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Persian MS 72 (The John Rylands Research Institute and Library, The University of Manchester)

Persian Manuscripts

Summary of Contents: This manuscript of the Mas̲navī-i Ma‘navī (Spiritual Couplets) by Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī (1207–1273) bears illuminated headers indicating the prefaces and beginnings of each of the six books within the volume. A scribe named Ḥasan bin Muḥammad bin Naṣrallāh bin Ḥusayn, Amīr al-Mazīnānī completed it between Rabī' I and mid-Jumādá II 892 (March to mid-June, 1487 CE). His name may indicate that he resided in, or his family originated from, Mazinan, located in Khurasan near Nishapur and Mashhad, then he lived under Timurid hegemony in Eastern Iran, ruled by Sulṭān Ḥusayn Bāyqarā (r. 1469–1506). However, the style of script and illumination reflect a shared 'Turco-Persian' aesthetic also observed in manuscripts produced during the reign of the Aq Qoyunlu ruler Sulṭān Ya‘qūb (r. 1478–1490) in Western Iran at that time as well.

Author: Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī, 1207–1273;
جلال الدین رومی

Compiler: Sulṭān Valad, 1226–1312;
سلطان ولد

Scribe: Ḥasan bin Muḥammad bin Naṣrallāh bin Ḥusayn, Amīr al-Mazīnānī

Title: Mas̲navī-i Ma‘navī

Title: مثنوی معنوی

Incipit: (basmalla) برگ ۱پ (folio 1b): بشنو از نی چون حکایت می‌کند * وز جدایی‌ها شکایت می‌کند.‌

Explicit: برگ ۳۳۰ر (folio 330a): آب جانرا ریز اندر بحر جان * تا شوی دریای بی‌حدَ و کران

Colophon: برگ ۳۳۰ر (folio 330a): فرغ من تعليق هذا المجلد السادس من المثنوى الهادى الي صراط المستقيم فى اواسط شهر جمادى الثانى سنه اثنى و تسعين وثمانماية حرره العبد الفقير الحقير الى رحمة الله الغانى حسن بن محمد بن نصرالله بن حسين الامير المازينانى. اممهم عغفر لكاتبه والقاريه و لمن نظر فيه آمين يا رب العالمين وصلي على خير الخلقه محمد و عترته الايمته الطيبين الطاهرين وسلم تسليما كثيرا كثيرا

Colophon: Completed on by Ḥasan bin Muḥammad bin Naṣrallāh bin Ḥusayn, Amīr al-Mazīnānī in mid-Jumādá II 892 AH (mid-June 1487 CE).

Language(s): Persian

For other copies of this work held in the Rylands, see Persian MS 17, 21, 213, 236, 250–255 (Books I–VI), 795, 847, 848, 926, 983 (Book I), and 984, the last being the earliest, completed in 9 Muḥarram 758 AH (2 January 1357 CE), about 85 years after the author first composed it. For critical editions, see Isti‘lāmī and Furūzānfar. For a recent English translation of the first two books based on the former edition, see Williams. For earlier translations, see Arberry, Nicholson, and Whinfield.

Title: Preface to Book One

Title: Book One

46a

Title: Book Two

95b

Title: Book Three

138b

Title: Book Four

209b

Title: Book Five

266a

Title: Book Six

Physical Description

Form: codex

Support: Heavy-weight, cross-grained, straw-coloured paper (possibly tinted with turmeric?), paper, likely manufactured in Greater Iran. paper with ~ 1.5 mm between laid lines and no discernible chain lines, sized and polished, with extensive repairs to the margins executed in comparatively thin, transluscent, white paper, also probably handmade in Greater Iran.

Extent: 330 folios, 4 flyleaves (ff. ii + 330 + ii).

Dimensions (leaf): 245 × 168 mm.

Dimensions (written): 174 × 117 mm.

Foliation: Pencilled Arabic numerals on the upper-right corners by the cataloguer.

Collation

Primarily quaternions throughout. 13IV-1(104)27IV-1(326)1II(330). Catchwords throughout on the lower left corners of the b sides.

