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2019
ВЕСТНИК САНКТ-ПЕТЕРБУРГСКОГО УНИВЕРСИТЕТА ВОСТОКОВЕДЕНИЕ И АФРИКАНИСТИКА
Т. 11. Вып. 1
ИСТОРИЯ И ИСТОЧНИКОВЕДЕНИЕ
UDC 930.2; 94; 821.21; 821.22
Same But Different? On copies of the general history Habib al-siyar in Saint Petersburg manuscript collections
Ph. Bockholt
Leipzig University, Institute of Oriental Studies, Schillerstrafie 6, 04109, Leipzig, Germany
For citation: Bockholt Ph. Same But Different? On copies of the general history Habib al-siyar in Saint Petersburg manuscript collections. Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Asian and African Studies, 2019, vol. 11, issue 1, pp. 52-63. https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu13.2019.104
Manuscript copies of the 16th century general history Habib al-siyar fi akhbar afrad al-bas-har (Beloved of Careers: On the Accounts of People) written in Persian by Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad Khvandamir (d. 942/1535-6) are preserved in many collections worldwide. As the author rewrote his text several times during the time he worked for the Safavids under Shah Ismail in Iran and the Mughal emperor Babur in India respectively, extant copies of the work are not identical but differ remarkably. The article tackles the issue of textual differences in extant manuscripts and is threefold: first, it discusses observations advanced in the writings of the Russian scholar N. D. Miklukho-Maklai based on his work at the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Second, it examines variations in the corpus of twenty-five copies of Habib al-siyar kept today in the manuscript collections of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts, the National Library of Russia, and Saint Petersburg State University. The textual differences contained in the manuscripts of the corpus clearly indicate that Habib al-siyar had two versions of equal status ("Shi'i" and "Sunni"). In a last step, by exploring paratextual elements such as ownership and endowment remarks, or birth notes, the article addresses the question of readership, i.e. how people actually read, copied, sold or commented upon copies of the work.
Keywords: Persian historiography, Safavids, Mughals, manuscript studies, paratext.
The Persian court chronicle Habib al-siyar ft akhbar afrad al-bashar (Beloved of Careers: On the Accounts of People), written by Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad Khvandamir (d. 942/1535-6), the former Timurid court secretary employed by the Safavids in Herat in the 1520s, is considered the most important source for the history of Iran and Central
© Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет, 2019
Asia in the first decades of the 16th century1. As I discussed in a previous article [2], the Habib al-siyar is a good case in point which indicates the importance of examining extant manuscripts of a certain work instead of relying on the printed edition only2. In regard to the Habib al-siyar, this is due to the fact that its author wrote more than one version of the text, and that the non-critical edition of the work (printed in Tehran in 1954 and reprinted since then several times; [6]) cannot serve as a secure textual basis for further research3. Therefore, establishing a solid textual basis of the Habib al-siyar, i.e. a stemma of its earliest manuscripts, still remains an important scholarly task. In addition to this, apart from the question of the original text, the manuscript tradition of the Habib al-siyar in later centuries is of equal importance. In fact, the extraordinarily large number of extant manuscript copies, in total more than 600 produced from the 16th to the 19th centuries, points out to the fact that the Habib al-siyar is one of the most widely distributed history books in the Persian language of all times4. For centuries, manuscript copies of the work were written, purchased, possessed, sold, endowed, and most importantly, read by a huge number of people [1, pp. 298-349].
This article tackles the manuscript tradition of the Habib al-siyar by examining earlier and later copies of the work kept at the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IOM RAS), the National Library of Russia (NLR), and the library of the Faculty of Asian and African Studies of Saint Petersburg State University (SPSU). The examination of this sample of manuscripts aims at contributing to the thriving field of studies on book culture and historical readership in the premodern Islamic world. In the following, I will show that the sample of Habib al-siyar manuscripts in the collections of Saint Petersburg is interesting for reasons that go far beyond the question of establishing the stemma of the "original" text(s). Further, I will demonstrate how heterogenous the sample of manuscripts dealt with here in fact is, and how many details can be detected that may give us insights into various aspects of the premodern Islamic book culture. The focus of my investigation revolves around a number of inquiries, namely, of which version a certain manuscript contains, and in what forms did the copying process take place (i.e. whether a manuscript was possibly altered by scribes and readers). Furthermore, what can be said about its owner- and readership, and how did a certain manuscript find its way into the present collection?
