Prayers and Charms [IO Islamic 831] الصحیفة الکاملة

PRAYERS AND CHARMS

This manuscript is now IO Islamic 831 in the India Office collections.

[metadata: Otto Loth, A Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts in the Library of the India Office, (volume 1), no. 334 here with further notations and hyperlinks].

334.

831. Size 81/4 in. by 41/2 in.; foll. 190. Twenty-two lines in a page.

The Prayer-book of ‘ALÎ ZAIN AL-‘ÂBIDÎN, the fourth Imâm of the Shî’ites (d. A.H. 94 or 92), transmitted to posterity by AL-MUTAWAKKIL b. Hârûn Thaḳafî, on the authority of two grandsons of ‘Alî. It is called الصحیفة الکاملة. Cf. Ṭûsî, p. ۲۶۲, who is, however, inaccurate,2 and Ḥ. Kh. iii. 100. The work was printed at Calcutta, A.H. 1248, according to Bibl. Sprenger. 699; and it seems also to be contained in Cat. St. Petersb. 33, lxii.

The present text is given on the authority of Najm al-dîn Abu’l-Ḥasan Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan…’Alawî Ḥusainî, who had it from Abu ‘Abdallah Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Shahriyâr, guardian of the mausoleum of the Khali ‘Alî,1 in Rabî’ I., 516, etc. The Isnâd goes back to Mutawakkil, who gives the following account of the origin of the book. He was returning to Khurâsân from the pilgrimage, when he met with Yaḥya b. Zaid b. ‘Alî, and received from him a copy of these prayers, on the authority of his father, Zaid to Martyr. Subsequently, after Yaḥya had been killed (A.H. 125), he went again to Madînah, where he showed his copy to Ja’far Ṣâdiḳ, who found it identical with a book in his possession, which had been written by his father, Muḥammad b. ‘Alî. From this Mutawakkil took a copy, Ja’far himself dictating. The book consisted originally of seventy-five chapters, but eleven were lost by him, so that he only kept some sixty chapters (و حفظت منها نیّفا و ستّین بابا).

With the exception of the last statement, the same story is given with another Isnâd, which, in Ibn Muṭahhar, joins that of Ṭûsî (l.c.). According to this version, the book contained only fifty-four prayers, which are enumerated, and are exactly the same as those found in the present MS. There is, however, an appendix (fol. 175), which was offered by several MSS. it is introduced by the first Isnâd, and contains seven more prayers, and formulae for each day of the week.

Well written, with vowel-points. Accompanied by an interlinear translation, and many useful notes, in Persian. Gold lines round the pages. An ornament at the beginning.

[Johnson.]

2 He appears to have confounded the names of Mutawakkil and his son ‘Umair.

1 Cf. no. 371, fol. 64v.