184

THE TAESCHNER COLLECTION (Or. 12.396, cont., 12.397)

The MS has been rebound in boards covered in brown marbled paper with linen backing and edges; thick glazed cream paper, tattered, mended here and there, and stained in parts, without watermarks; (l)+48+(l) folios; 205x145 mm and 155x105 mm, varying; 15 lines; catchwords; irregular, rather coarse, vowelled nesih\ red headings in (1); without a date and the name of a copyist; owners’ inscriptions of isma‘11 Aga and Franz Taeschner (‘Ms. Nr. 77’) occur on f. la; varous jottings of letters and coarse drawings are found on ff. la, 28a and 32a (margin).

Cod.Or. 12.397 A poetic miscellany on the biography of the Prophet A collection of three works, all containing parts of Süleyman Celebi’s famous Mevlid, possibly written by one scribe. The first (1) was completed on a Wednesday in Muharrem [1]107 (August-September 1695). The three fragements of the third part (3), possibly also (2), may have been part of separate manuscripts, the paper of those parts being of different quality. Various notes, mostly letters, are jotted down on the endpapers. (1) ff. lb-56b A late 17th-century copy of a long poem in mesnevi rhyme on the life of the Prophet Muhammad, in particular on his birth (mevlid), ascent to heaven (mi rac) and death (cf. f. 55b: 10). The work was clearly an (anonymous) extension of the popular Mevlid by Süleyman Qelebi (d. 826/1422, see under Cod.Or. 12.395, above): the beginning of the text (lb-23a:9) is identical with that work (in Ate§ s edition - pp. 92-129). It was completed in 842 (1438-9, cf. f. 56a:8) and offered to the reigning sultan (padis&h, Murad II, cf. 55b: 17). The work is somewhat eratically and inconsistently divided into sections (fast); the extension is characterized by the repeated occurence of the line ‘rüzi kilsun haksiz da.ru s- sel&m/der-ile diger as-salat ve s-selam’, written in red. A few marginal additions. Begins (lb, as in Ate§’s edition, p. 92:1): • , [VjJs] jj» oA-il aJLaa» ja) I i— The Mevlid ends (23a: 8): j-iU ISI * yÜU dJjil