The materials examined here consist of twenty-five copies of the Habib al-siyar in total. These are thirteen manuscripts kept at the IOM RAS (nos. B 2335, B 3961, C 425, C 428, C 429, C 430, C 1664, D 77-1, D 77-2, D 78, D 81, D 195, and D 406), seven in the NLR (nos. Dorn 284, Khanykov 64 and 65, PNS 54, 55, 56, and 238), and five in the SPSU
1 The analysis and the arguments advanced here are part of the doctoral thesis which I conducted at the Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies, Free University Berlin: Weltgeschichtsschreibung zwischen Schia und Sunna. Hvandamirs (gest. 1535/6) Habib as-siyar und seine Rezeption im Handschriftenzeitalter (completed in 2018; [1]).
2 On the contrary, recent publications of Quinn and Bashir which tackle religio-political issues in the early years of the Safavid dynasty are based on the edition of the work exclusively [3; 4; 5].
3 The Tehran edition of 1954 is based on a Bombay lithograph dating back to the middle of the 19th century [7], which textual basis is not known and its text therefore not reliable (another lithograph, published in Tehran shortly earlier in 1854-5, was never turned into a typography; [8]).
4 Cf. Peacock's statement on the manuscript tradition of Bal'ami's Tarikhnama [9, p. 3]: "No other Persian historical work is preserved [in] as many manuscripts as the Tarikhnama, with at least 160 extant copies."
collection respectively (nos. 283, 853, 1036, 1112, and 1176)5. Until today, the Habib al-siyar manuscripts in the Saint Petersburg collections have received scant attention. One major exception that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s is the work of the Russian orientalist Nikolai D. Miklukho-Maklai, who helped establish a stemma of the Habib al-siyar versions, which needs to be re-evaluated in the following.
When the Russian orientalist Nikolai D. Miklukho-Maklai wrote the catalogue of the historical works in Persian kept in the IOM RAS collection (published in 1975), he devoted special attention to the Habib al-siyar manuscripts in particular6. In his catalogue description, Miklukho-Maklai dwelled on the different versions of the work, and raised the question of how to distinguish these in certain manuscripts [10, pp. 110-116]. His attempts in distinguishing the different versions of the work were based on MS D 77-1, which is the only copy in the collections of Saint Petersburg that was completed during the lifetime of the author (dated 930/1523-4), and is the second oldest manuscript of the Habib al-siyar ever copied. It contains the first two volumes of the work and was copied by the scribe Darvish Muhammad b. All at a time when Khvandamir had not yet completed the third volume. Upon examining this particular manuscript, Miklukho-Maklai drew on earlier discussions about the work [15, pp. 104-106; 16, pp. 383-384], which enabled him to reach closer to Khvandamir's "original" text (i.e. version A, see below).
Miklukho-Maklai chose MS D 77-1 as a starting point for a thorough comparison of various Habib al-siyar manuscripts in an attempt to establish a stemma which would aid him to detect the several and gradual stages the text went through as Khvandamir wrote and rewrote his chronicle for both the Safavids and the Mughals. In doing so, Miklukho-Maklai compared MS D 77-1 with the Tehran lithograph of 1854-5 (and not the Tehran edition of 1954 that is based on the Bombay lithograph). What made the Tehran lithograph valuable to him is the fact that it is partly based on a manuscript that bears a remark of Khvandamir himself stating that he completed the text of the second volume for the second time (in 931/1525, i.e. version B); the remark was taken over in the lithograph. When Miklukho-Maklai thoroughly went through both the the text of MS D 77-1 and the Tehran lithograph, he realized that several chapters of the second volume of the Habib al-siyar contained in the lithograph are not part of the manuscript, whereas other chapters are shortened in the lithograph but longer in the manuscript copy. This he claimed was the key to distinguish the earliest versions (i.e. A and B) from each other. In reaching to this conclusion, his analysis was correct.
