PROBABLY TABRIZ, SAFAVID IRAN, 16TH CENTURY

The manuscript has a preface in which the author's name is given as Qadi Nasir al-Din Abu Sa'id 'Abdullah Baydawi. It is said that he wrote the text on 21 Muharram AH 674/17 July 1275 AD. Baydawi, a celebrated scholar and judge of the 13th century is recorded as having added more details on celebrated men up to the year AH 694/1294-5 AD. This manuscript, however, is interesting in that it includes details on men up to the year AH 911/1506 AD, when the Timurid ruler of Khorassan Sultan Husayn Bayqara died. The preface also mentions that the appendix was commissioned by the Minister Majd al-Din Muhammad, who must have been Minister to Sultan Husayn Bayqara (AH 875-911/1470-1506 AD). The last section of the manuscript includes two benedictory couplets for the Safavid ruler Shah Isma'il and gives his accession date of AH 907/1501 AD.

The present manuscript was in the possession of a Qajar official with the name Fath 'Ali, who accompanied Prince Nasir al-Din from Tabriz to Tehran in AH 1264 and wrote the note in Dhu al-Hijja AH 1264/November 1848 AD.