Asian and African studies blog

Paul with the MARA (Manuscrits Arabes et Ajami) team (© IRSH, Université Abdou Moumouni)

From West Africa
I am writing this piece from Niamey, Niger, where I am staying for a five-week research trip to investigate the country’s largest manuscript collection held at the Département des Manuscrits Arabes et Ajami (MARA), a department of the city’s Université Abdou Moumouni. This renowned collection contains mainly works in Arabic, but also many regional languages such as Hausa, Fulfulde, Zarma and Kanuri written in Arabic script (we call this ajami). The range of subjects covered in the collection is vast, but mainly concern works of history and religion, but I have come across works on dream interpretation, the benefits of eating kola nut and a book discussing the relative benefits and drawbacks of “associating with the French”.

At the British Library, my work is to catalogue the BL’s collection of Arabic manuscripts from West Africa as part of an AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Project with the University of Birmingham. My thesis concerns the theocratic state founded in this region in 1804 by Sheikh Uthman dan Fodio (popularly called the Sokoto Caliphate). I am especially interested how Uthman’s successors, Abdullahi dan Fodio and Muhammad Bello, set about maintaining and governing the state entity they had helped to create, as well as the legacy of the Caliphate today.

The MARA and Boubou Hama (© IRSH, Université Abdou Moumouni)

History of  MARA
The founding of MARA occurred under unusual circumstances. The story starts with Boubou Hama, one-time President of the National Assembly and also a passionate historian of the Niger region. Using his political clout to garner funds, throughout the 1960s and 70s he had been purchasing manuscripts that concerned the history of Niger from both within the country and in the wider West African region. When he could not purchase the manuscripts themselves, he paid scribes (notably in Agadez) to copy them out for him, housing his growing collection in a room in the National Assembly.

In 1974, there was an army coup in Niamey and the National Assembly was flooded with soldiers. The young rebels who discovered Boubou Hama’s manuscript collection could read neither Arabic nor their regional languages in Arabic script. They decided that these were works praising the government, which Boubou Hama had commissioned from marabouts. In their revolutionary fervour, they set about destroying the collection. It was only after an unknown quantity of these manuscripts had been destroyed that the collection was found to contain mainly historical and religious works, most of them pre-dating the Hamani government. The four hundred remaining manuscripts were transferred to the Institut de Recherche en Sciences Humaines (IRSH). The IRSH subsequently merged with the newly founded Université Abdou Moumouni and MARA was created as an official university department that same year.

Under MARA’s first directors and with help from UNESCO, the department continued to purchase and copy regional manuscripts until they possessed more than 3,000 items, for which a new storeroom was built. However, there was little effort to catalogue or preserve this rapidly expanding collection. When current director of MARA Dr. Moulaye Hassane took up his position in 1995, his priorities were to catalogue, preserve and expand the collection further. For this task, he increased the department staff to seven, including Dr. Salao Alassan, a graduate of Al-Azhar University.

Dr. Salao Alassan beside a display of manuscripts (© IRSH, Université Abdou Moumouni)


Staff of the MARA, Dr. Hassane in the centre, wearing brown (© IRSH, Université Abdou Moumouni)

Between 2004 and 2008, they created an eight-volume catalogue containing entries for 4,000 manuscripts, an operation funded and published by the Al-Furqan Foundation. During the cataloguing process, it became apparent that there was an urgent need to undertake measures to preserve the manuscripts from damage. In 2005, the MARA acquired funding from Libya’s World Islamic Call Society to construct a new, specialised storeroom for the manuscripts. To prevent the appearance of termites –the greatest enemy of manuscripts in this part of the world- builders used traditional methods such as salting the earth and adding a saline mixture to the concrete used for the foundations. USAID also provided several dehumidifiers to control the climate of the storeroom as well as scanners, colour printers and training in digitisation techniques with the aim of safeguarding the collection permanently.

However, like many curators, Dr. Hassane is wary of digitising the entire collection, especially in Niamey where laws concerning the use of digital images are not as stringent or comprehensive as in Europe or North America. As Dr. Hassane said himself, “When I started to digitise the manuscripts, it was to safeguard them. But at the same time, I saw that it would be dangerous to digitise them because once a digital copy is made, it can be taken away. If this material becomes available, then who will come to use the archives?”

A saddlebag Qur’an, very similar to British Library Or.16751 on view in the British Library exhibition West Africa: Word, Symbol, Song (© IRSH, Université Abdou Moumouni)

A selection of  manuscripts on display at a Colloquium held at IRSH (© IRSH, Université Abdou Moumouni)

Threats to the collection
Even after the rescuing of the initial collection from destruction in 1974, MARA’s archives have faced several threats over the years. The World Islamic Call Society has not always been so helpful to MARA. Throughout the 1980s and 90s its directors sent representatives to Niamey offering extortionate amounts of money to purchase the entire collection and move it to Tripoli. Dr. Hassane said no. “What they don’t understand”, he says, “is that if I give away the manuscript collection of MARA, what is left for me to do here?” The same could not be said for the large number of manuscripts held by private individuals all over Niger. For many of their owners, the huge financial gain was too great an opportunity and they sold their manuscripts –until that point regarded as family heirlooms- to the foundation. In 2007, during a tour of a manuscript preservation centre in Libya, Dr. Hassane saw quite a few manuscripts of Nigerien provenance. Although the manuscripts are stored safely in underground vaults, they are not likely to be studied in the near future.

MARA also recently lost its UNESCO funding. As such, MARA can no longer afford to purchase manuscripts held privately in Niger. As well as many of these private holdings being purchased by World Islamic Call Society, they are also under threat from the Izala Society, a reactionary Islamic movement that started in Nigeria. The movement’s branch in Niger has been known to purchase or demand manuscripts in order to destroy them. This is because many of these manuscripts contain the writings of Qadiri and Tijani Sufi orders, whom the movement believe to be heretical.

But maybe the biggest threat to the MARA archives is de-centralisation. Each region now envisages its own museum and archive collection. While an admirable idea, this risks the collection of MARA being split up. Already, the university-funded initiative started in 2005 by Dr. Hassane to collect and catalogue regional manuscripts held by marabouts is failing to produce results because marabouts no longer want to part with their manuscripts. In fact, many are demanding the manuscripts they sold to MARA in previous years back again. As a result, a large proportion of the manuscripts included in the projected ninth volume of the al-Furqan catalogue series will not actually be held at the MARA but will stay with their owners. Should a scholar wish to consult these items in the future, the catalogue will give the name and address of the marabout and they will have to ask for a viewing.


A manuscript in need of conservation (© IRSH, Université Abdou Moumouni)

Future aims, and worries
Over the coming years, Dr. Hassane and his team will continue their project to map and evaluate Niger’s private manuscript collections, which has four regions still to survey. While the project may not result in many new acquisitions, they are still creating a fantastic resource. The team will collect the name of each marabout, their religious affiliation, education and current teaching activity, as well as a photograph of them with their prized manuscripts. There is also an initiative to translate and publish critical editions of as many as the manuscripts as possible. For this task, Dr. Hassane wants to involve post-graduate students from Université Abdou Moumouni writing theses in history or Islamic studies.

