“Tafsir-i Charkhi”

Before you is the manuscript of Tafsir-i Charkhi, one of the most significant monuments of Islamic theological thought in Central Asia, linking the intellectual traditions of the 15th and 19th centuries.
Its author, Ya‘qub Charkhi, a 15th-century scholar and prominent representative of the Naqshbandi Sufi order, composed this commentary on the Qur’an in Persian. This choice was deliberate, aiming to make complex theological ideas accessible to a wider audience in Mawarannahr.
The manuscript you see is a later copy, produced in Bukhara in 1812 by the calligrapher Muhammad Sharif al-Bukhari. At that time, Bukhara was a major center of manuscript production. The script used here – the Bukharan variant of nasta‘liq – is notable for its compactness and clarity, making it particularly suitable for scholarly and religious texts.
Observe the page layout. Red ink highlights Arabic quotations from the Qur’an or introductory formulae, while the main commentary is written in black. This visual system allowed readers to immediately distinguish between the sacred text and its interpretation.
The manuscript is written on high-quality Eastern paper, produced according to traditional techniques of Samarkand and Bukhara. Its плотная структура and careful finishing have ensured remarkable preservation over more than two centuries.
This book is more than a textual artifact. It embodies a living chain of knowledge transmission: from a Sufi master of the 15th century to a calligrapher of the 19th, and ultimately to modern scholarly collections. It stands as a testament to how the intellectual and spiritual heritage of Islamic civilization was preserved and reinterpreted across generations.