Baghdad. According to later authors, he was not the “inventor” (mukhtari‘) of the script but rather the calligrapher who codified it.
Noticeable here is the first use of oblique lines within a text, a trait that was later widely adopted to underscore specific verses in Persian manuscripts.
Signed by Mir Ali Tabrizi (act. ca. 1370–1410)
Iran, Tabriz, Jalayirid period, ca. 1400
Ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper
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Freer Gallery of Art F1931.29 folios 50–51 and 126
A later inscription attributes this copy of collected poems by Sultan Ahmad Jalayir (died 1410) to Mir Ali Tabrizi, the “inventor” of the nasta‘liq script. The stylistic similarity of this Divan and the Khusraw u Shirin signed by Mir Ali confirms this attribution. Slight variation in the thickness of the strokes and the overall impression of horizontality in the lines indicate they are the work of the same calligrapher.
Mir Ali’s text appears in the central frame of the folios. Sometime in the sixteenth century, the text of the Gulistan (Rose garden) by the poet Sa‘di (died 1292) was added into the margins. Even though both texts are copied in nasta‘liq, the difference between the two styles, written at least two hundred years apart, is easily discernible.
Attributed to Mir Ali Tabrizi (act. ca. 1370–1410)
Iran, Tabriz, or Iraq, Baghdad, Jalayirid period, ca. 1400
Ink, color, and gold on paper
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Freer Gallery of Art F1932.29 folios 181v–182r