Poetry and Elegant Prose [IO Islamic 2280]

Poetry and Elegant Prose.

This manuscript is now IO Islamic 2280 in the India Office collections.

[metadata: Otto Loth, A Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts in the Library of the India Office, (volume 1), no. 802 here with further notations and hyperlinks].

802.

2280. Size 71/2 in. by 51/2 in.; foll. 85. Twenty-one lines in a page.

I.Foll. 1-77. ZAUZANÎ’S Commentary on the Mu’allaḳât.

II.Foll. 78-84. A Commentary on Ka’b b. Zuhair’s Ḳaṣîdah in praise of Muḥammad, بانت سعاد .

This commentary is different from that published by Lette and Freytag. Tabrîzî (d. A.H. 502) is quoted at the beginning of the introduction, on the authority of his pupil Jawâliḳî (d. A.H. 539); اخبرنا الشيخ الامام الاجل الاوحد ابو منصور موهوب 1 بن احمد بن محمد بن الخضر وفّقه الله تعالى لمرضاته الخ. The relation of Tabrîzî is founded on the following Isnâd: Abu Muḥammad Ibn al-Ḥasan Jauharî (d. A.H.454) , Abu ‘Omar Muḥammad b. al-’Abbâs b. Zakarîyâ b. Ḥaiyawaih (date, 1st Ṣafar, 327),

al-‘Abbâs b. Zakarîyâ b. Ḥaiyawaih,

‘Abdallah b. ‘Amr,

Ibrâhîm b. al-Mundhir,

al-Ḥajjâj Muzanî,2 son of al-Raḳîbah b. ‘Abd al-raḥmân b. Ka’b, and great-grandson of the poet.

This commentary, therefore, may be the work of Tabrîzî, or rather an abridgment of it. Cf. Cat. Mus. Brit. 316, DCXLV., no. lii.

Closely written in Nasta’liḳ; the first ten foll. By a different hand.

On the last fol. are two facetious poems, describing woman in various ages, from ten to a hundred years. The first of these poems begins:

متى تلق بنت العشر قد بان ثديها.

Written in a clumsy Naskh hand.

[College of Fort William, 1832.]

1 MS. بن هوب . 2 MS. المرى .