[IO Islamic 2486] مستورات

Mastûrât

This manuscript is now IO Islamic 1850 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 2486 here with notations and hyperlinks].

1850

Mastûrât (مستورات).

Discourses and spiritual teachings of Sayyid ‘Alî Hamdânî bin Sayyid Shihâb-aldîn Hamadânî, a direct descendant of the prophet (see his full pedigree here on fol.348a, l. 1 sq., and in No. 1269 of the Bodleian Cat.), who is stated here to have gone to Kashmîr, A.H. 741=A.D. 1340, 1341 (see fol. 347a, lin. penult., and fol.347b,l. 2 sq.), and have built there the famous convent, خانقاه معلّى, which is visited from far and wide (the usual date assigned to this expedition to Kashmîr is A.H. 781 or 782=A.D. 1379 or 1380, see Rieu ii. p. 447, etc.). He died A.H. 786 (see fol. 422a, first line), the 6th of Dhû-alḥijjah=A.D. 1385, Jan. 19; comp. on this Shaikh Haft Iḳlîm, No. 1019 (col. 453 in this Cat.), No. 1870, 36 further down, and Rieu, loc. cit. The present discourses were taken down from the master’s lips by one of his disciples; the treatise forms therefore a kind of memoir of the great Ṣûfic saint.

Beginning:سبحان الله بحمده بقدرت كمالات الهى و نوادر الخ.

No date. Other Persian works by the same ‘Alî Hamdânî are : the mystical treatise, خلاصة المناقب (Bodleian Cat. No. 1269, there stated to have been composed A.H. 787, which is probably a mistake for 778=A.D. 1376, 1377); the famous work on political ethics, ذخيرة الملوك (see Rieu ii.p. 447; Bodleian Cat., Nos. 1451-1453; G. Flügel iii. p. 284; W. Pertsch, Berlin Cat., p. 7, No. 5, and p. 321 sq.); حلّ النّصوص , a commentary on the فصوص الحكم (see No. 1357, 9 above, and Rieu ii. p. 836b, No. XX) ; ده قاعده, ten rules of contemplative life (ib., p. 829a, No. XI, and G. Flügel iii. p. 420); رسالة الاصطلاحات , a treatise on Ṣûfic terminology (W. Pertsch, Berlin Cat., p. 275, No. 4); مشارق الاذواق, a commentary on Ibn al-Fâriḍ’s (see No. 1811 above) wine-ḳaṣîdah (see No. 1922, 12 below) ; مناجات (ib., iii. p. 413); فى علم القيافة, on physiognomy (Bodleian Cat., No. 1241, 28); shorter mystical tract (see Rieu ii. p. 836a; W. Pertsch, No. 9, 7; Berlin Cat., pp. 235, 5; and 379, 2 ; Fleischer, Cat. Dresd., No. 198, 20, etc.); letters (Rieu ii. p. 835b, No. IV); ghazals (ib., p. 825a, No. III, and p. 835b, No. VIII), etc. A panegyrical biography of ‘Alî Hamadânî in Persian is noticed in W. Pertsch, Berlin Cat., p. 18, 8. On Arabic works of the same, see Arabic Cat. of the Brit. Mus., p. 406 sq.; Loth, Arabic Cat., pp. 94 and 195 ; Rieu, Supplement, p. 12; Haft Iḳlim, No. 1019, etc.

No. 2486, ff. 346-442, ll. 11; Nasta’lîḳ; the first three pages supplied by a later hand; size, 67/8 in. by 41/2 in.