Delhi Persian 507A (Oriental Manuscripts, British Library)

Historical work entitled Rūznāmachah, a satirical account in refined prose and poetry of the campaign launched by Timurid (Mughal) Emperor ʿĀlamgīr I besieging and finally overrunning the capital of the Deccani Quṭb Shāhī Sultanate, Ḥaydarābād (Hyderabad), in RY 30 or 1097/1686, composed by the physician, historian, litterateur, prose stylist, and poet, Mīrzā Nūr al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Ḥakīm Fatḥ al-Dīn Shīrāzī entitled Niʿmat Khān, Muqarrab Khān, and Dānishmand Khān, takhalluṣ ʿĀlī (d. 1121/1710), who worked successively under the patronage of the Timurid (Mughal) Emperors Shāh Jahān I, ʿĀlamgīr I, and Bahādur Shāh I.

The volume comprises a substantial portion from an injured ‘early’ seventeenth-century fragment (ff. 2-73), with the opening folio a modern replacement, concluding with an earlier set of replacements folios (ff. 74-76), datable to the early eighteenth century (see colophon).

Partially dated colophon (f. 76v): completed Monday, 21 Muḥarram.

Gilt rulings adorning ‘early’ folios.

Neat nastaʿlīq and naskh.

Lacking original covers.

Binding damaged (marble paper with brown leather edging over pasteboards), labels.

Folios mostly bound; wormholes, cropped, multiple water stains, creased.

Condition fragile.