Asian and African studies blog

The depiction of the Nativity in the Gospel of Luke. (Gospels. Egypt, 1663. Or 1316, f 117r)

Many of us at the British Library are returning from continuous, or not-so-continuous, holiday breaks. For our colleagues and friends who belong to Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches, however, the celebration is just about to begin. 7 January is the Gregorian date of Christmas feasts for many such denominations (6 January for the Armenian Apostolic Church, and 25 December for some Syriac Orthodox Churches). This is actually 25 December, but according to the Julian calendar. To mark this feast, I’ve put together some images of the Nativity and following events from two Coptic Bibles cared for by the Library, Or 1316 and Or 1317.

One of the joys of working with the Library’s collection is the opportunity to meet many different researchers and scholars. In the last two years, it is through such individuals that I have had the great pleasure of learning more about our Coptic and Christian Arabic manuscripts and their artwork. Dr. Miriam Hjälm of St. Ignatios College, for example, has been gracious in sharing with us her catalogue records of the Library’s Christian Arabic Bibles and theological tracts, soon to be published as a physical book (she wrote a blog about her project in 2020). Dr. Heather Badamo of UCSB, whose book Saint George Between Empires makes very clear the interaction of Christian artistic traditions across the Eastern Mediterranean, was very forthcoming in introducing me to the beautiful evidence of the Coptic Renaissance in our collection. And His Grace Archbishop Angaelos of the Coptic Orthodox Church in London helped me to grasp – with great patience and understanding – the profound connections between forms of manuscripts, texts, colours, decorations and the foundational beliefs and practices of the Church. To them, and many others, I am exceptionally grateful for their support.

The Apostle Mark, founder of the Coptic Orthodox Church, pictured writing his Gospel in Arabic. (Gospels. Egypt, 1663. Or 1316, f 67v)

As His Grace Archbishop Angaelos writes in Studies in Coptic Culture, ‘the Coptic Orthodox Church is one of the most ancient churches in the world, founded in the first century in Egypt by St. Mark the Apostle.’ As a religious institution with a long and venerable tradition, it is only to be expected that the visual, rhetorical and musical arts of the Coptic faithful bear witness to great creativity and change. Sometimes internal dynamics have induced these, and other times dialogue with external traditions has been a motor of change. In this post, I will turn to two illustrated Gospels that highlight the evolution of Coptic art during the Ottoman period, a time of increasing contact with Western European traditions.

Both Or 1316 and Or 1317 are Copto-Arabic New Testaments acquired by the British Museum in 1875 from Sir Charles A. Murray, the British Consul-General in Egypt between 1846 and 1853. Murray is a well-known figure for those who make use of the Library’s Arabic and Persian holdings. During his time in Cairo, he was particularly keen on collecting Christian materials, which, evidently, included Coptic and Copto-Arabic works.

The opening of the Gospel of Matthew with its frontispiece. (Gospels. Egypt, 1663. Or 1316, f 3r)

Or 1316 is dated 1379 Anno Martyrum (the Coptic Church, having suffered a great number of martyrdoms under the reign of Emperor Diocletian, begins its calendar in 284 CE, the first year of his reign), or 1663 CE. The description of this work is far longer in Rieu’s Supplement to the Catalogue of the Arabic manuscripts in the British Museum than in Crum’s Catalogue of the Coptic manuscripts in the British Museum, where the latter describes the illustrations in the work as ‘gaudily coloured and gilded.’ From Rieu’s description, we learn that Abū’l-munā ibn Nasīm al-Naqqāsh not only copied the volume, but that he also drew the images based on European and Indian copies (‘من نسخ افرنجي وهندي’).

The richly embroidered cover of Or 1317. (Gospels. Egypt, 1814. Or 1317) 

Or 1317 is a later copy of the Gospels, completed on 13 Tot 1531 AM (22 September 1814 CE), containing a complete text of the New Testament. This work does not include the name of the copyist or the illustrator, but it does have beautifully embroidered covers featuring silver threads and gold frames, a reminder that decoration and embellishment of manuscripts need not be a matter for calligraphers and painters alone. Crum calls the illustrations here ‘rough,’ but he does highlight that the work contains ‘the signature of Peter, the 109^th patriarch.’

The dedication page, or waqf statement, found at the end of the manuscript. (Gospels. Egypt, 1814. Or 1317, f 410v) 

Both Or 1316 and Or 1317 contain information about their ownership in Egypt itself. The former was gifted by al-Mu’allim [Cantor] Luṭf Allāh Abū Yūsuf to the Church of Our Lady and St. George in 1449 AM (1733 CE), and above the illustrations we see short statements of the waqfiyah: “وقف على بيعة الست السيدة بحارة الروم السفلي” or “وقف على كنيسة الست السيدة وماري جرجس بحارة الروم عوض يا رب من له تعب”. Or 1317 ‘was gifted by Petrus Archiereus to the Patriarch’s seat’ in 1532 AM (1816 CE). Rieu’s transcription of the dedication fails to mention its continuation, which condemns anyone who removes the volume from its waqf – presumably Murray as well as the seller – to eternal exclusion from God’s grace (‘وكلمن اخرجه يكون محروم مقطوع بكلمة الله ولا يكون له خلاص لا في هذه الدنيا ولا في الاخرى’); a similar formula is found in Or 1316. Hany N. Takla of the St. Shenouda the Archimandrite Coptic Society has explored why such dispersals might have occurred from the Monastery of St. Antony (including Or 1001, Or 1319 and Or 1325, the latter two acquired from Murray) in his chapter ‘The Manuscripts of the Monastery of St. Antony Preserved Abroad.’ Many of these reasons give us ample food for thought about the motivation for Or 1316 and Or 1317’s separation from their places of dedication.

But we are getting away from the main purpose of this post: images of the story of Jesus’ birth. Both volumes contain pictorial accounts of the Annunciation; Mary’s visit to her cousin Elizabeth (the mother of John the Baptist); the visit of the Magi; and Jesus' presentation in the Temple. Unlike the printed Armenian Gospels featured two weeks ago, there are no images of Jesus’ circumcision. As the birth of Jesus is mentioned in both the Gospel of Matthew (1:16-2:23) and Luke (Chapters 1:26-2:40), multiple opportunities present themselves to any illustrator of the story.

The Archangel Gabriel visits the Virgin Mary with tidings of her impending miraculous pregnancy. (Gospels. Egypt, 1663. Or 1316, f 114v)

Or 1316 starts with the above image of the Archangel Gabriel appearing to the Virgin in the Gospel of Luke. The Holy Messenger is informing her that she will bear the Son of God; the Holy Spirit, a dove, is bright and shining at the top of the composition. Rieu and Crum might not have thought such images worthy of praise for their artistry, but I find it filled with the light and joy represented by Gabriel’s message.

Gabriel visits Mary to inform her of Jesus' impending birth. (Gospels. Egypt, 1814. Or 1317, f 205v)

It's interesting to note that Mary is depicted in red robes in Or 1316, the earlier of the two manuscripts, while she wears her more familiar blue robes elsewhere in the volume. These are visible in the depiction of the Annunciation in Or 1317 (Gospel of Matthew). Here, similar to the earlier work, the Archangel bears flowers for the Virgin, who does not have a book open. As I've learned from Dr. Alin Suciu's informative posts, the portrayal of Mary reading during the Annunciation is a element of Western Christian imagery absent from most Orthodox iconography. The painter’s technique does not embrace the depiction of depth and facial expression common in Coptic icons, but they do manage to convey the positivity of the Annunciation, as well as the serenity with which Mary accepts this unfathomable news.

