Author
Ṣafī al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Muʾmin ibn Yūsuf al-Urmawī
Publication Date
8 Friday II 1073 (AH, Hijri)
Subject
1
Type
Book
Language
Arabic
Digital
Yes
Manuscript
Yes
Pages Count
1
Library
Qatar Digital Library
Library Asset ID
Or 2361, ff 68v-153r
Record ID
vdc_100131607039.0x00000d
Library Location
British Library: Oriental Manuscripts
Date
8 Friday II 1073 (AH, Hijri)
Notes
An extensive anonymous commentary on
Kitāb al-adwār fī ʿilm al-musīqī
(Book of walls in the science of music), by Ṣafī al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Muʾmin ibn Yūsuf al-Urmawī, including the entire text, overlined in red. The commentary is ascribed in the heading - a later addition - to one Mawlānā Mubarakshāh (Maulana Mubarakshah). The problematic identity of this individual is dicussed in El-Rouayheb, Khaled, '"Mubārakshāh the Logician": An Elusive Teacher in Mamluk Cairo'
Intellectual History of the Islamic World
(Leiden: Brill, 2019), pp. 1-1 1-2 The commentary includes a large number of tables and diagrams.
The author relates in the preface that while he was engaged in studying medicine, he wished to acquaint himself with the principles of music, and found that the
Kitāb al-Adwār
was the best treatise written on that science. The text is dedicated to the Muẓaffarid ruler Jalāl al-Dīn Abū al-Fawāris Śāh Shujāʿ (Jalāl al-Din Abu al-Fawāris Shah Shujāʿ, reigned 760-786/1358-1384; see f. 69r, line 15).
The scribe, Sayyid Abū Muḥammad ibn Sayyid Fatḥ Muḥammad Samānī (Sayyid Abu Muhammad ibn Sayyid Fath Muhammad Samani) relates in the
colophon
Section at the end of a manuscript text.
that the text was composed in 777/1375-6 and that the present copy was completed on 8 Friday II 1073/ 18 January 1663 at Anbalah (Ambala), on the way to Lahore.
It was collated with its copy on 8 Muḥarram 1074/12 August 1663, and collated again on 23 Jumadá II 1078/9 December 1667 with another copy dated 15 Dhū al-Qaʻdah 822/3 December 1419 (see
colophon
Section at the end of a manuscript text.
, f. 153r, transcribed below).
The diagram of the
ʿūd
fret appears in this copy as a drawing of the whole instrument (f. 114r).
Contents:
Introduction (f. 68v-71v);
Section One: Definition of the Notes and Explanation of High and Low Pitch (Chap.
Section Two: The Division of the Frets (Section Two in Oaths of the Dasatin, ff. 75r-79r);
Section Three: Interval Ratios (Section Three in the Ratio of Dimensions, ff. 79r-85r);
Section Four: The Necessitating Causes of Dissonance (Chapter Four in Positive Causes of Dissonance, ff. 85r-93v);
Section Five: On Consonant Harmony Chapter Five in Talif al-Malaim), ff. 93v-96v);
Section Six: The Modes and Their Relationships (Chapter Six in Adwar and Relationships, ff. 96v-111v);
Section Seven: The Arrangement of Two Strings (Chapter Seven in Hukm al-Utrin, ff. 111v-112v);
Section Eight: Discussion of the ‘Ūd, Tuning its Strings, and Deriving Scales from Them (al-Chapter Two in Dhikr al-Awd and Tswiyah Utara Wastkharaj al-Adwar from it, ff. 112v-114v);
Section Nine: The Names of the Scales (Al-Fasl al-Tas' in Asma' al-Adwar, ff. 114v-119r);
Section Ten: Tone Sharing of the Scales (Chapter Ten in Tsharak Naghm al-Adwar, ff. 119r-120r);
Section Eleven: Transposed Cycles (Chapter Eleven in Adwar Layers, ff. 120r-128v);
Section Twelve: Scordatura (second chapter ten non-committed approaches, ff. 128v-135v);
Section Thirteen: Rhythm (Section Thirteen in Rhythm, ff. 135v-149v);
Section Fourteen: Influence of the Modes (Chapter Fourteen in the Influence of Music, ff. 149v-151v);
Section Fifteen: Musical Practice (Chapter Fifteen, ff. 151v-153r).
