Hümayun-name - همايون نامه

The fables of Bidpa'i, freely translated from Persian, in which they are known as the Anvar-i Suhayli, by Ali İbn-i Salih. Ali Çelebi was a native of Edirne and was commonly known as Vasi' Alisi because he had started his career as assistant, or müeyyid, to the professor Mevlana Abdulvasi'. Abdulvasi' retired from the office of Kazasker of Rumeli in 929 AH (1523 CE) and died in Makkah in either 944 AH (1537-38 CE) or in 945 AH (1538-39 CE), according to Şekaik. Çelebi held, successively, professorships in Bursa, Edirne and Istanbul, and died as Kadı of Bursa in 950 AH (1543-33 CE). Much of his popularity among Turkic literary critics of the 19th and 20th centuries is based on the poems found in the present volume. In the preface, Çelebi gives an account of the origin of the work and its various versions, and then goes on to explain that he began the current translation at the time of his appointment as Muderris to the Medrese attached to the mosque of Sultan Murat in Edirne. He concludes with a panegyric on Sultan Suleyman, to whom the work is dedicated. Çelebi continues by stating that, after the work was completed, having taken twenty years of his life, he had two luxurious copies made of the work for presentation to the Grand Vizier Lutfi Paşa (in office 945-947 AH/1538-1541 CE) and to Sultan Suleyman. The former did not accept the work and rebuked Çelebi for ''wasting so much time on lying tales''. But the Sultan formed a different opinion of the author's efforts and rewarded him by making him the Kadı of Bursa the next day. The current copy, which is dated nine years after the death of its composer, was copied by Mustafa İbn-i Mahmut İbn-i Evrenus, surnamed Muslimi. The copyist added a few verses in honour of the possessor of the volume at the end of the text. A table of contents, dated Şumla 1186 AH (1772-73 CE) is prefixed to the work. It also features one unvan. The manuscript is dated Cemaziulahir 959 AH (May-June 1552 CE) at Cairo.

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Acquired from the collection of Alexandre Jaba.

See Rieu, Catalogue of the Turkish Manuscripts in the British Museum, pp. 227-228.

For other copies of this text, please see Or 5608, Or 7232, Or 7233, Or 9717, Sloane MS 3586, Harley MS 3280, Add MS 7842, and Add MS 15153. An extract from the text is also found at Sloane MS 3248.

The Hümayun-name has been printed in Bulaq in 1251 AH. An abridged version entitled Simaru'l-Esmar, was published by Osmanzade Tayyip in Istanbul in 1256 AH. Another abridgement by the same author but entitled Zübdetü'l-nesaih, is mentioned by Aumer in the Munich Catalogue, No. 198-99. Partial French translations by Galland and Cardonne have been published under the title Contes et Fables Indiennes in Paris in 1724 and 1778 CE, and in the Panthéon Littéraire, Contes orientaux, pp. 329-549. Extracts, translated by A. Royer, will be found in the Journal Asiatique, 4e série, vol. xii, pp. 381-416, and vol. xiii, pp. 415-453. See also Diez, 'Ueber Inhalt und Vortrag des Königlichen Buches,' Berlin, 1811, and S. de Sacy, Calila et Dimna, p. 51.