MARA staff member Boubacar Moussa interviews marabout Side Iyé, who is explaining his invention, a “Universal Calendar” (© IRSH, Université Abdou Moumouni)

My time here with the manuscripts has so far been fruitful and rewarding. My temporary colleagues have become more like my friends, and after a day’s work with the manuscripts we indulge in fried fish caught in the River Niger, some 100 metres down the road -although this may make some BL staff rather nervous, as the manuscripts are still lying around as we eat! Plus, as the initiative to survey and evaluate Niger’s privately-held manuscripts continues, there is a regular stream of wise old marabouts turning up at MARA offices to share their knowledge and donate copies of their works.

It is often difficult for Nigerien academics to get their work published in mainstream academic journals (not least because they are restricted to the Francophone world) and Dr. Hassane’s fears about the collection being digitised and distributed amongst Western academics and the trickle of foreign visitors to the collection drying out is completely understandable. MARA is neither short of human resources, nor short of material to work on. However, it does not have the financial resources or the international presence of –say- the Timbuktu manuscripts, mainly because the threats to this collection are not as visible (and media-friendly) as an Islamist insurgency. Often held up as an achievement for global cultural heritage, Dr. Hassane in fact wants to avoid the Timbuktu model, where private archive collections lobby for sponsorship by powerful external donors and monetise access to the manuscripts, making collaborations almost impossible. “I am an academic,” says Dr. Hassane, “I don’t do business with manuscripts.”

Paul hard at work (© IRSH, Université Abdou Moumouni)

Paul Naylor, British Library Collaborative Doctoral Student, Asian and African Studies

Although separated by land and sea, the history of relations between Europe and Ethiopia goes back to early antiquity. The earliest account of Ethiopia in the West can be found in the epic poems of Homer. However it was the popularity of the legend of the 12^th century Christian king, Presbyter Johannes (Prester John) in medieval Europe that revived Ethiopia in the European imagination. From the 12th century onwards the relationship between Europe  and Ethiopia was characterized by a mutual awareness of the vital role that each could play in checking and containing the spread of Islam. This has been documented both by Europeans and to some extent Ethiopians, mostly in printed publications, through collections of artefacts, and in private journals. Manuscript accounts have provided the main sources for much meticulous historical research, however the body of prints, photographs and paintings by European visitors have not had the same attention.

One of the finest artists to visit Ethiopia in early nineteenth century was the Egyptologist Henry Salt (14 June 1780 – 30 October 1827). Born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, Salt studied Classics and later went to London to join he Royal Academy Antique School.

Obelisk at Axum (Abyssinia), September or October 1803, pen-and-ink drawing by Henry Salt, 1803 (British Library WD1315)

A meeting with George Annesley, 2nd Earl of Mountnorris resulted in Salt being appointed secretary and draughtsman to Viscount Valentia. Salt accompanied the Earl to India and the Red Sea area. While there, he also visited the Ethiopian highlands for the first time, including the ancient city of Aksum in 1805. Salt’s drawings were later published in Valentia's Voyages and Travels to India, in 1809.

Salt returned to Ethiopia in 1810 on the first official mission from Great Britain to establish trade and diplomatic links. The aim of the mission was to conclude an alliance with Abyssinia, and obtain a port on the Red Sea in case France secured Egypt by dividing up the Turkish Empire with Russia.^[1]

Salt’s interest in Egyptology began in 1815, when he was appointed British consul-general in Cairo. However even before working in Cairo, during his time in Ethiopia, he had conducted an extensive survey of early Ethiopic and Greek inscriptions found in Aksum.

Ethiopic inscription from Aksum (Mountnorris & Salt, p. 414)

The British Library’s Department of Visual Arts has a good collection of visual materials relating to Abyssinia (Ethiopia). Amongst these are drawings by Henry Salt which date from 1805 to 1810.  Salt produced a number of drawings illustrating scenes of the Ethiopian highlands. The sketches were annotated by Salt with details of colour recording people and buildings.  His drawings are similar to those of Thomas and William Daniel in terms of subject matter, composition, use of colour and aesthetic ideal of the time.

Henry Salt, Mountainous landscape, Mucculla (Abyssinia), 9 to 10 September 1805 (British Library WD1311)

Salt's drawings of the Ethiopian highlands demonstrate the breadth of his work and his attention to detail. Most were reprinted by the Ethiopian Tourist Commission in the early 1970s.

Henry Salt, the town of Dixan on a hilltop (Abyssinia), July or November 1805, wash 1805 (British Library WD1310) 

Salt’s paintings of India have acquired monumental status, becoming a perpetual nostalgic reminder of the “British Raj”.  However his paintings of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) have not gained the consideration they merit. 

Further Reading:

Mountnorris, G. A., & Salt, H., Voyages and travels to India, Ceylon, the Red Sea, Abyssinia, and Egypt, in the years 1802, 1803, 1804, 1805, and 1806. London: W. Miller, 1809

Salt, H.,  A voyage to Abyssinia, and travels into the interior of that country, executed under the orders of the British Government, in the years 1809 and 1810: In which are included, an account of the Portguese settlements on the east coast of Africa, visited in the course of the voyage, a concise narrative of the late events in Arabia Felix, and some particulars respecting the aboriginal African tribes, extending from Mosambique to the borders of Egypt, together with vocabularies of their respectives languages. London: F.C. and J. Rivington, 1814

Eyob Derillo, Asian and African Studies

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Ānand Rām Mukhliṣ (1697?-1751) was a high-ranking courtier in Mughal Delhi in the first half of the eighteenth century. He came from a Punjabi Hindu family and followed his father into government service as had so many in the Khattri community, a sub-caste traditionally associated with record-keeping. He was wakīl (personal representative at court) for an imperial prime minister and for a governor of key provinces (see Ahmad), and had received the title ʻRajah of Rajahsʼ (rāʾī-yi rāyān) in recognition of his service. Befitting his stellar career as an administrator, he kept a wide social circle and was associated with the most important Persian poets in Delhi.

Portrait of the Mughal Emperor Muḥammad Shāh and the author's patron, the minister Iʻtimād al-Dawlah Qamar al-Dīn Khān. From Mukhliṣʼs presentation copy of his Kārnāmah-i ‘ishq ʻBook of Affairs of Loveʼ. Artist: Govardhan II, c.1735 (British Library Johnson Album 38, f. 7v)

Despite the increasing political difficulties of the Mughal crown over the course of the eighteenth century and the hardships endured by Delhi’s inhabitants during successive invasions and waves of unrest, the Indo-Persian literary culture in which Mukhliṣ participated was thriving. There were lavish poetic gatherings (mushāʿirahs) and a person’s literary comportment, namely his mastery of both poetry and prose, was still considered indispensable for political life. Meanwhile scholars were churning out dictionaries and critical tracts, and stretching the limits of Persian literature’s critical tradition, in some cases coming to strikingly modern conclusions about the nature of language and literary aesthetics.

The writing of history is obviously constrained by the sources available and in researching Indian history it is often difficult to find the right material to be able to zero in on particular individuals and their thought. Most Persian texts written in India remain unpublished and are only accessible in manuscript. The British Library’s manuscript holdings are probably unparalleled in the world for being able to provide information about Mukhliṣ and his contemporaries. Most excitingly, the Delhi Persian collection is full of mid-eighteenth-century Indo-Persian critical and educational texts. (Though the collection has always been available for consultation, it is only with the digitisation a few months ago of the notes for a never-published catalogue that many scholars knew of its holdings.)

