Rhetoric [IO Islamic 1596]

Rhetoric. This manuscript is now IO Islamic 1596 in the India Office collections. [metadata: Otto Loth, A Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts in the Library of the India Office, (volume 1), no. 849 here with further notations and hyperlinks]. 849. 1596. Size 9 in. by 43/4 in.; foll. 142. Seven lines in a page. An abridged and improved edition of the third part of the Miftâḥ , on Rhetoric, entitled تلخيص المفتاح ; by Jalâl al-dîn Muḥammad b. ‘Abd al-raḥmân ḲAZWÎNÎ, commonly called خطيب دمشق ( d. A.H. 739). Cf. Ḥ. Kh. ii. 402 sq.; Fleischer, Cat. Lips. 347; Von Krafft, Hdss. Orient. Akad. Wien, p. 22; Cat. St. Petersb. 216; etc. This work was printed at Calcutta, 1815, and at Constantinople, A.H. 1260. Part of it has also been published in Mehren’s der Rhetorik der Araber. Well written Nasta’liḳ. The colophon runs as follows: قد تمت النسخة الموسومة بتخليص المفتاح فى يوم الرابع من شهر ذى الحجه سنه ۱۲۱۰ هجريه مقدسة مقام كنپ فتح كده . A ticket, which is attached to the end of the colophon, contains the erroneous statement that this is a work of Taftâzânî, written by him, A.H. 787, at Samarḳand. It is followed, on the next page, by a list of Taftâzânî’s works, with their respective dates, derived from Taftâzânî himself. The error arose from confounding the present work with that described under the preceding nos. A list of the contents is added at the beginning of the volume.