Biography and History [IO Islamic 591]

Biography and History. 

This manuscript is now IO Islamic 591 in the India Office collections.

[metadata: Otto Loth, A Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts in the Library of the India Office, (volume 1), no. 716 here with further notations and hyperlinks].

716.

591. Size 101/2 in. by 6 in.; foll. 282. Twenty-one lines in a page.

تلخيص المقال فى تحقيق احوال الرجال

A Dictionary of the Authorities of the Shî’ah Tradition, compiled from the standard works on this subject, by Ṭûsî (d. A.H. 460), Najâshî (d. A.H.450), Shahrâshûb (d. A.H. 588), Ḥillî (d. A.H. 726), 2 and others.

The author does not give his name. He is called Mîrzâ Muḥammad Astarâbâdî in the inscription on the title-page, which runs as follows : كتاب رجال اوسط (!) از تصانيف مرزا محمد استرابادى . He mention, indeed, his larger work, كتابنا الكبير . As he states at the end, his shortest ‘’way’’ to Ḥillî is through six Shaikhs.

He begins with an account of the arrangement of the book, and of the abbreviation which he used in it.

This passage has been gives in full in a letter of M. de Chanykov, printed in the Zeitschrift der Duetschen morgenl. Gesellsch. x. 817. See regarding the MS. of M. de Chanykov, Bulletin de l’Acad. Impér. De St. Pétersbourg, xii. 121.

Begins: اما بعد فهذا تلخيص المقال فى تحقيق احوال 3 الرجال قد اثبت فيه الاسماء على ترتيب حروف المعجم الخ.

Most of the article in this dictionary are short: they give the full name and genealogy, the Shaikhs, and sometimes dates. At the end of each stand the abbreviations for the books from which it is taken.

The work concludes with a خاتمه , in ten paragraphs (فائدة) , concerning some old authorities , and especially Ṭûsî and Ḥillî, and their Isnâds, etc.

Nealy written. Collated with the original copy in Rabî’ II., 1093. Numerous marginal notes. The vacant leaves at the beginning and end are filled with extracts from the كتاب التنقيح , and various notes.

[Gaikwar.]

2 See regarding these works, Sprenger’s preface to his edition of the Fihrist of Ṭûṣî.

3 This word is wanting in the MS. of M. de Chanykov.