ARAB MANUSCRIT: RIHLA OF IBN BATTUTA, NORTH AFRICA, DEDICACE - Lot 15

ARAB MANUSCRIT: RIHLA OF IBN BATTUTA, NORTH AFRICA, DEDICACED TO THE LETTER ABU 'ABD ALLAH MUHAMMAD AL-DARNAWI (M. 1199 AH / 1785 AD.), COPIED BY AHMAD IBN MUHAMMAD AL-TAYYIBI AL-FASI, KNOWN AS IBN AL-QADHI, DATED ON THE FIRST PAGE 1182/1768, COLOPHON INDICATING THE MONTH RABI' AL-AWWAL (JULY). The manuscript is printed on watermarked laid paper. It comprises 269 pages and 5 endpapers. The opening page features a handwritten bookplate organized in eight horizontal bands of text, ending in a triangular shape. Each line of text, written in Maghribi thuluth, alternates between gold, red and blue inks. These colors are reminiscent of the pigments later used in ornamental headbands. The volume is complete and divided into two parts (juz'). Each is introduced by an ornamental polychrome headband (red, blue, orange and gold). It is extended in the margin by a medallion of foliage scrolls. The first part (al-juz' al-awwal riḥla Ibn Baṭṭūṭa) begins with the description of North Africa; the second (al-juz' al-thānī) begins with that of the Indus Valley. The text is copied in fine Maghribi script, in light brown ink, at 25 lines per page. It is framed by several blue and red fillets, or burnished gold. City names are highlighted in red ink. The manuscript ends with a colophon indicating the month of completion: Rabīʿ al-Awwal (corresponding to July of the year 1182 H. mentioned in the bookplate), the copyist's name: Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Ṭayyibī al-Fāsī, and his pen name: Ibn al-Qāḍī. The manuscript quires are not bound but simply juxtaposed and inserted in an Ottoman-style binding of red leather, decorated with a central cold-stamped mandorla and stamped in gold with tchi cloud motifs. The spine of the binding has been replaced and the interior has been lined with a printed paper featuring white trilobal motifs with gold outlines on a red background. Flap missing. Dimensions: Text area: 20.2 x 12 cm; Page: 28 x 20.3 cm. The bookplate text begins with the title of the work "Kitāb riḥla Ibn Baṭṭūṭa". Note the peculiar spelling of the proper name Baṭṭūṭa ending in alif mamdūda instead of the usual spelling with tā' marbūta. The title is followed by a formula of praise and an honorific dedication intended to magnify the owner and his high rank: "al-wazīr al-mushīr": the vizier, advisor; "al-ʿallāma al-naḥrīr": the great scholar, of subtle intelligence. Following the titles is the name of the owner: Abū 'Abd Allāh Muḥammad al-Darnāwī (d. 1199/1785). The latter, a jurist and scholar, is known to have taught at the Sfax madrasa, at the University of the Zaytuna in Tunis, as well as to have directed the Muradiyya madrasa in the same city (see his biography by Abū al-Thanā' al-Ṣafāqsi Maḥmūd ibn Saʿīd Maqdish, Nuzha al-Anẓār fi ʿajāʾib al-tawārikh wa-l akhbār wa manāqib al-sāda al-aṭhār, Beirut, Dār al-Kutub al-'ilmiyya, 1971). Among his works, we know his commentary (Ḥāshiya) on al-Akhḍari's Sharḥ al-Durra al-Bayḍāʾ (edition: Maṭbaʿa li-taqdīm al-ʿilmiyya bi-darb al-dalīl bi-Miṣr, 1325/1907). The last section of the bookplate mentions the date 1182 /1768, which probably corresponds to the commissioning of the volume. A marginal note in cursive, written in black along the frame in the gutter margin, gives a truncated date: 122. or 123. Hegira. The copyist's name, Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Ṭayyibī al-Fāsī, and his pen name, Ibn al-Qāḍī, refer to the scholarly figure of Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad Ibn al-Qāḍī (d. 1025/1616), renowned for his writings on law, the Koran, the Sunna and literature (see Mawalidi, "Ibn al-Qāḍī", Arab Encyclopedia). This is probably one of his ancestors, as the manuscript was produced after the latter's death. Ibn Baṭṭūṭa (703/1304 - 770/1368-9 or 779/1377), a native of Tangier, was one of the most famous travelers of the medieval Islamic world. Leaving in 1325 to make the pilgrimage to Mecca, he spent almost thirty years traveling through North Africa, Arabia, Central Asia, India, Southeast Asia and China, returning via Andalusia and sub-Saharan Africa. Back in Morocco, he dictated the account of his travels to the Andalusian scholar Ibn Juzayy, at the request of the Merinid sultan Abū ʿInān. The work, completed on 3 Dhu 'l-Ḥijja 756/December 9, 1355, bears the full title Tuḥfat al-nuẓẓār fī gharā'ib al-amṣār wa-ʿajā'ib al-asfār (A gift for those who contemplate the wonders