Mukhliṣ was a prolific and varied writer. He was both a practicing poet and a professional bureaucrat, which at this time required mastery over a range of elegant prose composition styles including letter-writing. He was also a memoirist and wrote about his travels (see Alam and Subrahmanyam 1996).

Beginning of Aḥvāl-i sīzdah rūzah-i safar-i Garh Muktīsar, a diary, copied by the author, Ānand Rām Mukhliṣ, of his journey to the annual fair at Garmukhteshwar in 1747 and back (British Library IO Islamic 1612, ff.1v-2r)

As a scholar of literature, calligraphy, and painting he wrote works such as the dictionary Mirʾāt al-iṣt̤ilāḥ (which will be the subject of a later post). At least one of his works, the Kārnāmah-yi ʿIshq ʻBook of Affairs of Loveʼ was lavishly illustrated, as explored in a previous blog post by Malini Roy. In writing about his life, scholars have unfortunately not been as prolific as Mukhliṣ himself was. The only monograph on Mukhliṣ—in any language as far as I know—is the published version of a Delhi University PhD thesis from decades ago (James 2011).

Prince Gauhar and Khiradmand rescued by the simurgh
By Govardhan II, 1734-9
British Library, Johnson Album 38, f.51r - See more at: http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/asian-and-african/2013/07/book-of-affairs-of-love.html#sthash.wC2C6RFu.dpuf

From Kārnāmah-i ‘ishq, the love-story of Prince Gauhar and Princess Malikah-i Zamani composed in 1731. In this scene Prince Gauhar removes the coverlet from the sleeping princess as proof of his presence in her tent. Artist: Govardhan II, c.1735 (British Library Johnson Album 38, f. 81v)

Mukhliṣ’s house was a meeting place for the great writers of the day. He received his established literary friends as well as poets whom he supported as they tried to make a name for themselves in Delhi. One of his close friends, Ṭek Chand Bahār, not only had a similar career path in the Mughal bureaucracy but like Mukhliṣ wrote a dictionary, the mammoth Bahār-i ʿajam (see a previous post by Muhammad Isa Waley). Both Mukhliṣ and Bahār were friends and students of Sirāj al-Dīn ʿAlī Khān, known as Ārzū, a poet who might be the greatest philologist (that is, what we would call a literary critic and linguist) in the pre-modern Persian tradition (see Dudney 2013). Although Mukhliṣ considered Ārzū one of his teachers and Ārzū was about a decade older than Mukhliṣ, it was Mukhliṣ who facilitated Ārzū’s entrée into Delhi’s elite cultural scene when Ārzū first settled in the city.

The final page and colophon of Mukhliṣʼs Parī khānah ʻFairy Houseʼ, a florid essay on the composition of ornate prose, composed in AH 1144 (1731/32). Copied by Jiyā Rām and dated 2 Rabīʻ I 1259 (2 April 1843) (British Library Delhi Persian 491, f. 11v)

Extract from Mukhliṣ's dictionary, Mirʾāt al-iṣṭilāḥ, relating to the Peacock Throne (British Library Delhi Persian 491, f.72r)

Every poet had a network of loyalties to his teachers, students, and contemporaries. Mukhliṣ appears to have been associated with a wide network of Hindu Persian writers, as a rare miscellany in the British Library (Delhi Persian 491—for details, see below) suggests by presenting his works alongside those of contemporary Hindu writers. (On Hindu Persian poets in Delhi, see Pellò 2014) Contrary to the received wisdom that a failing political order produces a failed literary tradition, I see the eighteenth century as a time of great innovation in Indo-Persian poetry. Poets were debating the role of tradition as never before and literary criticism was incredibly vibrant. Urdu’s development as a literary language was part of this innovation.

At this time, the literary tradition that would come to be known as Urdu was part of Indian Persianate culture, not an alternative to it. Mukhliṣ lived in the time when the Persian-using and Urdu-using community of Delhi were one and the same—this fact tends to get lost in later accounts that want to emphasise the break between Persian and Urdu—and while he has no surviving Urdu compositions to his name, there is no sense that he is holding himself apart from Indian culture by being an expert in Persian.

Mukhliṣ is relevant in our time because he confounds expectations about India’s past. Some today seek to define Indian culture as static, monolithic, and synonymous with the modern understanding of Hinduism. However, the existence of historical figures like Mukhliṣ is at odds with the worldview of such revisionists. He was perfectly at ease with Persian, even using Islamic devotional formulae in his writing, while being in the eyes of those around him and in his own mind unproblematically a devout Hindu, whatever that meant at the time.

British Library manuscript copies of works by Mukhliṣ
(Follow the hyperlinks for catalogue details)

• Muraqqaʻ, an album containing autograph letters, documents and poems collected by Mukhliṣ. Or 9236
• Various short selections from works by Mukhliṣ and his contemporaries. Delhi Persian 491
• Two texts by Mukhliṣ, (1) Aḥvāl-i sīzdah rūzah-i safar-i Garh Muktīsar, a description of a trip to a fair in Garmukhteshwar (in present-day Uttar Pradesh), and (2) a selection apparently from his autobiographical work Badāʾiʿ-i vaqāʾiʿ describing events in 1746-48. IO Islamic 1612 (Ethé 2724)
• Dastūr al-ʿamal, a manual on bureaucratic notations, including siyāq numbers. IO Islamic 2932 (Ethé 2125) and Add.6641 (Rieu p. 804) 
• Dīvān-i Mukhliṣ, the collected poems of Mukhliṣ. IO Islamic 2093 (Ethé 1707, dated 1744)
• Intikhāb-i Tuḥfah-i Sāmī, a selection made by Mukhliṣ of the 16th-century Safavid prince Sām Mīrzā’s taz̤kirah. Although the taz̤kirah itself is widely available, this abridgement is apparently only extant in this copy. The copyist was Kripā Rām, and it is likely that this was Mukhliṣ’s son of the same name. Delhi Persian 718
• Kārnāmah-i ʿishq, a lavishly illustrated poetical romance. Johnson Album 38 (previously discussed by Malini Roy here)
• Mirʾāt al-Iṣṭilāḥ,  a dictionary. Or.1813 (Rieu p. 997)
• Poems by Mukhliṣ appear in various compendia, e.g. IO Islamic 2674, (Ethé 2909, but there incorrectly cited as 2764) and in various taz̤kirahs
  
  

Further reading

Ahmad, B, “Ānand Rām Mokles: Chronicler, Lexicographer, and Poet of the Later Mughal Period”, Encyclopædia Iranica vol. 2.1, p. 1 (1985).
Alam, Muzaffar and Sanjay Subrahmanyam, “Discovering the Familiar: Notes on the Travel-Account of Anand Ram Mukhlis, 1745,” South Asia Research 16 (October 1996), pp. 131-154.
James, George McLeod, Anand Ram 'Mukhlis': His Life and Works 1695-1758. Delhi: Dilli Kitab Ghar, 2011.
Dudney, Arthur Dale, A Desire for Meaning: Ḳhān-i Ārzū's Philology and the Place of India in the Eighteenth-Century Persianate World. Columbia University Academic Commons, 2013.
Pellò, Stefano, “Persian as a Passe-Partout: The Case of Mīrzā ʿAbd al-Qādir Bīdil and his Hindu Disciples.” In Culture and Circulation: Literature in Motion in Early Modern India, edited by Allison Busch and Thomas de Bruijn. Leiden: Brill, 2014.

