[IO Islamic 2692] خلاصة الافكار

Khulâṣat-alafkâr.

This manuscript is now IO Islamic 696 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 2692 here with notations and hyperlinks].

696

Khulâṣat-alafkâr (خلاصة الافكار ) .

Perhaps the fullest and most valuable copy extant of Abû Ṭâlib ibn Marḥûm (in the Bodleian MS. Maghfûr) Ḥâjî Muḥammad Begkhân Tabrîzî aliṣfahânî’s (born A.H. 1166 = A.D. 1753, died A.H. 1221= A.D. 1806) important and rare tadhkirah of Persian poets, compiled in A.H. 1206 and 1207 (A.D. 1791-1793), comp. Bodleian Cat., No. 391, where the complete list of 494 poets is given; Rieu i. p. 378; Bland, in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, ix. pp. 153-158; A. Sprenger, Catal., p. 163; Elliot, History of India, viii. p. 298, etc.; see also Bodleian Cat., No. 1855, where the author’s travels in Europe during A.H. 1213-1218 (A.D. 1799-1803) are described under the title of مسير طالبى فى بلاد افرنجى , and No. 1994, where his diwân is noticed. This copy was made, as an English letter inserted in this MS. informs us, by Mr. George Swinton, from the original work, and revised by the author in his own hand, when in Calcutta, 1804, after his return from England. Mr. Swinton gives, besides, the following particulars as to the fate of his copy: ‘Having lent it afterwards to the late Dr. Leyden, it passed, with his own books, into the hands of his executors, who sold the Oriental portion of his collection to the Honourable Court of Directors (i.e. of the East India Company), in Leadenhall Street. I had quite lost sight of it until last year, when I accidentally learnt where it was. The Honourable Court were graciously pleased, on my application, to restore it to me, and I thus became once more possessor of a work to which I had attached a peculiar value for the sake of its author, under whom I had studied Persian in London, previously to my appointment to the Bengal Civil Service. Having now gratified my desire of having it again, I conceive that I cannot more appointedly manifest my regard for the memory of its author, as one of the most enlightened and noble-minded of the natives of India, nor better evince my grateful sense of the Honourable Court’s liberality in placing the work at my disposal, than by replacing it on the shelves of their Library for the general benefit of Oriental scholars who, like myself, are admirers of the Persian Muse.’

This letter is dated ‘29th August, 1851, 4 Athol Crescent, Edinburgh.’ The MS. was numbered 53 in the Bibliotheca Leydeniana, and is the same which Mr. Bland has described in No. xi of his valuable paper; the pages containing the description are annexed to this copy.

Beginning, on fol. 1b: لآلى منشور سپاس و ستايش باستحقاق نثار دامن كبرياى ناظمى تواند بود الخ.

The twenty-eight Ḥadiḳas, containing biographies and poetical specimens of 310 poets, begin, on fol. 8b, with Abû Sa’îd bin Abû-alkhair.

The ذَيْل or appendix, giving specimens of 159 (in Elliot 181: 160) other poets, begins on fol. 328a; the Khâtimah, with twenty-four more poets, including the author himself, on fol. 344b.

The five treatises begin on fol. 366a: 1. رساله ىر علم اخلاق (on ethics), on fol. 366a. 2. مصطلحات موسيقى (on music), on fol. 368b. 3. در علم عروض وقافيه (on prosody and rhyme), on fol. 370b. 4. مختصر در فنون خمسۀ طبّ (on medicine), on fol. 376a. 5. لُبّ السِيَر و جهاننما (universal history, biography, and geography), on fol. 396a.

The fifth and last treatise, the longest of all, is subdivided into four bâbs, viz.: (a) در تبيين احوال انبيا (the ancient prophets); (b) وقائع خلفاء ( the Khalîfs), in seven faṣls ; (c) in seven faṣls, on the wise men of Greece and Rome, the companions, etc., of the prophet (صحابه و تابعين), Shaikhs, ‘Ulamâs, and poets of Islâm; (d) the other dynasties of the East, contemporary with and posterior to the ‘Abbâside Khalîfs; although the historical notices are very short and concise, they abound in many and very correct chronological dates; on fol. 418b, l. 4 ab infra, for instance, Rûdagî’s death is fixed (and no doubt correctly) in A.H. 343 (A.D. 954, 955). This abridgment of universal history, which sometimes appears as a separate work (see Rieu iii. p. 895, and Bland, loc. cit., p. 47), was compiled A.H. 1208 (A.D. 1793, 1794). Beginning of the Lubb-alsiyar wa jahânnumâ: الحمد لله ربّ العالمين ..... امّا بعد ابجد خوان دبستان نادانى ابوطالب ابن محمّد تبريزى الخ.

The chronogram for the commencement of the whole work, viz. 1206, is جمع يكجا خلاصة الافكار.

Bibliotheca Leydeniana.

A few leaves (ff. 107-110) are unfortunately quite parched, and consequently almost crumbling to pieces.

No. 2692, ff. 473, ll. 23; small, neat, and very distinct Nasta’lîḳ; size, 121/2 in. by 83/4 in.