[IO Islamic 467] ديوان رهائى

Dîwân-i-Rahâ’î.

This manuscript is now IO Islamic 1439 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 467 here with notations and hyperlinks].

1439

Dîwân-i-Rahâ’î ( ديوان رهائى).

The lyrical poems of Shaikh Sa’d-aldîn Rahâ’î of Khwâf (or, as the Muntakhab-alash’âr, No. 258, col. 245 in the Bodleian Cat., states, of Harât), a descendant of the famous saint Zain-aldin Khwâfî (who died in the beginning of Shawwâl, A.H. 838=A.D. 1435, last of April, see Blochmann, Â’în-i-Akbarî, English translation, vol. i. p. 592 and note; another Zain-aldîn Khwâfî was the oldest translator of Bâbar’s memoirs, and died A.H. 940=A.D. 1533, 1534, see No. 215 in this Cat.); he came to India under Akbar and spent his life in the emperor’s service; he was still alive A.H. 983 (A.D. 1575, 1576), as the chronogram at the end of this copy

سال اتمام آن اگر جوئى – رشتۀ جان چاک الخ

(the end of the second hemistich is injured) proves; consequently the date of his death, as given in the Nafâ’is-almaâthir and in Badâ’ûnî (A. Sprenger, Catal., p. 49, l. 3 ab infra, and p. 58, l. 7 ab infra), must needs be wrong; comp. on this poet, Bodleian Cat., No. 1037 (a much fuller collection of poetical works by Rahâ’î); A. Sprenger, Catal., p. 545; Safînah, No. 398 (col. 225 in the Bodleian Cat., where he is said to have written an imitation of Niżâmî’s Khamsah); Âtashkada, No. 173 (ib. col. 268), and Makhzan-algharâ’ib, No. 833 (ib. col. 333); see also Blochmann, Â’in-i-Akbarî, vol. i. p. 592.

This copy, in which the proper order of leaves is as follows: ff. 1, 113-119, 2, 4, 6, 5, 3, 7-17, 25, 19-24, 18, 26-112, 120, contains:

Ghazals, in alphabetical order (except a few poems on the first pages), on fol. 1b, beginning:

اوّليّت نيست كس را جز خدا – زانست نامش اوّل هر ابتدا

Tarjî’ât, on fol. 86b, beginning: اى وجود تو الخ.

Ḳiṭ’as and rubâ’is, on fol. 97a, beginning: هر كه با خلق دوستى دارد الخ.

No date. Slight injuries in several pages.

No. 467, ff. 120, ll. 15; Nasta’lîḳ; illuminated frontispiece; size, 91/8 in. by 55/8 in.