Female Musicians of the Safavid Period in Persian Miniatures

Abstract This article has been written in order to consider the female musicians in the Safavid Period based on some written sources and specifically Persian Miniatures. Generally speaking, there is no specific explanation about female musicians, in Safavid - or even Timurid - written history. Besides few references rarely just refer to the names of musicians. Therefore, in order to survey the female musicians and any information about them it is necessary to consider the existed paintings. In Timurid period, female musicians were active in their professional life and this point can be obtained only from iconographical sources; because in the written one, generally, it is ignored to cite the name of female musicians despite the considerable number of them. Safavid period is one of the most glorious periods in Iranian art history. Thus in order to get unknown musical points, it is necessary to refer to iconographical sources. Pictures show that females have played active important roles as players, singers and dancers. Generally the number of male players in pictures was more than female ones and it came back to the cultural situation of that time. In Safavid period, due to many specific reasons, the life of music declined compare to the Timurid glorious musical era. The most prominent features of parties were prostitutes. According to the written and iconographical sources, it seams that dancers were generally known as prostitutes. The names of some of them have been mentioned in written sources and documents. Although, the very point does not refer to any players clearly; the pictures show the female players usually in their special parties that just one man, probably the king, had been there, however they are rarely seen in accompanying male players. It can be inferred that the only man beside female musicians at the picture was the king, so most pictures illustrate the court or harem of king; and it probably reveals playing and singing of the king’s wives. It seems that there is a relationship between the players’ gender and the kinds of instruments. It means that female were more professional in playing particular instruments like Qānoon and Chang. In other words, women, just in their female groups, played different instruments; but when they were. Accompanying with male players, their only instruments were Qanoon or Chang. Besides, if should be stated that many pictures, in Isfahan school, show two Daf female players between male and female players, but it is one of the style of that school that painters generally depict musicians in their paintings. In the mentioned period, little information could be found about music training of women. In this article, these deductions have got through analysis of 22 Safavid miniatures in comparison to various written documents. The pictures, which were related to main school of Safavid miniatures, belonged to Tabriz, Qazvin, and Shiraz and Isfahan schools