Poetry and Elegant Prose [IO Islamic 918]

Poetry and Elegant Prose.

This manuscript is now IO Islamic 918 in the India Office collections.

[metadata: Otto Loth, A Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts in the Library of the India Office, (volume 1), no. 803 here with further notations and hyperlinks].

803.

918. Size 9 in. by 51/4 in.; foll. 137. Eight, seventeen, and nineteen lines in a page.

I.Foll. 1-5. Mu’în al-dîn Aḥmad b. ‘Abd al-razzâḳ ṬANṬARÂNÎ’S Ḳaṣîdah in praise of Niẓâm al-mulk (d. A.H. 485). It was published by De Sacy in his Chrestomathic, vol. ii.

Plainly written, by Muḥammad ‘Ârif Mangalkûtî, A.H. 1134, at Dehli ( في بلدة دار الخلافة ) . Marginal notes. The MS. is much injured by damp, and has partly become illegible.

II.Foll. 7-12. A short Commentary on an erotic Ḳaṣîdah, called اليتيمة , or the Orphan ; by ‘ABD AL-ḤAḲḲ B. ‘ABD AL-LAṬÎF ZUBAIRÎ.

The Ḳaṣîdah begins:

اراك طروباً والهاً كالمتيَّمِ تطوف باكناف السجاف المخيَّمِ

It is stated at the beginning of the commentary, that the poem was called the Orphan, because the author of it was not known. It is also mentioned there that two verses of it are quoted in Ḥarîrî’s preface to his Maḳâmât. Now in the commentary on that work, 1 these verses are attributed to ‘ADÎ B. AL-RIḲÂ ‘, ‘Âmilî, a contemporary of Jarîr,2 and to the same the whole Ḳaṣîdah is ascribed in a note at the end of this MS. But the two verses given in the said commentary as those immediately preceding the quotation do not agree with the present text. It is probable, therefore, that the Ḳaṣîdah is supposititious, and only framed on the metre and rhyme of the old verses found in Ḥarîrî, which have been put at the end of the composition.

III.Foll. 16-136. ZAUZANÎ’S Commentary on the Mu’allaḳât, with glosses.

The Mu’allaḳâh of ‘Amr stands here after that of ‘Antarah. Some of the verses have been omitted; hence arose some confusion in the text (fol.125).

On the few leaves which precede this piece are added a list of contents and various notes.

Written in Nasta’liḳ, partly on red paper; the text of the poems in a large Naskh. This is the copy of one Muḥammad Yûsuf. It was transcribed A.H. 1133, during the reign of Muḥammad Shâh, at Dehli (در دار الخلافة) .

The seal of Muḥammad Yûsuf is impressed on nos. II. And III.

[Johnson.]

1 p. ۱ . of De Sacy’s edition.

2 See Hammer-Purgstall, Literaturgesch. ii. 334.