Inner Visions: Art Practice and Sufi Devotion in Morocco at the Turn of the Fourteenth/Twentieth Century

Abstract

This article examines a large calligraphic panel from Morocco preserved in the Harvard Art Museums (2016.206). The artwork features stylized representations of Mecca and Medina alongside Prophet Muhammad’s sandals and a selection of religious texts praising the prophet. This composition is characteristic of Islamic devotional imagery, highlighting artistic transfer from Moroccan illustrated copies of the Dalāʾil al-Khayrāt by the ninth/fifteenth-century Sufi mystic al-Ǧazūlī. This article aims to contextualize the production of this specific panel artwork within the Wazzāniyya Sufi Brotherhood in Morocco. It also presents how the expression of religious devotion through symbolic images reflects a mediation between the believer and Islamic holy sites and relics of the prophet.