Written in India by an unknown author in the final decades of the 19th century, Ghāyat al-shuʻūr bi-ḥujaj al-ḥajj al-mabrūr (The utmost knowledge of the arguments for the blessed Hajj) describes the various observances associated with the Hajj pilgrimage. The introduction and the text are written in Arabic, but the main text is in Persian, as are two appended texts (by a different author), a taqriz (encomium) praising Ghāyat al-shuʻūr, and a shorter versified text directed against critics of the work. The main text is dedicated by the author to a nobleman by the name of Rahim al-Din. The afterword states that the work is a second edition, printed in 1290 AH (1873) by the famed Newal Kishore Press in Lucknow, the first edition having been printed in Calcutta in 1283 AH (1866-67). Inserted prior to the discussion of the publication date is a chronogram that stands for 1290 AH, i.e., the date of the second edition of the work. The chronogram is credited to a Sayyid Munawwar Husayn, an employee of the court of Awadh (also called Oudh). The nawabs of Awadh were a Persian Shiʻa dynasty that had migrated to India from Nishapur (in present-day Iran) and that actively promulgated Persian letters and Shiʻa beliefs. The Nawabate of Awadh was stripped of power, however, by the British in the aftermath of the Uprising of 1857 (also known as the Sepoy Rebellion), roughly a decade before Ghāyat al-shuʻūr was first published. The mention of the court of Awadh is therefore somewhat anachronistic--a reference to what was by then at best a ceremonial office. World Digital Library.
Manuscript. Persian. Title from colophon. Name of scribe not indicated. Probably written in India. Paper: thick cream color Indian paper; no borders; black ink with rubrication; catchwords on rectos. Nastaʻliq; 13 lines in written area 17.5 x 7 cm. Folios 1b-169a. Library of Congress. Persian manuscript, M80. Previous owner's name on flyleaf: Robt. Atkinson, Scholar, 14 Trinity College. Nineteenth century half-leather binding in brown leather with tan marbled boards. Also available in digital form on the Library of Congress website.
Kitāb-i mustaṭāb-i Kullīyāt-i (Collection of works from Hakim Sanai) contains poetic works of Abu al-Majd Majdud ibn Adam Sanai Ghaznwai (died circa 1150). Abu al-Majd, better known as Sanai, was a famous medieval classical Persian scholar, poet, and mystic, thought to have been born and died in Ghazna (a present-day province in southeast Afghanistan) and also to have lived in Khorasan. Sanai is considered to be the first to compose qasida (ode), ghazal (lyric), and masnavi (rhymed couplet) poems in Persian, and he is famous for his homiletic poetry and role in the development of early mystical literature. He was connected to the Ghaznavid dynastic courts as a literary person whose patrons were state officials, military men, scholars, and the like. Modern collected works of Sanai are an outcome of a complex textual transmission stretching back centuries, during which their contents have changed in various ways, particularly in the order of poems, variant texts, and the numbers of verses. The oldest copy of his diwan (collection) that was copied in Herat in 1284-85 is housed now in the Bayezit Library in Istanbul. The last page of this lithographed edition, copied from one or multiple old manuscripts, states that it was printed and published at Matb-e Brejis in Bombay by Aqa Muhammad Jafar Saheb in October 1910. This particular collection is arranged by its genres and forms, such as ghazals, masnavis, qasidas, and others and by religious, mystical, ethical, philosophical, and courtly themes concerning God, mysticism, love, humankind, divine knowledge, ideas, and courtly culture. The work concludes with a brief biography of Sanai. The book has more than 130 pages in total, paginated with Indo-Arabic numerals. Verses appear very compressed throughout, covering entire pages including the margins. Almost all the poems have titles and are clearly separated at the end by "Sanai." World Digital Library.
Manuscript. Persian. Title from fol. 1a. Ghulām Nabī walad Miyān ʻAbd al-Ghafūr. Copied in Pir Ramzan Ghazi neighborhood, Multan, Pakistan. Paper: glossy laid paper of varying thickness with no visible chain-lines or watermarks; small unwan in red, green, gold and black ink with a thick black border; black ink, section headings in red ink; catchwords on rectos. Nastaʻliq; 13 lines in written area 14.5 x 8.3 cm. Folios 1b-135a. Library of Congress. Persian manuscript, 1. Contemporary red Indian binding. Also available in digital form on the Library of Congress website. Incipit: هذه النسخة المسماة هشت بهشت من تصنيف ختم الشعراء وافصح الفصحاء دركاه اله امير خسرو ... Colophon: تمت تمام كتاب هشت بهشت از يد فقير حقير پير تقصير غلام نبي ولد ميان عبد الغفور ... ساكن محله پير رمضان غازي ...
Manuscript. Persian. Title from fol. 1a. Name of scribe not indicated. Probably written in India. Paper; cream-color, unpolished laid-paper; with horizontal chain lines and no visible watermarks; manuscript appears to be an older manuscript (perhaps 18th century) with missing sections and conclusion added by a later hand and dated 1238 [1822 or 1823], paper of newer section is also laid paper with horizontal chain lines and no watermarks but of a more recent date; older section has text within a ruled border in gold and red ink; newer sections lack border; some interleaved pages; both sections written in black ink with rubrication; numerous marginal glosses; catchwords on some leaves. Nastaʻliq and naskh; 11 lines (nastaʻliq pages), and 13 lines (naskh pages); in written area 15.3 x 10 cm. Text: fol. 2b-136b. Library of Congress. Persian manuscript, M81b. Disbound; original marbled cardboard binding included in case. Also available in digital form on the Library of Congress website.
Also available in digital form on the Library of Congress Web site. Manuscript. Persian. Title from colophon of first work. Pagination: 1st work: fol. 1b-105a (18 lines); 2nd work: fol. 105b-155b (16-18 lines); 3rd work: fol. 157a-249b (14 lines) First work written by Muḥammad Mahdī al-Kāshānī. Gift of Cyrus Ebrahim Zadeh, Nov. 9, 2009. Written in India? Paper: yellowish, polished cream color commercial paper with no visible watermarks; black ink; catchwords. 1st work: Naskh; 18 lines in written area 15 x 9.5 cm.; 2nd work: Naskh; 16-18 lines in written area 14.5 x 10 cm.; 3rd work: Nastaʻliq; 14 lines in written area 16.5 x 13 cm. Folio 1b-95a; 95b-105a poems; 105b-155b; 157a-249b. Library of Congress. Manuscript, [unnumbered]. Binding: black leather.
An incomplete compilation including an Arabic treatise on the sultanate and caliphate based on a hadith of Kaʻb al-Akhbār with an interlinear Persian translation, an Arabic treatise on the legal division of human actions into lawful and unlawful, and two unidentified poems in Persian; the last of the poems is incomplete.
Manuscript. Persian with passages in Arabic. Title supplied by cataloger. Scribe not identified. Written in either Iran or India. Paper; cream color laid paper with horizontal chain lines and watermark of a cross within a circle; black ink with minimal rubrication and some red overlining; catchwords. Naskh; 14 lines in written area 14 x 9.5 cm. Fol. 1a-69b. Library of Congress. Persian manuscript, M140. Flexible brown leather binding. Also available in digital form on the Library of Congress website.