<p style='text-align: justify;'><p>Provenance: from the Ardabil collection. There is the owner’s stamp (ff. 1r and 215v) with the date of Shah ‘Abbas’s vaqf, 1017 (1608-9). The date is estimated ca.1460-70, Shiraz; the colophon was added during the restoration. Text is incomplete with large lacunae. It consists of two parts: the old and the one added during restoration. To produce the impression of a full copy, the catchwords were rewritten. The Introduction is missing. The order of the old part is as follows: ff. 3, 6, 11-12, 16, 18, 20, 61, 62, 96, 161, 170-171, 185, 187, 189, 191, 194, 196-197, 199-201, 203, 205-214. The old part was probably produced in the 15th century, the new one in the 18th century.</p><p>The old part of the is copied by a quite small neat nasta‘liq in Indian ink with headings in dark red and gold in thulth with gold “clouds” and diacritics or in gold with clouds of red hatched lines. The restored part is in nasta‘liq of quite a cursive manner in Indian ink, headings in naskh in red.</p><p>The codex contains 215 folios. Page and text measurements vary, page width 240 max. Approximate margins are top: 55mm, side: 65, bottom: 50mm. The text is framed with gold, red, blue and green lines. The margins of some folios are decorated with floral designs in gold (f. 1 r-v).</p><p>Condition. Some parts of the text are falling out. The new text is very often introduced into the old margins. The old paper is Oriental, creamy, thick, slightly glossy, the new part is a bit thinner, but similar in quality; water stained in places.</p><p>The binding, which can be dated back to the 16th century, is in an alarming condition. Dark brown leather mounted on thick cardboards with the flap. The flap can witness how much gold was used for the covers originally. The exterior sides of the covers are decorated with a deep ornament stamped with gold; the surface has three traditional medallions: big almond-shaped central medallion and two small lotus-shaped top and bottom. The wide margins contain three and two cartouches – on vertical and horizontal sides respectively. Both sides are torn in places on the main surface and in the corners and wormed. The interior sides are made of terracotta red leather with a central medallion and four corners, executed in the filigree technique with mosaics of the red, green and gold paper beneath the patterns cut in the dark leather of the medallion and corners.</p><p>Incipit.: Khirad az bartar az har chi Allah dad... , which starts the page with the title: dar sifat-i afarinish-i parvardagar ‘In praise of the Creator’).</p><p>Explicit: Az Iran bar u kard tabut-i (?) sipah / diram dad az ganj yak sala shah</p><p>The codex contains 13 miniatures, 9 of which are old and can be dated back to the 15th c. They are refined, soft in colours, and interesting in composition. Their state is satisfactory. Many pictures have spoiled faces. The new ones are more crude and use brighter colours. (FA)</p></p>