Yet what escaped Miklukho-Maklai's attention is the fact that the Habib al-siyar manuscripts in Saint Petersburg not only shed light on the missing or added chapters from version A to B, but also reveal remarkable alterations which Khvandamir made to the text from version B to C, a version later written by him addressing Babur in India, specifically in regard to religio-political matters. Whereas Miklukho-Maklai was also fully aware of several chapters added to the third volume from version B to C that depict Khvandamir's new patron Babur in most favourable light, he did not seem to have awareness of the changes made to the first volume dealing with early Islamic history (as found in the Tehran edition of 1954 and the Bombay lithograph, which are both based on version C manuscripts, as well as in several manuscripts kept in the collection). In versions A and
5 For more information on a specific manuscript, cf. [10, pp. 110-125; 11, pp. 131-133; 12, pp. 61-68].
6 Miklukho-Maklai had a profound interest in the work, as two short articles of his on the relation between the Habib al-siyar and Babur's autobiography Baburnama display [13; 14]).
B, the text of volume one bears a clear Shii affinity, whereas version C was aimed at a Sunni readership. These alterations are of utmost importance which indicate the reli-gio-political situation in early Safavid and Mughal times, and the circumstances of the composition of the work.
By taking up Miklukho-Maklai's considerations as well as the analysis I provided in my doctoral thesis of MS D 77-1 and other early Habib al-siyar manuscript copies, which date back to the 1520s and 1530s, I reached the conclusion that there are in fact three different versions (A, B, and C) of all three volumes. All of them were written by Khvandamir himself throughout the different stages of his life. It is recorded that he completed the versions A and B in Safavid Herat in the years 930/1524 and 931/1525 respectively, whereas he finished the latest version C in India after he had emigrated to the Mughal court in 935/1528. Arguably, Khvandamir's changing networks of patronage had a deep impact on the religio-political outlook of the work, especially noticeable in his ways to serve his lords by adjusting the text of his chronicle accordingly. These changes give insights into the strategies of legitimation of premodern Islamic dynasties. MS D 77-1 of the IOS RAM collection, examined by Miklukho-Maklai more than 40 years ago, which I revisited in my research in 2015 and 2018, has been one of the key manuscript copies to get insights into the circumstances of the composition of the work, and to establish a valid stemma of the Habib al-siyar founded on a thorough comparison of earliest manuscript copies.
Apart from that, the sample of Habib al-siyar manuscripts in the collections of Saint Petersburg is interesting for reasons that go far beyond the question of establishing the stemma of the "original" text(s). Due to the fact that nearly all of the copies dealt with here originate from Iran and Central Asia where Khvandamir wrote the versions A and B, one would have expected to find only copies of these two versions in Saint Petersburg. In fact, it is not only that single copies of version C made their way to Saint Petersburg, but quite the contrary: in total, more than half of the sample copies contain version C or bear a mixture of different versions. Grouped into the three versions, the picture is as follows (in chronological order respectively)7:
Version A manuscripts: D 77-1 (vols. I-II, 930/1523-4), Khanykov 65 (vol. I, dated 1002/1594), PNS 55 (vols. I-II, dated 1029/1620 and 1039/1630), D 81 (vol. II, dated 1030/1620-1), 1176 (vol. II, 16-17th cc.), 1036 (vol. III, 17th c.), PNS 238 (vol. III:3, 17th c.), C 1664 (vol. II, 17th c.), D 77-2 (vol. III, dated 1160/1747).
Version B manuscripts: C 430 (vol. I:1-2, dated 956/1549), 853 (vol. III:3, 18th c.).
Version C manuscripts: Dorn 284 (vol. III:3-4, dated 989/1581), 1112 (vol. III:1-3, dated 1005/1596-7), B 3961 (vol. I, 16th c.), Khanykov 64 (vol. I, 17th c.), C 428 (vol. III:3-4, 17th c.), C 425 (vol. I, 17th c.?), 283 (vol. I, dated 1258/1842).
