The calligraphic panel (levha) written in gold (zer-endûd), consists of the words, ‘There is no god but God. He is my lord and lord of the worlds. Muhammad is my prophet. May prayers and salutations be upon him,’ written in celi sülüs of two different thicknesses, with the letters arranged one above the other, revealing his extraordinary mastery of celi sülüs of different scales.1 Mustafa Rakım achieved perfection in the proportions of celi sülüs characters and aesthetic balance between them in compositions in which the letters are arranged one above the other. His familiar signature at the lower left, reading ‘Written by Rakım’, is also a composition of letters written on several levels, which he is thought to have designed after 1224/1809-10, allowing us to date this undated work to 1809-10 or later.
