Banner featuring Arabic calligraphy in dark blue ink above the words Islamic Medical Manuscripts at the National Library of Medicine written in burgundy ink.

Catalogue: Alchemy

Kitāb al-Iḥqāq min sab‘īn (MS A 70, item 4): (The Book of Seventy Truths); كتاب الاحقاق من السبين; by Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Zakarīyā’ al-Rāzī (d. ca. 925/313); ابو بكر محمد ابن زكرياء الرازى

This Arabic alchemical work by the name of The Book of Seventy Truths is attributed in the manuscript to Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Zakarīyā’ al-Rāzī, though it may be a spurious attribution. Until the discovery of this fragment, al-Rāzī's treatise by that title was known only through its Latin translation, Liber 70 praeceptorum.

No other Arabic copy is recorded.

For this treatise, see Sezgin, GAS IV, p. 282 no. 3, and J. Ruska, 'Pseudoepigraphische Rasis-Schriften', Osiris, 1939, vol. 7, pp. 31-94, esp. p. 33-9.

Kitāb al-Iḥqāq min sab‘īn [extract from] (MS A 70, item 4)

Illustrations

Folio 20b from MS A 70 which begins the alchemical treatise Kitāb al-Iḥqāq min sab‘īn (The Book of Seventy Truths) by Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Zakarīyā’ al-Rāzī. The paper is a biscuit, fibrous paper having a nearly matte finish. The text is written in a small, compact naskh script using black ink with headings and overlinings in red.

MS A 70, fol. 20b

Folio 21a from MS A 70 which is the second folio from the alchemical treatise Kitāb al-Iḥqāq min sab‘īn (The Book of Seventy Truths) by Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Zakarīyā’ al-Rāzī. The paper is a biscuit, fibrous paper having a nearly matte finish. The text is written in a small, compact naskh script using black ink with headings and overlinings in red.

MS A 70, fol. 21a

The opening two folios of a fragment of an alchemical treatise attributed to Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Zakarīyā’ al-Rāzī (d. 925) that is otherwise known only through its Latin translation Liber 70 praeceptorum. This fragment from Kitāb al-Iḥqāq min sab‘īn (The Book of Seventy Truths) is the only recorded copy of the Arabic original. The copy is undated, probably 17th or 18th century.

Physical Description

Arabic. 3 leaves (Fol. 20b, line 14-fol. 22a, line 7). Dimensions 21.3 x 16.8 (text area 15 x 10) cm; 20 lines per page. On folio 20b, line 14, it is stated that this is an extract (nubdhah) from the Kitāb al-Iḥqāq min sab‘īn (The Book of the 70 Truths) by Muḥammad ibn Zakarīyā’. The author's name is repeated in the following line as well.

The copy is undated and unsigned. The appearance of the paper, ink, and script suggests a date of the 17th or 18th century.

The text is written in a small, compact naskh script using black ink with headings and overlinings in red. There are catchwords. All twenty-seven items in this volume were transcribed by the same unnamed copyist. On some leaves there are instructions written vertically in the margins to the person who later inserted the rubricated headings; most have been cut off as the edges were trimmed.

There are copious marginalia throughout in several hands, with some interlinear notes. A later hand has written the titles of various individual items in the volume in the upper left corners of the recto of some folios. One person adding marginalia to the volume frequently cites the alchemical authority al-Jaldakī.

Fols. 1-40 are composed of a biscuit, fibrous paper having a nearly matte finish, with neither laid lines nor chain lines. Fols. 41-67 are composed of paper dyed a light gray, of structure and finish similar to the first group. The edges have been trimmed from their original size. The volume is damp-stained and soiled through thumbing.

