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Oxford, Bodleian Library, Pococke 369⁢⁢⁢⁢

[Colour photographs of the textblock and covers.]

Collection of two works and a brief commentary: Arabic. Date:

first work finished on Friday, 10 Jumādā l-ūlā 799/9 February 1397 (71v); Ptolemaic work dated to the end of Shaʿbān 799/end of May 1397 (183v).

Or.:

first work copied in the Great Mosque of Mecca, al-Masjid al-Ḥarām (71v); unknown scribes. The Ptolemaic work was copied from an exemplar in the hand of Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad al-ʿUrḍī (d. after 1288), son of Muʾayyad al-Dīn al-ʿUrḍī, i.e., most likely from MS Cairo, Dār al-kutub, hayʾa Talʿat 43 (note in the right margin of the last page, 183v). The first work was collated facing the Kaʿba at the Siqāyat al-ʿAbbās, i.e., the watering facility connected with the Zamzam Well, according to a note dated Rajab 799/May 1397 (71v); several collation notes in red refer to the same location (12v, 22v, 32v, 42v, 52v). The manuscript furthermore bears evidence of collation and study sessions held in the Great Mosque by members of the ‘Zamzamī Guild’: several notes document reading sessions between the attendant (khādim) of the Siqāyat al-ʿAbbās, Shaykh Badr al-Dīn Ḥusayn b. Shaykh ʿAlī al-Zamzamī, and Muḥammad b. ʿAlī al-Jillī (al-Shāfiʿī?) (12v, 22v, 32v, 42v); two further notes mention that the text was read to Shaykh Badr al-Dīn by his nephew ʿAlī b. Aḥmad al-Zamzamī (d. 824/1421) (35r and 45r; Badr al-Dīn was deceased by the time the second note was written). The Ptolemaic work likewise appears to have been collated multiple times: the colophon claims that text and tables were collated and corrected from beginning to end (183v), and the marginal note next to the colophon testifies that the Taḥrīr al-Majisṭī was collated against the exemplar from the beginning up to Book XI and that problems in the tables were solved; collation notes on ff. 82v and 92v suggest that an autograph was used (nuskha bi-khaṭṭ al-muḥarrir, raḥmata Allāh).

Prov.:

a partially erased note of an owner in Mecca, probably a member of the ‘Zamzamī Guild’ (2r); a damaged ownership statement by ʿAlī l-Gharī (1r); a partially erased note by Sayyid … Fāḍil, dated Ramaḍān 976/February-March 1569 (1r). A note of studying by Abū Bakr b. Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. ʿAlī, whose father is said to have been well known as al-Ṣahyūnī, dated to the ‘end of the tenth month of the first year of the eighth decade of the tenth century’, i.e., the end of Shawwal 971/c.10 June 1564 (74r); Abū Bakr also left several marginal notes, e.g., one dated 977/1569-70 stating that he verified the adjacent table not through comparison with another copy but by means of calculation (81r). Small round stamps ‘Bibliotheca Bodleiana’ in the bottom margin of almost every recto. The collection of the Orientalist and priest Edward Pococke (1604–1691) was purchased by the Bodleian Library in 1692. Catalogue number: ‘Uri. MS Arab (Moh.) 888’ (Ir, IIIr).

Cod.: paper, III+184+I^a ff. (foliated with Arabic-European numerals in pencil; small inserted sheets with notes, calculations and indices after ff. 16, 56, 58, 119, 128, and 162; quire signatures in the form of ordinal numbers in the upper left corner of every tenth recto [ff. 13r–63r, in the second work mostly trimmed]; catchwords). Two main hands. First main hand (2v–73r): elegant, mostly dotted black naskh written with a thin nibbed pen; shaddas rarely provided, no hamzas, occasional vowel marks. Second main hand (74v–183v): mostly dotted black naskh written with a thick nibbed pen; very few shaddas, no hamzas, vowel marks sometimes provided. A third naskh hand added a brief commentary on f. 73v. Book headings in black thuluth (Book IX of the Tahrīr al-Majisṭī in a style apparently imitating the early ʿAbbāsid script of the exemplar), chapter headings and paragraph beginnings in red thuluth, chapter numbers in overlined bold abjad in black. Proposition numbers in red overlined abjad in the margins. Abjad and Hindu-Arabic numerals mostly in red and with overlines. Diagrams with red lines and black geometrical points, sometimes the other way around. Tables with red lines, a rosette (135v); some tables left incomplete, generally corresponding to omissions in the exemplar; some tables supplemented, probably by Abū Bakr (94v–95r) and at least one other hand (e.g., 90r, 154r). Codex in good condition; title page repaired with slips of paper, minor water stains in the lower corners (esp. of ff. 145–183). Dimensions: unknown; 27 lines per page. Simple modern light-brown leather covers with a Latin inscription ‘EUCLIDES’ on the spine. Type III binding.

