Nawa'i MSS (3)

Earlier posts alluded to a) the lack of English translations of Nawa'i's works, and b) the production of scholarly editions in (mostly) Uzbekistan and Turkey. However, as libraries and archives get stuck into the arduous process of digitizing their collections, it is to be hoped that the manuscript copies themselves will become accessible online - preferably without having to pay for the privilege, but we can but hope.

One good example is the University of Michigan, which has made available for download (courtesy of the excellent Islamic Manuscripts at Michigan project)an early 19th-century copy of the Khamsa-i Nawa'i. Composed during 888-890 AH/AD 1483-85, this is a quintet of mathnawīs modeled on Persian works by Niẓāmī, Amīr Khusraw and Jāmī; Nawa'i's was the first in the genre to be written in Chaghatay Turkic. The five parts are:

I.) Ḥayrat al-Abrār
II.) Farhād va Shīrīn
III.) Laylī va Majnūn
IV.) Sab‘a-yi Sayyār
V.) Saddi Iskandarī

This particular copy comes from the Abdulhamid Collection at UM, so-called because it belonged to the Ottoman Sultan, Abdulhamid II (r. 1876-1909). The name of the copyist and the date of copying is given at the end of the text: Sahib Shaykh Khatib, 1245 AH (AD 1829/30).

I haven't had much of an opportunity yet to examine the ms., but on the face of it, it is a very good copy, made in a clear and tidy hand, with relatively few blemishes or major lacunae.