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The Oldest Illustrated Arabic Manuscript

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

D. S. Rice
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Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , June 1959 , pp. 207 - 220
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1959

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References

1 Such diagrams are found in works ranging from treatises on speech (tajwīd) to ophthalmology, from manuale on the art of war (furūsiya) to automata. An excellent article by K. Weitzmann, ‘The Greek sources of Islamic scientiflc illustrations’, in Archaeologica orientalia, in memoriam E. Herzfeld, ed. Miles, G. C., New York, 1952, 247Google Scholar, shows how e.g. in the ninth-century translation of Heron's Mechanics ‘drawings of the Greek model were copied with no change in the eharacter of the design’. For other examples cf. Meyerhof, M., The book of the ten treatises on the eye ascribed to Ḥunain ibn Isḥāq, Cairo, 1928Google Scholar, also Taymur, A. and Ḥasan, Z., al-taṣwīr 'ind al-'arab, Cairo, 1942, p. 35.Google Scholar

2 One of the most remarkable manuscripts in this group is the dispersed Dioscurides of 1224 in which some of the miniatures verge on genre painting; cf. Buchthal, H., ‘Early Islamic miniatures from Baghdad’, Journal of the Walters Art Gallery, v, 1942, 19 ff.Google Scholar

3 Rosen, V., Les manuscrits arabes de I'Institut des Langues Orientales, St. Petersburg, 1877, p. 118Google Scholar, no. 185; Schiellerup, H. C. F., Description des étoiles fixes par Abd al Rahman al Suji, St. Petersburg, 1874Google Scholar; Holter, K., ‘Die Islamischen Miniaturhandschriften vor 1350’, Zentralblatt filr Bibliothekswesen (Leipzig), LIV, 1937Google Scholar, p. 3, no. 1; Buchthal, H., Kurz, O., and Ettinghausen, R., ‘Supplementary notes’, Ars Islamica, VII, 1940, 148.Google Scholar

4 MS Marsh 144, to be added to Holter's list.

5 cf. Stern, S. M., art. ‘'Abd al-Rahmān b. 'Umar al-Sūfī’, El, new ed., i, Fasc. 2, 1954, 86Google Scholar f. On ‘Uṭārid b. Muhammad see al-Qifṭī, Ibn, ta'rīkh al-hukamā’, ed. Lippert, J., Leiden, 1891, p. 251;Google Scholaral-Nadim, Ibn, fihrist, p. 278.Google Scholar

1 Mas'ūdī kitāb al-tanbīh wal-ishrāf, Cairo, 1938, pp. 92 ffGoogle Scholar.; cf. also Christensen, A., L'Iran sous les Sassanides, 2nd ed., Copenhague, 1944, 67 f.Google Scholar

2 Schlumberger, D., ‘Deux fresques omeyyades’, Syria, xxv, 1948, esp. pl. A.Google Scholar

3 Fihrist, ed. Flügel, G., Leiden, 1871, i, p. 347,Google Scholar

4 In the Leiden MS a space of three lines is reserved after the wordsIn other MSS the text is unbroken; cf. ibid., ii, p. 182.

1 Kalīla wa Dimna, ed. DeSacy, S., Paris, 1816, p. 58.Google Scholar

2 cf. Brockelmann, C., art. ‘Kalila wa-Dimna’, El, ii, 1927, 694Google Scholar ff.; Buchthal, H., ‘Indian fables in Islamic art’, JRAS, 1941, 317–24.Google Scholar

3 Goldschmidt, A., An early manuscript of the Aesop Fables of Avianus and rdateA mannscripts, Princeton, 1947, p. 2.Google Scholar

4 cf. Holter, , op. cit., nos. 19Google Scholar ff., also Buchthal, H., ‘ “Hellenistic” miniatures in early Islamic manuscripts’, Ars Islamica, vii, 1940, 123, 133.Google Scholar

5 Grohmann, A. and Arnold, Th., The Islamic book, Munich, 1929, p. 23, and colour-plate I.Google Scholar

6 The same fallacy is repeated by Diringer, D., The illuminated book, London, 1958, 205.Google Scholar

1 Grohmann and Arnold, The Islamic book, 24.

2 In 1955 I was able to examine and photograph this fragment in Vienna. My thanks are due to Dr. Franz Unterkireher, Director of the Manuscript Collection, for the facilities extended to me.

3 The fourth line is very carelessly written. The letterswere first omitted inthen written over the. But the characteristic features of the last syllable are to be seen in the preccding line in the wordSimilar, too, are the triangular heads of fā and qâf in the fourth line and the same letters in farraqa in line 2. A photograph taken in ultra-violet light showed all the writing with equal intensity and the same ink appears to have been used throughout.

