Union Catalogue of Manuscripts from the Islamicate World

Persian MS 814 (The John Rylands Research Institute and Library, The University of Manchester)

Persian Manuscripts

Contents

Summary of Contents: This manuscript appears to be the sole suriving copy of a brief text entitled Mujmal al-Tavārīkh-i Changiz Shāh (Summation of the Histories of Changiz Shāh). It summarizes the history of the Mongol Ilkhanid dynasty from Changiz (Genghis) Khān (b. 1162, r. 1206–1227) to Arghūn Khān (b. 1258, r. 1284–1291). In his preface, the author Muḥammad Juvaynī al-Khurasānī describes how he referenced several chronicles to compose his abridgement for the Mughal Emperor Jahangīr (b. 1569, r. 1605–1627) in 1005 AH (ca. 1596–1597 CE). This volume subsequently lost its first and last folios, which a restorer later replaced, hence the date of completion remains unknown. However, subsequent owner Fanny Birch signed her name upon it in 1796, which provides terminus ante quem for the volume's completion.
Author: Muḥammad Juvaynī al-Khurasānī;
محمد جوینی الخرسانی
Incipit: (basmala) صفحه‌ی ۱ (page 1): الحمد لله الذی النعم، نعم الدنیا علی الانام واضاء المسلمین بنور الاسلام و صلی الله علی خیر حلقه محمد و اله الکرام وصحبه العظام و اجمعین اما بعد چنین گوید نحیف الضعیف المذنب العاصی الی رحمة الله محمد جوینی الخرسانی بموجب فرمان و الاشان واجب الاذعان السلطان ابن السلطان مالک البر و البحر حضرت ظل الله جهانگیر شاه خلد الله ملکه و سلطانه برخی از احوال خانان ترک بر سبیل اجمال که مطالعه کنندگان را ملال و نکال روی ننماید و این کتاب مستطاب موسوم به مجمل التواریخ چنگیز خانی گردانید و از کمال فضل ایزد در سنه یکهزار و پنج صورت ارقام و اختتام پذیرفت و الله المستعان و الله التقین و الامعان آنچه روایت اسیر و تواریخ مثل صاحب روضه الصفا و روضه [اولی] الالباب و مطلع السعدین و تاریخ وصاف و حبیب السیر بیان ساخته‌اند کاتب حروف خلاصه آن بر داشته که چون چنگیز خان از چین مراجعت نموده بما وراء النهر رسید مردمان آنجا بسر بشورش بر داشتند چینگیز خان همهٔ را منکوب و مخذول کرده اسیر نموده...
Explicit: صفحه‌ی ۱۳۲ (page 132):...و خدمتش نموده پیش پادشاه ارغون شفیع شد پادشاه سلطان احمد را معه همهٔ اساری از بند نجات داد و بدستور بکار‌های مرجوعه شان استقرار از بخشید تا هفتاد و اند سال بر سر پر خانی مماکنت نموده در سال پانصد و نوزده انتقال نمود.
Colophon: صفحه‌ی ۱۳۲ (page 132): ختم الکتاب بعون الملک الوهاب و الیه المرجع و المآب
Colophon: Uninformative colophon.

While Forbes accurately describes this work in his catalogue, C. A. Storey and prior electronic records misattribute the work to ‘Alā' al-Dīn ‘Aṭā' Malik Juvaynī (1226–1283), author of the Ilkhanid chronicle Tārīkh-i Jahāngushāy. Clearly a much later member of the prominent Iranian Juvaynī family who emigrated to India, he states in his preface that he relied upon five earlier sources, although curiously, the Tārīkh-i Jahāngushāy does not appear among them:

Language(s): Persian

Physical Description

Form: codex
Support: Textblock of thin-weight, cross-grained, highly flocked, externally sized and polished, buff-coloured paper probably handmade in the Indian subcontinent with ~8 laid lines per cm and no discernible chain lines. First and last folios replaced when restored with thin-weight, slightly tinted, evenly flocked, straight-grained, highly sized and polished, paper, also with with ~8 laid lines per cm and no discernible chain lines.
Extent: 133 pages, 4 flyleaves (ff. ii + 132 pages [66 folios] + ii).
Dimensions (leaf): 246 × 158 mm.
Dimensions (written): 182 × 105 mm.
Foliation: Hindu-Arabic numerals inexplicably appear on page 3, numbered 10–15, then 51, but then stop.
Foliation: A single page number 133 appears on the final text page 132, in the hand of former owner Duncan Forbes, hence over by one.

