Exhibition featuring the works of Kadıasker Mustafa İzzet Efendi on till March at the Topkapi

Source: Topkapi Museum website.

The exhibition Kadıasker Mustafa İzzet Efendi: Callıgrapher, Nay (Oblique Flute) Player, And Composer is running at the Topkapi Museum in Istanbul till March 10, 2015.

"No master musician ever reached the level of Kadıasker Mustafa İzzet Efendi in no calligrapher ever reached the kadiasker's degree of achievement in music," says M. Uğur Derman, author of  Letters in Gold: Ottoman Calligraphy. A kadiasker is a chief judge during the Ottoman empire, and Kadıasker Mustafa İzzet Efendi, 1801-1876, was much respected for both his calligraphy and his flute playing.

Kadıasker Mustafa İzzet Efendi is responsible for much of the calligraphy found in mosques in Istanbul, and more besides. The calligrapher wrote the inscriptions for the medallions in the dome at Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. Each of these is 25 ft in diameter. An inscription, sent by the Ottoman government to grace the Washington Monument in the US, also contains jalī ta'līq calligraphy by Kadıasker Mustafa İzzet Efendi. 

A hilye, or religious text written in a standard format during Ottoman times, by the Kadiasker can be viewed on Wikipedia here. His copy of text from the Quran is in the Sakıp Sabancı Museum in Turkey, and is available for viewing through Wikimedia here.