[IO Islamic 2568] تيمور نامه

• Tîmûrnâma.
• This manuscript is now IO Islamic 1410 in the India Office collections.
• [metadata: Hermann Ethé, Catalogue of Persian Manuscripts in the Library of the India Office, 2 vols. (Oxford: India Office, 1903): volume 1, number 2568 here with notations and hyperlinks].

1410

Tîmûrnâma (تيمور نامه).

Hâtifî’s famous mathnawî on the warlike exploits of Timûr, an imitation of Niżâmî’s Iskandarnâma, styled تيمورنامه (or rather, to suit the metre, تِمُرنامه), also sometime ظفرنامۀ تیموری (see Haft Iḳlîm, No. 671), or ظفرنامۀ منظوم (see Zeitschrift der D. M. G. xiii. p. 340, No. 252, and W. Pertsch, Berlin Cat., p. 891, No. 908 and note 2), or simply ظفرنامه (see Ḥ. Khalfa iv. p. 176, No. 8017, and fol. 1^a in the present copy, probably on account of the verse in the khâtimah of the poem itself, fol. fol. 115^b, l. 9, ظفرنامۀ يافتم بى دروغ, where the ظفرنامه, however, clearly refers to Sharaf-aldîn ‘Alî Yazdî’s well-known history of that title, Nos. 173-187 in this Cat.), or even, with an allusion to Niżâmî’s poem, اسكندرنامۀ تيمورى (so in the Rauḍat-alṣafâ, see W. Pertsch, Berlin Cat., p. 892, note 2); see, besides the general references given above in No. 1398, Ḥ. Khalfa ii. p. 489, No. 3820; and iv. p. 176, No. 8017; Cat. des MSS. et Xylographes, p. 381; and J. Aumer, p. 34; the Hamburg collection also contains several excellent copies of this mathnawî; and there is one copy in the Library of the D.M.G. (Pers. 23). Lithographed in Lucknow, 1869, under the title of ظفرنامۀ هاتفى.

Beginning:

بنام خدائى كه فكر و خرد – نيارد كه تا كُنْهِ او پى برد

This oldest copy of all extant was finished in the very year of Hâtifî’s death, viz. A.H. 927, the 15th of Shawwâl (A.D. 1521, Sept. 18), by Kamâl Nîshâpûrî Nûrbakhshî. Bibliotheca Leydeniana.

No. 2568, ff. 117, 2 coll., each ll. 13: excellent Nasta’lîḳ; illuminated frontispiece; size, 9½ in. by 5^7/8 in.