[IO Islamic 536] قصّۀ سیف الملوک و بديع الجمال

Ḳiṣṣa-i-Saif-almulûk wa Badî’-aljamâl.

This manuscript is now IO Islamic 788 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 536 here with notations and hyperlinks].

788

Ḳiṣṣa-i-Saif-almulûk wa Badî’-aljamâl (قصّۀ سیف الملوک و بديع الجمال).

The love-story of prince Saif-almulûk and princess Badî’-aljamâl, a tale from the Arabian nights in Persian translation or adaptation; the redaction of the story in the present copy is the common or second one, agreeing with No. 461 in the Bodleian Cat., Rieu ii. p. 764 (Egerton 1018), and W. Pertsch, Berlin Cat., p. 996 (No. 1044), and beginning: سپاس و ستايش بيقياس مر صانعى را كه بقلم صنع خود اين همه صورتهاى عجب ..... امّا بعد چنين گويد ( گويندBodl.copy) راويان اخبار و ناقلان آثار و حكيمان و بزرگان روزگار كه در ايّام محمود غازى الخ.

Comp. also G. Flügel ii. p. 27. An Eastern Turkish version in mathnawî-baits, composed A.H. 960 in Rabî’-alawwal (A.D. 1553, Febr.-March) is preserved in No. 2824, ff. 1-85, of this collection.

Dated the 19th of Ramaḍân in the seventeenth year of Muḥammadshâh’s reign (A.H. 1148=A.D. 1736, Febr.2).

No. 536, ff. 67, ll. 17; Nasta’lîḳ; very curious and comical illustrations on ff. 4a, 5a, 14a, 14b, 17a, 17b,21a, 23b, 25b, 26a, 31b, 34a, 34b, 36b, 38a, 39b, 41b, 51a, 52a, 54b, 55a (the full page), 59b, 60a (again the full page), 63b, 64a (the full page), 66b and 67a (one picture, filling the two pages); size, 8 in. by 41/8 in.