English: Nasir Khusraw (d. 1088 AD): Diwan

Signed Muhammad Mu'min known as 'Arab Shirazi, copied for Abu al-Mansur Sultan Muhammad Qutb Shah in Hyderabad, dated Sunday Rabi' I AH 1030/24 JANUARY 1621 AD Poetry, Persian manuscript on paper, 291ff., each folio with 15ll. of fine black nasta'liq arranged in two columns with gold and black double divisions, titles in white thuluth within illuminated cartouches on in red nasta'liq, text within gold and polychrome frame, with catchwords, with two finely illuminated bifolios with gold floral margins and polychrome and gold headpieces, colophon signed and dated, with two Qutb Shahi black seal impressions, in 19th century gilt tooled green morocco Text panel 6 x 2 7/8in. (15.3 x 7.2cm.); folio 9 ¾ x 5 ½in. (24.6 x 14cm.)

This fine manuscript was copied for Muhammad Qutb Shah who ruled over the Sultanate of Golconda between 1611 and 1625. His predecessor Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah was responsible for moving his kingdom’s capital from Golconda to Hyderabad, a city founded near Golconda fort to celebrate the millennium of the Islamic calendar. This is where the present manuscript was copied. The earliest surviving Qutb Shahi manuscripts date from the reign of Ibrahim Qutb Shah (r.1550-80). As this manuscript they were ‘Persianate in nature’ (Navina Najat Haidar and Marika Sardar, Sultans of Deccan India 1500-1700, exhibition catalogue, New Haven and London, 2015, p.198). The origin of the Qutb Shahi dynasty goes back to Sultan Quli, a Turkman of the Qara Qoyunlu clan who emigrated from western Iran to Bidar in 1478. Qutb Shahi culture was partly based on the cultural patterns of 15th-century Turkmen Iran and they established closed political links with the Safavids (Mark Zebrowski, Deccani Painting, London, 1983, cat.153).

Our manuscript is copied by Muhammad Mu’min known as ‘Arab Shirazi. He is also known as Mulla ‘Arab and was ‘one of the expert calligraphers appointed by Sultan Muhammad Qutb Shah, whose passion for books is well attested’ (Stuart Cary Welch, India Art and Culture, 1300-1900, exhibition catalogue, New York, 1985, cat.214, p.318). This manuscript is one of the important additions that the sultan made to the Royal Library as attested by the two seal impressions on the fly-leaves. Mulla ‘Arab’s name also appears on a royal copy in nasta’liq script of Fawa’id-I Qutb Shah made for Sultan ‘Abdullah Qutb Shah. He worked on the copy with four other scribes, also Persian. These calligraphers popularized the vogue for nasta’liq calligraphy during the reign of Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah. A calligraphic panel by Mulla ‘Arab is in the Jagdish and Kamla Mittal Museum, Hyderabad (Welch, 1985, cat.214, pp.318-19).

The illuminated frontispiece of the Diwan of Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah, copied circa 1590-95, is very close in style to the present illuminated headpieces. Brick red palmettes are drawn above a ground of intense lapis blue, with thick gold floral scrolls in between (Haidar and Sardar, 2015, fig.69, p.201). The intensity of colour is the result of the high quality of the pigments used for the manuscript but it also reflects a court taste and aesthetic. The tile mosaic walls of Hyderabad’s ‘Ashurkhana built by Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah around 1595 illustrate this eye for highly contrasting colours.

The author of this manuscript, Nasir Khusraw (1004-1088) was a Persian poet and philosopher. He travelled the Middle East and composed the Safarnama, a popular account of his travels. He became an advocate of Isma’ilism after visiting Fatimid Egypt and brought back his faith to native Khorasan where he died in 1088. His diwan is mostly composed in the Persian qasida form but also contains quatrains and other poems. It appears that Khusraw dedicates long verses to the Isma’ili Caliph Al-Mustansir (Alice C. Hunsberger, Nasir Khusraw, The Ruby of Badakhshan, London, 2003, pp.140–144). The colophon of our manuscript states that it is ‘full of biographies (manaqib) of 'Ali and the Immaculate Imams’; a clear indication that it is the Shi’a content of the diwan that was of interest to Muhammad Qutb Shah.