Mary embraces her cousin Elizabeth, both pregnant through Divine intervention. (Gospels. Egypt, 1663. Or 1316, f 115r)

Both volumes depict Mary’s meeting with her cousin Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist and another female figure whose pregnancy, while not virginal, is announced by Gabriel. The episode is one in which Mary’s embrace of Elizabeth fills her with the Holy Spirit. Such good tidings are again communicated in the warmth of the hug in Or 1317 and Elizabeth’s kiss on Mary’s cheek in Or 1316. Although the illustration in the latter work is partially damaged, it’s very easy to see the composer’s use of grids and colour intensity rather than highlighting to denote depth.

Mary and her cousin Elizabeth embrace. (Gospels. Egypt, 1814. Or 1317, f 207r)

One of the women’s robes in this composition in Or 1317 is green and the other's is burgundy; while Mary's clothing in Or 1316 is shades of burgundy with gold highlights. Colours in Coptic iconography hold deeper meanings (as they do in most religious art). Traditionally, the use of green in Orthodox iconography denotes 'where life begins (for example, in the scenes of the Nativity of Jesus Christ and the Annunciation),' as explained on Russian Icon. Dr. Helen Moussa of the Canadian Society for Coptic Studies, making use of the scholarship of 20th century painter Isaac Fannous, has provided a brief look at how such ideas continued or transformed for the neo-Coptic icon painters of the last century. While anachronistic to apply to Or 1316 and Or 1317, they do provide an interesting counterpoint to traditional interpretations. Blue is Mary’s colour, as it represents ‘the sky’ and alludes to Mary’s denomination as the ‘Second Heaven.’ ‘Red is the color of blood, … and of the humanity and glory of Christ.’ Green, however, has a complicated representation for neo-Coptic painters, signifying both evildoers (Satan, Judas) as well as life, largely vegetal, as explained above.

The arrival of the Magi in the Gospel of Matthew, along with servants. (Gospels. Egypt, 1663. Or 1316, f 5r)

Or 1316 includes an image of the manger featuring Mary, Joseph and the baby Christ only (with, presumably, the shepherds in the far background, and animals close at hand) in the Gospel of Luke (at the start of this blog), while the Gospel of Matthew includes a more complex and richly coloured composition. Here, Mary, wearing green, with Joseph behind her, presents Baby Jesus as he grasps at one of the gifts borne by the Magi. Two of them have faces of silver and are followed by a servant (?) in green robes. On the far left of the scene are two armed servants of the Magi. The composition is fascinating for the contrast it provides with the one at the start of the post. Depth here is denoted with highlighting, as in icons, as well as with more intensive colours. But the architecture of the manger, the golden lamps, and the clothing of the personalities are all more reminiscent of West Asian works than Renaissance European ones (like the images in the Gospel of Luke). Was the ‘Indian’ source actually a West Asian manuscript?

Mary and Joseph, along with the Infant Jesus and the Midwife. (Gospels. Egypt, 1814. Or 1317, f 211v)

Or 1317 holds two images of births, but only one of these is of Jesus. The Gospel of Luke contains a pictorial account of John the Baptist’s birth and of his father, Zechariah, asking for something on which to write John’s name, thereby releasing Zechariah from his speechlessness (Luke 1:62-64). The Nativity itself is found two folios later. Here, the Magi do not feature, and it is just Mary (clothed in blue), Joseph, the Infant Jesus and the Midwife present at Jesus’ birth. Two angels peer down at the infant as a beam of light descends to him from a star. Although the Arabic text states that the family is in a manger (مذود), because of a lack of space in the inn (مبيت), a lack of any sort of architectural elements makes it difficult to determine where this scene might have taken place, were it not for the description.

Jesus presented to Simeon in the Temple. (Gospels. Egypt, 1814. Or 1317, f 212r)

Both works contain a painting of the presentation of Jesus in the temple. Or 1317 shows the scene with parents to the left and Saint Simeon reaching out to the Christ child on the right. The episode is identifiable not only by the text around it, but by also by the two turtle doves craning their necks in Joseph’s arms. Jesus looks somewhat larger than a 40-day old infant. What is evident, despite the minimalist detail of the faces, is Simeon’s peace and happiness, having been told by God that he would not die before meeting the Lord’s Messiah (Luke 2:25-34).

The presentation of Jesus, 'according to Moses' law,' before Simeon, a Priest, and two boys. (Gospels. Egypt, 1663. Or 1316, f 118v)

In Or 1316, the composition is far more complex, with Mary back in burgundy and pink robes. Here she presents Jesus to a larger group, including Simeon as well as the Priest at the Temple flanked by two young men bearing tapers. It’s interesting to note that there are similarities to the depiction of the circumcision in the Armenian Gospels mentioned above, which included imagery and elements more familiar to Western European illustrations of the presentation/circumcision than Orthodox ones.

Jesus, Mary, Joseph and Salome flee for Egypt at the top of the page, while the bottom represents the massacre of the innocents. (Gospels. Egypt, 1663. Or 1316, f 5v)

In addition to Jesus’ presentation, Or 1316 provides us with one final illustration from Jesus' childhood: Mary (again in blue) and Jesus atop a donkey on the road from Bethlehem to Egypt, accompanied by Joseph and Salome, fleeing Herod’s threat to murder the newborn Saviour. This is once again from the Gospel of Matthew and the buildings in the background bear clear affinities with Byzantine-style churches. This would, of course, make sense: an anachronistic mapping of pre-Ottoman, or even pre-Mamluk Christian West Asia onto the life of Jesus. But it points, once again, to the idea that the artist’s source was not Indian, but rather from somewhere closer afield.

Those who are eagle-eyed might have noticed Arabic inscriptions on the images in Or 1316. It isn’t uncommon to see illustrated Gospel manuscripts from West Asia and Egypt where there are little crib notes to help the uninitiated identify images associated with the various actors in Gospel episodes. Although the Coptic text clearly has pride of place in the manuscripts, these guides were necessarily done in Arabic, which had largely replaced Coptic as a language of daily life by the second millennium.

Rieu and Crum might have been dismissive of the quality of the images, but such criticism is unfair. There are myriad reasons why these might not have been mirrors of the height of icon production or of the work of Italian Renaissance painters, the cost of artists and materials among them. But, in the end, they do their job. They communicate, in their own ways, the emotion and spiritual joy of the Nativity. And with it, we wish all those who celebrate كل سنة وانتم طيبون!

Dr. Michael Erdman, Head, Middle East and Central Asia

Further Reading

Angaelos, H.G., ‘The Coptic Orthodox Church: A Historical Perspective in the Modern-day World,’ in ed. Mariam Ayad, Studies in Coptic Culture: Transmission and Interaction (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2016), pp. xi-xii. (YP.2020.a.2464)

Armanios, Febe, Coptic Christianity in Ottoman Egypt (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011). (YC.2011.a.5099)

Ayad, Mariam G., ed. Coptic Culture: Past, Present and Future (Stevenage, UK: Coptic Orthodox Church Centre, 2012). (YP.2013.b.294)

Ayad, Mariam G., ‘Introduction,’ in ed. Mariam Ayad, Studies in Coptic Culture: Transmission and Interaction (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2016), pp. 1-9. (YP.2020.a.2464)

Badamo, Heather, Saint George between empires: image and encounter in the medieval East (Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2023).

Farag, Lois M., ed., The Coptic Christian Heritage: History, Faith and Culture (New York: Routledge, 2014). (YC.2014.a.2834)

Guirguis, Magdi, An Armenian Artist in Ottoman Cairo: Yuhanna al-Armani and His Coptic Icons (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2008). (m09/.10083)

Kashouh, Hikmat, The Arabic Versions of the Gospels: The Manuscripts and their Families (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011).

