Jahangir Preferring a Sufi Shaikh to Kings

The Mughal emperor Jahangir sits on an hourglass throne, its sand running out beneath him, haloed by a fused sun and moon. He hands a book to a white-bearded Sufi holy man, pointedly ignoring the rulers who wait below: an Ottoman sultan, King James I of England copied from an English portrait, and at the very bottom the painter Bichitr himself. European-style cherubs flutter round, one hiding his eyes. An inscription spells out the conceit, that although kings crowd before him the emperor prefers the company of the holy. Mughal painting fusing Persian, Indian and European worlds in one allegory of piety over power.