[مجموعه قصص رسول و صحابه]
By: Şāhidī
Published: 1592
Place of publication: Karaḥiṣār-i Şarqī
Language: ota
Number of pages: 338
Subjects: Companions; Turkish Manuscripts
Other titles: [Mecmūʿa-ı ḳıṣaṣ-ı Resūl ve ṣaḥābe]
Work titles: [Mecmūʿa-ı ḳıṣaṣ-ı Resūl ve ṣaḥābe]
Description: "22 tales in mes̱nevī verse, totalling a little more than 5000 beyt (5070 lines including headings). They deal with incidents (many of them pious legends) in the life of the Prophet and his companions, ending with his death, and the appointment of [Ebū Bekr-i] Ṣiddīḳ in his place. From time to time the tales mention specific rāvīs of ḥadīs̱ and Koran commentaries (tefsīr) as the source for details cited. Each story is introduced by an invocation to a songbird (ʿandelīb, bülbül) to tell the tale, and the last verse or two usually consists of a conventional statement that it is ended (tamām oldu/olsun), followed by blessings on the Prophet and often on the reader or reciter, audience and copyist. While other mes̱nevī versions of some of these tales exist in other MSS [e.g. in the mecmūʿa of 12 tales in the Birnbaum collection, MS 67, T13], the format and literary style of the 22 tales in this mecmūʿa is uniform, presumably the work of a certain Şāhidī whose name appears in line 3 of the 9th ḳıṣṣa (Ḳıṣṣa-ı ḳabāʾil-i ʿarż kerden-i resūl-i dīn-i ẖūd, f. 116a, line 10): “Ac gözini Şāhidī cān āşikār . . .” Several poets have taken this taẖalluṣ. This MS appears to be unique. It seems unlikely that its author is the sufi dede İbrāhīm Şāhidī (d. 957/1550) who composed a famous Persian-Turkish rhymed vocabulary, Tuḥfe-i Şāhidī in 920/1514–15 (see MS 170, T21/I), as it is not recorded in the biographical notices of İbrāhīm Şāhidī." -- Copies from E. Birnbaum.
Notes: Collation: Catchwords present at the bottom of each folio.

Layout: 15 lines per page ; dimensions of the text 15 x 9 cm.

Script: Professional nesih, fully vocalized. A brief paginated table of contents in riḳʿa script.

Support: Paper watermarked: Anchor suspended from a Ring within a Circle, surmounted by a 6-armed  Star; counter-mark AC.

Decoration: Text in black ink ; section titles marked in red ink. Pages and columns framed in red ink; headings, Koran quotations in red ink.

Binding: Brown leather on cardboard. The front and back covers each have a good large oval blind-stamped sunken medallion with floral motif painted in gold on a red background, with sunken pendants above and below; each cover is framed in gold zencīrek. It is repaired with a new leather backstrip, partly glued to the edge of the covers. The binding’s original flap is now missing, and the sewing of the quires has partly unraveled.

Provenance: E. Birnbaum -- fly leaf.

Text begins: قصّه درد چشم محمد مصطفی و رفتن او بر رهبان. خاموش اولمه ناله قیل ای عندلیب / سیله کل سنداخی اولدقجه نصیب -- leaf 1a.

Text ends: کلدی صدّیق یرینه اولدی امام / بو کتاب هم بورده اولدی تمام -- leaf 388a.

Eleazar Birnbaum, Ottoman Turkish and Çagatay Manuscripts in Canada, 2015, 31.

Purchase; Kennys; 2020; MS.20.085.

Ottoman Turkish.

Fisher Birnbaum MSS Turkish copy: The Manuscript was bought by E. Birnbaum.