Manuscripts containing more than one version (i.e. versions A and C): C 429 (vol. III:4, dated 1061/1651), D 195 (vol. I, dated 1067/1657), D 78 (vol. III, 16-17th cc.), PNS 56 (vol. III, 17th c.?), D 406 (vols. I:1, II:1-3, III:1-2; dated 1312/1894-5), PNS 54 (vols. I-III, 19th c.).
Version not clear: B 2335 (II:4, 17th c., partly extant only).
7 If no exact date of copying is mentioned, the indication of the century given here is based on the catalogues. Numbers like III:3-4 refer to the parts of a certain volume in case it is only partly contained in a manuscript (here parts three and four of the third volume).
The overview of the introduced sample of Habib al-siyar manuscripts clearly shows that all three versions A, B, and C were copied and distributed from the 16th to 19th centuries. Further, the sample offers insights into the distribution of a certain version from one region to another. For this, MS Dorn 284 is a case in point: it contains parts 3 and 4 of volume three and was copied in the kitabkhana (here: royal workshop) in Qazvin by the scribe Vajlh al-Din al-Husayni in 989/1581 at the times of Shah Muhammad Khudabanda (r. 985-95/1578-87). Given that, it only took a few decades until version C of volume three, bearing the added chapters on the Timurid ruler Babur mentioned above, found its way from India into the Safavid realm. In fact, MS Dorn 284 is the oldest example of a version C manuscript produced in Iran at all, as the comparison not only of the Saint Petersburg manuscripts but of around 460 out of the extant 600 copies has shown [1, p. 286]. Beside MS Dorn 284, the version C copies listed above show that the latest version of the Habib al-siyar was widely distributed in Iran and Central Asia in the centuries after Khvandamir's death, given the fact that the manuscripts were copied or acquired in both regions before entering the Saint Petersburg manuscript collections. However, this does not mean that the text of version C always reached Iran in its original form, as another intriguing example of the sample displays.
Theoretically speaking, if a book contained information not valued by its intended readership, it could be adjusted to the taste of its buyers every time it was copied anew. This process is masterly exemplified in MS D 195 which was copied by the scribe Muhammad Husayn al-Damavandi in 1067/1657. Above, it is listed as one of the copies which contain more than one version8. Although no place of copying is registered, for codicological reasons (ductus, name of the scribe), it seems obvious that the manuscript was copied in Iran. As the copy contains version C of volume one of the Habib al-siyar, one would expect to find in the text the Sunni version of Islamic salvation history, which is distinctly different to that of the Shi'i tradition, namely, as regards the succession to the Prophet Muhammad (d. 11/632). To the contrary, in MS D 195, we find a text which is relatively different from the Sunni version. The differences emerge in the first chapter dedicated to the companions (sahaba) of Muhammad, according to Sunni Islam, the Rightly Guided Caliphs (al-khulafa al-rashidun). Instead of the chapter heading found in version C9, On the events of the time of the caliphate of the Rightly Guided Caliphs, may God be pleased with them (Dar dhikr-i vaqayi'-i ayyam-i khilafat-i khulafa'-i rashidin rizvan Allah 'alayhim ajma'in), in MS D 195 we read On the events at the time of the caliphate of the four caliphs, and the accounts of their actions (Dar dhikr-i vaqayi'-i ayyam-i khilafat-i khulafa'-i arba'a va-kayfiyyat-i halat-i ishan) (f. 216v). As it becomes clear, the first four successors of Muhammad are depicted as caliphs but not Rightly Guided Caliphs as established in Sunni Islam; furthermore, the benediction is omitted. Whereas this may be counted as a slight "Shi'itization" made by the scribe, further chapters give evidence of how the text was significantly altered indeed.
The Shi'itization of the text continues in the next chapter, which is the initial chapter of the reign of the first (Sunni) caliph Abu Bakr (r. 11-13/632-34). Here, the original text
8 MS D 195 belongs to a group ofHabib al-siyar copies distributed in Iran in the 17th century that bear more or less the same alterations ([1], p. 294 ).
