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Catalogue: Dietetics and Regimen

Cosmetics:

Muṣannaf fī al-ghāliyah (MS A 35, item 1): (A Treatise on Ghaliyah); مصنف فى غالية; by Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī (d. 1505/911); جلال الدين السيوطى

The 15th-century encyclopaedist and scholar al-Suyūṭī, composed a brief essay on a perfume called ghāliyah, which was made of musk and ambergris. This treatise occurs in a volume of three short essays and ten maqamahs by al-Suyūṭī, a maqamah being a type of rhymed prose. This discourse on the perfume ghāliyah is one of the three prose essays.

The manuscript at NLM (MS A 35) containing the essays and maqamahs by al-Suyūṭī is closely related to the Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, MS We. 193, copied about 1800, which contains copies of all but the last item in NLM MS A 35, in precisely the same order. A copy of the essay on the perfume ghaliyah (Muṣannaf fī al-ghāliyah) is found in Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, MS We. 193, fols. 1a-2a (see Ahlwardt, Berlin no. 8569).

The treatise has not been published in a modern translation or edition.

Muṣannaf fī al-ghāliyah (MS A 35 item 1)

Illustrations

Folio 1b from MS A 25 which features the title folio of Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī's Muṣannaf fī al-ghāliyah (A Treatise on Ghaliyah). The biscuit, glossy paper has horizontal laid lines, single chain lines, and watermarks (initials). The paper is waterstained, especially at the top. The text is written in a medium-small naskh script. The text area is frame-ruled. Black ink was used with headings red and red shading of some words.

MS A 35, fol. 1b

Folio 2a from MS A 25 which features the second and final folio of Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī's Muṣannaf fī al-ghāliyah (A Treatise on Ghaliyah). The biscuit, glossy paper has horizontal laid lines, single chain lines, and watermarks (initials). The paper is waterstained, especially at the top. The text is written in a medium-small naskh script. The text area is frame-ruled. Black ink was used with headings red and red shading of some words.

MS A 35, fol. 2a

The essay on the perfume called ghāliyah written by al-Suyūṭī (d. 1505/911). The copy was completed by the copyist Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Ḥalwānī al-Shāfi‘ī in 1001 [= 1593].

Physical Description

Arabic. 2 leaves (fols. 1b-2a). Dimensions 20.4 x 14.6 (text area 15.5 x 9.5) cm; 23 lines per page. The title Muṣannaf fī al-ghāliyah is given on the title page (fols. 1a). The title of the volume is given as Majmu‘at maqamat al-uyūṭī ("A collection of maqamahs by al-Suyūṭī") in a recent owner's penciled label on the front endpaper. The author's name is given at the end of the second item (fol. 4a lines 12-14) as Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī, but on the title page (fol. 1a) and in the other individual items as: Jalāl al-Suyūṭī.

All but the last item in this volume were copied by the same copyist. In the colophon item 9 (fol. 30 line 13), it is stated that the copyist Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Ḥalwānī al-Shāfi‘ī completed the copy on 16 Ramadan 1001 [= 16 June 1593].

The text is written in a medium-small naskh script showing some North African influence. The text area is frame-ruled. Black ink was used with headings red and red shading of some words; there are red teardrop text stops and catchwords.

The biscuit, glossy paper has horizontal laid lines, single chain lines, and watermarks (initials). Fol. 43 is dyed yellow. The paper is waterstained, especially at the top of the volume, and it is soiled with thumbing. The edges have been trimmed from their original size.

The volume consists of 51 leaves and 1 end leaf. Fol. 1a is the title page for the entire volume. It contains three short essays and ten maqamahs (a type of rhymed prose), all by al-Suyūṭī. Item 1 (fols. 1b-2a) is Muṣannaf fī al-ghāliyah here catalogued; item 2 (fols. 2a-4a) Nathl al-kattān fī al-kushknān (MS A 35, item 2); item 3 (fols. 4a-6a) al-Maqāmah al-fustuqīyah (MS A 35, item 3); item 4 (fols. 6a-8b) Naḍrah fī aḥādīth al-mā’ wa-al-riyāḍ (MS A 35, item 4); item 5 (fols. 8b-11b) al-Dhararī fī abnā al-sarāarī (MS A 35, item 5); item 6 (fols. 11b-14b) Maqāmah fī waṣf rawdah misr tasammá Bulbul al-rawḍah (MS A 35, item 6); item 7 (fols. 14b-18a) al-Maqāmah al-zumurrudīyah (MS A 35, item 7); item 8 (fols. 18a-22b) al-Maqāmah al-yāqūtīyah (MS A 35, item 8); item 9 (fols. 22b-30a) Manhal fī al-kunāfah wa-al-qaṭā'if (MS A 35, item 9); item 10 (fols. 30a-37a) Maqāmah al-rayāḥīn tasammá al-Maqāmah al-wardīyah (MS A 35, item 10); item 11 (fols. 37a-42a) al-Maqāmah al-miskīyah (MS A 35, item 11); item 12 (fols. 42a-50b) al-Maqāmah al-tuffā (MS A 35, item 12); and item 13 (fols. 51a-51b) Risālah fī al-khitān by al-Simillāwī (MS A 35, item 13). Fol. [1] at the end of the volume is blank but for small pious invocations; its paper is of later date.

Binding

The volume is bound in a red leather modern library binding. There are modern paper pastedowns and endpapers.

Provenance

Various owners' signatures are on the title page (fol. 1a), including one by Ismā‘īl ibn Abī Bakr al-Kharrāṭ al-Ḥanafī al-Dimashqī dated 1054 (1644-45) and Muḥammad ibn Sulayman al-Kanāfī (undated).

The volume was purchased in 1941 by the Army Medical Library from A. S. Yahuda (ELS 5043).

References

Schullian/Sommer, Cat. of incun. & MSS., entry A35, p. 309 (the specific items are not itemized)

NLM Microfilm Reel: FILM 48-119 no. 2