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Each crossing took us thousands of years, though it seemed no more than the

blink of an eye.

We ascended through the seven Heavens, passing varieties of gatherings,

peculiar creatures, marshes and clouds swarming with an infinite variety of

insects and birds. At each level of Heaven, the angel who led the way would

knock on a portal, and when the question, “Who goes there?” came from

beyond, the angel would describe me including all my names and attributes,

summing up by saying, “An obedient servant of Exalted Allah!”—which would

bring tears of joy to my eyes. I knew, however, that there were yet thousands

of years before the Day of Judgment when those destined for Heaven would be

separated from those destined for Hell.

My ascension, except for a few minor differences, happened just the way

Gazzali, El Jevziyye and other legendary scholars described in their passages on

death. Eternal puzzles and dark enigmas that only the dead might understand

were now being revealed and illuminated, bursting forth brilliantly one by one

in thousands of colors.

Oh, how might I adequately describe the hues I saw during this exquisite

journey? The whole world was made up of color, everything was color. Just as I

sensed that the force separating me from all other beings and objects consisted

of color, I now knew that it was color itself that had affectionately embraced

me and bound me to the world. I saw orange-hued skies, beautiful leaf-green

bodies, brown eggs and legendary sky-blue horses. The world was faithful to

the illustrations and legends that I’d avidly scrutinized over the years. I beheld

Creation with awe and surprise as if for the first time, but also as if it’d

somehow emerged from my memory. What I called “memory” contained an

entire world: With time spread out infinitely before me in both directions, I

understood how the world as I first experienced it could persist afterward as

memory. As I died surrounded by this festival of color, I also discovered why I

felt so relaxed, as if I’d been liberated from a straitjacket: From now on,

nothing was restricted, and I had unlimited time and space in which to

experience all eras and all places.

As soon as I realized this freedom, with fear and ecstasy I knew I was close

to Him; at the same time, I humbly felt the presence of an absolutely

matchless red.

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Within a short period, red imbued all. The beauty of this color suffused me

and the whole universe. As I approached His Being in this manner, I had the

urge to cry out in jubilation. I was suddenly ashamed to be taken into His

presence, drenched in blood as I was. Another part of my mind recalled what

I’d read in books on death, that He would enlist Azrael and His other angels to

summon me to His presence.

Would I be able to see Him? I wasn’t able to breathe out of excitement.

The red approaching me—the omnipresent red within which all the images

of the universe played—was so magnificent and beautiful that it quickened my

tears to think I would become part of it and be so close to Him.

But I also knew He’d come no closer to me than He already had; He’d

inquired about me from His angels and they’d praised me; He saw me as a

loyal servant bound to His commandments and prohibitions; and He loved

me.

My mounting joy and flowing tears were abruptly poisoned by a nagging

doubt. Guilt-ridden and impatient in my uncertainty, I asked Him:

“Over the last twenty years of my life, I’ve been influenced by the infidel

illustrations that I saw in Venice. There was even a time when I wanted my

own portrait painted in that method and style, but I was afraid. Instead, I later

had Your World, Your Subjects and Our Sultan, Your Shadow on Earth,

depicted in the manner of the infidel Franks.”

I didn’t remember His voice, but I recalled the answer He gave me in my

thoughts.

“East and West belong to me.”

I could barely contain my excitement.

“All right then, what is the meaning of it all, of this…of this world?”

“Mystery,” I heard in my thoughts, or perhaps, “mercy,” but I wasn’t

certain of either.

By the way the angels had come near me, I knew some sort of decision had

been made about me at this height of the heavens, but I’d have to wait in the

divine balance of Berzah with the mass of other souls who’d died over the last

tens of thousands of years until the Day of Judgment, when the final decision

about us would be made. That everything transpired the way it was recorded

in books pleased me. I recalled from my readings as I descended that I’d be

reunited with my body during my burial.

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But I quickly understood that the phenomenon of “reentering my lifeless

body” was just a figure of speech, thank goodness. Despite their sorrow, the

dignified funeral congregation that filled me with pride was astonishingly

organized as it shouldered my coffin after the prayers and descended into the

little Hillock Cemetery beside the mosque. From above, the procession

appeared like a thin and delicate length of string.

Let me clarify my situation: As might be inferred from the well-known

legend of Our Prophet—which states “The soul of the faithful is a bird that

feeds from the trees of Heaven”—after death, the soul roams the firmament.

As claimed by Abu ?mer bin Abdülber, the interpretation of this legend

doesn’t mean that the soul will possess a bird or even become a bird itself, but

as the learned El Jevziyye aptly clarifies, it means that the soul can be found

where birds gather. The spot from which I was observing things, what the

Venetian masters who love perspective would call my “point of view,”

confirmed El Jevziyye’s interpretation.

From where I was, for example, I could both see the threadlike funeral

procession entering the cemetery, and with the pleasure of analyzing a

painting, watch a sailboat gaining speed, its sails gorging on wind as it tacked

toward Palace Point, where the Golden Horn met the Bosphorus. Looking

down from the height of a minaret, the whole world resembled a magnificent

book whose pages I was examining one by one.

