[Ottoman Mecmua of Divination]

This volume contains the following two texts :. (I) ff 1v-45v : Haza er-risale fi beyan er-remel an telif-i Daniyal nebi aleyhi as-salah ve's-salam, a book of divination (Kitab-i Remel) by dots ascribed to the Prophet Daniel. The figures used in this mode of divination consist of sixteen combinations of dots and lines, a table of which is provides (f 5v). Their names correspond to those found in the Bodleian Catalogue, but do not quite agree with those provided by Hammer. They are: لحيان، قبض الداخل، قبض الخارج، جماعت، فرح، عقله، انكيس، حمره، بياض، نصرة الخارج، نصرة الداخل، عتبة الخارج، نقى الخد، عتبة الداخل، اجتماع، طريق.The division of the work is partly in fusul and partly in bablar; several leaves appear to be missing and the contents to be made up of different tracts. A table occupying two pages (ff 31-32) shows the correspondance of the aformentioned figures with planets, months, countries, and other objects;. (II) ff 45-66 : Another treatise on the same subject. The author, whose name is not mentioned, relates in the preamble how the Prophet Daniel composed the first Book of Remel by desire of a king to whom he had prophesied a victory over his enemy, and how he devised for him the sixteen figures still in use. It is uncertain whether a chapter on the mode of discovering lost things by means of remel, which begins with a besmele on f 66v, and some following sections relating to other applications of the same science, belong to the same treatise. The volume bears the title Miftahu'r-remel written in a latter hand. It appears, from the original foliation, to have have lost fifty leaves at the beginning. It is also imperfect at the end. Found leaves have subsequently been added (ff 123-26) containing a fragment on the mansions on the moon, in a later handwriting. The manuscript was likely copied in the 16th century CE.

Unrestricted

Acquired from the Hodgson Collection.

See Rieu, Catalogue of the Turkish Manuscripts in the British Museum, pp. 131-132.

Other versions of the Kitab-i Remel can be found at Or 7284, Harley MS 262, Harley MS 5522, and Add MS 5983 texts 1, 4 and 5.