Muhammad al-Gazari, Fragment

Type: Fragment

Date: ?

Setting: Persia?

Produced By/For: Muhammad al-Gazari?

Contents: Unidentified fragment of a prayer text?

Shelf Mark: MS Victoria 1981-003

Location: Shelf 02/J/24 (Acc. 1981-003)

Description by Jan Just Witkam, Professor of Paleography and Codicology of the Islamic World, Faculty of Humanities, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands (2010)

MS Victoria 1981-003

Arabic, indigenous paper, one single leaf with text on either side, 23.2 × 13.5 cm, expert naskh script likely to have been written in Persia, 10 lines to the page, text set within a double frame (blue and gold, and between the two frames is illumination work with floral motifs), apparently originating from an elegantly executed copy. Undated, but in the library administration the year 1751 is mentioned, which cannot be corroborated by the manuscript. The fragment is now kept in a passe-partout.

Unidentified fragment of a prayer text. The prayer formulas are directed to God, who is addressed in the second person.

Notes on the portfolio and on a loose piece of paper, which is kept together with the manuscript, seem to indicate that this fragment originates from a copy of al-Ḥiṣn al-Ḥaṣīn min Kalām Sayyid al-Mursalīn by Muḥammad b. Muḥammad al-Ǧazarī (d. 833/1429), GAL G II, 203. This is in fact a rare work and I have not been able to consult it. In popularity it seems to have been superseded by the author’s own compendium ʿUddat al-Ḥiṣn al-Ḥaṣīn min Kalām Sayyid al-Mursalīn. Comparison of the Victoria fragment with the two printed editions of the ʿUdda which I did consult, did not yield any result. The added notes which identify the present leaf as a fragment of al-Ḥiṣn al-Ḥaṣīn, and the other evidently incorrect or unverifiable details which are given in them, do not mention a source, and they may have been part of information provided by an imaginative vendor. On the other hand, it is not impossible that this information, which was somehow added to the manuscript, but which cannot be verified on the present fragment, was available in other leaves of the same fragment before it possibly was split up in the antiquarian trade. Anyway, for the moment a positive identification with al-Ǧazarī’s work could not be established.

On the recto side is a chapter or section header, written in gold ink set against a blue background in cloud-like shape. The text of the header and the beginning of the prayer run as follows:

Added to the leaf are two sheets of paper with a handwritten tentative translation into English of the Arabic text, of which is said ‘translation by Abdullah (Art History Grad Student, 1985)’.

Also added is a slip of paper containing a typed description which contains the following mix of confusing, misleading, contradictory and suggestive information: ‘Al-Harzi,12 Mohamed | fl. 1751; Turkey or Persia | 2 pages; 1751 | Single leaf from 18th Century religious manuscript, “Hassi Hasin” (Prayer and Contemplation). Written in Arabic (probably in Turkey) in the Naskhi hand. May be an Ishmaeli text. Illuminated, gilded and decorated with a floral motif.’

Taken from The Islamic Manuscripts in the McPherson Library, University of Victoria, Victoria B.C. by Jan Just Witkam, Journal of Islamic Manuscripts 1 (2010), pp 101-142.

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