The Patterns of Miraj Illustration in Ilkhanid and Timurid Eras: A Re-reading of Visual Patterns of ‎Miraj regarding Concepts of ‘Earth’ and ‘Boraq’ in Mirajyeh Texts

Hadith is the fundamental basis on which the tradition of Miraj Nameh was formed. This tradition flourished in interpretive texts and continued in independent prose texts and poetic introductions. Unlike the roughly known tradition of Miraj literature, the history of Miraj Miniatures is not clear.  The oldest Iranian-Islamic Miraj Miniature collections belong to the Mongol era.  Despite the existing knowledge about later Miraj poetry, the exact text that has been used by the painters in Miraj Miniatures still has not been found out. Therefore, this study tries to discuss the relationship existing between narrative and visual patterns of Miraj tradition. In other words, this text focuses on the relationship between literature and miniature of Miraj tradition and tries to categorize early Miraj Namehs according to different Miraj narratives in different historical eras. To identify the texts cited by the painters, the writer has tried to use the “earth" factor as a guide. Thus, this essay extracted three visual patterns from eighth- and ninth-century miniatures, each of which depicted a different viewpoint on the “earth" factor (soil, building, and so on.). To clarify the reasons for creating these visual patterns, the prosaic texts of Miraj Namehs were examined; the result was an illustration of the narrative patterns of Miraj and the recognition of the similarities existing between the visual and narrative patterns. The “earth” factor used in these textual and visual contexts made three visual patterns of Miraj meaningful. In these patterns, some have given the earth an essential role in the Miraj’s narration. In some others, the earth has entirely been removed, and finally in the rest a counter manner against the Miraj’s text has been observed, although they have illustrated the earth or earthly signs. This essay tries to recognize and define these patterns. This research adopted a descriptive and analytical method and was undertaken by library study.