Moussa, Helene, ‘Coptic Icons: Expressions of Social Agency and Coptic Identity,’ in ed. Mariam Ayad, Studies in Coptic Culture: Transmission and Interaction (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2016), pp. 155-172. (YP.2020.a.2464)

Takla, Hany N., ‘The Manuscripts of the Monastery of St. Antony Preserved Abroad,’ in ed. Gawdat Gabra, Christianity and Monasticism in Alexandria and the Egyptian Deserts (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2020).

‘Passports and Identity Documents in the Hands of Artists’ is a new single-case display in the British Library’s Sir John Ritblat Treasures gallery. It highlights artists, photographers, designers and arts activists from Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Turkey and Iran who, through artists’ books and artist-led publications, zines, photobooks and print ephemera, have reworked the concept, materiality and function of passports and other bureaucratic documents.

(Left to right) Sorry for Not Attending by Jana Traboulsi (2013) (ORB.30/8742); Hususi Pasaport by Gözde İlkin (2009).
© Jana Traboulsi and Gözde İlkin

Jana Traboulsi’s Sorry for Not Attending (2013) first drew my attention to this theme when I visited the Beirut book-art atelier Plan BEY in 2018. Traboulsi, a Lebanese visual artist, graphic designer and educator, was invited to participate in the ‘No Souls for Sale’ festival at the Tate Modern in London in May 2010. Due to a visa system that restricts Lebanese citizens from travelling easily to the UK, she was unable to attend. In response, she produced an artist’s book entitled Sorry for Not Attending that uses the format of the passport as a critical commentary on not being able to attend one’s own exhibition. Reproducing passport pages, real excerpts of visa applications, maps, stamps, drawings and stickers, she highlights four places—Europe, the United States of America, Palestine, the Asteroid B612—where it is difficult or impossible for a Lebanese passport holder to travel.

Examining the design politics of the passport, Mahmoud Keshavarz writes: “[T]he passport is not neutral but a real and powerful device with its own specific history, design, and politics, mediating moments through which socially constructed power relations can be enacted and performed.” He notes that just as passports “mediate experiences of moving, residing, and, consequently, acting in the world” they can also be “remediated” through cultural and artistic works. He writes: “These works, through acknowledging the brutality of the passport as a system of control, deception, and regulation, try to open this banal booklet and redirect it as an object of thinking, imagination, and memory with the hope of reworking the hegemonic narrative prescribed to them.”

(Left to right) Jawāz Safarī lil-Qirāʼah [My Reading Passport] by al-Jana Arab Resource Center for Popular Arts (c. 2000s) (ORB.30/9506); Leave to Remain: a Single Syrian Grain, Airbourn by Issam Kourbaj (2023) (ORB.30/9576).
© al-Jana Arab Resource Center for Popular Arts and Issam Kourbaj

Thinking together with Keshavarz and Traboulsi’s Sorry for Not Attending, I began to notice other artists who have creatively embarked on a similar process of remediation, using passports and other bureaucratic documents to explore themes of state control, mobility, displacement, exile, memory and identity. A selection of these works, together with Sorry for Not Attending, are included in ‘Passports and Identity Documents in the Hands of Artists’.

‘Passports and Identity Documents in the Hands of Artists’ display installed in the British Library’s Sir John Ritblat Treasures gallery
© Daniel Lowe

Istanbul-based artist Gözde İlkin’s Hususi Pasaport (2009) reflects on political borders referencing the Turkish "Green Passport." Palestinian photographer and graphic designer Majdi Hadid, in his contribution for the Subjective Atlas of Palestine (2007), enumerates the many documents required to travel under Israeli occupation. Jawāz Safarī lil-Qirāʼah [My Reading Passport] (c. 2000s), produced by al-Jana Arab Resource Center for Popular Arts, mimics a visa system as a tool to encourage reading and literacy for Palestinian children living as refugees in Lebanon. Cambridge-based artist Issam Kourbaj's Leave to Remain: a Single Syrian Grain, Airbourn (2023) draws on his own expired Syrian passport, while Adnan Farzat's Forgotten Moments (2020) uses a passport-like format to evoke his memories of Syria that are being slowly erased by time and conflict. Iranian-born artists Batool Showghi and Amak Mahmoodian in The Immigrant Book, No. 3 (2018) and Shenasnameh (2016) draw upon bureaucratic documents to show how identity is defined and fragmented.

Daniel Lowe, Curator, Arabic Collections

Further reading:

Gharbieh, Ahmad. “You Can’t Get There from Here: Notes on the New Lebanese Passport Design.” Journal Safar, vol. 3, 2017. (ZP.9.a.894)

Keshavarz, Mahmoud. The Design Politics of the Passport: Materiality, Immobility, and Dissent. London: Bloomsbury, 2019. (YC.2019.a.5851 and ELD.DS.346541)

Keshavarz, Mahmoud, and Ayla Kekhia. “The Design Politics of Passports: Materiality, Immobility, and Dissent.” Journal Safar, vol. 5, 2020. (ZP.9.a.894)

This blog post is written by Susan Harris, our Cataloguer of Photographs, working on the British Library’s Unlocking Hidden Collections project. This initiative aims to process, research and catalogue the Library’s hidden collections, making them more accessible to researchers and the public.

In May 2023, the descendants of amateur photographer Joseph Gaye (1852-1926) donated a collection of photographic material of his views of the Kathmandu Valley and India taken between 1888 and 1899 to the British Library. Joseph's descendant Mary-Margaret Gaye and her husband Doug Halverson spent many years researching Joseph's career in South Asia and identification of his views. We are most grateful to Mary-Margaret and Doug for making this collection available for researchers documenting the transformation of Kathmandu before the earthquake of 1934. Their publication is listed in the bibliography below.

Joseph Gaye was born in Northfleet, Kent, in 1852. At 18, he enlisted with the 4th Battalion of the Rifle Brigade and went to India as a rifleman in 1873. Gaye left the army after completing his 12-year enlistment term in 1882 to lead several Indian military bands. In 1888, he, with his wife, Mary Elizabeth Short, moved to Kathmandu, Nepal, where he served as bandmaster to the Royal Nepalese Army under Maharaja Bir Shumsher Jung Bahadur Rana. In 1892, he became a bandmaster in turn to three viceroys of India (Marquess of Lansdowne, Earl of Elgin, and Lord Curzon of Kedleston) before returning to England in 1899. In 1905, Gaye and his four sons moved to Canada, where he died in 1926 in Lemberg, Canada. From 1888 to 1899, he produced photographs of Nepal’s Kathmandu Valley, Burma and India; these were among his possessions, along with a large studio camera, at the time of his death.

The Joseph Gaye collection is an exciting addition to the British Library, containing 91 glass negatives, five cellulose negatives and 32 albumen prints, primarily of the Kathmandu Valley, with a few from India. The subjects vary from architecture and landscapes to street scenes and people, including portraits of his family. Gaye’s photographs provided a unique insight at a time when few foreigners were allowed into Nepal.

Here are a few highlights from the collection of Nepal’s architectural monuments, some that remain today and others that have disappeared due to natural disasters or urban development:

A crowd of curious onlookers gathered before a building on the southwest corner of the Hanuman Dhoka Darbar complex in Kathmandu Durbar Square (fig.1). The building, from 1847, was the original Gaddhi Baithak, a palace used for coronations and for meeting foreign heads of state. It was in the Newar style with influences from the Mughal architecture of northern India. A western façade, as seen in the photograph, was probably added later. Prime Minister Chandra Shumsher Jung Bahadur Rana (1863-1929) of Nepal,  replaced it in 1908 with the neo-classical building that exists today.

Fig.1. A crowd in front of the western facade of the original Gaddhi Baithak, Basantapur Durbar Square, Kathmandu. Taken by Joseph Gaye, 1888-1892. Albumen Print, 155 x 105 mm. British Library, Photo 1424/3(17).

