Abstract :
This article mentions examples of pre-Islamic automata and of those associated with the Caliphal court, a diplomatic weapon that had been employed by Islamic rulers long before the accession of the Abbasid Caliph al-Muqtadir (908-932), as well as those belonging to the Ayyubids, the Artukids and of the adjacent East Roman courts, recorded in manuscript illuminations and in literary sources. In consequence of the use of automata at adjacent courts both Muslim and East Roman, as also the tradition recorded in the XVIIth c. by Evliya Çelibi of there being Seljuk speaking lions either side of the entrance to the Aksaray Palace, together with the probability that a group of figures painted on the 8-pointed startiles employed as revetments in XIIIth c. Seljuk Palaces and pavilions, as also some of the silhouette figures of the traditional shadow play, also represent types of XIIIth c. Palace automata, including the armies of the Prophet Süleyman/Solomon, depictions of Jinn, human headed birds and human headed lions etc., the question raised in the title of this article is answered in the affirmative. The suggestion is made that the majority of these moving, sometimes speaking Islamic statues were modeled upon examples at the Caliphal court and that some of the contemporary Latin Christian false assertions of Muslim idol worship were due to some knowledge of these Islamic sculptural automata.
