The Ottoman talismanic shirts of the Topkapı Palace
The talismanic shirts of the Ottoman sultans: tunics covered with suras, divine names and numerical squares, between devotion, war and calligraphy.
The Topkapı Palace Museum in Istanbul holds an extraordinary collection: cotton or linen tunics entirely covered with writing, numbers and geometrical figures painted in ink and gold. These are the talismanic shirts, in Turkish tılsımlı gömlek, made for Ottoman sultans and princes mainly between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. Worn beneath armour or at times of danger, they were regarded as a protection for body and soul.
A text to be worn
The surface of these shirts is a dense fabric of writing. Whole suras of the Qur'an can be read on them, often in tiny script, together with the ninety-nine names of God, invocations and prayers. Recurring texts include the Sura of Victory and the Throne Verse, widely used in Islamic protective devotion. The layout follows orderly schemes, with panels, medallions and borders that organise the space as on an illuminated page.
Alongside the sacred texts appear squares of numbers and letters, heirs to the Arabic tradition of the wafq. Some shirts bear astrological references and an indication of the favourable moment at which they were begun or completed. Their making required the coordinated work of calligraphers, illuminators and specialists in the traditional sciences, and it could take a long time.
Between devotion and war
Many shirts were intended for the battlefield. The Ottomans, like other peoples of the Islamic world, attributed protective power to the Qur'anic word, and the shirt was a concrete and visible form of it. Some examples are attributed by palace tradition to particular sultans or princes, although it is not always possible to verify these attributions from the inscriptions.
The shirts were not used only in war. They were also prepared on occasions of illness, travel or delicate moments in court life. In such cases the protection sought was more general, and the choice of texts was adapted to the circumstances. The object thus united personal devotion, dynastic prestige and confidence in the traditional sciences of the age.
A shared tradition
Similar shirts are also known from Safavid Persia and from India under the sultanates and the Mughals, where they were produced with comparable techniques. Examples of various origins are now found in European and American museums as well as in Istanbul. Their spread shows how the culture of the written talisman crossed the political frontiers of the Islamic world, sharing a common repertoire of texts and symbols.
For art historians the shirts are also masterpieces of calligraphy and illumination. Their study, developed especially in recent decades through catalogues and international exhibitions, has restored dignity to objects long regarded as mere exotic curiosities. Today they are read as documents of the spirituality, politics and aesthetics of a great empire.
The talismanic shirt is perhaps the most spectacular example of a written talisman ever produced. It turns the body into a support for prayer and the fabric into a sacred page. Looking closely at these garments means entering into the way an imperial court imagined the relationship between the divine word, numerical order and the physical protection of those who ruled.