Dust Muhammad Haravi

Dust Muhammad Haravi, also Dust Muhammad bin Sulayman Haravi (; fl. ca. 1511–64) was a Persian calligrapher in the 16th century. He is especially known for compiling and prefacing an important 16th century Safavid album, the Bahram Mirza Album circa 1544. He is likely different from another Dust Muhammad, who was a painter and went to India to serve the Mughal court.

Dust Muhammad Haravi was from Herat, and studied under the calligrapher Qasim Shadishah, a student of the famous calligrapher of Herat Sultan Ali Mashhadi. From the pen of Muhammad came out excellent artistic calligraphic manuscripts and samples. Some of them are presented in the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg. He is said to have written a copy of the Koran in nastaliq.

In his 1544 preface to the Bahram Mirza Album, Dust Muhammad acknowledged China and Europe while describing the contributions of the great naturalistic artist Ahmad Musa, active at the end of the Ilkhanate and during the Jalayirid period:

The first nineteen sheets album as a preface is a treatise Dust Muhammad, written by beautiful handwriting, probably belonging to the author. In addition to the Treaty on the album are three more works Dust Muhammad - two miniatures with the caption "Master Dust" and calligraphic passage, signed "Dust-Muhammad Musavvir" (the artist). The treatise is written in the Persian language, includes an introduction to the origin of the letter, the head of the masters of handwriting "taʿliq" and "nastaʿlīq", a section on the history of art and its masters, and especially - the information about the court artists and calligraphers of Bahram Mirza. Despite the confusion of mythical and historical names, the history of painting the picture painted by Dust Muhammad is of considerable interest. His writing provides a clear allusion to the existence of a religious ban images of living beings, and at the same time on the relativity of this prohibition. In his treatise Muhammad does not touch any problems the art of painting, nor any of its equipment. The value of this work lies in the extensive knowledge of the life and work of Persian artists of the 14th to 16th centuries.