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Theodosius of Bithynia.
Kitab al-ukar [Sphaerics]. Central Asia, [May/June 1592 CE =] Sha'ban 1000 H.
8vo (116 x 180 mm). Arabic manuscript on paper. 52 pp. on 28 ff. of very fine polished paper (8 ff. on pink paper), complete. Meticulous Naskh in black ink with occasional red; numerous diagrams in red in the margins and occasionally within the text itself. Bound with an astronomical treatise in Persian. 50 pp. Black ink with occasional red; several diagrams in red throughout the text. Altogether 59 ff. 18th century red morocco, ruled in gilt and stamped in blind, modern rebacking. A 16th century Arabic manuscript of the "Sphaerics" by the Greek astronomer and mathematician Theodosius of Bithynia (ca. 169-100 BCE). Unknown in the West during the Middle Ages, the "Sphaerics" proved instrumental in the restoration of Euclidean geometry to Western civilization when the book was brought back from the Islamic world during the crusades and translated from Arabic into Latin. - The text is decorated throughout with geometric diagrams drawn in red ink with a delicate and exacting hand. Each is labelled, and many are quite intricately detailed, showing the geometric qualities of the sphere and progress to astronomical diagrams exploring orbits and planetary movement. This present manuscript was copied by Muhammad Taqi bin Aqa Jalal al-Kilani, dated to Sha'ban 1000 H. - Bound with another astronomical treatise, in Persian, written on somewhat coarser paper stock. Covers worn and rebacked, some dampstaining, otherwise very well preserved. A fine piece in the history of mathematics.
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Unsuri, Abu al-Qasim Hasan.
Masnavi-i Vamiq va 'Azra [Metiochus and Parthenope]. Persia, 1830.
Folio (212 x 324 mm). Persian manuscript on faintly ruled paper. 1 blank leaf, 336 pp. (168 ff.), 1 blank leaf. Text is complete, but last leaf is missing. 1 illuminated headpiece and 49 illustrations in ink and bright watercolour wash. Text in black, ruled in black, with important words and phrases picked out in purple. 19th century leather ruled and stamped in blind. Lavishly illuminated Persian manuscript depicting the romance which came to define the love story in Western literature. Composed by Abu al-Qasim Hasan Unsuri (ca. 961-1039), the original Persian was in fact lost, and preserved in a Turkish translation. Unsuri's version was itself based on what was already an ancient love story in his own time, the Ancient Greek novel "Metiochus and Parthenope", which also survives only in fragments. Though certainly derived from the Greek, like many Persian romances with Greek origins, "the nature of the relationship is not [...] the simple one of the earlier (Greek) material influencing the later (Persian) material, as the Greek novels contain a number of motifs and topoi which are identified within the narratives themselves as Persian in origin. The relationship between the love narratives of the two cultures appear, therefore, to have been one of mutual reciprocity over a considerable stretch of time" (Davis). - Some fragments of the original Persian do survive: Sa'id Nafisi collected 141 verses of "Wameq o 'Adra" that were used as evidence in Persian dictionaries, and 372 more verses were discovered by Mohammad Šafi' in the binding of an old manuscript in 1950 (Blois, 201). Unsuri's version was translated in the 16th century into Turkish by Shaikh Mahmud Lame'i, though in comparison with the earlier fragments, this is considered a loose translation of the original. However, it provides the source of most subsequent translations and most of what we know of "Vamiq va 'Azra", as a romance which underpins the genre. In literature both medieval and modern, the narratives of the original persist: lovers separated by a kidnapping, a virgin who must use a range of tricks to elude unworthy attempts on her chastity, an interrupted wedding, and a seemingly final separation with the (supposed) death of one of the lovers. In this way, "Vamiq va 'Azra" echoes down the literary ages. - Covers somewhat worn but professionally repaired; still tightly bound. Light soiling, otherwise a beautifully illustrated and uncommon manuscript. Richard Davis, "Greece IX. Greek and Persian Romances", in: Encyclopaedia Iranica XI, 339-342. Francois de Blois, Persian Literature: A Bio-Bibliographical Survey. Vol. V: Poetry of the Pre-Mongol Period (London: Royal Asiatic Society, 2004), pp. 201-204.
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[Wilson, Arnold Talbot].
A Sketch of the Political History of Persia, Iraq and Arabia, With Special Reference to the Present Campaign. Calcutta, Government Press, 1917.
