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Persian MS 395 (The John Rylands Research Institute and Library, The University of Manchester)

Persian Manuscripts

Summary of Contents: This first of two volumes of the Hasht Bihisht (Eight Paradises) by Idrīs Bidlīsī (d. 1520), originally comprised a single manuscript bound together with Persian MS 396. The complete work chronicles the reigns of the first eight Ottoman sultans, ending with Sultan Beyazid II (b. 1447, r. 1481–1512), who the author served as an administrator in various locations throughout the empire. The final section relates particularly valuable eyewitness accounts that occurred during his patron's reign. Most notably, his richly nuanced, ornate Persian prose literary style interspersed with lines of poetry dramatically departs from works by prior Ottoman historians. A scribe named Muḥammad Yūsuf Shīrāzī completed this manuscript in Ṣafar 1063 AH (January 1653 CE).

Author: Idrīs Bidlīsī, d. 1520 ادريس بتليسي İdrîs Bitlîsî, d. 1520

Scribe: Muḥammad Yūsuf Shīrāzī

Title: Hasht Bihisht

Title: هشت بهشت

Incipit: برگ ۱پ (folio 1b): تبارك الذي بیده الملك و هو علی کل شي قدیر.

Explicit: برگ ۲۸۷ر (folio 287a): خلق و خالق همهٔ ازو راضی * باد مستقبلش به از ماضی

Colophon: Completed by Muḥammad Yūsuf Shīrāzī on Thursday, the beginning of Ṣafar 1063 AH (beginning of January 1653 CE), as per the colophon for the entire work, now found at the end of Persian MS 396, folio 302.

Language(s): Persian

Former owner Colonel George William Hamilton mentions the work in two letters addressed to the Scientific Society, Aligarh, dated 1 Jan. and 2 Feb. 1864 in which he urges its publication, although he describes it as ‘...a large book of 650 leaves or 1300 pages, and the printing of it would be expensive’ (see 'Proceedings of the Scientific Society, 12th of March 1864'). While it appears that his wish never came to fruition, his description of the work as a single volume suggests that engagement with it resulted in his desire to split it into two volumes and rebind them in their present state. As a result, a scribe replaced the concluding text of the fourth daftaron folio 287a in this volume, but the original passage now appears at the start of the second volume, (see Persian MS 396, folio 1a.).

Physical Description

Form: codex

Support: Written on straight-grained, thin, buff-coloured handmade paper manufactured in the Islamic world, with ~1 mm between laid lines and occasionally discernible chain lines. When rebound, a scribe added folio 287, to copy the end of the volume, now found on Persian MS 396, folio 1a.

Extent: 287 folios (i + 287 + i)

Dimensions (leaf): 269 × 158 mm.

Dimensions (written): 208 × 108 mm.

Foliation: Pencilled Arabic numerals inscribed on the upper-left corners of the a sides when catalogued.

Collation

Primarily quaternions throughout. Catchwords throughout on the lower left corners of the b sides.

Condition

Handle with caution. In fair condition, with extensive stains and historical repairs throughout, and the textblock split between folios 130b and 131a.

Layout

Written in 1 columns with 21 lines per page. Ruled with a misṭarah hand guide.

Hand(s)

Primarily written in nasta‘līq script in black, with subheadings in red nasta‘līq and naskh.

A different black nasta‘līq hand completed the added explicit on folio 287a, possibly that of Muhīn Dās who assisted former owner Colonel George William Hamilton.

Decoration

Illumination: A headpiece on folio 1b appears added when rebound. Original headers remain on Persian MS 396, folios 1b, 84b, and 184b. Marginal ruling throughout in gold outlined in thin single and double black lines, surrounded by red and blue lines.

Additions:
Inscription: The first right flyleaf bears the title and with the name of former owner Colonel George William Hamilton in Persian, possibly written by his assistant Muhīn Dās:
‘ کتاب هشت بهشت تالیف ادریس بن حسام الدین البدلیسی سه ۳ دفتر معه خطبه کرنیل جارج ولیم هملتن صاحب بهادر ’ Bookplates: The left paste-down: ‘Bibliotheca Lindesiana’ and ‘Hamilton MSS No. 312.’

