Persian MS 926 (The John Rylands Research Institute and Library, The University of Manchester)

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Persian Manuscripts

Summary of Contents: An unsigned and undated copy of the Mas̲navī-i Ma‘navī (Spiritual Couplets) by Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī (1207–1273), likely completed in 18th-century Indian subcontinent. Some, but not all books open with brief, anonymous Persian prefaces.

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

Compiler: Sulṭān Valad, 1226–1312;
سلطان ولد

Title: Mas̲navī

Title: مثنوی

Incipit: (beginning) برگ ۱پ (folio 1b): بشنو از نی چون حکایت میکند * و ز جدأیها شکایت میکند.

Explicit: برگ ۲۸۱پ (folio 281a): زء جان آسمانست این کلام * هر که ازین بر رود آید.

Colophon: برگ ۲۸۱پ (folio 281a): تمت تمام شد کارم نظام شد دفتر ششم من کلام مثنوی مولوی روم قدس الله.

Colophon: Colophon on folio 281a unsigned and undated.

Language(s): Persian

For other copies of this work held in the Rylands, see Persian MS 17, 21, 72, 213, 236, 250–255 (Books I–VI), 795, 847, 848, 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.

1b–44b

Title: Book One

Title: دفتر الاوّل

Title: Daftar-i Avval

44b–85a

Title: Book Two

Title: دفتر دوّم

Title: Daftar-i Duvvūm

85b–137b

Title: Book Three

Title: دفتر سیوم

Title: Daftar-i Sīyūm

138a–181a

Title: Book Four

Title: دفتر چهادم

Title: Daftar-i Chahārum

181a–224b

Title: Book Five

Title: دفتر پنجم

Title: Daftar-i Panjum

225a–281b

Title: Book Six

Title: دفتر ششم

Title: Daftar-i Shīshum

Physical Description

Form: codex

Support: Written on thin, buff-coloured primarily straight-grained paper possibly handmade in the Indian subcontinent, with ~1.5 mm. between laid lines and few disciernible chain lines, externally sized, and polished.

Extent: 282 folios (ff. ii + 282 + ii, albeit marked 281).

Dimensions (leaf): 268 × 170 mm.

Dimensions (written): 209 × 115 mm.

Foliation: Foliated in pencilled Arabic numerals on the upper-left corners of the a sides but skip 115Aa, so thereafter under by one.

Collation

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

Condition

Handle with caution. In fair condition, with extensive cut-outs and infills on the margins repairs to inner quires in the gutters. Extensive damp and mould damage at the end throughout.

Layout

Written in 1 to 4 columns with 25 lines per page. Ruled with a misṭarah hand guide.

Hand(s)

Primarily written in black nasta‘līq script with headers in red by Ni‘mat Khān, who also apparently wrote some notes in the margins within the rulings.

Decoration

Headpiece: Illluminated header on 1b. 132 × 110 mm.

Additions:
Marginalia: Notes written in a heavier nasta‘līq hand in the margins, and also sometimes written vertically between the columns.
Inscriptions: 1a signed by former owner Edward Galley adjacent to his seal impression.
Bookplates and Catalogue Entry:

The right doublure bears a pasted entry from Bohn's catalogue.
The right doublure: ‘Bibliotheca Lindesiana’ with shelfmark ‘1/E’ and class mark ‘Persian MSS No. 926’

Binding

Probably rebound in Surat for former owner Edward Galley.

Resewn with modern polyester thread on four supports, possibly of frayed cord, without endbands, probably in the mid-20th-century. Covered in full, pigment-coated russet-coloured morocco-grained goatskin leather with the original sides remounted, albeit with the front and back covers switched, given the label present on what is now the left board. Endpapers of laid paper feature watermarks of a 𝘳𝘦𝘫𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘰𝘳 and bull with initials G.B.C., manufactured in Italian peninsula (compare with PFES Nº Filigrana 001456A) measure 86 × 93 mm. and 84 × 96 mm. respectively.

Boards decorated with scalloped mandorla with detached quatrefoils and pendants blocked in gold, joined by a single crossed ruling lines in yellow in the centre, with board margins ruled with thick lines of the same with thin lines either side, bounded by a wide black border tooled with a quatrefoil scrollwork vine. The dies impressed on this volumes match others that formerly belonged to Samuel Guise (see 41, 300, and 301) who also lived in Surat at roughly the same time as Galley. Title written in Persian ‘مثنوی ملا روم’ (Mas̱navī Mullā Rūm) on the fore-edge in black ink, with the same repeated on a label applied to the what was likely originally the front cover, together with the number ‘۲’ (2).

272 × 178 × 48 mm.

Handle binding with caution: in fair condition, abrasion to the original leather.

Seal(s):

Top of folio 1a impressed with the rectangular Anglo-Persian seal of Edward Galley (ca. 1750–1804), intaglio-cut in nasta‘liq script in two stacked lines, double-ruled, and possibly dated 1802:
ادورد گلی
10.5 × 13 mm.

History

Origin: Possibly completed in Surat; undated, but likely 18th-century CE

Provenance and Acquisition

Signed and impressed with the Anglo-Persian seal folio 1a by former owner, East India Company officer and notable collector Edward Galley (ca.1750–1804), once Resident at Bushehr (where he apparently introduced the potato to Iran) then later Surat, where he likely acquired this volume before passed away. Evidently sold by his executors in Surat, but who acquired the volume and the circumstances under which it arrived in Britain remain unclear.

Subsequently acquired by London antiquarian dealer Henry George Bohn (1796–1884), who offered the volume in catalogues spanning at least 1847 to 1866

Purchased from Bohn on 14 June 1866 by Alexander Lindsay, 25th Earl of Crawford (1812–1880) for £1 5 shillings for 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 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.

George Henry Bohn, Henry G. Bohn's General Catalogue. Part the Second. Section the Third, Containing Greek and Latin Miscellanies... Manuscripts, English, Foriegn, and Oriental, Chinese Drawings and Books, Rare and Curious Drawings. (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1866), p. 851.

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).

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.].

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).

Funding of Cataloguing

Iran Heritage Foundation

The John Rylands Research Institute

Subjects

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