IMPORTANT SITARA HANGING FOR THE INNER DOOR OF THE KAABA (BAB AL-TAWBA) In the name of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet V and the Khedive 'Abbas II Hilmi, Cairo, Egypt, dated 1331 H/1912-13 Rectangular in shape, pink and green silk satin appliqué on black silk velvet, embroidered with gold and silver thread, on a cotton core, five cartouches inscribed in elegant thuluth, the last smaller cartouche containing the name of Ottoman Sultan Mehmet V (r. 1900-1918), they cap the lower part decorated with a lobed medallion containing the dedication of Khedive 'Abbas II Hilmi, the background worked with arabesques and foliage, the borders decorated with circular medallions, lined with green silk, numerous areas of fraying, silver partially tarnished. Size: 284 x 160 cm Registration form: Upper panel: the basmallah, followed by sura 6 al-an'am, v.54, followed by "This noble sitara was commissioned by His Majesty our Master the Mighty Sultan Mehmet Khan the Fifth may God help him". Lower medallion: "This noble sitara was renewed in 1331 by His Majesty our Master the Mighty 'Abbas Hilmi Pasha, Khedive of Egypt, son of the late Muhammad Tawfiq Pasha, may God honour them". Source : Possibly from the Kérimé Osman Fuad collection (1898-1971), daughter of Khedive Abbas Hilmi and granddaughter of Sultan Murad V, Nice Private collection, Nice An Important Sitara for the Inner Door of the Ka'ba (Bab al-Tawba) In the Name of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet V and Commissioned by Egypt's Khediv 'Abbas Hilmi, Cairo, Warshat al-Khurunfish Workshop, Dated 1331 H/1912-13 This luxurious hanging was intended to adorn the interior of the Kaaba in Mecca, and more specifically to cover Bab al-Tawba or the Gate of Repentance. This door opens onto the staircase giving access to the roof of the building. The production of luxurious textiles embroidered with metal threads to cover the Kaaba was the occasion for an important ceremony culminating in the changing of the draperies decorating it. The inscription on our sitara mentions this "renewal" (jaddada hadhihi al-sitara). While the kiswa lining the outside of the Kaaba is changed annually, the textiles hanging inside are changed only occasionally - so they are much rarer. This practice of renewal is attested as early as the Umayyad and Abbasid periods: these inscribed textiles, which proclaim the name of the caliph, also have great symbolic significance (Hülya Tezcan, Sacred Covers of Islam's Holy Shrines with samples from Topkapi Palace, Istanbul, 2017, p. 74). In the Ottoman period, the practice of sending these textiles with the sultan's titles and genealogy to Mecca seems to have become standardised. The textiles were then produced in Damascus or often in Cairo, where our sitara comes from. This textile, bearing the name of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet V and the Khedive of Egypt, his nominal vassal, was also part of the Ottoman tradition of diplomatic gifts of luxurious textiles to the Guardians of the Holy Places. A headband of the hizam of the Kaaba offered by Egyptian President Muhammad Naguib to King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia, Custodian of the Holy Places, was sold at Artcurial on 24 May 2023, No. 171. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the hangings covering the Gate of Repentance seem to follow an identical pattern, with a few variations in colour or floral motifs. The Topkapi Museum holds a sitara that is particularly close to our own, complete and dated AH 1325 / AD 1907, with identical inscriptions, and a fragment of a similar sitara (Tezcan 2017, cat. 52, pp. 256-57 and cat. 51, pp. 254-55). A second, undated and decorated simply with Qur'anic verses without bearing the names of the khedive and the Ottoman sultan, is in the Khalili Collection in London. Two others are in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, dated 1897-98 (2009.59.1) and in the Textile Museum in Cairo, bearing the name of King Farouq and dated 1937. According to H. Tuzcan, the calligraphic models for these hangings, executed in a magnificent Jali Thuluth style, are preserved at Topkapi (Tuzcan 2017, p.256). In addition to these four complete examples, only one other authentic sitara from the Gate of Repentance seems to have appeared on the market in recent decades. This is a fragment of a hanging bearing the name of Mehmet V sold at Christie's in London on 8 April 2008, no. 157.