18th century MANUSCRIPT in CHAGATAI TURKI LANGUAGE ISLAMIC BOOK antique POETRY

Collection of poetry dedicated to Prophet Muhammed and Hazrat Ali history


Text in Chagatai Language, Shikaste script

circa 18th century (not dated)

Purchased in Uzbekistan

Size 6 by 10"

Nice calligraphy

over 150 lvs (=300 pp)

Period binding with embossed medallions, detached from bookblock, new endpapers.

Some wear, dampstains

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Chagatai[a] , also known as Turki,  Eastern Turkic, or Chagatai Turkic , is an extinct Turkic literary language that was once widely spoken across Central Asia and remained the shared literary language there until the early 20th century.
It was used across a wide geographic area including parts of modern-day Uzbekistan, Xinjiang, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.
Literary Chagatai is the predecessor of the modern Karluk branch of Turkic languages, which include Uzbek and Uyghur.
Turkmen, which is not within the Karluk branch but in the Oghuz branch of Turkic languages, was nonetheless heavily influenced by Chagatai for centuries.

Ali-Shir Nava'i was the greatest representative of Chagatai literature.


Lizheng Gate at the Chengde Mountain Resort. The second column from the left is the Chagatai language written in Perso-Arabic Nastaliq script.
Chagatai literature is still studied in modern Uzbekistan, where the language is seen as the predecessor and the direct ancestor of modern Uzbek, and the literature is regarded as part of the national heritage of Uzbekistan.

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