Kitāb Ṭabaqāt al-aqṭāb fī dhikr awliyāʼ Allāh taʻālá wa-aqwālihim wa-aḥwālihim ilá intihāʼ ājālihim / taʼlīf al-Shaykh al-Imām al-ʻĀlim al-ʻAllāmah Taqī al-Dīn al-Subkī : manuscript, 1567

A biographical dictionary of sufis.

Title from fol. 1r.

... الحمد لله على رفع الاعلام لمن شاء من العيان ... فهاذا جملة من طبقات الاعلام الاعيان واوتاد الاقطاب من كل قطر :Incipit

Bound with: Kitāb Thaghr Dimyāṭ al-maḥrūs wa-mā waqaʻa bihā min ʻahd Nūḥ ʻalayhi al-salām ilá ākhir dawlat al-Turk (ff. 170r-196v) ; Kitāb al-Sukkardān al-buldān / li-Ibn Abī Ḥajalah (ff. 197r-309r).

Written in naskh in black ink, rubricated in red, 19 lines per page, with collation notes. Catchwords on the verso of each leaf. Text is outlined in single crimson border.

Foliated in pencil in Arabic numerals (1-157, 1-16). The second part (1-16) seems to be an appendix added to the book by the author himself. This second part is titled Maqāmāt al-Sayyid ʻAbd al-Qādir al-Kīlānī on fol. 1r.

There are biographies of people in the ms who died after the author, which seem to be later additions.

The ms has stains and smudges throughout.

According to the colophon (fol. 168v), copy completed in the hand of Muḥammad ibn ʻUthmān (?) ... in Shawwāl 974 AH [April 1567 AD].

Several ownership statements with dates on fol. 1r, some of them are deleted. The following could be read: Qāsim ibn Yūsuf, 1085 AH ; ... al-Ḥanafī, 1091 AH ; Muṣṭafá ibn Yūsuf al-Ḥanafī (?) ; al-Shaykh Muṣṭafá al-Saʻdī, 1066 AH (?) ; Aḥmad ibn Ḥasan al-Qūrnaq (?), 1122 AH. There are also 4 seals, two of which are identical, which reads: "al-ʻabd Qāsim yartajī min rabbihi ḥusn al-khitām." One of the other two seals apparently belongs to Aḥmad ibn Ḥasan.

Names of three people who consulted the ms at various times are written on flyleaf of backcover: Salīm ibn Shaykh Ibrāhīm al-Kurdī, in 1230 AH ; ʻAlī ibn Aḥmad kātib Awqāf Salīmīyah, in 1129 AH. Third name is not clear.

"No. 19"--Fol. 1r.

Bound in blind-stamped brown leather over paperboards, with flap. Cream laid paper. Paper size: 20 x 13.5 cm. (Text size: 15 x 7.5 cm.).

MS Arab 357. Houghton Library, Harvard University.

In Arabic.