Patan Durbar Square, in the city of Lalitpur, is one of the three Durbar Squares in the Kathmandu Valley; it has been through two significant earthquakes in 1934 and 2015. Gaye capture the square before these earthquakes, looking south, towards a crowd of observers and a line of temples and statues (fig.2). John Alexander Dunn, an Officer of the Geological Survey of India (GSI), also took a photograph (fig.3) of the square, looking north, after the 1934 earthquake. The only recognizable landmarks still standing are the statue of Garuda, the Krishna Mandir and the Vishwanath Temple with the elephants in front.

Fig.2. View of the Patan Durbar Square, Lalitpur, looking south. From the left: Krisnhna Mandir Temple (Chayasim Deval), the Taleju Bell, the Harishankar Temple, King Yoga Narendra Malla’s Column, Narasimha Temple, Vishnu Temple, Char Narayan Temple, Garuda statue, the Krishna Mandir and the Vishvanath Temple. Taken by Joseph Gaye, 1888-1892. Albumen Print, 155 x 105 mm. British Library, Photo 1424/3(8).

Fig.3. Darbar Square, Patan, Nepal [after the 1934 earthquake]. Taken by J.A. Dunn, January 1934. Albumen Print, 83 x 111 mm. British Library, Photo 899/2(4).

Gaye captured a winding pathway on the eastern flank, leading up to Swayambhu, an ancient religious site of temples and shrines at the top of a hill in the Kathmandu Valley (fig.4). The photograph shows a pair of Buddha statues marking the beginning of the path, with small chaityas, or shrines, dotted along the route. A photograph (EAP838/1/1/5/154) taken approximately 30 years later from the Chitrakar collection by Dirgha Man and Ganesh Man Chitraker shows a stairway with refurbished Buddhas and chaityas at the entrance that has replaced the pathway. 

Fig.4. Steps up to Temples [Swayambhu Stupa, Kathmandu Valley]. Taken by Joseph Gaye, 1888-1892. Dry Plate Negative. British Library, Photo 1424/1(67).

Further reading:

British Library’s The Endangered Archives Programme

Gaye, Mary Margaret and Halverson, Doug, The Photography of Joseph Gaye: Nepal, India and Burma 1888-1899, (privately printed) Canada: Mary Margaret Gaye and Doug Halverson, 2023

Onta, Pratyoush. ‘A Suggestive History of the First Century of Photographic Consumption in Kathmandu’, Studies in Nepali History and Society, Vol. 3, No. 1 (June 1998), pp.181-212

Slusser, Mary Shepherd, Nepal Mandala: A Cultural Study of the Kathmandu Valley, Volume 1 Text, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982

Weise, Kai, ‘An outlook of Gaddhi Baithak’, The Himalayan Times, 2 April 2016 

By Susan M. Harris

When first published in 1783, The History of Sumatra by William Marsden represented the first systematic account of the island of Sumatra published in English or any other European language. The History (henceforth) was highly praised by contemporary scholars and writers and secured Marsden’s reputation as an author, linguist and collector, a reputation that continues to the present day.

Born in 1754 in County Wicklow, Ireland, Marsden was raised in a moderately wealthy family and at the age of 16 joined his elder brother in the service of the English East India Company (EIC henceforth) at Fort Marlborough, now Benkulu, in western Sumatra, Indonesia, as a writer. Marsden remained in Sumatra for 8 years, rising to the rank of Principle Secretary to the EIC Government but resigned from his post aged 24 and returned to London in December 1780, where he pursued a career as an author scholar and later as the First Secretary to the Admiralty (1804-1807).

During his time in Sumatra however, Marsden not only fulfilled his role for the EIC but became an avid collector and documented of the island’s languages, fauna and flora – all of which came to underpin the contents of the History with its chapters of ‘beasts’, ‘vegetables’, ‘medicinal shrubs’, ‘gold, tin and other metals’ and ‘languages’ to name just a few.  

The success of the 1783 first edition was such that a second edition quickly followed in 1784, at the same time in which Marsden was firmly establishing himself in London’s networks of science and learning, following his appointment as a fellow of the Royal Society (1783) and the Society of Antiquaries (1785). Marsden continued to write and publish following the second edition of the History, including a Dictionary and Grammar of the Malayan Language (both 1812), a translation of The Travels of Marco Polo (1818) and Numismata Orientalia Illustrata (1823-5) one of the most influential early publications on Asian coinage produced in Britain and Europe. These works illustrated the broad range of subjects - from linguistics to coins to travel accounts that interested Marsden following his return from Sumatra. The History was also translated into German (1785) and French (1788) however Marsden was keen to prepare a new edition of the History, updated with new information and illustrations acquired from his friends and connections still in Sumatra. It would be this updated version, the third edition of 1811 with an additional 100 pages of text and 19 plates containing 27 engraved illustrations of the plants, animals, people, tools and landscapes of Sumatra. Of the 27 illustrations, twelve record different animals found in Sumatra that are described in the main text of the History. What is interesting is that all but one of the illustrations of animals in the History were based on watercolour paintings and pen and ink studies now held in the Visual Art collections of the British Library.

These original works include a study of a Sunda or Malayan pangolin, shown standing in profile on an outcrop of rock, with its coat of scales clearly delineated. This watercolour with pen and ink sketch was used as the basis for plate 10 of the History, and although the original painting is not signed, according to the engraving, the work was made by ‘W. Bell’ believed to have been Dr William Bell, a Company surgeon based in Sumatra in 1792.

Plate 10 from The History of Sumatra, 3^rd edition, 1811, showing a Sunda pangolin and the original watercolour with pen and ink sketch, NHD1/16, 1784-1808

The original paintings for other works labelled as being the work of ‘W. Bell’ in the History are also found in the Library’s collection of natural history drawings, including pen and ink studies of the skull of a serow, a mammal similar to a goat or antelope and a muntjac skull, also known as barking deer.

Plate 13 no.2 from The History of Sumatra, 3^rd edition, 1811, showing the skull of a ‘Kambin-utan and a Kijang’ alongside the original ink drawings; above NHD1/11; Below NHD1/10, 1784-1808

The details of bone, horns, fractures and teeth of both of these sketches has been carefully copied onto a single plate by the Flemish engraver Anthony Cardon (1772-1813) who engraved all of the animal illustrations in the History.

Whilst the work of ‘W. Bell’ is used for 6 of the animal illustrations in the History, a second artist’s work is also included. This artist is unnamed by Marsden in the History, their work simply signed ‘Sinensis del.’ indicating that the work was the creation of an artist from China. This includes a rather stunning double page engraving of a flying lemur hanging from the branch of a langsat tree, holding an infant on its body whilst two giant squirrels sit and climb on the other end of the branch eating the fruit of the tree.

The original painting for these engraving has at some point become divided into two pages – with the squirrels on one page and the lemur and young on another. However the tip of one of the squirrel’s tails continuing across onto the second page indicates that at one point these two separate pages were once joined or at least were meant to be viewed together as shown in the engraved illustration. The original painting is faithfully reproduced in reverse in the engraving, including the botanical details of the interior of the langsat fruit shown in the lower right of the page.

Plate 9 from The History of Sumatra, 3^rd edition, 1811, showing a flying lemur hanging from a branch with two giant squirrels other the other end, alongside the original watercolour paintings; left NHD2/285; right NHD1/18, 1784-1808

Other works by a Chinese artist include a detailed study of a long tailed porcupine and a pair of greater mousedeer (also known as greater chevrotain) that are both painted without any background or surrounding details. Nonspecific landscapes have however been added to the engraved plates in a style similar to those included in the original works by ‘W. Bell’.

