8vo. 335 pp. Arabic text, paper slightly browned, some foxing at the last page & damaged without loss, modern hard back binding, al-Matba’a al-Kulliyah, Cairo, 1330 A. H./ 1912.

Synopsis

Al-Watwat (1235-1318), living all his life in Mamluk Egypt. Unlike other writers of his era, he did not belong to the circle of the Mamluk administration but was a wealthy bookseller (hence his names Al-Kutubī, ‘the Bookseller’, and Al-Warrāq, ‘the Paper-seller’) and a celebrated compiler. According to his contemporary Al-Safdi (d. 1363), “he had a great knowledge of books and their value”.
Al-Waṭwāṭ’s best-known two works are the Mabāhij al-fikar wa manāhij al-‘ibar, ‘The joys of ideas and the methods of giving lessons’, and Gurar al-Khawas….”.