Diagrams and Tables:
Unlabelled diagram (f. 78v);
Diagram showing intervals within an octave (f. 80v);
Unlabelled diagram (f. 81r);
Diagram showing intervals within two octaves (f. 82r);
Explanatory tables and diagrams, some incomplete (ff. 87r-92v, 95r, 97v-98r);
Circular diagrams showing the number of consonant intervals within modes (cf. 99v, 100r[two], 100v, 101r[two]);
Table of the eighty-four tetrachord and pentachord species combinations (ff. 102r-105r);
Table of Forty-Nine Cycles (pp. 105v-107r);
Tabulation (f. 107v);
Diagram of relationships between notes over two octaves (ff. 108v-109r);
Diagram of the stringing of an instrument (الآلة, f. 110v);
Drawing of a lute, illustrating its tuning (f. 114r)
Table of the twelve conventional modes (al-Adwar on their terms; f. 116v);
Table of the six secondary modes called
awāzāt
(Awazat, f. 118r);
Two diagrams depicting the progression of notes within the modes (ff. 119v-120r);
Tabulation of fingering (f. 121r);
Tabulations (ff. 121v-128r, 130v-135r);
Circular diagrams of rhythmic cycles (ff. 139v-143r);
Tabulation of Rhythmic Cycles (f. 143v).
Begins: (f. 68v, lines 1-2 and 6):
Praise be to Allah, Who chose the kind of man with more kindness and kindness and gave him the sight of the eyes
Accurately understand and express and breathe in the quality of letters and tones
...But after they are included in our language, it fails to research the mental sciences and achieve them
Ends (f. 153r, lines 15-16):
...ومن الله الإعانة في كل الأمور
He is the knower of the breaches, and He is our account and our advocate, and He is our master, and our guardian, and our helper.
Colophon
Section at the end of a manuscript text.
(f. 153r, lines 16-31):
...وقد تم
الكتاب بعون الله تعالی 8 Month of Jamadi 2nd Thursday of 1073 AH
In the position of King Qabad Abdul Jalil al-Harithi in Anbal
Addressee Badiant Khan Bakht Faqir Sayyid Abu Mohammed
Bin Sayyid Fath Mohammed Samani
There is a vacancy from zero on Saturday
May Allah reward you with goodness and reward for the seventh year
Seven and seven Hijri
النبوية المصطفوية
The interview was actually held on the 19th of Muharram in the fourth, seventh and 100th Sunnah of the Prophetic Hijra
in the city of Kashmir Dilpazir
Then the interview ended in the last version (!) on the third and twentieth Sabbath of the second month of Jamadi in the year one hundred and twenty-seven
And this old copy was written in the fifth tenth of Dhu al-Qa'dah
إثنا وعشرين وثمانمائة
822
in the city of Shah Jehanabad
Erişim Koşulları
Unrestricted
Bulma Yardımcıları
Rieu, Charles,
Supplement to the Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts in the British Museum
(London: The British Museum, 1894), Item 823, V, p. 559
Shiloah, Amnon,
The Theory of Music in Arabic Writings (c. 900-1900): Descriptive Catalogue of Manuscripts in Libraries of Europe and the U.S.A
. (Munich: G. Henle Verlag, 1979), pp. 419-20
Seçilmiş kaynakça
Edition:
D’Erlanger, Baron Rodolphe,
La musique arabe
, Vol. 3 (Paris: Paul Geuthner, 1938)
Anwār, Sayyid Abdullāh,
Tarjamat-i Shar
ḥ Mubārakshāh Bukhārī
, Arabic edition and Persian translation (Farhangestān-e Honar, 2013)
Study:
El-Rouayheb, Khaled, '"Mubārakshāh the Logician": An elusive teacher in Mamluk Cairo' in
Intellectual History of the Islamicate World
(Leiden: Brill, 2019), pp. 1-25
Ghrab, Anas, 'Commentaire anonyme du Kitab al-Adwār: Édition critique, traduction et présentation des lectures arabes de l'oeuvre de Ṣafī al-Dīn al-Urmawī' (unpublished doctoral thesis, Université de Paris Sorbonne, 2009)