Arthur Dudney, University of Cambridge
[email protected]

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Stories about animals have universal appeal, as demonstrated in our current exhibition Animal Tales. In the West the best known are probably Æsop’s fables. Less well known are the Fables of Bidpai, a collection which can perhaps be regarded as Æsop’s distant cousin several times removed, first published in English in 1570 as The Morall Philosophie of Doni [1].

The story of the lion and the rat, from Esbatement moral des animaux. Anvers, [1578] (British Library C.125.d.23, f12)

On display is the story of the lion and the rat from Esbatement moral des animaux, a 16th century retelling of one of Aesop's best known fables. The story tells how a mouse (or rat) was caught by a lion, but allowed to escape. Later, the lion was trapped by hunters. Hearing its roars, the mouse repaid the lion’s good turn and set it free by gnawing through the net, the moral being that a small creature can help a greater and that mercy brings its own reward.

In this post I will look at some parallel examples in Persian literature which are related to the Fables of Bidpai, stories told within a frame narrative by the brahmin Bidpai to the king Dabashlim. Although they owe their origin to India where they are best known as the Panchatantra, it is largely through the Arabic translation by Ibn al-Muqaffaʻ (died c. 757) of a lost Middle Persian (Pahlavi) version that they have become known in the West. The story, as told in the Arabic and Persian versions, describes how the Sasanian king Anushirvan (Khusraw I, r. 531-579) heard of a book treasured by the kings of India which had been compiled

from the speech of animals and brutes and birds and reptiles and savage beasts; and all that befits a king in the matter of government and vigilance, and is useful for princes in the observance of king-craft, is exhibited in the folds of its leaves, and men regard it  as the stock of all advice and the medium of advantage. (Kāshifī, via Eastwick, p. 6)

Anushirvan sent his physician Burzuyah on a mission to India to discover the book and Burzuyah returned with a copy which he translated into Pahlavi. The stories were re-translated into Arabic and Syriac, and then from Arabic into Persian and other languages.

Burzuyah presents King Anushirvan with the book of Bidpai. Mughal, ca. 1605 (Add.18759, f. 6r).

Naṣr Allāh Munshī’s Kalīlah va Dimnah
Apart from a few single verses of a translation by Rūdakī (d. ca. 941) which survive as quotations, and a single copy of a 12th century translation by Muḥammad ibn ʻAbd Allāh Bukhārī (De Blois, p. 5), the earliest extant Persian version is by Naṣr Allāh Munshī which he completed around 1144. It became sufficiently popular that 12 illustrated copies survive from the 14th century alone (O’Kane, pp. 41-3) including Or.13506, illustrated below, which dates from AH 707 (1307/8).

The story of the rat and the cat was “the most commonly illustrated scene in all pre-fifteenth-century Kalila and Dimnas” (O’Kane, p. 193), perhaps because it is one of the shortest chapters without any extra interpolated sub-stories. The plot and the moral are somewhat different from Æsop’s. A cat (gurbah) was trapped by bait in a hunter’s net. A rat (or mouse mush) emerging from his hole also looking for food, at first rejoiced to see the cat ensnared but then noticed an owl (būm) and a weasel (rāsū) waiting to pounce. In return for the cat’s protection he offered to set the cat free. His plan was successful: as soon as the owl and weasel saw the cat and rat joining forces, they made off. The rat then began to gnaw his way through the net, but slowly, as he wondered what would prevent the cat from eating him up once freed. After a lot of deliberation and discussion between the two, the rat decided to postpone the final bite until such time as the cat might be so distracted as to allow a safe escape. Shortly afterwards the hunter returned. The rat bit through the last cord and bolted down his hole in the ground while the cat shot up a tree.

After the hunter had left empty-handed, the cat returned and attempted, without success, to convince the rat of his friendly intentions. The very modern moral is that while it can be advantageous to form alliances with one’s enemies when expedient, it’s not a good idea when the danger has passed!

The rat approaches the trapped cat. Watching, ready to pounce, are an owl and a weasel. From Naṣr Allāh Munshī’s Kalīlah va Dimnah, Shiraz? AH 707 (1307/8) (British Library Or.13506, f. 143v)

In this copy of Naṣr Allāh Munshī’s Kalīlah va Dimnah, the rat emerges halfway from his hole to release the cat from the snare. Early 15th century South Provincial/Timurid style (British Library Or. 13163, f. 169r)

Ḥusayn Vāʻiz̤ Kāshifī’s Anvār-i Suḥaylī
A feature of Naṣr Allāh’s translation was his extensive use of Arabic poetry and quotations from the Qu’rān. By the end of the 15th century, it was regarded as old-fashioned if not incomprehensible on account of its general long-windedness and the Timurid Sultan Ḥusayn Mīrza Bāyqarā (r.1469-1506) asked Ḥusayn Vāʻiz̤ Kāshifī to produce a more convenient (āsān ‘convenient’ as suggested by Christine van Ruymbeke below, rather than ‘easy’ as normally interpreted) version. Kāshifi eliminated most of the Arabic but added a lot more stories - still quite florid nevertheless! - and it was this version which subsequently became the most popular.

Kāshifī’s version of the story of the cat and the rat remains the same except that the owl (būm) becomes a crow (zāgh) and two extra stories are inserted.

The hunter returns to find his net empty, the cat up the tree and the rat disappearing down his hole. From Kāshifī’s Anvār-i Suḥaylī. Ahmedabad, Gujarat, AH 1009 (1600/1) (British Library Or.6317, f. 152v)

Abū'l-Faz̤l’s  ʻIyār-i dānish
Kāshifī’s Anvār-i Suḥaylī was particularly popular at the Mughal court. Under Mughal patronage several imperial copies were made including Add.18579 (see above) which was copied for Jahāngīr and completed in AH 1019 (1610/11). Evidently, however, Kāshifī’s ‘convenient’ but florid style was still difficult to understand because Akbar commissioned his chief minister Abu’l-Faz̤l ʿAllāmi (d. 1602) to write yet another version which though written in a simplified style included even more stories.

The British Library has two illustrated copies of Abū’l-Faz̤l’s version, both of which include paintings of the story of the cat and the rat. The paintings, however, although they occur in an identical context, have a very tenuous connection with the text which clearly mentions cats and mice/rats!

Two illustrations from different copies of Abu’l-Faz̤l’s ʻIyār-i dānish Illustrating the story of the cat and the rat (Left: British Library Or.477, f. 239v; right IO Islamic 1403, f. 168v)

The large number of illustrated and unillustrated manuscript copies of Anvār-i Suḥaylī and ʻIyār-i dānish is proof of their continuing popularity. The British Library has more than 30 dating from the 16th century until the advent of printing in the 19th century, at which time they were adopted as set texts for examination in the Indian Civil Service. These manuscripts range from luxury productions to very ordinary copies. Originally presented as guidance for good kingship, they had a double function: to educate the wise and to amuse the ignorant while being both easy to teach and to remember (Kāshifī, via Eastwick, p 4). They thus served a pedagogical purpose as a kind of general pre-modern citizenship manual.