Plate 13 no.1 from The History of Sumatra, 3^rd edition, 1811, showing a long tailed porcupine, alongside the original watercolour painting, NHD1/17, 1784-1808

Plate 12 no.1 from The History of Sumatra, 3^rd edition, 1811, showing a greater mouse deer, alongside the original watercolour painting, NHD1/18, 1784-1808

 A hand written pencil note on the painting of the greater mouse-deer indicates the small scale of these animals and states that they should not be shown too large on the resulting plate to ensure this diminutive nature is accurately reflected in the published work.

The majority of the animal illustrated in the History show mammals, however there is one image of a reptile – a study of a common flying dragon which is also stated to be the work of a Chinese artist in the History although no signature is found on the delicate watercolour on which this engraving was based. The original watercolour shows a dorsal and ventral view of the reptile, highlighting the different colouration on the top and bottom of the common flying dragon as well as the outspread skin that allows the lizard to glide through the air.

Plate 10 no.2 from The History of Sumatra, 3^rd edition, 1811, showing a ventral and dorsal view of a common flying dragon alongside the original watercolour painting, NHD1/26, 1784-1808

A third artist, Eudelin de Jonville, is also referenced in the History’s illustrative animal plates. Although little is known about de Jonville, EIC records show that he worked as a cinnamon surveyor in Ceylon, modern day Sri Lanka, between 1798 and 1800 when he travelled with Major-General MacDowall to the Court of Kandy, where he remained until around 1805. The one work by de Jonville in the History is a set of four studies of the beaks of different species of hornbill – two illustrating the great pied hornbill, one of a Malabar pied hornbill and finally one image of a rhinoceros hornbill. As with the previously mentioned engravings, the original pencil sketches of these studies is in the Visual Arts natural history collections,  each with a scale in inches added to illustration to provide the accurate measurement of each species.  Although also unsigned the original pencil sketches is accompanied by a letter written in French by de Jonville to Marsden describing the hornbill of Sri Lanka, strengthening the attribution of this work to the artistry of de Jonville.

Plate 15 from The History of Sumatra, 3^rd edition, 1811, showing the skulls of three species of hornbill alongside the pencil sketches, NHD1/5, 1784-1808

The original paintings described above are all part of a larger collection of natural history studies collected by Marsden following his return from Sumatra in 1780. These include watercolour and pen and ink studies of fish, shells, a buffalo and several birds alongside the animals discussed above. In total 35 paintings acquired by Marsden are now in the Visual Art collections following their donation by Marsden’s widow to the EIC library after his death in 1836. The collections of the EIC library and that of the India Office Library have subsequently been transferred to the British Library, where they are now available to view in the Library’s reading rooms.

By Cam Sharp Jones, Visual Arts Curator

Further reading:

Mildred Archer, Natural History Drawings in the India Office Library, 1962.

John Bastin, The British in West Sumatra (1685-1825): a selection of documents, mainly from the East India Company records preserved in the India Office Library, Commonwealth Relations Office, London., Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya Press, 1965

Diana J. Carroll, "William Marsden, The Scholar Behind The History of Sumatra." Indonesia and the Malay World 47 (2019): 66-89.

William Marsden, The History of Sumatra: Containing an Account of the Government, Laws, Customs, and Manners of the Native Inhabitants, with a Description of the Natural Productions, and a Relation of the Ancient Political State of That Island. By William Marsden,... The Third Edition, with Corrections, Additions, and Plates. ed. 1811.

William Marsden, with introduction by John Bastin, The history of Sumatra, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986

Annabel Teh Gallop, Early Views of Indonesia: Drawings from the British Library, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1995.

Animals amaze, fascinate and delight us!

In the British Library's new exhibition Animals: Art, Science and Sound (21 April - 29 August 2023)  you can see how documenting the animals world has resulted in some of humankind's most awe-inspiring art, science and sound recordings. It can take years of research to unlock the secrets of a single species. Did you know that the first photograph of a live giant squid was published in 2005? That bats were first described as birds, and sharks referred to as dogs.

From an Ancient Greek papyrus detailing the mating habits of dogs to the earliest photographs of Antarctic animals and the mournful song of the last living Kauaʻi ʻōʻō, recorded in 1983 and declared extinct in 2000, this is the first major exhibition to explore the different ways in which animals have been written about, visualised and recorded.

The exhibition is arranged into four distinctive environments and visitors will journey through darkness, water, land and air - to encounter striking artworks, handwritten manuscripts, sound recording and printed publications that speak to contemporary debates around discovery, knowledge, conservation, climate change and extinction. Each zone also includes a bespoke, atmospheric soundscape created using recordings from the Library's sound archive.

Some of the highlights includes: 

An illustration of a fruit bat, painted at Barrackpore, India. 1804-7, British Library, NHD3/517.

An image of a 'monkfish' from Pierre Belon's De aquatilibus (Of aquatic species), Paris, 1553. British Library, 446.a.6. 

Illustration of the defects of a horse from Kitab al-baytarah (Book on Veterinary Medicine) by Abu Muhammad Ahmad ibn Atiq al-Azdi, 13th century. British Library, Or 1523, ff. 62v-63r.

An education record for children: The Hip-po-pot-a-mus. Talking Book Corporation, 1918-29. British Library, 9CS0029512.

A section of the Chuju zui (Illustrations of Animals and Insects) showing dragonflies and moths, Japan, 1851. British Library, Or 1312. 

There is a season of in-person and online events inspired by the exhibition, such asa Late at the Library with musician, composer and producer Cosmo Sheldrake hosted by musician, author and broadcaster Cerys Matthews and Animal Magic: A Night of Wild Enchantment where five speakers, including wildlife cameraman, ornithologist and Strictly Come Dancing winner Hamza Yassin and birder, environmentalist and diversity activist, Mya-Rose Craig, each have 15 minutes to tell a story. A selection of these works are included in an outdoor exhibitionaround Kings Cross.

A richly illustrated publication written by exhibition curators Malini Roy, Cam Sharp Jones and Cheryl Tipp can be purchased through the British Library's shop. The publication is supplemented with interactive QR technology allows readers to listen to sound recordings.

The exhibition is made possible with support from Getty through The Paper Project initiative and PONANT. With thanks to The American Trust for the British Library and The B.H. Breslauer Fund of the American Trust for the British Library. Audio soundscapes created by Greg Green with support from the Unlocking our Sound Heritage project, made possible by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. Scientific advice provided by ZSL (the Zoological Society of London). 

This week’s post is by guest writer Namrata B. Kanchan, PhD candidate at the University of Texas at Austin. Her dissertation examines the courtly Dakhni literary and manuscript culture between 1500 and 1700 CE.

One of the gems to emerge from the early modern Deccan manuscript corpus is a sumptuously illuminated Dakhni language qasida or panegyric poem (Or. 13533). Composed by Bijapur’s poet laureate Mullah Nusrati who was associated with the court of ‘Ali Adil Shah II’s (r. 1656-1672 CE), this work is dedicated to the Golconda Qutb Shahi, Sultan ‘Abdullah Qutb Shah (r. 1626-1672).

The opening lines of Nusrati’s qasida, Bijapur ca. 1630s? (British Library Or. 13533 ff. 3v. and 4r).

Although the text does not provide the reason for this poem’s creation, scholars surmise that it was a royal gift bestowed to the Golconda Sultan on the occasion of his sister Sultana Khadija’s wedding to Bijapur’s Sultan Muhammad ʻAdil Shah (r. 1626-1656) in 1633 (Ahmad, pp. 133-142). Continuing this Dakhni cultural legacy, the Sultana is one of the first known female patrons to commission the monumental illustrated Dakhni Khavarnamah (IO Islamic 834) completed in 1649.

