Newsletter No. 19
Winter 2020
Ongoing Projects “Miftāḥ al-Sa‘ādah wa Miṣbāḥ al-Siyādah” by Ṭāsh Kubrī Zādah Critically edited by Professor Ahmed Chouqui Binebine, Dr Muhammad Said Hinchi, and Dr Abdul Aali Lamdabbar
thors’ biographies and works, while mentioning each book’s importance and rank within its discipline. Despite this stature and importance, the book did not receive the warranted care and attention from researchers and critical editors. The majority of printed copies in circulation are commercial, and are not critically edited in a way that involved examination of the book’s manuscript copies, in terms of proximity to archetype, authenticity, accuracy, age, and completeness.
The book, “Miftāḥ al-Sa‘ādah wa Miṣbāḥ al-Siyādah”, by Aḥmad b. Muṣṭafā b. Khalīl, renowned as Ṭāsh Kubrī Zādah (d. 968AH), is considered among the most important bibliographic works in Arab manuscript heritage. Its author presented different subjects across disciplines and types of authorship, detailing each discipline, dwelling on topic, purpose, aim, principles, and methodology, and citing some of the books authored on it. He also introduced the most prominent scholars, excelling in authorship in each domain. The author organised the book’s content very well, starting with four introductions, and then dividing it into two major parts (sing. ṭaraf), each further subdivided into sections, or dawḥāt.
This prompted Al-Furqān Islamic Heritage Foundation to undertake another critical edition of this book, applying a robust scientific approach, to restore the status of this valuable source among Arab heritage sources, and raise it to its deserved position. The Foundation asked Professor Ahmed Chouqui Binebine, Director of the Bibliothèque Royale (alKhizānah al-Ḥasaniyyah) in Rabat, and Dr Muhammad Said Hinchi and Dr Abdul Aali Lamdabbar, cataloguers and editors at the Bibliothèque Royale, to perform the critical edition of this book. This critical edition will be based on twenty-four manuscript copies of the book gathered from different manuscript holdings globally. These will be subjected to close examination, with surviving witnesses classified, and grouped into a stemma or family tree of manuscripts. Moreover, collating the manuscripts, recording variant readings, and highlighting the huge amount of changes, insertions, and interpolation in the printed versions of the book. In addition, organising, documenting and commenting on the text, as well as introducing the books presented within, and the proper names of persons, geography, nations, tribes, sects, and others. At the same time, tracing and commenting on the author’s errors relating to names, dates of demise, and book titles.
He dedicated the first introduction to demonstrating the merit of knowledge, learning, and teaching, and clarified the conditions and functions of the learner in the second. In the third introduction, he mentioned the functions of the teacher, and in the fourth, he explained the connection between the path of rational consideration (naẓar), and that of purification (taṣfiyah). The first part of the book focused on guidance on how to attain the path of rational consideration, where he mentioned the origin and branches of each science, and elucidated the titles of authored books, and names of authors. He devoted the second part to sciences related to purification, which is the outcome of applying knowledge, by which eternal bliss, and everlasting honour are secured.
After releasing the “Fihrist” by al-Nadīm, Al-Furqān Foundation’s principal aim in publishing “Miftāḥ alSa‘ādah” is to make available another major bibliographic reference from the heritage library on the history of Arab sciences. This would greatly benefit scholars and researchers in the domain of Islamic heritage generally, and Arab heritage, in particular.
Therefore, the book is a comprehensive bibliography of Arab sciences in their diverse authorship, comprising original texts, explication (sharḥ), abridgement (mukhtaṣar), abridgment of the abridgement (mukhtaṣar al-mukhtaṣar), and encyclopaedias of au21
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