9 The earliest witness of a version C manuscript is MS 9468 of the Astan-i Quds-i Razavi collection in Mashhad (Iran), which bears a collation note (muqabala) dated Rajab 940 (January—February 1534), on which my textual analysis of the work is based (cf. [2]).
of version C reads as follows: A summary of the actions of the commander of the faithful Abu Bakr al-Siddiq that bestow guidance and ascertain the truth, may God be pleased with him (Dar shama-yi az ahval-i hidayat-bakhsh-i ashab-i tahqiq-i amir al-mu'minin Abu Bakr al-siddiq raziya llah 'anhu). In contrast to this, in MS D 195 the scribe changed the original text which was in favour of Abu Bakr to the extreme derogatory presentation of him: A summary of the despicable actions of Abu Bakr b. Abi Qahafa, may he be cursed and burn in hell (Dar shama-yi az ahval-i nakbat-ma'al-i Abi Bakr b. Abi Qahafa alayhi al-la'na va-l-haviya) (f. 217r). This process of "correcting" the Sunni version of early Islamic history in a Shi'i fashion goes on in the next chapters, where accounts on Abu Bakr, 'Umar, and 'Uthman, the first three successors to the Prophet Muhammad strongly reviled by Shi'i Muslims until today, are majorly reshaped (quite ironically, in this way the scribe reversed the changes Khvandamir had made from version B to C in order to please his Sunni patron Babur). In contrast to these "corrections," the numerous accounts on 'Ali are not changed in MS D 195 at all, as these had been favorable in version C already since 'Ali is revered by Sunni and Shi'i Muslims alike. In addition to this, 'Ali's position is further highlighted by the scribe via a visual division after the end of 'Uthman's reign and the beginning of Ali's caliphate. Here, the phrase "in the name of God, praise the Lord" (bismillahi subhanahu) is noted down in red ink (f. 249v), which again is not part of Khvandamir's version C where the end of the previous caliphate and the beginning of the next form a continuous text. In doing so, the scribe made clear that something new will start: the reign of Ali, the only rightful caliph in Shi'i Islam. History, it seems here, was only acceptable to the scribe and his intended readership when being presented in the right way, which meant for them the Shi'i tradition of Islam. The examination of MS D 195 reveals the role of the scribe and his readership in the process of copying, and raises the question of whom the manuscripts were actually copied for.
Inasmuch as nearly none of the twenty-five copies examined here contain detailed information related to places and dates of copying, we lack a somewhat clear picture about the readership of these versions of Khvandamir's chronicle. As demonstrated, only mss. D 77-1 and Dorn 284 bear valuable information on the date or place of copying which makes it possible to determine the circumstances of their production (in Herat and Qaz-vin respectively). In regard to its readership, MS D 77-1 is particularly interesting, as it is a showcase copy that bears beautifully illuminated headings of each part and a frame in gold and various colours. In addition to this, single words and phrases in the text are highlighted by different colours. All these features clearly demonstrate the financial resources spent in order to produce this copy. Further, they point out the importance of the work for the ruling Safavid elite even at the time when Khvandamir was still about to finish the last volume; his patron at that time was the vizier of the Safavid governor of Herat, Karim al-Din Khvaja Habiballah Savaji Qazvini, who was closely attached to the shah's court in the west of Iran. MS Dorn 284, copied some sixty years later, is also a showcase copy that was produced for a Qizilbash emir at the Safavid court, at that time located in Qazvin in the west of Iran.
For the rest of the copies, a further determination of the place and the circumstances of copying is hardly possible. Only one more copy contains the name of a place: MS 283 which was completed in 1258/1842 by 'Ubaydallah b. Kalimallah al-Bulghari al-Qazani al-Salabashi al-Diramishi (most likely copied in Kazan for the Russian-Iranian orientalist Aleksandr K. Kazembek (d. 1870)), and bears the remark that it was copied
from a manuscript produced in Shiraz in 1008/1599-1600. Interestingly, it contains version C of the first volume, the text being intact this time, which would make it a witness of a Sunni text that survived the Safavid period without any alterations, in contrast to MS D 195 (in any case, it can be considered an indirect witness only, as the whereabouts of the original manuscript are unknown). Judging the other manuscript copies of the sample by their codicological features, e.g. the quality of the script, the frames, or the binding, it seems clear that most of the copies were produced for a non-courtly readership in Khurasan and Central Asia. More helpful in this regard might be further evidence of previous owners and various paratextual elements in the manuscripts.
