Kitāb Tadhkira fī Laḥẓat al-Baṣar

Naskh calligraphy. Broad hand with wide spaced page layout. Red rubrication and noting of rhymed prose and poetry by dots. Writing surface: 134x89mm. Clearly a presentation copy, but missing its title page. Title and author name are taken from the colophon, in which it is stated that the work was written in the madrasa of the amir Shaykhū al-ʿUmarī [al-Nāṣirī] (built in 1349). This unknown work is a panegyrical advice text. Considering its colophon dating to 866/1462, not long after the ascent to the throne of al-Ẓāhir Khushqadam, the text may have been offered to him. The sultan is not named specifically but referred to abstractly in the first lines. The author Ḥassan b. ʿAlī al-Jīzī has so far not been identified. This part of the manuscript contains one note on 11b discussing how animals are of three types. The manuscript further contains a copy of a panegyrical poem written by Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī for al-Ashraf Ismāʿīl as well as an unidentified dialogue and a long note on the relationship between nature and sharīʿa reffering to Aristotle, both written in a similar hand. The manuscript was part of the mosque of Qāyitbāy and came to the Dār al-kutub in April 1882. Khedival stamp on flyleaf.