37Mirror box (shamayel jibi)
Iran, mid-20th century Wood with inlay, glass and watercolor on paper 7 1/16 × 9 1/16 in. (18 × 23 cm) Wereldmuseum, Amsterdam, TM-4107-7 Photographs courtesy of the museum
This small box is a portable devotional device or pocket icon (in Persian, shamayel jibi). It consists of two wooden frames connected by hinges, with a mirror in one frame and a watercolor painting of Emam ʿAli, identified by his two-pointed sword Zulfaqar (Zulfiqar, Dhu’l-Faqar), in the other. ʿAli is depicted seated with his hands crossed on his thighs, one of the typical postures Sufis adopted for meditation, and he is flanked by his sons Hasan and Hosayn. When the two brothers are depicted together, Hasan is often depicted in green clothing in reference to the poison that killed him. Hosayn wears a red cloak, symbolizing the color of martyrdom. The exterior of the frames is decorated with geometric intarsia (khatamkari).
Similar boxes combining a mirror and an image of ʿAli on the inside have been produced in Iran for centuries and gained popularity from the nineteenth century onward (Flaskerud 2010, p. 28–29). These boxes also served as amulets, providing protection to their owners (Ekhtiar 2014, p. 109). Novice dervishes of Sufi brotherhoods, such as the Dhahabiya and the Khaksariya, used the shamayel jibi to practice vejheh, a ritual involving the concentrated repetition of the name of ʿAli (zekr-e ʿAli, or dhikr), which is also one of the 99 names of God, while gazing at the image (Amir-Moezzi 2011). The mirror in these boxes alludes to the tradition of mystical poetry, as seen in the works of Rumi (d. 1273), where it serves as a metaphor for the Divine and the beauty of Creation. Therefore, the mirror symbolizes the fusion of the practicing Sufi, ʿAli, and God as the subject of meditation. This spiritual doctrine was followed not only by Persian mystics but also by Turkish-speaking Bektashi Sufis. In a 2011 paper, Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi thoroughly analyzes the practice of shamayel jibi and provides the following translation of a poem by the Bektashi poet Mehmet Ali Hilmi Baba (1842–1907):
I held a mirror in front of my face (Tuttum aynayı yüzüme)
ʿAli appeared in my eyes (ʿAli göründü gözüme)
I looked at myself (Nazar eyledim özüme)
ʿAli appeared in my face (ʿAli göründü gözüme)
Sources:
- Amir-Moezzi, Mohammad Ali. “Icon and Meditation: Between Popular Art and Sufism in Imami Shi’ism.” In The Art and Material Culture of Iranian Shi’ism: Iconography and Religious Devotion in Shi’i Islam, edited by Pedram Khosronejad, 25–45. New York: I.B. Tauris, 2011. [WorldCat]
- Flaskerud, Ingvild. Visualizing Belief and Piety in Iranian Shiism. London/New York: Continuum, 2010. [WorldCat]
- Ekhtiar, Maryam. “Infused with Shi‛ism. Representations of the Prophet in Qajar Iran.” In The Image of the Prophet between Ideal and Ideology: a Scholarly Investigation, edited by Christiane Gruber and Avinoam Shalem, 97–112. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014. [WorldCat]
Citation: Pooyan Tamimi Arab and Mirjam Shatanawi, “Mirror box (shamayel jibi).” Catalog entry in The Emamzadeh Yahya at Varamin: An Online Exhibition of an Iranian Shrine, directed and edited by Keelan Overton. 33 Arches Productions, January 15, 2025. Host: Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online.