Paratextual elements such as ownership, readership and waqf (endowment) remarks, notes on the birth of a child, verses, medical recipes, and other kinds of information on when and by whom a certain manuscript was read, contribute to a better understanding of how manuscripts were read, possessed, and circulated in the past. Again, MS Dorn 284, copied at the royal workshop in Qazvin in 989/1581 as mentioned before, is a case in point: the manuscript was produced for one of the most powerful Qizilbash emirs of the Safavid realm, Murshid Qull Khan Ustajlu (d. 997/1589), who some years later was among the main persons involved in the young 'Abbas' I (r. 996-1038/1588-1629) coup against his father Shah Muhammad Khudabanda. Under 'Abbas, Murshid Qull Khan Ustajlu became the shah's vakil (viceroy), but was executed shortly after. Interestingly, the patron's name given in the colophon as "Murshid Qull Sultan" has been erased, which might be read in the light of the end of his life when he fell out of favor with the shah, and his property was confiscated and his name vilified10. Instead, on the first page, the manuscript bears a lengthy waqf remark of Shah 'Abbas11, dated 1017/1608-9, which points out that after Murshid Qull Khan Ustajlu's death, the copy belonged to the royal library, before it was endowed by the shah to the shrine of his ancestor Safi al-Din in Ardabil (d. 735/1334)12. There it remained for more than two hundred years until the shrine was sacked by the Imperial Russian army under the command of general Pavel P. Sukhtelen (d. 1833) during the Russian-Iranian war in 182813. Then, the copy of the Habib al-siyar, together with 165 other manuscripts, entered the Imperial Public Library (the present-day National Library of Russia) in Saint Petersburg14. The fact that several manuscripts of
10 On the career of Murshid Quli Khan Ustajlu see Blow [17, pp. 26-35]. I would like to thank the second anonymous reviewer for pointing out the sealholder's name to me, which today is barely readable.
11 For the full transcription of the remark and its translation into English see Alsancakli [18, p. 138, note 14], where he deals with a copy of Bidlïsï's Sharafnama that was also part of the shah's endowment to the shrine in Ardabil in the same year. Apart from MS Dorn 284, two other copies of the Habib al-siyar, kept in the National Museum of Iran in Tehran today, were endowed by the shah in the same year (nos. 3594 and 3711). Both manuscripts were studied by a certain Mahmud-i Qajar in Ardabil in 1254/1838, which shows that they had not been taken by the Imperial Russian army to Saint Petersburg but remained in Iran [1, pp. 306-307].
12 Shah 'Abbas' endowments to Ardabil and Mashhad have been discussed by McChesney [19] and Alsancakli [18, p. 135, note 9].
13 For a concise overview of the Russian-Iranian wars and the occupation of Ardabil in the 19th century see Hambly [20, p. 166].
14 Dorn's Catalogue des manuscrits et xylographes orientaux de la Bibliothèque Impériale Publique de St. Pétersbourg [21, pp. XXXVII-XXXVIII] of 1852 lists all the manuscripts that formerly belonged to the Ardabil library. For the notice of the Habib al-siyar manuscript see [21, p. 275]. Dorn further discusses the new acquisitions in two articles [22; 23, p. 54]; cf. I. N. Bérézine [24, p. 20, note 30]. Today, the Ardabil manuscripts belong to the collection of the National Library of Russia. Unlike stated by Alsancakli [18, pp. 135 and 150], they were never part of the Asiatic Museum collection.
the Habib al-siyar became available to orientalists in Saint Petersburg at that time led to several publications on the work by Dorn and his colleague François B. Charmoy [25; 26].
