Arabic MS 615 (The John Rylands Research Institute and Library, The University of Manchester)

Title given in the colophon on folio

The dispute is kept up in prose and verse until the end of the book, when a Shaikh ul-Islām called al-Shaikh ʿAbd al-Labari (الشيخ عبد اللبري) decides the case by awarding an equality of merit to both parties, and thus effects a reconciliation.

The work is anonymous, and before every piece of poetry the author refers to himself as قال انشد مولف الكلام هذه الابيات, and on folio 19a as فاجاب المولف عليه بهذا الجواب.

On folio 35a we meet with مولف الحكاية ('the author of the story').

In the introduction, the author writes that the first man who invented coffee-drinking was al-Shaikh ʿUmar al-Shādhilī (الشخ عمر الشاذلي) of the town of Mocha (المخا) in Yemen, for the purpose of keeping men awake in religious prayers. The first man who invented tobacco-smoking was, according to the author, Saidi(?) Jamāl al-Dīn Yūsuf(سيدي جمال الدين يوسف), of the town of Misrātah in Morocco (مسراته بالمغرب).