Ganjifa — Persian & Mughal Cards (the Cousin, not the Parent)

Gorgeous circular, hand-painted, lacquered cards whose very name — ganjifa / Arabic kanjifah — is the same word as the Mamluk game. Persia from the 16th century, then richly developed in Mughal India (Dashavatara and other sets). A cousin branch, NOT a parent of tarot — it shows the Islamic-world card tradition that flourished but did not cross into Europe to become the four-suit pack. Filed honestly as adjacent card art, not ancestry.

ANCESTRAL STATUS: cousin — beautiful and related, but off the line that became tarot.

SOURCES: LACMA open access (lacma.org); PICRYL public-domain aggregates; Ashmolean Museum.

Where the pictures come from: who holds this deck's pictures, how sharp they are and what their rights allow: Sources: Ganjifa.