This groundbreaking work elucidates the symbolism and an entire allegorical system in Islamic painting of the Golden Age between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries. Barry, a leading expert on art of the Middle East, focuses his study around the work of Bizhad, the undisputed master of the Persian miniature and an almost mythical personality. Barry's study follows deliberately the tradition of studies by Erwin Panofsky or Emile Male on the symbolism of medieval Christian art. It is of considerable importance for the history of Islamic iconography, the study of which lags a century behind that of Byzantine or the Western Middle Ages.