[IO Islamic 207] منتخب ديوان معجز

Muntakhab-i-dîwân-i-Mu’jiz

This manuscript is now IO Islamic 1706 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 207 here with notations and hyperlinks].

1706

Muntakhab-i-dîwân-i-Mu’jiz (منتخب ديوان معجز).

Selections from the lyrical poems of Muḥammad Niżâm (or as he is called here in the colophon: Mirzâ Jalâl Miyân Niżâmkhân) with the takhalluṣ Mu’jiż, who was an Afghân of Kâbul and died at Dihlî A.H. 1162 (A.D. 1749); see A. Sprenger, Catal., pp. 129, 159, and 506; W. Pertsch, Berlin Cat., p. 943, where a copy of his complete works is described, written A.H. 1205 (A.D. 1790, 1791) by his pupil Ghulâm Murtaḍâ Surûrî, who was still alive in A.H. 1211 (A.H. 1796, 1797), in Lucknow, and excelled also as poet, see his dîwân, ib., pp. 948-950, and A. Sprenger, Catal., p. 573. This selection contains chiefly ghazals, in alphabetical order, intermixed with a few rubâ’îs and fards (on ff. 1b-287b), some mukhammasât (on ff. 287b-290b), and a full series of rubâ’îs at the end (on ff. 290b-309).

Beginning of the ghazals (as in Sprenger’s and Pertsch’s copies):

اى گفتگوى عشق تو خون كرد سينها

چون داغ لاله رانده در آتش سفينها

Two hemistichs omitted on fol. 79a.

Copied at the request of Miyân Raḥîmkhân, the son of Raḥmatkhân, and dated the 2nd of Dhû-alḳa’dah, A.H. 1163, the third year of the emperor Aḥmadshâh’s reign (=A.D. 1750, Oct. 3), one year after the poet’s death.

No. 207, ff. 309, 2 coll., each ll. 15; distinct Nasta’lîḳ; size, 9½ in. by 5½ in.