English: QADI NASIR AL-DIN ABU SA'ID 'ABDULLAH BAYDAWI: KITAB NIZAM AL-TAWARIKH

PROBABLY TABRIZ, SAFAVID IRAN, 16TH CENTURY

On history, Persian manuscript on paper, 116ff. each with 15ll. of black nasta'liq script, important words and phrases picked out in gold or blue, headings in blue naskh script and sometimes in gold outlined panels, opening folio with gold and polychrome illuminated headpiece, first bifolio with text in clouds reserved against gold ground with polychrome leafy illumination, trimmed, some waterstaining, in tan morocco with stamped medallions and spandrels Text panel 7 7/8 x 4in. (20 x 10.3cm.); folio 10 7/16 x 6in. (26.5 x 16.5cm.)

The manuscript has a preface in which the author's name is given as Qadi Nasir al-Din Abu Sa'id 'Abdullah Baydawi. It is said that he wrote the text on 21 Muharram AH 674/17 July 1275 AD. Baydawi, a celebrated scholar and judge of the 13th century is recorded as having added more details on celebrated men up to the year AH 694/1294-5 AD. This manuscript, however, is interesting in that it includes details on men up to the year AH 911/1506 AD, when the Timurid ruler of Khorassan Sultan Husayn Bayqara died. The preface also mentions that the appendix was commissioned by the Minister Majd al-Din Muhammad, who must have been Minister to Sultan Husayn Bayqara (AH 875-911/1470-1506 AD). The last section of the manuscript includes two benedictory couplets for the Safavid ruler Shah Isma'il and gives his accession date of AH 907/1501 AD.

The present manuscript was in the possession of a Qajar official with the name Fath 'Ali, who accompanied Prince Nasir al-Din from Tabriz to Tehran in AH 1264 and wrote the note in Dhu al-Hijja AH 1264/November 1848 AD.