MS. Arab. e. 110 (Bodleian Library, Oxford University)
- Display:
-
Oriental Manuscripts
Contents
Summary of Contents: The volume consists of 85 leaves, but folios 2, 12, 27–34, 68-9, 76–9 and 83–5 are interleaving folios or endpapers, all of which are blank except for folios 2a and 34ab, which has some pencilled English notes. Folio 82b is blank. There are seven items in the volume most of them magical treatises, and one(ff. 3r-24v) medical compendium attributed to Hippocrates. On folio 1a there are talismanic designs in red ink with accompanying poetry and on folio 1b a chapter (bāb) giving a magical procedure is written in a different hand in black ink. Folio 25a has a geomantic taskīn drawn on the bottom half, while at the top a different hand has entered diagonally a legal note concerning the validity of waqf al-ʿaqār (the endowment of real estate) according to the Ḥanafī school. Folio 34b has a pencilled English translation of the beginning of the fourth item; the latter is illustrated with magic squares, magical alphabets, and a 5 × 5 square with symbols for God superimposed over a small human figure (folio 43b); there is also a full-page human figure labelled with magical inscriptions on folio 67b; al-Būnī (d. c. 622/1225) is mentioned on folio 51a as a source. Item five in the volume (folios 70a–74a) is also in part taken from al-Būnī’s Shams al-Maʿārif .1. ff. 1v-1rAuthor: AnonymousLanguage(s): ArabicReferences
NCAM-1, Appendix IAppendix Magic[K 219]2. ff. 3r-24vAuthor: Hippocrates, (fl. c. 450s BC)Title: مختصر بقراط لحكيم فى الطبTitle: Mukhtaṣar fī al-ṭibbTitle: مختصر فى الطبTitle: An Epitome on MedicineIncipit: هذا مختصر من بقراط الحكيم في الطب قد جمع الفاضل في جميع ابواب الطب وهي سبع وستون باباً والله الموفق الوهاب المؤيد للصواب والحمد لله وحده وصلى الله علي محمد عبده ورسوله واله خير اله وسلم تسليماً ∴∴∴ كثيرا والحمد لله رب العالمين ∴∴∴ بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم الباب الاول في معرفة اصول الطبايع الاربعه الباب الثانى في معرقة طبايعهاExplicit: فانه لا يكون معه مرض او غرض ولا علل ولا وجع الرئيس ولا الصداع ولا الشقيقه انشاء الله تعالي قد تم هذه المختصر من مختصرات بقراط الحكيم في الطب لبعض (( الحكماء)) والحمد لله رب العالمينThis treatise, covering the treatment of virtually all known disorders and diseases, is divided into 67 or 68 chapters (bābs). Some copies give an alternative title of Mukhtaṣar Buqrāṭ al-ḥakīm fī abwāb al-ṭibb (An Epitome of Hippocrates’ On the Chapters of Medicine) or Tartīb al-abwāb (The Systematisation of Chapters). Whether the treatise is a translation of an otherwise unknown Hippocratic composition, or whether it is a later work composed in Arabic and falsely attributed to Hippocrates, has not been conclusively determined. For other copies: See Sezgin, GAS III, 42−3 no. 20 and GAS III N7, 375; Naqshabandī, Baghdad, 323–4, in 68 bābs; and Gacek, McGill, 139, in 67 bābs. See also Şeşen et al., Medical Manuscripts, 11, where there is a confusion with Tabwīb Fuṣūl Buqrāṭ by al-Sinjārī; for the latter see Entry No. 4.
The copy is undated and unsigned. The script, paper, and ink suggest a dating of the twelfth/eighteenth or thirteenth/nineteenth century. It is nearly a complete copy, consisting of 67 bābs, while some copies are recorded as having 68 bābs.
Dimensions 21.6 × 15.6 (text area 19.8 × 12.8) cm; 14–16 lines per page. The title is given at the beginning of the text, where the author is also given as Buqrāṭ. The text area does not appear to have been frame-ruled. It is written in medium-large to large, inelegant, personal Naskh with occasional vocalization. Black ink is used, with the headings and overlinings in either a purple-red (beginning to folio 9b) or a tomato-red ink (folio 10a to end). The inks frequently fade to a lighter shade. There are catchwords.
The smooth, matt, cream paper has a thickness of 0.12–0.14 mm and an opaqueness factor of 4 to 5. There are vertical (occasionally horizontal), straight, laid lines, indistinct single chain lines, and watermarks (a crescent moon and the initials F P). The top edges of the leaves have been trimmed from their original size.
There are occasional marginal or interlinear pencilled English translations of phrases.
Language(s): ArabicReferences
NCAM-1, Entry No. 13 (previously uncatalogued)Appendix Magic[K 219]3. ff. 25v-26Author: AnonymousLanguage(s): ArabicReferences
NCAM-1, Appendix IAppendix Magic[K 219]4. ff. 35r-67vAuthor: AnonymousLanguage(s): ArabicReferences
NCAM-1, Appendix IAppendix Magic[K 219]5. ff. 70r-74rAuthor: AnonymousLanguage(s): ArabicReferences
NCAM-1, Appendix IAppendix Magic[K 219]6. ff. 74r-75vAuthor: AnonymousLanguage(s): ArabicReferences
NCAM-1, Appendix IAppendix Magic[K 219]7. ff. 80r-82rAuthor: AnonymousLanguage(s): ArabicReferences
NCAM-1, Appendix IAppendix Magic[K 219]Physical Description
Form: codexExtent: 85 ff.Binding
The volume is bound in pasteboards covered with European marbled paper with a red leather spine. There are modern endpapers and pastedowns.
History
Origin: 19th cent.? CEProvenance and Acquisition
The volume belonged to R. Campbell Thompson. Reginald Campbell Thompson (d. 1941) was a noted Assyriologist and Fellow of Merton College who from 1907 onwards travelled frequently to Mesopotamia for excavations. His academic interests included ancient materials on omens and incantations, and it may be that the pencilled English translations and other pencilled notes in the manuscript are those of Thompson’s.
The volume was purchased from R. Campbell Thompson, 20 November 1920.
Record Sources
Manuscript description based on Emilie Savage-Smith; A New Catalogue of Arabic Manuscripts in The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Volume I: Medicine, Oxford: OUP, 2011.Availability
Entry to read in the Library is permitted only on presentation of a valid reader's card (for admissions procedures contact Bodleian Admissions).
Funding of Cataloguing
JISC
Subjects
TO TOP