<div class="description">
<dl><dd>[7], 151 leaves, (17 lines) : 21 cm</dd>
<dd>Manuscript</dd>
<dd>Arabic</dd>
<dd>Title taken from opening of main text (fol. [7b] line 3); the title appears in a later hand (fol. [7a]) as: Sharḥ Mukhtasar al-shudhūr</dd>
<dd>The author of the allegorical, mystical poems being commented upon is given as Abū al-Ḥasan ʻAlī ibn Abī al-Qāsim Musá ibn ʻAlī ibn Musá ibn Muḥammad ibn Khalaf al-Anṣārī al-Andalusī known as (al-mushtahar bi-) Ibn Arfaʻ Raʻs (fol. [7b],lines 4-5). The author of the commentary (Sharḥ al-mukhtaṣar al-shudhūr) is Abī al-Qāsim Muḥammad ibn Abd Allah al-Anṣāri the pupil of Ibn Arfaʻ Raʻs (fol. [7b],lines 4-5)</dd>
<dd>The alchemical commentary on the poems is stated to be by the pupil of Ibn Arfaʻ Raʻs: Abū al-Qāsim Muḥammad ibn ʻAbd Allāh al-Anṣārī (fol. [7b] line 6)</dd>
<dd>The manuscript is dated in the colophon (fol. 148a); the scribe's name is given as Muḥammad Ṣādiq ibn Mustafà al-Antākī al-Istānbūlī al-Ḥanafī (fol. 148a line 16)</dd>
<dd>Purchased in 1941 by the Army Medical Library apparently from A. S. Yahuda</dd>
<dd>Stylized illustrations of alembics occur in the text of item two (fol. 81a (old 82a); more recent and well delineated illustrations of alchemical equipment occur in the margins of fols. 80b (old 81b), 81b (old 82b), 83b (old 84b), and 84a (old 84a); they are drawn in red and black inks</dd>
<dd>Paper is shiny, burnished, now yellowed</dd>
<dd>Catchwords, rubrications, red overlinings; text is written within a frame of single red ink lines; the folios have been numbered, incorrectly, in Arabic numerals, recently renumbered in Western numerals</dd>
<dd>Bound in modern orange-tan leather with gold-tooled border; marbled paper paste downs and end papers</dd>
<dd>Described in: Schullian &amp; Sommer. Cat. of incun. &amp; MSS., 1950, A 65</dd>
<dd>Fol. [1a] blank except for contents notes and owners' notes in a much later hand</dd>
<dd>Fols. [1b-7a] contain table of contents in chart form in later hand</dd>
<dd>Fols. 148b-151a contain an otherwise unrecorded short alchemical treatise with title: Miftāḥ al-ḥikmah (translation: The key of wisdom), by al-Ṭughrāʻī, an important 11th-12th century writer on alchemy; it is possibly an extract from his famous alchemical book Mafātiḥ al-raḥmah wa-masābīḥ al-ḥikmah; fol. 151b contains three couplets also attributed to al-Ṭughrāʻī</dd>
<dd>Microfilm. Washington, D.C. : Army Medical Library, 1 microfilm reel ; 35 mm</dd>
<dd>Condition reviewed 20161205</dd>
<dd>digitized. 2018</dd></dl><br>Subjects: Anṣārī, ʻAlī ibn Mūsá, 1121 or 1122-1196 or 1197; Alchemy; Poetry as Topic</div>
<div class="fn value">
Abū al-Qāsim Muḥammad ibn ʻAbd Allāh al-Anṣārī</div>
<dl><dd><a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="https://archive.org/details/9404673.nlm.nih.gov">https://archive.org/details/9404673.nlm.nih.gov</a></dd>
<dd><a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="https://archive.org/download/9404673.nlm.nih.gov/9404673.pdf">https://archive.org/download/9404673.nlm.nih.gov/9404673.pdf</a></dd></dl>