Illustrated Arabic and Persian copies of Kalilah and Dimnah in the British Library
Ibn al-Muqaffaʻ (died c. 756/759): Kalīlah wa Dimnah (Arabic)

• Add.24350: Egypt or Syria, mid-14th century. Unillustrated but spaces left for 90 miniatures.
• Or.4044: 15th century. Profusely illustrated, mostly in the margins.

Marginal illustration from the story of the cat and the rat in the Arabic translation by Ibn al-Muqaffaʻ (British Library Or.4044, f. 97v)

Abū’l-Maʻālī Naṣr Allāh Munshī: Kalīlah va Dimnah (Persian), composed ca. 1145

• Or.13506: Shiraz? AH 707 (1307/8). Includes one double-page and 66 smaller illustrations. This copy has been fully digitized (follow this link).
• Or.13163: South Provincial/Timurid style, early 15th century. 37 miniatures.

Ḥusayn Vāʻiz̤ Kāshifī (d. ca. AH 910/1504-5): Anvār-i Suḥaylī (Persian)

• Or.2799: Later Herat/Timurid style, AH 908 (1502/3). 16 miniatures.
• Or.6317: Provincial Mughal (Gujarat). Copied in Ahmedabad, AH 1009 (1600/1). 43 miniatures.
• Add.18579: Mughal. Copied for Jahāngīr and completed in AH 1019 (1610/11). 36 miniatures, two dated AH 1013 (1604/5). This copy has been fully digitized  (follow this link).

Abū'l-Faz̤l (d. 1602): ʻIyār-i dānish (Persian)

• Or.477: Provincial Mughal, dated 19 Ram AH 1217 (13 Jan 1803). 37 miniatures.
• IO Islamic 1403: 18^th century. 40 illustrations from an earlier manuscript pasted in. Many blanks.
• Johnson Album 54: 46 now separately mounted leaves; 12 are from a Mughal manuscript of c.1600, and the remainder are additions made for Richard Johnson at Lucknow c.1780.

Our current exhibition, Animal Tales, is open until 1 November 2015 in the Entrance Hall Gallery at the British Library. Entry is free. A full list of exhibits is available on our American Collections blog and you can read about some further examples in the Western medieval tradition on our Medieval Manuscripts blog.

Further reading:

Eastwick , Edward B. The Anvár-i Suhailí, or the Lights of Canopus: Being the Persian Version of the Fables of Pilpay, or the Book “Kalílah Und Damnah”. Hertford: Austin, 1854.

Wollaston, Arthur N. The Anwár-i-Suhailí; Or, Lights of Canopus, Commonly Known As Kalílah and Damnah. London: W.H. Allen & Co, 1877.

O'Kane, Bernard. Early Persian Painting: Kalila and Dimna Manuscripts of the Late Fourteenth Century. London: I.B. Tauris, 2003.

Waley, P. and Norah Titley. “An illustrated Persian text of Kalīla and Dimna dated 707/1307-8”, The British Library Journal 1 (1975), pp. 42-61.

De Blois, François. Burzōy's Voyage to India and the Origin of the Book of Kalīlah Wa Dimnah. London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1990.

van Ruymbeke, Christine. “Kashifi's Forgotten Masterpiece: Why Rediscover the Anvār-i Suhaylī?” Iranian Studies 36 (Dec., 2003), pp. 571-88.

Fables for Princes: Illustrated Versions of the Kabilah Wa Dimnah, Anvar-Isuhayli, Iyar-I Danish, and Humayun Nameh. Bombay: J.J. Bhabha for Marg Publ, 1991. Print.

Articles in Encyclopædia Iranica on line: Kalila wa Demna and Anwār-e Sohaylī

Ursula Sims-Williams, Asian and African Studies

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Today's guest post is by London-based Anita Chowdry, a visual artist, academic researcher and educator, with a long and varied practice that spans three decades. Her current sphere of interests includes an holistic approach to maths, geometry, mechanics and the history of philosophy and technology, and the impact of these disciplines on the development of our aesthetic sensibilities. 

A major area of Anita’s practical research is about painting and illumination in the book arts of the Middle East and India. As a highly skilled practitioner, Anita began her formative training in this genre in 1992 with an hereditary Rajput master in Rajasthan, India, and went on to continue her research at  some of London’s major museum collections. She lectures and runs specialist workshops on the subject at major institutions in Britain and abroad. Alongside her research interests Anita runs a successful creative practice, with disciplines ranging from manuscript illumination techniques to large scale sculptural installations.

Anita's work can be viewed on her website. She also posts regularly on her blog.

Looking at manuscripts in the British Library

My first experience of enjoying an elite manuscript close-up was in 1998, in the conservation studios of what were then the Oriental and India Office Collections at Orbit House Blackfriars, before the collection was moved to its current home at St. Pancras. A senior conservator, the late John Holmes, invited me to the studio to look at the Mughal Emperor Akbar’s Khamsa of Nizami, Or.12208. I already owned and enjoyed Barbara Brend’s illustrated monograph on the manuscript, The Emperor Akbar’s Khamsa of Nizami (British Library, 1995), but nothing can prepare you for the sheer sensuous pleasure of experiencing such a manuscript at first hand. Such was my elation at the time that I wrote extensively about it in my sketchbook: “It is one of the most beautiful and inspiring things I have ever seen... my first reaction is to the quality of the paper... exquisitely fine and tinted brown, burnished till it shines like silk...and the perfect line rulings – lamp-black filled with the palest malachite or shining gold – that divide the columns of beautiful Nastaʻliq script...”.

An illuminated chapter-heading from the Mughal Emperor Akbar’s Khamsa of Nizami, copied between 1593 and 1595, with two mythical birds (simorghs) (Or.12208, f. 285v)

The manuscript contains some of the finest examples of early Mughal illustration, dense and animated in the distinctive fusion style of Akbar’s workshops, but what caught my imagination most were the supplementary marginal designs, which along with passages of formal illumination have only recently begun to be the subject of serious academic study.

Another comparably sumptuous copy of Nizami's Khamsa, Or.2265, with visionary illustrations that express a vibrant literary heritage, was produced some years earlier in the workshops of the Safavid ruler Shah Tahmasp (ruled 1524-76). Both manuscripts are now freely available as high resolution digital manuscripts (click on the hyperlinks to get to the digitised images), a wonderfully useful resource for artists and researchers because you can zoom in to study their details at leisure.

Detail of “the Prophet’s ascent” attributable to Sultan Muhammad, part of Shah Tahmasp’s Khamsa of Nizami (Or.2265, f. 195r)

In the image above the detail of the exquisitely painted other-worldly entities (peris) amongst swirling clouds exemplifies the qualities that make these manuscripts such an enduring source of inspiration to me.  The illustration is like sublime music or mathematics, in which classic design elements like the Chinese strap-clouds are given free expression without ever compromising their formal structure of expanding and diminishing reciprocal curves. Passages of visionary illustration like this are closely linked to the masterful marginal decorations that enrich every page of both manuscripts.

