Anthropologist and author 12 of books. Dr. Kalhoro teaches at Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE), Islamabad
Sindhi painters painted folk romances and local heroes in the tombs. Both local and foreign romantic tales and heroes captured the imagination of Sindhi painters who painted them on the walls of the funerary monument in different districts of Sindh. A few non-local or foreign stories, legends, and heroes also inspired Sindhi artists. One such inspiration was Alexander the Great. The Persianate Alexander the Great, known as Iskandar or Sikandar, was widely celebrated as a global hero and ruler of the whole world. His story and character inspired the Persian poets, writers, and painters who wrote his legends and stories in both verse and prose. Shahnamah (Book of Kings) of Firdausi and Iskandarnamah (The book of Alexander) of Nzami (d.1209) of Ganja, one of his five stories of his Khamsa (Quintet), and Darabnamah (tales of Darab/Dara composed in the 12th century by Muhammad ibn Hasan Abu Tahir Tarsusi) and Sadd-i- Iskandar (Alexander’s Wall) by Nava’a (d.1501) celebrated Sikandar in their literary works. Persian poet Amir Khusrau (d.1325) of Delhi’s A’inah-ʼi Iskandari (Iskandar’s Mirror) Sikandar portrays Sikandar as an intrepid explorer and scientist compared to Nizami’s Philosopher-King.
Later this tradition of celebrating Sikandar in art reached Sindh through Persian literature and was adopted by Sindhi painters as one of the themes in wall paintings. Like other depicted themes in mural paintings in tombs, Iskandar/Sikandar was also added by Sindhi painters in their artistic repertoire. This paper will first discuss different themes in Sindhi paintings and secondly, it looks at how Sindhi painters imagined Sikandar in paintings in Sindhi tombs.