Iran

Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies

ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rirn20

Hilali and Mir ‘Ali: Sunnis among the Shi‘is, or

Shi‘is among the Sunnis between the Shaybanids,
Safavids and the Mughals

Firuza Melville

To cite this article: Firuza Melville (2021) Hilali and Mir ‘Ali: Sunnis among the Shi‘is, or Shi‘is
among the Sunnis between the Shaybanids, Safavids and the Mughals, Iran, 59:2, 245-262, DOI:
10.1080/05786967.2021.1911756

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/05786967.2021.1911756

Published online: 20 Jun 2021.

Submit your article to this journal

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rirn20
IRAN
2021, VOL. 59, NO. 2, 245–262
https://doi.org/10.1080/05786967.2021.1911756

Hilali and Mir ‘Ali: Sunnis among the Shi‘is, or Shi‘is among the Sunnis between
the Shaybanids, Safavids and the Mughals
Firuza Melville
Shahnama Centre for Persian Studies, Pembroke College, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
In 1788 Ephraim Pote, a British merchant in Patna, sent a large portion of the manuscript collection Hilali; Mir ‘Ali; ‘Ubaydallah
which formerly belonged to Colonel of the East India Company Antoine Polier. Among those Khan; Antoine Polier;
manuscripts there was a Divan by Badr al-Din Hilali, who was executed by the Uzbek Sultan Ephraim Pote
‘Ubaydallah right after the conquest of Herat in 1529. The calligrapher responsible for compiling
the impressive selection of Hilali’s Divan was the famous Mir ‘Ali Haravi. He produced it in fond
memory of his perished friend and their beloved Herat, when he was already working for
‘Ubaydallah in Bukhara, where he had been brought as part of the Sultan’s intellectual booty.
The manuscript is exceptionally important from various points of view: history, literature, artistic
decoration and provenance. It is not only the earliest surviving copy of Hilali’s Divan, but allows
the siege of Herat to be attributed with more chronological precision than was possible before.
When the manuscript arrived to Delhi by the time of Emperor Shahjahan, it had spectacular
marginal decorations of arabesque, floral and animalistic motifs in gold and polychrome. This
makes the manuscript a brilliant example of intercultural communication between Persia,
Central Asia and India in the sixteenth century.

This paper is the first part of a study1 dedicated to a manu-
script, now in the collection of King’s College, Cambridge
(King’s Pote 186), which is the earliest known copy of the
Divan (collected poems) of Hilali (d. 1529), a famous bilin-
gual poet. The manuscript is of exceptional literary, his-
torical and artistic importance. It was copied in 1531–2
in Bukhara by Hilali’s friend, a celebrity calligrapher and
a poet in his own right, Mir ‘Ali. Only two years earlier
the poet had lost his life, and the calligrapher his freedom
and home, having been moved from their beloved Herat to
Bukhara as part of the conqueror’s intellectual booty.2 In a
subsequent publication I shall focus on the manuscript
itself and its textual and artistic peculiarities, while here I
shall mainly concentrate on its provenance, its creation,
the personalities of its author, its calligrapher and the
ruler, as well as its long travels from Bukhara to Cam-
bridge via India, and its previous owners.
Several pieces of evidence of its previous ownership
preserved in the manuscript are enough to show the
routes of its travels throughout the centuries and across
the continents. They reflect political, social and cultural
processes in a turbulent world. Among these are the
Shaybanid, Safavid and Mughal rivalry and conquests
in sixteenth-century Central Asia, as well as Shahjahan’s
literary and very likely artistic preferences which are
indicated on the leaves of the manuscript by the seals
of his royal library. New margins were added when
the manuscript was in the possession of Shahjahan or,
possibly, even earlier. These present exquisite floral
and geometric arabesque ornament as well as the
whole compendium of natural and supernatural flora
and fauna, with simurghs and dragons in abundance.
Thus in India, the artistic appearance of the manuscript
changed drastically (Figure 1).
At the end of the eighteenth century it reached Cam-
bridge as a part of a very generous gift from Ephraim
Pote, a British merchant3 in India, who sent it together
with about 550 other mainly Persian manuscripts to his
former colleges – Eton and King’s. In Cambridge as part
of the King’s College collection it attracted attention of
the crème de la crème of Victorian academia, like Henry
Bradshaw of King’s as well as academics turned secret
servants, like Henry Palmer of St John’s, and E.G.
Browne of Pembroke.

CONTACT Firuza Melville fia21@cam.ac.uk

1
For the second part, see F. Melville, “A Friend’s Tribute: Mir ‘Ali for Hilali”.
2
Boldyrev, Zaynaddin Vasifi, 153; Subtelny, “The Timurid Legacy,” 11; Dodkhudoeva, “Trudy Badr ad-Dina Kashmiri,” 168; 308; Dzhumaev, Nadzhm al-Din Kavkabi
Bukhari, 35.
3
As mentioned in a Power of Attorney document of 1 March 1788, now in the British Library (Mss Eur D1135).
© 2021 British Institute of Persian Studies
246 F. MELVILLE

Figure 1. Divan by Hilali, King’s College, MS Pote 186, f. 12r © King’s College, Cambridge.
 IRAN 247

The Poet: Badr al-Din Hilali, rebellious Tahmasp,9 played a tragic role in his career and life.
épateur, or a victim of slander? This particular association is often cited as the cause of
Hilali’s execution: it is mainly because of this closeness
Badr al-Din Hilali, or Mawlana Badr al-Din, or Nur al-
to the Shi‘i court of Sam Mirza that the chroniclers
Din Hilali Astarabadi Chaghata’i (b. Astarabad, ca. 1470
assumed that he was also a Shi‘i, and that this was a sub-
– d. Herat, 1529) was a prominent poet of Turkic origin
stantial enough pretext for ‘Ubaydallah Sultan to put
writing mainly in Persian but also in Chaghatay.4 He is
him to death.10 However, Sam Mirza thought of Hilali
famous for his exceptionally beautiful lyrics, collected in
as a Sunni among the Shi‘is.11 Nevertheless, in the intro-
the Divan, and three masnavi poems: Layli va Majnun
duction to his most famous poem Shah u Gada, Hilali
(“Layli and Majnun”), Shah-u Gada (“The King and the
praises ‘Ali b. Abi Talib.12 The ascription of changes in
Beggar”), and Sifat al-‘Ashiqin (“Disposition of Lovers”),
religion to Hilali may have been malicious slander gen-
as well as poetry in Turki, which is scattered in various
erated by the poet’s enemies, which is mentioned in var-
anthologies, and a Risala-i Qafiya (“Treatise on
ious versions in contemporaneous sources.13 On the
rhyme”), inspired by Mu‘jam by Shams-i Qays al-Razi
other hand, he may actually have changed confession,
(active 1204–1230). Hilali’s ghazals are still popular both
given the unstable political and religious environment,
in Iran and even more so in Central Asia, and those in
as other high ranking courtiers did to avoid Hilali’s
Persian are turned to folk songs in Tajikistan and per-
fate. Hilali stayed in Herat during the turbulent period
formed in shashmaqom style.5 His poetry in Persian is
when the city was claimed by the two rising powers,
now praised in Iran and Tajikistan, while that in Chagha-
the Safavids and the Shaybanids (Abu’l-Khayrids).14
tay enjoys renown in Uzbekistan: in Dushanbe, Tashkent
‘Ubaydallah had the poet executed at the Chahar-su
and Istaravshan there are streets named after him. How-
square in Herat,15 right after he entered the city,16 fol-
ever, the first printed edition of Hilali’s Divan was pub-
lowed by the total confiscation of all his possessions.
lished in India in 1883.6 In Iran the first critical edition
Hilali was known to have been survived by his only
was prepared on the basis of several manuscripts and
daughter Jamali (Hijabi) who also became an accom-
lithographs by Sa‘id Nafisi in 1959.7 The first publication
plished poet, famous especially for her ghazals.17
of a selection from his Divan in Tajikistan was prepared in
Apart from the contradictory confessional prefer-
1958 by Kamol Ayni.8
ences ascribed to Hilali, there is a particular episode
Hilali received a good education in his native Astara-
which is usually mentioned that enraged the Sultan so
bad. At the age of about twenty, he moved to Herat,
much that the poet lost his life. Several chronicles refer
where he became a nadīm (“boon companion”) of ‘Ali
to various popular stories which ascribe to Hilali a dero-
Shir Nava’i (1441–1501) and joined the circle of Sul-
gatory satire (hajv), in which he accused ‘Ubaydallah of
tan-Husayn Bayqara (1438–1506). He was also close to
being “a bad Muslim, plundering poor orphans, and
‘Abd al-Rahman Jami (1414–1492), the last great of the
being worse than an infidel.”18 The mocking verses
Golden Age of Persian poetry, whom he accompanied
have survived in several versions, but some of them
on the hajj. The royal patronage of the young Safavid
were obviously composed and ascribed to Hilali later.
Prince Abu’l-Nasr Sam (1517–1566), who was the son
For example, in a rubā‘ī mentioned in the treatise by
of Shah Isma‘il I, and the younger brother of Shah
Darvish ‘Ali Changi (d. 1620s), the poet gives

