Scribes

Baghdad

Date: Second half of the sixteenth century

Persian historian, Qadi Ahmad (or Qazi Ahmad; d. after 1606) records two skilled scribes working in Ottoman Baghdad named Mawlana Hasan ʿAli and Mawlana … read more

Hafnat al-Abyad

Date: 683-84

An early graffito on a stone found at Hafnat al-Abyad, near Kufa records the death of one Layth ibn Yazid al-Asʿadi. The inscription finishes with a first-person statement by the unnamed … read more

Karbalaʾ

Date: 1617

A manuscript of the Dīvān of Anvari, dated 1026 (1617), was copied in the shrine of Imam Husayn by Muhammad b. Nasr ʿAli (ms. Istanbul University, Rare Books and … read more

Najaf

Date: 1589

A manuscript of the Hümāyūnnāme of ʿAli Çelebi, dated Jumada II 997 (April-May 1589), was copied in Baghdad by Muhammad Ishaq Baghdadi, resident of Najaf … read more