Image Details

British Library, OR 7301, F 19V

The sacrifice of a son. Abraham presses the knife blade to his son’s throat. Both father and son have fiery haloes in this 16th-century illumination from The Garden of the Happy, by Fuduli Baghdadi, which retells (in Turkish) episodes from the lives of Muslim prophets and saints (compare with photo of 12th-century mosaic from the Cathedral of Monreale). Surrounding the father and son in this painting are angels carrying bowls of fire, representing divine light.