Or 16043

This volume contains a rare poem mainly concerning episodes in the life of the Prophet Muhammad. All that is known of the author is that his name was Mehmed, and that the poem was completed in 872 AH/1467 CE.

No name or date appears in this manuscript, which was formerly MS 151 in the collection of the Turcologist Mr. C. S. Mundy. However, in the other copy formerly owned by Mundy (MS 150, the present whereabouts of which is not known) the author addresses himself by the name Mehmed at both the beginning and the end of the text (f 4r and 326v). The latter beyit, according to Mundy's notes, reads: Bu Mehmed hakkına kim bu dua * kılsa on rahmet ede ona Hüda. Mundy studied the differences between the two copies in detail. He found that the present one contains 9,883 beyitler, whereas his MS 150 had 12,838. The poem’s date of composition, too, is known only from MS 150 (f 326v).

Mehmed’s Siretü’n-Nebi possesses a somewhat folkloric character, which is heightened by present manuscript’s often faulty or unusual orthography. The work is divided into numerous unnumbered sections and episodes. Fifty headings are tabulated on f 1r. Some are Persian in vocabulary as well as in syntax. Episodes of warfare are very prominent, especially in the latter half. A passage on f 4r relates that the Prophet while still a small boy went into battle along with his grandfather ‘Abd al-Muttalib, killing nine enemy champions with the bow that had belonged to the Prophet Ishmael. The last three sections describe Ali’s battle with a dragon (ff 228r-230r), Uways al-Qarani, the saint who never met the Prophet (230v-235r; the heading has been omitted), and how the early Sufi Ibrahim ibn Adham renounced his crown and throne and left Khorasan (north-eastern Iran) for Mecca (235r-240).

Begins:

Kırmızı ile tahrirlerdir / Siretü’n-Nebi salla’llah ‘aleyh ve sellem

Allah adın zikir edelim evvela * vacip oldur cümle işte her kula

‘aşk ile her kulki Allah ona * her işi asan ede Allah ona

bir durur birliğine şekk yokturur * gerçi yanlış söyleyenler çöktürür

Ends:

Bir nazar kıl bu feleğin işine * nẹ getirdi Edhem oğlu başına

Söyledikçe söz dahi olmaz tamam * biz tamam ettik burada ey hümam

işbu kıssa burada oldu tamam * Hazret-i (sic) Peygambere yüz bin selam

There is a table of contents on 1r, apparently in the same hand. The volume is undated but was likely produced in the late 12th or 13th century AH/late 18th or 19th century CE.