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Lot Essay
Also known as Al-Kitab al-Malaki (The Royal Book), the Kitab Kamil al-Sina'ah al-Tibbiyah was dedicated to the Buyid ruler 'Adud al-Dawlah Fana-Khusraw (r. AH 338-72/949-83 AD). The text comprises two books. The first is on medical theory and is divided into ten sections or maqalahs, the second - similarly divided - is on therapeutics. 'Ali ibn al-'Abbas al-Majusi was of Persian extraction, and it is possible that his activities were restricted to Shiraz, and that he never actually left Iran. His forebears were Zorastrian, although he himself seems to have been Muslim (Emilie Savage-Smith, A New Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford - Volume I: Medicine, Oxford University Press, 2011, no. 50 A - G, pp. 193- 206).
There are seven copies of this work in the Bodleian Library including one copied by a scribe called Ibrahim ibn Amin Hajj ibn al-Qunyawi - indicating that he was from Konya where our manuscript was copied. The Bodleian copy is dated Ramadan 668/24th April-24th May 1270, about thirty years earlier than ours. The Museum of Islamic Art in Doha has another copy, written in Baghdad in AH 999/1590-91 AD (C. Brockelmann, Geschichte der Arabischen Litteratur, Leiden, 1996, i.237 (273), and i.423). Two further copies of this work are in the Haddad Collection in the Wellcome Library. The first copy comprises volumes I and II and is dated AH 838/1434 AD. Serikoff supplies a detailed list of the contents of both volumes (N. Serikoff, Arabic Medical Manuscripts of the Wellcome Library: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Haddad Collection, Brill, Leiden, 2005, nos. 409 & 410, pp. 64 - 96). There are also seven copies of this work in the British Library (C. Baker (ed.), Subject-Guide to the Arabic Manuscripts in the British Library, London, 2001, pp. 364-365). Two of the British Library copies are dated AH 548/1153 AD and AH 978/1570-76 AD. Another is datable to the 13th/14th century and the other four copies are datable to the 17th/18th century.
Our copy, which was copied in Konya under the last years of the Seljuks of Rum, is thus amongst the earliest recorded copies.
There are seven copies of this work in the Bodleian Library including one copied by a scribe called Ibrahim ibn Amin Hajj ibn al-Qunyawi - indicating that he was from Konya where our manuscript was copied. The Bodleian copy is dated Ramadan 668/24th April-24th May 1270, about thirty years earlier than ours. The Museum of Islamic Art in Doha has another copy, written in Baghdad in AH 999/1590-91 AD (C. Brockelmann, Geschichte der Arabischen Litteratur, Leiden, 1996, i.237 (273), and i.423). Two further copies of this work are in the Haddad Collection in the Wellcome Library. The first copy comprises volumes I and II and is dated AH 838/1434 AD. Serikoff supplies a detailed list of the contents of both volumes (N. Serikoff, Arabic Medical Manuscripts of the Wellcome Library: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Haddad Collection, Brill, Leiden, 2005, nos. 409 & 410, pp. 64 - 96). There are also seven copies of this work in the British Library (C. Baker (ed.), Subject-Guide to the Arabic Manuscripts in the British Library, London, 2001, pp. 364-365). Two of the British Library copies are dated AH 548/1153 AD and AH 978/1570-76 AD. Another is datable to the 13th/14th century and the other four copies are datable to the 17th/18th century.
Our copy, which was copied in Konya under the last years of the Seljuks of Rum, is thus amongst the earliest recorded copies.