An Arabic grammar decorated with gold

Ibn al-Hajib. Al-Kafiyah.

€ 3,500.00

A popular medieval grammar of the Arabic language, composed by the Kurdish-Egyptian jurist and grammarian Uthman Ibn Umar, known as Ibn al-Hajib (1175-1249 CE). Born in Upper Egypt, Ibn al-Hajib was an international scholar who studied in Cairo and taught in Damascus in the time of the Crusades. In Damascus he taught in the Maliki zawiya of the Great Mosque, until he was expelled from the city after a disagreement with the Emir. His grammar was monumentally influential, as was his work as a jurist in melding the Maliki jurisprudence (one of the four traditional legal schools of Sunni Islam) of Egypt and the Maghreb.

This manuscript is split into three parts, each with their own illuminated 'unwan. Written on fine Ottoman paper with generous margins, each page is brilliantly ruled in gold.