Project News
Prof. Andrew Peacock
Persian manuscript collections are held not just by major libraries but scattered in provincial collections, including those of stately homes. Here we investigate one of these little known collections, the Dunimarle Collection in Duff House, Banff.
Ali Shapouran
Having a long history since the 16th century, the Carberry Tower was passed into the Elphinstone family in 1801 and was redesigned by the 15th Lord Elphinstone, William after 1861 when he succeeded to the estate.
Ali Shapouran
Khwāja Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī (d.672/1274) hardly needs any introduction. An influential political figure during the early Ilkhanid period, Naṣīr al-Dīn was a philosopher in the medieval sense of the word
Dr. Ursula Sims-Williams
On Friday 3rd November, the British Institute of Persian Studies’ Flagship Research Project, held an informal workshop, “Persian Manuscripts between East and West: Britain, India and the Circulation of the Persianate Literary Heritage,” hosted by the Ancient India and Iran Trust, Cambridge.
Ṭahmās Khān (d. 1217/1802) was born in Anatolia but was captured in his infancy by Nādir Shāh’s Uzbak troops and subsequently taken to India. After serving under Muʿīn al-Mulk (d.1167/1753-4), a viceroy (ṣūba-dār) in Lahore, he joined Aḥmad Shāh Durrānī (r. 1747-73), was promoted to a ‘khān’ by him, and then moved to Delhi and served as a warlord in Mughal army.
BL Delhi Persian 1241 is a composite codex, comprising two manuscripts, one of which itself contains two works. All three works are commentaries on Persian poetry, composed by Abū al-Ḥasan Ḥusaynī Farāhānī (active in the early-17th century). Delhi Persian 1241a is an otherwise unknown work, ʿAvānis al-Fikr va Majālis al-Ẕikr, a commentary on Khāqānī Shirvānī’s Hajj travelogue, the Tuḥfat al-ʿIrāqayn. 1241b1 and 1241b2 are commentaries on Anvarī Abīvardī’s odes (qaṣāyid) and stanzas (muqaṭṭaʿāt). The manuscript has a seal with the name Muḥammad Ṣadr al-Dīn, dated 1230/1814-5.
Scotland has a proud tradition of university education. Whereas by the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 England only hosted the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, Scotland boasted five of its own despite its small size.
The Islamic manuscript collections of the University of Aberdeen are comparatively small by the standards of historic British Universities and, perhaps due to the city’s isolated location within the country, have been largely overlooked by scholars. The history of the institution has also likely inhibited research…
The origins of the British Library’s Delhi collection have been a matter of scholarly debate. On the one hand, some scholars believe it represents to a substantial extent the remnants of the Mughal imperial library, confiscated by the British in 1857.
