Candlestick, gilt copper (tombac)
Turkey; 945 H = 1539
H: 46.6 cm
Inventory number 18/2009
Two simple, monumental tombak candlesticks of this size or even larger were often placed on each side of the prayer niche (mihrab) in Ottoman mosques in the 16th century.
The elegant Thuluth inscription at the bottom of the foot reveals, among other things, that this candlestick was donated by a certain Ibrahim Surri Qarakhaniayan, Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent’s servant, to “the grave of the sultan of all the prophets” in the month Dhu al-Hijja 945, corresponding to May 1529 AD.
We do not know who Ibrahim was, but it is possible that “the sultan of all the prophets” refers to the Prophet Muhammad and thus to his grave in Medina. With Selim I’s conquest of Egypt in 1517, the holy cities of Mecca and Medina also came under the protection of the Ottoman sultans.
The elegant Thuluth inscription at the bottom of the foot reveals, among other things, that this candlestick was donated by a certain Ibrahim Surri Qarakhaniayan, Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent’s servant, to “the grave of the sultan of all the prophets” in the month Dhu al-Hijja 945, corresponding to May 1529 AD.
We do not know who Ibrahim was, but it is possible that “the sultan of all the prophets” refers to the Prophet Muhammad and thus to his grave in Medina. With Selim I’s conquest of Egypt in 1517, the holy cities of Mecca and Medina also came under the protection of the Ottoman sultans.
