SIGNED MUHAMMAD SAYFULLAH, LAHORE, PUNJAB, DATED MUHARRAM AH 1256/MARCH-APRIL 1840 AD

During the 16th century, several new travel guides to the sites of pilgrimage were written that were based on the earlier Hajj certificate tradition. One of the earliest and most popular accounts was by Muhyi al-Din Lari, a polymath who dedicated the work to Muzaffar bin Mahmudshah, the ruler of Gujarat in AH 911/1505-06 AD. The earliest known copy of the work is in the British Museum (Or. 3633) copied at Mecca in AH 951/1544 AD. Other dated copies are in the India Office Library (the British Library), Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, the Edwin Binney, 3rd Collection of Turkish Art at the Harvard University Art Museum, The Chester Beatty Library, Dublin and the New York Public Library (Barbra Schmitz, Islamic Manuscripts in the New York Public Library, New York, 1992, pp. 42-46, I.3).

The colophon indicates that this Tuhfat al-Haramayn was copied for Nawab Mir Sarfaraz Khan in Lahore in AH 1256. There are mentions of Nawab Mir Sarfaraz Khan of Chamusa, an Afghan of the Durrani dynasty, who was taken prisoner to Lahore in 1818 where he died in 1851 (https://www.royalark.net/Afghanistan/durrani2.htm). A note on the first folio gives the full name of Nawab Sarfaraz Khan Bahadur Jang.