old numbering used for the collection purchased from Aslan Sarkissian between 1934 and 1949: ‘AS 1217’ (1r, inside of back cover).
Cod.: paper, 242 ff. (only partially and incorrectly foliated — we follow the virtual refoliation by Charette; his ff. 110–148 are numbered 108–146 in the manuscript). Five different naskh hands. First hand: 1v–110r, smaller written area than the other hands, 15 lines per page. Second hand (including the Ptolemaic work): 110v–192v, higher density of text, around 21 lines per page. Third hand: 193r–208v and fourth hand: 209r–227r, layout as in the first part. Fifth hand: 231r–238v, 27 lines per page. Various diagrams throughout the manuscript. Occasional slips of paper (17bis, 47bis, 134bis) in different hands. Dimensions: 16.5×11.1 cm, written area of the Ptolemaic treatise: c. 9 cm wide.
Cont.: astronomy and mathematics. — Index: biographical note on Tīmūr in Persian (back side of front cover); title page of first work, with two notes on its author (1r); Shams al-Dīn Abū Bakr al-Kharaqī, Tabṣira fī ʿilm al-hayʾa (1v–110r, copied from a manuscript dated 624/1226-7); note on the sizes of the planets entitled 〈fāʾ〉ida muhimma (110r); untitled fragment from a work by Abū Maʿshar (110v–111r); fragments from Kushyār b. Labbān, Kitāb al-Madkhal fī ṣināʿat aḥkām al-nujūm (111r–113r); fragments from the Arabic translation of Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī, Zubdat al-hayʾa (113r–v); Muḥammad Sibṭ al-Māridīnī, Kitāb Ḥāwī al-muqanṭarāt fī l-ʿamal bi-rubʿ al-muqanṭarāt (114v–151r); anonymous, Kitāb al-Bāriʿ (151v–152r, fragment); anonymous fragment on geometrical problems (152v–153r); Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī, al-Tadhkira fī ʿilm al-hayʾa, Book IV on the sizes and distances of the planets (154r–161r); Kushyār b. Labbān, Kitāb al-Aṣṭurlāb (161r–180v); a note on the rising of the Moon and the Sun (181r); Ptolemaica (183r–188r); three short treatises or fragments on astronomical instruments, all presumably by al-Kindī: Sharḥ āla ukhrā fī raṣad al-kawākib (188r–189r); Sharḥ āla ukhrā li-maʿrifat irtifāʿ al-shams (189r–189v); Sharḥ āla ukhrā yuʿraf bi-hā musāmatat al-shams nuqṭatay al-iʿtidāl aw al-inqilāb (189v); several notes (fawāʾid) on the distances of the planets and the fixed stars (190r–192v); two chapters from an anonymous work on the model of the Sun and the Moon, with a gloss on f. 193r taken from Ibn Khallikān and mentioning Abū Maʿshar (193r–208v); an anonymous work on arithmetic (209r–212r); another anonymous work on arithmetic (212r–227r); revised version of al-Qābīṣī, Risāla fī l-Abʿād wa-l-ajrām (231r–238v, incomplete); an appendix on two works by Kushyār, entitled Fāʾida li-Kushyār kitābān fī ʿilm ḥisāb al-kawākib, as well as a note referring to Kitāb Sirr al-ʿālamīn fī l-hayʾa by Abū Jaʿfar al-Khāzinī, accompanied by a table (242v); magic triangles (243r); short note on Abū l-Wafāʾ … al-Būzjānī (243v). Blank: 153v, 181v–182v, 227v–230v, 239r–241v.
Bibl.: Paul Kahle, Arabic Mss in the Chester Beatty Library, 5 vols, unpublished typescript, Dublin: Chester Beatty Library, c. 1940, vol. V, pp. 417–420 (no. 1217); Arthur J. Arberry, The Chester Beatty Library. A Handlist of the Arabic Manuscripts, Volume VII: MSS. 5001–5500, Dublin: Hodges, Figgis & Co., 1964, pp. 80–81; François Charette, Descriptions of Arabic Scientific Manuscripts in the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin (unpublished draft version), Dublin: Chester Beatty Library, c. 2010, pp. 590–606; Guiseppe Celentano, L’epistola di al-Kindī sulla sfera armillare, Napoli: Istituto Orientale di Napoli, 1982, pp. 17–20.
183r–188r
\183r\ [title] فأوّل ما يجب وصفه من صنعتها فالأشياء العامّة الكليّة لجميع أركانها أعني كلّ حلقة منها والأمر العامّ لها أن تعدل كلّ حلقة من الحلقات الستّ التي هي جميع أعضاء هذه الآلة ثمّ تعدل نظمها وما ينتظم به ذلك — \188r\ وما أحتيج إليه من الأعمال المولّدة من ذلك فعلى هذا السبيل. والله هو العالم بحقائق الأشياء فهو حسبي ونعم الوكيل. نجزت رسالة أبي يوسف يعقوب ابن إسحاق الكندي في صنعة الآلة المشهورة بذات الحلق التي يعرف بها مواضع الشمس والقمر وسائر الكواكب المتحيّرة والثوابت.
. — Title: Sharḥ al-Āla al-maʿrūfa bi-dhāt al-ḥalaq allatī dhakara-hā Baṭlamyūs fī awwal al-qawl al-khāmis min Kitāb al-Majisṭī (183r). — Additional title: Risālat Abī Yūsuf Yaʿqūb ibn Isḥāq al-Kindī fī Ṣanʿat al-āla al-mashhūra bi-dhāt al-ḥalaq allatī yuʿraf bi-hā mawāḍiʿ al-shams wa-l-qamar wa-sāʾir al-kawākib al-mutaḥayyira wa-l-thawābit (188r). — Index: Part I, 183r–183v; Part II, 183v–188r. — Authorial colophon (different from that in MS Paris, BnF, ar. 2544, f. 60r) and undated scribal colophon (188r). The missing author’s preface is preserved in the Paris manuscript, f. 56v. Two marginal corrections.
