Or 16492 (Oriental Manuscripts, British Library)

The celebrated Sufi didactic mas̲navī poem by Nūr al-Dīn ‘Abd al-Raḥmān Jāmī (d. 898/1492). See C. Huart and H. Massé‚ ‘Djāmī, Mawlana Nūr al-Dīn ‘Abd al-Raḥmān’, EI2, 2, pp. 421-2; Okumuş, ‘Câmî, Abdurrahman’, TDVİA 7, pp. 94-8; A. Afsahzod, Ruzgor va osor-i Abdurrahmani Jomī, Dushanbe 1980.

This manuscript is the earliest recorded extant copy. The opening folio is a replacement for the missing original. The opening bayt given there is the first of the two very different maṭla‘s quoted by Munzavī (FNKhF IV, p. 2892).

For other manuscripts, see FNKhF IV, pp. 2892-9; and, for the collected masnavī poems of Jāmī, pp. 2678 (s.v. Panj ganj) and 2312-6 (s.v. Haft awrang).

Begins: Basmala al-Minna li-Llāhi ki ba-khūn gar khuftam * yak chand chu ghuncha ‘āqibat bashkuftam, az kash-makash-i charkh basī āshuftam * gar gawhar-i rāz subḥa-vār suftam

Ends: Ḥusn-i maqṭa‘ chu buvad rasm-i kuhan * Qaṭ‘ kardīm badīn nukta sukhan

Other contents: front flyleaf, description of the manuscript, by Mihdī Bayānī; 106r, his transcription of the colophon.

Colophon, f. 105v. Iran, probably Shiraz. Copied by Qivām al-Dīn Muḥammad known as Khwājagī al-Munshī. Dated 4 Ramażān 872/29 March 1468.

Elegant nasta‘līq. 15 lines in two columns. Headings in red. Text frames: black, gold, blue and (on some folios) green. Beige paper of good quality and medium thickness; f. 1-49 are partially or totally remargined with lighter, modern paper. 1104 folios. 55 x 104 mm.; text area 114 x 64 mm. Black morocco covers, relatively modern, with worn blind-tooled ornamentation in centre apparently featuring a fourfold lion and sun motif.

Purchased from Christie's South Kensington (26 October 2007, lot 401).