4to. [9], xxxii, 321 pp., [48 Appendix], Arabic and Latin text edited and translated into Latin by J. White, subscriber’s list at front, contemporary mottled calf gilt, slightly rubbed and scuffed, marbled endpapers, upper cover professionally restored, bookplate & previous owner’s inscription verso front endpaper, otherwise copy in very good condition, J. Cooke, Hanwell & Parker, Oxford, 1800.

Synopsis

First Latin translation of al-Baghdadi’s “Kitab al-Ifada wa al-I’tibar fi al-Umur Wa al-Hawadith al-Mu’ayana bi Ard Misr”. Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi (1162-1231), also known as Ibn al-Labbad, was a versatile scholar and scientist, and his numerous writings covered almost the whole domain of the knowledge of the time. Of his extant works, the “Kitab al-Ifada wa al-I’tibar”, a short description of Egypt, was widely known in Europe. The first text edition of this work was published in 1789 by White, who also subsequently published the present volume which also includes the first Latin translation. Joseph White (1745-1814) of Wadham College, Oxford, was the Laudian Professor of Arabic between 1775 and 1814. This edition is rich with Arabic characters from the Imprimerie Imperiale in Paris, under the supervision of the famous orientalist J. J. Marcel (1776-1854), who was supervising the printing of the Egyptian expedition of 1798.
This work is one of the earliest works on Egyptology which describes monuments as well as the famine caused when the Nile failed to flood, whilst the author was in Egypt, resulting in many dying and the bodies of whom Abd al-Latif examined (an early post-mortem account). The manuscript was discovered in 1665 by Edward Pococke, and the present work is the first complete edition with the Latin translation and additions by White.
Bibliographic references: GAL I, p. 632; Schnurrer 153; Ibrahim-Hilmy I, 3; Brunet I, 9; Graesse I, 3; NYPL Arabia coll. 18; OCLC 31486913; Lambrecht 1687; Zenker 176; Sarkis 1293.