Publication Date
15th or 16th century (CE, Gregorian)
Type
Book
Language
Arabic
Digital
Yes
Manuscript
Yes
Pages Count
1
Physical Dimensions
270 x 180 mm
Library
Qatar Digital Library
Library Asset ID
Delhi Arabic 110, ff 28a-r-119v
Record ID
vdc_100040730535.0x000002
Library Location
British Library: Oriental Manuscripts
Date
15th or 16th century (CE, Gregorian)
Notes
Mathematical treatise on the construction of magic squares and triangles (number according to number). The text is defective at the beginning and end so the author's name is unknown, but in what remains of the preface the author records the title of the work and says that his intention is to compile all that has been written on the subject up to the date of the text's composition: 517/1123-4 (see f. 28r, lines 4-5). Seven authorities on magic squares are cited:
al-Mufaḍḍal ibn Thābit al-Ḥarrānī (al-Mufaddal ibn Thabit al-Harrani, d. before 978-79, see Ridwān 'Abū al-Khaṭṭāb al-Mufaḍḍal ibn Thābit al-Ṣābi' [1990]): ff. 60v, 80v, 94r, 95v and 102r;
Abū al-Wafā’ al-Būzjānī (Abu al-Wafā al-Būzjanī, d. 997 or 998): ff. 64r, 87r, 91v, 94r, 95v;
Ibn Haytham (Ibn Haytham, d. ca 1040): f. 35v;
Majd al-Dīn al-Amīr b. Abī Naṣr Manṣūr ibn Muḥammad ibn ‘Alī (Majd al-Din al-Amir ibn Abi Nasr Mansur ibn Muhammad ibn Ali): f. 51r;
Abū Ḥātim al-Muẓaffar b. Ismā‘īl al-Isfizārī (Abu Hatim al-Muzaffar ibn Ismail al-Isfizari, fl. late 5th/11th–early 6th/12th cent.): f. 41r;
Abū al-Fatḥ ‘Abd al-Raḥmān al-Khāzinī (Abu al-Fath Abd al-Rahman al-Khazni, d. after 525): ff. 53v, 77v, 92r, 92v, 100v, 109v, f. 60v;
Abū al-Ḥafṣ ‘Umar b. Ibrāhīm al-Khayyāmī (Abu Hafs Omar bin Ibrahim Al-Khayami, d. ca 525): f.107v.
After a preface and table of contents (ff. 28r-29r), the treatise is divided into eight books (articles) each one further subdivided into parts (sections), chapters (sections) and sections (chapters), and sometimes even further into methods (faces). It is illustrated with 430 squares, triangles, tables and other diagrams.
Maqālah One: Introductions (first article in the introduction, ff. 29v-35v);
Maqālah Two: The Simple Square (Maqālah Two: The Simple Square)
Maqālah Three: Bordered Squares (The Third Treatise on Al-Wafaq Al-Mahliq, ff. 58v-80v);
Maqālah Four: The Wonderful Bordered Odd Square (Maqālah Four: The Wonderful Bordered Odd Square)
Maqālah Five: The Banded (?) Square
Maqālah Six: The Mixed Square
Maqālah Seven: The Three-Dimensional Square (Maqālah Seven, ff. 109v-116v);
Maqālah Eight, which completes the Dīwān of Magic Squares with the Figure of the Triangle.
The third chapter (chapter) of Maqālah Eight (the eighth article) is incomplete, and the final two chapters indicated in the table of contents (f. 29r) are missing.
The date of the copy is not known, but it appears to have been produced in the 15th or 16th century, and is at least earlier than 1037/1627-8, the date of the earliest seal in the manuscript (f. 28r).
Begins (f. 28r, lines 1-4, defective at beginning):
The naive one, then the muhallaq, then the strange agreement, then the muwashah, and the blended, and after all of them are combined with each other
We conclude it with the wondrous three-dimensional arrangement and the triangular shape, and we point out the anecdotes, differences, and occurrences in...
Its locations are as brief as possible, without prejudice to any of the principles of its origins. Rather, we make the ambiguous and clarify the hidden...
Ends (f. 119v, lines 21-24, defective at end):
Chapter Two
In the neglected Mushah of the Triads
He is the one who begins the sections of a side from one and increases three by three, like one, four, seventeen
To where I want the side sections of the triangles
Erişim Koşulları
Unrestricted
Köken
‘Abd al-Ḥaqq ibn Qāsim al-Shīrāzī (عبد الحق بن قاسم الشيرازي), known from 1141/1632 by the title Amānat Khān (أمانة خان), librarian in the Mughal imperial library at Agra, calligrapher of the Taj Mahal and other Mughal monuments, his seal with date 1037/1627-8 (see Chester Beatty Islamic Seals Database, seal no. 186; and Begley, ‘Amānat Khān and the Calligraphy on the Tāj Maḥal’,
Kunst des Orients
12.1/2 [1978-79] pp. 5-60) (f. 28r, seal covered with thin sheet of paper removed during conservation work);
Fakhr al-Dīn Muḥammad (فخر الدين محمد), his seal with date 1110/1698-9 and valuation note (f. 28a-r; was two fragments that were rejoined, supported and bound into volume during conservation work);
Illegible, partially obscured seal (f. 28r);
Illegible, partially obscured seal (f. 119v);
The Government of India, its seal with central legend 'Delhi MSS' (f. 119v).
Seçilmiş kaynakça
Begley, Wayne E., ‘Amānat Khān and the Calligraphy on the Tāj Maḥal’,
Kunst des Orients
12.1/2 (1978-79) pp. 5-60
Riḍwan, Muhammad Yonis Abdel All (Riḍwān, Muḥammad Yūnus ʿAbd al-ʿĀl), 'Abū al-Khaṭṭāb al-Mufaḍḍal ibn Thābit al-Ṣābiʾ wa-mā tabqá min nathrihi: nathr wa-dirāsa',
Majallat Jāmiʿat al-Malik Saʿūd
2, al-Ādāb (1) (1410/1990) pp. 37-74