Jamshid Shah with his consort and followers, Khavarnamah, Bijapur, ca. 1649, (British Library IO Islamic 834, f. 70v)

One of the premier genres of the Persianate literary cosmos (to which Bijapur and Golconda belonged), a qasida is, in essence, an encomium. Originating in Arabic literature, it was first cultivated in Persian by patrons under the Samanids (819-999) who were keen promoters of this new literary language. The genre soon became de rigeur in courts and flourished under the Ghaznavids (977-1186) during the eleventh century. One reason for its popularity in these two courts was that the poem was a paean to its patrons, predominantly newly minted rulers or nobles, who were eager to display their power and status. Additionally, this genre gained acclaim because it was beneficial for both the poet and the patron. A successful qasida sealed the poet’s relationship with a ruler and was important for social and financial success at the royal court. Furthermore, by extolling the virtues of an idealized ruler, the poem possessed a dual function. It sought to bestow immortality upon the patron and served a didactic role by guiding and encouraging the ruler to match the qualities expressed by the poet.

Apart from adulating patrons, poets composed these poems to memorialise marriages, victories, hunts, or annual feasts. The celebratory nature of the qasida meant that it was designed for performance and therefore recited in formal courtly gatherings. Not limited to Persian, this genre soon emerged in new languages across the Persianate sphere, which ultimately resulted in Nusrati’s composition of the Dakhni qasida.

In general, a single metre runs through a qasida and each hemistich terminates with the same rhyme. Yet rules for this genre, as opposed to the masnavi or the highly codified ghazal, were often not followed. In the Dakhni qasida,  Nusrati changes the rhyme scheme after a sequence of four to five couplets. 

A closer look at the manuscript reveals that no expense was spared in its creation. The gifted wordsmith Nusrati, who was a budding poet in the Bijapur court in the 1630s, was commissioned to compose the qasida. Similarly, the manuscript’s calligrapher ‘Ali ibn Naqi al-Husayni Damghani penned the encomium in elegant naskh. A Bijapuri native, ‘Ali Damghani emerged from a lineage of renowned calligraphers. His father Naqi al-Husayni was chief scribe of the calligraphic programme at Ibrahim Adil Shah II’s tomb, the Ibrahim Rauza, in Bijapur (Haider and Sarkar, p. 143).

The conclusion of Nusrati’s qasida, Bijapur ca. 1630s?  (British Library Or. 13533 f. 2v. and 3r)

This beautifully crafted manuscript commences with two dazzling shamsas or sun-shaped designs radiating from the centre of the folio. A large number of Persianate manuscripts produced for royalty opened with a shamsa, which symbolized divine light. Resembling a circular garden brimming with multi-hued floral patterns against a cream-coloured background, the identically shaped Bijapur shamsas, with slightly different colour compositions, emanate golden rays to mimic brilliant noon-day suns. The second shamsa folio also possesses some discreet writing on the top left corner signaling that this manuscript is composed of 24 folios. A blotted stain above the shamsa on folio 3r is perhaps evidence of a royal seal.


Shamsas at the beginning of Nusrati’s qasida, Bijapur ca. 1630s?  (British Library Or. 13533 f. 2v. and 3r)

Each subsequent folio (so delicate that they are currently preserved individually in glass-frames), painted in gold paint, possesses a border of vivid floral prints. Hemmed within is a rectangular box for the poetry. Although floral borders adorned deluxe Persian manuscripts, this is the first known Dakhni work where the borders of each open folio and its partner folio contain individual designs that resemble a series of golden flower strewn gardens punctuated with neat lines of exquisite calligraphy in a midnight black ink.

Nusrati’s qasidah, Bijapur ca. 1630s? (British Library Or. 13533 f. 5v. and 6r)

In many ways, this exquisitely illuminated manuscript signals the apogee of book arts and Dakhni literature in seventeenth-century Bijapur. Any reputed poet could have composed the qasida in Persian but the use of this local vernacular and the commissioning of Nusrati, a poet known for his mastery over Dakhni poetry, demonstrates the popularity of and pride in the indigenous language. Although slim in volume, the manuscript exudes grandeur in every bejeweled folio replete with beautiful poetry and refined penmanship. If indeed this manuscript was a wedding gift from the house of Bijapur to Golconda, it gestures towards the significance of these marital alliances. Weddings were not simply the union of couples or occasions to display a kingdom’s wealth and status. In the Deccan, such partnerships were crucial for political survival, especially in the face of looming Mughal annexation.

Namrata B. Kanchan,  University of Texas at Austin

Further Reading

Ahmad, Nizamuddin. Hadiqat al-Salatin. Edited by Syed Ali Asgar Bilgrami. Hyderabad: Idarah-e Adabiyat-e Urdu, 1961.
Haidar, Navina Najat and Marika Sardar. Sultans of Deccan India, 1500-1700: Opulence and Fantasy. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2015.
Husain, Ali Akbar. Scent in the Islamic Garden: A Study of Deccani Urdu Literary Sources. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Shackle, Christopher. “Settings of Panegyric: The Secular Qasida in Mughal and British India,” in Christopher Shackle and Stefan Sperl ed., Qasida Poetry in Islamic Asia and Africa, vol. 1 Leiden; New York: E.J. Brill, 1996.

This week’s post is by guest writer Namrata B. Kanchan, PhD candidate at the University of Texas at Austin. Her dissertation examines the courtly Dakhni literary and manuscript culture between 1500 CE and 1700 CE.

One of the most ambitious illustrated manuscript projects of the seventeenth-century ʻAdil Shahi court of Bijapur is the British Library manuscript IO Islamic 834, the Khavarnamah (Book of the East) written in the local vernacular of Dakhni in the nastaʻliq script. Originally composed in Persian by the poet Ibn Husam and completed in 1426 CE, this epic masnavi (narrative poetry), details the heroic exploits of the Shi‘a Imam ‘Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad. Like Firdausi’s epic Shahnamah (ca. 970-1010), various copies of the Persian Khavarnamah (usually called the Khavarannamah) were richly illustrated. In general, it was Shi‘a patrons who commissioned copies of this work across the Persianate world.

‘Ali with Jamshed Shah, Khavarnamah, Bijapur, ca. 1649 CE, (British Library IO Islamic 834, f. 75r).

In Bijapur, Sultana Khadija (d. 1688), the wife of Sultan Muhammad ʻAdil Shah (r. 1626-1656) and the daughter of Golconda’s Qutb Shahi king Muhammad Qutb Shah (r. 1612-1626) commissioned the illustrated manuscript in the Deccan in the early half of the seventeenth century. She diverged, however, from the previous manuscript tradition by commissioning the poet Kamal Khan “Rustami” to compose the work in the regional vernacular language Dakhni, a regional form of Hindavi, instead of Persian.

The introductory page of the Dakhni masnavi, the Khavarnamah, Bijapur, 1649 CE, (British Library IO Islamic 834, f. 1v).

Rustami emerges as an important poet with deep connections to the Bijapur court. In the Khavarnamah’s epilogue, the poet provides a brief biography in prose where he states that he had descended from a long line of  ʻAdil Shahi courtiers and his father, Ismaʻil Khattat Khan had also served the Bijapur rulers. After assuming the pen-name of Rustami, the poet composed several ghazals (odes) and qasidahs (panegyric) in Dakhni and Persian.

One reason for the choice of vernacular in this manuscript is that by the early seventeenth century, Dakhni had become a popular literary language especially in the narrative genre of the masnavi. Moreover, previous Dakhni poets, often multilingual ones like Rustami, attempted to elevate the status of this vernacular by translating or refashioning works from the translocal Indic and Persian literary spheres. The Dakhni Khavarnamah forms part of this effort. Thus, the translation of an illustrated Shi‘a epic, evinces an endeavour to showcase Dakhni as a serious literary language and Bijapur as a major Shi‘a domain.

‘Ali with Mir Siyaf, Khavarnamah, Bijapur, 1649 CE, (British Library IO Islamic 834, f. 379v).

