Miscellanies [IO Bijapur 85]

Miscellanies.

This manuscript is now IO Bijapur 85 in the India Office collections.

[metadata: Otto Loth, A Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts in the Library of the India Office, (volume 1), no. 1031 here with further notations and hyperlinks].

1031.

B 85. Size 10 in. by 6 in.; foll. 57. Twenty-three and twenty-nine lines in a page.

I.Foll. 1-41. Advice to Kings, entitled مشکاة الانوار و مرقاة الاخبار و مرآة الاسرار, by MUḤAMMAD b. ‘Afîf al-dîn Muḥammad b. Nûr al-dîn Muḥammad الحسنی الحسینی نسبةً و ولادةً الصفوی الزینَی القادری الرفاعی الوفائی بیعةً و ارادةً. It is dedicated to a Sultan whose name is not mentioned.

Begins: الحمدلله رب العالمین الرحمن الرحیم مالک یوم الدین الملک العدل العظیم.

It is divided into three parts, each of which is based on about forty traditions from the Prophet (fol. 2, مشتملا علی ثلاث اربعینات), as follow: I. (fol. 2v.) الاربعون الاول (!) فی العدالة التی توجب ازدیاد العمر و الإدالة ; II.(fol.24v.) الاربعون الثانیة فی الامر بالمعروف و النهی عن المنکر; III. (fol. 33v.) فی قضاء حاجات (حوائج) المسلمین و نحوه.

The work comprises various extracts and sentences, and also some poems of the author. He calls Ibn Ḥajar his Shaikh, but it does not appear which of the two authors of that name is meant.

Clearly written. Revised by Zain b. ‘Abdallah Muḳaibil, who also wrote the inscription, which begins:

کتاب نصیحة الملوک و غیرهم و سمّاه مؤلفه رحمه الله بمشکاة الخ.

II.Foll. 42-57. البرهان فی علامات مهدی (!) آخر الزمان. An account of the Mahdî and of his coming at the end of time, by ‘Alî b. Ḥusâm al-dîn MUTTAḲI (d. A.H. 975).1

The author tells us that his work is only a new arrangement of the traditions collected in Suyûṭî’s (d. A.H. 911) العرف الوردی,2 to which he added some extracts from the جمع الجوامع of the same author,3 and from the عقد الدرر فی اخبار المهدی المنتظر (author not mentioned). These extracts are marked with ج and with ع respectively.

The work is divided into thirteen chapters, a detailed account of which is given at the beginning, after the مقدّمة (fol. 43). They are as follows: I. فی الکرامات شخص بها المهدی الخ; II. فی نسبه; III. فی حلیته; IV. فی احوال تقع قبل خروج المهدی; V. فی جامع العلامات; VI. فی کیفیة بیعة المهدی الخ; VII. فی اعوان المهدی من الملائکة الخ; VIII. فی فتح البلدان الخ; IX. فی اجتماع المهدی مع عیسی الخ; X. فی مدة ملکه; XI. فی موت المهدی الخ; XII. فی المتفرقات من الاحادیث و ذکر اشخاص طریقهم انهم المهدیون; XIII. فی شئ من فتاوی علماء العرب (فی شأن المهدی).

The appendix (خاتمة, fol. 54), which is inscribed فی تحقیق مدة الدنیا, comprises the while treatise of SUYÛṬÎ on this subject, which is entitled الکشف فی مجاوزة هذه الامة الالف 1.

This piece was written by Zain b. ‘Abdallah Muḳaibil himself. It is dated Wednesday, 14th Jum. I., 1095. It was collated with the original copy (الام), and another MS.

1 A Persian treatise by this author, on the same subject, is mentioned in Ḥ. Kh. iii. 447.

2 Cf. Ḥ. Kh. iv. 197.

3 Ḥ. Kh. ii. 614 sq.

1 Cf. Ḥ. Kh. v. 211, and Flügel, Hdss. Wien, iii. 97.