Sadiqi Beg

Sadiqi Beg Afshar — also called Sadiqi Kitabdar, "Sadiqi the Librarian" — was a Safavid painter, draftsman, soldier, poet and biographer, born in Tabriz about 1533 and dead at Isfahan in 1610. ^{1 2} He came from the Khodabandalu Turkoman tribe, a line of Turkish soldiers who had migrated from Syria to support Shah Isma'il I, and his father was assassinated while he was young, leaving him without an inheritance. ¹

Sadiqi spent a number of years as a wandering dervish before deciding, at thirty-two, to pursue art and poetic science; he moved to Qazvin in 1568 and learned the style of the great Behzad through the painter Mozaffar Ali — whom the Persian article names as his teacher, while the English article calls Mozaffar Ali his pupil and nephew who taught him, a direction the two articles do not agree on. ^{1 2} He served briefly under Isma'il II, fought at Astarabad about 1581, and lived away from court through Mohammad Khodabanda's reign; under Abbas I he returned and became head of the royal library at Qazvin, until his colleagues' dislike brought his dismissal in 1596 — though he kept his title and salary and the shah's consultation for the rest of his life. ¹

His hand is recognised by unique colours, distinct contours and stiff figures; he contributed a painting to a Garshaspnama made for Tahmasp, seven surviving paintings to Isma'il II's Shahnameh and three to Abbas I's, personally commissioned and illustrated a copy of Kashifi's Anvar-i Suhayli in 1593 with over a hundred drawings, and is credited by Iskandar Beg Munshi with the drawing of Qazvin's royal palace murals. ¹ He also popularised the Iranian calligraphic style of drawing. ¹ In writing, his Chagatai Majma' al-khavass gives biographies of some 330 poets, artists and connoisseurs, and his Qanun as-Suwar, a Persian verse treatise on the techniques of painting written between 1576 and 1602, remains a key source for how Persian miniatures were made; historians note that he abstained in it from using religious denominations for techniques. ¹

No source read names a religion, branch or school for Sadiqi: the English article has no religion field, the Persian article's artist infobox has none, and Wikidata carries no religion claim. ^{1 2 3} His Afshar and Khodabandalu Qizilbash descent is tribal belonging, not a personal attestation, and his court service and dervish years are a career, not a school; this record therefore records no affiliation. ²