Quatrains of Khayyām and Mahasti in the Iskandari Manuscript(Manuscript Dated 813 AH, Gulbenkian Museum)

Among the rare manuscripts prepared for the library of Jalal al-Din Iskandar (the grandson of Timur Gurkani), is a collection of poems and writings compiled in 813 AH, which is now housed in the Gulbenkian Museum Library in Lisbon. This precious manuscript contains two separate volumes bound together, one dedicated to poetic works and the other to writings. The poems in the first volume include works by prominent Persian poets and scholars from the 5th to the early 9th century, written by two scribes of Iskandar Mirza’s court: Hassan al-Hafiz and Mahmoud al-Hosseini. Among the poems in this anthology are seven quatrains attributed to Khayyām and 22 quatrains attributed to Mahasti Ganjavi, which we introduce and examine in this article. Additionally, we provide a brief report on the quatrains section of the manuscript.