Mas'ud al-Tabib manuscripttext per Quatrain praising vision written in Nasta'liq script by the writer (al-katib) Mas'ud al-Tabib who traveled through, Iran, Afghanistan to India. Dil jaya gham u dida makan-i gawhar ast / Ya'ni gawhar-i vasl-i tu dar chasm tar ast / Dar dil gham u dar dida khayal-i tu dar ast / Zan ruy za dil dida am abadtar ast Dimensions of Written Surface: 15.9 (w) cm x 24.5 (h) cm In the lower left corner, the writer (al-katib) Mas'ud al-Tabib has signed his name, along with his diminutive epithets "the weak, the smallest of servants" (al-da'if aqall al-'ibad). The calligrapher's full name was Rukn al-Din Mas'ud al-Tabib, and he was known as a master of the nasta'liq style. Rukn al-Din was nicknamed al-Tabib ("the doctor") as he came from a long line of royal physicians and he himself held high position at the court (divan) of Shah 'Abbas I (r. 1587-1629) in Isfahan (Qadi Ahmad 1959: 169-170). However, since the ruler did not get well after a bout of illness, he requested that Rukn al-Din reimburse his salary and forced him to leave the capital city. The calligrapher headed to Mashhad (northeastern Iran), from where he then journeyed to Balkh (modern-day Afghanistan) and eventually arrived in India (Huart 1972, 221). One other calligraphic sample by Rukn al-Din Mas'ud al-Tabib is held in the collections of the Library of Congress: see 1-88-154.153 The heart is a place of sadness and the eye is the site of essence / That means the essence of your arrival is in the wet eye / In the heart (is) sadness and in the eye is the imagining of you / Because my eye is more refined than my heart The poet describes his crying ("wet eye") upon seeing his beloved, attempting to show that visual imagination is more sensible and responsive than the heart. This calligraphic fragment includes a quatrain, or ruba'i, praising vision as the most keen of the human senses. The text is written in black nasta'liq script on a beige paper decorated with gold paint. The text panel is framed by two borders in beige and gold and pasted to a blue paper decorated with gold flower and vine motifs. Beginning with an invocation to God as the Glorified (huwa al-mu'izz), the verses read: Calligraphy, Arabic. Calligraphy, Persian. Manuscripts, Persian--Washington (D.C.) Arabic script calligraphy Illuminated Islamic manuscripts Islamic calligraphy Islamic manuscripts Nasta'liq Poetry Iran Afghanistan India https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.amed/ascs.095