Safvat al-Safa’
Pir ‘Ali Parniqi’s Dream of Shaykh Safi with the Prophet Muhammad
Pir ‘Ali Parniqi’s Dream of Shaykh Safi with the Prophet Muhammad
Fol. 116v from a manuscript of Safvat al-Safa'
Iran, Shiraz, 1582
Opaque watercolour, gold, and ink on paper
AKM264
The Safvat al-Safa' records a dream that one of Shaykh Safi’s followers had, in which the shaykh holds a green staff and brings order to a crowd, while the Prophet Muhammad takes people into his shadow. To depict this dream, the artist has adapted well-known illustrations of the Prophet’s Night Ascension and the End of Time: veiled holy figures, the human-headed horse Buraq, angels dispersing Divine light, and demons torturing the damned. Here, the central figures’ identities are ambiguous. The camel rider holding the green banner may be identified either as Shaykh Safi or perhaps the Prophet — “the keeper of the banner”; while the figure astride Buraq may be either the Prophet or his cousin ‘Ali, considered the first Imam in the Shi‘ite tradition.