Alexander the Great in illustrated Abū'l-Khairid (Shaybanid Uzbek) manuscripts

I specialise in illustrated manuscripts of the Abū'l-Khairids (Shaibanid-Uzbeks) and their political and artistic exchanges with other Islamicate empires during the 16th century. My previous research focused on productions of the Persian epic poem the Shāhnāma (Book of Kings) composed by Firdausī, and how this work was conceptually and stylistically harnessed to create other historical and biographical chronicles of other dynasties in Central Asian workshops. Having dwelled on the single Shāhnāma title, my new project homes in on a single character within it-Alexander the Great, or Iskandar Maqdūnī [Macedonian] in the Islamic world. I will look at Abū'l-Khairid painted works, mostly in Persian with some in Turki, in which Iskandar features. Visual forms and concepts for Alexander's epic and romantic subject matter circulated in copies of these manuscripts made in 16th-century Bukhara, Tashkent, and Samarqand. Combining history, myth, and legend, the figure of Alexander/Iskandar carried particular significance in a Central Asian setting. The discussion will focus on the character's esteem held by the two most powerful rulers of the dynasty, Muhammad Shībānī Khan and ʿAbdullāh bin Iskandar Khan. I speculate that each modelled himself as a successor to the Greek hero. The illustrated literature of their dynasty recounted Alexander's exploits so as to visualise and concretise these connections.