The Bibliothèque nationale de France is the national library of France, located in Paris on two main sites known respectively as Richelieu and François-Mitterrand. It is the national repository of all that is published in France. Some of its extensive collections, including books and manuscripts but also precious objects and artworks, are on display at the BnF Museum on the Richelieu site.
The Deccan Sultanates were five late-medieval Indian kingdoms—on the Deccan Plateau between the Krishna River and the Vindhya Range—that were ruled by Muslim dynasties: namely Ahmadnagar, Berar, Bidar, Bijapur, and Golconda. The sultanates had become independent during the break-up of the Bahmani Sultanate. The five sultanates owed their existence to the declaration of independence of Ahmadnagar in 1490, followed by Bijapur and Berar in the same year. Golconda became independent in 1518, and Bidar in 1528.
The Qutb Shahi dynasty was a Persianate Shia Islamic dynasty of Turkoman origin that ruled the Sultanate of Golkonda in southern India. After the collapse of the Bahmani Sultanate, the Qutb Shahi dynasty was established in 1512 AD by Sultan-Quli Qutb-ul-Mulk, better known though less correctly referred to in English as "Quli Qutb Shah".
The Adil Shahi or Adilshahi, was a Shia, and later Sunni Muslim, dynasty founded by Yusuf Adil Shah, that ruled the Sultanate of Bijapur, centred on present-day Bijapur district, Karnataka in India, in the Western area of the Deccan region of Southern India from 1489 to 1686. Bijapur had been a province of the Bahmani Sultanate (1347–1518), and member of the Deccan Sultanates, before its political decline in the last quarter of the 15th century and eventual break-up in 1518. The Bijapur Sultanate was fully absorbed into the Mughal Empire on 12 September 1686, after its conquest by the Emperor Aurangzeb.
The Hazrat Pir Muhammad Shah Library is a library on Pir Muhammad Shah Road, Pankore Naka, Ahmedabad, in the state of Gujarat, India. One of the oldest libraries in India, it has a collection of rare original manuscripts in Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Sindhi and Turkish languages.
Farrukh Beg, also known as Farrukh Husayn, was a Persian miniature painter, who spent a bulk of his career in Safavid Iran and Mughal India, praised by Mughal Emperor Jahangir as "unrivaled in the age."
The Ahmadnagar Sultanate or the Nizam Shahi Sultanate was a late medieval Indian Muslim kingdom located in the northwestern Deccan, between the sultanates of Gujarat and Bijapur, ruled by the Nizam Shahi or Bahri dynasty. Malik Ahmed, the Bahmani governor of Junnar after defeating the Bahmani army led by general Jahangir Khan on 28 May 1490 declared independence and established the Nizam Shahi dynasty rule over the sultanate of Ahmednagar. Initially his capital was in the town of Junnar with its fort, later renamed Shivneri. In 1494, the foundation was laid for the new capital Ahmadnagar. In 1636 Aurangzeb, then Mugal viceroy of Deccan, finally annexed the sultanate to the Mughal Empire.
The Persian word Falnama covers two forms of bibliomancy used historically in Iran, Turkey, and India. Quranic Falnamas were sections at the end of Quran manuscripts used for fortune-telling based on a grid. In the 16th century, Falnama manuscripts were introduced that used a different system; individuals performed purification rituals, opened a random page in the book and interpreted their fortune in light of the painting and its accompanying text. Only a few illustrated Falnamas now survive; these were commissioned by rich patrons and are unusually large books for the time, with bold, finely executed paintings. These paintings illustrate historical and mythological figures as well as events and figures associated with the Abrahamic religions.
Michael Willis is an Indologist and historian based in London, England.
Tajrīd al-iʿtiqād or Tajrid al-Kalam is a work by Nasir al-Din al-Tusi about Shia beliefs in Islamic theology. Tajrīd is the most famous scholastic text in Shiite theology and most effective work in history of apologetic written by Nasir al-Dīn Ṭūsī.
Ethiopian manuscript collections are found in many parts of the world, the monasteries and modern institutions in Ethiopia maintaining extensive collections with some monasteries still centres of manuscript production.
Deccan painting or Deccani painting is the form of Indian miniature painting produced in the Deccan region of Central India, in the various Muslim capitals of the Deccan sultanates that emerged from the break-up of the Bahmani Sultanate by 1520. These were Bijapur, Golkonda, Ahmadnagar, Bidar, and Berar. The main period was between the late 16th century and the mid-17th, with something of a revival in the mid-18th century, by then centred on Hyderabad.
The Ni'matnāmah Naṣir al-Dīn Shāhī, is a medieval Indian cookbook, written in Persian language in Naskh script, of delicacies and recipes, some accompanied by paintings illustrating the preparation of the dishes. It was started for Ghiyath Shah, the ruler of the Malwa Sultanate in central India. After he was forced to abdicate, it was completed for his son 'Abd al-Muzaffar Naṣir Shāh..
Nūr al-Dīn Muḥammad Ẓuhūrī was a Persian poet born around 1537. Ẓuhūrī states that he was born in Qāʾin, but tradition identifies his birthplace as a village in the district of Turshiz, thus his often used nisbat Turshīzī. He began his career in Yazd at the court of Ghiyās al-Dīn Mīr-i Mīrān, where he was acquainted with the poet Waḥshī. After spending several years in Shiraz he travelled to the Deccan in 1580 where he entered the service of Ibrahim Adil Shah II. There he married the daughter of Mawlānā Malik Qumī. Among his know works is the Sāqīʻnāma. An anthology of his poems is titled Kulliyyāt-i Ẓuhūrī, the oldest copy of which appears to be that in the India Office collection at the British Library. The seals in this manuscript show that it was in the library of Shah Jahan.
John Bardoe Elliott, was a civil servant in Colonial India. He is best known for his collection of oriental manuscripts that he donated to the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford in 1859.
Charles Boddam (1762–1811) was born in India, the son of Rawson Hart Boddam. He joined the East India Company as a writer in 1780. In 1793, Boddam was appointed to Saran district as Judge of Diwani Adawlut and Magistrate. He died at Fort William, India on 13 August 1811.
The Gulshan-i 'Ishq is a romantic poem written in 1657 by the Indian Sufi poet Nusrati. Written in the Deccani language, it combines literary and cultural traditions from India and Iran. Manuscripts of the poem, illustrated with lavish paintings, have survived from the 18th century to the present day.
Mūbad (موبد) was an Indian poet, originally from Kashmir, who wrote in Persian and settled in Lucknow in the first half of the eighteenth century. Originally called Zindah Rām Pandit, he had two sons, both of whom took service in the court of Shah Alam II. One son, named Sītā-Rām 'Umdah, died in AH 1173. Mūbad himself was a pupil of Mīrzā Girāmī, son of 'Abd al-Ghanī Beg Qabūl. His most famous work is the Diwān-i Mūbad, an extensive collection of poems. The copy in the British Library, registered under the number Or. 324, contains chronograms relating to contemporty events in the reigns of Shah Alam II and Alamgir II. This copy was purchased from the widow of Col. George William Hamilton (1807-1868).
ʻAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad al-Bisṭāmī was a leading intellectural figure in the Ottoman world of the early fifteenth century. He was born in Antakya in about 1380 and died in about 1455. Educated in Cairo, he moved to Bursa, where he enjoyed the patronage of Sultan Murad II. He owed his name to the Iranian Sufi to Abu Yazid al-Bistami.
Muḥammad Nuṣrat, called Nuṣratī ('victorious'), was a Deccani Urdu poet.
