The Arabic version of Tusi's Nasirean ethics : with an introduction and explanatory notes /
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Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī's (d. 672/1274) Nasirean Ethics is the single most important work on philosophical ethics in the history of Islam. Translated from the original Persian into Arabic in 713/1313, the present text was primarily intended for the Arabic-speaking majority of the people in Iraq. A fine example of medieval Persian-to-Arabic translation technique, this first edition carefully reproduces Middle Arabic elements that can be found throughout the text.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004307506 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Dīwān-i ashʿār-i Fahmī Astarābādī /
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This is a collection of poems, mostly ghazals, by the otherwise little-known 10th/16th century poet Fahmī Astarābādī. All that the available sources tell us about him is that he was talented and intelligent, that (as a young man?) he went to India, that he earned a living in business, and that he died in Delhi. Thanks to the research of the editor of his divan, we now know somewhat more. First, that Fahmī spent a certain time in the entourage of Rustam Rūzafzūn (d. 917/1511), ruler of Mazandaran and that he also wrote poetry in praise of some of the other members of that family; that he lived in Yazd for two years and lost his fortune there, returning broke to Mazandaran; that he travelled to Najaf, Mecca and Mashhad; and that he was in India when Sultan Bābur died in 937/1530. Alive in 948/1541, is not known when or where he passed away.
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Poems. :
1 online resource. :
9789004405608
9789648700930
Badāyiʿ-i mulaḥ : Nawhā-yi namakīn /
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In the history of Arabic literature, the term adab ('custom', 'norm of conduct') applies typically to works providing a particular kind of moral and intellectual education. Aimed at a specific urban class whose values they reflected, these works offered a useful stock of relevant quotations to be used in social discourse. Among the adab works, the poetic anthology was extremely popular. These anthologies could take on different forms, depending on whether they were organised around a set of themes, a collection of motifs, a series of comparisons, a selection of geographical places, and so on. The poetic anthology published in the present volume was written in Khwārazm in 595/1199. As the title ' Marvels of Witticism ' suggests, its author, the linguist Qāsim b. al-Ḥusayn al-Khwārazmī (d. 617/1220), wanted to highlight the beauty of the repartee in different thematic contexts. The Persian translation accompanying the text was probably made by someone other than al-Khwārazmī himself.
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1 online resource. :
9789004402768
9789646781603
Taḥsīn wa taqbīḥ-i Thaʿālibī /
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Abū Manṣūr al-Thaʿālibī (d. 429/1038) was a very productive writer in Arabic philology and belles lettres and a promotor of the Arabic language in the eastern lands of the Islamic word. Born in Nishapur, it was there that he began his career, forging bonds of friendship with influential literati and various men of state. From there he travelled to the courts of different rulers in some of the major cities in Transoxania and Khurāsān, finally to return to Nishapur where he spent the last years of his life. A compiler and literary critic more than an author in his own right, al-Thaʿālibī's literary anthologies have done much for the preservation of early Arabic literature-mostly poetry-otherwise lost. As explained by the editor, the present work is not a Persian rendering of his Taḥsīn al-qabīḥ wa-taqbīḥ al-ḥasan , but probably done from an Arabic original that was similar to two of Thaʿālibī's other compilatory works.
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1 online resource. :
9789004404786
9789648700220
Bilawhar wa Buyūdhasf /
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Bilawhar and Būdhāsaf are the main characters of an ancient Arabic work called Bilawhar wa-Būdhāsaf , a text whose core narrative derived from the biography of Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism. The original Sanskrit text on which it was based was translated into Middle Persian and from there into Arabic, besides Old Turkish and New Persian. It is from this lost ancient Arabic translation that later versions, adaptations or summaries derive, whether in Arabic, Persian, Georgian, Hebrew, or Greek. The Persian work published in this volume is Niẓām Tabrīzī's (fl. late 8th/14th cent.) summary of an anonymous Persian translation of an equally anonymous Arabic commentary on Bilawhar wa-Būdhasaf , both lost. As such, it provides new material for further study into the history of transmission of this text, both from a philological point of view and as a complex narrative issuing from a progressive intermixture of elements from different times and cultures.