4
Bernardini, “Helāli Astarābādi Jagatā’i,” 152–4; Iqbal, “Hilali Jaghatāʾi Astarabadi,” 65–71.
5
Hiloli, Osori muntakhab, 6.
6
Divan-i Hilali, Kanpur, 1883.
7
Divan-i Hilali, ed. Nafisi. It is used as a basis by several electronic libraries, like Ganjoor (https://ganjoor.net/helali/) and Nosokhan (http://www.nosokhan.com/
library/Book/4R).
8
Hiloli, Osori muntakhab.
9
Khvandamir, Tarikh-i Shah Isma‘il va Shah Tahmasp-i Safavi, 156.
10
Bernardini understands the chronogram “Sayf-Allāh kusht” (=936) as referring to the name of the Hilali’s executioner: Bernardini, “Helāli Astarābādi Jagatā’i,”
152.
11
Norik, Bio-bibliograficheskiy Slovar, 582; Bernardini, “Helali Astarabadi Jagata’i,” 65–71.
12
Hilali, Shah-u Gada, Institute of Oriental Manuscripts, St Petersburg, A-57, ff. 4v-5r: Norik, Bio-bibliograficheskiy Slovar, 581.
13
I shall be referring mainly to Akimushkin’s edition of Qazi Ahmad’s “Treatise on calligraphers and painters” (Traktat o kalligrafakh i khudozhnikakh, 204, No
400. See also the earlier editions of the same treatise by Vladimir Minorsky (Treatise on Calligraphers, Washington, 1959), and B.N. Zakhoder (Moscow-Lenin-
grad, 1947)). In the same year when Norik published an amended version of Akimushkin’s edition of Minorsky-Zakhoder’s translation, a group of colleagues at
the Freer Sackler Gallery published their online edition of this treatise with their new introduction and illustrations: Rettig et al (https://asia.si.edu/wp-
content/uploads/2017/06/Qadi-Ahmad-2017-lo.pdf).
14
Bregel, “Abu’l-Khayrids”.
15
Gulchin Maʿani, “Sanad-i dar bab-i qatl-i Hilali,” 157–60.
16
Bregel (“Abu’l-Khayrids”) mentions that ‘Ubaydallah invaded Herat, lastly no later than in 1530.
17
Szuppe, “The Female Intellectual Milieu in Timurid and Post-Timurid Herat,” esp. 125–27.
18
Hasan Rumlu, Ahsan al-Tavarikh, 1184; Dickson, “Shah Tahmasp and the Uzbeks,” 159–60; Gulchin Maʿani, “Sanad-i dar bab-i qatl-i Hilali,” 157–60.
248 F. MELVILLE

‘Ubaydallah the title Khan although he obtained it only Having murdered me in torture, you are repenting,
after Hilali’s death.19 Hilali is also ascribed a qasida
Having spilt my blood you are perplexed.26
praising ‘Ubaydallah, and depending on the source it is
mentioned either as part of his court service, or a reha- More likely Hilali was punished for his services to the
bilitation attempt after he had already been slandered.20 Safavid rulers, namely Shah Tahmasp who, according
Yet in this qasida ‘Ubaydallah is mentioned with the to another legend, put pressure on the poet, demanding
same title of Khan, perhaps as an attempt to flatter him: him to prove his loyalty, which he did by compiling the
hajv.27 When ‘Ubaydallah entered Herat, Hilali mana-
‫ﺧﺮﺍﺳﺎﻥ ﺳﯿﻨﻪ ﺭﻭﯼ ﺯﻣﯿﻦ ﺍﺯ ﺑﻬﺮ ﺁﻥ ﺁﻣﺪ‬ ged to produce another, much more beautiful “rehabili-
‫ﮐﻪ ﺧﺎﻥ ﺁﻣﺪ ﺩﺭﻭ ﯾﻌﻨﯽ ﻋﺒﯿﺪﺍﻟﻠﻪ ﺧﺎﻥ ﺁﻣﺪ‬ tation” ode glorifying ‘Ubaydallah’s victory, but it did
not save him from death.28 Shah Tahmasp, enraged by
Khurasan appeared on Earth because the execution of his protégé, ordered the capture of
It acquired its soul, [when] ‘Ubaydallah Khan arrived ‘Ubaydallah’s favourite nadīm, Najm al-Din Kawkabi,
[there].21 a talented poet, musician and astrologist. His head was
sent to Tahmasp in Tabriz, while his body was sent to
The story of the hajv varies from source to source and ‘Ubaydallah in Bukhara.29
acquires different features of an apocryphal nature,
which shows that they were created post mortem to reha-
bilitate either Hilali, or ‘Ubaydallah. According to one of Calligrapher Mir ‘Ali, a Poet and the
them, the Sultan regretted and repented of executing the First Editor of a Personal Selection of Hilali’s
innocent poet after he realised that the latter’s malicious Divan
rivals who were already employed at his court, Baqa’i, Mir ‘Ali Haravi, or Mir ‘Ali Husayni Haravi, or Mir-Jan
and Shams al-Din Muhammad Kuhistani, had slandered (1465–1544), could have had as his nisba Mashhadi-
Hilali out of jealousy, but it was too late.22 According to Haravi-Bukhari as he lived and worked in all three
another, even more pro-‘Ubaydallah version, Hilali did cities.30 He was famous throughout the sixteenth-cen-
write the hajv on the Sultan, possibly to inspire his com- tury Persian-speaking world from Mughal India to
patriots to fight the invaders, but the noble ruler forgave Ottoman Turkey as an outstanding calligrapher and
him because of his talent and even offered him a place at the teacher of nasta‘līq script, regarded as second only
his court. However, later he was slandered and exe- to Mir ‘Imad (1554–1615) of Qazvin. Although there
cuted.23 This particular legend was perhaps influenced are quite a few large-scale codices in his hand surviving,
by the stories about Sultan Mahmud and Firdawsi24 by the time he reached the peak of his career he was spe-
and Iskandar and Dara’s two viziers, which were widely cialising mainly in album leaves, which he executed with
interpreted and reinterpreted in Classical Persian litera- exceptional perfection. Among the most famous of
ture.25 Of special interest is the story about a prophetic them are the albums, which are in Tehran – the so-
verse (bayt) by Hilali, which made the short-tempered called Muraqqa‘-i Gulshan (1537–8) – and Berlin and
sultan repent in grief when he saw it after the poet’s Istanbul.31
execution, but which, however, is not found in his Divan: Mir ‘Ali was born in 1465, to a Sayyid family in Herat,
where he studied calligraphy with Zayn al-Din Muham-
‫ﻣﺎﺭﺍ ﺑﺠﻔﺎ ﮐﺸﺘﻪ ﭘﺸﯿﻤﺎﻥ ﺷﺪﻩ ﺑﺎﺷﯽ‬
mad who was a student of Sultan ‘Ali Mashhadi. In 1506,
‫ﺧﻮﻥ ﺩﻝ ﻣﺎ ﺭﯾﺨﺘﻪ ﺣﯿﺮﺍﻥ ﺷﺪﻩ ﺑﺎﺷﯽ‬ he moved with his family to Mashhad, but soon
19
Thackston, “ʿUbayd Allāh Sult ān K h̲ān”.
20
Divan-i Hilali, ed. Nafisi 12–14.
21
Divan-i Hilali, ed. Nafisi, 11.
22
Amin Ahmad Razi, Haft Iqlim, Institute of Oriental Manuscripts, St Petersburg, C 1795, f. 475r, Norik, Bio-bibliograficheskiy Slovar, 582. See also Memon, “Amin
Ah mad Rāzi,” 939.
23
When Shah Tahmasp advanced on the Uzbeks and entered Herat on 19 January 1533, ‘Ubaydallah Khan, as mentioned in the Baburnama, was even pro-
nounced dead, which was of course just wishful thinking (Thackston, “ʿUbayd Allāh Sult ān K h̲ān”).
24
NizamiʿAruzi, Chahar maqala, 514–23.
25
For general bibliography see Hanaway, “Eskandar-nāma”.
26
Divan-i Hilali, ed. Nafisi, 15.
27
Norik, Bio-bibliograficheskiy Slovar, 581; Dzhumaev, Nadzhm al-Din Kavkabi Bukhari, 81–2; Thackston, “ʿUbayd Allāh Sult ān K h̲ān”; Norik, “Rol’ shibanidskikh
praviteley v kulturnoy zhizni Maverannakhra,” 242.
28
Norik, Bio-bibliograficheskiy Slovar’, 581.
29
I am grateful to Alexander Dzhumaev for bringing this source to my attention, a fragment of which was reproduced by him in Russian in his recent book, see
Dzhumaev, Nadzhm al-Din Kavkabi Bukhari, 81–2.
30
Soucek, “Alī Heravī,” 864–5; Alparslan, “Ali Herevi”; Akın-Kıvanç, “Mustafa ʿÂlî’s Epic Deeds of Artists.”
31
Soucek, “Alī Heravī,” 865.
 IRAN 249

