Research and analysis to explore the history and meaning of textual graphic ornament on Samanid potty.

Excerpt:

Samanid epigraphic ware has won the praise of many art historians; Arthur Lane said of the pottery, “Its beauty is of the highest intellectual order; they hold the essence of Islam undiluted;” Julian Ruby thought of them “among the most majestic achievements of the Islamic potter;” and Valerie Gonzales said, “these…wares do not cease to impress and amaze observers….” So why are these modest ceramics inscribed with Arabic proverbs and good wishes so different and strange, yet so beautiful and so highly praised?  For whom they are made?  Why were they made and how were they used?  These are some of the questions this essay will attempt to answer.  And through my research and exploration of the history, cultural background, aesthetic, and potential usage of these Samanid epigraphic ware, I postulate that the desire to ornament and to inspire awe in the making of these potteries has won over the utilitarian priority and form that these wares implied.

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So how is this possible—the making of these strange yet beautiful Samanid epigraphic ware?  I am not questioning the technical and mechanical aspects of these potteries, but the cultural and societal context in which they emerged.  To answer this question, let’s first go back to the topic of the clientele, and finish the profiling we started earlier.  First, I will try to give a concise historical account of the Samanid dynasty.  The Muslim penetration into Central Asia began with the great wars of imperial conquest in the late seventh and early eighth centuries, which resulted in the establishment of the Muslim-ruled sub-province of Transoxiana.  Various wars were fought in the following centuries, and in the second half of the ninth century, the Samanid dynasy was placed in power in Transoxiana by the Caliph al-Ma’mun, and ruled first from Samarqand and then moved to Bukhara.  After defeating the Saffarids, with nominal sanction from the ‘Abbasids, the Samanids extended their empire from India to Iraq.  Khurasan, a major region under the Samanid’s rule, became an international trading post, with merchants coming not only from Iraq, India, and Egypt, but also from Russia, and Vikings from Scandinavia to trade with the Bulghars and Khazars on the Caspian Sea.  Political instability within the Samanid, Bulghar, and Khazar empires at the end of the tenth century caused a decline in international trades, and the Samanids had to yield to their western neighbors, the Buyids.  During the Islamizing drive in the Samanid era, warriors of the period were best known for their politico-religious strategy of organizing jihads.  This made the Samanid era a turning point in the process of Central Asian Islamization.  It witnessed the establishment of the one of the greatest cultural, political, and military centers of the Islamic world in Central Asia itself.[1]

In his essay, R. W. Bulliet’s personal interpretation of the upheaval of these years is that Nishapur was spilt by factional differences based on attitudes to religion and the appropriate role of religion in society.  The two major opposing factions were “elitist” and “populist,” the origins of which were rooted in the social consequences of conversion to Islam and accompanying urbanization.  “The ‘elitist’ group,” Bulliet described, “was composed of the descendants of comparatively early converts to Islam who persisted in supporting the legal, theological, and spiritual traditions that were dominant at the time of their ancestors’ conversion.”  This group held attitudes originating in the eighth and early ninth centuries when Islam was the religion of a small, but dominant minority of the population.  “Their rivals,” Bulliet continued, “were the descendants of later converts to Islam, including many from families that had constituted the powerful rural aristocracy of pre-Islamic Iran, who entered the faith during the bandwagon period of the late ninth or tenth century.”  They adhered to later developing legal and theological attitudes and saw Islam as a more universal and “populist” faith.  Their purpose in this being, in part, to retain, as Muslims, “the social eminence they had enjoyed as non-Muslims but now found precluded from by the elite stratum of Muslims belonging to families who had converted earlier.”[2]  In conceptualizing the day-to-day differences between these groups, Bulliet concentrated on the differing emphasis between the Samanid epigraphic wares and the buff-wares that were also found in this period.  The former is in keeping with the “elitist” faction, as one has to be educated and literate to appreciate the inscription, and the ostentatious calligraphy is only in Arabic.  On the other hand, the buff-ware has echoes of Sasanian motifs, thus suggested a revival of interest in Persian culture led by the “populist” faction, employing popular local motifs rather than “impenetrable Arabic inscriptions.”[3]  As shown, there was a market, a need for the epigraphic pottery; it was a symbol of status, an icon of an educated man, and man of elegant taste.

To further explore the choice of inscription as means of decoration for the Samanid epigraphic ware, I will now turn to Oleg Grabar, who provided many great perspectives from his theory that writing as an intermediary.  In exploring the meaning of writing in art, Grabar proposed that we shall “feel or understand the technique of writing,” in which that writing could be “a specific moment in a series of closed processes of interpreting the world, a set of formulas through which life or the surrounding worlds are expressed.”  He continued, “…the paraphernalia of the experience of writing are means by which one describes and, therefore feels secure with the world.”[4]  This passage shed light on my understanding of the epigraphy on the Samanid pottery.  In a society that was constantly at war, and internal conflicts persisted and stretched from the court level to the civilians, these potteries were more than an icon of the educated men, they were almost good wishes and prayer for peace and calmness.  One can hope, if we all conduct ourselves as suggested by the inscriptions on these potteries, and carry a sense of humor as the potteries have also reminded us, we might not be in as many wars, then and now.

Another theory to explain the presence of writing on the Samanid pottery—borrowing Grabar—has to do with “an expectation of artistic creativity much broader than writing: writing must do something original and amazing.”  This explains two things: one, the style of epigraphy on the Samanid pottery; and two, the continual modification and transformation of the epigraphy on the pottery.  Writing has appears on all kind of surfaces in Islamic culture, buildings or objects, inside or outside.  However, writing in a concentric circle inscribed along the rim of a vessel was a new challenge, a new creative development, a new dimension to experiment calligraphy.  And in Islamic culture, with its love and respect to text and writing, the more ways the writing could transform, the more powerful it becomes.  The continual modification of the styles of inscriptions follows the same principle.  It is this desire to surprise, to wonder and marvel, that drove the designs of the Samanid epigraphic ware.

In relating to our current time and culture, how should we comprehend these epigraphic wares?  Or comprehend the magic and power of writing that the Islamic culture embraced?  Again, I would borrow another example from Grabar: we need not look very far, but to the use of calligraphy on our university diplomas.  “Whether they are instances of an elaborate style of writing affecting all letters, whether they choose a few letters for particular emphasis, whether they are marginal elaborations issued from letters, or any combination of these model,” Grabar said, “works of calligraphy all share one feature—namely, that the specific content of the text itself is either obfuscated and made difficult to read or even immaterial.”  We exercise and exploit this inherent nature of writing and calligraphy in our own society and culture as well!  We use writing—disregarding its linguistic contents, to identify and express ourselves.  An (unfortunate) example from our time is the use of Asian characters in tattoos.  However, Grabar gave a better example, “all of us have observed the…synechdochal type of writing while waiting in the offices of professionals, as the quality of the decoration around fancy letters, especially in Latin, is supposed to reassure us about the ability of our physician or lawyer.”  Grabar’s example and explanation opened a new pathway for my understanding of why the epigraphic potteries were commissioned and made.

To close my essay with a quote from Grabar, “Writing does not possess the immediacy of sound, but it can be made eternal.”  At the end of my research on the Samanid epigraphic ware, while I still do not read and understand Arabic, these bowls and plates seem to began to sing to me; as the sinuous curves of the epigraphy march rhythmically along the edge of the vessels, the implied continuous circular motion gracefully spiral out and off the vessels, for a moment, they spoke to me, whispering tales of magic.