Sharh al-Asbab [wa'l-Alamat],

dedicated to Ulugh Begh

This is a medical manuscript by Nafis ibn 'Iwad ibn Hakim Kermani (d. 1449) written as a commentary and response to a work with the same title by Najib al-din al-Samarqandi (d. 1222). This work was compiled in Samarqand in 1424 and dedicated to the ruler at the time, Ulugh beg. The text remained relevant for centuries after it's completion and this example was probably compiled in Tehran in the end of the eighteenth- or early nineteenth-century.

Three copies of this work are in the Bodleian Library, Oxford (see E. Savage–Smith, A New Catalogue of Arabic Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Oxford 2011, pp. 499–505, no. 128. See also C. Brockelmann, GAL, I, 491 (646); S. I, 895).

Single volume, decorated manuscript on paper, in Arabic and Farsi, 225 leaves, 300 x 215 mm; single column, 26 lines informal black naskh script, overlining in red, contemporary and later marginal annotations, catch-words throughout, later ownership inscriptions and notes to endpapers, a few stains and smudges, some small nicks and tears so margins (a few with slight loss); contemporary blind-stamped black morocco over pasteboards, covers a little soiled, spine worn with slight loss, extremities rubbed.