Biography and History [IO Islamic 2033]

Biography and History. 

This manuscript is now IO Islamic 2033 in the India Office collections.

[metadata: Otto Loth, A Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts in the Library of the India Office, (volume 1), no. 717 here with further notations and hyperlinks].

717.

2033. Size 10 in. by 51/2 in.; foll. 282. From twenty to twenty-three lines in a page.

Biographies of learned and holy men of the ‘Alawî race, resident in Ḥaḍramaut and India; by Jamâl al-dîn Muḥammad b. Abu Bakr BÂ ‘ALAWÎ SHILLÎ (الشلى) , who was a member of the family , and died at Makkah , at the end of A.H. 1093. He entitled his work المشروع المروى فى مناقب بنى علوى . See regarding him and other works of his, Cat. Mus. Brit. 429 sq., 431, 741 sq. The present work was used by Muḥibbî (d. A.H. 1111), who also has a notice of the author (ib. 601). Cf. Zeitschrift der Deutschen morgenl.

Gesellsch. ix. 225, 227, and also Stewart, Catal.33.

Nothing -excepting a hint at the title, on the fly-leaf -is contributed to the above statements by the present MS. It begins with the article on the author’s brother, Aḥmad b. Abu Bakr b. Aḥmad b. Abu Bakr b. ‘Abdallah b. Abu Bakr b. ‘Alawî b. ‘Abdallah b. ‘Alî b. ‘Abdallah b. ‘Alawî, the last mentioned being the son of the ‘’Great Master’’ (الاستاذ الاعظم و الفقيه المقدم) , i.e. Muḥammad b. ‘Alî, the common ancestor of the family, who traced his lineage back to the Khalif ‘Alî. The biographies are arranged alphabetically. The rubric Muḥammad is, however, wanting in its proper place, whence it is evident that the book began with it, and that this MS. is incomplete.

The work concludes (fol. 271) : و ليمسك من هذا الباب عنان القلم والله سبحانه اعلم وها انا اطلعت من نجومهم الثواقب الخ.

It is followed by an appendix (خاتمة , fol. 272), which treats of the ‘’holy mantle, ‘’ i.e. the spiritual pedigree of the ‘Alawîs (فى خرقتهم الشريفة و ما فيها من الاسرار اللطيفة ) .Most of these pedigrees begin with the aforesaid ‘’Great Master,’’ who was the spiritual heir of the Shaikh Abu Madyan Shu’aib b. al-Ḥasan Maghribî Andalusî. This appendix concludes: و قد انتهى الكلام على وجه الذى شرطناه و الامر الذى التزمناه الخ.

Written in a large inelegant hand, of the twelfth century. Carefully revised and emended. The beginning and some other leaves are supplied by a different hand. Several leaves are misplaced in binding. Foll. 92-94 should be placed after 101, foll.128 and 129 before 122, fol. 134 before 131, foll. 152 and 153 after 162, fol. 275 before 268, and fol. 281 before 279.

A defect after fol. 181.

[College of Fort William (1809), 1825.]