Persian Manuscripts : Mas̲navī-i Ma‘navī

Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmīجلال الدین رومی

Persian Manuscripts

<p style='text-align: justify;'> A prominent Safavid-era calligrapher named Muḥammad Shafī‘ Qazvīnī (d. ca. 1750), known by the epithet <i>Khalīfat al-Khulafā'</i> (Regent of Regents), completed this manuscript of the <i>Mas̲navī-i Ma‘navī</i> (Spiritual Couplets) by Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī on 22 Shavvāl 1105 AH (16 June 1694 CE). The son of ‘Abd al-Jabbār (d. 1654–55), a leading student of the preeminent master of nasta‘līq script, Mīr ‘Imād al-Ḥasanī (d. 1615), he ultimately served in Isfahan as librarian to Shāh ‘Abbās II (b. 1632, r. 1642–1666), but then after the death of his father, he retired to Qazvin, during which time he probably copied this volume. Originally comprised of six separate booklets that suffered severe damage, a subsequent owner evidently comissioned restorers to replace missing quires, expertly repair the pages, and infill numerous losses, over which at least two scribes completed passages, one of whom added a seventh apocryphal book to the volume before rebinding it.</p>