Mahmud ibn 'Ali al-Sarai explained

Maḥmūd ibn ʿAlī al-Sarāī was a fourteenth-century CE scholar, known from one of the main surviving works composed in Khwārazm Turkish. This was entitled Turkish, Ottoman (1500-1928);: نهج الفراديس (Nahjatü l-farādīs), is known in Turkish today as Nehcü’l-ferâdîs or Nehcü'l-feradis, and has also been known as Fezâilü’l-mu‘cizât. This appears to have been composed in 1358 and is similar in both language and content to the more widely attested Qiṣaṣ-i Rabghūzī by Nāṣir al-Dīn Rabghūzī.^[1] The text contains four sections, each divided into ten chapters. The first section describes the life of Muḥammad; the second gives information about founding figures of Islam, including four caliphs and Fāṭima; the thirds discusses good deeds; and the fourth discusses bad deeds.^[2] As of 2006, over ten manuscripts were known.

Editions of the Nahjatü l-farādīs

• Nehcü’l-ferdis (tıpkıbasım), ed. by János Eckmann (Ankara 1956). Facsimile of a manuscript of the text. The introduction promises further volumes, but none appeared.

Notes and References

1. M. van Damme, "Rabghūzī", in Encyclopaedia of Islam, ed. by P. Bearman and others, 2nd edn, 12 vols (Leiden: Brill, 1960–2005), .
2. A. Azmi Bilgin, 'Nehcü’l-ferâdîs', in Türkiye Diyanet Vakfi İslâm Ansiklopedisi (Istanbul, 2006), XXXII 540-41.