Persian MS 188 (The John Rylands Research Institute and Library, The University of Manchester)

Summary of Contents: This collection of passages copied from various letters and documents in Ottoman Turkish by an anonymous scribe possibly dates to the mid 17th-century, since the last entry dates to 9 Muḥarram 1001 AH (16 October 1592 CE), followed by a subsequent notations dated 1082 AH (1671–72 CE) and 5 Jumādá I 1087 (16 Jul. 1676 CE) respectively. The extracts mainly record the initial passages, written in a highly stylized ornate prose employed in chancery documents. The scribe probably copied these passages to both practice the intricate dīvānī script styles and serve as an epistolographic miscellany to reference when writing similar letters. Copied in a five-part format, with three lines in comparatively large, bold dīvānī sprinkled with metallic particles, a technique employed by Ottoman chanceries for both decoration and as as a security device to prevent tampering, interspersed with longer passages in a smaller divani hand. Since the ruling appears underneath the writing, and this format comports with Qur'an manuscripts, the scribe may have repurposed a juz' pamphlet. The volume also contains several unrelated passages, practice lettering, and notations in other hands.