Small 8vo. (6), 43, (1) pp. Stiff green cloth wrappers titled in black. Extremely rare manual, marked "For Official use only" and prepared for the troops of the Indian Expeditionary Force "D", giving an account of the political and historical context of the British Mesopotamian campaign of World War I. - Expeditionary Force "D" was made up of Indian and British troops and is infamous for its doomed defense of the siege of Kut, where disease and starvation forced a surrender in April 1916. However, the pamphlet does not limit itself to Iraq, but crucially provides an entire chapter on the history of, and British interest in, the Arabian Peninsula, titled "Arabia - Our Left Flank", including an entire section on Abdulaziz Ibn Saud (1875-1953). The author summarizes the history of British presence in the Gulf, noting the sack of Ras-al-Khaimah in retribution for alleged pirate activity, after which "the climate forced [the British] to evacuate that position". The book further refers to the "maritime truce" imposed by Britain upon the Arabian Coast from "Masandam to Kuwait" in 1836 and notes that the suppression of the arms trade in Muscat was successful thanks to the regulations put in place by Faisal bin Turki, Sultan of Muscat and Oman (1864-1913), the direct ancestor of Sultan Haitham. In more general terms the author describes "The rich oases of the Qasim, with their population of enterprizing merchants" and "the Hasa, coveted for its date groves and its ports on the Persian Gulf" which "was finally wrested from the Ottoman Government by Ibn Sa'ud in 1913". The author lists British treaties along the Gulf Coast, including with "the Shaikh of Bahrain" (Abdullah bin Ahmad Al Khalifa, 1769-1849) in 1820 "and in 1798 with the chiefs of the Trucial Coast". - Cloth gently rubbed. Interior shows a hint of foxing, otherwise in very good condition. A single copy is listed in auction records, and that volume included a pencil note attributing authorship to Sir Arnold Talbot Wilson (1884-1940), a captain in the British Indian Army. As then-acting civil commissioner for Mesopotamia who later became known for his strong opinions on the postwar fate of Iraq, he is not an unlikely candidate.
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Ahmad ibn Muhammad (ibn 'Arabshah).
Tarikh-i Timur Gürgan [The History of Tamerlane]. Qustantaniyah (Constantinople, Istanbul), Ibrahim Müteferrika, [1730 CE =] 1142 H.
4to (165 x 125 mm). (6), 129 ff. Early 19th century half calf with floral moirée paper covers. Yellow paper pastedowns. The sixth book printed by Ibrahim Müteferrika: an important eyewitness account of the life of Tamerlane (Timur), the successful and barbaric 14th-century Turkish conqueror. Translated into in Ottoman Turkish by Nazemi Zadeh from the original Arabic manuscript completed in 1437/38 by the Syrian author Ahmad lbn 'Arabshah (1392-1450), secretary to Sultan Ahmad of Baghdad. - Binding a little rubbed at extremeties. Occasional browning, depending on paper stock, but mostly a very good, clean copy on crisp paper. Özege 19929. GAL S II, p. 25. Ebert 292 (note). Brunet I, 117 (note). Toderini III, p. 75, no. V.
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[Bidpai].
Livre des lumières ou la conduite des roys, composé par le sage Pilpay Indien. Paris, Simeon Piget, 1644.
8vo (101 x 171 mm). (16), 286 pp., final blank leaf. Near-contemporary full red morocco binding, flat spine with gilt title and elaborate ornamentation, both covers bordered with triple rules, leading edges gilt, inner dentelle gilt. Marbled endpapers. All edges gilt. Extremely rare first French edition of the oriental tales known as "Kalila wa-Dimna" or "Anvari Suhaili", being the Persian version of the Fables of Bidpai (here comprising the prologue and the first four chapters). Translated by the great French linguist Gilbert Gaulmin (1585-1665) and his student and collaborator David Sahid d'Ispahan (whose is the only name given on the title). Bidpai (or "Pilpay") is the name of the Indian philosopher to whom the Arabic and Persian tradition attributes this famous collection, known in the Sanskrit tradition as "Panchatantra". It was translated into Latin as early as the 13th century. - This first French edition is of particular importance for popularising the fables in France and providing Jean de La Fontaine with themes for many of his later and most beautiful stories in his own fable collection, first published in 1678-79 (cf. Le Roux). - Volume ends with the note "Fin de la premiere partie", but all published. Provenance: old ink ownership "Bouhon or. de S. Sac" to title-page. Later in the library of the Lebanese-born entrepreneur Charles Kettaneh (1904-85) with his etched bookplate to the front flyleaf. Together with his brothers, Charles Kettaneh developed the export business of cars and other American luxury goods to the Middle East, where he established licenced dealerships. Passionate about travel, a fine scholar and knowledgeable about art, Kettaneh was a great collector and bibliophile; his library was remarkable for the rarity of the books rather than for their number. - Binding very slightly rubbed in places, but finely preserved. Contemporary bibliographical notes and the odd penstroke to the margin. A superb copy, not in trade records. Chauvin II, p. 33, no. 55A. Brunet I, 937. Graesse I, 421f. Barbier II, 1329. Le Roux de Lincy, Essai sur les fables indiennes et sur leur introduction en Europe (1838), p. 23f. OCLC 457066815.
