A 'Missing' Source on Eighteenth-Century Central Asia Rediscovered: the Istanbul Manuscript of the Works of Sayyid Nāṣir al-Dīn al-Marghīnānī

Abstract

This research note reports the rediscovery of a Persian manuscript in Istanbul that preserves several unique works from late eighteenth- or early nineteenth-century Central Asia, mostly dealing with the historical, genealogical, and ritual profile of the Yasavī Sufi tradition and written by a certain Sayyid Aḥmad Nāṣir al-Dīn Marghīnānī, a native of the Farghāna valley. The manuscript was first brought to light nearly a century ago by Zeki Velidi Togan, who assigned it the generic title <em>Tārīkh-i mashāʾikh-i turk</em> and gave some idea of its contents, which suggested its importance for the later phases of Yasavī history prior to the Russian and Soviet eras in Central Asia; Togan later wrote, however, that the manuscript had gone missing, and since that time it has lain unstudied and unidentified. The study recounts the loss and rediscovery of the manuscript, now registered as Istanbul University Library F745, offers insight on why it went missing for such a long time, and outlines its contents, confirming its value as a barely-tapped source on the social and cultural history of Central Asia.