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Materials for South Arabian History

Notes on new MSS from W24;adramant

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

R. B. Serjeant
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Extract

The Mss. herein described were purchased, copied, or recorded during a tour V A in Hadramawt as Colonial Research Fellow. Besides visiting the main ”f Wadi lying between Kabr Hūd and Hainin, I made investigations in the Wādī f Daw‘an, Huraida in ‘Amd, and in the course of a journey from Bal-Hᾶf, on the I coast, to Habbān on the western fringe of Wāhidi territory. Time did not I allow of a systematic recording of all existing MSS., which can be seen in i hundreds, especially as this formed only part of my programme, but those described here are the more interesting MSS. inspected. A similar tour seems to have been performed by Dr. Hamidullah in the Yemen shortly before my own investigations in Hadramawt.

The many scholars, mostly saiyids, whom I met in Hadramawt gave generously of their assistance, often placing MSS. freely at my disposal; I must; mention in particular the ‘Attās family of Huraida, and Sālih b. ‘Alī al-Hāmidī of Saiwūn. On the other hand, I have been informed, I have no means of assessing how accurately, that there are occasional individuals in the country I who possess some valuable MSS. but would rather see them moulder to pieces ‘ than show them to strangers. I understand that some saiyids keep their books in the women's part of the house, as in learned saiyid society books are reckoned fair game to the casual borrower who succeeds in abstracting them while the owner is not looking.

For anyone wishing to discover new MSS.

Type
Research Article
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , June 1950 , pp. 281 - 307
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1950

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References

page 281 note 1 See Islamic Culture (Haidarabad, 1947), xxi, iv, pp. 423 and 425. Dr. Hamidullah had, of course, the important advantage of being a Muslim and this would allow him access to mosque libraries, a privilege which in conservative Tarim, for instance, would hardly be accorded me. Christians are here avoided by the more religious, and Jews are not allowed within the sacred territory of Hadramawt. Dr. Hamidullah mentions a printed descriptive catalogue of the Library of the Grand Mosque of San‘ā’, which has not found its way to Europe, but which would, no doubt, be most valuable to have.

page 282 note 1 See Wüstenfeld, F., Die (lufiten in Süd-Arabien) (Göttingen, 1883)Google Scholar, throughout.

page 282 note 2 Appendices to Hādir al’ Ālam al-Islāmī, p. 164 (see list of authorities consulted).

page 282 note 3 Tar. Sh. Had., i, p. 3 (see list of authorities consulted).

page 283 note 1 As a preliminary it would be best to list the works on fikh quoted in Tar. Sh. Had., the majority of whioh would probably be found in Hadramawt.

page 283 note 2 Bindings are mostly Perso-Indian in style and present no features of interest. In academio Tarim I visited the local bookbinder, a saiyid, hoping to find with him a local tradition in book-binding, but he had learned his craft, which he plied indifferently well, in India, such tools as he used being of crude local manufacture, differing little from those used in Europe. Scholars write their compositions in quires which are then sent to be bound. Illustrated MSS. are not, and indeed oould not be, found in a country so orthodox.

page 283 note 3 “Le Plus Ancien Voyage d'un occidental en Hadramaout (1590)”, Bull, de la Société Royale de Géographie d’ Égypte (Cairo, 1933), xviii, ii, p. 151.

page 283 note 4 Printed in Aden without title or date, but after 1941 and before 1947, at the Fatāt Press.

page 284 note 1 For an account of the episode, see F. Wüstenfeld, op. cit.

page 284 note 2 In this genealogy, transcribed about thirty to fifty years ago, the line was traced back to Muhammad. Where a line became extinct a , i.e. “ died without offspring ” was written in red. Sometimes the places where these saiyids died are mentioned, and occasionally the names of the mothers are noted.

page 284 note 3 It is intended to treat the modern literary movement in Hadramawt and Indonesia in a later artiole.

page 285 note 1 Section I, Part II, and Section II will be published in BSOAS. XIII, part 3.

page 286 note 1 1 have heard that Saiyid ‘Abd al-Rahmān, a personage much esteemed in Hadramawt, has died since I left Tarīm. Every traveller, myself not excepted, owes much to the assistance and liberality of the Āl Kāf family.

page 288 note 1 Vocalized as pronounced. The metre seems to be .

page 289 note 1 Löfgren, op. oit., p. 131, wrongly spells this al-Shaibānī, no doubt mīsled by a badly written v sign over the sīn.

page 292 note 1 In Aden there has appeared (without date, title, or author) a summary or index to the yet imprinted poem of the well-known saiyid ‘Abd al-Rahmān b. ‘Ubaidallāh Al-Sakkāf entitled Badā’i‘ al-Tābūt fī Tārīkh Ha4ramūt, which gives some indication of the main events in Hadrami history, unfortunately unprovided with dates.

page 294 note 1 Mukallā MS., p.30.

page 294 note 2 ibid., p. 85.

page 294 note 3 ibid., pp. 169 and 222. The buka is the name of a contemporary Yemenite coin to-day.

page 294 note 4 ibid., p. 254.

page 294 note 5 ibid., p. 376.

page 294 note 6 This is probably the poet whose biography is given in Tar. Sh. Had., iii, pp. 6 seq. He died in 1216/1801–2.

page 295 note 1 The following dialect words are found in the text: p. 122, cannon-ball (nowadays, a bullet); p. 200 fields; p. 257 a boat; p. 317, a messenger. All of these words are to be found in C. v. Landberg, , Glossaire Datînois (Leiden, 1920–42).Google Scholar The Indian words clerk (p. 121) and Hindu, also commonly used to-day, were apparently in use at this period. A Turk is a “Rümī”. (Mukallā MS.)

page 296 note 1 For al-Mashra‘ al-Rawī, see Brock., Sup., ii, p. 617. Though not mentioned by Brock, there is actually a printed text of this work which I have seen (Cairo, 1319 H.). affāf is item no. viii of the.

page 299 note 1 Tar. Sh. Had. says the Bā Hassān are a section of the famous Ḥaḥramī tribe of Kinda, on the authority of the Sabā’ik al-. I was informed that he was known as al-ihr¯.

page 299 note 2 This history must carefully be distinguished from that of known in Hadramawt as Tärī Bā Hasan. Both of these works are quoted in Abū 's preface, as sources to his Ḳilādat al-Naḥr. Mr. A. Watts has since informed me that he had a brief glance at a copy of this history in the possession of Saiyid ‘Abd al-Ilāh Bā-Faḳīh of Tarim.

page 300 note 1 These titles (nos. 11–14) are not known to the Ka f al-Ẓunūn, but no. 12 was to be found in Ḥaḍramawt within quite recent times as I met several scholars who claimed to have seen it.

page 304 note 1 1 was informed that the upper road (al-Ṭārīḵ al-Ṭāli‘ī) is by way of , , , and Aden.