Or 15876 (Oriental Manuscripts, British Library)

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Oriental Manuscripts

Majmu'ah

Contents

Summary of Contents: A selection of Persian verse and prose lore, most if not all of which is Sufi-influenced. The five texts are attributed, tenuously for the most part, to a number of renowned figures. The rarity and interest of this manuscript lies in its originating from Central Asia (East Turkistan) or possibly from China, and in its bold and distinctive, if unsophisticated, ornamentation.
1. ff 1v-6v
Author: Omar Khayyam عمر خیام
Title: Rubāʻīyāt-i ʻUmar Khayyām
Title: رباعيات عمر خيام

Quatrains traditionally attributed to ‘Umar Khayyām (d. 517/1123).The verses are punctuated on f. 5v by an anecdote about the renowned Sufi Bayazīd Basṭāmī and a man who claimed to have the cure for every ill.

Language(s): Persian
Filiation:
2. ff 6v-7r
Author: Abū Bakr, Caliph, -634 أبو بكر، الخليفة
Title: Munājāt
Title: مناجات

Confessional prayers in rhyming prose in Arabic, implausibly attributed to the first Caliph, Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq (d. 13/634).

Language(s): Arabic.
Filiation:
3. f. 7r
Author: Ākhūnd Mullā Mu‘īn آخوند ملا معین
Title: Az maqūlah-’i Ākhūnd Mullā Mu‘īn
Title: از مقولۀ آخوند ملا معین

Four proverbial ‘wondrous exceptions’, attributed to one Ākhūnd Mullā Mu‘īn.

Language(s): Persian
Filiation:
4. ff 7v-11r
Title: Ashʻār
Title: اشعار

Poems, unattributed, mainly concerned with mystical love. Many of the poems have the heading chārbayt (poem in four hemistiches) or rubā‘ī (quatrain); on 8v is a longer poem in Arabic, replete with assonance and alliteration, headed Qaṣīda Ṭanzanī (?).

Title supplied.

Language(s): Persian and Arabic.
Filiation:
5. ff 1v-6v
Author: ʻAṭṭār, Farīd al-Dīn, -approximately 1230 عطار، فريد الدين
Title: Dar sulūk az Farīd al-Dīn ‘Aṭṭār
Title: در سلوک از فرید الدین عطار

A poem or series of poems concerning the Path of Sufism, here attributed to the great Sufi poet and biographer Farīd al-Dīn ‘Aṭṭār.

Language(s): Persian
Filiation:

Physical Description

Form: codex
Support: Fairly thick off-white laid paper.
Extent: 18 ff.
Dimensions (leaf): 215 × 148 mm.
Dimensions (written): ca 135 × ca 67 mm.

Condition

Layout

Hand(s)

Good nasta‘līq; Arabic passages in naskhī.

Decoration

Multiple text frames: black, gold, yellow, red, green and black. Gold and polychrome floral motifs and designs of Central Asian type on most folios. Illuminated text openings on f. 1v-2r and 11v-12r. Illuminated poetical dā’ira, f. 9v.

Additions:

Binding

Original brown leather binding in Chinese style, with large roundels at the centre, both back and front, containing an ornate Basmalah in relief, in Ṣīnī script; other distinctive ornamental motifs in the corners and on the flap.

History

Origin: 1850 - 1899 CE ; Central Asia

Provenance and Acquisition

2002-04-24

Purchased at Bomhams sale 24 April 2002, Lot 148.

Record Sources

Based on unpublished description in M.I. Waley, Catalogue of Persian Manuscripts acquired 2000-2014.

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.

Funding of Cataloguing

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