Shop

PRICE ON REQUEST VIA EMAIL / WHATSAPP

A highly important and remarkably early Yemeni Tehami manuscript of the first part of al-Wasīṭ, one of al-Ghazālī’s major works in Shāfiʿī jurisprudence. Manuscripts of al-Wasīṭ predating the 8th century AH are exceedingly scarce, and this copy, dated 670 AH, ranks among the earliest known privately held examples. Written in a clear Yemeni Tehami naskh with minimal diacritics, using a stable black ink characteristic of Yemen in the 7th century AH. The paper is an Eastern Islamic type of warm brown tone, predating the widespread appearance of European watermarked paper in Yemen. Numerous verification marks (ṣaḥ) throughout attest to scholarly use and systematic collation. The manuscript preserves its original Islamic blind-tooled leather binding, decorated with a central roundel and multiple intersecting geometric frames, an excellent and early example of Yemeni bookbinding.

THE SCHOLARLY ISNĀD (CHAIN OF TRANSMISSION)

This copy contains an exceptionally rare continuous scholarly isnād linking the reading of al-Wasīṭ directly back to the author through several generations of Yemeni and Persian scholars: Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Muqri’, Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr al-Yamanī, ʿUmar ibn, Masʿūd al-Khumayrī, Ḍiyā’ al-Dīn Ismāʿīl al-Ḥaḍramī, ʿAlī ibn Qāsim al-Ḥakamī (Qutb al-Yaman), Muẓaffar al-Dīn al-Tabrīzī, Yaḥyā ibn Faḍlān, Muḥyī al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā & Muḥyī al-Dīn. Both receiving directly from Imām al-Ghazālī. Such complete pedagogical chains for al-Wasīṭ are extraordinarily rare and significantly enhance the scholarly and collectible value of the manuscript.

The final certification notes that the reading was completed in Masjid Asʿar (Yemen) in 672 AH, providing valuable historical confirmation of Yemeni intellectual networks in the 7th century AH.

SIGNIFICANCE

An early dated copy (670 AH) decades earlier than most surviving manuscripts of al-Wasīṭ. Complete scholarly isnād linking directly to al-Ghazālī exceptionally scarce in the manuscript tradition. Original binding, stable ink, and authentic Eastern paper. A major witness to the Yemeni Shāfiʿī tradition and the early diffusion of Ghazālian jurisprudence. Such features collectively make this manuscript an extraordinary and museum-level example of early Islamic legal scholarship.

REFERENCES

Brockelmann, Geschichte der Arabischen Litteratur (GAL).

Sezgin, Geschichte des Arabischen Schrifttums (GAS).

Al-Furqān Foundation, Déroche, Islamic Codicology.

Bloom, Paper Before Print.

Hirschler, The Written Word in the Medieval Arabic World, Edinburgh Univ. Press.

El-Rouayheb, Islamic Intellectual History, Cambridge Univ. Press.

Sadeghi (Harvard), studies on manuscript verification practices.

Al-Shamāḥī, al-Yaman: al-Insān wa-l-Ḥaḍāra (for Yemeni topography including Asʿar).