Materials for the Intellectual History of Im m Sh ism in the Safavid Period:A Facsimile Edition of Ms New York Public Library, Arabic Manuscripts Collections, Volume 51985A

In 1934 the New York Public Library purchased a sizable collection of 250 volumes of Arabic manuscripts through the fund for Semitic literature that had been provided by Jacob Heinrich Schiff (d. 1920). While the collection is known to have been purchased in Baghdad, no further details are available about the transaction. The collection contains a fair number of writings by Ibrāhīm Faṣīḥ b. Ṣibghat Allāh al-Ḥaydarī al-Baghdādī (d. 1299/1882) and by some earlier members of the prominent Ḥusaynābādī/Ḥaydarī-family, and this in addition to numerous Twelver Shīʿī titles.The present volume contains a facsimile reproduction of Ms New York Public Library, Volume 51985A, which belongs to the Shīʿī material among the collection. It is a heavily damaged multitext codex of 252 leaves which which comprises seven individual works: An incomplete copy of Khiḍr b. Muḥammad b. ʿAlī al-Rāzī al-Ḥablirūdī's (d. ca. 850/1447) longer commentary on the ʿAllāma al-Ḥillī's al-Bāb al-ḥadī ʿashar, Jāmiʿ al-durar fī sharḥ al-Bāb al-ḥādī ʿashar; several works by Ibn Abī Jumhūr al-Aḥsāʾī (d. after 906/1501), viz.Qabs al-iqtidāʾ fī sharāʾiṭ al-iftāʾ wa-l-istiftāʾ, Kāshifat al-ḥāl ʿan aḥwāl al-istidlāl, and al-Masālik al-jāmiʿiyya fī sharḥ al-Alfiyya, which were copied during the author's lifetime; Bahāʾ al-Dīn Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn al-ʿĀmilī's ("al-Shaykh al-Bahāʾī", d. 1030/1621) Tafsīr sūrat al-fātiḥa, or al-ʿUrwa al-wuthqā; and two works by Bahāʾ al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Ḥasan al-Iṣfahānī "al-Fāḍil al-Hindī" (d. 1137/1725) which are not attested elsewhere--a commentary (ḥāshiya) on the chapter on the imamate of Saʿd al-Dīn al-Taftāzānī's (d. 792/1390) Sharḥ al-Maqāṣid, and a commentary on the Nahj al-ḥaqq wa-kashf al-ṣidqby the ʿAllāma al-Ḥillī.