Mishkín Qalam

I am reminded by Farshid Kazemi of an online essay of mine from some years ago which eventually became a chapter in Green Man, Earth Angel -  "Within This Darkness." The illustration which the editor chose is, Farshid points out, a bit of calligraphy by the 19th century Bahá'í calligraphist Mishkín Qalam. (Also here.)

A collection of his calligraphy was compiled by Annemarie Schimmel and Vahid Rafati. In a note regarding Mishkín Qalam, Schimmel writes:

"Every visitor who comes to the Sackler Museum of Art at the Harvard University is attracted by a beautiful calligraphic picture showing a golden rooster on a radiant blue background -- one of the few items in the Near Eastern Galleries whose reproduction as a greetings card is available in the museum shop. We are often asked about the rooster's provenence and its meaning, and try to explain its importance to our visitors: throughout Iranian history the rooster was a bird connected with light, the herald of the true morning and, in the Islamic tradition, of the time for dawn prayer -- hence a bird whose picture evokes thoughts of clarity, and splendor, bahá. It is, therefore, not surprising that the leading Bahá'í caligrapher, Mishkín Qalam, has devoted some of his calligraphic paintings to the representation of this bird of light, made up from religious formulas." - My thanks to Farshid for these notes.