NOTES ON SOME MANUSCRIPTS OF ‘ABD-ALLAH HATIFI’STIMURNAMA IN CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY COLLECTIONS
The 15th-16th-century poet, ‘Abd-Allah Hatifi (d. 1521) composed a verse epic on the life and conquests of Tamerlane (Timur, d. 1405), following both earlier narrative histories and the style of epic literature. This popular work is preserved in a large number of manuscript copies, many of which are illustrat- ed. The Cambridge University Library holds six manuscripts of the text, which are introduced here, both as typical examples of 16th-century productions that entered British collections from India, and in comparison with some precious copies housed in the National Library of Russia, St. Petersburg, from the point of view of both their textual and visual characteristics.