If I Circumambulate Around Him, I Will Be Burnt: A Brass Candlestick Endowed to the Mausoleum of Imam Musa al-Kazim, Kazimayn

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study introduces a hitherto unknown brass candlestick at the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar (inv. no. MW.152.1999) inscribed with an endowment inscription that indicates that it was donated to the mausoleum of Imam Musa al-Kazim in Kazimayn, Iraq. The candlestick is analysed in depth because its inscriptions – not only the endowment one but also the poetical ones – have the potential to shed some light on the cultural and religious settings in which poetically inscribed brass candlesticks were produced and meant to be used. The study focuses on the surface decorations and the poetical inscriptions on the candlestick and those on some related pieces. It also examines contemporary primary sources such as biographical anthologies of Persian poetry and dynastic chronicles. Based on these investigations, it is argued that the object in question was produced in Iran, circa 1600, most probably in Kashan, the long-established centre of the Twelver Shiʿite population and the city where poets had a close relationship with craftsmen.