Islamic miniature

Islamic miniatures are small paintings on paper, usually book or manuscript illustrations but also sometimes separate artworks, intended for muraqqa albums.

[1][2] As in the art history of Europe, "miniature" is generally reserved for images including people, with abstract or geometrical decorative schemes on the pages of books called "illumination".

Known pictures including human figures from the mileu of Muslim courts have been described as an "aberration" by the early 20th-century writer Sir Thomas Arnold (d. 1930).

However the depiction of Muhammad himself remained something to be approached with care, and various conventions such as masks and clouds were adopted to at least hide his face; sometimes miniatures were adusted at a later period to include this.

[5] The rejection of figurative arts at a later stage may be better explained as an attempt to hide the subjugation of Arabian culture by the Ottomans rather than religious prohibition.