returned to Herat. At a rather young age he was
employed by the governor of Herat as a personal scribe.
This brought him to the court of Sultan-Husayn Bayqara
who awarded him the special title of kātib al-sult ān, and
treated him with great benevolence. After the Sultan’s
death, Mir ‘Ali lived between Mashhad and Herat.
When Shah Isma‘il captured Herat in 1512, he entered
under the patronage of his vazir, Karim al-Din Habibal-
lah Savaji.32 When Habiballah was assassinated in the
dispute between the Qizilbash amirs, it was Sam Mirza
Safavi, the younger brother of Shah Tahmasp, who
became the governor of Khurasan,33 and whose favours
Mir ‘Ali thoroughly enjoyed for three years in Herat
until 1529, when ‘Ubaydallah besieged the city. Due to
his reputation as an outstanding calligrapher, Mir ‘Ali
was brought to Bukhara together with several other
talented artists and craftsmen, like Shaykhzada, the
painter. In Bukhara among his other duties was to
teach ‘Ubaydallah’s son, Abu’l-Ghazi ‘Abd al-‘Aziz
Khan. Mir ‘Ali stayed in Bukhara for another sixteen
years, until he died at the age of seventy in 1544.34
In Bukhara Mir ‘Ali seems to have become increas-
ingly unhappy. Either he felt underpaid (in one of his
poems he complains about this injustice),35 or he was
not absolutely comfortable in his new environment,
although he tried to show his loyalty to ‘Ubaydallah
by dedicating poems to him in Persian and in Cha-
ghatay and calling him (probably more with hope
than with sarcasm) a man “of heavenly justice and
with an ocean-like heart”.36 Several scholars thought
that the main reason for his unhappiness was his Shi‘-
ism, which would have made his position at the Shay-
banid court rather awkward. Ebadollah Bahari
concluded that Mir ‘Ali was Shi‘i on the grounds of
his name.37 Schimmel called Mir ‘Ali a “devout
Shiite”, mentioning elegant chronograms which he
designed for the decoration of the Imam Riza shrine
in Mashhad.38 For whatever reason, Mir ‘Ali did not
join the entourage of the teenage Sam Mirza and his
lala, the actual governor of Herat, Husayn Khan
Shamlu, when they fled to Tabriz with the most
talented members of the Prince’s kitābkhāna. Was it
his own choice to stay, or it was Sam Mirza who
left him behind? Did he willingly go to Bukhara
with ‘Ubaydallah and then bitterly regretted it, or
was he taken there by force? In any event, it is evident
from Mir ‘Ali’s poems that he was deeply depressed in
Bukhara despite his high position and the recognition
of his talent and work, especially during the reign of
‘Ubaydallah’s son and successor ‘Abd al-‘Aziz Khan,
when he was appointed malik al-kuttāb (“King of
the scribes”).39 Whatever the causes of Mir ‘Ali’s
depression – ideological, religious, financial, or per-
sonal – the fact was that he was chronically homesick.
This may be the reason why he decided to make his
own copy of Hilali’s Divan with its rather fatalistic
poems, which were associated with life in their
beloved Herat: they resonated so perfectly well with
his own devastating langueur and nostalgia for a
‘paradise lost’.
The Conqueror: ‘Ubaydallah Khan, Nomadic
Savage, or Enlightened City Dweller?
‘Ubaydallah Khan Shaybani (1487–1540) was the son
and successor of Mahmud Sultan (1454–1505), who
was the brother of Shaybani Khan (1451–1510).40
According to legend, when the new-born baby was
brought to the famous mystic poet Nasir al-Din
‘Ubaydallah Ahrar, known as Khwaja Ahrar (1404–
1490), the Shaykh bestowed his name upon him.41
‘Ubaydallah, although depicted in some sources as a
nomadic savage, received a very good education:
apart from his native Turki, he was fluent in both
Arabic and Persian, which he used for writing his
own prose and poetry.42 His poetic anthology in
Turki, Divan-i ‘Ubaydi, copied by the best calligra-
pher of his time Sultan ‘Ali Mashhadi, is now in
the British Library.43 After the death of his father
in 1505 he became de facto ruler of Bukhara. From

32
Hasan Rumlu, Ahsan al-Tavarikh, 1151; Khvandamir, Tarikh-i Shah Isma‘il va Shah Tahmasp, 134.
33
It is known that in 1523 Mir ‘Ali produced a copy of Ahmadi’s Iskandarnama for Durmish Khan Shamlu (d. 1528), the military governor of Herat (Qazi Ahmad,
Traktat, trans. Akimushkin, 205, No. 400).
34
Qazi Ahmad, Traktat, trans. Akimushkin, 204–5.
35
Qazi Ahmad, Treatise on Calligraphers, trans. Minorsky, 131; Traktat, trans. Akimushkin, 216.
36
Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Libr. Pict. 117, f. 21v.
37
Bahari, “The Seventeenth Century School of Bukhara Painting,” 253.
38
Schimmel, “The Calligraphy and Poetry of the Kevorkian Album,” 33, 36.
39
Akimushkin, “Biblioteka Shibanidov,” 370.
40
Subtelny, Timurids in Transition, 252; Dodkhudoeva, “K voprosu,” 63; Semenov, “Kulturnyi uroven pervykh Sheybanidov,” 51–59; Norik, “Rol’ shibanidskikh
praviteley v kulturnoy zhizni Maverannakhra,” 237–46; Sultanov, Chingiz-khan i chingizidy, 146.
41
A similar legend exists about the name choosing for infant Babur (Foltz, Mughal India and Central Asia, chapter 5).
42
A unique copy of ‘Ubaydallah’s Kulliyat is preserved in Tashkent, in the collection of the Abu Reyhan Oriental Institute, Tashkent, MS 8931. Another manuscript
of his Divan is kept in Istanbul, in the collection of Süleymaniye Manuscript Library, MS Nuruosmaniye 4904. A selection of ‘Ubaydallah’s poetry (Ubaydiy, Vafo
qilsang) was published in Tashkent in 1994.
43
British Library MS Add. 7907.
250 F. MELVILLE
1533 until his death in 1540, ‘Ubaydallah was the
supreme Khan of the Shaybanid state. The conquest
of Herat was for him not only a political aim of
supreme importance but some sort of an obsessive
dream of “cultural appropriation”. In one of his
poems which he composed in Chaghatay, he
admitted: “I have only one unfulfilled wish: to stay
in Herat for a whole month!”44
For an “enlightened patron”45 of arts and a poet
himself, especially being almost twenty years younger
than Hilali, it was quite a radical measure to order
the poet’s execution, which meant that his crime
must have been truly enormous. The hajv directed
against ‘Ubaydallah ascribed to Hilali is the probable
reason. The imperial ambitions of ‘Ubaydallah played
the formative role in the establishment of the Bukhara
atelier in Mawarannahr, especially after the decline of
Samarqand, both as a capital and as an artistic centre
of Central Asia.46 Due to the efforts of the Uzbek
rulers, Bukhara inherited artisans and craftsmen from
Herat, among whom were Shaykhzada Mahmud mud-
hahhib, the most able pupil of Bihzad (d. 1536),
‘Abdullah Bukhari and Shaykham b. Mulla Yusuf.47
The rivalry between the three courts of the Safavids,
the Shaybanids and later the Mughals was not only
military and political but also artistic; ateliers were
the best showcase of their success and superiority. As
a result, caravans of migrants, especially courtiers and
intellectuals, were moving across the constantly chan-
ging borders between the Safavid and Shaybanid terri-
tories, while the religious affiliation of those migrants
seemed to have been a serious, and curiously fluid
issue. In these circumstances the matter of “proper”
piety was particularly sensitive for ‘Ubaydallah, and
the reason why the poem was treated as a serious insult
deserving the most severe and immediate public pun-
ishment. Confiscation of Hilali’s properties could
have been interpreted as his reaction to the verse
about the poor robbed orphans:
‫ﻏﺎﺭﺕ ﮐﻨﯽ ﻭ ﻣﺎﻝ ﯾﺘﯿﻤﺎﻥ ﺑﺒﺮﯼ‬
‫ﮐﺎﻓﺮ ﺑﺎﺷﻢ ﺍﮔﺮ ﻣﺴﻠﻤﺎﻥ ﺑﺎﺷﯽ‬
You are plundering and robbing the properties of
orphans,
I would rather become an infidel if you are a Muslim.
44
Ubadiy, Diydor orsuzi, 142, quoted from Dzhumaev, Nadzhm al-Din Kavkabi Bukhari, 38.
45
Boldyrev, Tezkire Hasana Nisori, 296.
46
Akimushkin, The Arts of the Book in Central Asia.
47
Gruber, “The Gulbenkian Baharistan,” 262–7.
48
Norik, Bio-bibliograficheskiy slovar, 578–84.
49
Browne, A Supplementary Hand-list of the Muhammadan Manuscripts, 102; Palmer, “Catalogue of the Oriental Manuscripts in the Library of King’s College,” 14.
50
Divan-i Hilali, ed. Nafisi. Adolat Mirzoalieva mentions 422 ghazals identified as written by Hilali: Mirzoalieva, “Poetika gazeley Badriddina Hiloli,” 7.
This was intended to show that ‘Ubaydallah was in
fact justly confiscating the possessions of a rich and
successful courtier who could hardly qualify as a
poor orphan, aiming to distribute his wealth among
the poor orphans. Such fluctuations may have given
rise to another legend according to which the invec-
tive was originally ascribed to Hilali but “dedicated”
to Safavid Shah Tahmasp, ‘Ubaydallah’s main politi-
cal and cultural rival.48
The Manuscript: King’s College MS Pote 186
While the manuscript is known49 as a Divan (collected
poetic works), in reality it is only a selection of Hilali’s
poems. Compared with Nafisi’s edition it contains 147
ghazals out of 417, four qit‘as out of ten, and nine
ruba‘i out of 35.50 The original manuscript must have
contained at least one or two more poems on the first
folio, which is now missing: the average number of
poems between one and three poems on a page
(depending on their length, which is rather random –
between two and nine bayts). Mir ‘Ali very rarely
wrote poems in full, more often omitting between one
to three bayts, and concluding with the final bayt with
a takhallus , Hilali’s signature. Ghazals, qit ‘as and rubā‘īs
are not organised in any alphabetical or other order and
are put together randomly: on one page there could be a
ghazal and a qit ‘a, or a rubā‘ī. However, the last four
pages (63r-64v) contain only rubā‘īs and qit ‘as. It
seems that Mir ‘Ali did not rely on the coustods (catch-
words), linking the folia to establish their sequence, as if
he anticipated that the margins would be replaced or
trimmed, as was more common. The system he was
using in the manuscript is even wittier: very often he
divides a poem between the pages by putting the first
bayt of the next ghazal as the last bayt on the previous
page.
In two cases it was possible to detect that the folia
order has been disturbed, which shows that the manu-
script was rebound again already after it had acquired
its new margins. By that time, it not only lost its incipit
but perhaps several other leaves. It is also possible that
the original margins (with gold speckles over the ivory
background) were also recycled to produce album
leaves, like one which is now in the Library of Congress

