Escorial, Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de San Lorenzo, ár. 922
[Colour scanned images of the textblock; inspected by Nadine Löhr in June 2019.]
Collection of three works: Arabic.
Date:
ff. 1v–83r completed on Thursday night, 28 Jumādā l-ūlā 904/10 January 1499; ff. 83v–104v completed on Friday night, 6 Jumādā l-thāniya 904/18 January 1499; ff. 105r–107r copied not much later (the scribe is known to have been active in the late 10th/15th c.).
Or.:
ff. 105r–107r copied by Aḥmad b. Aḥmad b. Timurbāy al-Ḥanafī in Cairo from al-Jamālī Yūsuf b. Qurqumās al-Ḥamzāwī’s autograph extant in MS Istanbul, Topkapı, Ahmet III 2485/6 (De Block, pp. 172–173). Aḥmad also added the table of contents on ff. Iv–IIv and glossed ff. 1v–104v in a quick writing style. He is known to have mastered a more elegant writing style too (cf. MS Patna, Khuda Bakhsh, HL 2520, f. 11v, reproduced in David A. King, ‘Mathematical Geography in Fifteenth-Century Egypt: An Episode in the Decline of Islamic Science’, in Anna Akasoy and Wim Raven (eds), Islamic Thought in the Middle Ages: Studies in Text, Transmission and Translation, in Honour of Hans Daiber, Leiden / Boston: Brill, 2008, pp. 319–344, here p. 329), but the main text on ff. 1v–104v seems to be in a hand different from his.
Prov.:
an ownership statement by Aḥmad b. Aḥmad b. Timurbāy al-Ḥanafī dated 904/1499 (1r; cf. his reading statement in MS Tunis, Waṭaniyya, 7116). An ownership statement, dated 959/1551-2, by Abū Bakr b. Yaḥyā b. Yūsuf b. Qurqumās al-Ḥamzāwī l-Ḥanafī, grandson of al-Jamālī Yūsuf b. Qurqumās al-Ḥamzāwī, the author of the last work in the manuscript (1r; Abū Bakr calls himself the manuscript’s kātib without being its actual scribe, cf. a similar ownership statement of his in MS London, BL, Or. 6492, f. 150v , beneath his grandfather’s ownership statement and the actual scribal colophon of Maḥmūd b. Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Ḥasan al-Shaybānī dated Monday 22 Ramaḍān 770/30 April 1369). An ownership statement by Muḥyī l-Dīn b. Muḥammad b. Shaykh al-Baḥr (?) al-Ḥalabī (1r). An ownership statement by Abū Fāris b. Amīr al-Muʾminīn b. Amīr al-Muʾminīn b. Amīr al-Muʾminīn al-Ḥasaniyyīn, i.e., the Saʿdī ruler Abū Fāris ʿAbd Allāh al-Wāthiq bi-Llāh (d. 1020/1611-2) (1r). An erased ownership statement (Ir). Old shelfmarks: ‘V.Θ.7’, ‘M.I.11’, ‘num. 28’ (Ir), ‘Cod. 882’ (107v), Casiri 917.
Cod.: oriental paper, III+107 ff. (foliated with Arabic-European numerals in pencil; quire numbers in Hindu-Arabic numerals; catchwords). Two black naskh hands; the first hand (1v–104v, including the Ptolemaic work) neat and clear, the second hand (105r–107r) smaller and quicker, tending to nastaʿlīq; both with fully dotted ductus with a few hamzas and vowels. Chapter beginnings, formulaic expressions and Pseudo-Ptolemy’s verba in red (instructions for rubrication sometimes visible, e.g., 65r). Both Hindu-Arabic and abjad numerals (the latter among others for numbering Pseudo-Ptolemy’s verba, in red with black overlining). A windrose with an incomplete sketch next to it (25v), neat tables (73r, 107r), and a neat horoscope (104v), all in red; reserved spaces for horoscopes (40v, 41r, 41v, 42r). Codex in excellent condition. Dimensions: 287×187 mm, written area: 175×123 mm; 27 lines per page (western misṭara imprints). Rebound in a reddish leather cover, with an upside-down seal of the Escorial library.
Cont.: astrology and onomancy. — Index: table of contents of the first work by Aḥmad b. Aḥmad b. Timurbāy al-Ḥanafī (Iv–IIv); title page mentioning the first two works (1r); ʿUmar b. al-Farrukhān al-Ṭabarī, Kitāb al-Masāʾil, here called Kitāb al-Uṣūl (1v–83r); Ptolemaica (83v–104v); al-Jamālī Yūsuf b. Qurqumās al-Ḥamzāwī, al-Durr al-maṭlūb fī sirr al-ghālib wa-l-maghlūb (105r–107r). Blank: IIIr–v.
Bibl.: Miguel Casiri, Bibliotheca Arabico-Hispana Escurialensis sive Librorum omnium Mss. quos Arabicè ab auctoribus magnam partem Arabo-Hispanis compositos Bibliotheca Coenobii Escurialensis complectitur, recensio & explanatio, 2 vols, Madrid: Antonius Perez de Soto, 1760–1770, vol. I, p. 362 (no. cmxvii); Hartwig Derenbourg and H.-P.-J. Renaud, Les manuscrits arabes de l’Escurial. Tome II. — fascicule 3: Sciences exactes et sciences occultes, Paris: Paul Geuthner, 1941, pp. 29–30; Fien De Block, (Re)drawing the Lines. The Science of the Stars in the late Fifteenth Century Sultanate of Cairo, Ghent: Ghent University, 2019–2020, pp. 172–173.
83v–104v
\83v\ وبعد يقول مولانا المعظّم وسيّدنا الأعظم الصاحب المكرّم علّامة العرب والعجم سلطان المحقّقين أفضل المتأخّرين نصير الحقّ والدين برهان الإسلام والمسلمين محمّد ابن محمّد الطوسيّ — \104v\ وإن لم يسر فإنّ الخارجيّ من حظيرة الإقليم يعني من وسط الإقليم. فهذه تمام كلمات كتاب الثمرة وتفسيرها.
. — Title: Shajarat Sharḥ al-Thamara li-Baṭlamyūs al-ḥakīm fī ʿilm al-nujūm (1r). — Additional Titles: Kitāb al-Thamara fī l-aḥkām (83v); Kalimāt Kitāb al-Thamara wa-tafsīru-hā (104v). — Index: dedicatory preface, 83v; Pseudo-Ptolemy’s introduction, 83v; 102 verba intertwined with the commentary, 83v–104v. — Commentator’s colophon; dated scribal colophon. Statements of collation (87v, 97v, 104v, partially trimmed) and some marginal corrections, apparently by Aḥmad b. Aḥmad b. Timurbāy. A gloss on al-Ṭūsī’s life (83v); a long gloss, apparently taken from ʿAlī b. Abī l-Rijāl’s Kitāb al-Bāriʿ (94r); a long gloss with a horoscope for 892/1486-7, mentioned in connection with events of the Ottoman-Mamluk war and said to have been taken from a manuscript written by al-Jamālī Yūsuf b. Qurqumās al-Ḥamzāwī (104v).
