A large Ottoman talismanic shirt (jama) with extracts from the Qur'an and prayers, Turkey, 16th/17th century

cotton shirt (jama) covered with text written in a variety of scripts, including thuluth, and square Kufic, in assorted colours, arranged in numerous panels, roundels, cartouches and lines, within bespoke perspex case

In good overall condition, wear to the outer edges and the stitches, minor medium loss due to age, light fading of colours in small areas, as viewed.
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inscriptions

The inscriptions include quotations from the Qur'an,chapters II (al-baqara), part of verse 137; XLVIII (al-fath) verse 3; XVII (al-isra’), part of verse 79; XIII (al-ra’d), part of verse 28; III (al-‘imran), part of verse 160 and invocations to God in mirrored form and the Beautiful Names of God (asma’ al-husna) in individual roundels and squares. They are written in a variety of styles (including thuluth, naskh, angular Kufic (ma’qali)), and different forms: large (jali), small (khafi), minute (ghubar), mirrored (muthanna); reserved against black or minute (ghubar) text and in many colours and sizes. Those in angular Kufic (in squares, octagons, bands and in colours or reserved against black) contain: the shahada; the names God and Muhammad (4 times); the names Muhammad and the four Orthodox Caliphs; ‘Praise be to God’ (4 times); Qur’an, chapter II (al-baqara), verse 255; CVII-CXIV (al-ikhlas, al-falaq, al-nas) and II (al-baqara), verse 285.

This is an unusual and finely executed Qur'an jama. The basic layout related to other jamas of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, with a large number of panels and roundels containing Qur'anic quotations, pious phrases, prayers and talismanic numbers, but here their arrangement is unusually varied and inventive, with a number of distinctly Ottoman features such as the architectural references on the reverse of the jama with a large door flanked by Kufic cartouches on two sides and tilework above. What is also particularly noteworthy is the accomplished quality of the calligraphy, which is executed in a number of different scripts, and retains a confident aesthetic in even its most minute form. The amalgamation of all the decorative and calligraphic styles is a technique visible on other comparable talismanic shirts including the jama of Cem Sultan (TKS13/1404, see Roxburgh 2005, pp.300-1, no.257) and that of Mehmed II (TKS13/1408, published in Palace of Gold and Light, Treasures from the Topkapi, exhib. cat, Istanbul, 2000, pp.66-69, no.A7).

The present shirt and its decoration relate to a group of Ottoman shirts now housed in the Topkapi Saray Museum which all date from the fifteenth to sixteenth centuries. 

A similar talismanic shirt was sold in these rooms 25 April 2012, lot 419.