Ottoman miniature in the context of "Persian miniature"

A miniature (from the Latin verb miniare 'to colour with minium', a red lead) is a small illustration used to decorate an ancient or medieval illuminated manuscript; the simple illustrations of the early codices having been miniated or delineated with that pigment. The generally small scale of such medieval pictures has led to etymological confusion with minuteness and to its application to small paintings, especially portrait miniatures, which did however grow from the same tradition and at least initially used similar techniques.

Apart from the Western, Byzantine and Armenian traditions, there is another group of Asian traditions, which is generally more illustrative in nature, and from origins in manuscript book decoration also developed into single-sheet small paintings to be kept in albums, which are also called miniatures, as the Western equivalents in watercolor and other media are not. These include Arabic miniatures, and their Persian, Mughal, Ottoman and other Indian offshoots.

Islamic miniatures are small paintings on paper, usually book or manuscript illustrations but also sometimes separate artworks, intended for muraqqa albums. The earliest examples date from around 1000, with a flourishing of the artform from around 1200. The field is divided by scholars into four types, Arabic, Persian, Mughal (Indian), Ottoman (Turkish).

As in the art history of Europe, "miniature" is generally reserved for images including people, with abstract or geometrical decorative schemes on the pages of books called "illumination". These are much more common, and less sensitive, often found in grand copies of the Quran, as for example in Ottoman illumination.

A Muraqqa ( Persian: مُرَقّع , Arabic: مورّقة Turkish: Murakka) is an album in book form containing Islamic miniature paintings and specimens of Islamic calligraphy, normally from several different sources, and perhaps other matter. The album was popular among collectors in the Islamic world, and by the later 16th century became the predominant format for miniature painting in the Persian Safavid, Mughal Empire, and Ottoman Empire, greatly affecting the direction taken by the painting traditions of the Persian miniature, Ottoman miniature and Mughal miniature. The album largely replaced the full-scale illustrated manuscript of classics of Persian poetry, which had been the typical vehicle for the finest miniature painters up to that time. The great cost and delay of commissioning a top-quality example of such a work essentially restricted them to the ruler and a handful of other great figures, who usually had to maintain a whole workshop of calligraphers, artists and other craftsmen, with a librarian to manage the whole process.

An album could be compiled over time, page by page, and often included miniatures and pages of calligraphy from older books that were broken up for this purpose, and allowed a wider circle of collectors access to the best painters and calligraphers, although they were also compiled by, or presented to, shahs and emperors. The earliest muraqqa were of pages of calligraphy only; it was at the court in Herat of the Timurid prince Baysunghur in the early 15th century that the form became important for miniature painting. The word muraqqa means "that which has been patched together" in Persian.

Arabic miniatures (Arabic: ٱلْمُنَمْنَمَات ٱلْعَرَبِيَّة, Al-Munamnamāt al-ʿArabīyyah) are small paintings on paper, usually book or manuscript illustrations but also sometimes separate artworks that occupy entire pages. The earliest example dates from around 690 AD, with a flourishing of the art from between 1000 and 1200 AD in the Abbasid caliphate. The art form went through several stages of evolution while witnessing the fall and rise of several Islamic caliphates. Arab miniaturists absorbed Chinese and Persian influences brought by the Mongol destructions, and at last, got totally assimilated and subsequently disappeared due to the Ottoman occupation of the Arab world. Nearly all forms of Islamic miniatures (Persian miniatures, Ottoman miniatures and Mughal miniatures) owe their existences to Arabic miniatures, as Arab patrons were the first to demand the production of illuminated manuscripts in the Caliphate, it wasn't until the 14th century that the artistic skill reached the non-Arab regions of the Caliphate.

Despite the considerable changes in Arabic miniature style and technique, even during their last decades, the early Umayyad Arab influence could still be noticed. Arabic miniature artists include Ismail al-Jazari, who illustrated his own Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices, and the Abbasid artist, Yahya Al-Wasiti, who probably lived in Baghdad in the late Abbasid era (12th to 13th-centuries), was one of the pre-eminent exponents of the Baghdad school. In 1236-1237, he is known to have transcribed and illustrated the book, Maqamat (also known as the Assemblies or the Sessions), a series of anecdotes of social satire written by Al-Hariri of Basra. The narrative concerns the travels of a middle-aged man as he uses his charm and eloquence to swindle his way across the Arabic world.

Turkish or Ottoman illumination refers to non-figurative painted or drawn decorative art found in manuscripts or on sheets in muraqqa. In Turkish it is called “tezhip”, meaning “ornamenting with gold”. The Classical Islamic style of manuscript illumination combines techniques from Turkish, Persian, and Arabic traditions. Illumination was central to the traditional arts of the Ottoman Turks, who developed a style of illumination distinct from earlier traditions.

Manuscript illustration, such as the painting of the Ottoman miniature (taswir), was a distinct process from manuscript illumination, and each process was thus carried out by an artist specially trained in that particular craft.