In terms of the royal context of its production and possession, MS Dorn 284 sticks out from the rest of the Habib al-siyar manuscripts kept in Saint Petersburg. Only one further manuscript, PNS 55, copied by Ibn Shah Mahmùd Jamal al-Din katib-i Kirmani Zangi 'Ajm between 1029/1620 and 1039/1630 (most likely in Iran), indicates a royal possessor. It once belonged to the Qajar prince Bahman Mirza, son of 'Abbas Mirza and brother of Muhammad Shah (r. 1250-64/1834-48), as is shown by a remark written by "Riza the librarian (kitabdar)" dated Ramadan 1252/December 1836-January 1837. This copy is of one of many Habib al-siyar manuscripts possessed by Qajar princes in Tehran in the 19th century ([1, p. 355]), which is an interesting point to note: apparently, copies of the Habib al-siyar were possessed and read by members of the ruling elites for more than three hundred years.
Other manuscript copies of the sample point out a less courtly, but nonetheless interesting readership in later times: MS PNS 54 bears a purchase remark by a certain Ibrahim al-Mùsavi stating that "I, the lowest [of the servants of God], Muhammad Ibrahim al-Mùsavi, purchased it [=the manuscript] in Kabul from Àqa Hafiz al-Kashi," as well as the seal of the new owner dated 1242/1826-7. In the following decades, however, it must have been brought to Iran, where it was purchased by the Russian diplomat and book collector Dmitrii I. Dolgorukov (d. 1867), who served in Iran from 1845 to 185415. The acquisition of the manuscript by Dolgorukov took place at a time when more and more oriental manuscripts found its way into European collections. The three collections dealt with here bear clear evidence to this: many of the Habib al-siyar manuscripts kept in Saint Petersburg today were collected by Russian orientalists of the 19th and early 20th centuries like Aleksandr L. Kuhn (d. 1888; MS C 430), Vasilii V. Radlov (d. 1918; mss. C 425, C 428, C 429, and D 406), and Aleksandr A. Romaskewicz (d. 1942; mss. 1036, 1112, 1176), as well as by diplomats like Dolgorukov (mss. PNS 54, 55, 56, and 238) and Nikolai V. Kh-anykov (d. 1878; mss. Khanykov 64 and 65)16. This is also true for MS D 77-1, the copy produced during the lifetime of Khvandamir, which reached Saint Petersburg in the 19th century; together with MS D 77-2, it had belonged to the Dutch orientalist Hendrik Arent Hamaker (d. 1835), after whose death it was purchased by agents of the Asiatic Museum (the present-day IOM RAS) in London. All these manuscripts bear witness to the rising interest in oriental works in the 19th century when museum directors, librarians, and private collectors were eager to purchase books written in the Middle East: the Habib al-siyar manuscripts are a good case in point.
Further evidence of previous owners are traces left by people who jotted down nothing but their name or put their seal on one of the leaves of a manuscript, or noted down the birth of a son (or daughter) — which books are better for recording dates but history books? This is exemplarily found in MS PNS 55 where someone, apparently a high-ranking official at the Safavid court, noted down the birth of his son Amir Haydar Quli on Thursday, 16 Dhù l-Hijja 1058/1 January 1649 (f. 40r), and of a second son called Amir al-Mulk Shahriyar on Thursday, 25 Ramadan 1060/21 September 1650 — two hundred years before the said copy entered the collection of the Qajar prince Bah-ram Mirza as mentioned above. In another copy, MS 1036, a certain Ali Beg states that
15 Details on this collection are given in Dorn [27].
16 For further information on Russian orientalists, see Miliband [28]; in regard to Kuhn, see Yastrebova/Azad [29].
a daughter was born to him on 13 Ramadan 1247/16 February 1832 (f. 112r). Apart from these family entries, we can find drawings (e.g. in the mss. B 2335 and D 195), comments on the author of the work and its contents (in MS 283), or information taken from other works on history as well as verses noted down in the margins of the manuscript (in MS C 429). All of these traces of the past give evidence to the fact that in the "manuscript age" [30, pp. 152-156], books were not only possessed and read but also used for one's own purposes.
The manuscript age ended when the printing press became available in most Islamic lands around the middle of the 19th century, and the specific features that belonged to it disappeared. As demonstrated in the article, the sample of twenty-five Habib al-siyar manuscripts kept in various collections in Saint Petersburg today display many aspects of the premodern Islamic book culture, as the sample shed light on how people dealt with texts in the past. Starting with Khvandamir's composition of the several versions of the text, the manuscript tradition of the Habib al-siyar shows that the work was copied multiple times from the 16th to 19th centuries, and belonged to many different owners. Of a particular interest in this regard is the process of distribution of its various versions, where alterations made to the text of a manuscript by scribes have been discussed.
