Sloane MS 3583

This volume contains a tabular version of the Tuhfe-yi Şahidi, a well-known versified Persian-Ottoman Turkish vocabulary composed in 920 AH (1514-15 CE) by Şahidi, who died in 957 AH (1550-51 CE). The formatting of the text and addition of Arabic equivalents was completed by Al-Ḥājj Mūsá al-Sharafī ibn Al-Ḥājj Ḥasan al-ᶜabbasī, who finished the work in Muharrem 1117 AH (May 1705 CE).

Mevlana Şahidi, or Şahidi Dede, whose given name was İbrahim, was born in Muğla in the province of Menteşe and entered, like his father Hodayi Dede, the Mevlevi order. He left, apart from the current work, a treatise on prosody and a poetical expansion of the Mesnevi of 600 lines entitled Gulshan-i Tavḥīd.

The words are taken in the order in which they occur in the Tuhfe, and arranged in three columns, containing, from right to left, Ottoman Turkish, Persian, and Arabic. Latin renderings have been added, in a fourth column to the left, by Sulaymān al-Aswad (Salomon Negri), who writes on the first page: "Vocabularium Turcico-Persicum metrice conscriptum. Singulas voces, secudum ordinem carminum, Arabice fecit Elhag Mousa filius Hassan Elabbasi, qui tum opera sua merebatur apud Marchionem De Feriol, Regis Galliarum ad Portam Othomannicam Legatum, Anno Heg. 1117. Salomon Negri emendavit et Latinam interpreationem addidit… Anno Christi 1704. Constantinopoli."

The manuscript was thus copied by both Al-Ḥājj Mūsá al-Sharafī ibn Al-Ḥājj Ḥasan al-ᶜabbasī and Sulaymān al-Aswad (Salomon Negri) in Istanbul in 1704 CE.