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The copy of al-Ḥarīrīʾs Maqāmāt in the Bibliothèque nationale, Paris, arabe 5847, was made by Yaḥyā b. Maḥmūd b. Yaḥyā b. Abiʾl-ḥasan b. Kūrrīhā al-Wāsiṭī, who tell us in its colophon that he was responsible for both the calligraphy and the illustrations, and gives us the date, AH 6 Ramadan 634/May 3, 1236 CE. This is a well known manuscript, having been recognized as one of the masterpieces of Arab painting and Islamic art for more than a century. The al-Wāsiṭī Maqāmāt features three unprecedented pictorial features: first, at least sixteen double-page paintings, each of which represents a single episode in the text; second, one full-page painting with no text; and third, two paintings spread across two open pages with no text. This paper analyzes al-Wāsiṭīʾs use oftext and image and shows that, based on previously unnoticed lacunae, the original manuscript could have had up to ten more paintings in addition to its current number of ninety-nine.

This major reference work covers all aspects of architectural inscriptions in the Muslim world: the artists and their patrons, what inscriptions add to architectural design, what materials were used, what their purpose was and how they infuse buildings with meaning.