I find it very strange that the pictures come from a bible. You can see that whoever drew the pictures, wrote in the border around them some texts from the Hadith of the prophet muhammad. Which is totally contradicting. Why would a muslim arab have his picture drawn in a bible, with islamic texts around??
Intersting to note is the halo around the mans head, which implies late abbasid period (according to "The court of the Caliphs"- Hugh Kennedy). During the late abbasid period, artists seem to have found halo's in christian drawings (usually only around the heads of saints) impressive, and they drew halo's around everyone!
Im quite reluctant to believe that this page came from a bible, as the texts in the border are typical shiite texts(writtern in farsi script), and the fair Persian face on the character, and decoration all seem to point to Persia.
If I were an arab, I would find the french text below the drawing extremely offensive.
