MS. Sale 30 (Bodleian Library, Oxford University)

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The treasure of mystery,' the second of the five epic and didactic poems which form the Ḫamse of one of the greatest Turkish mes̠nevī-writers, Yaḥyā Beg or Yaḥyā Efendī the Albanian, who died, according to the best authorities, AH 983= AD 1575/1576; only Ḥ. Khalfa (i. p. 340 and iii. p. 332) states thAH was still alive in AH 990=AD 1582, and died about AH 1000 =AD 1592; comp. on the poet and his Ḫamse, H. Khalfa iii. p. 176, No. 4805; Rieu, p. 180 sq., where the only complete copy of all the five poems extant in Europe is described; Hammer, Osman. Dichtkunst, iii. p. 32 sq., and E. J. W. Gibb, p. 200 sq. According to the chronogram in the last beyt (l), this mes̠nevī was composed under Sulṭān Süleymān I (AH 926-974 =AD 1520-1566) in less than one month, AH 947= AD 1540/1541. It is divided into 40 maḳāles, and opens with a short prose-preface, beginning: بو اعظم و طلسم مبهم اولان بسم الله جاه و جلال الخ. The initial beyt of the mes̠nevī runs thus: جان و دلدن دیلم بسم الله آچلم سوزله سوز گنجنه راه. Other copies of the same in Rieu, p. 181b; W. Pertsch, p. 188; Berlin Cat., p. 408; Paris Cat., p. 329, No. 268; C. J. Tornberg, p. 115; Krafft, p. 74, No. 220, etc.; comp. also H. Khalfa v. p. 245, No. 10869. Dated by İbrāhīm bin Muḥammed eş-Şāmī, the 25th of Cemāẕī el-evvel, AH 998=AD 1590, April 1.

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