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Manuscript/Mixed Material Bahāʼīyah fī al-ḥisāb بهائية في الحساب

About this Item

Title

  • Bahāʼīyah fī al-ḥisāb

Other Title

  • بهائية في الحساب

Summary

  • Text is a well-known manual on arithmetic.
  • The author of this mathematical treatise, Bahā' al-Dīn Al-'Amilī (1547-1621), is considered one of the leading intellectuals of 17th-century Safavid Persia (present-day Iran). He was born in Baalbek (present-day Lebanon) but moved to Persia in his youth where he devoted his entire life to study. He excelled in various fields, leaving a legacy of more than 80 books on a wide variety of subjects that included theology and mysticism, astronomy, mathematics, poetry, and architecture. He wrote in both Persian and Arabic. He was the teacher of Mulla Sadra, one of the leading intellectuals of the Persian philosophical renaissance and a figure in the Illuminationist movement, an original philosophical school that tried to harmonize Medieval Islamic philosophy, mysticism, and Shiite Islam. Al-'Amilī's contribution in the field of architecture is still visible in the city of Isfahan, where he designed Imam Square and the homonymous mosque and worked on a system of artificial channels to divert the course of the Zayandeh River. This treatise, a compendium of mathematics, and the astronomical treatise Fī Tasrīh al-Aflāk (The anatomy of the heavens), are two of Bahā' al-Dīn's few works in Arabic. The ten chapters of the work offer a summary of arithmetical and algebraic operations. The author alternates prose passages with explanatory numerical tables. The presence of many interlinear notes and marginalia indicate that the manuscript was actually used for study and was not just a decorative object. World Digital Library.

Names

  • milī, Bahāʼ al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Ḥusayn, 1547-1621
  • Manṣūrī, Maḥmūd al-Imām, former owner
  • abbāqī, Muḥammad, former owner
  • Mansuri Collection (Library of Congress)

Created / Published

  • [17--?]

Headings

  • -  Arithmetic--Early works to 1900
  • -  Manuscripts, Arabic--Washington (D.C.)
  • -  Mathematics, Arab--Early works to 1800

Notes

  • -  An ownership stamp: "[illegible] al-Sayyid Yūsuf" dated 1254 H [1838] on title page. Name of another former owner, Muḥammad Ṭabbaqī, on page before title page, with Turkish poetry dated to 1268 H [1851].
  • -  Binding: modern cardboard, covered with cloth; leather spine.
  • -  Charts (fol. 4b, 6a, 28a)
  • -  Fol. 1a-34b (fol. 35-38 blank).
  • -  Library of Congress. Mansuri Collection, 5-719.
  • -  Ms.
  • -  Naskhī script; 11 lines in written area, 13 x 7 cm.
  • -  Paper: yellowed cream, no visible watermarks. Text is incomplete (leaves missing at end). Title page and text are in black ink, with a few rubricated words. Some diacritical marks. Text on fol. 2b-14b is framed by two red lines; text on fol. 15a-19a is framed by a single red line. No frame and no rubrication on fol. 19b-34b. Fol. 17a-b written in a different hand. First leaf repaired. Leaves with notes inserted between fol. 13 and 14 and between fol. 20 and 21. Copious marginal notes on first 19 leaves; catchwords on rectos.
  • -  Also available in digital form on the Library of Congress Web site.
  • -  Also available in digital form on the Library of Congress website.
  • -  Arabic; some poetry in Turkish; Arabic alphbet.
  • -  Purchase of Mahmud al-Mansuri collection, 1945.
  • -  Incipit: بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم نحمدك يا من لا يحيط بجميع نعمه عدد، ولا ينتهي تضاعف قسمه إلى أمد، ونصلى على سيدنا محمد النبي المجتبى وعترته لاسيما الأربعة المتناسبة أصحاب العبا وبعد فإن الفقير إلى الله الغنى بهاء الدين محمد بن الحسين العاملى أنطقه الله بالصواب في يوم الحساب يقول أن علم الحساب لا يخفى علو شأنه وسمو مكانه ورشاقة مسائله ووثاقا دلائله ...

Medium

  • 33 leaves (11 lines), bound : paper, ill. ; 13 x 7 cm.

Call Number/Physical Location

  • QA33 .A48 1700z

Digital Id

Library of Congress Control Number

  • 2008401033

Online Format

  • pdf
  • image

Additional Metadata Formats

IIIF Presentation Manifest

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Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Milī, Bahāʼ Al-Dīn Muḥammad Ibn Ḥusayn, Maḥmūd Al-Imām Manṣūrī, Muḥammad Abbāqī, and Mansuri Collection. Bahāʼīyah Fī Al-Ḥisāb. [17--?, 1700] Manuscript/Mixed Material. https://www.loc.gov/item/2008401033/.

APA citation style:

Milī, B. A. M. I. Ḥ., Manṣūrī, M. A., Abbāqī, M. & Mansuri Collection. (1700) Bahāʼīyah Fī Al-Ḥisāb. [17--?] [Manuscript/Mixed Material] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2008401033/.

MLA citation style:

Milī, Bahāʼ Al-Dīn Muḥammad Ibn Ḥusayn, et al. Bahāʼīyah Fī Al-Ḥisāb. [17--?, 1700] Manuscript/Mixed Material. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/2008401033/>.