Artist: Muhammad Qasim

Date and location: 1627 in the Safabida Empire

Where can I find this artwork?:
The Louvre in Paris France in Islamic Art: The Modern Empires (1500–1800)

This miniature illustration depicts Shah Abbas I of Safavids-famous bisexual shah and his page boy interacting romantically and sharing wine. The imagery is soft and intimate as the page holds the wine flask erect towards the Shah’s crotch and almost embraces him. In Eastern culture, sex was a positive thing. Sex between men was even held as a “spiritual bliss”, albeit not officially condoned. The small Arabic lettering on the right hand side gestures at the bliss of wine and lovers, reading:

“May life provide all that you desire from three lips: those of your lover, the river, and the cup.”

All three of these things may be featured if the tree setting is in fact, near a river. This illustration also brings forward an allusion to the Qur’an’s view of paradise with all the blisses of life from the poem in tact.

https://i.redd.it/g518gglvzdnd1.jpeg

Posted by Leamsezadah

9 Comments

  1. Try as hard as you want to erase us, but we will not turn away from the path of our ancestors. Just like my ancestor Shah Ismail and Shah Abbas were passionately cherising beautiful guys, we will do the same with pleasure so our ancestors can rest in peace.

  2. Date being 1627 meaning that the painting was created in 1627 or it’s simply a recent painting describing events of 1627 ?

  3. I am inclined towards not believing these claims of homosexuality on practicing Muslims like Abbas the Great unless I come across convincing historical evidence indicating otherwise.

    I think that it is nothing but the fantasies of the Western travelers. They did the same thing about Ottomon harems. Due to their drawings, even today people have completely baseless and incorrect understanding of what harems looked like. This is similar.

    Yes, there probably was homosexuality in both Ottoman and Safavid Empires. But to claim that the rulers of these lands were also involved in such activities is not reasonable.