Elizabeth Lambourn. « Of Jewels and Horses: the Career and Patronage of an Iranian Merchant under Shah Jahan ». Iranian Studies 36, 2 (2003), pp. 213-240.
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1Here, Elizabeth Lambourn contributes to a special issue of Iranian Studies on Indo-Persian contacts with an article examining the patronage and construction of a hitherto unexamined mosque by a prominent and successful Iranian émigré named ʽAlī Akbar Iṣfahānī in the Gujarati city of Cambay. Little remains of this Masjid-i Fatḥ, built in 1656, except the four surrounding walls, on which we find marble miḥrābs with inscriptions in both Persian and Arabic attesting to the building and patronage of this mosque by Iṣfahānī. Lambourn contextualizes the construction of this edifice by comparing the design of the building with other Gujarati mosques built in the medieval and early modern periods. When combined with her conclusion that the stone intarsia found in the miḥrābs was inspired by the pietra dure work found in nearby Mughal religious and imperial monuments, we find that this mosque was reflective of a syncretist trend whereby Gujarati artistry was combined with Mughal architecture under the auspices of Iranian patronage. Lambourn also sheds light on the career of ⁽Alī Akbar Iṣfahānī, and we find that his transition from successful merchant – primarily dealing with horse trade – to Mughal-appointed city administrator was consistent with longstanding societal trends whereby Iranian merchants emigrated to the western coast of India and manipulated the flow of commercial traffic from the Persian Gulf through the Indian Ocean.
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Colin Mitchell, « Elizabeth Lambourn. « Of Jewels and Horses: the Career and Patronage of an Iranian Merchant under Shah Jahan ». Iranian Studies 36, 2 (2003), pp. 213-240. », Abstracta Iranica [En ligne], Volume 26 | 2005, document 230, mis en ligne le 08 décembre 2005, consulté le 14 septembre 2026. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/abstractairanica/2757 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/abstractairanica.2757
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