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1 online resource. :
9789004402966
9789646781702
Kitāb al-waḥshiyyāt : Nuskha bar gardān bih qaṭʿ-i aṣl-i nuskha-yi khaṭṭi-yi kitābkhāna-yi shakhṣi-yi Dr. Waḥīd Dhulfiqārī kitābat 550 H /
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The Arab poet and anthologist Abū Tammām (d. 231/845) was born in Jāsim in Syria, between Damascus and Darʿā. After a first period as a weavers' assistant in Damascus and as a water-seller in Cairo, studying poetry on the side, he had his breakthough as a poet after his return to Syria in the time of al-Muʿtaṣim billāh (r. 218-27/833-42). Considered as the greatest panegyrist of his time, he sang the praises of the caliph and many other public figures of his age. Besides Egypt, Abū Tammām also travelled to other regions, his most celebrated sojourn being in Hamadan where he compiled his famous poetic anthology the Kitāb al-ḥamāsa . The present work is a similar compilation by him, though smaller and much less known. Edited previously on the basis of one manuscript from Istanbul, the present facsimile edition is of a second manuscript, this time from Yazd. Some folios missing but good readings, interesting marginalia.
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1 online resource. :
9789004405684
9786002030085
Al-Mashīkhah (Kanz al-sālikīn) : Ganjīna-yi khuṭūṭ va yādgār nāma-yi mashāhīr-i ʿilmi-yi Īrān az sāl-i 845 tā 1022 HQ /
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In the history of Islam and the Islamic world, the authentication of knowledge has always been important. Thus, the Prophetic traditions are typically introduced by chains of transmission going back from the speaker, all the way to a direct witness of the Prophet's sayings or deeds. And in scholarship, too, the ijāza or licence attesting to someone's proficiency in some subject written by an established teacher was very important as well, comparable to a modern certificate or diploma. Against this background, the booklet published here is rather unique. This is because it contains study certificates and samples of the handwriting of various scholars and religious authorities, issued to five generations of scholars from one and the same family from Yazd, starting with Najm al-Dīn Muḥammad Ḥammūʾī Yazdī (d. 885/1480) and ending with Sālik al-Dīn Muḥammad Ḥammūʾī Yazdī (duwwum) (d. after 1022/1613). Most of the texts are in Arabic, while the poetry is mostly in Persian.
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1 online resource. :
9789004407275
9786002031204
Fihrist-i nuskhahā-yi khaṭṭi-yi Fārsī u ʿArabi-yi Kitābkhāna-yi Firdawsī, Kālij Wādhām (Wadham), Dānishgāh-i Āksfūrd (majmūʿa-yi Mīnāsiyān) /
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In the western world, oriental manuscript collections are now mostly kept at universities, institutes and in national or regional libraries. Yet many of these collections were jumpstarted with the acquisition or donation of some private collection. An example is the oriental collection at Leiden University Library, which started with a legacy of around 60 oriental manuscripts by J.J. Scaliger in 1609. In fact, private collectors have always enriched library collections until this very day. The shelf marks of the oriental manuscripts in almost every major collection in the western world bear testimony to this. Dr Caro Minasian (d. 1973) was an Iranian physician and a passionate collector of oriental manuscripts. In 1968 he sold the greater part of his collection to UCLA (1507 items). In 1972 he bequeathed the remainder (959 titles) to the Ferdowsi library of Wadham College, University of Oxford. This Persian catalogue contains the first detailed description of the entire Minasian collection.
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1 online resource. :
9789004406704
9786002031136
Kitāb talkhīṣ al-Muḥaṣṣal : fī sharḥ al-Muḥaṣṣal fī ʿilm al-kalām /
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Fakhr al-Dīn Rāzī (d. 606/1210) was a prominent theologian, interpreter of the Qurʾān and philosopher. He was born in Rayy where he studied theology, philosophy and law under different masters, including his father, a preacher. After his studies, he started a wandering life which took him to different cities and courts in Transoxania and Khwārazm. He finally settled in Herat where he spent the rest of his life, a wealthy and respected scholar and author of a number of seminal works. Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī (d. 672/1274) was an influential philosopher, theologian, mathematician and astronomer, besides being the first director of the famous observatory at Marāghah near Tabriz as well as a man of politics. Author of a large number of scholarly works, his influential commentary on Rāzī's Muḥaṣṣal on philosophical theology is a critical appraisal of a work which Ṭūsī considered much overrated. Facsimile of the oldest known copy, dated 669/1270.
