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8 posts from May 2016
31 May 2016
An 18th Century North African Travelling Physician's Handbook
POSTSCRIPT from editor: This manuscript has now been digitised and can be viewed online
While cataloguing the British Library’s collection of Arabic manuscripts from West Africa
(see BL blog passim) I came across a very strange item. This manuscript, Or.6557, was given to the British Museum Library (the forerunner of the British Library) by a Muhammad Shami on the 10th of October 1903 and catalogued the following year. According to a slip of paper pasted on the blank recto of the first folio in the handwriting the donor, this work is a “book on Reml [Arabic: ʻIlm al-Raml, meaning divination by sand] and magic and some of austronomy by Saidi Saeed Abdoul Naim” with the date of composition given as 1202AH (1788 AD). The text block is loose-leaf, as is often the case in North and West Africa, and protected at either end by squares of animal hide.
Key to writing a secret alphabet (British Library Or.6557, f. 47r - )
The reason for the work’s composition seems to be to detail practices for the curing of various physical and mental conditions. Throughout the work, subjects are itemised in the left-hand margin, suggesting ʻAbd al-Nāʼim used it as a reference guide during his practice. The lack of any clear order nor beginning or conclusion, along with various small pieces of paper scattered throughout the text block featuring simple arithmetic, receipts or aides-memoires, suggests that the work was compiled gradually over the course of ʻAbd al-Nāʼim's career and was meant to be a private document. The handwriting of ʻAbd al-Nāʻim seems to be a mix of several different styles and –confirmed by the mention of various North African place names- it appears he travelled widely in search of learning, or perhaps new patients.
True to the words of the donor, among the subjects covered are sand divination and astronomy. However, the work is a veritable compendium of all kinds of knowledge, ranging from the purely scientific to the very occult. There are sections on alchemy, the fabrication of potions and talismans, the exorcism of demons and jinn and the voiding of black magic, to the treatment of a plethora of medical complaints, from sore eyes to bad backs. Toward the end of the work, ʻAbd al-Nāʻim also quotes versified works by the Egyptian al-Ḍimyātī, whose poems are still renowned in North Africa for their therapeutic properties. ʻAbd al-Nāʻim refers several times to the use of hashish as well as other recognisable drugs and chemical compounds, often noting that he has tried many of the cures on himself.
Two of the “nine family heads”. Text in red indicates that these are instructions for performing the exorcism, while the text in black gives their personal name and a description (British Library Or.6557, ff. 40r - and 41r - )
noc
However, the most impressive aspect of the work is its full-page illustrations. The work features nine full-page illustrations of beings ʻAbd al-Nāʻim calls “tisʻa rahṭ”. This phrase can be traced to the Qur’an 27:48 in the line “And there were in the city nine family heads causing corruption in the land”. In the tafṣīr of al-Jalālayn, this city is identified as Thamud and the “corruption” is described as “sins such as clipping dinars and dirhams”. From this obscure Qur’anic reference, ʻAbd al-Nāʻim elaborates the story, giving each “family head” a personal name, listing his attributes, signs of the interference of this entity in the world of the living and the means to exorcise or remove him. His representations of each “family head” –executed in black or red ink- are highly original, ranging from a horned demon to a long-beaked red bird, to a long-armed creature with a brazier for a head. If these forms are not unsettling enough, ʻAbd al-Nāʻim ends his section on the “nine family heads” with the warning that “whoever says that they are birds or anything else has lied for I saw them [myself] in Safar 1214 (July/August 1799)”.
Left: “Legions of Jinn” (Or.6557, f. 6v - right: group of Jinn or humans, engaged in shooting and riding (British Library Or.6557, f. 26v - )
noc
Aside from numerous astrological and alchemical diagrams and talismans, the work also includes many pictorial representations of jinn. ʻAbd al-Nāʻim’s illustrations are again highly idiosyncratic and he has taken pains to differentiate each jinn from the next. Some sprout three horns, some are stooped over while others stand tall, thrusting batons or other implements; some appear to be holding firearms while others ride on beasts of burden.
There is still much work to be done on this item -which I believe must be a unicum- and no doubt further textual analysis will shed more light on the circumstances of its composition.
My thanks to Constant Hamès, with whom I have corresponded concerning this item.
Paul Naylor, British Library Collaborative Doctoral Student, Asian and African Studies
We made a partial translation of the book - Which one was available to us...:
“Dermaira Matlab S Ama Dola Ruqyah Bi Al-Aalam In Ibtihaad Khaleebia Hamoura And Rajent La Harzin Womb Mana Walad.
Falsam Ali
Moon Alaykum Al-Rub Arar Haroobi Ibn Najah Al-Ra’i Khalilhim Warahahu
Tiz Al-Tilaj
47.