Figure 2. Folio with poetry ascribed to Hilali, written by Mir ‘Ali,
Control Number 2019714660 © Library of Congress.
(Figure 2): the dimensions of the folia in both Washing-
ton and Cambridge are identical (33 × 21 cm).51
The album leaf in the Library of Congress contains
three text panels decorated with illuminated corner
triangles, like in the Cambridge Divan. The panels
were cut out and pasted inside the gold-sprinkled
frame. The bayts inserted inside the frame, are signed
by Mir ‘Ali and his very close pupil, Sultan Bayazid
(d. 1578). His name is indicated under the fragment
ascribed to Hilali although none of distychs could be
found in his Divan. Another poem composed as tar-
jī‘band dedicated to a king (‘Ubaydallah or his son?),
wishing him glory and health, is signed by Mir ‘Ali.
It is unlikely that the text had ever been a part of the
Cambridge manuscript but quite possible that the
frame of the Washington leaf was once its margins.
The selection of poems in the King’s Divan was most
likely made by Mir ‘Ali himself who was not only a
51
Library of Congress Control Number 2019714660: https://www.wdl.org/en/item/2487/view/1/1/ and https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.amed/ascs.178.
52
Mir ‘Ali was also ascribed a treatise on calligraphy entitled Midad al-Khutut (‘The Instrument of Scripts’): Roxburgh, Prefacing the Image, 167.
53
Soucek, “Alī Heravī,”, R 865.
54
https://ganjoor.net/helali/ghazalh/sh35/.
IRAN 251
Figure 3. Incipit of the Divan by Hilali, King’s Pote 186, f. 2r ©
King’s College, Cambridge.
famous calligrapher but a bilingual poet in his own
right and particularly a master of chronograms –
ciphered poems and witty riddles (mu‘ammā), which
he used in the colophons.52 According to a legend he
even composed one posthumously for himself and
revealed it to a friend in a dream: Mīr ʿAlī fawt namūda
“Mir ʿAli died” (951/1544-45).53
Mir ‘Ali treated Hilali’s Divan very selectively,
creating a medley of his, or perhaps their, favourite
poems. The ghazal which Mir ‘Ali put at the begin-
ning of his manuscript is of special importance.
The very first folio with the incipit of the text is
missing. What is now the opening page (f. 2r),
contains two last bayts of ghazal No 3 and ghazal
No 35 (Nafisi) with two bayts omitted in the middle
(Figure 3).54
252 F. MELVILLE
Figure 4. Divan by Hilali, King’s Pote 186, f. 63r © King’s College,
Cambridge
It seems that by placing this ghazal with the incipit zi
ab-i chashm-i man gil shud ba rah-i ishq manzilha
(“From my tears the way to Love became muddy
(difficult) at every stage”) in the beginning Mir ‘Ali
had a special message in mind through the strong
association with the first ghazal in Hafiz’s Divan, for
there is a strong internal link between the two ghazals.
Although in this manuscript Mir ‘Ali generally ignores
the usual structure of the poetry collections (according
to literary form and alphabet), in this case it seems that
the choice to bring No 35 forward was deliberate, to
emulate the structure of Hafiz’s Divan, which was com-
piled after his death by his disciples. In Hafiz’s Divan
this ghazal also comes first in spite of alphabetical
order, being placed in the front as a type of fātih a.
Mir ‘Ali was probably establishing a link between
Hafiz and Hilali, and between Hafiz’s disciples and
himself, after the death of his friend, as well as using
Figure 5. Divan by Hilali, King’s Pote 186, f. 6v © King’s College,
Cambridge
the ghazal to introduce Hilali’s poetic and philosophi-
cal creed.
The final page of the King’s manuscript (f. 64r)
contains three rubā‘īs (Nos 20–22) out of thirty
five, according to Nafisi’s edition. Both final qua-
trains speak about separation (with the incipit dar
‘ishq-i nīkūyān chi firāq-u chi vis āl “In the love of
beauties separation and meeting are the same … ”),
and wisdom (incipit: man bāda bi-mardum-i khirad-
mand khvurdam, “I have drunk the wine with the
wise”), which could be again Mir ‘Ali’s expression
of his grief about his friend’s premature death. The
last but one folio (63r) of the manuscript was orig-
inally next to the current 6v as they share qit ‘a No
10, divided between them as well as the symmetrical
marginal decoration creating harmonious double
page composition (Figures 4 and 5).
Mir ‘Ali’s signature in the colophon (f. 64 r) of the
Cambridge manuscript is quite a contrasting

Figure 6. Colophon of the Anthology of Persian poets, C-860,
f. 56r © Institute of Oriental Manuscripts, St Petersburg
combination of both the pompous “Mir ‘Ali al-kātib al-
sult ānī”, i.e. “the royal scribe”,55 the title, which he
received from Sultan-Husayn Bayqara and a standard
formula ‘abd al-mudhnib al-faqīr “humble and sinful
slave” (Figure 6).
This may indicate that he used both titles, not being
sure whether his manuscript would be given to the royal
55
He also used other signatures: Mir ‘Ali, ‘Ali al-Haravi, ‘Ali al-katib, ‘Ali al-Husayni, ‘Ali al-Husayni al-katib al-sultani: Norik, Bio-bibliograficheskiy Slovar, 204, No
400. See also https://www.reed.edu/persian-calligraphy/en/mir-ali-al-kateb-heravi/index.html.
56
Akimushkin, “Litsevaya rukopis’,” 32–40.
57
St Petersburg, Institute of Oriental Manuscripts, MS C-860.
58
Dublin, Chester Beatty Library, MS Per 194.
59
Dublin, Chester Beatty Library, MS Per 194, Halnama of ‘Arifi, 934/1528. I am grateful to Kristine Rose for obtaining the working image of the colophon of this
manuscript as well as Jenny Greiner from the Photographic Services at the Chester Beatty Library. See also Catalogue of the International exhibition of Persia
Art, 68, and Akimushkin, “Litsevaya rukopis’,” 36.
60
I thank Irina Popova and Alla Sizova for obtaining the images from this manuscript.
61
These dates also indicate the time when Mir ‘Ali was moved to Bukhara: 1515 (Bakhtavar Khan in Mir’at al-‘Alam), 1519 (Sam Mirza in Tuhfa-yi Sami and Tarikh-
i Kathira), 1528–9 (Qazi Ahmad in Gulistan-i Hunar), and 1538–9 (Mustafa Daftari in Manaqib-i Hunarvaran): Akimushkin, “Litsevaya rukopis’,” 35.
IRAN 253
atelier, or if Mir ‘Ali would be allowed to keep the copy
for himself.
Another piece of evidence for this suggestion comes
in the colophon, where Mir ‘Ali mentions that his copy
of Hilali’s Divan is only a draft (tasvīd). Although
according to the original design and layout the manu-
script was supposed to have spaces allocated for lavish
illuminations in polychrome and gold, but they were
inserted only in the opening and the final pages. It is
possible that Mir ‘Ali originally was preparing it as a
presentation manuscript but changed his mind (or
the situation changed), perhaps to avoid some risky
associations with the executed poet, and added the
note about its “draft” state to be able to keep it for
his own personal use.
Dating the Siege of Herat and Hilali’s
Execution
In his 1962 study, Oleg Akimushkin56 established the
connection between two Mir ‘Ali’s manuscripts: one is
a jung (i.e. anthology), currently held in St Petersburg
(Figure 6),57 and the other is Mahmud ‘Arifi’s Guy-u
Chawgan, which is now in Dublin (Figure 8).58
Both manuscripts contain dates when and the places
where the calligrapher finished his manuscripts, which
is of exceptional importance as it allows us to establish
the date of Hilali’s execution, and hence where Mir
‘Ali completed his work on Hilali’s Divan.
The colophon of the Cambridge manuscript contains
the date but not the place. In the Dublin manuscript,
copied in Herat, the date is mentioned as 934/1527-8,
which makes it the latest known codex transcribed by
Mir ‘Ali in Herat before he was moved to Bukhara.59
The colophon of the St Petersburg manuscript (f. 56r)
states that it was completed in Dhu’l-Qa‘da 935/July-
August 1529 in Bukhara.60 Akimushkin’s chronological
and geographical comparison of the two manuscripts
allowed him to establish a more precise date for the
siege of Herat by ‘Ubaydallah Sultan, namely between
the beginning of 1528 and mid-1529. This was an excit-
ing discovery as the dates for this crucial event varied
drastically even in more or less contemporary historical
sources, ranging within two decades (1515–1539),61
254 F. MELVILLE

Figure 8. Colophon of the Guy-u Chawgan by Mahmud ‘Arifi, Per

Figure 7. Colophon of Hilali’s Divan, King’s Pote 186, f. 64r ©
King’s College, Cambridge.
which led to further confusion and misattribution. For
example, E.G. Browne,62 who mentioned Hilali’s
Divan in his Catalogue suggested that it was “copied
during Hilali’s life-time”, as in his opinion ‘Ubaydallah
besieged Herat in 939/1532–33. Browne also misread
the date in the colophon as 937/1530 (instead of 938/
1531–32), which enhanced the chances of Hilali being
still alive when both he and Mir ‘Ali were in Herat,
and in that case Mir ‘Ali would have been copying his
poems not in memory of, but in collaboration with
the author.63 The range of the dates for the siege, and
even some extraordinary information about Mir ‘Ali
going from Herat not to Bukhara but to Kashmir and
dying there several years later,64 led some scholars to
believe that there were two Mir ‘Alis, an idea that was
later rejected.65 However, we can establish that Hilali
was executed by August 1529 at the latest, which
194, 24r © Chester Beatty Library, Dublin.
means that the Cambridge manuscript, being completed
in 1531–2, was produced after his death.
Provenance
Information about the travels of the Cambridge Hilali’s
Divan can be extracted from the manuscript itself,
namely the previous owners’ seals or notes and the sur-
viving documents in the Cambridge archives. Among
the owners of the manuscript we can be sure of three
of them: Shahjahan, Antoine Polier (Figure 9) and
Ephraim Pote.
Shahjahan (1592–1666)
The manuscript’s first journey, from Bukhara to India, is
witnessed on its flyleaf with the imprints of the seals. One

62
Ross, “Browne.”
63
Browne, A Supplementary Hand-list of the Muhammadan Manuscripts, 102.
64
A‘zam, Vaqi’at-i Kashmir.
65
Schimmel, “The Calligraphy and Poetry of the Kevorkian Album,” 32.
 IRAN 255