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1 online resource. :
9789004406650
9786002031006
Kitāb al-mulakhkhaṣ fi ʼl-lugha maʿa ʼl-wafāʾ bi-tarjamat mā fi ʼl-Qurʾān /
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A trusted and much-used means to navigate between words and languages, the dictionary has a long history. The oldest bilingual dictionary is a Sumerian-Eblaite lexicon of more than 4000 years ago. The earliest monolingual dictionary is preserved in fragments from a Chinese lexicon from around 800 BCE. As for Arabic-Persian dictionaries, of which the facsimile published here is a valuable specimen, these made their first appearance in the 4th/10th century, at the time of the first translations of the Qurʾān and its commentaries and the increase of scientific texts in Arabic eligible for translation into New Persian. The present dictionary was copied in 684/1286, but is certainly older than that. It is a general lexicon which has been alphabetically arranged. At the end there is an appendix with an overview of the terminology of various practical fields that leaves a very modern impression (days of the week, basic arithmetic etc.). Historical and philological introducton, indices.
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1 online resource. :
9789004407237
9786002031150
Al-Maḥajja al-bayḍāʾ fī uṣūl al-dīn /
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From the time of its foundation in 284/897, the Zaydī Imamate of Yemen was home to Muʿtazilī ideas. During the first centuries and starting with Imam al-Hādī ila ʼl-Ḥaqq (d. 298/911), Zaydī ideology included elements akin to the opinions of the Baghdad School of the Muʿtazila as founded by Bishr b. al-Muʿtamir (d. 210/825). However, in the 5-6th/11-12th centuries, we see a rise in popularity of Bahshamiyya ideas, a sub-group of the Basran School of the Muʿtazila around Abū Hāshim al-Jubbāʾī (d. 321/933). These ideas were systematized and elaborated upon by the Zaydī theologian al-Raṣṣāṣ (d. 584/1188). Among those who resisted Bahshamī ideas to defend the teachings of the earlier imams was the jurist, theologian and author of more than 100 works, Ḥusām al-Dīn al-ʿAnsī (d. 667/1268). This volume contains a facsimile of the largest copy of al-Maḥajja al-bayḍāʾ fī uṣūl al-dīn , al-ʿAnsī's major theological handbook, covering the first four parts out of eight.
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1 online resource. :
9789004406667
9786002031051
Fihrist-i nuskhahā-yi khaṭṭi-yi madrasa-yi Imām Ṣādiq-i ('alayhi al-salām) Chālūs /
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Many studies on the Islamic world refer to writings that were originally published in manuscript. Even if a lot of these texts are now available in print, countless others are not, while printed works are often superseded by later, more critical editions. This means that the importance of Islamic manuscripts remains undiminished. In the West, major collections were established before 1900 and it is exceptional for new collections to be founded. In Iran, a country whose libraries host over 345.000 manuscripts, the establishment of new collections, often by testamentary disposition, is not uncommon. The Imām Ṣādiq Madrasa of Chalus near the Caspian Sea was founded in 1948. Its library contained just printed books. From 1979 onward, its third director, Sayyid Jamāl al-Dīn Mūsawī, introduced a programme for the active collection of manuscripts from among the inhabitants of Chalus and the surrounding region. By 2002, some 700 manuscripts had been obtained, all described in this catalogue.
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1 online resource. :
9789004402775
9789646781610
Majmuʿah bih khaṭṭ-i Mullā Ṣadrā : Yād dāshthā-yi Qurʾānī va tafsīr-i āya-yi nūr az Mullā Ṣadrā, Muntakhab-i Baḥr al-Ḥaqāʾiq Najm al-Dīn-i Dāyah va al-Taʾwīlāt-i ʿAbd al-Razzāq-i K...
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The Islamic manuscript has many forms and shapes, from notes on a scrap of paper to the most preciously illuminated manuscript that can compete with the best one can find in the western world. Usually, a text would be written out at least twice: first as a draft and then as a clean copy from which later copies would be made. Usually, draft versions would either be destroyed, or washed and dried as a means to save paper, or used as reinforcement material by the bookbinder. Thus very few drafts have come down to us. And this is precisely what lends the present manuscript, containing a draft commentary on Qurʾān 24:35 (the celebrated Light Verse) by the famous 11th/17th-century philosopher Ṣadr al-Dīn Shīrāzī (d. 1050/1640) its special interest. Also in this manuscript: sundry notes on the Qurʾān and excerpts from two works by Najm al-Dīn Dāya (d. 654/1256) and ʿAbd al-Razzāq Kāshī (d. 736/1336)
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1 online resource. :
9789004407282
9786002031228
Tarwīḥ al-arwāḥ fī tahdhīb al-Ṣiḥāḥ : Muʿjam muhadhdhab al-Ṣiḥāḥ u al-Mujallad al-awwal wal-thānī /
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The history of Arabic lexicography is long and extremely varied. But no matter what dictionary one is looking at, it is always organized in a certain way and always has a certain level of detail. Thus, some of the early dictionaries centered around one or more particular themes, such as insects or weapons. Other dictionaries - the majority - brought together any word material, irrespective of subject or theme. Some dictionaries offered a lot of material in explanation of some term while others offered less. Abū Naṣr al-Jawharī's (d. 393/1003) famous Tāj al-lugha wa-ṣiḥāḥ al-ʿArabiyya is an example of an early dictionary which offered a lot of detailed explanations. The earliest abbreviation of it and indeed the earliest abbreviation of any medieval Arabic dictionary, was the work by Shihāb al-Dīn Zanjānī (d. 656/1258) contained in this volume. Long believed to have been lost, it is published here for the very first time.
