Islamic science, math, and philosophy
[A compendium of sciences, including chemistry and philosophy].
8vo (150 x 202 mm). 156 ff. Arabic manuscript on watermarked paper. Fine black naskh script with important words and phrases overlined in red. 19th century tooled leather binding, rebacked and spine replaced.
€ 7,500.00
A manuscript compendium of the Islamic sciences, from chemistry to philosophy, penned in a tidy naskh script with occasional small diagrams and charts. Though its authorship is not stated, it may have been compiled by its scribe, a man by the name of Mohammad al-Mostafa ibn Shamseddin, who signed upon completing his manuscript in Jumada al-Thani, 1244 H (December, 1828 CE).
The manuscript boasts often extensive commentary in the margins, sometimes arranged in the traditional series of slanting zig-zags around the text. Sections cover law, logic, chemistry, philosophy, and mathematics, with handy charts provided to aid a reader in their multiplication tables.
The manuscript likely spent some of its early years in Qajar Iran, based on an ownership inscription in Persian on a later flyleaf, though it may have also been penned in the Ottoman Empire in what is now Iraq; its watermarks, though thus far unidentified, may be the work of Ottoman papermakers. Regardless of its exact origins, it is a thorough and handsomely penned summary of the Islamic sciences, as they were known and used through the 19th century.
Paper shows two watermarks. The first is two circles stacked vertically, the higher circle with a Greek cross inside, and topped with a three-pointed crown. The second is a large coat of arms.
Binding worn, spine replaced. Marginal paper repairs throughout, with only two pages with soiling which obscures text.
