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Add MS 9589

Record Id:

032-003472955

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

032-003472955

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100093647864.0x000001

LARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100106285001.0x000002

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Add MS 9589

Title:

Masālik al-abṣār fī mamālik al-amṣār, vols. 14 and 15 مسالك الأبصار في ممالك الأمصار، السفر ١٤ والسفر ١٥

Ibn Faḍl Allāh al-ʻUmarī ابن فضل الله العمري

Scope & Content:

A section of Masālik al-abṣār fī mamālik al-amṣār (مسالك الأبصار في ممالك الأمصار), a 27-volume geographical, historical and biographical compendium by Aḥmad ibn Yaḥyá Ibn Faḍl Allāh al-ʻUmarī (أحمد بن يحي بن فضل الله العمري, d. 1349).

The present copy corresponds to volume 14 in which al-ʻUmarī lists and anthologises the poets of the pre-Islamic Jāhilīyah period, and volume 15 detailing the poets of the Islamic era up to the third century of the hijrah/mid-10th century CE. The composition of volume 15 was completed on 18 Dhū al-Qaʻdah 745/23 March 1345 (see author's colophon, f. 250r, transcribed below, and Brockelmann, Vol. 2, p. 152). The transition from the Umayyad to the ʻAbbasid period is indicated on f. 108r, line 11.

A note on the title page dated 831/1427-28 records the borrowing of the volume by the prominent Mamluk historian Aḥmad ibn ʻAlī al-Maqrīzī (أحمد ابن علي المقريزي, d. 1442)

A few words of the text from the end of the text (f. 249, lines 17-18) have been erased; they may have referred to the ending of volume 15 and the contents of the next volume, beginning with the poetry of al-Mutannabī, whose name is mentioned on line 19.

Begins (f. 1v, lines 2-4):

وأما الشعراء فقد تقدم في هذا ما فيه لناظر مستمتع ولسامع بلاغ مما جملته

وتفصيله للشرق إذ نبع منه معينه وبدأ به فجره واستنير من ملمنه لهبه

واستثير من معدنه ذهبه ومنه شقشقت في الجاهلية فحوله...

Ends (f. 249v, lines 17-19):

...[؟] كتاب مسالك الأبصار في ممالك الأمصار

ولله الحمد والمنة

أحمد بن الحسين المتنبي

Author's colophon (f. 250r, lines 1-3):

وكان الفراغ من هذا السفر يوم السبت ثامن عشر [ذي] القعدة المبارك سنة

خمس وأربعين وسبعمائة

والحمد لله وحده وصلوته على سيدنا محمد وآله وصحبه وسلامه حسبنا الله ونعم الوكيل

Collection Area:

Oriental Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Additional Manuscripts
Qatar Foundation Partnership Programme

Hierarchy Tree:

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Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-003472955

Is part of:

not applicable

Hierarchy:

032-003472955

Container:

not applicable

Record Type (Level):

Fonds

Extent:

Codex; ff. i+250+i

Digitised Content:

https://www.qdl.qa/en/archive/81055/vdc_100093647864.0x000001

Thumbnail:

Languages:

Arabic

Scripts:

Arabic

Start Date:

1360

End Date:

1399

Date Range:

Late 14th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Material: Eastern laid paper

Dimensions: 304 x 215 mm leaf [218 x 138 mm (varies) written]

Foliation: Eastern Arabic foliation in black ink; British Museum foliation in pencil

Ruling: Misṭarah; 19 lines per page; vertical spacing 9 lines per 10 cm

Script: Naskh; some spaces in the text infilled with additions in a different scribal hand

Ink: Black ink, with rubricated headings

Decoration: None

Binding: British Museum half-leather binding

Condition: Minor wormholes and staining; erasures on many pages, see for example f. 21v, 59v, 63v. Ff. 1-2 replacements; ff. 162 and 250 repaired

Marginalia: Few; occasional additions of poetic excerpts added to margins; selected table of contents, various notes, and kabīkaj invocation added to f. 1r

Seals: F. 1r

Custodial History:

Two unidentified ṭughrā seals (f. 1r)
Erased inscription (f. 1r)
Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn [?] al-ʿAlāʾī al-Dawādār al-Ḥanafī (محمد ابن أحمد ابن [؟] العلائي الدوادار الحنفي): his inscription, without date (f. 1r)
Aḥmad ibn ʻAlī al-Maqrīzī (أحمد بن علي المقريزي): holograph loan inscription, with date 831/1427-28 (f. 1r)

Source of Acquisition:

Purchased from William Brown Hodgson (1801-1871), American diplomat who held various posts in Algeria, Egypt, and Istanbul, serving briefly (1841) as consul general of the U.S. in Tunis, Tunisia.

Finding Aids:

Cureton, William and Charles Rieu, Catalogus codicum manuscriptorum orientalium qui in Museo Britannico asservantur. Pars secunda, codices arabicos amplectens (London: The British Museum, 1846-71), Item 575, pp. 273-75

Publications:

Facsimile publication of Add MS 9589:

Masālik al-abṣār fī mamālik al-amṣār, Silsilah ʿUyūn al-turāth; al-mujallad 46/14 (Frankfurt: Maʿhad Tārīkh al-ʿUlum al-ʿArabīyah wa-al-Islamīyah, 1988)

Study of volumes 14 and 15:

Brockelmann, Carl, History of the Arabic Written Tradition: Volume 2, trans. by Joep Lameer, Handbook of Oriental Studies, Section One, The Near and Middle East, vol. 117/2 (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2016), p. 152

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Names:

Ibn Faḍl Allāh al-ʻUmarī, Aḥmad ibn Yaḥyá, 1301-1349

Subjects:

Encyclopaedias