AN ILLUSTRATION FROM NIZAMI'S KHAMSA: ZARIVAND STRIKES GUPAL, THE RUSSIAN FIGHTER, WITH A MACE, PERSIA, TURKMAN, LATE 15TH CENTURY

The style of the combatants’ lamellar armour, the landscape and costumes of the onlookers are very similar to those found on a copy of ‘Assar Tabrizi’s Mihr-u Mushtari in the Bibliothèque Nationale, attributed to Shiraz circa 1475 (published in Suppl. Persan 1401, Francis Richard, Splendeurs Persanes. Manuscrits du XIIème au XVIIème siècle, Paris, 1997, no.60, p.104). A curious feature of this leaf, however, is the use of naskh for the text. The numerous copies of Nizami’s Khamsa made in Timurid and Turkman Shiraz are typically in nasta‘liq.