Delhi Persian 1240 (Oriental Manuscripts, British Library)

India Office Library

Tuḥfat al-āfāq by Qabūl Muḥammad

Summary of Contents: A Persian commentary on the Tuḥfat al-ʿIrāqayn of Khāqānī Shirvānī (1126-98), composed by Qabūl Muḥammad, son of Shaykh Valī Muḥammad, resident of Singapore (Sinjabūr). Appears to be an autograph.

Author: Qabūl Muḥammad ibn Shaykh Valī Muḥammad قبول محمّد ولد شیخ ولی محمّد

Title: Tūhfat al-āfāq

Title: تحفة الآفاق

Incipit: حمد وافر شارحی را که از متن یک رباعی عناصر بقلم قدرت هزاران شرح نموده

Explicit: امین بمد الف که بعد از دعا گویند یعنی اینچنین باد و مستجاب گردان این دعا را.

Colophon: (f. 208v) Completed on Tuesday, 15 Rabiʻ I 1214 AH (17 August 1799) by the author, Qabūl Muḥammad in Lucknow as a service to Saʿādat ʻAlī Khān (d.1814), Nawab of Oudh.

The colophon is also dated in the Faṣli, Samvat and Saka eras.

Language(s): Persian

Physical Description

Form: codex

Extent: ff. i+208+i.

Dimensions (leaf): 240 × 130 mm.

Dimensions (written): 212 × 100 mm.

Foliation:

Foliated on every fifth leaf by pencil and in Persian by ink.

Collation

Catchwords on the bottom-left corners of the verso.

Condition

Slightly worn-out initial and final. Worm-eaten on the cover. Stitching broken and detached from binding.

Layout

Normally 15 lines per page; sometimes 16 or 17 lines.

Hand(s)

Shikastah; copied in black ink, headings and markings in red. Copyist is Qabūl Muḥammad

Additions:

Note on flyleaf, verso and f. 1r on geometry and trigonometry.

(Endleaf, verso) A poem attributed to Amīr Khusraw Dihlavī which uses seven different puns on the word 'bisyārbār', here written as prose.

Miscellaneous marginal notes apparently by the author/scribe himself.

Binding

Brown leather contemporary Indian binding with blind-tooled central medallion, two vertical pendants (above and below) and four corners.

Seal(s):

Oval seal of former owner Sayyid Niyāz Ḥasan Ḥusaynī, 1268 (1851/51) (f. 1r).

Black Government of India Delhi MSS oval stamp (ff. 1r, 208v).

History

Origin: 15 Rabi' I 1214 AH (17 August 1799) ; Lucknow, India

Provenance and Acquisition

Purchased by the Government of India at sale organised by Delhi Prize Agents, 1859.

Acquired by the India Office Library as an administrative deposit in 1876.

Record Sources

Based on C.A. Storey's description in Drafts for Catalogue of Persian Manuscripts in the India Office Library, vol. III, Mss Eur E207/15, ff. 61-63. Revised by Ali Shapouran.

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. For information on catalogues and ordering manuscripts see Finding and ordering Persian manuscripts in the British Library.

Union Catalogue of Manuscripts from the Islamicate World