Two treatises on horsemanship.

This material is held atBritish Library Asia, Pacific and Africa Collections

  • Reference
    • GB 59 Add MS 20736
  • Dates of Creation
    • c 16th century
  • Language of Material
    • Arabic Turkish
  • Physical Description
    • Codex ff. iii+97+iv. Material: Eastern laid paper. Dimensions: 270 x 180 mm leaf [ 212 x 137 mm written]. Foliation: British Museum foliation in pencil. Ruling: Misṭarah; 15 lines per page; vertical spacing lines per 10 cm. Script: Naskh (Arabic text), fully vocalised to f. 24, mainly unvocalised thereafter; Divani (Ottoman Turkish text). Ink: Black ink with rubricated headings. Decoration: Illustrated with thirty-seven drawings (see Content). Binding: Black leather (Ottoman) binding with central medallion, pendants and corner stamps. Condition: Stains, repairs and grime at front of volume; Waterstains to gutter and tail margins. Marginalia: Occasional interlinear translations in Turkish, occasional pen trials (see f. 48r). Seals: British Museum stamp: ff. 2r, 9r, 21r, 96v.

Scope and Content

Originally copied as an Arabic treatise on horsemanship, arms and military skills. The treatise is generously illustrated as far as f. 36v, after which only sporadic illustrations were added to the many remaining spaces. Most of the remaining blank spaces were subsequently utilised for the transcription of an Ottoman Turkish text entitled Risale-yi Şecaiye (رساله شجاعیه ) which runs intermittently from f. 37r, with the continuation text indicated by catchwords (ff. 37r-82r).

Access Information

Not Public Record(s)

Unrestricted

Acquisition Information

Purchased at the sale of the Earl of Munster's library at Hodgson's [Hodgson & Co book auctioneers], 27 March 1855 (lot 1421).

Other Finding Aids

Cureton, William and Charles Rieu, Catalogus codicum manuscriptorum orientalium qui in Museo Britannico asservantur. Pars secunda, codices arabicos amplectens (London: The British Museum, 1846-71), Item 1157, p. 529. Rieu, Charles, Catalogue of the Turkish manuscripts in the British Museum (London, 1888), p. 128.

Bibliography

Study:. Al-Sarraf, Shihab, 'Mamluk Furūsīyah Literature and Its Antecedents', Mamluk Studies Review, 8 (Chicago: Middle East Documentation Center, The University of Chicago, 2004), pp. 141-200.