“Dastur al-Wuzara”

Before us is “Dastur al-Wuzara,” or “Guide for Viziers,” written by the historian Ghiyath al-Din Khandamir at the turn of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries at the request of Alisher Navoi.
The work functions as a manual of governance. It gathers biographies of prominent viziers of the Islamic world, describing their political decisions, reforms, and failures. This copy, transcribed in 1858, demonstrates that the Timurid political tradition continued to serve as a source of administrative and ethical authority in the khanates of Central Asia.
The physical appearance of this manuscript already suggests its administrative purpose: the dense Kokand paper, the restrained page layout, and the library label attached to the binding indicate that the volume long belonged to an official collection and was intended for practical use.
The manuscript is written in nastaliq script, a calligraphic style associated with the book culture of Herat and Bukhara. Its use for a historical and political text reflects the continued prestige of classical calligraphy within the intellectual environment of the Kokand Khanate on the eve of the major political transformations of the nineteenth century.