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Diplomatic Shock and Awe: Moving, Sometimes Speaking, Islamic Sculptures

This article traces the development of a type of statue found mainly in palaces, those statues which sources both Islamic and Latin record moved and some of them even spoke or uttered sounds. These “living” statues were the finest works of figural sculpture to be produced in the Islamic world in the period from the eighth to the thirteenth centuries, the work of the “jinn” - master craftsmen-engineers, building upon the knowledge of automata primarily derived from translated Greek and Roman texts, Byzantine and possible Chinese examples. The religious justification for these works in Islamic palaces appears to stem from the precedent provided in the Qur'ān concerning the prophet Sulayman b. Da'ud, his palace and his wonder working jinn. It seems these Islamic statues were employed to awe foreign diplomats and envoys, as was also the case with those employed at the Byzantine court, with the power of the ruler, often described in Islamic sources as “the Second Sulaymān” and therefore having the jinn-craftsmen-engineers at his command. It seems probable that depictions of some of these statues are recorded both in surviving manuscript illuminations, including those not directly concerned with automata, and on some of the eight-pointed star tiles from thirteenth century Rum Seljuk palaces in Anatolia. This type of moving, speaking, largely palace sculpture, derived primarily from the caliphal example, offers an explanation for the repeated references in Latin texts to the allegation that Muslims worshipped statues. The fact that these works of Islamic figural sculpture produced for more than 500 years no longer survive should not prevent us from understanding the vast sculptural as well as the technological gulf existing between the Islamic and Latin Christian worlds during this period.