Persian Manuscripts : An early Mughal illustrated Shāhnāmah in two volumes.

Firdawsī, Abū al-Qāsim Manṣūr bin Ḥasan, ca. 940–1020ابو القاسم منصور بن حسن فردوسي, Daqīqī, Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad, d. ca. 980; محمد ابن احمد دقیقی

Persian Manuscripts

<p style='text-align: justify;'>These two volumes comprise an incomplete and unfinished illustrated <i>Shāhnāmah</i> (Book of Kings), by Abū al-Qāsim Manṣūr Firdawsī (fl. ca. 940–1020). It opens with a shortened redaction of the Baysunghur preface, followed by the poem proper, of which Abū Manṣūr Daqīqī (d. ca. 980) commenced a thousand lines, but after his death, Firdawsī completed the work shortly before the year 1000 CE. He drew upon a number of pre-Islamic Pahlavi middle Persian sources, principally the now-lost <i>Khwadāynāmag</i> (Book of Lords) that recounted the ancient rulers of Persian until the Sassanian period, as well as Iranian mythology and folklore. Originally constructed as a large single manuscript a subsequent owner later divided into two, both volumes features fourteen paintings in an early commercial Mughal style by three different painters, with many blank spaces intended for illustrations left incomplete. In the colophon at the end of the second volume, Shihāb Kātib states that he completed this manuscript after Friday prayers on 15 Muḥarram 1006 AH (28 Aug. 1597 CE).</p>