J
2
Hajj
3
Writes the apparent invalidity of the knowns
Ruling
32
They are
And the knot is solved I am the new one, and the cold customers wash it, the threshold of the house and the beetroot with the fanjood
May
Try the two gathered on the sitting and the club Rick, they are not that you are the foam of his appointment unless you are free of this S on the devils and
Definition of I and Sala
The scholars of Qom Al-Aitur are welcome to leave the school outside the community and write a book if they want to go to the house and the window 12. Hajr Ibn al-Talab al-Hu Yara with al-Halbah by al-Qaeda Abdul Qadir al-Shazam for knowledge
From this competition, what is the relationship of the ra Dst - one oven passes over the urine of the souls of the people of the shit or on the eye of Bakshun, if the religion and the neon of the bass bitterness and embodies through the children for the traveler or create a call and the Eid number or peace
the monkey
40
I left the matter, which is higher and easier, and the water of the amulet, we find the Emirates, and that is Adam, by the will of God, 2, spread Eid and Iraq to the last skin, evil from God upon him, and on the day he found him, and that is a throw of his three, or more, with what I wanted and betrayal, I
and Khalid Ibn Jars.. and Al-Habab
Weslak to
and the work of Ibn Omar, may God curse him
Ajarit health
And he turned it into this island in the middle of the world, love there, he gave birth to armies and you are the ones who see the raiders, one day after another, another after another, and they propose to my door, and I will pay forty days, and he will kidnap and we will hold the night to the tenth mark.
Dhir al-Nimrod, may God curse him, 1 years, by the last verse, and he promised to leave the instruments, his boycott, he leads together - they went out, may God curse him
And hair
Among them is the strange crescent in it
2012 and the dates that he fears
11: It was completed
And the conditions are good, may God curse him, Abu Al-Zulaifa, and it was depicted like this one day, so he thought of it, writing the disposition with flour
And the dead and the dead are in the saddle and in the saddle.
Rli, another of the state and garlic, the dimensions / Manorter merely (Reem, God
In peace
With the music, it transcends the period of the Vedas, greeting weddings.
The door of Iraq, superiority, imagination, and light causes resemblance and the sea of seas of evil and several
Complete the bad capacity, a group and their answers, the actions of the Surah, birds or other than it, and torment, may God forgive him) with a meter, a great science 1214
Upon Friday
A healthy mule, and it is transferred and washed and sprinkled with it. 4
M with the birth of him other than Nina
Argument of the servants of the veil today
He says, O people of Al-Masoud, these are not
The infidel and the Magian descent...”
31 May 2016
An 18th Century North African Travelling Physician's Handbook
POSTSCRIPT from editor: This manuscript has now been digitised and can be viewed online
While cataloguing the British Library’s collection of Arabic manuscripts from West Africa
(see BL blog passim) I came across a very strange item. This manuscript, Or.6557, was given to the British Museum Library (the forerunner of the British Library) by a Muhammad Shami on the 10th of October 1903 and catalogued the following year. According to a slip of paper pasted on the blank recto of the first folio in the handwriting the donor, this work is a “book on Reml [Arabic: ʻIlm al-Raml, meaning divination by sand] and magic and some of austronomy by Saidi Saeed Abdoul Naim” with the date of composition given as 1202AH (1788 AD). The text block is loose-leaf, as is often the case in North and West Africa, and protected at either end by squares of animal hide.
Key to writing a secret alphabet (British Library Or.6557, f. 47r - )
The reason for the work’s composition seems to be to detail practices for the curing of various physical and mental conditions. Throughout the work, subjects are itemised in the left-hand margin, suggesting ʻAbd al-Nāʼim used it as a reference guide during his practice. The lack of any clear order nor beginning or conclusion, along with various small pieces of paper scattered throughout the text block featuring simple arithmetic, receipts or aides-memoires, suggests that the work was compiled gradually over the course of ʻAbd al-Nāʼim's career and was meant to be a private document. The handwriting of ʻAbd al-Nāʻim seems to be a mix of several different styles and –confirmed by the mention of various North African place names- it appears he travelled widely in search of learning, or perhaps new patients.
True to the words of the donor, among the subjects covered are sand divination and astronomy. However, the work is a veritable compendium of all kinds of knowledge, ranging from the purely scientific to the very occult. There are sections on alchemy, the fabrication of potions and talismans, the exorcism of demons and jinn and the voiding of black magic, to the treatment of a plethora of medical complaints, from sore eyes to bad backs. Toward the end of the work, ʻAbd al-Nāʻim also quotes versified works by the Egyptian al-Ḍimyātī, whose poems are still renowned in North Africa for their therapeutic properties. ʻAbd al-Nāʻim refers several times to the use of hashish as well as other recognisable drugs and chemical compounds, often noting that he has tried many of the cures on himself.
