Delhi Persian 1142 (Oriental Manuscripts, British Library)

Item a.

Treatise describing the doctrines and practices of several Ṣūfī orders, including the Qādirīyah, Chishtīyah, Suhravardīyah, Shaṭṭārīyah and others, by the author Muḥammad Akram ibn Muḥammad ʿAlī ibn Shaykh Ilāh Bakhsh al-Ḥanafī al-Quddūsī al-Barāsūsī (?).

The work begins with an Arabic preface.

The work is organised into six faṣl.

Not dated at end.

Rough and awkward shikastah āmīz.

Item b.

Treatise guiding novices in Sufism, by Pīr Muḥammad Lakhnavī (d. 1080/1669-70).

The work was begun in Rabīʿ I 1067/December 1656 and completed the following month, while the author resided in Lucknow. The work containing many Arabic prayers and litanies, is also an important source for other South Asian Muslim saints.

The work consists of four manzil, as suggested by the title, and further subdivided into maqām.

Dated colophon (f. 110v): completed by Shaykh Fatḥ Allāh ibn Muḥammad Hāshim (resident of Shīrūn/Sheron?) on the morning of Thursday, 12 Jumād[sic] al-S̲ānī 1132/21 April 1720.

Scribal nastaʿlīq, with angular naskh for Arabic passages.

Folio 56r contains a naʿt of the Prophet Muḥammad in ghazal form.

Folio 110v reproduces a brief medicinal prescription for bavāsīr or haemorrhoids.

Item c.

Curious collection of an untitled Arabic prayer beautifully transcribed in a rounded naskh hand ending on folio 112r. This is surrounded in the margins with annotations, mostly in rough nastaʿlīq, on the prayer’s application and mention of a certain Miyān Ibrāhīm Shāh, with further magical formulae (such as the seal of Solomon). These notes become increasingly more focussed on the reproduction of a more complex array of magical tables. This is followed by a further Arabic prayer (based on the Qurʾān, sūrah al-Māʾidah, V:114) in a clumsy hand on folio 112v, while the margins are filled with Persian notes on the medical applications of ‘maʿjūn-i falāḥ’ continuing on the following page with an Arabic recipe.

Annotations in margins cropped.

Not dated at end.

Item d.

Untitled and anonymously compiled medical treatise advising on the use of diverse numerological charts and magical formulae.

The work is defective at end, as it ends with a catchword and without an appropriate conclusion.

Not dated at end.