Figure 9. Flyleaf with the imprints of the owners’ seals, King’s

Pote 186 © King’s College, Cambridge
of them is particularly legible and contains the name of
Shahjahan’s librarian ʿAbd al-Haqq Amanat Khan (d.
1054–55/1644–45)66 and his note. Shahjahan was par-
ticularly fond of Mir ‘Ali’s works. His sons, Princes
Dara Shikuh and Aurangzeb, and later Prince Shuja‘,
were taught calligraphy using his patterns (Figure 10).
The manuscript may have been brought to India right
after the death of Mir ‘Ali, or ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, as his chil-
dren and disciples, including the most talented of them,
left Bukhara and went in different directions. Ahmad
Mashhadi went back to Mashhad but several others
headed off to India. In the Bodleian Anthology of the
poets of Jahangir Shah by Qati‘ Haravi,67 Khvaja Mahmud
Ishaq Siyavushani and Mir Kulangi are mentioned
among those who went to India and became the royal
scribes at the court of Akbar.68 It is possible that Mir
‘Ali’s Divan-i Hilali was brought to India by his son
who was also his most important pupil, Mir Muh ammad
Figure 10. Shahjahan on a globe with his four sons Dara Shikuh,
Muradbakhsh, Aurangzeb and Shah Shuja by Bichitr, on the
reverse side calligraphy by Mir ‘Ali, folio from Minto Album,
1630–40, In 07A.10, opaque watercolour and gold on paper ©
Trustees of the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin
Baqir, who established the link between Bukhara and the
Mughal court. According to Priscilla Soucek, Mir
Muh ammad Baqir collected his father’s calligraphy and
poetry, and assembled at least one album of the speci-
mens produced by himself and his father; it is now in
the Topkapı Palace Museum.69 It is not known when
exactly Mir Muh ammad Baqir arrived in India but he
was probably already there during the reign of Humayun
to whom the Topkapı album was dedicated.70
Antoine Polier (1741–1795)
The other known owner of the Cambridge Hilali’s
Divan was Antoine Polier (Figure 11). On the front

66
Begley, ʿAbd al-H aqq Amānat Khān, 923–4.
67
Majmu‘a al-Shu‘ara’-i Jahangirshahi, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Ouseley 186, ff. 46v-48r.
68
Akimushkin, “Litsevaya rukopis’,” 369–83.
69
Soucek, “Alī Heravī,” 865.
70
Soucek, “Persian Artists in Mughal India,” 169.
256 F. MELVILLE

Company’s agent, he became the chief architect of

Figure 11. Johann Zoffany, Colonel Polier and his Friends, 1786–
7 © Victoria Memorial Hall, Calcutta
flyleaf of the manuscript is the imprint of his first seal
with the date 1181/1767, and his rank Mayjur (Major),
his honorific title Bahadur Arslan-i Jang,71 which
shows that Mir ‘Ali’s Divan-i Hilali was among the ear-
liest of Polier’s acquisitions. Altogether Polier had four
seals commissioned subsequently in India between
1767 and 1782, he commissioned his fourth and last
Indian seal in 1782 when he obtained the title of Colo-
nel-Lieutenant, which was indicated as “Kolnil” in the
only seal that lacks a date.72
Polier,73 born in Lausanne into a French Protestant
family, entered the service of the British East India
Company as a surveyor in 1757 at the age of sixteen, fol-
lowing the steps of his paternal uncle Paul-Philippe
Polier who was the commander of the garrison at Fort
St. George in Madras.74 By 1762, he was a Chief Engin-
eer of the Bengal Army in Calcutta, then rose to the rank
of Major and was sent to Awadh to produce maps of the
region. While he was still the British East India
Nawab Shuja‘ al-Dawla in the kingdom of Awadh. In
1775 Polier was commanding a contingent of the troops
of Najaf Khan at Agra. For this he was summoned to the
East India Company Bengal Presidency, where he had to
resign. However, he did not leave India then: in 1776 he
took up service with the Mughal emperor Shah ‘Alam,
raising a contingent of troopers and receiving a piece
of land in Agra. In May 1780 Polier informed the Gov-
ernor-General that he had been appointed by the nawab
to his former position of architect and engineer. It was
mainly due to Warren Hastings (1732–1818), who was
the first acting Governor-General of India at that time
and his old supporter and friend, that Polier in 1782
was readmitted to the service of the East India Company
with the brevet rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.
Polier accumulated significant wealth from his com-
missions, both court buildings and from private trading.
In Faizabad he had his “native” household with a mini-
harem.75 In Lucknow, Asaf al-Dawla’s capital of “extra-
vagance, excess, corruption and art connoisseurship”,76
he built a palace called Polier-ganj (‘Polier’s Treasury’),
where he kept his library and worked on translations.
When in 1787 he was forced to leave India after spend-
ing thirty years there, he took his most precious posses-
sions with him to France, leaving his two Indian wives
and one of his three children behind under the supervi-
sion of his closest friend Claude Martin. In January 1791
he married Anne-Rose-Louise Berthoud, the daughter
of Baron van Berchem, however, only three years
later, on 9 February 1795, he was murdered, and robbed
possibly on the pretext of his pro-Robespierre lean-
ings.77 Polier was survived by his young Swiss wife,
their three children (a daughter and two sons), and
his three Indian children. An Indian daughter and son
arrived in France together with Polier, and his other
son George went to London after his father’s death

71
Cf. the imprints of Polier’s first seal of 1181/1767-68 reproduced in Colas and Richard, “Le Fonds Polier à la Bibliothèque Nationale,” 108, no. 1. The same titles
are mentioned in the shamsa of Polier’s album I. 4594, fol. 40, dated 1190/1777, and in the seal in album I. 4593 presented to Polier by Shah ‘Alam in 1181/
1767-7. I am grateful to Friederike Weis for sharing with me this extremely helpful information about Polier’s seals. The seal where Polier is mentioned as
Major with the date 1181 is also mentioned in Henry Bradshaw’s letter to Henry Palmer on 12 November 1866 (Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 21, N. 4,
105–7).
72
Colas and Richard, “Le Fonds Polier à la Bibliothèque Nationale,” 107–9.
73
Alavi, “Polier”; Subrahmanyam, “The Career of Colonel Polier,” 43–60. Autobiographical details can be found in Polier’s own letters (A European Experience),
and in the introduction of the book written by his first cousin the Chanoinesse de Polier: Mythologie des Indous, vol. 1. See also Jasanoff, Edge of Empire,
esp. 46, 64–71, 85–90; Stronge and Moghaddam, “An Unrecorded Polier Muraqqa‘,” 195–228.
74
According to other sources he served in Fort William in Calcutta (Subrahmanyam, “The Career of Colonel Polier,” 45).
75
In Colonel Claude Martin’s will his wives’ names are mentioned as Johquenow Begam and Zinnet Begam. Polier left them a pension of 10 sicca rupees per
month each (Alavi, “Polier”).
76
Jasanoff, Edge of Empire, 52–8.
77
Rosie Llewelyn-Jones gives several accounts of the murder of Polier and his family. According to one of them,
Polier was killed by “a band of brigands” who accused him of supporting Robespierre, while others believe that it was by a party of sans-culottes,
jealous of Polier’s wealth he acquired in India. In the end it was not only Polier who was robbed and murdered, his wife was burnt alive, daughters
raped and the whole house set on fire. (Llewellyn-Jones, A Very Ingenious Man, 182).
According to Jean-Marie Lafont, Polier’s pregnant young wife together with his daughter by one of his Indian wives whom he had brought with him to
Avignon, both of more or less the same age, were locked in a room in his Le Pontet mansion and thus survived while Polier was taken downstairs into
the kitchen, tortured and murdered (personal communication).
 IRAN 257

with another friend of Polier’s, Benoît de Boigne
(Leborne), who took responsibility for educating him
together with his own Indian children.78
While in India, Polier was known for not only col-
lecting manuscripts but commissioning new works
and refurbishing those he had acquired. For this pur-
pose he established his own atelier, where he drew on
the skills of several artists and craftsmen. Among
them were the painters Mihrchand,79 Dulichand, Maw-
lavi Mir Haydar ‘Ali and the binder Mir Muhammad
‘Azim.80 The illuminators who worked for Polier are
not known by name, only by profession – naqqāsh
(“artist”).81 It is tempting to suggest that Polier was
responsible for redesigning the original aesthetics of
the manuscript. The King’s College Hilali was among
Polier’s earliest acquisitions, which was kept in his
fully functioning atelier, where it might have acquired
its bombastic new appearance, rich with colour and
imagery. This would have made it a brilliant example
of eighteenth-century Orientalist aesthetics, merging
imitated Persianate decorative style with Mughal palette
to cater for the European taste and perception of the
exotic Orient. However, although it is possible that the
manuscript was rebound for the second time at Polier’s
atelier when it lost its first folio and the catchwords on
the trimmed margins, it seems the main alterations to
the aesthetics of the manuscript were done earlier.
The flyleaf of the manuscript contains the seal of Shah-
jahan’s librarian ʿAbd al-Haqq Amanat Khan who in his
note already mentions the tas vīrs, which cannot be any-
thing else but the marginal bestiary because the manu-
script does not have any other “proper” illustrations.
This means that the margins were replaced already at
the Mughal court, namely before 1632 – the year indi-
cated on ‘Abd al-Haqq’s seal. Thus the original classical
Central Asian-style simple and elegant gold-sprinkled
margins over ivory background, similar to those in
two other contemporaneous manuscripts by Mir ‘Ali
under discussion in this paper, were replaced in India
by striking pastiche of bestiary patterns soon after its
arrival at the Mughal court. Such imagery can be
found not only in Persian book art but also on
lacquer bindings, early ceramics, and fine carpets. In
fact, the lacquer binding of the King’s manuscript fol-
lows the marginal motifs very consistently although
not in polychrome but in a much more restrained
palette.
In any event, Polier does not seem to have inter-
vened much in the refurbishment of this manuscript
and he probably overlooked it when he was choosing
the most important pieces from his collection to be
shipped to France when he was leaving India.82 The
remaining 550 less valuable manuscripts stayed in
India where they were acquired in 1788 in Patna by
Ephraim Pote.
Ephraim Pote (1750–1832)
The next owner of the Cambridge Hilali was Edward
Ephraim Pote,83 a British merchant in Patna who left
his manuscript collection to his two alma mater colleges:
Eton and King’s.
Both father and grandfather (on the maternal side
side) of Edward Ephraim and his brother Joseph were
booksellers in Eton, and they both attended Eton Col-
lege. Ephraim was admitted to King’s at the age of
seventeen. In 1772 he was hoping to travel to the East
Indies as a Writer, but was refused permission by the
Provost as “his absence would have been inconsistent
with his College duties”. However, eight years after
taking his degree, he joined the East India Company,
and was for many years resident at Patna, Bengal as
Junior Merchant and Commercial Resident at Rungpore
until 1809 when he resigned and came back to England,
where he died in Norton, Nottinghamshire at the age of
82 in 1832. It is possible that he himself never saw the
manuscripts, or had a chance to inspect each of them
personally, let alone to read and study, sign or imprint
them with his seal.84 The circumstances that allowed
Pote to acquire Polier’s manuscripts are not clear.
When they arrived in England they were only
accompanied by alphabetically organised hand-lists
with no explanatory notes. It is quite possible that
Pote “acquired” what Polier had left behind, in his