Condition

Text in fair condition. Initial and final pages curling together at fore-edge; therefore, best to first open it several pages in then turn back. Extensive water damage at the edges.

Layout

Written in 1 to 4 columns with 21 lines per page. Ruled with a misṭarah hand guide.

Hand(s)

Written in highly refined black nasta‘līq with red subheaders and other passages in blue.

Decoration

Illumination: Gilt headers found on all six books.

Additions:
Marginalia: Occasional notes throughout, with a large number on folios 190b to 193b.
Inscriptions:

The first right flyleaf a side (f. ia) bears several numbers probably pertinent to unidentified libraries, booksellers, and auction lots:
- ‘Nº 39’ in the top-left corner.
- ‘5200’ written diagonally underneath.
- A price of ‘£10 10’ that likely corresponds to the unidentified pasted bookseller's listing on the right doublure.
Folio 1a bears a number of titles with prices and presumably markups, including a Mas̱navī for ‘400’, then marked up for ‘120’, for ‘520’ totalled. Folio 158a bears Arabic supplications.

Bookplates and Labels:

The right doublure bears two labels:
- An unidentified bookseller's listing:
  ‘86 MASNAVY JALALUDDIN RUMY, the justly celebrated work of
  the Poet Jalaluddin Rumy, an ancient MS. finely written,
  and in excellent condition, sm. fol. russia, neat 10l. 10s.’
- Bookplate of ‘John Haddon Hindley’
The left doublure bears three labels:
- A bookseller's ticket of ‘Howell and Stewart, 295 Holborn,London’.
- ‘Bland MSS No. 294’ with ‘72’ written beside it.
- ‘Bibliotheca Lindesiana’ with shelfmark ‘F/5’.

Binding

An Indian bookbinder apparently repaired and rebound the volume and added new endpapers with a table of contents.

Abbreviated resewing on 5 recessed cords with silk threads, but seemingly neither laced into the pasteboards nor frayed out upon them. Rebound, without endbands, in a hybrid British-Indian style, tight-backed, in smooth, tight-grained full goatskin leather. Internal doublures of the same goatskin leather as on the exterior, with the excess width put down on the right and left flyleaves as hinges to connect the cover to the textblock, then covered by strips of paper to neaten the joins.

Boards diced in the central panels, surrounded by a yellow double-ruled line, and a thick rule with thin lines either side that surround the perimeters. Spine likely later titled in gold in Britain, ‘MESNAVI — PERS. MS.’, surrounded by double fillets and two corner tools featuring double-line foliate scrollwork at head and tail, puncuated with small, individual flower blossoms and leaves.

246 × 172 × 46 mm.

Binding in sound condition. Beware of tight stitching in the gutter margins between folios 37 to 40, which restricts the page openings.

History

Origin: Completed by Ḥasan bin Muḥammad bin Naṣrallāh bin Ḥusayn, Amīr al-Mazīnānī, possibly in Mazinan, Iran; in mid-Jumādá II 892 AH (mid-June 1487 CE).

Provenance and Acquisition

While the circumstances of the volume's arrival in Britain remain unclear, Manchester librarian John Haddon Hindley (1765–1827) previously owned it..

After Hindley's death, London antiquarian booksellers Howell and Stewart apparently listed this manuscript along with other volumes from his library for sale.

Subsequently acquired by scholar Nathaniel Bland (1803–1865), after whose death London antiquarian dealer Bernard Quaritch (1819–1899) sold his oriental manuscripts to Alexander Lindsay, 25th Earl of Crawford (1812–1880) in 1866.

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

Bequeathed by Enriqueta Rylands 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 2022 with reference to the volume in hand.

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

A. J. Arberry, Tales from the Masnavi. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1961

A. J. Arberry, More Tales from the Masnavi. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1963.

E. G. Browne, A Catalogue of Persian Manuscripts in the Library of the University of Cambridge, (Cambridge: Cambridge University press, 1896), pp. 313–315, nos. 224–226 [Cambridge University Library Oo.6.32, Gg.5.32, and Add. 199 (Lewis 19)].

