Photo source: Kyoto University
Majid Daneshgar was the ALHT scholar in 2017/2018. A book based largely on that research has just been published by the Edinburgh University Press in association with the Gibb Memorial Trust. Persianate Prose and the Making of Malay Muslim Literature; Text, Translation and Commentary of the Durr al-Majalis took seven years to complete. The cover design features, with the permission of Auckland Libraries, an image from GMS-170.
See the record on Kura Heritage Collections Online:
The manuscript Durr al-Majālis (also spelt Dūr al-Majālis) comprises 33 chapters which covers a wide range of religious topics such as the virtue of the creation of Adam; the virtue of the generosity of Abraham (sikhāvat-i Ibrāhīm); the injury of Muḥammad’s teeth (9); the story of ʿAlī and Fāṭimah (11); the virtue of Ramadan; the virtue of Kaʿbah; the virtue of the death of Ḥasan and Ḥusayn (31; page 130); on Sultan Abū Saʿīd Abū al-Khayr; and on the inhabitants of Paradise. The text ends with the rewards of five days of the week, and also the genealogy of the twelve Imams of Shīʿa. The manuscript was finished on 10th of Muḥarram (Thursday noon), probably by Shaykh Khalīfa Shaykh Dāwūd Mirdkir. The manuscript was copied in Mozambique in the 19th century.
Auckland Libraries would like to acknowledge and thank Majid Daneshgar who was instrumental in cataloguing this manuscript as the ALHT Researcher in Residence scholar in 2017. We would also like to thank the Auckland Library Heritage Trust for making this possible.
Majid's study also draws on GMS-173. This MS has been digitised and is to be uploaded to Kura.
Information on Majid's book is at the Edinburgh University Press site.
