19th century manuscript copy of 'Hikayet-i Dikyanus'

Description: Manuscript volume in Ottoman Turkish containing copy of 'Hikayet-i Dikyanus', a treatise on 'The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus'. According to a note opposite the title page, the manuscript was written by Syed Mohammed, Persian Secretary to the Bagdad Residency, March 1821.

This treatise is based on the popular tale 'The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus' [As'hab al-Kahf] which is recounted in the Qur'an (18:9-22). In this story, a group of young men, persecuted for believing in one God in times before Islam, take refuge in a cave, where they slept for many years in an act of grace from God. Of the questions put to the Prophet by the Quraysh in order to test his prophetic knowledge, one was about how long the sleepers had slept.

The volume bears the signature of D.C. Bell, the British resident surgeon and Assistant Resident in Baghdad, who was appointed ca. 1820.
Creator: Syed Mohammed
Spatial Coverage: Baghdad; Iraq
Language: Ottoman Turkish
Date: March 1821
Subject: Islam
Identifier: MS 222