Yusuf and Zulaikha meet in a garden

This folio illustrates a pivotal scene from Jami's Persian romantic epic Yusuf va Zulaykha (part of his Haft Awrang, or "Seven Thrones," composed in the 15th century) here the meeting between Yusuf (the biblical/Quranic Joseph) and Zulaikha within an enclosed garden setting. Rather than depicting dramatic action, the composition captures a quiet, emotionally charged encounter between the two figures. The garden itself functions as more than backdrop: flowering plants, trees, and architectural elements create a refined, tranquil setting that carries symbolic weight in Persian literary tradition, representing purity, longing, and spiritual reflection which are themes central to the poem's allegorical reading of romantic love as a metaphor for the soul's yearning for the divine. The artist, Muhammad Nadir Samarqandi, was originally from Samarqand in Central Asia but settled in Kashmir, drawn by its landscape, making this work a product of the Kashmiri school of painting under Mughal patronage rather than the imperial Delhi/Agra ateliers. This biographical detail helps account for the blending seen in the work: the stylised garden and poetic symbolism carry clear Persian artistic lineage, while the treatment of the figures with their naturalism and careful attention to spatial arrangement that often reflects Mughal painting conventions of the period. As part of a manuscript suite, the folio would originally have accompanied calligraphic text panels, integrating painting, poetry, and calligraphy into a single narrative and devotional experience, consistent with broader Perso-Islamic manuscript traditions of the 16th–17th centuries. Source: The San Diego Museum of Art, Edwin Binney 3rd Collection (accession 1990.354); Asia Society, "The Arts of Kashmir" — sites.asiasociety.org/arts/kashmir/islam04.htm