Cont.: mathematics and astronomy. — Index: an index of chapters for the first work and a quote from Ibn al-Haytham’s Sharḥ fī muṣādarāt Uqlīdis (2r); Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī, Taḥrīr Uṣūl al-handasa li-Uqlīdis (2v–73r); unknown, Qawlu-hu fī shakl yh wa-bi-wajh ākhar (73v, referring to the previous work); Ptolemaica (74v–183v). Blank: none.

Bibl.: Joannes Uri, Bibliothecæ Bodleianæ codicum manuscriptorum orientalium, videlicet Hebraicorum, Chaldaicorum, Syriacorum, Aethiopicorum, Arabicorum, Persicorum, Turcicorum, Copticorumque catalogus. Pars prima, Oxford: Clarendon, 1787, p. 192 (no. dccclxxxviii); Paul Kunitzsch, Der Almagest. Die Syntaxis Mathematica des Claudius Ptolemäus in arabisch-lateinischer Überlieferung, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1974, p. 45; LAMTMª José Parra, ‘A List of Arabic Manuscripts of Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī’s Taḥrīr al-Majisṭī’, Suhayl 16–17 (2018–2019), pp. 251–322, pp. 282–283 (no. 65). — Fihrist: https://www.fihrist.org.uk/catalog/manuscript_1547; Bodleian Digital Collections: https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/5c21787e-b587-4f0d-b81c-8fbd94d21663/ (currently only three folios).

74v–⁠183v	\74v\ أحمد الله مبدأ كلّ مبدأ وغاية كلّ غاية ومفيض كلّ خير ووليّ كلّ هداية وأرجو حسن توفيقه في كلّ بداية ونهاية — \183v\ فلنختم الكتاب وأقول إذ وفّقني الله تعالى أيضًا لإتمام ما قصدته وإنجاز ما وعدته، فلأقطع الكلام حامدًا له على آلائه ومصلّيًا على جميع أنبيائه خصوصًا على خاتم أنبيائه والبررة من آله وأحبّائه. = Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī, Taḥrīr al-Majisṭī (C.1.18) . — Title: Kitāb al-Majiṣṭī fī ʿilm al-falak (1r). — Index: preface, 74v; Book I, 74v–86r; II, 86r–95r; III, 95v–104r; IV, 104r–114r; V, 114r–126r; VI, 126r–136r; VII, 136r–142v; VIII, 143r–151r; IX, 151r–163v; X, 163v–166v; XI, 166v–172v; XII, 172v–177r; XIII, 177r–183v. — Dated note of copying with mention of the base manuscript (183v, right margin). Dates of copying for Books VI and VII in abjad notation copied from the exemplar. Marginal corrections in the hand of the scribe, mostly indicated by siglum ṣḥ. This manuscript includes several of the glosses attributed to al-Ṭūsī himself, in a variety of hands and generally introduced by the word ḥāshiya. Some dated marginal notes by Abū Bakr (see above); various reference marks in the form of curved lines, loops or crosses, and some notes ending with Hindu-Arabic numerals ‘2’ and ‘12’. Several collation marks and notes, generally on every tenth page and by different hands (e.g., 129r).

74v–⁠183v

\74v\ أحمد الله مبدأ كلّ مبدأ وغاية كلّ غاية ومفيض كلّ خير ووليّ كلّ هداية وأرجو حسن توفيقه في كلّ بداية ونهاية — \183v\ فلنختم الكتاب وأقول إذ وفّقني الله تعالى أيضًا لإتمام ما قصدته وإنجاز ما وعدته، فلأقطع الكلام حامدًا له على آلائه ومصلّيًا على جميع أنبيائه خصوصًا على خاتم أنبيائه والبررة من آله وأحبّائه.

= Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī, Taḥrīr al-Majisṭī (C.1.18)

. — Title: Kitāb al-Majiṣṭī fī ʿilm al-falak (1r). — Index: preface, 74v; Book I, 74v–86r; II, 86r–95r; III, 95v–104r; IV, 104r–114r; V, 114r–126r; VI, 126r–136r; VII, 136r–142v; VIII, 143r–151r; IX, 151r–163v; X, 163v–166v; XI, 166v–172v; XII, 172v–177r; XIII, 177r–183v. — Dated note of copying with mention of the base manuscript (183v, right margin). Dates of copying for Books VI and VII in abjad notation copied from the exemplar. Marginal corrections in the hand of the scribe, mostly indicated by siglum ṣḥ. This manuscript includes several of the glosses attributed to al-Ṭūsī himself, in a variety of hands and generally introduced by the word ḥāshiya. Some dated marginal notes by Abū Bakr (see above); various reference marks in the form of curved lines, loops or crosses, and some notes ending with Hindu-Arabic numerals ‘2’ and ‘12’. Several collation marks and notes, generally on every tenth page and by different hands (e.g., 129r).