Catalogue: Adab Literature

Tahdhīb al-akhlāq / Kitāb fī ḥifz al-akhlāq wa-al-iktisāb   (MS A 86, item 5)

(The Refinement of Character / Book on the Preservation of Character and the Acquisition of Property)

تهديب الاخلاق / كتاب فى حفظ الاخلاق والاكتساب

by Qiwām al-Dīn Muḥammad al-Ḥasanī (fl. 1694-1719/1106-1132)

قوام الدين محمد الحسنى

The copy at NLM was copied by a professional scribe for the author, whose stamps are in the volume, next to statement that he corrected and collated (balagha) the volume in the year 1132 [= 1719-1720]. Only one other copy of these five poems is recorded, and it is now in Mosul, in Iraq (Mosul, MS 294; see GAL-S, vol. 1 p. 826).

Arabic. 7 leaves (fols. 83a-90b). Dimensions 18.2 x 11.5; text area 13.7 x 8.2 cm; 16 lines per page. The title is given on the title page (fol. 1a) as Tahdhīb al-akhlāq (The Refinement of Character). On fol. 85a, line 15, it is given as Kitāb fī ḥifz al-akhlāq wa-al-iktisāb (The Book on the Preservation of Character and the Acquisition of Property).

The copy is undated, but was produced between 1700/1112, when the poem on arithmetic was written, and the year 1720/1132, when the author wrote, alongside his stamp, that he corrected the volume.

The text is written in a medium-small professional calligraphic naskh script, fully vocalized. The text area has been frame-ruled. There are scattered marginalia and textual corrections. The entire volume was copied by the same scribe. The copy was corrected (balagha) by the author himself in the year 1132 [1719-1720], for there are dated notes alongside the author's stamp later in the volume (fols. 72a and 90b).

The thin, lightly-glossed, brown paper is now quite discoloured. It is fibrous and has inclusions, with horizontal laid lines but no chain lines. It is stained and water damaged near the edges and some folios have been repaired.

The volume consists of 90 leaves. Fols. 46, 47a and 72b are blank. The first item (fols. 1b-45b) is the medical poem; the second item (fols. 47b-72a) is a poem on arithmetic; the third item (fols. 73a-79a) a poem on the astrolabe; the fourth item (fols. 79b-83a) a poem on calligraphy; and the final item (fols. 83a-90b) the poem on proper conduct here catalogued.

The volume is bound in a modern European library binding of pasteboards covered with brown leather. There are modern paper pastedowns and endpapers.

The volume was owned by the author, Qiwām al-Dīn Muḥammad al-Ḥasanī, whose stamp appears on fols. 72a and 90b, at the end of the second and fifth poems, alongside a hand written note that he corrected (balagha) the volume in the year 1132 [1719-1720].

The volume was purchased in 1941 by the Army Medical Library from A.S. Yahuda (ELS 1738 Med. 50).

Schullian/Sommer, Cat. of incun. & MSS., p. 326 entry A86, item 5, where it is said that the manuscript is "in the author's own hand."

NLM Microfilm Reel: FILM 48-129 no. 3.

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