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1 online resource. :
9789004405660
9786002030054
Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh : Tārīkh-i Hind u Sind u Kashmīr /
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Rashīd al-Dīn Hamadānī's (d. 718/1319) Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh has been described by many as the first world history ever. Composed in Persian for the Mongol Il-khans Ghāzān (r. 1295-1304) and Öljeitü (Uljāytu, r. 1304-16), its aim was to set out the history and condition of the Mongol people, conquerors of the world (part one), followed by a description of the other peoples and nations of the world and their histories (part two). Given its unprecedented scope, Rashīd, vizier to both rulers, mobilized a whole team of specialists, informants, and collaborators to assist him in his task. Making use of written and oral sources, the part on the Mongols especially is a key source on the emergence and organisation of the Mongol empire, while the second part constitutes the first attempt ever at writing a history of the world. The section published here treats of India, Sind, and Kashmir.
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1 online resource. :
9789004404151
9789648700053
Seh risāla az Thābit b. Qurra : Sāʿathā-yi āftābī, Ḥarakat-i khurshīd u māh, Chahārdah wajhī muḥāṭ dar kurah /
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Thābit b. Qurra (d. 288/901) was a gifted mathematician, scientist and translator of many Greek scientific works, who knew Greek, Syriac and Arabic. He might have spent his entire life in his native Ḥarrān as a money-changer were it not for his chance encounter with Muḥammad b. Mūsā (259/873) of the famous Banū Mūsā brothers, specialists in mathematics and astronomy and among the most important intellectuals of Baghdad at the time. Appreciating his intelligence and his mastery of languages, Muḥammad took Thābit back with him to Baghdad, where he was trained in philosophy, astronomy and mathematics. Thābit then set out on a brilliant career as a translator and author in his own right, writing on all the applied sciences of his time. This facsimile edition of three texts on sundials, solar and lunar motions, and a fourteen-sided solid inside a sphere reproduces the well-known MS Istanbul, Köprülü 948, dated 370/981, copied by Thābit's grandson Ibrāhīm.
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"Nuskhah bargardān bih qaṭʻ-i aṣl-i nuskhah-i khaṭṭī bih shumārah-i 948 Kitābkhānah-i Kūprūlū (Istānbūl) kitābat 370 hijrī".
"A facsimile edition of the manuscript (MS 948, Koprulu Library, Istanbul, Turkey) copied in 370 A.H (981 A.D)"--Added title page. :
1 online resource. :
9789004406360
9786002030511
Sharḥ-i akhbār u abyāt u amthāl-i ʿArabi-yi Kalīla wa Dimna : Dū sharḥ az Faḍlallāh ʿUthmān b. Muḥammad al-Isfizārī wa muʾallifī nā shinākhta /
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Throughout history, Indian culture has had the interest of the Persians. At the time of the Sasanids (3rd-7th cent. CE) for instance, Sanskrit works on astronomy were translated into Pehlavi. Centuries later, in the early ʿAbbāsid period, a number of astronomers with a Persian background used information from these very same sources in writing their own books in Arabic. Besides scientific works, spiritual and ethical texts were also translated. An example is the famous collection of animal fables called Kalila and Dimna , which go back to the lost Sanskrit Pañcatantra . An equally lost Middle Persian translation of this work was rendered into Arabic several times, but the translation by Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ (d. ca. 139/757) proved most influential and formed the basis of the famous Persian translation by Naṣrallāh Munshī (6th/12th cent.). On this latter translation, two Persian commentaries from the 7th/13th century survive. A critical edition of both is offered in this volume.
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1 online resource. :
9789004402751
9789646781559