The Hamzanama ('Book of Hamza') is a heroic romance about the legendary adventures of the Prophet Muhammad's uncle, Amir Hamza, who traveled the world spreading the teachings of Islam. In this example of an illustrated page from a Mughal-era version of the book, Prince Nur ad-Dahr (another of Hamza's illustrious nephews) is rescued from drowning by the prophet Elijah (Ilyas in the Qur'an), who miraculously walks across the water. Though the stories usually succeed in reinforcing proper Muslim virtues, sources for some of the tales can be found in the traditional Persian oral tradition. As such, the Hamzanama was meant to entertain as much as to preach the virtues of Islam, with episodes describing Hamza and other protagonists as they outwit and battle giants, demons, magicians and monsters.

As experts at the British Museum relate, the Mughal emperor Akbar (reigned 1556-1605) ordered an illustrated version of the Hamzanama in 1562, a project that took at least fifteen years to complete. Participating in the project were several important Persian painters, including Mir Sayyid Ali and Abdul-Samad, each of whom at one time directed Mughal imperial workshops of Persian and Indian artists. Akbar's completed Hamzanama was fourteen volumes long and illustrated with approximately 1400 paintings, out of which one hundred survive today.¹

Below are three other illustrated pages from the Hamzanama from the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, reproduced here with permission.

(1) From the British Museum web page dedicated to this object.