St Petersburg International Conference of Afghan Studies

92 Санкт-Петербургская международная конференция по афганистике Секция 6. Религии, культура и археология Афганистана Афганистана... The binding protecting the book now, on the contrary, shows traces of damage and old repair. Central-and-corner composition of doublures, covered with dark claret leather, includes central medallion and corner-pieces fulfilled in the technique of filigree, or, rather leather incrustation. Outsides of the covers are similar, block- stamped with guilt background, central panel representing a fantastic landscape inhabited with animals and birds. The broad frame is formed of a number of rectangular panels with inscriptions against the background of scrolls. Upper and lower panels of the frame contain common benevolent formulas addressed to the owner of the book, while each of the four on the left and right sides bears a hemistich forming following two bayts: Ba hasht ṣ ad va navad-u seh zi hijrat-i nubavī * tamām kard mar īn jild-rā bā ‛awn-i khudā. Shahd( ?)-u zubdeh-yi ‛ālam Funūnī( ?) sa ḥḥ āf * barā-yi shāh-i šajī‛ naqd-i ṣ ulb-i shah Ya ḥ yā . In the year eight hundred and ninety-three after the hijra of the Prophet, with the help of Lord this binding was finished. By Funūnī(?) sa ḥḥ āf , who is like honey(?) and cream of this world, for the brave king, the fruit from the seed of king Yaḥyā. These two bayts provide information on the year of the binding’s production — 893AH (1487–1488 CE), the customer who is described as a king, son of kingYaḥyā, and the artist responsible for the making of the binding. The latter’s name, written with only one diacritic dot, can possibly be read as Funūnī(?) the Binder ( sa ḥḥ āf ). The manuscript written in the first half of the 15 th century in Shiraz travelled eastwards, probably to Herat, at some point of the following four or five decades, and finally received a new binding. For a while its “biography” became connected with what are now the western regions of Afghanistan, then part of the Timurid, and later of the Safavid realms. The most probable owner of the book as mentioned on the binding is a Sistani ruler of the Mihrabanid line. He could be one of the two sons of Malik Niẓām al-Dīn Yaḥyā (842–885/1438–1480). After this Malik died his elder son, Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad, proved unable to cope with the challenges of his time and after a short reign voluntarily yielded power to his younger half- brother Sulṭān-Maḥmūd (died c. 1543) who finally became a vassal of the Safavids 1 . Dedication to a ruling person or his treasury is the practice that can be traced since earlier times. Among them one can mention Kalila wa Dimna copied in Herat in 1430 with the name of Mirza Baysunghur on the binding; the Diwan of ‘Attar of 1438, dedicated to the treasury of Shāh Rukh (years of rule 1397–1447); the 1 On Mihrabanids see: Bosworth C. E . The history of the Saffarids of Sistan and the Maliks of Nimruz (247/861 to 949/1542‑3). Costa Mesa, New York, 1994. P. 365–477.