This is an abridged metrical paraphrase of the second maqālah of ʿAjāʾib al-makhlūqāt (The wonders of creation) by Zakariyāʾ al-Qazwīnī (d. 682 AH / 1283 CE) with additions from other sources by Fakhr al-Dīn Ḥamzah ibn ʿAlī Āẕarī (d. 866 AH / 1461-2 CE). The text was copied in Herat (in present-day Afghanistan) in 1022 AH / 1613 CE in the library of the governor of Khurasan Ḥusayn Khān Shāmlū-yi Bīklirbīkī (Beglerbegi). The manuscript is illustrated with fourteen paintings in an early Safavid style from the eleventh century AH / seventeenth CE. The present binding is not original to the manuscript.
