Feminism in the Illustrated Manuscript of Hamle-ye Heydari (Comparative Study of the role of Women in Illustrations of Hamle-ye Heydari Copies)

Abstract

In the Persian epic men play the main roles while the presence of women is usually under shadow. If the epic also has a religious theme, the role of women is becoming even more insignificant. However, in one of the illustrated manuscripts of Hamle-ye Heydari of Bazel Mashhadi (dated 1222 A.H., Bibliothèque Nationale de France) women were painted in the important roles. This copy not only did not ignore the presence of women but also depicted women next to the men or even ahead of them. This article explore the drawings from the perspective of subject, text-image relationship, visual features, and so on in order to show the prominent position of women in this illustrated copy. In addition, I compare this copy with one of the contemporary lithographic copy of Hamle-ye Heydari by Raji Kermani to show how the painter breaks traditions to emphasize on the women participation in the paints. These two manuscripts are depicted in the same period of time, the Qajar era, but in two different places; the first one in India and the second one in Iran. This comparative study shows that in the Hamle-ye Bazel women were portrayed in the variety of roles from the saints or angels to the musicians or dancers. While the image of women in the painting of Hamle-ye Raji are just limited to the angel and saint. Furthermore, in Hamle-ye Bazel women have a dominant role even if the text has no mention to them but in Hamle-ye Raji only there are a few images of the women. All of these reasons prove that woman in Hamle-ye Bazel’s paintings goes beyond the traditional framework and take a role that is exclusive in Persian manuscript tradition.

Keywords

• woman
• hamle-ye heydari
• bazel mashhadi
• raji kermani
• hazrat fatima (pbuh)
• religious epic