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§ 644. Majnūn b. Maḥmūd¹ al-Rafīqī tells us in his K̲h̲aṭṭ u sawād that in penmanship and poetry he was the pupil of his father, who according to K̲h̲wānd-Amīr ba-ḥusn i k̲h̲aṭṭ u luṭf i ṭabʿ ittiṣāf dās̲h̲t. K̲h̲wānd-Amīr has nothing to say about the penmanship of the son, but describes him as extremely dervish-like (bi-g̲h̲āyat darwīs̲h̲-was̲h̲ u fānī-mas̲h̲rab-ast) and his poems as ¶ smooth in style (as̲h̲ʿāras̲h̲ salīs u hamwārah ittifāq mī uftad). The Laṭāʾif-nāmah (representing the Majālis al-nafāʾis, presumably the earliest of the biographical authorities) speaks of him as a c̲h̲ap-nawīs u k̲h̲wus̲h̲-k̲h̲aṭṭ rarely if ever equalled and says that he was from Mas̲h̲had (az Mas̲h̲had-ast). In the Tuḥfah i Sāmī “Majnūn i c̲h̲ap-nawīs” is described as one of the k̲h̲wus̲h̲-ṭabʿān of Harāt, matchless in the k̲h̲aṭṭ i c̲h̲ap, the inventor of a style of writing called tauʾamān, and the author of a work on penmanship written in the metre of [Niẓāmī’s] Lailā u Majnūn and dedicated to Sām Mīrzā himself. In addition to the works on penmanship described below Majnūn wrote a short risālah entitled Nāz u niyāz, “correspondence between lover and beloved in poetical prose intermixed with verses”, which he dedicated to “al-Muẓaffar min ʿindi ’llāhi ’l-Mannān Abū ’l-Mansūr Sulṭān Ḥusain Gūrkān”² and of which there are mss. preserved in the India Office (Ethé 2118 (7)) and in the private library of Prof. M. S̲h̲afīʿ at Lahore (see ocm. x/4 pp. 14–15, where a passage is quoted from the preface).

Majnūn i c̲h̲ap-nawīs is one of the authors quoted in the Nawādir al-amt̲h̲āl of Mīrak Muḥammad Naqs̲h̲bandī Tās̲h̲kandī (Berlin 172 (1)). Two of his g̲h̲azals, quoted in the Tuḥfat al-ḥabīb of “Fak̲h̲rī” (see pl. i § 1098), have been published by M. S̲h̲afīʿ in ocm. x/4 (Aug. 1934) pp. 15–6.

It should be added that G̲h̲ulām-Muḥammad “Rāqim”, the author of the Tad̲h̲kirah i k̲h̲wus̲h̲-nawīsān, supposing Majnūn to be the tak̲h̲alluṣ of the celebrated calligraphist Mīr ʿAlī al-Kātib, has treated the latter and Majnūn b. Maḥmūd al-Rafīqī as the same person, but the improbability of this view has been convincingly demonstrated by M. S̲h̲afīʿ who points out that the two are given separate biographies by their contemporaries, K̲h̲wānd-Amīr and Sām Mīrzā, and that whereas Mīr ʿAlī was a Saiyid (and appears among the Saiyids in the Laṭāʾif-nāmah), Majnūn is not so described by the earlier biographies. [Laṭāʾif-nāmah p. 126 (Maulānā Majnūn, in Majlis iii); Ḥabīb al-siyar iii, 3, p. 350; Tuḥfah i Sāmī p. 84 (Majnūn i c̲h̲ap-nawīs); Mak̲h̲zan al-g̲h̲arāʾib no. 2282; Tad̲h̲kirah i k̲h̲wus̲h̲-nawīsān p. 49; Ḥabīb Iṣfahānī K̲h̲aṭṭ u k̲h̲aṭṭāṭān (in Turkish); Paidāyis̲h̲ i k̲h̲aṭṭ u k̲h̲aṭṭāṭān pp. 215–17; ocm. x/4 (Aug. 1934) pp. 4–16 (M. S̲h̲afīʿ’s introduction to his edition of the K̲h̲aṭṭ u sawād)].