Binding

Probably split into two volumes and uniformly rebound with Persian MS 395 in Delhi for former owner Colonel George William Hamilton. Resewn on a single flat support, with folios oversewn between folios 121 to 171 oversewn. Spine lined with cloth, edges trimmed, and Islamic-style twined chevron endbands worked in red silk and silver threads. Rebound in a hybrid British-Indian style, tight-backed binding in two separate pieces of smooth, dark red goatskin leather that overlap on the spine, without a flap (type III binding per Déroche), with squares along the edges and defined exterior joints. Cloth lining and thong ends attached to the board interiors, then overlaid with European schrotel-patterned marbled paper doublures.

Spine and board perimeters dyed brown. Decorative onlays feature scalloped central mandorlas, detached pendants, and corners glocked in gold, surrounded by a border of gilt insular dots, with yellow ruling criss-crossing the central decoration and surrounding the inner borders and outer margins. A paper label on the spine bears the title written in black nasta‘līq.

278 × 166 × 44 mm.

Accompanying Material

A loose bifolium inserted at the front, now split in two, records the table of contents in Persian.

History

Origin: Possibly completed in India; by Muḥammad Yūsuf Shīrāzī on Thursday, the beginning of Ṣafar, 1063 AH (beginning of January, 1653 CE), as per the colophon, now at the end of the companion volume as per the colophon for the entire work found at the end of Persian MS 396, folio 302.

Provenance and Acquisition

Acquired by Colonel George William Hamilton (1807-1868) who served in India from 1823 to 1867, latterly as Commissioner in Delhi. He acquired over a thousand Indian and Persian manuscripts from which the British Museum selected 352 after his death, now held in the British Library.

Alexander Lindsay, 25th Earl of Crawford (1812–1880), purchased the remainder in 1868.

Purchased by Enriqueta Rylands (1843–1908) (1843–1908) in 1901 from James Ludovic Lindsay, 26th Earl of Crawford (1847–1913).

Bequeathed by Enriqueta Rylands (1843–1908) in 1908 to the John Rylands Library.

Record Sources

Bibliographical description based on an index created by Reza Navabpour circa 1993, derived from a manuscript handlist by Michael Kerney, circa 1890s and his Bibliotheca Lindesiana, Hand-list of Oriental Manuscripts: Arabic, Persian, Turkish, 1898.

Manuscript description by Jake Benson in 2021 with reference to the volume, and in consutlation with Prof. Christopher Markiewicz, University of Birmingham.

Availability

To book an in-person or online appointment to consult the manuscript, visit Using the Special Collections Reading Rooms. For any other enquiries please email uml.special-collections@manchester.ac.uk.

Digital Images

Manchester Digital Collections (full digital facsimile).

Bibliography

Persian MS 396 (Vol. 2).

Ali Anooshahr, The Early Ottomans in Idris Bitlisi’s Hasht Bihisht. In Turkestan and the Rise of Eurasian Empires: A Study of Politics and Invented Traditions. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), pp. 28–55.

Aikaterini Dimitriadou, "Heşt Behişt of Idris Bidlisi : the reign of Bayezid II (1481-1512)." Ph.D. Dissertation. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh, 2001.

Christopher Markiewicz, The Crisis of Kingship in Late Medieval Islam: Persian Emigres and the Making of Ottoman Sovereignty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019.

Abdülkadir Özcan, "İdrîs-i Bitlisî" in TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi Vol. 21. (2000): pp. 485–488.

Abdülkadir Özcan, "Heşt Bihişt" in TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi Vol. 17. (1998): pp. 271–273.

Charles Rieu, Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the British Museum, Vol. I. (London: British Museum, 1879), pp. 216–16 [BL Add. 7646 and 7647].

Eduard Sachau and Hermann Ethé, Catalogue of the Persian, Turkish, Hindûstani, and Pushtû manuscripts in the Bodleian Library Vol I. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1889), , cols. 166–67, no. 311 [Ouseley 358].

Sarah Nur Yildiz, "Historiography xiv. The Ottoman Empire" in Encyclopædia Iranica, Vol. XII, Fasc. 4, (2004): pp. 403–411.

Sarah Nur Yildiz, "Ottoman Historical Writing in Persian, 1400–1600," in Persian Historiography: A History of Persian Literature Vol. X. Edited by Charles Melville. (London: I. B. Tauris 2012): pp. 483–493.

Funding of Cataloguing

Iran Heritage Foundation

The John Rylands Research Institute

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