Chapter 3 - The Insufficient Image

Summary

Chapter 3 examines discussions about the mimetic possibilities of musical and visual images as reflected in late twelfth-century Persian-language epic poetry, focusing on intertextual and intermedial commentaries on philosophical discourses. Focusing on the narration and a sixteenth-century Mughal painting of a story about Plato as a musician in of the Iskandarnamah (1194) of Nizami of Ganj, the chapter argues that poetry served as a popularizing vehicle for Platonic thought consciously engaged at multiple moments in Islamic intellectual history. Painting augmented this discourse, enabling complex references to other texts including the fabular Kalila and Dimna and The Language of the Birds (1177) by Farid al-Din Attar. Delving into the poetry referenced through visual cues in the painting, the chapter reveals powerful currents of Platonic thought traced through Plotinus, the Brethren of Purity, ibn Sina, and the mystic Suhrawardi into the popular epic work by Attar. The analysis suggests that the mythic Simurgh central to the Language of the Birds incorporates complex Platonic symbolism into Islam, with strong implications about the limits and possibilities of representation. The intimacy of the poetry with Platonic thought suggests that far from inimical, philosophy and Islamic discourses may be indivisible.