Union Catalogue of Manuscripts from the Islamicate World

Delhi Persian 1027 (Oriental Manuscripts, British Library)

India Office Library

Miscellaneous works on Sufism, 7 items (a-g)

Contents

Summary of Contents: Miscellaneous collection of works on Sufism, formal correspondence, and Persian grammar, comprised of heterogeneous fragments. Volume not dated; datable from the early- to mid-eighteenth century. Scribal nastaʿlīq and taʿlīq by multiple hands. Limited annotations in margins. Stamped foliation. Lacking original binding. Folios unbound, occasionally disordered with lacunae; cropped, wormholes, later repairs; erased, rubbed, smudged, and transferred text; water stains. Condition fragile.

Language(s): Persian and Arabic

1. ff. 1v-29v

Item a.

Treatise assembling miscellaneous prayers, aphorisms, anecdotes, and verses on Ṣūfī subjects, some quoted and others apparently original, intended for recitation or chanting, by an unnamed compiler.

Dated colophon (f. 29v): completed by Muḥammad Faṣīḥ, 11 Rajab (year not stated). Datable to the early eighteenth century.

Subscription below the colophon relating to the origin or ownership of this copy has been erased.

This copy is marked by an extraordinarily bold hand hybridising the taʿlīq and nastaʿlīq scripts in a dynamic and quasi-calligraphic synthesis.

Excessively rubbing darkening paper (ff. 25v-29r).

2. ff. 30v-32r

Item b.

Fragment from the beginning of an unidentified collection of formal diplomatic correspondence, probably from the Nādir Shāh Afshār dynasty, by an unnamed compiler. See item d for a lengthier fragment.

The text ends abruptly at the end of the second page without formal conclusion.

Not dated at end.

3. ff. 34r-46r

Item c.

Substantial fragment from an unidentified collection of models for formal correspondence or inshāʾ by an unnamed writer who compiled the collection at the age of 41 years.

The text ends abruptly without formal conclusion.

The work is specifically intended as an educational aid for rhetoric and literary techniques.

Not dated at end.

4. ff. 47r-50v

Item d.

Substantive fragment from an unidentified collection of formal diplomatic correspondence by an unnamed compiler, consisting of part of the introduction and continuing beyond the point of abrupt conclusion found in item b.

The text ends abruptly without formal conclusion.

Not dated at end.

Scribal nastaʿlīq hand similar to that in item c.

5. ff. 51v-55r

Item e.

Untitled treatise on Persian grammar and diction by ʿAbd al-Vāsiʿ Hānsavī.

Not dated at end.

6. ff. 56r-87v

Item f.

Substantive fragment from an unidentified collection of formal diplomatic correspondence and bravura prose accounts commemorating events and people connected with the Timurid or Mughal court, by an unnamed compiler.

Defective at beginning and end.

Not dated at end.

Rough shikastah āmīz.

7. ff. 88r-89r

Item g.

Fragment from an untitled treatise on Persian grammar by Ẓahīr ibn [Maḥmūd ibn Masʿūd] al-ʿAlavī.

Not dated at end.

Physical Description

Form: codex
Extent: 90 ff.
Dimensions (leaf): 223 × 152 mm.

Hand(s)

History

Origin: 1700 - 1770 CE ; India

Provenance and Acquisition

Purchased by the Government of India at sale organised by Delhi Prize Agents, 1859; administrative deposit India Office Library, 1876

1876

Government of India

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

BL


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