Detail of marginal design with formalized clouds, simorghs and dragons from Shah Tahmasp’s Khamsa of Nizami  (Or.2265 f. 42r)

Most of the margins are of the Shekari or hunting genre, executed in 24 carat gold pigment, with some details picked out in a greenish-gold alloy, or in silver, which has long since patinated to black. They feature intertwining vignettes of real and fantastic beasts interacting in rocky and jungle landscapes: the Persian Phoenix or Simorgh, a fabulous oversized bird with streaming tail-fathers, engaged in having altercations with dragons; snow-leopards in every conceivable contortion stalking wild goats, flocks of cranes performing aerobatics amongst Chinese strap-clouds, and some rather carnivorous-looking bovines snarling at predators. These enchanted worlds, where myth merges with the real, seem to have been created loosely and spontaneously, with compositions that flow like poetry – later schools of illumination never quite achieved the same fluency, and look stilted by comparison. 

Following my formative years in the early ‘90s as a friend and pupil of a master painter in India, the late “Bannu”, who had generously shown me many of his hereditary secrets in miniature painting and the use and preparation of traditional mineral pigments, my experiences with these great manuscripts inspired me to refine my technique and to develop a light fluid hand and sense of movement in my work. A commission from a passionately creative collector provided me with an opportunity to explore illuminated and border elements as a detached, contemplative composition in the painting below.

Nautilus commissioned by Lionel de Rothschild, 2008. ⓒ Anita Chowdry

Geometry is at the core of most illuminated design – and my reference to the Fibonacci spiral in the work is intentionally unequivocal. Taking the concept of natural geometry a step further, it struck me that in Sultan Muhammad’s visionary clouds and in his distinctive treatment of elements such as rocks, flames, and magical beasts, he worked with an intuitive sense of fractal geometry, some four hundred years before Benoit Mandelbrot’s ground-breaking realization of its existence as a mathematical entity. This inspired me to experiment with pure shapes digitally generated in the Mandelbrot and Julia Sets, in the context of classical Persian design. The images below are from a series of brush drawings exploring this concept.

Illuminated Julia Dragons – hand rendered elements from the Julia set masquerading as dragons and strap-clouds. Private collection of Najma Kazi. ⓒ Anita Chowdry

Can I take you there? (Demon on a rickshaw bound for the Mandelbrot set), brush drawing with pigment and gold. ⓒ Anita Chowdry

To my mind, there is an interesting correlation between the ambiguous imagery of fractals, and the many layers of meaning in the verses of Persian literature. Both hover somewhere beyond the realm of everyday experience, hinting at a partial existence in some other dimension. I am particularly drawn towards the mythical entities that punctuate the imagery in Persian manuscripts, because according to tradition, the dragons, demons and angels depicted as adjuncts to the texts exist on elemental planes unseen by humans. They were created by God out of “smokeless fire” (Qur'an, Sura 15:27) to exist in a hidden world parallel to ours. 

My current preoccupation is with another sublime manuscript in the British Library’s oriental collections, Or.11846, created in Shiraz in the fifteenth century for the Turcoman prince Pir Budaq. The opening carpet pages display virtuoso rigour in design and execution which paradoxically creates an overall impression of quirky other-worldliness. The Chinese strap-clouds that undulate around the inner border are fairly restrained, but they do display a certain eccentricity, as does the intricate web of arabesques that covers all available space against a rich lapis lazuli ground. The energy and tension of this work has haunted me since I first saw it.

Divan of Hafez Saʻd copied for Pir Budaq, 1459 (Or.11846, detail of f. 1v)

My initial approach is to try to understand the underlying structure of the design, and the distinctive “handwriting” with which the elements are drawn.
Sketchbook studies of design structure in opening pages of Or.11846. ⓒ Anita Chowdry

The next stage is to draft out the design, and to start blocking in the gold, followed by the other colours, in what I think is the same sequence as that used by the original master. This process is not about slavish copying, but about learning empirically from the source. Part of the journey is to try to analyse and prepare the mineral colours to a comparable quality, and to gain an intuitive sense of the original intention of the design.

Starting work on the Pir Budaqi illumination. ⓒ Anita Chowdry

I do not know how exactly this work will develop or where this journey will take me. I have a sense that it wants to expand into another dimension, breaking out of the confines of its rigid structure. For me, the whole point of being an artist is to be on a continuous voyage of discovery, and to let the things that inspire you carry you along on their own momentum. I believe that it is through connections such as this that masterpieces of manuscript art transcend their original context and continue to enrich our experience today.

Anita Chowdry, Artist

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The Sir John Ritblat Treasures of the British Library Gallery includes altogether more than 200 items: hand-painted books, manuscripts, maps and views, early printed books, literary, historical, scientific and musical works from over the centuries and around the world. In a recent post, guest blogger Henry Noltie wrote about three Raffles bird paintings which are now on display. The gallery also includes the earliest dated printed book, the Diamond Sutra (more on this in the International Dunhuang Project's post "The Diamond Sutra on display") and various other Asian and African items. A section dedicated to the Arts of the Book includes four Persian and Turkish manuscripts, just a selection from our collection of more than 15,000 manuscripts. These are:

Collected anecdotes

The Javamiʻ al-hikayat is a compilation of tales and anecdotes dating from mythical times until the end of the rule of the Abbasid Caliph Al-Mustansir. It was written in Persian by Muhammad Awfi who lived during the Delhi Sultanate in the reign of Shams al-Din Iltutmish (r. 1211–1236).

The manuscript on display was copied in southern Iran, or, possibly even, in Sultanate India in AH 842-3 (1438-39). Twelve of the illustrations are contemporary, painted in a provincial Shirazi/Timurid style. The serried rows of people and the somewhat strange representation of architecture have been thought however to indicate a Sultanate provenance [1]. Ten other illustrations were added in a Bukharan style in about 1550, and three more are Mughal, added in India in the late 18th century.

Zal and Rudabah entertained. Iran, southern provincial style, 1438-39  (Or.11676, f.46)

Majjaʻa ibn Murara, the supporter of the Prophet's rival Musaylimah , with women dressed as men on the roof of the fortress of Yamama. This was a ruse to deceive Khalid ibn Walid (shown below) into thinking that the fortress was well guarded. Iran, Southern Provincial style, 1438-39 (Or.11676, f.205)

Shah Tahmasb's manuscript of Nizami's Khamsah

This copy of the Khamsah ('Five Poems') by Nizami is one of the most famous Persian manuscripts. It was produced at Tabriz between 1539 and 1543 for the Safavid Shah Tahmasb I. Copied by Shah Mahmud Nishapuri, it contains masterpieces by leading artists, some of them introduced from a different manuscript. Further paintings and illuminations were added in the 17th century (see our earlier post: Some paintings by the 17th century Safavid artist Muhammad Zaman

On display, the Iranian emperor Anushirvan and his vizier approach a deserted village where they overhear owls deploring the number of ruined villages. The artist's name is inscribed in the arch, underneath hanging snakes: "Painted by the artist Mirak, 946 [1539/40]" (Or. 2265, f. 15v)

The physiognomy of the Ottoman Sultans

The Kiyafet ül-insaniye by the court historian Seyyid Lokman is a study in Turkish of the physical appearance and character of the Sultans of the Ottoman dynasty, who for several centuries ruled much of the Middle East and southeastern Europe. The traditional science of physiognomy is based on a theory of correspondences between physical features and character. Lokman's treatise is illustrated with portraits of the Sultans and dates from the 16th century.

