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A whole Majmūʿa copied? MS Majāmīʿ 315

In March, I returned to the Dār al-Kutub in Cairo and spent a whole week with their collection. Ibn Ṭūlūn’s name pops up very often in the different collections of the Dār al-Kutub. The earliest acquisitions are certainly found in the Taymūriyya Library, whereas the general collection seems to have made a bulk order of Ibn Ṭūlūn autographs only by the early 1930s.

Aḥmad Taymūr did not only acquire “originals”, however; he also created copies. One modern way of bridging the gap between both was photography, and Taymūr made ample use of it to create facsimiles of autographs. At literally the same time, he also hired copyists to ensure he had personal copies of Ibn Ṭūlūn texts. One of the most intriguing one is MS Majāmīʿ 315 because it is not a copy of one text but rather of an entire multiple-text manuscript.

Oddly enough, MS Majāmīʿ 315 does not have a call number referring to his own collection. Yet, it does carry his stamp on the first and last page, one time in red and another time in blue. It contains 533 pages of 22,7 x 17,2 cm, each filled with 15 lines of text. The writing is larger and spaces between lines – as well as the margins – are much more generous than in Ibn Ṭūlūn autographs. Together, this would account for the volume’s thickness.

Headings are written in red ink and larger script, being aligned centrally in the page. The paper is of good quality and of white color, the very prominent watermark reading “Gouvernement Egyptien 1915-1917”. The dating of the copy is made even more precise by a note below a contents statement on a separate leave: 1336/1917-18 (the copyist is not named). The leave is of brown color. On the top of it is stated that all works (rasāʾil) in this manuscript were originally authored by Ibn Ṭūlūn. The page’s center is occupied by the contents statement, which includes eleven entries:

  1. al-ʿUqūd al-durriyya fī al-umarāʾ al-miṣriyya
  2. Nafaḥāt al-zahr fī dhawq ahl al-ʿaṣr
  3. Al-taʿrīf li-fann al-taṣḥīf
  4. Araj al-nasamāt fī aʿmār al-makhlūqāt
  5. al-Mulḥa fīmā warada fī aṣl al-subḥa
  6. al-Naḥla li-mā warada fī al-nakhla
  7. Ibtisām al-thughūr ʿammā qīla fī nafʿ al-zuhūr
  8. Laqsh al-ḥanak fīmā warada fī al-samak
  9. Risāla fī al-fīl [incomplete at the beginning]
  10. Sharḥ al-ṣudūr fīmā ruwiya fī al-fakhkh wa-l-ʿuṣfūr
  11. Tuḥfat al-aḥbāb fī manṭaq al-ṭayr wa-l-dawābb

Taymūr had this copy made from a manuscript containing exclusively Ibn Ṭūlūn autographs. It is now, and might have been back then, part of the library of the Baladiyya of Alexandria. Stephan Conermann records it in his biographical article of Ibn Ṭūlūn as MS Alex. Fun. 183. According to Conermann, it does contain 14 textual units in total, including all of those mentioned above. Even though it might seem like unnecessary repetition, I will reproduce the list for MS Alex. Fun. 183 here:

  1. Ijāza
  2. al-Naḥla li-mā warada fī al-nakhla
  3. ʿUnwān al-rasāʾil li-maʿrifat al-awāʾil [includ.: al-Arbaʿīn ḥadīthan fī ḍamn ʿunwān al-rasāʾil fī maʿrifat al-awāʾil]
  4. Irtiyāḥ al-khawāṭir fī maʿrifat al-awākhir
  5. Risāla fī al-fīl
  6. Laqs al-ḥanak fīmā qīla fī al-samak
  7. Sharḥ al-ṣudūr fīmā ruwiya fī al-fakhkh wa-l-ʿuṣfūr
  8. Ibtisām al-thughūr fīmā qīla fī nafʿ al-zuhūr
  9. Tuḥfat al-aḥbāb fī manṭaq al-ṭayr wa-l-dawābb
  10. Araj al-nasamāt fī aʿmār al-makhlūqāt
  11. al-Mulḥā fīmā warada fī al-subḥa
  12. Nafaḥāt al-zahr fī dhawq ahl al-ʿaṣr
  13. al-Taʿrīf fī fann al-taṣḥif
  14. al-ʿUqūd al-durriyya fī al-ʿumarāʾ al-miṣriyya

Two things should become immediately apparent in a comparison between both contents statements. First, what was taken out? Taymūr apparently shed his own recreation of the manuscript from all works related to ḥadīth transmission (in bold), including the ijāza (although this entry probably refers to Ibn Ṭūlūn’s original contents statement, which was a preferred place for people to document their ijāzas from him). While the two works, ʿunwān al-rasāʾil and Irtiyāḥ al-khawāṭir, were also copied, they were put in separate manuscripts. This obviously sets the remaining works in a very different framework than the original one.

Other ḥadīth works are kept, this knowledge is not declared void. But the genres dedicated to documenting the transmission itself seems not to have had any value for Taymūr. Secondly, this coincides with a restructuring of the manuscript, putting the once final text on rulers of Egypt first. Also, the longest work, Nafaḥāt al-zahr fī dhawq ahl al-ʿaṣr, is moved up to second place. Other works, discussing certain wildlife themes, have been brought into a more systematic form, beginning now with the general makhlūqāt and only later addressing specific kinds of flora and fauna: the date palm, flowers, fish, birds, and mounts or pack animals (I am uncertain, however, whether Ibn Ṭūlūn really talks about elephants or rather the Quranic Sura by that name).

Even though the multiple-text manuscript is not reproduced exactly as it was, MS Majāmīʿ 315 is exemplary in that it selects and reshapes the contents of only this one source manuscript.

 


OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Torsten Wollina (April 22, 2018). A whole Majmūʿa copied? MS Majāmīʿ 315. Damascus Anecdotes. Retrieved April 27, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/ur5o


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