Biography and History [IO Islamic 2151]

Biography and History. 

This manuscript is now IO Islamic 2151 in the India Office collections.

[metadata: Otto Loth, A Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts in the Library of the India Office, (volume 1), no. 705 here with further notations and hyperlinks].

705.

2151. Size 10 in. by 71/2 in.; foll. 333. Twenty-one lines in a page.

المختار من وفيات الاعيان الخ

An Abridgment of Ibn Khallikân’s Biographical Dictionary, made by his son MÛSA , for his private use, during the years 701 and 702 A.H.

This is the author’s rough copy, consisting originally of two volumes. The earlier portion of the first volume, however, is lost. It begins now with the eighteenth quire (كراسة) , which has been inscribed الجزء الثانى . The first article is ‘Alî b. Aflaḥ (no.487, ed Wüstenfeld). It ends with the thirty-second quire, in the notice of Zamakhsharî (ed; Wüstenfeld, no. 721), the last portion being also lost. The second volume (fol. 151), المجلد الثانى , has a particular title, written by the author himself. It begins with the fourth fascicle of the original work (al-Mu’izz = no. 737, ed. Wüstenf.), and contains the rest of the book. It consists of twenty-three quires, but it has now several defects, especially in the twelfth and thirteenth quires; some leaves of the latter are also misplaced in binding.

The author states at the beginning of the second volume, that he began it on Sunday, 2nd Dhu’l-ḥijjah, 701, at Balbee, and he adds in the postscript (fol. 331v. قلت اعنى كاتبها موسى بن احمد لطف الله به الخ ) , that he continued his work at Damascus, where he arrived from Balbee on Sunday , 20th Rabî’ I., 702, and completed it on Sunday, 3rd Rabî’ II. of the same year. At the end is written the epilogue of Ibn Khallikân, to which the author added, in a second postscript, a short memoir of his father and an account of his own work.

This rough copy is written in a hurried hand, without diacritical points, and is often difficult to read.

On the title-page are the signatures of several recent owners and readers. One of these, ‘Abd al-raḥmân Ḥalabî, whose seal is also added, wrote the title to the first volume.

[College of Fort William, 1825.]