 
Left: a portrait of Sultan Murad III who ruled from 1574 until his death in 1595 (Add. 7880, f.63v); Right: Sultan Süleyman I the Magnificent who ruled from 1520 to 1566 (Add. 7880, f.53v). From Kiyafet ül-insaniye by Seyyid Lokman, dated 1588/89

On display is a portrait of Sultan Bayezid II whose good character earned him the epithet Veli (the Saintly). He ruled from 1481 to 1512 and was an enthusiastic patron and student of religious learning and the arts (Add. 7880, ff.44v-45r)

Fables of Bidpai in Turkish

The Humayunname is a Turkish version of the 'Fables of Bidpai', translated from Persian for Sultan Suleyman I in AH 950/1543 by the scholar and calligrapher Mustafa ʻAli Çelebi of Filbe (now Plovdiv, Bulgaria). These fables, in which the protagonists are animals who sometimes act rather like humans, share a common ancestor with Aesop's fables and are ultimately derived from India. It contains 163 miniatures and was copied in Zu'l-Hijja AH 997 (October/November 1589).

An elephant which was lured by the crow, jackal and wolf to provide a meal for the lion which is shown biting its trunk. ca. 1589 (Add. 15153, f.114)

Ursula Sims-Williams, Asian and African Studies

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In November 2014 we announced the first forty Arabic scientific manuscripts to go live in the Qatar Digital Library.  We are now pleased to let you know that a further forty Arabic manuscripts have been uploaded.

The thinking behind our selection can be found in our previous blog. Of particular note is the fact that all our copies of the Almagest of Ptolemy have now been digitised (Add MS 7474, Add MS 7475, Add MS 7476 and  Royal MS 16 A VIII), as well as other representative manuscripts containing Arabic translations of Greek scientific texts, for example, Galen's Ars medica (Arundel Or 52) and Hippocrates’ Aphorisms (Or 9452).

Ibn Buṭlān's book on dietetic medicine copied for Saladin’s son, al-Malik al-Ẓāhir, King of Aleppo in AD 1213 (Or 1347, ff. 2v-3r)


Masterpieces of Islamic book arts in this second group of forty include Ibn Buṭlān’s book on dietetic medicine, Taqwīm al-ṣiḥḥah (Or 1347); an anonymous bestiary compiled from the writings of Aristotle and Ibn Bakhtīshū‘, Kitāb na‘t al-ḥayawān (Or 2784); a richly illuminated copy of  Avicenna’s Canon (Or 5033); al-Qazwinī’s Wonders of creation (Or 14140 and see The London Qazwini goes live) and a fourteenth-century Mamluk Manuscript on Horsemanship (Add MS 18866).

Up to now we have focussed our efforts on digitising copies of the Arabic scientific classics. In the next phase, while continuing to expand the range of digitised scientific classics, we will also be moving on to trace the development of the sciences in the less well-charted territories of Ottoman- and Mughal-period scientific literature. We aim to provide valuable resources for understanding the long and varied history of the sciences in the Arabic-speaking world beyond the Classical Period.

Below you will find a list of the second group of forty manuscripts.

Add MS 7473: Compendium of mathematical, philosophical and historical texts, including a number of Graeco-Arabic texts. Copied in Dhū al-Qa‘dah 639 (May 1242).

The beginning of Kitāb al-sīrah al-falsafīyah, an autobiographical treatise by the physician and philosopher Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Zakarīyā al-Rāzī (Add MS 7473, f. 1v)

Add MS 7476:  al-Nīsābūrī’s commentary on al-Ṭūsī's commentary on the Almagest.  Dated Sa‘bān 704 (4 March 1305).        

Add MS 7482: Quṭb al-Dīn Maḥmūd ibn Mas‘ūd al-Shīrāzī, Nihāyat al-idrāk fī dirāyat al-aflāk, a text on astronomy and the orbits of the heavenly bodies. Dated, at Cairo, 17 Rabī‘ II 872 (15 November 1467).

Add MS 12187:  Dā’ūd ibn ‘Umar al-Qaṣīr al-Anṭākī, Tadhkirat ūlī al-albāb wa-al-jāmi‘ lil-‘ajb al-‘ujāb, a medical encyclopaedia. Copied in 1838.

Add MS 14332: A collection of four mathematical treatises on conic sections. Dated 26 December 1834.

Add MS 18866: Muḥammad ibn ‘Īsá ibn Ismā‘īl al-Ḥanafī al-Aqṣarā’ī, Nihāyat al-su’l wa-al-umnīyah fī ta‘allum a‘māl al-furūsīyah, a Mamluk manual on horsemanship, military arts and technology. Dated 10 Muḥarram 773 (25 July 1371).

Add MS 23390: Two treatises. (1) Hero of Alexandria, Fī raf‘ al-ashyā’ al-thaqīlah, the Arabic version of the Mechanica; (2) an exhaustive treatise on the magical arts by Abū al-Qāsim Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad, known as al-‘Irāqī al-Khusrawshāhī. 17th century.

Add MS 23397: Collection of three astronomical commentaries from the 14th and 15th centuries.

Arundel Or 10: Medical compendium. Dated late Sha‘bān 711 (early January 1312).

Arundel Or 41: ʿAlī ibn Sahl ibn Rabban al-Ṭabarī, Firdaws al-ḥikmah, an encyclopaedia of medicine. 13th century.  

Arundel Or 52: A copy of Galen's Ars medica in the Arabic version thought to be by Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq. Dated Dhū al-Ḥijjah 448 (February-March 1057).

The colophon to Galen's Τέχνη ἰατρική ('Ars medica') in the Arabic version thought to be by Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq, dated Dhū al-Ḥijjah 448 (February-March 1057). Note the absence of any dots in this 11th century hand (Arundel Or 52, f. 114v)

IO Islamic 824: Compendium of short texts, extracts and notes on scientific and philosophical subjects, compiled by Aḥmad ibn Sulaymān Ghūjārātī. Dated Dhū al-Ḥijjah 1134 (September-October 1722).

IO Islamic 923: Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī, Arabic (and one Persian) versions of six Greek mathematical treatises. Copied in Jumādá I-Sha‘bān 1198 (March-July 1784).

IO Islamic 1148: Three treatises on astronomy and geometry: Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī, Taḥrīr al-Majisṭī; Menelaus of Alexandria, Fī ashkāl al-kurīyah; Ulugh Beg, Zīj-i Ulugh Beg.

IO Islamic 1270: Compendium of texts on mathematics and optics mostly by Ibn Haytham (Alhazen). Late 10th century-Early 11th century.

Or 116: Isma‘īl ibn al-Razzāz al-Jazarī, Kitāb fī maʿrifat al-ḥiyal al-handasīyah, a treatise on practical mechanics. 18th century.

Or 1347: Taqwīm al-ṣiḥḥah. An elaborate presentation copy of Ibn Buṭlān’s book on dietetic medicine produced for Saladin’s son, al-Malik al-Ẓāhir, (d. 1216), King of Aleppo. Dated Jumādá II 610 (1213).