78
Jasanoff, Edge of Empire, 90–100, 344.
79
Roy, “Some Unexpected Sources,” 21–29; Llewellyn-Jones, European Patrons and Indian Artists. Roy, William Beckford’s albums: https://blogs.bl.uk/asian-and-
african/2014/12/william-beckfords-albums-on-hindu-mythology.html
80
Polier called Dulichand “second painter” (musavvir-i duvvum) after Mihrchand. Dulichand was prescribed by Polier to sign his paintings not with his name but
as “musavvir-i duvvum” (A European Experience, 235).
81
A European Experience, 326. Cf. similar style decoration of the folio from the Polier Album: Layla and Majnun, Lot 472, Christie’s Indian and Southeast Asian Art,
Sale 2024, New York, 16 September 2008, https://www.christies.com/lotfinder/Lot/a-folio-from-the-polier-album-layla-5111356-details.aspx.
82
Jasanoff seems to be unaware of the Cambridge collection of Polier’s manuscripts (Jasanoff, Edge of Empire, 86).
83
In the surviving documents in the British Library for that year he is described as merchant: BL Mss Eur D1135: Power of attorney by Edward Ephraim Pote,
merchant, Patna, appointing Hoare & Co, bankers, Thomas Pote and Edward Wise to act for him; also statement of his affairs as at 1 March 1788. https://
discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/a1288a4f-ac20-42a5-8827-613aebb7e097.
84
Other manuscripts from his possession have his signature, e.g. Mir’at-i Ahmadi by ʻAli Muhammad Khan (Royal Asiatic Society, MS Ellis Persian 36).
258 F. MELVILLE

Figure 12. Hubert von Herkomer, Portrait of Henry Bradshaw ©

frontispiece in G. W. Prothero: A Memoir of Henry Bradshaw,
London 1888 Figure 13. Portrait of Henry Palmer © St John’s College, Cam-
bridge.
Note: I would like to thank Kathryn McKee for her help with obtaining this
haste to finish his affairs in India, or was physically image.

unable to take all his possessions to Europe. This is

how it was explained in the correspondence between
the Cambridge scholars Henry Bradshaw of King’s
and Henry Palmer of St John’s who were dealing with
the matter 76 years after the manuscripts had arrived
in England: “there seems no doubt that the collection
acquired by Mr Pote in 1788 contains a large portion
of Polier’s library as he left it”.85 Pote shipped the manu-
scripts in eight containers, which he ordered to be
divided more or less mechanically (in alphabetical
order) into halves, and sent one half of the collection
to King’s College, Cambridge (chests A, B, C, D) and
second half to Eton (chests E, F, G, H)86 to show his
gratitude to those institutions to which he was indebted
for his education.87 The lists of the manuscripts arrived
four years later, and only the one for the King’s collec-
tion is now available in the College archive (LIB/10/2).
Bradshaw, Palmer and Browne
When Mir ‘Ali’s manuscript arrived in Cambridge as
part of those 550 manuscripts, it was studied by three
famous codicologists: Bradshaw of King’s (Figure 12),
Palmer of St John’s (Figure 13) and Browne of Pem-
broke (Figure 14).
Henry Bradshaw88 (1831–1886), Fellow of King’s,
managed to persuade Henry Palmer89 (1840–1882)
to prepare and publish in 1867 his Handlist of all
the manuscripts which had arrived from Patna.90
Bradshaw, the son of a London banker, was educated,
like Pote, at Eton and King’s College, Cambridge. He
then stayed at the University and in 1853 became a
fellow of King’s. For three years he was away from
Cambridge, working as the Assistant Master at

85
“Letter of Henry Bradshaw to Edward Henry Palmer,” 106.
86
The Eton part of Pote’s donation was described and published as a much more detailed and substantial catalogue several decades later, in 1904. However, it
was done not by a young scholar, like Palmer in those days but the Laudian Professor of Arabic at Oxford (Margoliouth, Catalogue of the Oriental manuscripts
in the Library of Eton College). Margoliuth was probably using the Hand-list (now in the Cambridge University Library, Ms. Add. 4226) compiled by Edward
Cowell, Cambridge Professor of Sanskrit who was also cataloguing Persian collection of the Bodleian manuscripts.
87
King’s College Archives: KCAC/6/2/23 or LIB/10.2.
88
See more on him in: David McKitterick, “Bradshaw, Henry”, and also his entry on Bradshaw in the Encyclopaedia Britannica for primary and secondary bib-
liography. I thank Peter Jones, the King’s Librarian for sharing his unpublished paper “Henry Bradshaw and the manuscripts at King’s College”.
89
Baigent, “Palmer.”
90
Palmer, “Catalogue of the Oriental Manuscripts in the Library of King’s College.”

