Arabia / Turkey: The Prophet Muhammad praying at the Kabaa in Mecca. Illustration by Nakkas Osman, Siyer i-Nebi, Istanbul, c. 1595

Nakkaş Osman (sometimes called Osman the Miniaturist) was the chief miniaturist for the Ottoman Empire during the latter half of the sixteenth century. The dates of his birth and death are uncertain, but most of his works are dated to the last quarter of the sixteenth century.

The oldest known illustrations of Nakkaş Osman's were made between 1560 and 1570 for a Turkish translation of the Persian manuscript Firdausi's Shahnama.Among the works he illustrated, he is known to have been the chief illustrator of the various official histories written by Sayyid Lokman for Murad III that were produced in this era, including the Zafername (Book of Victories), the Şahname-ı Selim Han (Book of Kings) and the Şehinşahname (Book of King of Kings). He was also one of the illustrators of the Siyer-i Nebi, an epic on the life of Muhammad written around 1388, then illustrated around 1595.

Representations of the Prophet Muhammad are controversial, and generally forbidden in Sunni Islam (especially Hanafiyya, Wahabi, Salafiyya). Shia Islam and some other branches of Sunni Islam (Hanbali, Maliki, Shafi'i) are generally more tolerant of such representational images, but even so the Prophet's features are generally veiled or concealed by flames as a mark of deep respect.

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