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¶ Rasm al-k̲h̲aṭṭ (beg. Bi-y-ā ai k̲h̲āmah ins̲h̲āʾī raqam kun*), a metrical treatise on the rules for the styles of writing known as t̲h̲ult̲h̲, tauqīʿ, muḥaqqaq, nask̲h̲, raiḥān and riqāʿ, completed in 909/1503–4,³ based on the teachings of the author’s father, Maḥmūd al-Rafīqī, his instructor both in penmanship and poetry, and dedicated to Sulṭān Muẓaffar, a descendant of C̲h̲ingīz K̲h̲ān:⁴ Blochet iii 1770 (transcribed by M. b. Bahrām at Damascus in 909/1503–4. Lacunae), Āṣafīyah ii p. 1752 no. 301 (old), Bodleian 1369 (2) (ah 1093/1682), Ivanow 1623 (2) (ah 1107/1695–6), Rieu ii 531a (17th cent.), Bānkīpūr Suppt. ii 2277 (acephalous. ah 1141/1728). Extracts (from the section headed Sabab i naẓm i kitāb u bāʿit̲h̲ i tartīb i īn abwāb): ocm. x/4 (Lahore, Aug. 1934) pp. 12–14 (ed. M. S̲h̲afīʿ).

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K̲h̲aṭṭ U sawād (beg. Ḥ. u sp. Ustādī-rā kih kātib i lauḥ u qalam i bī-c̲h̲ūn), a short prose treatise on calligraphy written after the Rasm al-k̲h̲aṭṭ, which the author mentions in the preface as an earlier work of his own, and divided into six bābs ((1) dar bayān i k̲h̲uṭūṭ…, (2) dar d̲h̲ikr i ustādān u muk̲h̲tariʿān …, (3) dar bayān i adawāt i kitābat, (4) dar bayān i qawāʿid i k̲h̲aṭṭ, (5) dar s̲h̲akl i har yak az ḥurūf …, (6) dar ḥusn i k̲h̲aṭṭ): Bodleian 1369 (1) (ah 1089/1678), Rieu ii 531b (foll. 18b–36. 17th cent.), Ivanow 1623 (1) (only five bābs. ah 1107/1695–6?), 1624 (foll. 1–18. Late 18th cent.), Ethé 1763 (4), 2931, Āṣafīyah ii p. 1752 no. 301 (?) (Rasm al-k̲h̲aṭṭ i manẓūm maʿ Rasm [sic?] i sawād), Lahore private libraries of Prof. M. S̲h̲afīʿ, Maḥmūd S̲h̲erānī and ʿAbd Allāh C̲h̲aghatāy.

Edition: ocm. xi/2 (Lahore, Feb. 1935) pp. 46–74 (ed. Yā-Sīn K̲h̲ān “Niyāzī”).

Extract (Bāb II dar d̲h̲ikr i ustādān u muk̲h̲tariʿān u martabah i īs̲h̲ān): ocm. x/4 (Lahore, Aug. 1934) pp. 17–18 (ed. M. S̲h̲afīʿ with introductory remarks on pp. 4 foll.).

Presumably the Risālah i K̲h̲wus̲h̲-k̲h̲aṭṭī, by Maulānā Majnūn al-Kātib, of which there is a ms. in the Panjāb Univ. Library (see ocm. x/3 p. 99 ult.), is either the Rasm al-k̲h̲aṭṭ or the K̲h̲aṭṭ u sawād.

