Examination of Delalil’ul Hayrat and Hilya Sharif artworks of female calligraphers Hadice Heybetli and Esma Ibret

Abstract

With the acceptance of Islam, the increase in the number of manuscripts containing religious information has enabled the arrival of invaluable precious artworks to the present day. The most important of these are the Qurans, Delâilü’l- Hayrats, murakkaas, kıt’as, en’ams and the tablets that started to be written as of the 16th century. Manuscripts and tablets prepared over centuries have survived to the present day as the products of the most meticulous artwork of calligraphers, withstanding the ravages of time. Although the majority of the artworks of calligraphy are by male calligraphers and in spite of numbers of female calligraphers are few, the surviving examples of the manuscripts and tablets of female calligraphers are in public and private collections. Among the female calligraphers, Esma İbret and Hadîce Heybetî, who are known to have written Delâilü’l-Hayrat, are also important with their Hilya Sharif and tablets. Within the scope of the article, the accessible works of these two female calligraphers, one of whom lived at the beginning of the 19th century and the other in the second half of the 19th century, were introduced and they were made to be remembered in the art world again.