1 Savignac, R. P., ‘La région d'ain Qedeis’, Revue Biblique, xxxi, 1922, 74.Google Scholar

2 cf. fihrist, p. 306.Google Scholar

3 Al-ISfahānī, k. al-aghānī, Bülāq, 1285, xx, pp. 152–8.Google Scholar

4 Ibn, Qutaiba, k. alshi'r wal-shu‘arā ed. Goeje, de, Leiden, 1902, pp. 394–9.Google Scholar

1 al-Sarrāj, Ja'far b. Ahmad, maSāri'-l-'ushshāq, edition of a.d., 1301, pp. 209–11.Google Scholar

2 ibid., p. 139.

3 ibid., p. 172.

4 laila, Alf Laila wa, ed. Būlāq, 1251, vol. ii, pp. 166Google Scholar ff.; Lane, E. W., The thousand and one nights, London, 1851, iii, 238–42Google Scholar; Sir Burton, R. F., The Book of thousand nights and a night, London, 1843, v, 289–94.Google Scholar

5 The reader will find it useful here to refer to the colour-plate in Grohmann and Arnold, The Islamic book, see above, p. 209, n. 5.

1 Fihrist, ed. Flügel, p. 306.

2 ibid., p. 308.

3 cf. Weitzmann, K., ‘An early Copto-Arabic miniature in Leningrad ’, Ars Islamica, x, 1953, p. 120, fig. 1.Google Scholar

4 A sample of the script was reproduced by H. L. Heischer, ‘Beschreibung der von Prof. Tischendorf im Jahre 1853 aus dem Morgenlande zurüekgebrachten christlich-arabischen Hand- schriften’, ZDMQ, vin, 1857, who correctly dated it before the portion of the MS bearing the colophon turnedup, ZDMO, xv, 1861, 385.

5 Abbott, N., ‘A ninth century fragment of the “Thousand Nīghts”&, JNES, viii, 1949, esp. pl. XVI and pp. 129Google Scholar ff. The MS cannot be later than 266/879. See also Vajda, G., Album de paléographie arabe, Paris, 1958, pl. 4 (New Testament dated A.D. 902).Google Scholar

1 Ritter, H., ‘Autographs in Turkish libraries’, Oriens, vi, 1953, 1969. The MS in the University Library, Istanbul.Google Scholar

2 cf. Brockelmann, GAL, Supp., i, 487.

3 Or. 2790; see for further references Rieu, Ch., Supplement to the catcdogue of the Arabic manuscripts in the BM, London, 1894, 636.Google Scholar

4 Rice, D. S., ‘Deacon or drink: some paintings of Samarra re-examined’, Arabica, v, 1958, esp. pp. 29 ff. and pls. VI-VIII.Google Scholar

1 Chenery, Th., The Assemblies of al-Harīrī, London, 1876, i, 164.Google Scholar

2 cf. Holter, K., Die Galen-Handschrift und die Madāmen des Harīrī der Wiener National-bibliothek, Wien, 1937, 20.Google Scholar

3 Reference is made in each instance to Holter's handlist and the supplement to it, see above, p. 207, n. 3.

1 cf. Buchthal, H., ‘Three illustrated Harīrī manuscripts in the British Museum’, Burlington Magazine, LXXVII, 1940, 144–152.Google Scholar

2 Not in Holter's list. See Mayer, L. A., ‘A hitherto unknown Damascene artist’, Ars Islamica, IX, 1942, 168.Google Scholar

3 cf. Rice, D. S., ‘A miniatu?e in an autograph of Shihāb al-dīn Ibn Fadlallāh al-'Umarī’, BSOAS, xiii, 4, 1951, 862 f.Google Scholar

4 I intend to demonstrate at a later date that some miniatures in this MS must be based on a model which was earlier than both the ‘Sehefer’ Harīrī and the Leningrad copy.

1 The script is consistent with a much later dating than that proposed by Mingana, , Catalogue of the Arabic manuscrvpts in the John Rylands Library, Manchester, 1934, pp. 929–31Google Scholar, who would like to recognize in some owners' marks traces of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries (ibid., p. 931 (4)).

2 cf. e.g. Sauvaget, J., Les monumente ayyoubides de Damas, Paris, 1948, p. 137Google Scholar, fig. 86; Wulzinger, K. and Watzinger, C., Damaskus, die islamische Stadt, Berlin, 1924, pl. 10b.Google Scholar

3 See above, p. 209, n. 4.