¶ § 645. Mullā Sulṭān-ʿAlī Mas̲h̲hadī, the most celebrated calligraphist of his time (at any rate in the nastaʿlīq style), wrote fine manuscripts⁵ for Abū ’l-G̲h̲āzī Sulṭān Ḥusain and Mīr ʿAlī-s̲h̲īr. If, as seems to be the case, the poem described below is really his work, he cannot have died before 920/1514, and K̲h̲wānd-Amīr’s statement that he died at Mas̲h̲had in 919/1513 must be incorrect. Several of his pupils became famous. (See: Laṭāʾif-nāmah p. 170; K̲h̲aṭṭ u sawād, Bab 2, last lines (ocm. xi/2 p. 55, x/4 p. 18); Ḥabīb al-siyar iii, 3 p. 344 antepenult.; Bābur-nāmah tr. ʿAbd al-Raḥīm p. 115 (quoted in ocm. x/4 p. 147); Tārīk̲h̲ i Ras̲h̲īdī (passage quoted in Mélanges asiatiques ix (St. Petersburg 1888) pp. 370⁶ –372 and ocm. x/3 pp. 163–4); Tuḥfah i Sāmī p. 69; Haft iqlīm no. 694; Majālis al-muʾminīn p. 457 (penultimate biography in Majlis x); Mirʾāt al-ʿālam, afzāyis̲h̲ (quoted in ocm. x/4 pp. 41–2); ocm. x/4 pp. 27–8 (in an extract from an unidentified general history); Mak̲h̲zan al-g̲h̲arāʾib no. 1075; Paidāyis̲h̲ i k̲h̲aṭṭ u k̲h̲aṭṭāṭān pp. 158–60.)

(Risālah i manẓūm dar ʿilm i k̲h̲aṭṭ) (beg. Ai qalam tīz kun zabān i bayān*), 223 verses on calligraphy completed in 920/1514,² and preceded in some mss. by a prose preface, in which the author says that he composed the work at a very advanced age:⁷ Dorn p. 386 no. 454 (autograph), Blochet iii 1770 (circ. ad 1520), 1771 (early 17th cent.), 1772 (contains prose preface. 17th cent.), Āṣafīyah ii p. 1222 no. 116 (ah 1004/1595–6), p. 1752 no. 300 (?), Lahore Panjāb Univ. (acephalous. ah 1005/1596–7. See ocm. x/1 p. 99), Calcutta Madrasah 176 (2) (late 17th cent.), Ivanow Curzon 638 (18th cent.), Bodleian 1359, Rehatsek p. 63 no. 14 (1) (contains prose preface), [= Brelvi and Dhabhar p. x no. 9 (1)], Upsala Zetterstéen 400.

Some extracts from this poem are quoted in ocm. x/4 pp. 23–4, 26–8.

§ 646. Darwīs̲h̲ Muḥammad b. Dūst Muḥammad Buk̲h̲ārī.

Fawāʾid al-k̲h̲uṭūṭ (beg. al-Ḥ. wa-’l-t̲h̲. ’l. lā yuḥṣā wa-lā yuʿadd), completed in 995/1586–7 and divided into ten faṣls and a k̲h̲ātimah: Tashkent Acad. i 731, (70 foll. ah 1223/1808), 732–3.

§ 647. Fatḥ-ʿAlī b. M. Taqī Āk̲h̲wand-zādah Tiflīsī (1227–95/ 1812–78 See Dānis̲h̲­mandān i Ād̲h̲arbāyjān pp. 2–8).

¶ Rasm al-k̲h̲aṭṭ i jadīd i Āk̲h̲wand-zādah, on the defects of the Islamic script and a proposal for a new alphabet: Sipahsālār ii 762–4.

§ 648. For the Tad̲h̲kirah i k̲h̲wus̲h̲-nawīsān of G̲h̲ulām-Muḥammad “Rāqim” Dihlawī, of which the first few pages contain instructions in prose and verse concerning the choice of a pen and the making of ink, see pl. i § 1437.

§ 649. Appendix

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Risālah i k̲h̲wus̲h̲-nawīsī i nask̲h̲ i taʿlīq, a metrical treatise on calligraphy: Benares 1266/1849* (6 pp.).

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Risālah i Qanūn i mufradāt, metrical, on Persian calligraphy, by Īs̲h̲arī-Pars̲h̲ād “S̲h̲uʾāʾī”: Lucknow 1872° (16 pp.).

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(Risālah i wāḍiʿ i nask̲h̲ u taʿlīq) (beg. Az wāḍiʿ i k̲h̲aṭṭ i nask̲h̲ u taʿlīq⁸ * Bi-s̲h̲nū suk̲h̲anī zi rūy i taḥqīq), Rieu ii 532a (17th cent.), Bodleian 1370 (foll. 8), i.o. d.p. 1546 (d), possibly also Krafft p. 5 no. 12 (Dar taʿlīm i k̲h̲aṭṭ i nask̲h̲ taʿlīq li-Mīr ʿAlī. 42 distichs).

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