Reading Manuscript 41

In this forty-first installment of the series entitled “Reading Manuscript” (Nuskhih-khwānī), the author examines the content of several manuscripts. Some of the subjects addressed in these texts include:

the price of a book in the year 1333 AH;
the rescue of a manuscript from the flood of 1238 AH in Kirmānshāh;
a poem about the ministry of Sulṭān al-‛Ulamāʾ and verses on the date of his death;
Mahdism and the issue of opposition to oppression;
hostility toward knowledge within layers of our civilization;
a scholar in 743 AH who anticipated the advent in the years 745–749 AH;
Sheikh Khiḍr Kurd and his prediction of the rule of al-Malik al-Ẓāhir;
the Persian literacy of Abū Hurayra and Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafiyya;
‛Umar’s directive to the people of Kūfa on using the Persian word “matars” (do not fear);
the term “Nardashīr” in a ḥadīth of the Prophet;
a poem against ‛Alī Akbar Burqāʿī for participating in the Vienna Peace Conference;
and a poem depicting a debate between a sheikh and a drunkard.