[IO Islamic 416] ديوان اسير

Dîwân-i-Asîr

This manuscript is now IO Islamic 1541 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 416 here with notations and hyperlinks].

Jalal Asîr (Nos. 1541-1551).

1541

Dîwân-i-Asîr (ديوان اسير).

The poem of Mirzâ Jalâl Asîr bin Mirzâ Mu’min of Iṣfahân, who was an intimate friend of Shâh ‘Abbâs and a great drunkard; most of his verses he wrote in a state of intoxication. He never went to India, and died, according to the best authorities, A.H. 1049 (A.D. 1639, 1640), comp. Bodleian Cat., Nos. 1096-1100; Rieu ii. p. 681; A. Sprenger, Catal., pp. 149 and 342, 343. The Mirât-al’âlam and the Hamîsha Bahâr (see A. Sprenger, Catal., p. 117) fix his death in A.H. 1040 (A.D. 1630, 1631), which is obviously wrong, see Rieu, loc. cit. A much later date, viz. A.H. 1069 (A.D. 1658, 1659), is given in W. Pertsch, Berlin Cat., p. 915, on the authority of the صحف ابراهيم (No. 663 in the Berlin Cat.), which seems a mere mistake for 1049; see also Khulâṣat-alafkâr, No. 24 (col. 303 in the Bodleian Cat.). A condemnation of the low tone and the vulgar jokes in Asîr’s poems, as well as in those Zulâlî (see Nos. 1494-1498), Shaukat of Bukhârâ, and Mîr Najât, by the author of the رياض الشّعرا, is quoted Rieu ii. pp. 821b and 822a. Asîr’s works were published in Lucknow, 1880.

Contents:

Ḳaṣîdas and tarjî’bands, on fol. 1b, beginning:

اى دانۀ تسبيح خيالت دل دانا

سر حلقۀ مستان رخت ديدۀ بينا

A few mathnawîs, on ff. 65a-74a, beginning:

بود شبى در صف ارباب هوش

گوش دلم روزه گشای خروش

Ghazals, in alphabetical order, intermixed with a few rubâ’îs, on fol. 75a, beginning:

اى گلشن از بهار خيال تو سينها

سفينها(in Rieu and Sprenger نامت) برگ گل از طروات رويت

At the end of this part a mukhammas, beginning:

گر پسندند بتان دیدۀ حیرانی را الخ

Rubâ’îs, on fol. 396b, beginning:

غم كرده رياض جان مه و سال مرا

آئينه ندارد دل خوشحال مرا

No date.

No. 416, ff. 405, 2 coll., each ll. 15; large and distinct Nasta’lîḳ; size, 98/8 in. by 51/4 in.