Add MS 7903

This volume contains the following six works :

(I) ff 8v-12r : Segirname, under the heading Segirname-yi Zu'l-karneyn aleyhi es-salam fi beyan Aristatelis Hekim;

(II) ff 12v-41v : A tabirname, or interpretation of dreams, in 53 ebvap, agreeing, substantially, with Add MS 7902 but with a different preamble ;

(III) ff 42r-48v : A tract on the proper mode of drawing omens from the Qur'an under the heading Şerait-i fal-i Kur'ân-i azem ;

(IV) ff 49v-52r : Erbain hadis, with a paraphrase ın Ottoman Turkish verse, without the name of the author provided ;

(V) ff 54r-61v; 63r-67v; and 71r-75v : A mesnevi on the life of Veysel or Üveys Karani, a famous holy personage who lived in the time of the Prophet Muhammad صلعم and had been made the patron of a religious order. The present copy is imperfect at the beginning and the end. It also has internal gaps, and the leaves are transposed. In the extant portion of the prologue (f 56), the author, whose name is not provided, states that they had been requested by a member of the aforementioned order, whom they describe as a cowl-stitcher (geledüz?) of marvelous skill, to write a poem in praise of their Şeyh. The narrative begins on f 57r. Although Rieu states that the author is likely to be Lami'i, among whose works a poem on the same theme is mentioned under the title of Menakıb-i Üveys Karani, this cannot be the case. Lami'i's work is largely prose, while the current text is exclusively in verse. It is more likely that this text is an extract from the Üveysname, which was composed in 915 AH (1509 CE) by Sabayi. Sabayi was likely the mahlas of a 15th or 16th century poet whose given name was possibly Edirneli Hayreddin. The complete Üveysname is a mesnevi comprised of 685 ebyat, of which only a portion are found in the current work.

From f 53 until the end of the volume, the leaves which are not occupied by the aforementioned fragments contain some kasideler and terciibentler by Baki, the first of which is the well-known elegy on the death of Kanuni Süleyman. A prayer (dua) to become rich can be found on f 80r.

This manuscript was completed on 5 Şaaban 988 AH (15 September 1580 CE) as stated on f 52r.