Kamāl ud-Dīn Behzād

Kamāl ud-Dīn Behzād of Herat is the most celebrated painter of the Islamic miniature tradition, head of the royal ateliers of Herat and then of Tabriz in the late Timurid and early Safavid ages. ¹ No author gives a coherent biography of him, as the Encyclopaedia Iranica warns, and even his birth date is unknown: the estimates in the sources range from about 854 AH/about 1450 in the Arabic encyclopaedia tradition to between 1455 and 1460 in the English article, with the Persian article giving a birth range of 855–865 AH and one modern monograph arguing for 1465. ^{2 3 1 4}

Orphaned as a youth, Behzad was reared and trained by Mirak Naqqash, the painter-calligrapher who directed the Timurid royal library. ^{2 1} He worked first under Mir Ali-Shir Nava'i and then under Sultan Husayn Bayqara, and in 1486 a decree of the sultan made him head of the royal ateliers in Herat, succeeding Mirak; under his leadership the Herat academy reached its greatest period. ¹ The illustrations of Sa'di's Bustan of 893/1488, with his signatures worked inconspicuously into architectural inscriptions, are the surest anchor of his hand. ² Iranica also cautions that in his own century he was regarded as only one of several skilled painters of the Herat circle: the superlative verdict on him is a Safavid-age judgement, repeated in the decree that compares his brush to Mani's. ²

After Husayn Bayqara's death in 1506, Babur links Behzad with the patronage of Muhammad Shaybani Khan in Herat. ² He later moved to Tabriz — the date and circumstances are unknown — and directed the Safavid royal workshop; the famous decree of Shah Ismail appointing him in 928/1522 rests on a document whose dating Iranica questions, and the Safavid authors name Shah Tahmasp, not Ismail, as his employer. ^{2 1} The Persian article has him die in 942 AH in Tahmasp's service and be buried at Tabriz beside Kamal Khujandi in the Tomb of Two Kamals, as the Safavid author Dust Muhammad reports. ^{4 2} The English article instead places his death at Herat and his tomb beneath Koh-i Mukhtar. ¹ This record preserves both accounts and writes no edge for the place of his death.

Nothing in the sources read names a religion, branch or school for Behzad: the three articles carry no religion entry, Wikidata has no religion value, and Iranica is silent. ^{1 4 5} His Sufi subjects — the Seduction of Yusuf read as an allegory of the soul's quest, dancing dervishes, a dervish portrait — are the commissions of courts and the texts of poets, not attestations of the painter himself. ¹