Kıssa-yı Ebu Müslim - قصۀ ابو مسلم

This volume contains the story of Ebu Müslim, a well-known romance, the hero of which is the celebrated general who seated the Abbasids on the throne and was put to death by Khālif Abū Manṣūr in 137 AH (755 CE). This volume contains the latter half of the work. It is divided into two parts, the second of which is designated as the fourth volume of the work. The first leaf of the manuscript has been supplied by a later hand. The first incidents narrated are the recovery of Ebu Müslim from the effects of poison; the dispatch of his adversary, Tahir; of a letter to the Umayyad Sulaymān ibn Walīd, informing him of the death of Walīd, his father and of Naṣr-i Sayyār; and the setting out of Sulaymān from Baghdad with seventy thousand men, in order to avenge his father's death upon Ebu Müslim. The third volume deals with the capture of Ray, Baghdad, and Kufa, by Ebu Müslim, and concludes on f 79v with the answer of ᶜAlī ibn Mujāhid to the letter of Mahlān. The fourth volume, beginning, on the same page, with the flight of Mahlān to Naxçıvan, relates at length the story of Farāmurz; the conquest by Ebu Müslim of Damascus, Egypt and the Maghrib; and his seating successively Abū'l-ᶜAbbās (al-Saffāḥ) and Abū Jaᶜfar (al-Manṣūr) on the throne. The narrative is brought down to the death of the hero on 25 Şaban 137 AH (13 February 755 CE) and concludes with the end of his associate, Ahmet Zemci. This manuscript was completed on 1 Rebiülevel 988 AH (16 April 1580 CE).

Unrestricted

Acquired from the collection of Alexandre Jaba.

See Rieu, Catalogue of the Turkish Manuscripts in the British Museum, pp. 213-214.

Another prose copy of this work can be found at and Harley MS 5493. Other poetical copies of the Ebu Müslim story can be found at Or 12923 I, and Or 14085 text I. An account of the Persian original by Khanikoff will be found in the Journal Asiatique, 5eme Série XX, pp. 93-97.

A poetical version of this story under the title Kitab-i Ebu Müslim has been printed in three volumes in İstanbul in 1290 AH (1873-74 CE). See Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft, Band 30, p. 163.