[IO Islamic 868] Akhbâr-alaṣfiyâ

Akhbâr-alaṣfiyâ .

This manuscript is now IO Islamic 641 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 868 here with notations and hyperlinks].

641

Akhbâr-alaṣfiyâ (اخبار الاصفيا ) .

A much smaller and less known work, of very similar contents, giving likewise biographies of all the famous Saints and Shaikhs who have lived or stayed in India, compiled by ‘Abd-alṣamad bin Afḍal Muḥammad bin Yûsuf Anṣârî, a nephew of the famous Abû-alfḍl and editor of his official letters, the مكاتبات علاّمى , see above, Nos. 271-286 in this Cat., compare also Rieu iii. p. 1087a, where as title of the present work is given: اخبارات الاصفيا . It was completed A.H. 1014 (A.D.1605, 1606) and dedicated to the emperor Jahângîr, see fol. 1b, fol. 6b, last line, fol. 7a, ll. 15 and 16, and fol. 7b, ll. 14 and 15. It contains short biographical accounts of 245 male and 4 female persons, beginning, like the preceding work, with Ghauth alṣamadânî Ḳuṭb-i-rabbânî Shaikh Muḥyî-aldîn Abû Muḥammad ‘Abd-alḳâdir alḥasanî alḥusainî aljilânî ( born A.H. 471 = A.D. 1079, died A.H. 561 = A.D. 1166 ), see fol. 8b, and ends with Fâṭimah Sâlimah, on fol. 70a. A complete index on ff. 1b-5a; the work itself begins thus, on fol. 6b: جهان جهان آفرين مرجان و جهان آفرين را كه جهان دانش و جان سخن بصاحب فطرتان الخ , and concludes on fol. 70b. Ff. 71b-74b are filled by another hand with a story of Shaikh Sharaf-aldîn Abû ‘Alî Ḳalandar of Pânîpat (who died A.H. 724=A.D. 1324, see Rieu ii. p. 668, and iii. p. 1090b sq.). Copied by Bâḳir Sâmânî, in the thirty-first year of ‘Âlamgîr’s reign (A.H. 1098, 1099 = A.D. 1687, 1688).

No. 868, ff. 74, ll. 19-28; very irregularly and unequally written in Shikasta; size, 105/8 in. by 63/8 in.