Online Lecture in collaboration with the PMA Talks organised by the Persian Manuscripts Assosiation
by Dr Aslisho Qurboniev  

Abstract

This talk contextualises the composition, revision and copying of one of the most celebrated Persian works on any subject, the Akhlāq-i Nāṣirī of the famous polymath Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī (d. 1274), focusing on one unique manuscript copied in 666/1267. The manuscript is copied twenty years after the composition of the work and represents the first revision of the text, in which Tūsī had withdrawn his dedication to his former Ismāʿīlī patron, the ruler of Quhistān Nāṣir al-Dīn b. ʿAbd al-Raḥīm b. Abī Manṣūr (d. 655/1257). Yet the manuscript still preserved some of its previous flavour that was removed in a later revision. Copied during the lifetime of Ṭūsī it illustrates the continuities and changes in Ṭūsī's network and patronage, which will be discussed with reference to the notes on the manuscripts. Further notes on the manuscript are from Mughal India, where it meets royal librarians as well as street booksellers and looters, although it remains silent about the long journey from Iran to the subcontinent.

Short bio

Dr Aslisho Qurboniev is a Research Associate at the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London. He studied philology, history, Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, gaining his PhD from the University of Cambridge in 2020 with a thesis on early Fatimid history in North Africa.

Following his doctoral studies, he joined the ERC-funded KITAB Project at AKU-ISMC in London as a postdoctoral fellow (2020-2024), where he contributed to the OpenITI corpus and a multigraph book project (Barber et al, The Making of the Arabic Book, Vol. 2: Writerly Practices, Memory and Communities  (Edinburgh University Press, 2026). 

One of his current projects explores the survival and transmission of books following the fall of the Fatimid caliphate (1171 CE) and the Nizari Ismaili state of Alamut (1256 CE). 

To participate online, please follow this link at 

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/85350416670?pwd=h3xbHShDZnTEoVOBLp7xgb841gmIZ0.1

For details see POSTER