A sixteenth-century Turkish Book of Wonders at the Morgan contains three treatises, among them an illustrated compendium of demons, jinns, and their associated talismans. Here, the jinn Kabus (Nightmare) swoops down in hopes of ruining a man’s sleep. Kabus’s oppressive posturing reflects the belief that evil spirits cause nightmares by sitting on a person’s chest. The gold emblems on either side of Kabus represent talismans to be used for protection against the spirit. This manuscript was made for ʻAyisha Sultan, the daughter of the Ottoman Sultan Murad III.
Maṭāliʻ al-saʻāda wa manābiʻ al-siyāda (“The Ascension of Propitious Stars and the Sources of Sovereignty”), in Ottoman Turkish. Istanbul, ca. 1582. MS M.788, fol. 84r. Purchased in 1935.