Abstract: Collection of three texts related to Niʻmat Allāh Valī.Binding note: Orange-brown leather over cardboard. Blind-tooled frames with small motif in the corners. Blue paper pastedowns.Contents: 1. fol. 1a-338a: Dīvān / Niʻmat Allāh Valī.Contents: 2. fol. 338a-340a: Short text on the Mahdī.Contents: 3. fol. 340b-400b: Biography of Niʻmat Allāh Valī, in five chapters.Ms. codex.Title provided by cataloger.Physical description: 17 lines per page. Written in nastaʻlīq in black ink with use of red and occasionally gold (see fol. 343b). The text is framed in gold, black and blue. Dark cream glazed paper with laid lines visible. Some leaves mended (see fol. 1-8 and fol. 400).Decoration: Illuminated title page (fol. 1a). Illuminated headpieces at the beginning of texts 1 and 3 (fol. 1b and 340b).Origin: Text 1 copied on 1 Dhū al-Ḥijjah 924 Dec. 4, 1518 (colophon, fol. 338a). Text 3 copied in 925? 1519 (colophon, fol. 400b, hardly legible).
Abū Ṭālib Kalīm Hamadānī (or Kāshānī, died 1651; 1061 A.H.) was one of the foremost Persian poets of the 17th century. He was born in Hamadan (present-day Iran) but appears to have lived in Kashan (also in Iran) for a sizeable portion of his life--hence the appellation Kāshānī. He received his education in Kashan and in Shiraz before moving to India to serve the Mughal ruler Jahangir (reigned 1605-27). Abū Ṭālib was thus among a large number of Persian poets and literati who left Persia in search of patronage in the Indian subcontinent beginning in the 16th century. Under Jahangir's successor, Shah Jahan (reigned 1628-58), Abū Ṭālib achieved the rank of poet laureate. Later in life he is said to have accompanied Shah Jahan to Kashmir, which became his home until his death. Abū Ṭālib's fame rests principally on his ghazalīyāt (a metrical form expressing the pain of loss and the beauty of love). Of the 10,000 verses that appear in his divan (or collected poems), about half were written in the ghazal form. He is especially renowned for the novelty of his themes, for which he came to be known as khallāq al-maʻānī (creator of meaning). Other characteristics of his poems are the originality of his khayāl bandī (rhetorical conceits) and the aptness of his mithālīya (illustrations). Abū Ṭālib was also the author of Shāh Jahān Nāma (The book of Shah Jahan), a work which, following the style of the epic Shāhnāma (The book of kings), praises Timur and the Timurid rulers up to Shah Jahan. In the present illuminated copy of Abū Ṭālib's divan, the maqtaʻ (final verse) of many of the poems, which generally includes the takhalluṣ (pen name of the poet), is set off in its own frame. The year 1103 A.H. (1691-92) is written in the colophon. World Digital Library. Collected poems of Abū Ṭālib Kalīm.
Collected poems of Amīr Shāhī Sabzavarī. Dīvān-i Shāhī (Collection of poems by Shāhī) is a divan (collection) of verse by Amīr Shāhī Sabzavārī (died 1453; 857 A.H.), a prominent Persian poet of the Timurid era who composed in many of the classical forms of Persian poetry. Amīr Shāhī's poetry belongs to the tradition of Persian mystical love poetry. The collection includes poems composed in the ghazal (a metrical form expressing the pain of loss and the beauty of love), qaṣīda (lyric poem), and rubā'ī (quatrain) forms. Amīr Shāhī was born in Sabzevar (present-day Iran), but received his education in Herat (present-day Afghanistan), where he joined the court of Timur's son Shāhrukh (1377-1447) and that of Shāhrukh's son Baysunqur Mīrzā (1397-1433). Biographers refer to Amīr Shāhī as a superb poet, but also as a painter, musician, and calligrapher. His poetry was greatly admired by his celebrated contemporary ʻAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī (1414-92), as well as by later authors, such as Alīshīr Nawā'ī (1441-1501). In Tadhkirat al-Shuʻarā (Memorial of poets), Dawlatshāh Samarqandī (died circa 1494) describes the premature death of Baysunqur Mīrzā after a bout of drunken revelry, and singles out the elegy for him composed by Amīr Shāhī as having surpassed those of all his peers in its pathos. It is said that Amīr Shāhī wrote more than 12,000 verses, but his surviving anthology contains less than a tenth of that number. He himself is believed to have destroyed that portion of his verse he considered inferior. Amīr Shāhī died in Gorgan and is buried in Sabzevar in a khānaqāh (Sufi dervish lodge) founded by his ancestors. The present manuscript of Dīvān-i Shāhī is an illuminated, undated copy written in a flowing nastaʻlīq hand. An unusual feature of the work is the manner in which each poem is set off by the Arabic wa lahu ayḍan or ayḍan lahu (furthermore, he wrote). World Digital Library.
