KARACHI: Two rare Persian manuscripts have been acquired by the Department of Archaeology which bear the seal impressions of four Mughal Emperors and Hamida Bano, the mother of Emperor Akbar the Great. One of them is Mantiq Al-Tair, a well-known Persian masnavi written by the celebrated poet and mystic Farid al-Din Attar of Nishapur, and it is dated 1229 A.D. The manuscript contains allegorical poems. It was transcribed by Mohammad Hulwati in … 1566 at the instance of Khan-i-Azam Itimad Khan, the last Prime Minister of Gujrat and later a noble at Akbar’s Court.

The main feature of the manuscript is the seal impressions of the Mughal Emperors — Akbar, Jehangir, Shahjahan and Aurangzeb — with Persian words indicating that it has been seen and read by them. Thirteen such impressions of the Emperors [have] made the manuscript [a] most valuable document for preservation at the National Museum. … The other manuscript is “Azkar-i-Imam Nawavi”, a 222-page document containing Persian translation of the original work. The translator who has not mentioned his name has dedicated this work to Shah Shuja, a Muzafarid King of Iran (1384 A.D.) and [it] is transcribed in Naskh.

Published in Dawn, January 9th, 2024