An impressive lithographed copy of Firdausi's Shahnama, with 58 illustrations, by the scribe Muhammad Ibrahim, Port of Bombay, published through Muhammad Aqa Baqir, in the print house of 'Abd al-Ghafur, known as Dadu Miyan ibn Muhammad 'Abdullah...

lithograph on paper, 346 leaves, 33 lines to the page in nasta'liq script in six columns, headings in nasta'liq script within decorated panels, catchwords, page numbers, 58 illustrations, mostly quarter-page, several three-quarter-page, opening prose preface, monochrome decorated opening headpiece, full-page decoration preceding this, four further decorated headpieces, European-style red leather gilt
395 x 265 mm.

There is a long and interesting preface on how the author produced this version, a detailed list of seventeen other copies of the text which he studied, both Persian and Indian, trustworthy versions and incomplete ones. He lists the various copies he used, their dates, the number of couplets of each and their scribes, including one in the Royal Asiatic Society, copied by Nizam ibn Muhammad Shirazi, and the lithograph copy of 1811; what each included (for example the Garshasp-Nameh of Asadi). He took out the sections clearly not by Firdausi, such as the Garshasp-nameh, and added them in an appendix. There is also a section on how the stories of the Shahnama were collected, and the biography of Firdausi.

The scribe, Muhammad Ibrahim, is recorded by Bayani as a Shirazi nasta'liq calligrapher, who was knowledgeable in literature, and who wrote poems with the penname Safa. He moved to India and copied texts to be printed and was also involved in trade. He travelled to Hyderabad, where he taught Persian for a while. He retuned to Persia and died in AH 1301/AD 1883-84. Bayani lists five of his lithographed manuscripts dated between AH 1269/AD 1852-53 and AH 1286/AD 1869-70. See Mehdi Bayani, ahval va asar-e khosh-nevisan, vol. III, Tehran 1348 sh., pp. 623-24.

This copy (which had previously belonged to Mu'tamid al-Sultan, an inspector in Shiraz) was purchased by a certain Husain Daftar Shirazi for 7 tumans in AH 1317/AD 1899-1900.

At the end of the preface on Firdausi there is an illustration depicting four poets (identified as Rudaki, 'Asjudi, 'Unsuri and Firdausi himself reading a poem) at the court of Sultan Mahmud. The text above this image bears the information that this part was completed in AH 1245/AD 1829-30 and includes the Christian date 1829.

The decorated last page bears a heading: 'The author of this book and the date of its finishing says' and includes the information that the author (clearly Muhammad Ibrahim) left Persia for India, where he was asked to produce this book. This part is dated AH 1272/AD 1856-57) with an oval seal impression of Muhammad Baqir, who may be the same as the Shirazi merchant.