Two poems in praise of the Prophet Muhammad, signed by Tughan al-Nasiri, Egypt, Mamluk, dated 804 AH/1401 AD

Arabic manuscript on paper, 39 leaves, plus two fly-leaves, 12 lines to the page comprising three lines of large black thuluth script, the intervening lines in red and black naskh script, some written diagonally, verses marked by gold florets, f.1 and f.11a with illuminated frontispiece, rubbed, text in large thuluth script in white ink; f.11b and f.38b with a double page with text in muhaqqaq script in gold and polychrome ink against a red hatched ground, rebound, brown morocco binding with central eight-pointed star, remnants of gilt decoration

In reasonably good condition, the illuminated pages heavily worn, thumbed, creases, some verses re-inked, water staining and restorations to the paper, mis-bound but complete,, as viewed.
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This collection of prayers incorporates the Banat Su'ad of the seventh-century Arab poet Ka’b ibn Zuhayr, as well as the Qasida al-Burda of Sharaf al-Din abu 'Abdullah Muhammad ibn Hasan al-Busiri (d.1296-97 AD).

This manuscript itself was produced during the reign of Al-Malik al-Nasir Faraj ibn Barquq Sayf al-Din (r.1399-1405 AD and 1405-12 AD), with calligraphy executed by Tughan al-Nasiri, a high-ranking officer and prince who served the Mamluk Sultanate. A long full page inscription is present on f.39b dated 1033 AH/1623 AD, which quotes Mustafa ibn Muhib al-Din.

The original title of al-Busiri's work was Al-Kawakib al-durriya fī madh khayr al-bariya, but is more commonly known as Qasida al-Burda ('Poem of the Mantle'). Written in praise of the Prophet Muhammad, the composition was very popular in Mamluk Egypt and Syria in the fourteenth and fifteenth century, and many lavish copies were commissioned by both the sultans and the nobility for their personal use, or as endowments.

There are nine copies of this poem, one of which was commissioned by the Mamluk ruler Qaytbay (r.1468-95), in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin (see A. Arberry, A Handlist of the Arabic Manuscripts in the Chester Beatty Library, volume V, Dublin, 1962, p.55, no.4168). Another forty copies are in the British Library, London (see P. Stocks and C. Colin (ed.), Subject – Guide to the Arabic Manuscripts in the British Library, London, 2001, pp.304-5, L. 1). See also Brockelmann: GAL, I. 265; suppl. I467. A number of copies have been sold in these rooms, including one in muraqqa' form by the famed calligrapher Mustafa Izzet, dated 1265 AH/1849 AD, formerly in the Ghazi collection, sold 19 October 2016, lot 135. An earlier copy signed by the scribe Muhiddin al-Amasi, dating to the fifteenth/sixteenth century, was sold 3 October 2012, lot 56.