8vo. Arabic manuscript on polished paper, 81 leaves, 13 lines to the page written in clear ta'liq script in black ink, significant words and sentences underlined in red ink, catchwords, extensive Arabic commentaries written diagonally in wide outer margins, 16th Century burgundy morocco binding with stamped central medallions decorated with intertwining floral motifs and serrated leaves on a gold ground, outer borders tooled in gold, doublures of brown morocco, with flap, lacking spine, Ottoman Turkey, at Madrasa Ayasofya, Constantinople, copied by the scribe Ali bin Muhammad bin Ahmed during the reign of Sultan Suleyman The Magnificient, (REG. 1520 -66), dated 10th Rajab 936 / 10th March 1530.

Synopsis

An Early Copy of an Ottoman Manuscript dedicated to Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent: The colophon of this copy of the work states that it was dedicated to Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent (reg. 1520–66) in AH 931/AD 1524–25.
The author was born in Amasya in AH 864/AD 1459-60, where he also studied, gaining expertise in subjects as varied as exegesis, law, music and the esoteric science of letters (jafr). He taught in various schools (madrasas) in Amasya and Bursa, and was for a while tutor to Prince Ahmed. He was appointed head teacher of the madrasa built by Sultan Selim I (reg.1512-20) & next to Ayasofya in Constantinople, and then in the Semaniye madrasa in the same city. He died in AH 940/AD 1533-34, and was buried in Eyup. For a biography of the author, see A. Mingana, Catalogue of the Arabic
Manuscripts in the John Rylands Library, Manchester 1934, pp. 705-706, no. 425. The author and his works are listed in the following two works: K. Celebi, Kashf al-Zunun, Vol. I, Beirut, n.d., p. 170; O. Kehhale, Majmu’ al-Mu’allifin, Vol. II, Baghdad, n.d., p.148.
Manuscripts from the period of Sultans Bayezid, Selim I and Suleyman the Magnificent are very rare, and in the case of this copy both the author and the Sultan to whom it was dedicated, were still alive when it was made. Furthermore, it was copied in 1530, only five years after it was composed in 1525.