Maṭāliʻ al-saʻāda wa manābiʻ al-siyāda.
At one time bound in faded 19th century green leather tooled in gold and with cream silk moiré doublures; rebound in gilt black morocco by Marguerite Duprez Lahey in 1954 (preserved and housed separately as MS M.788A); rebound in 1992 by Deborah Evetts in quarter dark brown morocco with natural Irish linen sides.
Purchased from Demotte and Company, 1935.
138 leaves (variable lines and scripts), bound : paper, ill. ; 276 x 170 mm
Made for ʻĀyisha Sulṭān (d. 1604), daughter of Ottoman Sultan Murād III (ruled 1574-1595); her name on fol. 4; then possibly ʻĀyisha Sulṭān (b. 1605), eldest daughter of Aḥmed I (ruled 1603-1617); purchased from Demotte and Company, New York, through Herbert P. Weissberger, 1935.
Ms. written and illuminated probably in Constantinople, ca. 1582.
Texts: three treatises (on astrology, marvels and demonology, and fortune-telling); the first two sections, Kitāb al-mawālid (Book of nativities, fol. 4v-89v) are translated from the Arabic, with some editing, by al-Suʻūdī, Sayyid Muḥammad ibn Amīr Ḥasan (d. 1591); the third section, Qurʻa-i Jaʻfariyya (The divination of Jaʻfar, fol. 90-137v), is usually attributed to the Shiʻite Imam Jaʻfar Sadīq.
Decoration: 71 miniatures.