Collation

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

Condition

Handle text with caution. In fair but stable condition, with the first and final folios replaced, breaks in the marginal ruling, as well as moderate water and insect damage and historical repairs throughout.

Layout

Written in 1 column with 20 lines per page. Ruled with a misṭarah hand guide.

Hand(s)

The majority of the text written in dense miniscule black nasta‘līq with red nasta‘līq and naskh subheaders.

The replaced first and final folios written in comparatively extended black nasta‘līq.

Decoration

Ruling: The first and final replacement folios hastily ruled in single blue and double red lines. The remainder ruled with thick gold lines outlined with thin black single black internal and double external lines, with another comparatively thin interior line of gold, outlined with thin single lines, all bounded by single red interior and dark blue exterior lines.

Additions:
Inscriptions:
  • The right pastedown numbered ‘D. F. 99 98’ and a price of ‘£2.12.6.’ both pertaining to former owner Duncan Forbes.
  • Page 1 signed ‘Fanny Birch 1796’ by former owner, Frances Jane Birch in both Persian and English.
Bookplates: The left pastedown: ‘Bibliotheca Lindesiana’ bookplate with pencilled shelfmark ‘1/F’, and an earlier Lindesiana label ‘Persian MSS No. 20’, with the number crossed out and ‘814’ written aside.

Binding

While Frances Jane Birch signed page 1, the later binding style suggest that London binder possibly rebound it for subsequent owner Duncan Forbes.

Thin-weight ivoury-coloured, machine-made wove endpapers, stiff-leaved to terra-cotta coloured machine-made wove paper added at the beginning and end. Resewn on three recessed cords, laced into pasteboards. Edges trimmed, and endbands of blue silk threads twined at head and tail. Covered in full dark maroon artificially embossed diced goatskin leather.

Board margins blind-tooled with thin-and-thick fillet lines and an interior decorative roll featuring a foliate palmette design. Board edges also blind-tooled with zig-zags. Untitled.

254 × 159 × 19 mm.

Handle binding with caution. In fair but stable condition with headcaps missing, endbands exposed, and wear along the board edges.

History

Origin: Probably completed in the Indian subcontinent; undated, but completed before 1789 CE.

Provenance and Acquisition

Subsequently acquired by Frances Jane Birch, neé Rider (1773–1828), as per her signature on page 1. Born in Chunipore (Chunipur), she married Robert Comyn Birch (1760–1807) in 1789. After his death in Calcutta (Kolkata), she returned to Britain with this volume.

After Birch's death, her survivors sold some of her effects on 29 July, 1828 through the London firm of Edward Forster. For more on her life, see Péri et al, who notes other manuscripts she formerly owned now held in the Hungarian National and Bodleian Libraries.

Possibly purchased at the Birch sale by Duncan Forbes (1798–1868). Ultimately appointed King's College Professor of Oriental Languages, Forbes later described the volume in his 1866 catalogue, valued at £2 12s 6d (also inscribed on the right pastedown, before he sold his manuscript collection to his publisher W. H. Allen & Co. in exchange for an annuity.

Subsequently sold by that firm to Alexander Lindsay, 25th Earl of Crawford (1812–1880) in 1866 for his Bibliotheca Lindesiana at Haigh Hall, Wigan.

Purchased by Enriqueta Rylands (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, Manchester.

Record Sources

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

Manuscript description by Jake Benson in 2023 with reference to the manuscript in hand, and in consultation with Jan Jelinowski.

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

    D. Forbes, Catalogue of Oriental Manuscripts, Chiefly Persian, Collected Within the Last Five and Thirty years (London: W. H. Allen., 1866), p. 33, no. 98.
    Benedek Péri, Mojdeh Mohammadi, and Miklós Sárközy, Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (Leiden: Brill, 2018), p. 217, no. 102 [Perzsa O. 065].

Funding of Cataloguing

Iran Heritage Foundation

The John Rylands Research Institute and Library

The Persian Heritage Foundation


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