Title page of Ibn Buṭlān’s Taqwīm al-ṣiḥḥah containing the dedication to Saladin’s son, al-Malik al-Ẓāhir, King of Aleppo (Or.1347, f. 1r)

Or 1997: Abū al-Rayḥān Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Bīrūnī, The al-Qanūn al-Masʿūdī, an early and complete copy of the comprehensive astronomical work, or Canon.   Dated Rabī‘ I 570 (September-October 1174).

Or 2600: Abū Ja‘far Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī al-Ash‘ath, Kitāb al-ghādhī wa-al-mughtadhī, a treatise on dietetics and the nourishment of the parts of the body. Dated Dhū al-Qa‘dah 348 (January-February 960).

Beginning of chapter 2: on the nourishment of the natural soul and its organs, by Abū Ja‘far Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī al-Ash‘ath. Copied at Mosul in AD 960 from the author's autograph copy written in Barqī Castle in Armenia in AD 959 (Or 2600, f. 5r)

Or 2601: A composite volume, consisting of three manuscripts apparently from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The first two are medical texts, and the last is a tale also found in the Arabian Nights.

Or 2784: Kitāb na‘t al-ḥayawān, a bestiary describing the characteristics and medical uses of a large number of animals. 13th century.

The authors of the original sources used by the anonymous compiler. Left (Or.2784, f. 2v): Abū Sa‘īd ‘Ubayd Allāh ibn Jibrā’īl ibn ‘Ubayd Allāh ibn Bakhtīshū‘; right (Or.2784, f. 96r):  the philosopher Aristotle

Left (Or.2784, f. 10r): a goose and a duck; right (Or.2784, f. 35v): an Egyptian vulture

Or 3129: Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad Ibn Imām al-Naḥḥāsīyah, Tuḥfat al-ṭullāb fī sharḥ nuzhat al-ḥussāb,  a commentary on arithmetic and ḥisāb al-ghubār, or calculation by means of a dust covered board.  Dated 7 Dhū al-Ḥijjah 890 (15 December 1485). 

Or 3623: Zakarīyā ibn Muḥammad al-Qazwīnī, Āthār al-bilād wa-akhbār al-ʿibād, a gazetteer of world geography. Dated Friday 27 Dhū al-Qa‘dah 729 (22 September 1329).

Or 3645: Saʿīd ibn Hibat Allāh ibn al-Ḥusayn, al-Mughnī fī tadbīr al-amrāḍ wa-maʿrifat al-ʿilal wa-al-aʿrāḍ, a concise handbook of medicine. 12th century.

Or 5033: Avicenna, al-Qānūn fī al-ṭibb, The Canon of Medicine. A richly illuminated copy. Dated 4 Shawwāl 1069 (25 June 1659).

Or 5316: Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Zakarīyā al-Rāzī, al-Kitāb al-Manṣūrī,  influential compendium of medicine written in 903 and dedicated to the Governor of Rayy, Abū Ṣāliḥ Manṣūr ibn Isḥāq. Dated 1 Ramaḍān 1000 (11 June 1592), at Mashhad.

Or 5659: ʻAlī ibn Abī al-Ḥazm, Ibn al-Nafīs, al-Mūjiz fī ʿilm al-ṭibb.  Ibn al-Nafīs' epitome of Avicenna’s Canon of Medicine. Dated 6 Rabī‘a I 786 (28 April 1384).

Or 5725: Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq, al-Masā’il fī al-ṭibb lil-muta‘allimīn, an introduction to medicine for students in the form of questions and answers. Dated 656 (1258).

Or 5786: A collection of texts on pharmacology and ophthalmology, including al-Kūhīn al-ʻAṭṭār’s Minhāj al-dukkān wa-dustūr al-a‘yān. Dated 715 (1315-16).

Or 5856: ‘Alī ibn ‘Īsá al-Kaḥḥāl, Tadhkirat al-kaḥḥālīn, a treatise on eye diseases. Dated 20 Ṣafar 690 (22 February 1291) at Baghdad.

Or 6492: Sadīd al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Mas‘ūd al-Kāzarūnī, Ḥāshiyat Sharḥ Kullīyāt al-Qānūn. Al-Kazaruni’s commentary on Ibn al-Nafīs' commentary on Book One of Avicenna’s Canon.  Dated 22 Ramaḍān 770 (13 April 1369).

Or 6591: ʻAlī ibn al-ʻAbbās al-Majūsī, Kāmil al-ṣināʿah al-ṭibbīyah, an encyclopaedia of the art of medicine. Dated Ṣafar 548-16 Jumādá II 548 (early May-8 September 1153).

Or 6670: Three medical treatises by Galen. Dated 9 Rabī‘ I 580 (20 June 1184) at Damascus.

Or 9452: Medical compendium containing Hippocrates’ al-Fuṣūl (Aphorisms), Ibn Jazlah’s Minhāj al-bayān and a collection of ten extracts from poets and medical authors. Dated Thursday 3 Ramaḍān 690 (Thursday 30 August 1291).

Or 11314: Handbook on health and medicine for use while travelling or at home by Raḍī al-Dīn Abū al-Qāsim ‘Alī ibn Mūsá ibn ibn Ja‘far ibn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Ṭāwūs al-‘Alawī al-Fāṭimī.  Dated 28 Dhū al-Ḥijjah 1092 (9 January 1682).

Or 14140: Zakarīyā ibn Muḥammad al-Qazwīnī, ‘Ajā’ib al-makhlūqāt wa-gharā’ib al-mawjūdāt, an encyclopaedic work on cosmology. 14th century.

Or 14270: Two technological treatises. (1) Kitāb Arshimīdas fī ‘amal al-binkamāt, a treatise on the hydraulic and pneumatic machinery of water-clocks, attributed to Archimedes. (2) Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Farghānī, al-Kāmil fī ṣan‘at al-asṭurlāb al-shimālī wa-al-junūbī wa-‘ilalihuma bi-l-handasah wa-al-ḥisab, on the construction of the astrolabe. Dated  28 Shawwāl 691 (12 October 1292).

Automaton of an executioner on horseback, from Kitāb Arshimīdas, dated AD 1292 (Or 14270, f. 10r)

Mechanical snakes that emerge from holes at the foot of a mountain on the hour and the mechanism that drives them, from Kitāb Arshimīdas, dated AD 1292 (Or 14270, f. 12r)

Or 14791: Three treatises on the prediction of future events based on astronomical, meteorological and other natural phenomena.  Dated 19 Ṣafar 1295 (22 February 1878).

Royal MS 16 A VIII: Arabic version of the Almagest of Ptolemy in the annotated edition of Naṣīr al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Ṭūsī. 15th-16th century.

Sloane MS 3034: Ibn Haytham (Alhazen), Maqālah fī istikhrāj irtifā‘ al-quṭb ‘alá ghāyat al-taḥqīq, a short treatise describing a geometrical method for precisely determining latitude. Dated 2 February 1646.

Colin F. Baker, Head, Middle Eastern and Central Asian Collections
Bink Hallum, Arabic Scientific Manuscripts Curator, British Library Qatar Foundation Partnership

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