A pilgrim's Hajj certificate from Medina and Jerusalem

[Hajj]. Pilgrimage scroll depicting Medina and Jerusalem.

€ 45,000.00

A beautiful and early painted scroll depicting two stages of the Hajj, created for a pilgrim as part of an ancient tradition of Hajj and 'Umra certificates, also called pilgrimage rolls. This tradition dates back at least to the eleventh century, with the addition of illustrations coming in the twelfth. This example dates from sometime before 1617, making it a considerable rarity: most examples of pilgrimage scrolls on the recent market have been 18th-century or later.

The right-hand panel depicts the holy sites and symbols of Jerusalem, centred around the Prophet's footprints in the Dome of the Rock, and the left-hand one illustrates Madinah's Quba Mosque and the tomb of the Prophet in Al-Masjid al-Nabawi.

The French caption at the bottom describes it as a "Bul[l]e de la Mecque, porté par un pelerin mahometan, 1617" (Scroll from Mecca, carried by a Muslim pilgrim, 1617). Mecca itself is not depicted, although the Qur'anic verse refers to a pilgrimage between Mecca and Jerusalem: "Glory be to Him, Who journeyed His servant by night, from the Sacred Mosque to the Farthest Mosque" (Qur'an 17:1). Furthermore, the Hadith opposite reads: "Whoever visits my grave, my intercession is guaranteed for him".

A beautiful sixteenth- or seventeenth-century example, beautifully rendered, of an ancient tradition dating back to the Golden Period of Islam.