KAMAL AL-DIN HUSAYN B. ALI AL-KASHIFI, KNOWN AS HUSAYN WA'IZ...

Estimate

£6,000 - £8,000

KAMAL AL-DIN HUSAYN B. ALI AL-KASHIFI, KNOWN AS HUSAYN WA'IZ KASHIFI, MAWAHIB AL-'ALIYYA (A COMMENTARY ON THE QUR'AN, KNOWN AS TAFSIR-I HUSAYNI), COPIED BY ‘ATA’ULLAH IBN ‘IMAD AL-DIN AL-AWHADI, PERSIA, SAFAVID, DATED 977 AH/1569 AD Persian manuscript on gold sprinkled paper, 481 leaves, plus 4 fly-leaves, 27 lines to the page, written in naskh in black ink, ruled in orange, green, gold, red and blue, important words in red, f.3a with a spread of illumination consisting of a central lobed panel with white naskh against a gold ground surrounded by polychrome and gold palmettes, missing its correspondent on the right hand side, 3 polychrome and gold headings, in a light brown leather binding

37.5 by 24cm.

Husain Wa'iz Kashifi was born at Bayhak in Khurasan and during his lifetime lived at Nishapur, Mashhad and Herat, where his patrons were the Timurid prince Sultan Husayn Bayqara and his famous vizier Ali Shir Nava'i. He was renowned as a very eloquent preacher with a beautiful voice. As well as the present text, his works include: Anvar-i suhaili, Rawdhat al-shuhada, Jawahir al-tafsir li-Tuhfat al-amir and Akhlak-i muhsini. He died in 1504 in Herat. His present work, the Mawahib al-'aliyya, also known as the Tafsir-i husayni, is a commentary on the Qur'an dedicated to his patron Ali Shir Nava'i, and completed in 899 AH/1494 AD. Over the centuries it has proved to be one of the most popular Qur'anic commentaries, being translated into several other languages including Turkish, Hindi and Pashtu, and it was the specific commentary referred to by the European scholar Erpenius (d.1624) in his Arabic grammar, printed at Leiden in 1617 and again in 1656. Another copy of the same text sold in Sotheby’s, 5 October 2010, lot 28.