Islamic Traditions, SHÎ'ITES [289]

Science of Shî’ite Tradition. This manuscript is now IO Islamic 1449 in the India Office collections. [metadata: Otto Loth, A Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts in the Library of the India Office, (volume 1), no. 289 here with further notations and hyperlinks]. SHÎ’ITES. 289. 1449. Size 10 in. by 61/2 in.; foll. 372. Twenty-one lines in a page. A handbook of Shî’ah Law, entitled کتاب من لا یحضره الفقیه (“every man his own lawyer”) by Abu Ja’far Muḥammad b. ‘Alî IBN BÂBAWAIH Ḳummî (d. A.H. 381). Cf. Ṭûsî, p. ۳.۴. 1. 17; Cat. Bodl. ii. 91; Cat. St. Petersb. 250; and Cat. Mus. Brit. 415. Beginning: اللهم انی احمدک و اشکرک و اؤمن بک و اتوکّل علیک. In four separate parts (which conclude with foll. 95, 175, 259, and 339 respectively), the first two comprising the spiritual law. Each part is subdivided into chapters (باب). The author gives in an appendix a full account of the Isnâds which have been omitted in the course of the work.1 A second appendix (fol. 356v.) contains the same Isnâds alphabetically arranged by Mîrzâ MUḤAMMAD ASTARÂBÂDÎ. Well written in a small hand, the last portion, however, in a different style. Collated by the owner, Muḥammad Sa’îd Ashraf, in A.H. 1097. The greater part of the first appendix, which is written in a hurried Nasta’liḳ, has the same date. Foll. 82-89 and 91-96 should be transposed, and foll. 354-372 should be arranged as follows: 354, 356-358, 355, 362, 359-361, 364-371, 363, 372. [Hastings.] 1 Cf. Cat. Bodl. ii. 92a.