Persian MS 765 (The John Rylands Research Institute and Library, The University of Manchester)

Persian Manuscripts

Summary of Contents: An incomplete, possibly 18th-century copy of the Mukātabāt-i ʻAllāmī (Writings of ‘Allāmī) contains correspondence of Persian émigré and eventual minister to the Mughal emperor Akbar, Abū al-Faz̤l ibn Mubārak (1551–1602), posthumously compiled by his nephew, ʻAbd al-Ṣamad ibn Afz̤al Muḥammad (fl. early 17th c) in 1015 AH (1606-07 CE). The latter divided the work into three books (daftars): letters that Abu'l Fazl drafted in Akbar's name, correspondence that he himself wrote to Akbar and other nobility, and miscellaneous letters and prose pieces.

Author and Correspondent: Abū al-Faz̤l ibn Mubārak, 1551–1602;
ابو الفضل ابن مبارک

Compiler: ʻAbd al-Ṣamad ibn Afz̤al Muḥammad (fl. early 17th c);
عبد الصمد ابن افضل محمد

Title: Mukātabāt-i ʻAllāmī

Title: مکتوبات علامی

Title: Maktūbāt-i ʻAllāmī

Title: مکاتبات علامی

Title: Inshā-yi Abū al-Faz̤l

Title: انشاى ابو الفضل

Incipit: برگ ١۱پ (folio 11b): سلسه انتظام کارگاه آفرینش که مظاهر حقیقت نمای شهود و شواهد قدرت وابسته بفرما یزدائی بزرگ نهادی باید بر عالم و عالمیان ببازوی تائید گرفت و کار جهان و جهانیان به نیروی قدر گشت آگاهی سامان و بر احکام تواند...

Explicit: برگ ١٢٧پ (folio 127b): تمام شد دستور العمل تصنیف ابو الفیض و فیضی دیوان بادشاه جلاله السلطان و اغزیته و اتصفته و الخلافته و الموه و الصویه و الاجلال ابو الفتح جلال الدین بدستباری حضرت سیر دستگیر ضیا بخش هر ضمیر هر یک در مندان عمخوار مسمندال حضرت برهان شاه در عهد خلیفه رحمان ناصر دوران خسرو کشورستان درمان ابو المظفر محیی الدین اورنگزیب باد شاه غازی خلد الله ملکه و بقلم شکست رقم تحریر تمود چون این فقیر را در مطابق کتاب شد عرش(؟)‌درباره خط خوانان وارد از یخته(؟) اکثر نسخه بدستخط خود نگاشته شد . تحریر فی التاریخ هفدهم ۱۷ شهر ذی القعده سنه ۱۱۰۳ هجری مطابق روزه سه ۳ شنبه سنه ۳۶ جلوس والا

Colophon: Completed on 17 Ẕī al-Qa‘dah 1103 AH (31 Jul. 1692 CE) equal to regnal year 36 [‘Ālamgīrī].

Language(s): Persian

For four other copies of this work under variant titles held in the Rylands, see Persian MS 110, 490, 499 and 958.

Physical Description

Form: codex

Support: Textblock of two types of straight and cross-grained, externally sized and polished, paper, folios 1a–37b tinted dark brown and thereafter a natural buff colour. all probably handmade in the Indian subcontinent with ~8 laid lines per cm and no discernible chain lines.

Extent: 117 folios, 4 flyleaves (ff. ii + 117 + ii).

Dimensions (leaf): 214 × 150 mm.

Dimensions (written): 188 × 98 mm.

Foliation: Numbers commence with Hindu-Arabic numeral 11 on the first folio, folowed by 13, hence over by 11 and probably incomplete.

Collation

Undetermined. Catwords present on the lower-left corners of the b sides.

Condition

Handle text with caution. In poor condition on the initial and final pages, with the initial folios 1a–37b tinted dark brown especially embrittled.

Layout

Written primarily in 1 column with 18 lines per page.

Folios 113b–114a, 115a–119b, and 123a–126b written in one colume with 1–9 diagonal lines per page. All folios ruled with a misṭarah hand guide.

Hand(s)

Written in clear black nasta‘līq with occasional shikastah ligatures.

Additions:
Inscription: Note adjacent to the colophon by Note by colophon, possibly signed by Jān Muḥammad Mumtaz.
Bookplates: The left pastedown: ‘Bibliotheca Lindesiana’ with pencilled shelfmark ‘1/F’, and ‘Hamilton MSS No. 675’, with the name and number crossed out and ‘Persian’ and ‘765’ written aside.

