File:Nadir at the court of Shah Tahmasp II.jpg

English: Nadir at the court of Shah Tahmasp II Safavid.

Mirza Mahdi Khan Astarabadi, the Jahan-gusha-ye Nadiri, North India, dated 1171 AH/1757-58 AD

This is a rare and lavishly-illustrated copy of the Jahan-gusha-ye Nadiri of Mirza Mahdi Khan Astarabadi. It is also the earliest recorded version of the text, which chronicles the life of Nadir Shah (r.1736-47), written in 1757-58, only ten years after his death.

All the lithographed copies and manuscripts used for the publication of Jahan-gusha-ye Naderi by Anvar were copied in nasta’liq. This copy is the only one in naskh and similar in style to a few manuscripts copied by order of Nadir Shah, now in the Gulistan Palace Library in Tehran. According to this manuscript, Astarabadi, Nader Shah's official historian, had planned a second volume dealing with subsequent events. However, there is no record of this text so it does not seem to have ever been written.

Whilst it seems more likely that a manuscript chronicling the life of Nadir Shah would be produced in Persia, the general feel of the illumination, calligraphy and style of illumination point towards an origin in North India. Parallels can be drawn in terms of both the palette, composition and style with an illustrated leaf from an unidentified manuscript related to the Siyar-i Nabi, attributed to Northern India (or even Sindh), formerly in the collection of Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, and now in the Aga Khan Museum, Toronto (see S.R. Canby, Princes, Poets & Paladins, London, 1998, p.177, no.136). Although attributed to the nineteenth century, the similarities between the two illustrations, combined with the date of the present manuscript, suggest the possibility that it may perhaps be earlier.