Medicine [IO Islamic 1519]

Medicine.

This manuscript is now IO Islamic 1519 in the India Office collections.

[metadata: Otto Loth, A Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts in the Library of the India Office, (volume 1), no. 781 here with further notations and hyperlinks].

781.

1519. Size 121/2 in. by 63/4 in.; foll. 598. Twenty-nine lines in a page.

The first part of a vast Commentary (ممزوج) on the Ḳânûn, by ‘ALÎ GÎLÂNÎ. Cf. Cat. Mus. Brit. 744.

This commentary is preceded by a long preface, in which the author criticizes the works of his predecessors, Ḳuṭb al-dîn Shîrâzî(قطب المحققين) , Âmulî, and Ibn Nafîs Ḳurashî, and recommends his own work, on which he spent thirty years of his life. It begins: انت المستعان فى كل خير يا حيّ احينا بحياتك 1 . The name of the author is indicated by the following passage: اما بعد فيقول المباهى بنباهة اسمه العلى ‘ المتشبث باذيال الطاف سميّه الولى الخ. . The surname Gîlânî is given to him here in an inscription of recent date. As he mentions (fol.4) الشرح الجىيد للتجريد , 2 he must have lived at least as late as the ninth century. The preface is followed by a detailed list of the contents of the Ḳânûn.

This volume comprises only the first book (الكلّيات) .

It concludes as follows: تم شرح الكتاب الاول من كتب القانون بحمد الله .. و يتلوه انشاء الله تعالى شرح الكتاب الثانى الذى فى الادوية المفردة.

Well written. On the margin are additions by the author, and extracts from different commentaries.

[Johnson.]

1 From this it would appear that this commentary is not identical with that of ‘Alî Astarâbâdî (Ḥ. Kh. iv. 498), as is asserted in Cat. Mus. Brit., l.c.

2 See no. 409.