PAL

Ptolemaeus Arabus et Latinus

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Tehran, Madrasa-yi ʿĀlī-i Shahīd Muṭahharī (Sipahsālār), 612

[Colour scanned images of the body text and cover.]

Collection of 7 works and various excerpts: Arabic and Persian. Date:

pp. 90–97 completed on 26 Muḥarram 1257/20 March 1841 (p. 97); remainder of the manuscript copied by the same hand.

Or.:

unknown (possibly Iran); unknown scribe.

Prov.:

a statement and two square seals by the Qajar prince and minister of science ʿAlī Qulī Mīrzā (d. 1298/1880), known as Iʿtiḍād al-Salṭana, dated 1270/1853-4; a statement of endowment and a square seal (twice) by the founder of the Sipahsālār Mosque and Library Ḥājjī Mīrzā Ḥusayn Sipahsālār (d. 1298/1881), known as Mushīr al-Dawla, dated Friday, 15 Dhū l-ḥijja 1297/18 November 1880 (Mushīr al-Dawla bought the private library of Iʿtiḍād al-Salṭana for the Sipahsālār Library); an oval seal by the library of the Madrasa Nāṣirī, i.e., the Sipahsālār Library, dated 1297/1879-80 (all on p. V).

Cod.:

paper, V+107+IIa pp. (paginated with Hindu-Arabic numerals in pen on recto pages only; pagination repeated in pencil at the left top (mostly cut off from the scans); empty recto pages after pp. 89 and 104 skipped; no catchwords or quire numbers). A single black nastaʿlīq hand; work titles within the text in black or red, sometimes in thuluth; chapter titles, chapter beginnings and formulaic expressions (e.g., qāla) often in red, sometimes in black overlined in red; many reserved spaces for rubrication; fully dotted ductus with ligatures and numerous vowels, shaddas and hamzas. A small, round horoscope in red, with quadrants rather than houses, text in black and red (margin of p. 88). Neat tables in red (pp. 59–64, unfinished on pp. 65–66 and 105–107); arguments in red or black, often in thuluth; values in abjad (rarely Hindu-Arabic) in red or black. Main text and single lines framed in red; reserved space for marginalia framed in red (not on pp. 4–5, 10–11, 32–38, 104bis–107); marginal additions with single lines framed in red (pp. 73, 81–83; not filled on pp. 81–82); chapter titles running vertically along the main text and framed in red (pp. 1–38, but not filled on pp. 12, 17–38). List of planetary dignities organised in four columns (pp. 39–57). Codex in good condition; multiple pages lost; text smeared on pp. 35 and 73; smudges hardly ever hindering the reading. Dimensions: 17.5×9 cm (librarian’s note, p. I); between 13 and 19 lines per page, 15 in the Ptolemaic work (pp. 102–104). Composite black and brown leather binding with turned-out doublures. Type III binding.

Cont.:

astrology and astronomy. — Index: an untitled astrological chapter on the twelve houses (pp. 1–12); Jadwal al-madlūlāt al-buruj al-ithnay ʿashara, in Persian (13–24); untitled chapter, perhaps ⟨Jadwal al-madlūlāt al-kawākib al-sayyāra⟩, in Persian (25–38); al-Quwā wa-l-ḍiʿāf li-kawākib, in Persian, consisting in a short introduction and a list of planetary dignities organised in four columns (strength of a certain dignity, section numbering, dignity’s name and definition) (39–57); untitled chapter on peculiar degrees in the signs, in Persian, with tables (58–60); a table on the magnitudes of the planets, in Persian (60); a chapter Ḥuẓūẓ al-kawākib, with tables (61–62); a chapter on dodecatemoria, in Persian, with a table (63); a chapter on nīmbahrs (half-signs, horās) and their associations with the Sun and the Moon, and on haftum-i bahrs (one-seventh of a sign, saptāṃśas) and their associations with the planets, in Persian, with a table (64); two chapters on friendship and enmity of the planets, in Persian, with incomplete tables (65–66); a chapter on the temperament of the planets, in Persian (67–70); quotes from astrological authorities, possibly acephalous, beginning khtalafū fī maʿrifat al-dalīl fa-qāla Baṭlamyūs inna l-dalīl huwa l-kawkab al-mubtazz ʿalā darajat al-ṭāliʿ wa-l-nayyirayn wa-ijtimāʿ wa-l-istiqbāl (71–78); notes and quotes from astrological authorities, beginning fāʾida iʿlam anna l-shams tadfaʿu ilā man fawqa-hā min al-nujūm allatī fawqa-hā, last pages missing (79–89); Bahāʾ al‐Dīn Muḥammad b. Ḥusayn al‐ʿĀmilī, Ṣaḥīfa dar asṭurlāb (90–97); a Persian text on fixed stars (98–101); Ptolemaica (102–104); a list of astrological lots and the horoscopic entities to compute them, incomplete (105–107). Blank: II, IV, 89bis, 104bis, Ia–IIa.

Bibl.:

Muḥammad Taqī Dānishpazhūh and ʿAlīnaqī Munzawī, Fihrist-i Kitābkhāna-yi Sipahsālār, vol. III: Kutub-i khaṭṭī alif–thāʾ, Tehran: Chāpkhāna-yi Dānishgāh-i Tihrān, 1962, p. 857; Āqā Buzurg al-Ṭihrānī, ʿAlī Naqī Munzawī and Aḥmad Ḥusaynī Ashkawarī, al-Dharīʿa ilā taṣānīf al-Shīʿa, 26 vols (only 25 vols?), Najaf / Tehran, 1936–1985, vol. XIII, pp. 171–172 (no. 578); FankhāMuṣṭafā Dirāyatī, Fihristgān-i nuskhahā-yi khaṭṭī-yi Īrān (Fankhā), 45 vols, Tehran: Library, Museum and Documentation Center of The Islamic Consultative Assembly, 20 2011, vol. IX, p. 703 (no. 7).

pp. 102–⁠104

\p. 102\ 〈…〉 كتاب الثمرة لبطلميوس الحكيم تمام الكتب الأربعة التي ألّفها في الأحكام لسورس تلميذه قال قد قدّمنا لك يا سورس كتبًا في ما تؤثّرة الكواكب في عالم التركيب كثيرة المنفعة في تقدمة المعرفة وهذا الكتاب ثمرة ما اشتملت عليه تلك الكتب وما خلّص عن التجربة منها وليس يصل إلى معرفته من لم يمعن النظر فيما قدّمناه قبله وفي علوم آخر (كذا) من علوم الرياضيّة فكن به سعيدًا — \p. 104\ 〈…〉 كسوف النيّرين في أوتاد طوالع المواليد وتحويلات السنين يضرّ بطبيعة ذلك البرج والوقت فيه أن يكون نسبة ما بين جزء الطالع وجزء الكسوف إلى مائة وثمانين جزءًا كنسبة ما بين ...

= Pseudo-Ptolemy, Kitāb al-Thamara (B.1.1), fragment of the version with 102 verba. — Title: Kitāb al-Thamara li-Baṭlamyūs (title, p. 102). — Index: author’s preface, p. 102; 26 verba, pp. 102–104. — No colophon. First verbum labelled as kalima; all other verba with reserved spaces for the numbering. As a result of a page loss, the work breaks off in the middle of verbum 26. No marginalia, except for a late reference to the entry on al-Ṭūsī’s Commentary on the Thamara in Āghā Buzurg Ṭihrānī’s al-Dharīʿa ilā taṣānīf al-Shīʿa.