Or 15655

This volume contains a tazkira, or collection of notices, of Chagatai poets along with brief examples of their work. The author, Ali Şir Nava’i (born 844 AH/1441 CE, died 906 AH/1501 CE), was a prominent statesman of considerable wealth, as well as a great poet and patron of the arts. He was a master of Chagatai and promoted its use as a literary language.

Taking Jami's (died 898 AH/1492 CE) Baharistan and Dawlatshah’s (died 900 AH/1494-95 CE [?]) Tazkirat al-shu‘ara as a model, Nava’i put pen to paper on his own tazkira. He concentrated especially on poets who lived in the period beginning with the birth of the reigning Sultan (842 AH/1438 CE) until the date of composition (896 or 897 AH/1490-91 or 1491-92 CE). The Sultan in question was the Timurid ruler of Herat, Hüseyin Bayqara, who ruled from 873 AH/1469 CE until his death in 911 AH/1506 CE.

Nava’i divided his Majalis into eight parts, each named ‘majlis,’ and devoted the entirety of the eighth majlis to Sultan Hüseyin. The latter composed poetry in Chagatai under the makhlas of Hüseyni. The content of each majlis is as follows:

• Majlis I (4r-20v): Great poets who died before the author's lifetime
• Majlis II (20v-52r): Poets whom the author knew in his youth, but who had died by the time that the author had completed his tazkira
• Majlis III (52r-74v): Renowned (living) poets whose tuition or friendship the author enjoyed
• Majlis IV (74v-92r): Men of letters who, although not known primarily as poets, have written poetry
• Majlis V (92r-97r): Timurid-affiliated nobles of Khorasan who occasionally composed poetry
• Majlis VI (97r-106r): Poets and scholars of outside of Khorasan
• Majlis VII (106r-112v): Sultans and princes who demonstrated poetic taste
• Majlis VIII(112v-126v): Poetic compositions of His Majesty Sultan Hüseyin, who Nava’i describes as his close childhood friend and a master poet

Most of the poets mentioned by Nava’i wrote in Persian, making it a significant work from the viewpoint of Persian literary history in addition to Chagatai and Central Asian literary history. The Majalis was itself translated into Persian on five occasions in the sixteenth century, in some cases with additions. One of these translations, composed by Shah Ali b. Abd al-‘Ali for the Janid/Ashtarkhanid ruler Din Muhammed, can be found at Or 3396. Also in the sixteenth century, an addendum to the Majalis was written in Chagatai by Sadiqi-i Kitabdar with the title Majma‘ al-khavas.

Begins:

Yüz Hamd anga kim yasab jihan bostani * lab yüz u zulf-din gül va rayhaniqıldı yasagaj bu bagh-i ruh-afzayi * nazmi ilan anung bulbul-i khwush-alhani

Ends:

Anjum adadi khayl u sipahining bolsun * har yanki bolsang Tangri panahining bolsun

f 1v of this volume features a fine gilt and polychrome illuminated heading which carries the title of the work. The colophon on f 126v wrongly identifies the work as a mukhtasar. It does not state a date of completion; however, the manuscript probably dates from the first half of the tenth century AH/sixteenth century CE.