It is interesting to note that the process of copying, possessing, and endowing Habib al-siyar manuscripts endured for centuries, despite the fact that after Khvandamir's death the work was never updated (the narrative ends with the year 930/1524). From Safavid Herat in the 16th century to Qajar Tehran in the 19th century, parts of the royal elite shared a continuous interest in having a copy of the book in their private collections. In addition to court circles, copies were produced for people interested in history that belonged to the non-aristocratic strata of the society, as names, seals and remarks like birth notes dating from later times display. Paying attention to all these elements that are not directly part of the text might contribute to answering further questions like which places were centres of book production at a certain time, which groups within the society possessed (and read) what kind of works, how fast and in which ways books were distributed from one region to another, and how people actually used them: as demonstrated above, reading was not the only activity people applied to the books they possessed. Last but not least, the manuscript tradition of a work displays its reception in later times, which gives us a glimpse of the importance ascribed to it in the past. Judging Khvandamir's Habib al-siyar by its extant manuscript copies, it becomes clear that the work was once considered an important history book copied, possessed, and read in very different contexts, for which the copies kept in Saint Petersburg provide a good example.
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Received: September 26, 2018 Accepted: December 6, 2018
Author's information:
Philip Bockholt — Dr. Sci. in Philology, Researcher; philip.bockholt@uni-leipzig.de
Одинаковые, но разные? О списках сочинения по общей истории Хабиб ал-Сийар в библиотеках Санкт-Петербурга
Ф. Бокхолт
Лейпцигский университет,
Федеративная Республика Германия, Лейпциг, 04109, Шиллерштрассе, 6
Для цитирования: Bockholt Ph. Same But Different? On copies of the general history Habib al-siyar in Saint Petersburg manuscript collections // Вестник Санкт-Петербургского университета. Востоковедение и африканистика. 2019. Т. 11. Вып. 1. С. 52-63. https://doi.org/10.21638/ spbu13.2019.104 (In English)
Рукописи сочинения на персидском языке по общей истории «Хабиб ал-сийар фи ахбар афрад ал-башар» (Habib al-siyar fi akhbär afräd al-bashar, «Друг жизнеописаний в преданиях о народах»), написанного в XVI в. Мухаммадом Хвандамиром (ум. 942/1535-6 гг.), хранятся во многих библиотечных собраниях по всему миру. Поскольку автор переписывал текст «Хабиб ал-сийар фи ахбар афрад ал-башар» несколько раз, находясь на службе сначала у сефевидского шаха Исма'ила в Иране, а затем у моголь-ского императора Бабура в Индии, в сохранившихся списках сочинения можно обнаружить существенные разночтения. Автор данной статьи затрагивает ряд вопросов, касающихся текстуальных различий в сохранившихся рукописях сочинения в различных библиотеках Санкт-Петербурга. Во-первых, им анализируются наблюдения, ранее сделанные по этому поводу Н. Д. Миклухо-Маклаем в результате изучения списков сочинения из Института восточных рукописей РАН. Во-вторых, им исследуются расхождения в составе текстов двадцати пяти списков сочинения из рукописных коллекций Санкт-Петербурга (Институт восточных рукописей РАН, Российская национальная библиотека, библиотека Санкт-Петербургского государственного университета). Найденные автором статьи расхождения позволяют говорить о равноправном существовании двух версий сочинения — «шиитской» и «суннитской». В-третьих, рассматриваются паратекстуальные элементы, такие как владельческие и дарственные записи или отметки о рождении детей. Они позволяют получить некоторые представления о читательской аудитории отдельных списков сочинения, а также сведения
о том, как тексты этих списков воспринимались, комментировались, копировались и распространялись.
Ключевые слова: персидская историография, Сефевиды, Моголы, манускриптология, паратекст.
Контактная информация:
Бокхолт Филип — д-р филол. наук, науч. сотр.; philip.bockholt@uni-leipzig.de
