[IO Islamic 2343] نان و حلوا

Nân-u-Ḥalwâ This manuscript is now IO Islamic 1517 in the India Office collections. [metadata: Hermann Ethé, Catalogue of Persian Manuscripts in the Library of the India Office, 2 vols. (Oxford: India Office, 1903): volume 1, number 2343 here with notations and hyperlinks]. 1517 Nân u Ḥalwâ (نان و حلوا). ‘Bread and Sweetmeat,’ a poem on ascetic life, meant for a sort of introduction to Jalâl-aldîn Rûmî’s mathnawî, by Shaikh Bahâ-aldîn Muḥammad ‘Âmilî, the son of Mîr Sayyid Ḥusain bin ‘Abd-alṣamad of Jabal ‘Âmil in Syria, with the takhalluṣ Bahâ’î; he was born A.H. 953 (A.D. 1546, 1547), went in early youth to Iṣfahân and flourished in the reign of Shâh ‘Abbâs the Great; he died, according to the best authorities, the 12th of Shawwâl, A.H. 1030 (A.D. 1621, Aug, 30); only in one copy of his work on Shî’ite law, the Jâmi’-i-’abbâsî (in Add. 23,578 of the British Museum), in a preface to the sixth bâb, A.H. 1031 (12th of Shawwâl) is given as the date of his death; he was buried at Mashhad by order of Shâh ‘Abbâs. See on his life and works Rieu i. pp. 25 and 26; Khulâṣat-alkalâm, No. 12 (col. 296 in the Bodleian Cat.), where the following works of the author on Shî’ite law and tradition, mathematics, and astronomy are enumerated: تشريح الافلاك , شرق الشمسين , رسالۀ اصطرلاب , جامع عبّاسى, and خلاصة الحساب ; besides the present mathnawî, another mystical mathnawî, شير و شكر or ‘milk and sugar,’ and the كشكول, a large collection of Analecta; Safînah, No. 572 (col. 230 in the Bodleian Cat.), where to the works just mentioned are added a مفتاح القلاع and a مشرق العين ; Âtashkada, No. 360 (ib., col. 275); Khulâṣat-alafkâr, No. 43 (ib., col. 304); A. Sprenger, Catal., pp. 368 and 369; Cat. des MSS. et Xylographes, p. 238; and Malcolm, History of Persia, i. p. 558. Other copies of نان و حلوا are described in Bodleian Cat., Nos. 1085-1088, No. 1239, 29, and col. 768; Rieu ii. p. 679; A. Sprenger, Catal., p. 368; W. Pertsch, Turkish Cat., No. 3, 5; Berlin Cat., pp. 116, I; 668 and 698, 18; and fragments of the same, ib., pp. 30, I and 2; and 726, 2; J. Aumer, p. 4, etc. The mathnawî was lithographed in Constantinople, A.H. 1268 and 1282. Copies of the شير و شكر are noticed in Rieu ii. p. 831a, No. xxix; W. Pertsch, Berlin Cat., p. 699, 21; J. Aumer, p. 4. It has likewise been lithographed in Constantinople, A.H. 1282. The mathnawî is preceded by a few lines in prose, beginning: امّا بعد حمد الله تعالى على افضاله و الصّلوة و السّلام على اشرف الخلائق الخ: Beginning of the poem itself, on the same page: ايّها اللاهى عن العهد القديم ايّها السّاهى عن النهج القويم This copy is dated by Muḥammad Ḳâsim Ḳalamî, the 14th of Shawwâl, A.H. 1116 (A.D. 1705, Febr. 9). It belonged formerly to the College of Fort William. No.2343, ff. 1-13, 2 coll., each ll. 15; careless Nasta’lîḳ; size, 8 in. by 4¾ in.