Page from Tales of a Parrot (Tuti-nama): text page

The text of this manuscript was adapted, edited, and revised by Ziya al-Din Nakhshabi in 1329–30 from an earlier compilation called Gems of Nocturnal Conversations , written as a gift for the Sultan of Delhi. Turkic by ethnicity, but Persian-speaking, Nakhshabi settled in India. He was a religious cleric from Central Asia belonging to the mystical Sufi order of Islam. He rewrote and revised the earlier work, renamed it the Tuti-nama , and made the language more elegant and proper than the previous version.