{"id":740,"date":"2022-06-16T13:16:21","date_gmt":"2022-06-16T11:16:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mishkinqalam.com\/?page_id=740"},"modified":"2026-06-01T00:50:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T22:50:08","slug":"biography","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/mishkinqalam.com\/fa\/biography\/","title":{"rendered":"Biography"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Mishkin-Qalam (1824-1912), which translates to “The Musk-scented Jet-Black Pen”<\/em>, was the leading 19th<\/sup>-century calligrapher of the Persian Empire. He was a master of calligraphy and nail-script (which involves the use of a fingernail to emboss artistic imagery onto specially prepared paper), an astronomer, a Sufi and one of the 19 Apostles of the Bah\u00e1\u2019\u00ed Faith.<\/p>

Mishkin-Qalam was born Mirza Husayn-i-Isfahani in Isfahan, Persia (modern-day Iran). At the age of 25, he travelled to the capital, Tehran. While he was visiting a shopkeeper friend there in a bazaar, the Chief Minister passed by, dressed in the regal clothes of his office and accompanied by his entourage. Mishkin-Qalam sketched a portrait of the Chief Minister using only his fingernail and presented it to the shopkeeper, bid his friend farewell and left. Following the artist\u2019s departure, when the Chief Minister passed through the bazaar once again, the shopkeeper presented him with Mishkin-Qalam\u2019s beautiful drawing. The Chief Minister was impressed and wanted to know where the artist was staying, being so determined to meet him that he threatened the shopkeeper with an ultimatum: locate the artist within a few days or be executed. In fear of his life, the shopkeeper searched widely until he finally found Mishkin-Qalam and was able to introduce him to the Chief Minister. This meeting proved to be the turning point in the young artist\u2019s life.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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The Chief Minister was so impressed by Mishkin-Qalam\u2019s magnificently drawn art that he introduced him to the King of Persia, Naser al-Din Shah, who gave him the title \u201cMishkin-Qalam\u201d and appointed him as the tutor of the Crown Prince. After serving the Persian court for some time and taking leave of his royal duties to visit his family in another city, Mishkin-Qalam came across a traveller who shared with him the coming of a great spiritual Luminary known as Bah\u00e1\u02bcu’ll\u00e1h, whose teachings were centred around the unity of all mankind. Mishkin-Qalam immediately embraced this message.<\/p>

Despite being a prisoner of the Ottoman Empire for approximately half a century due to his Bah\u00e1\u2019\u00ed beliefs, he lived in three different continents and produced a body of work of outstanding beauty, examples of which may now be seen in the Harvard Art Museums, the British Museum and the Bah\u00e1\u2019\u00ed World Centre in Haifa, Israel. Among the most recognisable images Mishkin-Qalam had produced in various formats is one of a rooster inscribed by Arabic calligraphy, representing the dawn of a new age of peace and universal brotherhood.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Biography Mishkin-Qalam (1824-1912), which translates to “The Musk-scented Jet-Black Pen”, was the leading 19th-century calligrapher of the Persian Empire. He was a master of calligraphy and nail-script (which involves the use of a fingernail to emboss artistic imagery onto specially prepared paper), an astronomer, a Sufi and one of the 19 Apostles of the Bah\u00e1\u2019\u00ed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"no-sidebar","site-content-layout":"page-builder","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"disabled","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"disabled","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-740","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mishkinqalam.com\/fa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mishkinqalam.com\/fa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mishkinqalam.com\/fa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mishkinqalam.com\/fa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mishkinqalam.com\/fa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=740"}],"version-history":[{"count":91,"href":"https:\/\/mishkinqalam.com\/fa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2671,"href":"https:\/\/mishkinqalam.com\/fa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/740\/revisions\/2671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mishkinqalam.com\/fa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}