[IO Islamic 205] خسرو و شيرين

Khusrau-u-Shîrîn

This manuscript is now IO Islamic 1539 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 205 here with notations and hyperlinks].

1539

Khusrau u Shîrîn (خسرو و شيرين).

A mathnawî, in imitation of Niżâmi’s poems of the same name, by Rûḥ-alamîn (see fol. 6b, l. 5, and fol. 7a, l. 5), i.e. Mîr Muḥammad Amîn Shahrastânî, a Sayyid of Iṣfahân, with the honorary title of Mîr Jumlah, who went A.H. 1010 (A.D. 1601, 1602) to the Dakhan, rose to the highest dignity under Sulṭân Muḥammad Ḳulî Ḳuṭbshâh of Gulkunda (who reigned A.H. 988-1020=A.D. 1580-1612), entered afterwards the service of the emperor Jahângîr and died A.H. 1047 (A.D. 1637, 1638), see Rieu ii. pp. 675 and 676, and Safînah, No. 704 (col. 235 in the Bodleian Cat.). According to the latter authority he went twice to India, and in the interval between both sojourns he occupied an important position at the court of Shâh ‘Abbâs too. The present work, which is preceded by a prose-preface on ff.1b-7a, is dedicated to his patron Muḥammad Ḳulî Ḳuṭbshâh, and forms the first poem of Rûḥ-alamîn’s Khamsah.

Beginning of the preface, on fol. 1b: اى بسته بدست قدرتت قطب كمر وى مكرمتت نهاده تاجش الخ.

Beginning of the mathnawî, on fol. 8b:

الهى همچو صبحم سینه بگشای

زچاک سینه ام خورشید بنمای

No date.

No. 205, ff. 317, 2 coll., each ll. 14; distinct Nasta’lîḳ; illuminated frontispieces on ff. 1b and 8b; size, 95/8 in. by 57/8 in.