Or 16396

This volume contains the well-known Ottoman Turkish collection of forty-two tales about relief (ferec) after hardship and distress (şidde). The earliest Ottoman copies of this anonymous compilation date back to the ninth century AH/fifteenth century CE. Although the tales which constituted the Ferec ba‘d eş-şidde were for the most part sourced and translated from similar collections of tales in Persian known generally as Jāmiʿ al-ḥikāyāt (Collection of tales), there is no single model or prototype for the Ottoman collection. For example, while the number of tales in Persian collections of Jāmiʿ al-ḥikāyāt vary from one copy to the next, the Ottoman Ferec ba‘d eş-şidde was a more uniform collection of forty-two tales arranged in the same order. It was based on tales from the corpus of Jāmiʿ al-ḥikāyāt, and also integrated tales from other sources and other single tales.

One of the earliest Persian collections, the Mūnis-nāma, is held in the British Library (Or 9317). It is a tenth century AH/sixteenth century CE copy of a work originally written in the late sixth century AH/late twelfth century/early thirteenth century CE. The Mūnis-nāma contains thirty-one tales, most of which correspond to the later Ottoman Ferec ba‘d eş-şidde (Askari, ‘Mirror’). The Ferec also contains tales found in Persian collections such the mid-sixth-century AH/mid-twelfth-century CE Sindbād-nāma and the Ṭūṭī-nāma, which was completed in 730 AH/1329–1330 CE (Marzolph, ‘Relief,’ 13-15). There are also number of corresponding tales in the Arabic collection of 1001 Nights. The Ottoman Turkish collection formed the basis of the French author François Pétis de la Croix (1653–1713 CE)’s adapted translation, titled Les mille et un jours: Contes persans ('1001 Days') and published in 1710–1712 CE (For more, see Marzolph, Relief after Hardship).

In the present manuscript the text is preceded by an original table of contents (ff 1r-3r), carefully inscribed by the copyist in a larger hand than the text of the work. A few folios are later replacements.

Begins:

(Hikâyet-i evvel) Ez-an Ebu’l-Kasım ve Emir-i Basra ve Ebu’l-Feth ‘Ukala-yı kühen ve nukala-yı sühen eyle rivayet ettiler kim, çün nevbet-i hilafet Harun er-Reşid’e yitişti. Mesned-i hilafet onunlar /s/ araste ve piraste oldu.

Ends:

Bi-hesab nimetler-ila vezaretten ve ku[d]attan müstağni düştüler kuyu el-maâni alup hoş-vakit oldular Ahir öldüler ve bu hikâyet onlardan yadigâr kaldı, Yadigâr kodular rahmet bu kitabın müellifina ve kâtibina ve ḳari’inạ ve sami‘ina ve sahibina ve müminine ve müminata

The colophon on f 289v states the present copy was based on a copy written by Fazlullah Şirazi, dated 6 Şevval 928 AH/29 August 1522 CE, which he claimed to have completed in 16 days. The present copy is itself undated, but is likely from around the 11th century AH/17th century CE.