Figure 14. Charles Haslewood Shannon, Portrait of Edward
Granville Browne, ca. 1912 © Pembroke College, Cambridge
Saint Columba’s College, Dublin. In 1856 he returned
to Cambridge as an extra assistant at the University
Library. Although his main specialisms were studies
in Gaelic and Greek, he also knew Arabic and Per-
sian, which enabled him to catalogue the manuscripts
in Arabic scripts. Bradshaw’s commission to Palmer
to produce the catalogue was a turning-point in Pal-
mer’s life, marking the start of his legendary new
career as a British orientalist and secret service agent.
Palmer had been orphaned when he was still a young
boy, studying at The Perse School in Cambridge. Raised
by his aunt, he became interested in “exotic” foreign
languages early in his life, spending most of his free
time with gypsies, learning their language and customs.
After leaving school, he worked in London in the wine
business, whilst also writing poetry and plays, and learn-
ing Romance languages and their dialects. In 1859 he
returned to Cambridge ill from tuberculosis, where he
met Seyyid Abdullah, a teacher of Hindustani. He
then learnt Persian, Arabic and Hindustani, and, having
made a full recovery, he matriculated at St John’s Col-
lege in 1863. Four years later he was elected a fellow
91
Rieu, Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the British Museum, vol. 2, Add 7783, 655–6.
92
Wickens, Cole and Ekbal, “Browne, Edward Granville,” 483–8. I am grateful to the FIHRIST team for letting me know about the start of the work on updating
Browne’s Hand-list.
93
Baker, “Browne, Sir Benjamin Chapman”.
94
Browne, A Supplementary Hand-list of the Muhammadan Manuscripts.
IRAN 259
of St John’s in Persian and Hindustani. Palmer became
famous for his phenomenal linguistic talents: he trans-
lated Thomas Moore’s Paradise and the Peri into
Persian verse and was one of the interpreters to Nasir
al-Din Shah during his visit to London in 1873.
Although he started to teach at St John’s, his main pre-
occupations were studies in codicology and Arabic, Per-
sian, Hindustani and Hebrew translations. As a result,
he produced several handlists and catalogues of Islamic
manuscripts of two Cambridge Colleges, King’s and Tri-
nity. After the death of his first wife and his son he lost
interest in teaching and academic life, remarried and
went on a secret mission. In August 1882, in Egypt he
was murdered in the desert. His remains were brought
to England and buried in St Paul’s Cathedral. Palmer’s
description of Hilali’s Divan in his Handlist is minimal,
it did not even provide the date, but it served its purpose
by introducing the manuscript to the scholarly world:
Charles Rieu already referred to it in his Catalogue of
1881.91
E.G. Browne briefly studied the manuscript in ques-
tion when he was compiling his Handlist of the Cam-
bridge University Islamic (“Muhammadan”)
manuscripts.92 Browne is considered the founder of
British Oriental studies at the university level; his
interests were encyclopaedically wide, from Islamic
codicology to the Babi movement, from Persian classi-
cal literature to the Constitutional Revolution. He also
came to Cambridge after Eton, and his first degree was
in medicine. He, with seven other siblings was from the
wealthy family of Sir Benjamin Chapman Browne
(1839–1917),93 a civil engineer, banker and builder of
locomotives, torpedo boats and destroyers, which he
was selling mainly to the Russian volunteer fleet,
with an annual turnover of more than £1.5 million.
Later (1885–1887), he served as mayor of Newcastle
and was knighted. E.G. Browne never experienced
any financial problems, quite the opposite; he could
afford to hire research assistants at his own expense.
Among his assistants helping Browne with the Pote
collection was Mr Ballard of Clare who died very
young.94 It is quite ironic that Browne’s interest in
Oriental studies was triggered by his eagerness to
learn Turkish to be able to join the Ottomans to fight
the Russians. He started his second course at Cam-
bridge as an Ottomanist but his research interests
very soon focused mainly on Persia although he even-
tually became Sir Thomas Adams Professor of Arabic.
260 F. MELVILLE
He is known not only for studying in great detail all the
manuscripts in Arabic, Persian and Turkish, which are
a part of the Cambridge University Library, many of
which he had himself collected and donated to the Uni-
versity. Two manuscripts from the King’s Pote collec-
tion were mentioned in the more recent publications
by Basil Robinson and Robert Hillenbrand: Firdawsi’s
Shahnama (Pote 135),95 and Amir Khusraw Dihlavi’s
Khamsa (Pote 153).96
Conclusion
The King’s College manuscript of Hilali’s Divan calli-
graphed by Mir ‘Ali, is a missing piece in the beautiful
mosaic composed by Oleg Akimushkin of two other
Mir ‘Ali’s manuscripts: the Anthology, now in the Institute
of Oriental Manuscripts in St Petersburg and ‘Arifi’s Guy-
u Chawgan, now in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin.
Together they reveal several fascinating historical facts.
One of them is the place where Mir ‘Ali completed the
King’s Hilali, as the manuscript is associated with two
important and tragic events in the life of its author and
the history of Herat: its siege by the Shaybanid ruler
‘Ubaydallah and the execution of Hilali right after the con-
quest. As its direct consequences, Mir ‘Ali was brought to
Sultan’s capital Bukhara as a sort of intellectual booty. He
spent the rest of his life there, and despite his elevated pos-
ition at court was intensely unhappy, nostalgic and disillu-
sioned. One of the main reasons of the awkward position
of both Hilali and Mir ‘Ali was perhaps their religious
ambiguity which would put them on the wrong side
when the dominance of either the Safavids, or the Shayba-
nids was constantly changing. It is also not absolutely cer-
tain if they were either Sunnis, or Shi’is, or had ever
changed their religious identity.
By putting chronologically the three manuscripts
together, the Cambridge Divan takes the place between
the Dublin Guy-u Chawgan (completed in 934/1527–8),
which is Mir ‘Ali’s latest surviving work produced still in
Herat, and the St Petersburg jung (completed in Dhu’l-
Qi‘da 935/July-August 1529), which is the earliest
known manuscript written by Mir ‘Ali in Bukhara.
This comparison helps not only to establish that the
Cambridge manuscript was written by Mir ‘Ali in
Bukhara in grief and memory of his perished friend
and compatriot but to date more precisely the first
siege and conquest of Herat by ‘Ubaydallah.
Mir ‘Ali’s version of Hilali’s Divan shows his rather fri-
volous treatment of his friend’s legacy, which may indi-
cate his personal choice inspired by his nostalgic
95
Robinson, Bodleian, 159; Hillenbrand, 8.
96
Robinson, Persian Miniature Paintings, No 170; Hillenbrand, 8 and 33.
feelings about his native Herat which united him with
his late friend. By placing closer to the front the Hafiz-
inspired ghazal which is put under number 35 in printed
editions, Mir ‘Ali was probably equalling Hilali to Hafiz,
and himself to his disciples who also after their master’s
death used the famous ghazal with the incipit:
‫ﺍﻻ ﯾﺎ ﺍﯾﻬﺎ ﺍﻟﺴﺎﻗﯽ ﺍﺩﺭ ﮐﺄﺳﺎ ﻭ ﻧﺎﻭﻟﻬﺎ‬
(“Oh cup-bearer, bring the cup!”)
as Hafiz’s Fatiha by putting it in the very beginning.
Mir ‘Ali probably produced this manuscript for himself,
as is suggested by his mentioning in the colophon that it
was intended as a draft, although the decorative pro-
gramme and the layout suggest that it was intended to
be a codex of very high quality. Nevertheless, its illumi-
nation was left unfinished. Perhaps by indicating that
the manuscript was only a draft, Mir ‘Ali was trying to
prove that it was made for working purposes only and
should be kept in his own possession, not in the royal
atelier: to avoid reminding the ruler about the poet
whom he punished so cruelly, which might have had
some dangerous consequences for his own security.
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to Adel Adamova, Barbara Brend, Sheila Canby,
Julia Gonnella, Alexandre Dzhumaev, Charles Melville,
Andrew Peacock, Olga Vasilyeva, Friederike Weis, Olga Yas-
trebova, Soheil Ramanian and the reviewer of this journal for
sharing with me their very helpful comments. This research
was initiated in 2017 when I was commissioned to prepare a
series of catalogues of Central Asian art in Cambridge collec-
tions for the International project on Cultural Legacy of Uzbe-
kistan. I dedicate this paper to O.F. Akimushkin who taught
me how to read manuscripts.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Bibliography
Akimushkin, O. F. “Litsevaya rukopis iz sobraniya Instituta
Narodov Azii AN SSSR.” In Srednevekovyi Iran. Kultura,
istoriya, filologiya, ed. E. I. Kychanov, 32–40. St
Petersburg: Nauka, 2004. Originally published in Blizhniy
i Sredniy Vostok: Pamyati professora B.I. Zakhodera, 76–
82. Moscow: Nauka, 1962.
Akimushkin, O. F. “Biblioteka Shibanidov v Bukhare XVI
veka.” In Srednevekovyi Iran. Kultura, istoriya, filologiya,
ed. E. I. Kychanov, 368–383. St Petersburg: Nauka, 2004.
Akimushkin, O. F., and B. Gray. The Arts of the Book in
Central Asia- 14th-16th Centuries. Berkeley: Shambhala
Publications, 1979.

