1074062 Jahangir Preferring a Sufi Shaikh to Kings, illustration from the \'St. Petersburg Album\', c.1615-18 (w/c, ink & gold on paper) by Bichtir (fl. 1620); 48x33 cm; Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, USA; (add.info.: Around 1615 Jahangir??? artists begin to create allegorical portraits with symbolic references. This painting asserts that Jahangir favours the spiritual over the worldly. He hands a book, the most respected of objects in both Islam and the Mughal court, to a Sufi shaykh (a religious scholar). Below (and therefore implicitly less important than) the shaykh stand an Ottoman sultan and King James I of England. Bichtir??? self-portrait in the lower left corner conveys the respect that Jahangir accorded to painters. Nur-ud-din Mohammad Salim, known by his imperial name Jahangir (1569??627), was the fourth Mughal Emperor of India who ruled from 1605 until his death in 1627. (1569-1627) margins 1747-48); 穢 Freer Slacker Gallery ; Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution; Indian, out of copyright.