Binding

Probably repaired and rebound in a hybrid British-Indian style in Multan for former owner Colonel George William Hamilton.

. Unsupported resewing at two stations. Edges trimmed and twined chevron endbands worked in red and green silk threads over round cores at head and tail. Covered in full dark red-brown goatskin leather, tight-backed, with squares at the edges, defined joints, but without a flap (type III binding per Déroche). Internal pastedowns of ochre-coloured paper, with hinges of the same leather, adhered over the joints and onto the flyleaves to attach the cover to the textblock.

Title in yellow on spine. Board exterior margins double-ruled in yellow.

225 × 163 × 24 mm.

Handle binding with caution. In fair but stable condition, with exterior scuffing and cracking.

Seal(s):

Obliterated but measurable black seal impression, intaglio-carved triple-ruled, on 127b:
11 × 18 mm.

History

Origin: Completed in the ; 17 Ẕī al-Qa‘dah 1103 AH (31 Jul. 1692 CE).

Provenance and Acquisition

subsequently acquired by an unidetified owner, as as per his namesake seal impressed on folio 85a.

Later obtained, repaired, and rebound for Colonel George William Hamilton (1807-1868) who served in India from 1823 to 1867, latterly as Commissioner in Delhi. He acquired over a thousand Indian and Persian manuscripts, from which the British Museum purchased 352 from his widow, Charlotte Logie Hamilton (1817–1893), now held in the British Library.

Alexander Lindsay, 25th Earl of Crawford (1812–1880) purchased the remainder of Hamilton's collection in 1868 for his Bibliotheca Lindesiana at Haigh Hall, Wigan.

Purchased by Enriqueta Rylands (1843–1908) in 1901 from James Ludovic Lindsay, 26th Earl of Crawford (1847–1913).

Bequeathed by Enriqueta Rylands (1843–1908) in 1908 to the John Rylands Library, Manchester.

Record Sources

Bibliographical description based on an index created by Reza Navabpour circa 1993, derived from a manuscript catalogue by Michael Kerney, circa 1890s, concisely published as Bibliotheca Lindesiana, Hand-list of Oriental Manuscripts: Arabic, Persian, Turkish, 1898.

Subsequently augmented and enhanced by Jake Benson in 2024 with reference to the manuscript in hand.

Availability

To book an in-person or online appointment to consult the manuscript, visit Using the Special Collections Reading Rooms. For any other enquiries please email uml.special-collections@manchester.ac.uk.

Bibliography

A. F. L. Beeston, Catalogue of the Persian, Turkish, Hindûstânî, and Pushtû Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Part III (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1954), pp. 54–55, nos. 2704–2707 [Bodl. Ms. Whinfield 19 &c.].

M. Dirāyatī and M. Dirāyatī, Fihristgān: Nuskhahʹhā-yi Khaṭṭī-i Īrān (FANKHĀ) (Union Manuscript Catalogue of Iran), Vol. 31 (Tehran: Sāzmān-i Asnād va Kitābkhānah-i Millī-i Jumhūrī-i Islāmī-i Īrān, 1393 SH [2012–13 CE]), pp. 284–287 [Tehran, Parliamentary Library, no. 1320, &c.].

H. Ethé, Catalogue of Persian manuscripts in the library of the India Office, Vol. 1 (London: Printed for the India Office by H. Hart, 1903), cols. 108–111, nos. 271–286 [British Library, IO Islamic 2985, &c.].

D. N. Marshall, Mughals in India: A Bibliographical Survey. Vol. 1. Manuscripts (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1962), pp. 34–35, no. 99(iii).

C. A. Storey, Persian Literature: A Bio-bibliographical Survey, Vol. III, Pt. 2 (London: Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 1990), p. 276, no. 455(1).

Tawfīq Subḥānī, 'Kitāb'hā-yi khaṭṭī-i Fārsī fihrist nashudah dar Kitābkhānah Jān Rāylāndz, Manchistir' Majallah-'i Dānishkadah-i Adabiyāt va ‘Ulūm-i Insānī n.s., Vol. 1, Nos. 2-3 (1372 SH [1993 CE]): pp. 174–175, no. 17 [Rylands Persian MS 958].

Funding of Cataloguing

The John Rylands Research Institute and Library

The Persian Heritage Foundation

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