Alavi, S. “Polier, Antoine Louis Henri.” Oxford Dictionary of
National Biography, online edition.
Alparslan, A. “Ali Herevi.” Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslam
Ansiklopedisi online edition https://islamansiklopedisi.org.
tr/ali-herevi-mir.
Akın-Kıvanç, E. “Mustafa Âli’s Epic Deeds of Artists and New
Approaches to Written Sources of Ottoman Art.” Journal of
the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association 2, no. 2
(2015): 225–258.
A’zam, Khvaja Muhammad. Vaqi’at-i Kashmir. Lahore, 1886.
Bahari, E. “The Sixteenth Century School of Bukhara Painting
and the Arts of the Book.” In Society and Culture in the
Early Modern Middle East. Studies on Iran in the Safavid
Period, edited by A. Newman, 251–264. Leiden: Brill, 2003.
Baigent, E. “Palmer, Edward Henry.” Oxford Dictionary of
National Biography, online edition.
Baker, A. P. “Browne, Sir Benjamin Chapman”. Oxford
Dictionary of Biography, online edition.
Begley, W. E. “ʿAbd al-H aqq Amānat Khān.” Encyclopædia
Iranica I/9 (1989): 923–924.
Bernardini, M. “Helāli Astarābādi Jagatā’i.” Encyclopaedia
Iranica XII: Fasc. 2 (2003): 152–154.
Boldyrev, A. N. Zaynaddin Vasifi - tadzhikskii pisatel’ 16-go
veka (opyt tvorcheskoi biografii). Stalinabad:
Tadzhikgosizdat, 1957.
Boldyrev, A. N. “Tezkire Hasana Nisori kak novyi istochnik
dlya izucheniya kulturnoy zhizni Sredney Azii 16 veka.”
Trudy Otdela Vostoka Gosudarstvennogo Ermitazha 3
(1940): 291–300.
Bregel, Y. “Abu’l-Khayrids.” In Encyclopædia Iranica online.
http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/abul-khayrids-dynasty.
Browne, E. G. A Supplementary Hand-List of the
Muhammadan Manuscripts, Including all Those Written
in the Arabic Character, Preserved in the Library of the
University of Cambridge. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1922.
Catalogue of the International Exhibition of Persian Art.
London: Royal Academy of Arts, 1931.
Colas, G., and F. Richard. “Le Fonds Polier à la Bibliothèque
Nationale.” Bulletin de l’Ècole française d’Extrême-Orient
73 (1984): 99–123.
Dickson, M. B. “Shah Tahmasp and the Uzbeks (The Duel for
Khurasan with ʿUbayd Khan: 930-946/1524-1540).” Ph. D.
Princeton: Princeton University, 1958.
Divan-i Hilali Chaghataʾi ba Shah-u darvish va S ifat al-
ʿAshiqin-i u. Edited by S. Nafisi, Tehran: Kitabkhana-i
Sinayi, 1958.
Divan-i Hilali. Kanpur, 1883.
Dodkhudoeva, L. N. “Trudy Badr ad-Dina Kashmiri v kon-
tekste razvitiya istoricheskoi kultury musulmanskogo sred-
nevekovya.” In Markazii Osiyo Zamonavii Medievestika
Talqinida/History of Central Asia in Modern Medieval
Studies (In Memoriam of Professor Roziya Mukminova),
edited by D. A. Alimova, 295–311. Tashkent: Yangi
Nashr, 2013.
Dodkhudoeva, L. N. “K voprosu ob instrumentakh formirova-
niya imperskoy ideologii v period pravleniya shibanidov.”
In Srednevekovyi Vostok. Problemy istoriografiii istochniko-
vedeniya. Pamyati Geroya Sovetskogo Soyuza, akademika
Z.M. Buniyatova, ed. Shahin Mustafaev, 51–71. Baku:
Elm, 2015.
IRAN 261
Dzhumaev, A. Nadzhm al-Din Kavkabi Bukhari: poet, muzy-
kant, uchenyi XV–XVI vekov. Zhizn’ i tvorchestvo.
Tashkent: Baktria Press, 2016.
A European Experience of the Mughal Orient, the I’jaz-i
Arsalani (Persian Letters, 1773–1779) of Antoine-Louis
Henri Polier. Translated and with an Introduction by
Muzaffar Alam and Seema Alavi. Oxford and New Delhi:
Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001.
Foltz, R. Mughal India and Central Asia. Oxford and Karachi:
Oxford University Press, 1998.
Gruber, C. “The Gulbenkian Baharistan: ‘Abd al-’Aziz & the
Bihzadian Tradition in 16th-Century Bukhara.” In
Namayishgah-i Bayn al-Milal Kamal al-Din Bihzad/
International Congress on Master Kemal al-Din Behzad,
255–287. Tehran: Farhangistan-i Hunar, 2005.
Gulchin Maʿani, A. “Sanad-i dar bab-i qatl-i Hilali.” Yaghma
16 (1964): 157–160.
Hanaway, W. L. “Eskandar-nāma.” In Encyclopaedia Iranica,
Vol. VIII, Fasc. 6, 1998, 609–612.
Hiloli, Badruddin. Osori Muntakhab. Edited by Kamol Ayni.
Stalinabad: Nashrdavtojik, 1958.
Hillenbrand, Robert. Imperial Images in Persian Painting. A
Scottish Arts Council Exhibition. Scottish Arts Council
Gallery (13th August-11th September 1977). Edinburgh:
Pillans and Wilson, 1977.
Hiloli, Badruddin. Ghazaliyot. Edited by Kamol Ayni.
Dushanbe: Irfon, 1970.
Iqbal, A. “Hilali Jaghatāʾi Astarabadi.” Yadgar 16, no. 3 (1945):
65–71.
Jasanoff, M. Edge of Empire. Lives, Culture, and Conquest in
the East, 1750–1850. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005.
Khaleghi-Motlagh, Djalal. “Ferdowsi, Abu’l-Qāsem.”
Encyclopaedia Iranica IX Fasc. 5 (1999): 514–523.
Khvandamir, Amir Mahmud. Tarikh-i Shah Isma’il va Shah
Tahmasp-i Safavi. Edited by Muhammad ‘Ali Jarrahi.
Tehran: Nashr-i Gustara, 1380/1961.
Khurramshahi, B. a.-D. Hafiznama. Tehran: Nashr-i Naw,
1344/1966.
“Letter of Henry Bradshaw to Henry Palmer on 12 November
1866.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain
and Ireland 21, no. 4 (1889): 105–7.
Llewellyn-Jones, R. A Very Ingenious Man. Claude Martin in
Early Colonial India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press
India, 1992.
Llewellyn-Jones, R. “European Patrons and Indian Artists in
Eighteenth Century Awadh.” In Prahlad Bubbar Gallery
online. http://www.prahladbubbar.com/research/european-
patrons-indian-artists-eighteenth-century-awadh/.
Margoliouth, D. S. Catalogue of the Oriental Manuscripts in
the Library of Eton College. Oxford: Horace Hart, Printer
to the University, 1904.
McKitterick, David. “Bradshaw, Henry.” In Encyclopaedia of
Library and Information Science, executive ed. Allen
Kent, vol. 39, suppl. 4, 53–58. New York-Basel: Marcel
Dekker, 1985. Also in Oxford Dictionary of National
Biography, sv.
Meisami, J. S. “A Life in Poetry: Hāfiz’s First Ghazal.” In The
Necklace of the Pleiades: 24 Essays on Persian Literature,
Culture and Religion, edited by Sunil Sharma, and F. D.
Lewis, 163–181. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University
Press, 2011.
262 F. MELVILLE
Melville, Firuza. “A Friend’s Tribute: Mir ‘Ali for Hilali.”
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (Festschrift in honour
of Barbara Brend and edited by Alison Ohta, Emily
Shovelton and Mehreen Chida-Razvi), special issue, forth-
coming 2021.
Mirzoalieva, Adolat. “Poetika gazelei Badriddina Hiloli.” PhD
dissertation. Dushanbe: Tadzhikskii gosudarstvennyi peda-
gogicheskii universitet, 2004. http://cheloveknauka.com/
poetika-gazeley-badriddina-hiloli.
Memon, M. U. “Amīn Ah mad Rāzī.” Encyclopædia Iranica I/9
(1989): 939.
Nizami Aruzi, Chahár Maqála (“Four Discourses”) of Nizámí-i
‘Arúdí of Samarqand, translated into English by Edward
G. Browne, M.A., M.B., Former Fellow of Pembroke
College, Cambridge (reprinted from the Journal of the
Royal Asiatic Society, July and October 1899), EGW Gibb
Memorial Trust, 1921, reprinted in 1978, University
Press, Cambridge.
Norik, B. V. Bio-bibliograficheskiy Slovar Sredneaziatskoy
Poezii (16-pervaya tret’ 17 veka). Moscow: Marjani, 2011.
Norik, B. V. “Rol’ Shibanidskikh praviteley v kulturnoy zhizni
Maverannahra.” In Rahmat-name (sbornik v chest 70-letiya
R.R. Rakhimova), ed. M. E. Rezvan, 237–246. St Petersburg:
Kunstkamera.
Palmer, E. H. “Art. IV.—Catalogue of the Oriental
Manuscripts in the Library of King’s College,
Cambridge.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 3 (1867):
105–131.
Qazi Ahmad b, H. a.-H. Q. Treatise on Calligraphers and
Painters. Translated and edited by Vladimir Minorsky,
Washington, Freer Gallery of Art (Occasional Papers,
Volume 3, Number 2), 1959.
Qazi Ahmad b, H. a.-H. Q. Treatise on Calligraphers and
Painters. Translated and edited by Vladimir Minorsky.
Interactive online edition featuring a new introduction,
illustrations and updated bibliography. Produced and
developed by Simon Rettig, Zeynep Simavi, Sana Mirza,
and Ari Post, 2016. https://asia.si.edu/wp-content/
uploads/2017/06/Qadi-Ahmad-2017-lo.pdf.
[Qazi Ahmad]. Traktat o Kalligrafakh i Khudozhnikakh.
Translation, supplement, annotation by O.F. Akimushkin.
Prepared for publication, with preface and indices by
B. V. Norik. Moscow: Sadra, 2016.
[Qazi Ahmad]. Traktat o Kalligrafakh i Khudozhnikakh.
Translation by B. N. Zakhoder. Moscow-Leningrad:
Iskusstvo, 1947.
Rieu, C. Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the British
Museum, vol. 2. London: British Museum, 1881.
Robinson, B. W. A Descriptive Catalogue of the Persian
Paintings in the Bodleian Library. Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1958.
Robinson, B. W. Persian Miniature paintings from the
Collections in the British Isles. London: Victoria and
Albert Museum, 1967.
Ross, E. D. “Browne, Edward Granville (1862–1926).” Oxford
Dictionary of National Biography. Online edition.
Roxburgh, David. Prefacing the Image: The Writing of Art
History in Sixteenth-Century Iran. Muqarnas,
Supplements, Vol. 9. Leiden: Brill, 2000.
Roy, M. William Beckford’s albums on Hindu mythology,
British Library, Asian and African studies blog, 8
December 2014: https://blogs.bl.uk/asian-and-african/
2014/12/william-beckfords-albums-on-hindu-mythology.
html
Roy, M. “Some Unexpected Sources for Paintings by the Artist
Mihr Chand (fl. c. 1759–86), Son of Ganga Ram.” South
Asian Studies 26, no. 1 (2010): 21–29.
Rumlu, Hasan Beg. Ahsan al-Tavarikh. Edited by ‘Abd al-
Husayn Nava’i, v. 2. Tehran: Asatir, 1384/1964.
Schimmel, A. “The Calligraphy and Poetry of the
Kevorkian Album.” In The Emperors’ Album. Images of
Mughal India, eds. Welch, Stuart Cary, Annemarie
Schimmel, Marie L. Swietochowski, and Wheeler M.
Thackston, 31–44. New York: Metropolitan Museum
of Art, 1987.
Semenov, A. A. “Kulturnyi uroven pervykh Sheybanidov.”
Sovetskoe Vostokovedenie 3 (1956): 51–59.
Soucek, P. P. “ʿAlī Heravī.” Encyclopaedia Iranica I/8 (1985):
864–865.
Soucek, P. P. “Persian Artists in Mughal India: Influences and
Transformations.” Muqarnas 4 (1987): 166–181.
Stronge, S., and B. Atighi Moghaddam. “An Unrecorded
Polier Muraqqa’ (c.1785). New Insights Into British-
Hindustani Cultural Interaction.” In Adle Nāmeh. Studies
in Memory of Chahriyar Adle, edited by Alireza Anisi,
195–228. Tehran: Research Institute for Cultural Heritage
and Tourism, 2018.
Subtelny, M. “The Timurid Legacy: A Reaffirmation and a
Reassessment.” In Cahiers d’Asie Centrale, Nos 3-4.
L’Heritage timouride Iran-Asie Centrale-Inde XV-XVIIIe
siècles, 9–19. Tashkent-Aux-en-Provence: IFEAC, 1997,
2004.
Subtelny, Maria. Timurids in Transition: Turko-Persian
Politics and Acculturation in Medieval Iran. Leiden: Brill,
2007.
Sultanov, T. I. Chingiz-khan i chingizidy. Sud’ba i vlast’. St
Petersburg: Evraziya, 2017.
Szuppe, M. “The Female Intellectual Milieu in Timurid and
Post-Timurid Herat: Faxri Heravi’s Biography of
Poetesses, Jawāher al-ʿajāyeb.” Oriente Moderno, Special
Issue, La civiltà timuride come fenomeno internazionale,
edited by M. Bernardini, N.S. 15 [76]/2 (1996): 119–37.
Thackston, W. M. “ʿUbayd Allāh Sult ān K ̲
 hān.” In
Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition.
Ubadiy. Diydor orsuzi. Rubaiylar, nashrga tayorlovchi va
tarzhimon. Edited by E. Ochilov. Toshkent: Sharq,
2007.
Ubaydiy, Qul. Vafo qilsang. Turkiy Devon dan namunalar. Edited
by A. Hayitmetov. Toshkent: Yozuvchi nashriyoti, 1994.
Wickens, G. Michael, Juan Cole, and Kamran Ekbal. “Browne,
Edward Granville.” Encyclopædia Iranica IV/5 (1989): 483–
488.