This volume contains the story of Yusuf and Züleyha, as recounted by Jāmī and paraphrased in verse by Hamdi. Hamdullah, whose mahlas was Hamdi, was the youngest son of the celebrated Şeyh Ak Şemseddin. He lived under Bayezit II and died in 909 AH (1503-04 CE). His Yusuf ve Züleyha, among the most popular of the corpus of Ottoman Turkish mesneviler, was first dedicated to Bayezit, but the poet, seeing that it did not meet with the expected acknowledgment, subsequently suppressed the dedication. Besides the present poem, he left, according to Kınalızade and to the Şakaik, a Leyla Mecnun, a Mevlid poem entitled Mevlid-i cismani ve mevrid-i cani (or mevlid-i ruhani), and a Kiyafetname. The date of composition of this work, 897 AH (1491-92 CE), which is not found in the present copy, is conveyed in two verses at the end of Add MS 19364. The text is illustrated with five paintings in a rare style. Their stylistic features, which have every appearance of being contemporary with the calligraphed text, almost certainly date from the second half of the 16th century CE, or around 1580 CE, according to Prof. N. Atasoy. Their contents are:. (1) f 67r : Yusuf's jealous brothers having claimed that he has been eaten by a wolf, God gives the wolf the power to tell Jacob that he is guiltless (maximum size 86 mm x 56 mm);. (2) f 99v : In answer to the prayer of Yusuf that no one see him as he bathes in the Nile, a fearsome dragon appears in the water to scare people away (maximum size 75 mm x 55 mm);. (3) f 135r : Envoys from seven lands come to ask Züleyha's father for her hand in marriage (maximum size 98 mm x 55 mm);. (4) f 161v : Yusuf, enthroned, receiving tribute from his brothers (maximum size 96 mm x 56 mm);. (5) f 224r : The Egyptian court ladies seated before Züleyha as Yusuf enters the room (maximum size 83 mm x 55 mm). The manuscript is not dated, but was likely copied in the 16th century CE.
Yusuf ve Züleyha - يوسف وزليه.
This material is held atBritish Library Asia, Pacific and Africa Collections
- Reference
- GB 59 Or 14887
- Dates of Creation
- 16th century
- Name of Creator
- Language of Material
- Turkish
- Physical Description
- 1 text 294 ff and 3 fly leaves Materials : Paper. Foliation : European, 294 ff. Dimensions : 188 mm x 113 mm. Pricking and Ruling: Gold-ruled text frames; text block measures 115 mm x 56 mm. Script : Nestalik. Ink : Black ink with red ink titles. Binding : European, in bad condition.
Scope and Content
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Other Finding Aids
See Gibb HOP the tomb of the Prophet's uncle Ḥamza (Meşhed-i Seyyid uş-Şuhadā' Ḥażret-i Ḥamza) II, pp. 142-172. For a description with reproductions of the illustrations, see E. J. Grube, Islamic paintings from the 11th to the 18th century in the collection of Hans P. Kraus, New York [c. 1972], pp. 241-244.