Figures on camelback converse with a man in a patterned robe in Maqamat of al-Hariri: Discussion near a Village, painted by Yahya ibn Mahmud al-Wasiti in 1237 using opaque watercolor and gold on paper. The scene is set before a fortified village, with arched windows revealing onlookers, domestic animals, and architectural details such as a palm tree and a domed structure. The artist employs a palette of ochres, blues, reds, and greens, outlining the figures and forms with dark ink for clarity, and arranging them in a shallow, frieze-like space typical of thirteenth-century Islamic manuscript illustration.

Decorative patterns on clothing, architectural surfaces, and the camels’ trappings highlight the manuscript’s visual richness and narrative detail. This illustration belongs to the tradition of manuscript painting in the medieval Islamic world, specifically created for the literary text Maqamat by al-Hariri. Such works were valued for their combination of calligraphy and painting, serving both as literary manuscripts and as objects of art. The date of 1237 places this folio within the flourishing period of illustrated Arabic manuscripts, and the work is associated with the artistic legacy of Yahya ibn Mahmud al-Wasiti, a renowned painter and calligrapher active in the Abbasid era.

The manuscript, which al-Wasiti both copied and illustrated, is now in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris (Arabe 5847).