Still, I could see much more than a man who’d simply ascended to such

heights without his soul having left his body, and furthermore, I could see it

all at once: On the other side of the Bosphorus, beyond üsküdar, among

gravestones in an empty yard, children playing leapfrog; the graceful

progression of the Vizier of Diplomatic Affair’s ca?que propelled by seven pairs

of oarsmen twelve years and seven months ago, when we accompanied the

Venetian ambassador from his seaside mansion to be received by the Grand

Vizier, Bald Ragip Pasha; a portly woman in the new Langa bazaar holding a

huge head of cabbage like a child she was about to nurse; my elation when the

Divan Herald Ramazan Effendi died, opening the way for my own

advancement; how I stared as a child from my grandmother’s lap at red shirts

while my mother hung the laundry to dry in the courtyard; how I ran to

distant neighborhoods in search of the midwife when Shekure’s mother, may

she rest in peace, had gone into labor; the location of the red belt I’d lost over

forty years ago (I know now that Vasfi stole it); the splendid garden in the

distance that I’d dreamed about once twenty-one years ago, which I pray Allah

will one day confirm is Heaven; the severed heads, noses, and ears sent to

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Istanbul by Ali Bey, the Governor-General of Georgia, who suppressed the

rebels in the fortress of Gori; and my beautiful, dear Shekure, who separated

herself from the neighborhood women mourning over me in the house and

stared into the flames of the brick stove in our courtyard.

As is recorded in books and confirmed by scholars, the soul dwells in four

realms: 1. the womb; 2. the terrestrial world; 3. Berzah, or divine limbo, where

I now await Judgment Day; and 4. Heaven or Hell, where I will arrive after the

Judgment.

From the intermediate state of Berzah, past and present time appear at

once, and as long as the soul remains within its memories, limitations of place

do not obtain. Only when one escapes the dungeons of time and space does it

becomes evident that life is a straitjacket. However blissful it is being a soul

without a body in the realm of the dead, so too is being a body without a soul

among the living; what a pity nobody realizes this before dying. Therefore,

during my lovely funeral, as I grievously watched my dear Shekure wear herself

out weeping in vain, I begged of Exalted Allah to grant us souls-without-bodies

in Heaven and bodies-without-souls in life.

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IT IS I, MASTER OSMAN

You know about those ornery old men who’ve charitably devoted their lives to

art. They’ll attack anyone who gets in their way. They’re usually gaunt, bony

and tall. They’ll want the dwindling number of days before them to be just like

the long period they’ve left behind. They’re short-tempered, and they

complain about everything. They’ll try to grab the reins in all situations,

causing everyone around them to throw up their hands in frustration; they

don’t like anyone or anything. I know, because I’m one of them.

The master of masters Nurullah Selim Chelebi, with whom I had the honor

of making illustrations knee to knee in the same workshop, was this way in his

eighties, when I was but a sixteen-year-old apprentice (though he wasn’t as

peevish as I am now). Blond Ali, the last of the great masters, laid to rest thirty

years ago, was also this way (though he wasn’t as thin and tall as I am). Since

the arrows of criticism aimed at these legendary masters, who directed the

workshops of their day now frequently strike me in the back, I want you to

know that the hackneyed accusations leveled at us are entirely unfounded.

These are the facts:

1. The reason we don’t like anything innovative is that there is truly nothing

new worth liking.

2. We treat most men like morons because, indeed, most men are morons,

not because we’re poisoned by anger, unhappiness or some other flaw in

character. (Granted, treating these people better would be more refined and

sensible.)

3. The reason I forget and confuse so many names and faces—except those

of the miniaturists I’ve loved and trained since their apprenticeships—is not

senility, but because these names and faces are so lackluster and colorless as to

be hardly worth remembering.

During the funeral of Enishte, whose soul was prematurely taken by God

because of his own foolishness, I tried to forget that the deceased had at one

time caused me unmentionable agony by forcing me to imitate the European

masters. On the way back, I had the following thoughts: blindness and death,

those gifts bestowed by God, are not so far from me now. Of course, I will be

remembered only so long as my illustrations and manuscripts cause your eyes

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to prance and flowers of bliss to bloom in your hearts. But after my death let

it be known that in my old age, at the very end of my life, there was still plenty

that made me smile. For instance:

1. Children—They represent what is vital in the world.

2. Sweet memories of handsome boys, beautiful women, painting well and

friendships.

3. Seeing the masterpieces of the old masters of Herat—this cannot be

explained to the uninitiated.

The simple meaning of all of this: In Our Sultan’s workshop, which I direct,

magnificent works of art can no longer be made as they once were—and the

situation will only get worse, everything will dwindle and disappear. I am

painfully aware that we quite rarely reach the sublime level of the old masters

of Herat, despite having lovingly sacrificed our entire lives to this work.

Humbly accepting this truth makes life easier. Indeed, it is precisely because it

makes life easier that modesty is such a highly prized virtue in our part of the

world.

With an air of such modesty I was touching up an illustration in the Book of

Festivities, which described the circumcision ceremonies of our prince, wherein

was depicted the Egyptian Governor-General’s presentation of the following

gifts: a gold-chased sword decorated with rubies, emeralds, and turquoise on a

swatch of red velvet and one of the Governor-General’s proud, lightning fast

and spirited Arabian horses with a white blaze on its nose and a silvery,

gleaming coat, fully appointed with a gold bit and reins, stirrups of pearl and

greenish-yellow chrysoberyl, and a red velvet saddle embellished with silver

thread and ruby rosettes. With a flick of my brush, here and there, I was

touching up the illustration, whose composition I had arranged while

delegating the rendering of the horse, the sword, the prince and the spectator-

ambassadors to various apprentices. I applied purple to some of the leaves of

the plane tree in the Hippodrome. I dabbed yellow upon the caftan-buttons of

the Tatar Khan’s ambassador. As I was brushing a sparse amount of gold wash

onto the horse’s reins, somebody knocked at the door. I quit what I was doing.

It was an imperial pageboy. The Head Treasurer had summoned me to the

palace. My eyes ached ever so mildly. I placed my magnifying lens in my

pocket, and left with the boy.

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Oh, how nice it is to walk through the streets after having worked without

a break for so long! At such times, the whole world strikes one as original and

stunning, as if Allah had created it all the day before.