Nizami's Iskandarnamah

The painting on the recto and the text on the verso of this fragment describes an episode in Nizami's "Iskandarnamah" (The Book of Alexander the Great), the last text of the author's "Khamsah" (Quintet). In his work, the great Persian author Nizami (d. 614/1218) describes the adventures and battles of Alexander the Great as he travels to the end of the world.