The visual language of the shirt’s inscriptions and decorations closely follows that of the Quran manuscripts produced at the time in India’s Sultanate courts. The red, blue and gold paint used in addition to black ink echoes the colours commonly used in Islamic manuscripts, and is found to be derived from cinnabar, red lead, white lead, lapis lazuli and gold. The shirt’s outer surface is finely painted with the calligraphed Arabic text of the Quran in its entirety, with the verses of its 114 surahs or chapters starting at the back of the right sleeve and concluding at the end of the left sleeve. Written in the naskh script, the text is organised into a grid, which features medallion designs at the intersections of the squares, and a six-petalled floral motif at the centre of each square. Both of these motifs are seen in contemporaneous Quran manuscripts, in which the medallions are used as dividers between verses. The grid is bounded by a wide border that runs along the shirt’s edges, containing larger Arabic calligraphy of the ninety-nine names of God written in the Bihari script. A commonly used script in India until the sixteenth century, it is distinguished by the golden outlining of the name of god. Another feature that the shirt shares with these manuscripts is a repeating motif in red that appears to be an abstracted form of the word ‘Allah’ in Arabic calligraphy, decorating its borders.

Two large roundels are painted over the chest area, featuring the Islamic oath, Shahada, in golden thuluth script over a red and blue background. The shirt’s back features a protective verse invoking the merciful and compassionate god. Running prominently across the centre of the back, this inscription is enclosed within a red, blue and gold cartouche, which is filled in with fine cross-hatching and red speckles, much like the infill of the shirt’s borders and other vacant spaces. A large cartouche containing a cluster of circles featuring the name of Allah is also present on each sleeve. Painted along the lower part of the shirt, on both front and back, is a row of downward-pointing shapes that accommodate part of the Quranic text. The placing of the chest roundels, cartouches and the fringe-like lobed row is reminiscent of the protective panels in Islamic armour, underlining the shirt’s metaphoric powers of protection.

Such shirts were made from the plain-weave cotton indigenous to India, which was sized using a starchy solution in order to make the surface stiff and smooth in order to be able to paint easily and intricately on it. The result is a paper- or parchment-like material, which would have made it difficult to use the shirt as a garment for any prolonged use. The ink and pigments used are also water-soluble and prone to smudging or running upon getting wet. Little is known about how exactly these talismanic shirts were used, and scholars speculate that they may have served symbolic, ritual purposes rather than as a garment. However, stains and smudges from sweat have been found on some of these shirts, including the V&A specimen, suggesting that they were worn at least for some time. 

The materials and intricate artisanship involved in making talismanic shirts rendered them expensive and time-consuming to produce. This meant they were commissioned only by kings or elite members of their courts or armies — who sometimes called them ‘victory shirts’ or ‘armour shirts’ — and later passed down through generations. In light of the shirts’ material and visual features, which echo those of religious manuscripts, scholars have suggested that they be interpreted in the realm of the book arts as much as wearable talismans. 

At the time of writing, about fifteen other specimens of Indian talismanic shirts are known to be housed across museums and private collections around the world, including the Salar Jung Museum, India; the Khalili Foundation, UK; and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, USA.