Two of the “nine family heads”. Text in red indicates that these are instructions for performing the exorcism, while the text in black gives their personal name and a description (British Library Or.6557, ff. 40r - and 41r - )
noc
However, the most impressive aspect of the work is its full-page illustrations. The work features nine full-page illustrations of beings ʻAbd al-Nāʻim calls “tisʻa rahṭ”. This phrase can be traced to the Qur’an 27:48 in the line “And there were in the city nine family heads causing corruption in the land”. In the tafṣīr of al-Jalālayn, this city is identified as Thamud and the “corruption” is described as “sins such as clipping dinars and dirhams”. From this obscure Qur’anic reference, ʻAbd al-Nāʻim elaborates the story, giving each “family head” a personal name, listing his attributes, signs of the interference of this entity in the world of the living and the means to exorcise or remove him. His representations of each “family head” –executed in black or red ink- are highly original, ranging from a horned demon to a long-beaked red bird, to a long-armed creature with a brazier for a head. If these forms are not unsettling enough, ʻAbd al-Nāʻim ends his section on the “nine family heads” with the warning that “whoever says that they are birds or anything else has lied for I saw them [myself] in Safar 1214 (July/August 1799)”.
Left: “Legions of Jinn” (Or.6557, f. 6v - right: group of Jinn or humans, engaged in shooting and riding (British Library Or.6557, f. 26v - )
noc
Aside from numerous astrological and alchemical diagrams and talismans, the work also includes many pictorial representations of jinn. ʻAbd al-Nāʻim’s illustrations are again highly idiosyncratic and he has taken pains to differentiate each jinn from the next. Some sprout three horns, some are stooped over while others stand tall, thrusting batons or other implements; some appear to be holding firearms while others ride on beasts of burden.
There is still much work to be done on this item -which I believe must be a unicum- and no doubt further textual analysis will shed more light on the circumstances of its composition.
My thanks to Constant Hamès, with whom I have corresponded concerning this item.
Paul Naylor, British Library Collaborative Doctoral Student, Asian and African Studies
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We made a partial translation of the book - Which one was available to us...:
“Dermaira Matlab S Ama Dola Ruqyah Bi Al-Aalam In Ibtihaad Khaleebia Hamoura And Rajent La Harzin Womb Mana Walad.
Falsam Ali
Moon Alaykum Al-Rub Arar Haroobi Ibn Najah Al-Ra’i Khalilhim Warahahu
Tiz Al-Tilaj
47.
J
2
Hajj
3
Writes the apparent invalidity of the knowns
Ruling
32
They are
And the knot is solved I am the new one, and the cold customers wash it, the threshold of the house and the beetroot with the fanjood
May
Try the two gathered on the sitting and the club Rick, they are not that you are the foam of his appointment unless you are free of this S on the devils and
Definition of I and Sala
The scholars of Qom Al-Aitur are welcome to leave the school outside the community and write a book if they want to go to the house and the window 12. Hajr Ibn al-Talab al-Hu Yara with al-Halbah by al-Qaeda Abdul Qadir al-Shazam for knowledge
From this competition, what is the relationship of the ra Dst - one oven passes over the urine of the souls of the people of the shit or on the eye of Bakshun, if the religion and the neon of the bass bitterness and embodies through the children for the traveler or create a call and the Eid number or peace
the monkey
40
I left the matter, which is higher and easier, and the water of the amulet, we find the Emirates, and that is Adam, by the will of God, 2, spread Eid and Iraq to the last skin, evil from God upon him, and on the day he found him, and that is a throw of his three, or more, with what I wanted and betrayal, I
and Khalid Ibn Jars.. and Al-Habab
Weslak to
and the work of Ibn Omar, may God curse him
Ajarit health
And he turned it into this island in the middle of the world, love there, he gave birth to armies and you are the ones who see the raiders, one day after another, another after another, and they propose to my door, and I will pay forty days, and he will kidnap and we will hold the night to the tenth mark.
Dhir al-Nimrod, may God curse him, 1 years, by the last verse, and he promised to leave the instruments, his boycott, he leads together - they went out, may God curse him
And hair
Among them is the strange crescent in it
2012 and the dates that he fears
11: It was completed
And the conditions are good, may God curse him, Abu Al-Zulaifa, and it was depicted like this one day, so he thought of it, writing the disposition with flour
And the dead and the dead are in the saddle and in the saddle.
Rli, another of the state and garlic, the dimensions / Manorter merely (Reem, God
In peace
With the music, it transcends the period of the Vedas, greeting weddings.
The door of Iraq, superiority, imagination, and light causes resemblance and the sea of seas of evil and several
Complete the bad capacity, a group and their answers, the actions of the Surah, birds or other than it, and torment, may God forgive him) with a meter, a great science 1214
Upon Friday
A healthy mule, and it is transferred and washed and sprinkled with it. 4
M with the birth of him other than Nina
Argument of the servants of the veil today
He says, O people of Al-Masoud, these are not
The infidel and the Magian descent...”
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