[IO Islamic 57] مجموعۀ اشعار

Poem-Collection

This manuscript is now IO Islamic 1751 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 57 here with notations and hyperlinks].

1751

A collection of short extracts, chiefly rubâ’îs and fards, from the poems of old and modern Persian authors, collected in form of an album, as it seems, by prince Jahândârshâh, or with his full title, Mirzâ Juwânbakht Jahândârshâh, the eldest son of Shâh ‘Âlam, who died in Banâras the 24th of Sha’bân, A.H. 1202 (A.D. 1788, May 30); see a sketch of his life in Francklin’s History of Shah Aulum, pp. 154-162, and comp. Rieu iii. pp. 946 and 1084. On the fly-leaf is written عنايتى مرشد زاده , ‘Poems by the prince Jahândârshâh,’ but that these are not the prince’s own verses, but extracts, made by him from others, we see from the headings of the single piece, beginning with extracts from Ghazâlî of Mashhad (died A.H. 980) thus:

چرخ فانوس خيال و عالمى حيران درو

مردمان چون صورت فانوس سر گردان درو

From fol. 17 down to the end the headings are wanting, but sometimes a takhalluṣ occurs, for instance Ṣa’dî and others, and proves these poems likewise to be from the dîwâns of other poets.

Copied in the month Ramaḍân, A.H. 1198 (A.D. 1784, July-August), by Ḥâfiż Muḥammad Wâsi’ Khân.

No. 57, ff. 97, 2 coll., each containing five baits; clear Nasta’liḳ; size, 9 in. by 47/8 in.