Manifestation of Ethical Teachings in Illustrations of Lithographic Manuscript Called ‘Expressing the Story of His Highness Solomon’

Abstract

Holy Qur'an that is replete with historical stories pertaining to the prophets and their nations and aims at transferring revelation teachings and human guidance drew the attentions of the experts from the early Islamic centuries. Historians engaged in narrating the stories of the prophets’ lives in their writings. However, such writings lacked pictorial expression. Thus, in order for the literary-religious concepts of these writings to be better revealed, the miniaturists from the later centuries were assigned to decorate them with images. One of these is the lithographical manuscript called ‘expressing the story of His Highness Solomon’.The present study was based on the credible library-electronic resources and pictorial data collection through a field of research and sought finding an answer to the question as to what visualization principles and regulations can be applied in the aforesaid manuscript so that the ethical teachings latent in its story can be better expressed.