MS. Laud Or. 139 (Bodleian Library, Oxford University)

The copy is unsigned and undated. The appearance of the paper, ink, and script suggest a dating of before the end of the seventh/thirteenth century, possibly in Syria or Egypt.

It is a complete copy. The second maqālah begins on folio 72a and the third on folio 92b.

Dimensions 25.3 × 18.2 (text area 19.6 × 12.8) cm; 15–17 lines per page. The author, commentator, and title are given in the colophon. On the title page (folio 1a) the title is repeated with a slight variation in the order of the words (Kitāb fīhi taqdimat al-maʿrifah li-Buqrāṭ tafsīr Jālīnūs) and the additional information that it is a version (ikhrāj) prepared by Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq ibn Sulaymān ibn Ayyūb al-Shammās. Occasionally Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq is quoted in the text itself, as on folio 7a where his opinion on a passage is given.

The text area is frame-ruled. The layout of the text area on most of the folios is unusual in that the bottom line of the text is only half a line in width and is centred; this pattern is not consistently followed, however, for approximately a third of the pages do not have the layout and no rationale for its employment has been detected. The text is written in a large Naskh with occasional vocalization. Dense-black ink was used on folios 1a–86a and from 96a to the end; folios 86b−95b are written in brown ink of varying density. The large headings are in red ink. The letters sīn and rāʾ have háčeks, and the letter ḥāʾ usually has a minuscule letter beneath, with occasional minuscule letters under the letter ʿayn. There are frequent ligatures of alifs with following letters. There are text-stops of open circles filled with red. On folio 101a, between two sections of text, there are some curious letter forms and undeciphered writing.

The copy has been collated (collation notes on folios 15b, 19b, 23b, 34b, 38a, 43a, 49a, 54a, 63a, 75a, 78a, 120b, 127b). There are frequent scribal corrections in the margins as well as later marginal corrections and annotations, some marked by the letter ظ or صح. Several of the folios have been incorrectly foliated using European numerals; for example, on folios 24b−25a a Western hand has written 23a at the bottom of 24b and 23b at the top of 25a. On folios 38 and 160−7 there is evidence of marginalia, written vertically, having been cut off when the edges were trimmed for rebinding.

One owner has written on folio 1a that it is the end of Kitāb al-Miftāḥ, perhaps suggesting that a now unidentified treatise preceded the present one. In the middle of the title page there are five lines extolling the benefits of eating celery (karafs).

The talismanic expression yā kabīkaj (O buttercup), used to repel bookworms, occurs at the top of the title page.

SAUG § 7m, p. 124 (306)

References

A collection of four medical poems, of which the last two are assigned to Ibn al-Zaqqāq al-Andalusī, also called al-Balansī. The collection has been carefully copied by the person transcribing Galen’s commentary on the Hippocratic treatise On Prognostics (see first entry of this volume).

The copy is unsigned and undated. The appearance of the paper, ink, and script suggests a dating of before the end of the seventh/thirteenth century, possibly in Syria or Egypt.

It appears to be a complete copy of four short poems.

Dimensions 25.3 × 17.2 (text area 18.6 × 11.8) cm; 16–17 lines per page. The author of two of the poems is named as Ibn al-Zaqqāq al-Andalusī on folio 171a10.

The text area is frame-ruled. The text is written in a large Naskh with occasional vocalization in dense-black ink with headings and text-stops (groups of 3 dots) in red ink. The letters sīn and rāʾ have háčeks, and the letter dāl has a dot beneath. There are frequent ligatures of alifs with following letters.

There are no marginalia in this section of the volume.

References