IO Islamic 4068 (Oriental Manuscripts, British Library)

Irvine Collection

Miscellany of verse and prose

Untitled, illuminated bayāz̤ or notebook of Persian and Arabic analecta assembled from the works of (but not limited to) "Rūmī," "Khayyām," "Ḥāfiẓ," Ibrāhīm "Adham," "Bīdil," "Bihjat," "Ṣāʾib," Nāṣir ʿAlī "Nāṣir," Muḥammad Qāsim, "Shādmān," "Āṣafī" ʿAjamī, Mīrzā Nāṣir "Inṣāf," Muḥammad Qāsim Mashhadī, in addition to some compositions by compilers / calligraphers

Each folio or side is transcribed by different writers at different 1) dates and 2) places, at the request of a certain Mawlānā Muḥammad Yūsuf (f. 27r), Mīrzā Muḥammad Yūsuf (f. 35v), or Āqā Muḥammad Yūsuf-jīv (f. 58r)

Dates range widely from the ghurrah or 1 Ramaz̤ān of regnal year 43 (ʿĀlamgīr I) at Fort Satara (f. 27r) to Wednesday 23 Jumādá I 1087 / 1676 (f. 29v)

The manuscript additionally preserves a rare letter (f. 64r) from the Timurid or Mughal Prince Dārā Shukūh addressed to the itinerant Iranian Jewish mystic, Muḥammad Saʿīd Kāshānī "Sarmad" (see IO Islamic 4059 for his poems)

Defective at beginning and end

Not dated

Language(s): Persian and Arabic

Copied from an original =-=-=-=-

Author: Dārā Shukūh

Physical Description

Form: codex

Extent: 50 ff.

Dimensions (leaf): 238 × 146 mm.

Hand(s)

Transcribed by more than 8 hands ranging in quality and style of script: calligraphic nastaʿlīq, rough nastaʿlīq,

shikastah, shikastah āmīz, shafīʿah, Indian taʿliq, naskh, etc, written at an oblique angle. Various scribe mentioned (in signatures) by name: Muḥammad Riz̤āʾ, Sayyid Yūsuf Aḥmad or Sayyid Yūsuf Aḥmad al-Ḥusaynī, ʿAli Bilgrāmī, Shaykh Ḥabīb

Decoration

Margins ruled, adorned with polychrome abrī or loose and combed marbling, and the contours picked out in gold. Original folios trimmed and remounted on apertures of plain paper

Binding

History

Origin: 17th-18th centuries CE ; India

Provenance and Acquisition

William Irvine

Mawlānā Muḥammad Yūsuf

1913-08-15

William Irvine

Record Sources

Based on unpublished description in Catalogue of Persian Manuscripts in the India Office Library, vol. 3. Available on British Library Digitised Manuscripts, manuscript number: MSS Eur E207/18

Availability

Entry to read in the Library is permitted only on presentation of a valid reader's card for admissions procedures contact British Library, Registering for a Reader Pass. Contact apac-enquiries@bl.uk for further information on the availability of this manuscript. For information on catalogues and ordering manuscripts see Finding and ordering Persian manuscripts in the British Library.

Union Catalogue of Manuscripts from the Islamicate World