[IO Islamic 281] Miscellaneous-Poetry

Miscellaneous-Poetry

This manuscript is now IO Islamic 1764 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 281 here with notations and hyperlinks].

1764

Poetical miscellanies and fragments.

A collection of lyrical and epical poems, mostly fragmentary, bound together with a defective copy of a prose-story, for the greater part in a very precarious state.

Contents:

1.Ghazals, by Shâhî (died A.H. 857), Ḥâfiż, Âṣafî (died A.H. 923), Jâmî, etc. forming a sort of anthology, on ff. 1b-50a, usually four baits in a page.

2.Fragment of the dîwân of Ṣâ’ib, containing ghazals, in alphabetical order, on ff. 51b-66b, beginning:

اگر نه مدّ بسم الله الخ, and breaking off already in the first rhyme-letter ا (comp. above, No. 1606, 3 etc.); 2 columns, each ll. 15.

3.Fragment, defective both at the beginning and end, of an allegorical mathnawî, حسن و دل (beauty and heart, see, for instance, fol. 71a), by a poet with the takhalluṣ Ṣairafî (i.e. Maulânâ Ṣalâḥ-aldîn of Sâwa, who came to India Akbar and still flourished under Jahângîr, to whom this poem is dedicated, see fol. 69b), on ff. 67a-111b; 2 columns, each ll. 15.

4.A large portion of the mystical mathnawî زاد المسافرين (provision for travellers), by the great Ṣûfic poet and writer Mîr Fakhr-alsâdât Ḥusainî (i.e. Ḥusain bin ‘Âlim bin Abî-alḥasan alḥusainî), who died after A.H. 720 (A.D. 1320), see complete copies of the same in Nos. 1832-1834 below. It begins, on fol. 112b:اى برتر از آن همه كه گفتند الخ , and breaks off on fol. 151b.

5.A fragment, defective both at beginning and end, of the كارستان (see fol. 156a) or كارنامه , an Indian story of the exploits and adventures of Wâlâ Akhtar, the prince of Hurmuz, composed A.H. 1050 (A.D. 1640, 1641) in Jaunpûr by the same Abû-albarakât Munîr of Lâhûr (who has been mentioned in No. 16 of the preceding copy), and dedicated to the emperor Shâhjahân, on ff. 152a-196b, ll. 15.

No. 281, ff. 196, written by different hands in different styles of Nasta’lîḳ; small illuminated frontispiece on fol. 1b; size, 7¼ in. by 4 in.