SACRED CLOTH

Syriac Orthodox Icon

Nasra Şimmeshindi (Turkish)

I was so lucky to have met Nasra Şimmeshindi, the creator of this unique religious icon, during my 2014 visit to Mardin, an ancient city in eastern Turkey. She was 90 years old, and sadly died two years later.

Miss Nasra was one of the last local masters of the traditional art of yazma or basma—printing on cloth using wooden blocks. She personified Mardin’s multi-ethnic population. Her family is believed to have migrated from India more than 600 years ago. (I’m no linguist, but hindi in her surname seems related to Hindustan, Turkish for ‘India.’)

Although she worked as a tailor and lace maker for many years, she assumed her father’s occupation when her husband died—producing cloth icons for local Syriac Orthodox Christian churches.

From my own research (so this might not be accurate), I believe the individual pictured is a bishop based on the style of his pastoral staff. Rather than the curved shepherd’s crook of Western Christianity, it appears to be a ‘staff of Moses.’ If you look very closely (and exercise a bit of imagination), you’ll see two yellow snakes facing each other across a red space. This refers to the Biblical burning-bush story in which God transforms Moses’s staff into a snake and then back into a staff.

Nasra Şimmeshindi continued her family’s craft for half a century. Her cloth icons can be found in Syriac Orthodox churches around the world.

I’m proud to have one in my home.

Much like a Turkish rug salesman, Miss Nasra unfurled quite a few of her cloth wonders before I settled on this one.