The early modern South Asian sultanate of Bijapur (9/15 th–11/17 th c.) represented a rich centre for the transmission of manuscripts by both the court and local Sufi communities. Thus far, Richard Eaton has mainly concentrated on prosopographical sources to write a social history of the Sufis of Bijapur. However, Arabic manuscripts as they survive in the Royal Library of Bijapur can provide a documentary perspective that testifies to the Deccan’s transregional connections with the wider Western Indian Ocean and the cultural practices transacted by Sufis in Bijapur. In this article, I focus on Sayyid Zayn ʿAbdallāh ibn al-Muqaybil’s (d. 1130/1718) manuscripts, transcribed during his travels from Yemen to Bijapur during the second half of the 17th century. I study the paratextual profile of these manuscripts to advance an argument on modalities of manuscript transmission through the transregional scholarly and Sufi networks of Bijapur. Thus, this study will exemplify the socio-cultural significance of manuscript circulation in the context of the early modern Deccan.

现代的南亚早期苏丹国比贾普尔（9/15至11/17 c。）代表着法院和当地苏菲派人士传播手稿的丰富中心。迄今为止，理查德·伊顿（Richard Eaton）主要集中在书本上，以撰写比贾普尔苏菲派的社会历史。但是，在比贾普尔皇家图书馆中生存的阿拉伯手稿可以提供文献记录的视角，这证明了德干与更广阔的西印度洋的跨地区联系以及苏菲派在比贾普尔的文化习俗。在本文中，我重点介绍17世纪下半叶塞耶德·扎恩·阿卜杜拉·本·穆卡比勒（卒于1130/1718年）创作的手稿。我研究了这些手稿的超文本形式，提出了关于通过比贾普尔跨地区学术和苏菲网络传播手稿的方式的争论。因此，这项研究将在现代德干早期的背景下例证手稿流通的社会文化意义。