Arabische Handschriften, Teil II.

• Author: Bowering, Gerhard

The present volume forms part of the systematic and detailed description of Arabic manuscripts preserved in German libraries (itself a subdivision of a comprehensive project founded in 1957 that aims at cataloging all oriental manuscripts preserved in Germany) and continues the catalogue of E. Wagner, Arabische Handschriften, Teil I (Wiesbaden, 1976). Schoeler lists 331 entries found in 104 Arabic codices selected from the manuscript holdings of the Staatsbibliothek, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin. None of the described manuscripts is listed in W. Ahlwardt's standard catalogue (Berlin, 1887-99), since almost all of them were acquired by the library in the first half of this century.

In cataloguing the manuscripts Schoeler follows the principles established by Wagner, while in selecting those manuscripts to be catalogued he is guided by his own hunch for texts of scholarly promise. Some readers may evaluate his personal concentration on the numerous works of Sams ad-din Ahmad b. Sulayman b. Kamal Pasa (d. 940/1533), which represent about half of the entries, 161 in all, as a drawback of the volume, while others, among them this reviewer, may see in this focus Schoeler's tenacity for critical and comprehensive detail. The oldest dated manuscript in this catalogue, a fragment of applied jurisprudence, bears the date of 438/1047 (erratum 1067, p. xiii !), while the bulk of the dated manuscripts offers a cross section from the 6th/12th to the 13/19th century.

One precious unicum is the first half of Averroes' great commentary on the Posterior Analytics which includes not only the commentary but also the original Arabic version of the basic text underlying it, previously assumed to be lost (cf. H. Gatje and G. Schoeler, ZDMG 130 |1980~: 557-85). Among the other significant unica are the Riyadat al-mutaallimin of Ibn as-Sunni (d. 364/974), a disciple of an-Nasai; the Akbar Fakk of Ahmad b. Sahl ar-Razi (fl. first half of the 4th/10th century); the astrological work Harmis fi tahwil sini l-mawalid of Umar b. al-Farrukan (d. 200/815) said to have been translated into Arabic from the Pahlavi; a compendium on Arabic grammar composed by Abu l-Hasan Ali b. Said az-Zaydi (wrote before 485/1092) bound together with the al-Luma fi n-nahw of Ibn Jinni (d. 392/1002); the virtually complete diwan of Ibn Babak (d. 410/1019), heretofore known only by a fragment; and the Talqih al-uqul of a certain Muhammad b. Muhammad at-Tamimi (fl. first half of 6th/12th...