Footnotes

• The first portrait bears the inscription Mughul-Khan. This may be 'Arab Shaykh, who was honoured with the title Mughul-Khan by the Emperor 'Alamgir in his 9th regnal year (1666). He was promoted to various posts, including Superintendent of Macebearers, Master of Ceremonies (mir tuzuk); Chief Falconer (qushbegi). He was Governor of Malwa and was presented with an elephant and his rank was increased to 3500 with 3000 horse. He died in 1685. See Saqi Must'ad Khan, Maasir-i-Alamgiri, translated by Sir Jadu-nath Sarkar, Calcutta 1947, pp. 63, 75, 94, 101, 118, 121, 126, 141, 143, 151, 159; and index on p. 343.
  The calligraphy verso is as follows:
  Verses attributed to Jalal al-Din 'Azud, the Muzaffarid Minister of Yazd. Signed simply as 'Ibrahim', who may be the 16th Century calligrapher recorded by Bayani with five calligraphic pages, only one with a date, in the Bahram Mirza Album in Istanbul and is dated AH 933/AD 1526-27. See Mehdi Bayani, ahval va asar-e khosh-nevisan, vol. I, Tehran, 1345 sh., p. 8.
  
  The second portrait bears the inscription Sayyid 'Ali-Khan. The identification is obscure. He may be Sayyid Najm al-Din 'Ali Khan Barath, mentioned as 'distinguished for bravery and manliness', the brother of Qutb al-Mulk and the man who looked after the affairs of the country after the assassination of the Amir al-Umara. He was appointed commander of Ajmer and later Governor of Gwalior. All these events occurred during the unsettled period just before, and in the early years of the reign of Muhammad Shah. No date is given for any event. See Nawwab Samsam-ud-daula Shah Nawaz Khan and his son Abdul Hayy, The Maathir-ul-umara, trans. by H. Beveridge, vol. ii, reprint 1999, pp. 376-78.
  The calligraphy verso is as follows:
  Two lines in Persian in nasta'liq script, probably 16th/17th Century, on a blue ground, each line apparently not from the same text.

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Category: Islamic and Oriental Art / Islamic and Indian Art

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