Mawlana Azhar Tabrizi
d. 1475 · Tabriz & Mecca
Azhar Tabrizi, also called Zahir al-Din Azhar and honoured as 'master of masters', was one of the great nastaliq writers of the 15th century. He trained with Ja'far Tabrizi, head of the library of Shah Rukh's son Baysunghur, and is counted as the third master of the script after its founder Mir Ali Tabrizi and Ja'far; later writers judged his hand finer than his teacher's. English Wikipedia places him at the Timurid court of Shah Rukh. Persian Wikipedia traces a long road: from Tabriz to Herat in the service of Sultan Abu Sa'id, to Ulugh Beg's library in Samarkand, then by way of Isfahan to Shiraz, Basra, Baghdad, Aleppo, Damascus and finally Mecca, where he died in 880 AH (1475). He wrote nastaliq from the minute to the large size and was also strong in thuluth. His signed works carry dates from 824 to 877 AH. His pupils included Sultan Ali Qa'eni, Sultan Ali Mashhadi and Shaykh Bayazid Purani, and his son Mawlana Miraki also became a nastaliq master.
Achievements
- Counted as the third master of nastaliq, after Mir Ali Tabrizi and his own teacher Ja'far.
- Wrote nastaliq at every size, from minute to large, and also wrote thuluth among the six scripts.
- Worked for the Timurids: English Wikipedia names Shah Rukh's court; Persian Wikipedia names Sultan Abu Sa'id in Herat and Ulugh Beg's library in Samarkand.
- His signed works are dated between 824 and 877 AH, most of them in museums in Iran and Istanbul.
- The Metropolitan Museum credits him as the calligrapher of a Haft Paykar of Nizami of about 1430.
Taught by: Ja'far Tabrizi
Taught: Sultan Ali Qa'eni, Sultan Ali Mashhadi, Shaykh Bayazid Purani, ʿAbd al-Rahim Khwarazmi Anisi
His work
c. 1450 · Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery (loan LTS2002.2.1), Washington
Photo: Wikimedia Commons, public domain
c. 1430 · Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (13.228.13)
Photo: Wikimedia Commons, CC0
c. 1430 · Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (13.228.13)
Photo: Wikimedia Commons, CC0
Herat, about 1430 · The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (13.228.13.3, reverse of folio 17)
Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, public domain
Write in the tradition this hand shaped.
Write in this tradition now →Living calligraphers you can buy from — signed originals on paper, from AED 550: Anwar Alhulwani (Thuluth) · Ahmed Alhawary (Jali Thuluth, Naskh) · Rasha Kasim (Kufi) — or every Nastaliq piece the store makes: Nastaliq collection.
Sources
- Persian Wikipedia (after Fazaeli, Bayani): travels, death 880 in Mecca, rank in nastaliq, students, dated works 824-877 fa.wikipedia.org
- English Wikipedia: died 1475, teacher Ja'far, Shah Rukh's court en.wikipedia.org
- Arabic Wikipedia: same short facts ar.wikipedia.org
- Metropolitan Museum: Haft Paykar 13.228.13, calligrapher Maulana Azhar, ca. 1430 metmuseum.org
- Freer|Sackler: album folio signed by Azhar Tabrizi archive.asia.si.edu
Written by the MASHQ studio · last updated 2026-10-05. Further reading, the standard references in English: Sheila S. Blair, Islamic Calligraphy (Edinburgh University Press, 2006) · Annemarie Schimmel, Calligraphy and Islamic Culture (New York University Press, 1984) · Yasin Hamid Safadi, Islamic Calligraphy (Thames and Hudson, 1978).