Dīvān-i Silsilah va al-Zahab (literally, The collection book of the chain of gold) is a work of Persian literature in verse. It forms volume one of a seven-volume literary collection of Mowlana Nur al-Din Abd al-Rahman Jami (1414-92), the famous Persian scholar, poet, and Sufi. The entire collection is known as Haft awrang (The seven thrones) and was one of Jami's first major works. Volume one is the longest volume, composed sometime between 1468 and 1486. This manuscript copy seems incomplete, as the final narrative of verses on scholars and perfectionists finishes suddenly and awkwardly. This copy has more than 100 pages paginated in Indo-Arabic numerals. Each verse narrative has subheadings rubricated in blue, gray, and red. This copy lacks preface and epilogue notes, making it difficult to establish the place, date, and contributor of the publication. A black ink hand-written line on the first blank page reads "Silsilah-i zahab, 28 Rabi Al-Awwal, 1246," being the title and the Islamic date (September 16, 1830), possibly the publication date. However, one of three seals on the same page gives the Islamic year as 1210 (1795-96); thus the correct date for this manuscript is uncertain. The author's name, Mowlana Abd al-Rahman Jami, appears on the second page. The complete Dīvān-i Silsilah has three sections; the first deals with ethical and didactic themes and includes short anecdotes and criticisms of contemporary society. Section two is of similar structure and deals with carnal and spiritual love. The third section is the conclusion. This copy is structured around religious and ethical themes and various heroic, historical, and sententious stories. Several narratives, such as the first verses, are in praise of God, his divinity, and supremacy. Page six praises the Prophet Muhammad. The verses on page 11 are on righteousness and justice. Ethical stories include one on pages 28-31 of a king and his son or perhaps a question-and-answer session of a king and a slave; on page 39 a story of a teacher and his student; and on pages 90-91 the tale of a village boy who reverses his decision to sell his old donkey after he hears that the broker wants to sell it as a young donkey in the market. Jami had direct connections with the Timurid court and its rulers in Herat and in Khorasan, particularly at the court of Sultan Husayn Baiqara. Jami's many works in poetry and prose include interpretive and religious commentaries, Persian poetry of different genres, mystical treatises, works on Arabic grammar, and elegies. He was influenced by Sufi mystical discourses, particularly of the Naqshbandi order, and by earlier Persian classic literary authors, including Sadi, Sanai, and Nizami. Scholars consider Jami's work as representative of a shift from the classical to the neoclassical Persian literary era, and regard Jami as one of the last great traditional Persian poets. World Digital Library.
Gulshan-i rāz (The garden of mystery) is a 20th century text on the Nizari Ismaʻili belief system, written by Nadir Shah Kayani (circa 1897-circa 1971), a leader of the Ismaʻili community in Afghanistan. The title of this work deliberately echoes a celebrated Ismaʻili book of verse of the same name composed by Mahmud Shabistari in 1317. Nadir Shah's work is organized in 14 sections, each of which discusses a philosophical or religious topic such as nafs (the soul) or namaz (prayer). The first section, on tafakkur (the faculty of thought), is written as a commentary on a verse from the original Gulshan-i rāz. Kayani's leadership of the Ismaʻili community coincided with the reign of Muhammad Shah (Aga Khan III, 1877-1957). Much remains to be discovered about the Ismaʻili community of Afghanistan during this period. What is known is that Nadir Shah belonged to a family of Ismaʻili leaders based in the Kayan valley in northern Afghanistan. He was a prolific author who wrote both poetry and philosophical texts. The present work is a manuscript, most likely produced in Afghanistan. The script is nastaʻliq, written in black ink, 11 lines to the page, on a light-cream paper. The "third" in the title probably refers to Shabistari's original work as the first Gulshan-i rāz. The identity of the second Gulshan-i rāz is not clear; it could be a reference to the well-known commentary by Shams al-Din Lahiji, written in 1472-73. World Digital Library. Islamic topics in question and answer form, probabally written during early 20th century.
Tauhid (the belief in the unity of God) is a central tenet of Islam that also serves as one of the main inspirations of the Masnavi (The spiritual couplets) of Maulana Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi (1207-73). This principle also appears in the title of Ibrahim Shahidi Dadah's book Gulshan-i Tauḥīd (Garden of Unitarianism), a work that was inspired by Rumi's well-loved Masnavi. Shahidi Dadah (died 1550 or 1551) was born in Mughlah (Muğla, present-day Turkey) and was a Sufi of the MaulawI, or Mevlevi, order. In Gulshan-i Tauḥīd, Dadah chose from the 25,000 verses of the Masnavi 600 verses and appended to each of them five of his own verses, inspired by and amplifying the original. He completed this work in 937 AH (1530-31). The work has had at least one modern printing (Istanbul, 1881). The manuscript copy presented here was completed in 1233 AH (1817-18), probably in Afghanistan. Each Rumi original verse appears in red ink, followed by the Shahidi Dadah verses in black. The copyist has signed his name as Mir ʻAzim ibn Mulla Muhammad Rajab Balkhi. The manuscript is written in a nastaʻliq script on a light-cream paper. World Digital Library. Versified criticism and interpretation of the classical Mas̲navī of Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī.