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Lot Essay
The author Sulayman bin Ahmad al-Mahri al-Quda’i al-Suqutri is related to Muhra bin Haydar of the Quda’a tribe and is said to have been the pupil of Ahmad bin Majid, an astronomer and navigator. He wrote treatises on seamanship and on the routes between the Middle East and India, Java and China. He wrote risalas, including epistles from his master Ibn Majid, that were published in French by Gabriel Ferrand (Al-Zerekly, Al-A'lam, Biographical Dictionary, Beirut, 2007, vol.V, p.121)
There do not appear to be copies of this work in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, the John Rylands Library, Manchester and the British Library, London. Copies of the other works by the author are in libraries in Paris, Kabul, Cairo, New Haven and Rampur. For more on this see Boris A. Rosenfeld and Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Mathematicians, Astronomers, and Other Scholars of Islamic Civilization and their works (7th-19th century), Istanbul, 2003, no.956, 320-21.
The colophon of our manuscript states that it was copied from the original copy in Bandar Jeddah (the Port of Jeddah) by the seaman (mu'allim al-bahr) 'Ali bin Ahmad al-Suqutri, His nisba indicates that he was from the island of Socotra, an island and three islets in the Indian Ocean and an offshore territory of Yemen, near the horn of Somalia.
There do not appear to be copies of this work in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, the John Rylands Library, Manchester and the British Library, London. Copies of the other works by the author are in libraries in Paris, Kabul, Cairo, New Haven and Rampur. For more on this see Boris A. Rosenfeld and Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Mathematicians, Astronomers, and Other Scholars of Islamic Civilization and their works (7th-19th century), Istanbul, 2003, no.956, 320-21.
The colophon of our manuscript states that it was copied from the original copy in Bandar Jeddah (the Port of Jeddah) by the seaman (mu'allim al-bahr) 'Ali bin Ahmad al-Suqutri, His nisba indicates that he was from the island of Socotra, an island and three islets in the Indian Ocean and an offshore territory of Yemen, near the horn of Somalia.