“Risola-i Validiya”

Before you is a manuscript of the “Risola-i Validiya,” one of the most influential spiritual and ethical treatises produced in Central Asia during the fifteenth century. Its author, Khoja Ubaydullah Ahrar Wali, was a leading representative of the Naqshbandi Sufi tradition and played an important role in the political and intellectual life of the Timurid era.
The text is written in Persian and copied in the naskh script, a clear and disciplined style of calligraphy widely used for religious and scholarly works. Numerous marginal notes and reader commentaries survive along the edges of the pages. These annotations, known as hashiya, demonstrate that the manuscript remained part of a living scholarly tradition for centuries.
Particular attention should be given to the manuscript’s binding. The stamped medallion decorating the leather cover reflects characteristic features of Central Asian book arts. Despite visible traces of age and wear, the manuscript preserves both the quality of its paper and the clarity of its script.
The work is also connected with Zahir al-Din Muhammad Babur, who created a poetic Turkic adaptation of the treatise in the sixteenth century, helping to spread the ideas of Khwaja Ahrar across the Islamic world.