Apart from the choice of language, this original source manuscript is unique for several reasons. Sultana Khadija, also known as Bari Sahib (grande dame), is the first known female patron of a Dakhni work. Apart from the commission of the Khavarnamah, two seals connected with her appear on a Kalila va Dimnah manuscript (Acc. no. 71.187), housed currently at the National Museum, New Delhi (Akhtar, p. 44 and following plate). While one is unquestionably Sultana Khadija’s seal and carries her name, the second, reading Allah Muhammad ʻAli is identical to that in the British Library Khavarnamah and is possibly another of her seals, an expression of her religious belief.

Possibly Khadija’s seal in the British Library Khavarnamah, reconstructed from a damaged impression on folio 2r and the reversed mirror image preserved on the facing page. Bijapur, 1649 CE, (British Library IO Islamic 834). Photo: Ursula Sims-Williams

A vital player in Adil Shahi politics, Sultana Khadija was economically independent and one source of her income was the revenue she received from a coastal province, which also included a Dutch-operated factory in Vengurla (Kruijtzer, p. 231). In 1656, she assumed the position of regent for her son when her husband died. As regent, she controlled court politics and had dealings with the Dutch on India’s east coast as well as the Portuguese on the west coast. Once her regency ended in 1661, she wrote to the Dutch to undertake a trip to Mecca for Hajj and found place aboard a ship travelling west. She also embarked on a trip to visit holy Shi‘a pilgrimage sites and allegedly died in Yemen in 1688 (Kruijtzer, pp. 231-2).

A distinctive feature of this monumental manuscript (543 folios measuring 14 x 11 inches) is that it is richly illustrated with images on practically every page with some illustrations occupying the whole page. Depicted in rich and vibrant hues that are characteristic of the Deccan, these images illustrate the various adventures and heroic deeds of Hazrat ‘Ali and his companions Malik and Abu al-Mihjan.

 ‘Ali with Malik, Abu al-Mihjan (spelt as Maʻjan in the manuscript), Khavarnamah, Bijapur, 1649 CE, (British Library IO Islamic 834, f. 8r).

An interesting observation is that ‘Ali’s face is veiled consistently throughout this manuscript although most other copies of the Khavarnamah chose not to conceal his face (f. 75 r.). This is evident from a near contemporary copy of the manuscript in Persian at the British Library (BL Add. 19766).

Furthermore, just as the text emerges in the local Dakhni form, some of the images also carry a local flavour that depict encounters with yogis and Hindu kings.

Jamshed Shah with a Hindu Yogi, Khavarnamah, Bijapur, 1649 CE, (British Library IO Islamic 834, f. 123r).

The Bijapur Khavarnamah’s scale and illustration programme thus attest to the popularity of Dakhni literature in the seventeenth-century Deccan sultanate courts. Furthermore, the patronage of this manuscript perhaps could also be interpreted as an act of Shi‘a piety. It would be interesting to compare this manuscript to other copies of the Persian Ḳhavarnamah to see either similarities or points of divergence in the narrative structure and illustrative programme.

I would like to thank Ursula Sims-Williams for providing important insight into Khadija Sultana’s seals and for identifying the seal in the Khavarnamah with the one in the National Museum.

Namrata B. Kanchan,  University of Texas at Austin

Further Reading

Primary Source
Rustamī Bījāpūrī, K̲h̲āvar nāmah / muṣannafah-yi Kamāl K̲h̲ān̲ Rustamī Bījāpūrī; murattabah-yi Shaik̲h̲ Cānd ibn Ḥusain Aḥmadnagrī. Karācī: Taraqqīyi Urdū Borḍ, 1968. Online edition at Rekhta Books

Secondary Sources
Akhtar, Nasim, and others “Kalila wa Dimna,” in Islamic art of India. Kuala Lumpur: Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia, 2002, p. 44 and following plate.
Kruijtzer, Gijs. “Baṛī Ṣāḥib bint Muḥammad Quṭb Shāh,” in Christian Muslim Relations: A Bibliographic History, eds. David Thomas and John Chesworth. Leiden: Brill, 2017, pp. 231-7.
Overton, Keelan (ed.). Iran and the Deccan: Persianate Art, Culture, and Talent in Circulation, 1400-1700. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2020.
Overton, Keelan. “Book Culture, Royal Libraries, and Persianate Painting in Bijapur, Circa 1580­‒1630.” Muqarnas 33.1 (2016): pp. 91–154.

Today's post is by guest contributor and regular visitor to Asian and African Collections, Sunil Sharma, Professor of Persianate and Comparative Literature at Boston University.

The British Library has one of the largest collections of manuscripts of the Persian works of Amir Khusraw of Delhi (d. 1325). There are around fifty manuscripts, listed in the Ethé, Rieu, and Ross and Brown catalogues, as well as a few in the Delhi Persian Collection, dating from the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries, including some early compilations of his collected poetry (kulliyat), selections of ghazals, and long narrative poems (masnavis). An eclectic range of codices from sumptuous royal copies to pedestrian books can be found here, many with seals and inscriptions by owners, and colophons by various calligraphers, and illustrations from different schools of painting. This rich collection highlights, on the one hand, the enormous corpus of the poet’s works in many different forms and literary genres, and on the other hand, the daunting problem of compiling standard and complete editions of his poems.

Shirin visits the sculptor Farhad on Mt Bisitun. From the masnavi Layla Majnun, 16th century but heavily overpainted in the 18th or 19th century (BL Add. 7751, f. 71v)

Amir Khusraw, a medieval Persian poet who was much admired and read in Persianate societies, is sometimes written out of the classical canon in our times. A master of every existing poetic form, the poet particularly distinguished himself in his mastery of courtly and devotional panegyric and love lyrics. His output was prolific in these forms, and according to Dawlatshah writing in the late fifteenth-century in his biographical dictionary, Tazkirat al-shu‘ara, bibliophiles at the Timurid court gave up attempting to collect all his verses. This continues to be the fate of modern-day scholars who work on the Amir Khusraw’s poetry.

There are a number of manuscripts of Amir Khusraw’s works dating from the second half of the fifteenth century to the very beginning of the seventeenth in the form of Kulliyat, i.e. his entire corpus of poems that was available at specific places and moments of time. Some of the manuscripts in this group, along with others described below, share several codicological features and many of the copies were produced in Herat. The writing in them is small, metres of individual poems are identified in some cases, and the margins contain poems in order to maximize every bit of space. One of these (IO Islamic 338), which was copied in Delhi ca. 1603, was once part of the library of Tipu Sultan — who incidentally had at least six other copies of works by Amir Khusraw in his collection.

The opening to Baqiyah-i naqiyah, Amir Khusraw’s fourth Divan in this copy of his collected works (BL IO Islamic 338, f. 337v)

The earliest Kulliyat manuscripts also included his narrative poems, since Amir Khusraw was also celebrated for his quintet (Khamsah) modelled on Nizami’s own set of verse romances of the same title. No slavish imitator of his predecessor, Amir Khusraw modified the plots of well-known romances such as Layla and Majnun, Khusraw and Shirin, and Hasht Bihisht. The aforementioned Dawlatshah also mentions that the Timurd prince Baysunghur (1397 – 1433) used to prefer the Khamsah of Amir Khusraw to Nizami’s. In comparing Khusraw’s Khamsah comprising 18,000 verses to Nizami’s comprising 28,000, Dawlatshah writes, “It is amazing how in some expressions [Khusraw] is long-winded and in some concise; the conciseness, rhetoric, and eloquence are charming.” While Baysunghur's brother, the amir Ulugh Beg, preferred Nizami's Khamsah, the two would argue and compare individual verses in the two works. Dawlatshah adds, “The special meanings and subtleties of Amir Khusraw’s exciting poetry kindles a fire in people’s minds and shakes the foundation of the fortitude of lovers.” In this Timurid milieu, an unillustrated Khamsah (Add. 24983) was copied in Herat by the master calligrapher Muhammad ‘Ali Samarqandi for the library of Sultan Husayn Bahadur Khan Bayqara (d. 1506), which subsequently belonged to the Mughal Imperial Library.

