Persian MS 894 (The John Rylands Research Institute and Library, The University of Manchester)

Persian Manuscripts

Summary of Contents: This Dīvān of collected Persian poems by Niẓām al-Dīn Aḥmad Suhaylī (d. either 907 or 918 AH/1501 or 1512 CE) once constituted part of a larger anthology. Unsigned and undated, it bears a delicately illuminated opening header and appears likely likely completed in the sixteenth century. Final final section of riddles (mu‘ammāt) features lines by other poets. A subsequent owner, possibly Frederick Ayrton (1812–1873), had it restored, remargined, and rebound in what appears to be an unrelated late fifteenth or early sixteenth-century Egyptian binding and bound as an independent manuscript.

Author: Suhaylī, Niẓām al-Dīn Aḥmad, d. 1501;
نظام الدين احمد سهیلی

Title: Dīvān

Title: دیوان

Incipit: برگ ۱پ (folio 1b): خوان نوالیست غذی بخش جان ما * ز آن خوان نواله است دردمان ما

Explicit: برگ ۹۳پ (folio 93b): در طره ات که جانم اسیر سلاسل است * در زلف تابدار تو دعوی وی دل است

Colophon: No colophon

Language(s): Persian

Physical Description

Form: codex

Support: Textblock of cross-grained, externally sized and polished, ivory-coloured paper probably handmade in the Indian subcontinent with ~8 laid lines per cm and no discernible chain lines. Marginal paper comparatively heavy-weight, cross-grained, opaque, modern vate-dyed sized and polished paper, with ~23 laid lines per 20 mm, no discerible chain lines and average thickness of 116 microns.

Extent: 94 folios, six flyleaves

Dimensions (leaf): 230 × 165 × 0.116 mm.

Dimensions (written): 148 × 98 mm.

Foliation: Incorrectly foliated in modern pencilled Arabic numerals from left-to-right.

Collation

Undetermined.

Condition

Handle text with caution. In fair but stable condition, with all folios remargined in stiff, cross-grained paper that strains the marginal ruling. Folio 1 broken on the inner margin, whil 5 retains only remnants.

Layout

Primarily written in 2 columns with 12 lines. Ruled with a misṭarah hand guide.

Hand(s)

Nasta’liq in black ink. Some rubrication in red and blue ink.

Decoration

Headpiece:Illuminated headpiece on folio 1b:
63 × 93 mm. .

Ruling:: Text breaks and margins ruled in gold, the former outlined with single black lines and the latter with single interior, and double exterior lines in black.

Binding

Possibly rebound in Cairo for former ownerFrederick Ayrton (1812–1873).

Remargined with triternions of the same stock added as endpapers to the beginning and end. Resewn on four recessed cords with metallic threads. Edges trimmed, endbands omitted, and covered in a recycled late 15th or early 16th-century Egyptian style cover of black goatskin with flap.

Boards previously decorated with hand-tooled central scalloped mandorlas with palmette fleurons, fishscale corners, and board margins of alternating double blind and single gold fillets

236 × 174 × 30 mm.

Condition

Binding in fair but stable condition, albeit scuffed on the exterior, with opening to the gutter margins restricted.

History

Origin: Possibly completed in the Safavid Empire undated but possibly circa 1600 CE

Provenance and Acquisition

Subsequently acquired from an unidentified source by Frederick Ayrton (1812–1873), who first served in the military in India, then as a civil engineer in Egypt, where he ultimately became Secretary to the Khedive ‘Abbas Pasha and later a British consular officer.

After Ayrton's death in 1874, London bookseller Bernard Quaritch (1819–1899) obtained and sold some of his oriental manuscripts including this volume for £150 to Alexander Lindsay, 25th Earl of Crawford (1812–1880) and sent it to the 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 James White in 2018 with reference to the volume.

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.

Bibliography

National Library of Scotland, Acc. 9769 Library Papers’, Vol. 27, folios 119-122 [Quaritch list of Ayrton manuscripts], 127 [Crawford's list of Ayrton volumes]. Vol. 27, f. 127.

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. 638–639, nos. 981 [Bodleian Elliott MS 102].

Funding of Cataloguing

Iran Heritage Foundation

The John Rylands Research Institute

The Soudavar Memorial Foundation

Subjects

Persian poetry

Comments

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