Abu al-Fath Manuchihr Khan

Abu al-Fatḥ Manuchihr Khan (; died 1636), was a Safavid official and gholam of Armenian origin. Like his father Qarachaqay Khan, Manuchihr was established at Mashhad as the general and governor of Khorasan under the shahs (kings) Abbas I (r. 1588–1629) and Ṣāfi (r. 1629–1642). His brother Ali Quli Khan became prefect of Qom and head of Abbas I's library. Manuchihr Khan's son, Qarachaqay Khan II (d. 1668), also became a governor of Mashhad. All of them were among the Safavid cultural and intellectual elite, known as “men of knowledge and integrity’ (ahl-e fazl o kamāl) and “of illustrious acts and deeds” (ṣāheb-e mu'āṣir o asrār).

His works Manuchihr Khan was a leading art patron, with a strong curiosity and interest in astronomy. He commissioned one of the finest illustrated manuscripts of the period, a Persian translation of 'Abd al-Rahmān ibn 'Umar al-Ṣūfī’s Ṣuwar al-Kawākib al-Thābitah ("the description of the fixed stars"), copied between 1630 and 1633 and conserved in the New York Public Library collection (Spencer, Pers. Ms. 6), see: Schmitz, 1992, p. 122.

In 1632–1633, Manuchihr Khan commissioned Hasan ibn Sa‘d al-Qa‘īnī, Master Mālik Husayn Naqqāsh Isfahānī, and Rezvan Beg Zarneshan to produce a celestial globe later known as the Manuchihr Globe.

In 1636, Muhammad Qasim completed an illustrated copy of Vahshi Bafqi's Farhad and Shirin for the library collection of Abu al-Fath Manuchihr Khan. Muhammad Qasim drew four paintings for this particular copy.