Dedication to Sultan Husayn Bayqara in the centre with a list of the contents round the edge. By the time the manuscript was completed in 1511, the Sultan had been dead for six years (BL Add. 24983, f. 2r)

One of the Kulliyat manuscripts, dated 923/1517 (Add. 21104) is furnished with seventeen illustrations, some of which were added or touched up later. B.W. Robinson tentatively suggested that due to the not so “easily recognizable style” of the paintings, it was one of a group of illustrated quintets probably originating in Transoxiana or Khurasan.^[1]

Lovers in a garden, from Amir Khusraw’s Divan Ghurrat al-kamal (BL Add.21104, f.251r)

The earliest manuscript of Amir Khusraw’s Khamsah dated 1421 (Or.13802)^[2] was actually copied in the margins of Nizami’s quintet, indicating that the texts were often read together. It bears the Gujarati inscription of a later Parsi owner and is only partially preserved.

Khusraw and Shirin enthroned. (BL Or. 13802, f. 119v)

Another such illustrated manuscript (IO Islamic 387) where both quintets appear together is thought to date from the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century and is in much better condition. In Amir Khusraw’s version of the Alexander romance, A’inah-ʼi Iskandari, Nizami’s philosopher-king is transformed into an intrepid explorer and scientist.

Iskandar crossing the sea in a ship of European type, from Aʼinah-ʼi Iskandari (BL IO Islamic 387, f.466r)

This work also exists in a stand-alone copy (Add. 24,054) apparently dated 885/1479. Other poems from the quintet were also copied on their own without any paintings, such as two copies of Matla‘ al-anvar and four copies of Hasht Bihisht. Three of Amir Khusraw’s versified romances on contemporary themes, which are not part of his quintet, also had a readership. Along with an eighteenth-century copy of the Nuh Sipihr there are seven copies of the Qiran al-Sa‘dayn, one of which, dated 921/1515 at Herat (Add. 7753), was copied by the famous calligrapher Sultan Muhammad Khandan, while several others are eighteenth or nineteenth-century humbler manuscripts that were clearly read by non-elite readers.

The opening of Amir Khusraw's Qiran al-saʻdayn, copied at Herat in 1515 by the famous calligrapher Sultan Muhammad Khandan (BL Add. 7753, f. 1v)

Qiran al-saʻdayn. An unillustrated copy made in Ramnagar in the 18th century (BL Egerton 1033)

There are also three copies of the popular Indo-Persian romance, Khizr Khan va Duvalrani, also known as  ‘Ashiqah, one of which (Or.335) has some unusual illustrations, such as the rare depiction of the beheading of the prince at the end of the story.

Prince Khizr Khan murdered on order of the Delhi Sultan Qutb al-Din Mubarak. From Khizr Khan va Duvalrani, dated 982/1574  (BL Or.335, f.142v)

Attempts to collect and produce large copies of Amir Khusraw’s poetry ceased for the most part in the Safavid and Mughal periods when more copies of selections of his non-narrative poems were made, specifically of the five Divans that marked the different stages of his development as a poet. At this time the ghazal had become the privileged poetic form which only increased the popularity of Amir Khusraw’s love lyrics. Among the most popular of a dozen or so copies of poems from his Divans is the Ghurrat al-Kamal that includes a long partly autobiographical preface followed by copies of his Vasat-i Hayat. A particularly fine Timurid copy of his Divan (IO Islamic 512) also includes the poems of Hasan Sijzi and Jami in the margins.

The colophon of the Divan of Amir Khusraw in the centre, and poems of Jami in the margins (BL IO Islamic 512, ff. 618v-619r)

The wide range in this group of manuscripts is due to the fact that some were prepared for Mughal patrons such as Bayram Khan, others circulated among Ottoman Turkish readers. Another belonged to the library of a Qadiriya Sufi order in Bijapur, and at least one (IO Islamic 2470) was prepared for Robert Watherston, a British officer in India.

The final page and colophon of a selection from Amir Khusraw’s divans commissioned by Robert Watherston in 1790 (BL IO Islamic 2470, f.91r)

In addition to his poetry, an example of Amir Khusraw’s prose exists in a single voluminous collection of epistolographic writings, I’jaz-i Khusravi. The manuscript dated 1697-8 (IO Islamic 4714) was calligraphed by Anup Rai and has the seal of one Qutbuddin Bahadur Jang.

In lieu of a complete bibliography or database of the manuscripts of Amir Khusraw, the British Library collection is an excellent sampling that provides a rich history of the copying and readership of the poet’s collected and individual works across five centuries. The manuscripts were produced and circulated in the Persianate world, the inscriptions and seals showing their sojourn in important centres of artistic production such as Herat, Shiraz, Istanbul, and Delhi, as well as provincial Indian towns such as Ramnagar in UP and Rohinkhed in Maharashtra. At times, the archives also reveal an exciting history of use of some of these manuscripts in the early twentieth century by renowned scholars such as M. Wahid Mirza, whose pioneering scholarship on Amir Khusraw which was originally his PhD thesis at the University of London is still the authoritative book on the subject. Based on the borrowing slip pasted into the back of IO Islamic 51, which dates from 866-7/1462, the manuscript was even checked out and sent to Aligarh in 1935!

Borrowing slip pasted into the back of the Kulliyat of Amir Khusraw recording a distinguished list of external loans (BL IO Islamic 51)

Several other libraries in the UK have smaller collections of Amir Khusraw manuscripts that are listed in FIHRIST.^[3] Some of the poet’s verses are also found in numerous anthologies of poetry by multiple poets that were compiled during the same centuries. It is also noteworthy that there is no evidence of his Hindavi poems in this collection, which belies the situation in contemporary South Asia where he is celebrated for those verses that were probably transmitted in an oral tradition or are apocryphal. With respect to his Persian body of work, the philological problem is not of lines or entire poems being added by later poets, as in the case with Firdawsi’s Shahnamah or Hafiz’s Divan, but it is that Amir Khusraw just composed a great deal of poetry.

With thanks to Ursula Sims-Williams and Shiva Mihan for their insights and help with making sense of the treasure trove described in this blog

Sunil Sharma, Boston University

Further reading

Mohammad Wahid Mirza, The Life and Times of Amir Khusrau (Calcutta, 1935). The thesis was submitted in 1929 (SOAS Library, Thesis 47; online at Proquest).
Barbara Brend,  Perspectives of Persian Painting: Illustrations to Amir Khusrau’s Khamsah. London, 2003.

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[1] B.W. Robinson, “An Amir Khusraw Khamsa of 1581”, Iran 35 (1997), 36.
[2] Norah Titley, “A Khamsah of Nizami Dated Herat 1421”, British Library Journal 4/2 (1978): 161-86.
[3] Other lists of manuscripts of Amir Khusraw’s poetic works are described in: Amir Hasan ‘Abidi, “Amir Khusraw ki nadir tasnifat Turki men”, Ajkal 33/4 (1974): 39-44; Chander Shekhar, “Maghribi mamalik ke kitabkhanon men Amir Khusraw ke nadir qalami nuskhe.” In 1947 ke ba‘d Farsi zaban o adab o Professor Nazir Ahmad, ed. Sayyid Raza Haidar (New Delhi, 2016), pp, 53-78; John Seyller, Pearls of the Parrot of India: The Walters Art Museum Khamsa of Amīr Khusraw of Delhi (Baltimore, 2001), pp. 143-58.