The volume consists of 67 leaves and one loose leaf. Fol. 1a is blank except for some later Turkish poetry and an owner's stamp. The loose leaf is smaller (ca. 18 x 11 cm) and of different paper from the rest of the volume; on it are miscellaneous and very casually written notes. Fols. 1b-12a (item 1) contain Kitāb al-Sirr al-sārr wa-sirr al-asrār by Jābir ibn Ḥayyān (MS A 70, item 1); fols. 12a-13b (item 2) Kitāb Jannāt al-khuld by Jābir ibn Ḥayyān (MS A 70, item 2 ); fols. 13b-20b (item 3) Kitāb al-Raḥmah al-kabīr by Jābir ibn Ḥayyān (MS A 70, item 3); fols. 20b-22a (item 4) Kitāb al-Iḥqāq min sab‘īn [extracts] here catalogued; fols. 22a-24a (item 5) an untitled treatise attributed to Hirmīs [Hermes Trismegistus] (MS A 70, item 5); fols. 24a-27b (item 6) Kitāb al-Tadābīr by al-Rāzī (MS A 70, item 6); fols. 28a-29a (item 7) Kitāb al-Rāhib by Jābir ibn Ḥayyān (MS A 70, item 7); fols 29a-30b (item 8) Kitāb al-Āthar al-‘ulwīyah by Aristotle (MS A 70, item 8); fols. 30b-31b (item 9) Risālah al-Fahm al-thāqib ilá al-fahm al-murāqib attributed to Plato (MS A 70, item 9); fols. 31b-33b (item 10) Risālah Mufākharat al-aḥjār attributed to Jābir ibn Ḥayyān (MS A 70, item 10); fols. 33b-37b (item 11) extracts from writings of al-Ṭughrā’ī (MS A 70, item 11); fols. 38a-38b (item 12) untitled treatise attributed to Agathodaimon (MS A 70, item 12); fols. 39a-41a (item 13) Risālah fī ṣinā‘at al-iksīr by Aḥmad ibn ‘Imād al-Dīn (MS A 70, item 13); fols. 41a-45a (item 14) Risālah fī bayān tafrīq al-adyān wa-tafarru‘ al-‘ibādāt wa-al-diyānāt wa-al-i‘tiqādāt by Zosimos (MS A 70, item 14); fols. 45a-47b (item 15) Kitāb al-Fuṣūl attributed to Jābir ibn Ḥayyān (MS A 70, item 15); fols. 47b-48b (item 16) extracts from writings of al-Ṭughrā’ī (MS A 70, item 16); fols. 49a-52b (item 17) untitled risālah attributed to Khālid ibn Yazīd (MS A 70, item 17); fols. 52b-53b (item 18) Kitāb al-Mujarradāt [extracts] attributed to Jābir ibn Ḥayyān (MS A 70, item 18); fols. 53b-57b (item 19) Masā’il attributed to Khālid ibn Yazīd (MS A 70, item 19); fols. 57b-60a (item 20) Kitāb al-Sirr al-Maknūn by Jābir ibn Ḥayyān (MS A 70, item 20); fols. 60a-63a (item 21) extract (nubdhah) from the writings of al-Ṭughrā’ī (MS A 70, item 21); fols. 63a-63b (item 22) Aqwāl al-mutaffariqāt, anonymous (MS A 70, item 22); fols. 63b, lines 6-13 (item 23), alchemical note, anonymous (MS A 70, item 23); fols. 63b-64a (item 24) Kitāb al-Mawāzīn [extracts] by Jābir ibn Ḥayyān (MS A 70, item 24); fols. 64a-64b (item 25) Kitāb al-Sirr al-Maknūn [extract] by Jābir ibn Ḥayyān (MS A 70, item 25); fols 64b-67a (item 26) Kitāb al-Aḥjār ‘alá ra’y Balīnās by Jābir ibn Ḥayyān (MS A 70, item 26); and fols. 67a-67b (item 27) untitled treatise attributed to Agathodaimon (MS A 70, item 27).

Binding

The volume is bound in a soft brown-leather binding. On each cover there is a blind-tooled design formed of straight lines. There are no pastedowns or endpapers.

Provenance

On fol. 1b there is an impression of an owner's stamp whose date might be 1123 (= 1711), though the middle numerals are not clear, and the name might be Abū Nūr Muḥammad al-Ḥusaynī. On fol. 1a there is an unidentified library stamp.

The volume was purchased in 1941 by the Army Medical Library from A.S. Yahuda (ELS 1701 Med 120).

References

Schullian/Sommer, Cat. of incun. & MSS., entry A 70, p. 320, where says it a collection of 32 alchemical treatises.

NLM Microfilm Reel: FILM 48-126 no. 3