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Resulting from cultural cooperation between the Republic of Uzbekistan and IRCICA, the facsimile edition of ʿAlī Shīr Navāʾī’s (1441-1501) Divan (collection of poems) titled Badā’i‘ al-Bidāya brings to the world’s knowledge its previously unpublished copy preserved in the Süleymaniye Library in Istanbul. This is the sixth after the already known copies located in Paris, London, Tehran, Baku and Tashkent.
Copied by the famous calligrapher Sulṭān ‛Alī al-Mashhadī in Herāt in 1484-85, during Navāʾī’s lifetime, this manuscript is registered under nr. 3981 in the Ayasofya fund of Süleymaniye Library. It has been printed in February 2026 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, as a joint publication of the Agency for Cultural Heritage under the Ministry of Tourism and Sports of the Republic of Uzbekistan and the Research Centre for Islamic History, Art and Culture (IRCICA).
The scholars who studied this manuscript copy and prepared it for publication are Prof. Dr. Aftаndil Erkinov (International Islamic Academy of Uzbekistan) and Prof. Dr. Ashirbek Muminov (IRCICA). The introductory and analytic texts in the book are in Uzbek, English, Turkish and Russian.
The well-known poet, author, linguist, Sufi ʿAlī Shīr Navāʾī wrote in Chaghatay Turkic and Persian. He was also a miniature painter, calligrapher and musician, and patron of art, architecture and charitable endowments. Badā’i‘ al-Bidāya represents the early phase of his poetry, that he put together at the request of Sulṭan Ḥusayn Bāyqarā, his schoolmate, the Timurid ruler (1469-1506) in Herāt, who appointed him as his court adviser. Navāʾī is an important figure of the Central Asian cultural heritage in many respects.
