Or 15976

This volume contains an early Ottoman Turkish version of the famous compilation of notices of Muslim saints composed in Persian by Farīd al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār (died 618 AH/1221 CE) in 617 AH/1220 CE. It was authored by an anonymous translator in the ninth century AH/fifteenth century CE.

The work includes the biographies, legends, and sayings of sixty-three saints from ʿAṭṭār’s original work, starting with Ja‘far al-Ṣādiq and ending with al-Ḥallāj. The present manuscript lacks the preface and some of the final folios. It thus begins almost at the end of the first entry and ends midway through the final entry. After every few sentences the text is punctuated with the phrase, written in red, ‘ve nakıldır kim.’

As well as the vocabulary and grammar, the orthography of the present manuscript is also of substantial interest, being both unusual and inconsistent; f 1r features didi (with kesre after the first d and ye after the second) and virdi (with kesre after both), as well as the name Sadık split, with Sa on one line and dık on the next. The script between ff 1-281 adds to the interest of the manuscript, consisting of a cursive nesih with divani elements that is often difficult to decipher. There are also some marginal corrections and additions by the copyist.

Lacking at the beginning are the flyleaf and preface, which the foliation shows to have comprised 9 ff; the original ff 12-20 are also lost. Further divergences from the original Arabic foliation stem from errors in it, such as the omission of the numbers 90-100: new 78 is old 100, new 79 is old 1001 (sic), 88 is 110, etc.

Begins:

elini aldı […] üstine […] karşuna dizin çeküb edeple oturdu ve bütün hasekiler ve vezirler

Ends:

aşk namazın iki rekât namaz dürüst değildir ta kim kanla abdest almayınca nitekim aşk fıkıh içinde buyurur, Salatü’l-aşk la yusahh illa bi’s-selam, pes bu kez dilin kesmek

Though undated, this copy is likely from the late 9th century AH/15th century CE.