istac library: manuscripts

ISTAC is in possession of five extremely important and valuable manuscripts:

  1. Kitab al-Tafhim li Awa’il Sina‘at al-Tanjim (Instruction in the Elements of the Art of Astrology)

    by the famous tenth century astronomer Abu'l-Rayhan Muhammad Ibn Ahmad al-Biruni (A.C. 973-1048), which is the earliest known Persian example of the first major work on the mathematical sciences. ISTAC's manuscript is dated A.H. 593 (A.C. 1197). Al-Biruni is one of the great figures of Islamic literature---he has been described as "the most original and profound scholar Islam has produced in the domain of natural science." This work acquired by ISTAC is therefore an extremely important Islamic scientific manuscript and covers the fields of astrology, astronomy, arithmetic, and geometry.

  2. Jam'i al-Qawa'id fi 'Ilm al-Jabr (A Compendium of Principles in the Science of Algebra)

    of Taj al-Din Abi al-Hasan 'Ali b. Abi Muhammad 'Abdullah b. al-Hasan b. Abi Bakr al-Ardabili (1278-1345 A.C.).This manuscript, in a very fine tooled Mamluk brown Morocco binding, is dated 794 A.H. (1391-1392 A.C.) and is a unique copy of an unknown early Mamluk work on algebra. Al-Ardabili was educated in Baghdad and later moved to Cairo, where he taught fiqh and lived the rest of his life under the Bahri Mamluks (1250-1389 A.H.). He wrote several works on mathematics, fiqh, and philosophy, but no other works on mathematics appear to have survived. This edition of Jami' al-Qawa'id is written in the hand of his own pupil who probably took it directly from the author's holograph.

  3. Marasid al-Maqasid and al-Majisti (Observatories of Meanings and The Almagest)

    dated 666 A.H. (1267 A.C.) and signed by the author: ‘Uthman b. Muhammad b. Abi Bakr al-Shirazi. This is a unique holograph of an unknown work by a contemporary of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi. Although the author is unknown, he probably worked within the circle of the astronomer Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (1201-1274 A.C.), the head of the great Ilkhanid observatory at Maragha. Stylistically, this work compares well with ISTAC's own copy of al-Biruni's Kitab al-Tafhim of 1197 A.C. The subject of the manuscript is geometry, trigonometry, mathematics, algebra, astronomy and the use of astronomical instruments.

  4. Fath al-Fathiyah (Commentary on al-Fathiyah)

    dated 890 A.H. (1485 A.C.) with a signed holograph by the author: Mahmud b. Muhammad al-Rumi, known as Miram Chalabi (d. 1525 A.C.). This is an early holograph by the celebrated Ottoman astronomer, Miram Chalabi (Çelebi), who was one of the earliest astronomers of note at the Ottoman court at the time of Mehmet II (1444-1446, 1451-1481 A.C.), the Conqueror (al-Fatih) of Constantinople (Istanbul) and his successors. Mehmet's victory over the Akkoyunlu Uzun Hasan in 1473 gave the treatise al-Fathiyah its name. This treatise by Miram's colleague and contemporary, 'Ala al-Din 'Ali b. Muhammad al-Qushji (d. 1474 A.C.), was the subject of the Fath al-Fathiyah. The work in ISTAC's possession was written during the reign of Mehmet's successor Beyazit 11 (1481-1512 A.C.) and is done in very elegant black Ottoman naskh script, with occasional words and lines in red, diagrams in red, and black marginal notes in the same hand, each individually signed by the author. It is copiously illustrated with diagrams, including two fully coloured diagrams of a solar eclipse in red, brown, and blue-black, and is in very good condition.

  5. Hai'yat al-Aflak wa Harakat al-Nujum (The Forms of the Celestial Bodies and the Movements of the Stars)

    Written by Ahmad b. Muhammad b. Kathir al-Fargha'i (d. 833 A.C.),this work is a fine classical Ottoman edition of an early work on astronomy and a rare work from the earliest period of Islamic astronomy when the first observations were being made with fairly accurate instruments and when the Abbasid Caliph al-Ma’mun (813-832 A.C.) built an observatory near his Bayt al-Hikmah at Baghdad. Al-Fargha’i's work predates the much more famous book on similar topics Al-Mudkhil ila ‘Ilm Hay’at al-Aflak by Abu al-‘Abbas Ahmad al-Farghani (Afraganus). ISTAC's version dates from the era of the Istanbul Observatory built in 1579 under Murat III (1574-1595 A.C.). This manuscript contains several half-page diagrams in red and sometimes black, and four full-page diagrams in red and black. There is a bold opening basmallah in black thuluth, and an owner's seal on the inside cover. The flyleaf is creatively watermarked with a motif formed of three caftans