W. Chittick, The Philosophy of Ecstasy: Rumi and the Sufi Tradition. Bloomington: World Wisdom, 2014.

W. C. Chittick, The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983.

H. Ethé, Catalogue of Persian manuscripts in the library of the India Office, Vol. 1 (London: Printed for the India Office by H. Hart, 1903), cols. 630–640, nos. 1060–85 [British Library, IO Islamic 2709, &c.].

Gustav Flügel, Die Arabischen, Persischen und Türkischen Handschriften der Kaiserlich-Königlichen Hofbibliothik zu Wien, Bd. I (Vienna: Druck und Verlag der K. K. Hof und Staatsdruckerei, 1865), p. 514–515, no. 519 [Cod. N. F. 126].

D. Forbes, Catalogue of Oriental Manuscripts, Chiefly Persian, Collected Within the Last Five and Thirty years, (London: W. H. Allen., 1866), p. 1, no. 2 [Rylands Persian MS 848]

B. Furūzānfar, Sharḥ-i Mas̲navī-i sharīf. Tehran: Intishārāt-i Dānishgāh-i Tihrān, 1347–48 SH (1967–70 CE).

Howell and Stewart, A Second Supplement to Howell and Stewart's Catalogue of Oriental and Oriento-Biblical Literature for 1828: Including the Valuable Printed and Ms Collection of the Rev. T. H. Hindley, and Other Additions of Rare and Curious Works; Also an Appendix of Miscellaneous Literature, 295 Holborn, London. (London: Thomas White, printer, Johnson's Court, 1828) .

F. D. Lewis, Rumi Past and Present East and West: The Life, Teachings and Poetry of Jalal al-Din Rumi Oxford: One World, 2000

L. Lewisohn, The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi. Albany: SUNY Press, 1983.

G. M. Meredith-Owens, Handlist of Persian Manuscripts, 1895–1966. (London: British Library, 1968), pp. 66, 68 [BL Or. 11677].

G. H. Pertz, texts Die Handschriften-verzeichnisse der Königlichen Bibliothek zu Berlin, Bd. 4 (Berlin: Preussische Staatsbibliothek, 1853), pp. 783–791, nos. 762–772 [Staatsbibliotek zu Berlin, Minutoli 21 &c.].

S. Rafiee-Rad, 'Persian Manuscripts in Samuel Robinson’s Collection in The John Rylands Library', Manuscripta: A Journal for Manuscript Research, Vol. 61, No. 2 (2017): pp. 273–275, pls. 7–8.

C. Rieu, Catalogue of the Persian manuscripts in the British Museum, Vol. II (London: British Museum, 1881), pp. 584–587 [British Library Add. 27263, &c.].

Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī, The Masnavi of Rumi: A New English Translation with Persian Text and Explanatory Notes. Edited by M. Istiʻlāmī and translated by A. Williams. London: I.B. Tauris, 2020.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī, The Mathnawí of Jalálu'ddín Rúmi The Mathnawí of Jalálu'ddín Rúmi. Edited and translated by R. A. Nicholson. London: Luzac & Co., 1925–1940.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī, Masnavi I Ma'navi : The Spiritual Couplets of Maulána Jalálu'd-Dín Muhammad I Rúmí, 2nd ed. Translated by E. H. Whinfield. London: Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd., 1898.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī, Kullīyāt-i Mas̲navī-i Maʻnavī-i. Edited by B. Furūzānfar, with commentary by M. Darvīsh. Tehran: Intishārāt-i Jāvīdān, 1342 SH (1963 CE).

E. Sachau and H. Ethé, Catalogue of the Persian, Turkish, Hindûstani, and Pushtû manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Vol. I (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1889), cols. 511–516, nos. 646–660 [Bodleian Ouseley Add. 146].

Funding of Cataloguing

Iran Heritage Foundation

The John Rylands Research Institute

Subjects

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