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[Cairo Ware - Islamic Judaica].
Copper gilt tray. Probably Egypt, late 19th century.
Diameter: 31 cms. A beautiful copper gilt tray in a rounded flat form, engraved with geometric designs in the Mamluk revival style, the Star of David and Hebrew and Arabic lettering. - Exceedingly well preserved.
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[Concorde].
Envelope "Concorde - Inaugural Flight - Bahrain-London". Bahrain, [postmark: 22 Jan. 1976].
200 x 120 mm.
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Ibn Zunbul, Ahmed ibn 'Ali / Ahmet Süheyli Efendi.
Tarikh-i Misr-i cedid / Tarikh-i Misr-i al-kadim [A History of Modern and Ancient Egypt]. Qustantaniyah (Constantinople, Istanbul), Ibrahim Müteferrika, [1730 CE =] 1142 H.
4to (170 x 214 mm). (4), 65, 51 ff. Early 19th century half calf with marbled covers and fore-edge flap. Pink paper pastedowns. The seventh book printed by Ibrahim Müteferrika: a history of Egypt from antiquity to early modern times, prepared by the Turkish scholar Ahmed Süheylî (1562?-1632). The modern section (bound first, as usual) is in fact an Ottoman Turkish translation of the chronicle of the Ottoman-Mamluk war of 1516/17, "Fath Misr" (Tarikh as-sultan Selim al-Utmani ma'a as-sultan Qansuh al-Ghawri) by Ibn Zunbul (d. 1574/75). - Handwritten ownership of the French diplomat Louis Lagarde (dated 1923 CE) to front flyleaf. Occasional light browning and fingerstains, but mostly an excellent copy on good, crisp paper. Özege 19868-19869. GAL S II, p. 409. Toderini III, p. 85, no. VI.
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Katib Chelebi (Haji Khalifa).
Tuhfet ül-kibar fi esfar il-bihar. Qustantaniyah (Constantinople, Istanbul), Ibrahim Müteferrika, [1729 CE =] 1141 H.
Small folio (185 x 246 mm). (7), 75, (2) ff. With 2 (instead of 4) double-page-sized engraved maps and a double-page-sized compass rose plate, all in contemporary hand colour. Early 20th century half calf over marbled covers with title gilt to spine. The first illustrated printed Turkish book and the second work from the press of Ibrahim Müteferrika. Composed in 1656, this is a compilation containing in its main section a history of the Ottoman navy and naval wars, from the conquest of Constantinople down to the author's own lifetime. It includes an introductory geographical summary of the conditions around the Balkans and the Black Sea, a chronological list of all Ottoman admirals, a description of the administrative organisation of the navy and dockyards, regulations on sea battles, ships in the Ottoman navy, their equipment and maintenance, together with suggestions for improvement. - The maps show the Mediterranean and the Adriatic Sea (some edge flaws; rebacked; lacks the map of the Black Sea and the world map). Some browning and waterstaining throughout; ff. 17-18 transposed between ff. 4 and 5, ff. 25-28 between ff. 22 and 23. Watson 2. Atabey 898. Özege 21273. Babinger 12. Blackmer 1176. De Sacy III, 5017. Toderini III, p. 25, no. II.
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[Kitab Alf layla wa-layla].
Kitab Alf layla wa-layla. Vols. I and II. Bulaq, al-Matba’ah al-kubra, [1835 CE =] 1251 H.
Royal 8vo (262 x 194 mm). 2 vols. 710 pp. 620 pp. Printed in Arabic throughout, floral woodcut sarlawh to each volume, text within two-line frame throughout, titles in nasta'liq types. Bound in somewhat later half leather over marbled boards; spine on five raised bands with gilt title, volume number, and edition. Double endpapers. Housed in custom-made, half-cloth modern slipcase. First complete edition in Arabic of the Thousand and One Nights, and the first edition printed in the Arab world. Very rare, with seven copies only located in libraries worldwide (American University Beirut, British Library, Danish Royal Library, Harvard, Huntington, and Yale); none traced in auction records. The Bulaq edition was preceded by another two-volume edition printed at Calcutta between 1814 and 1818, which contained a selection of 200 "Nights" only; the German orientalist Max Habicht began his multi-volume, so-called Breslau edition in 1824, though it remained incomplete on his death in 1839, and at any rate used the Bulaq text as one of its many sources. The Bulaq edition was prepared by one ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Sifti al-Sharqawi, probably from a single manuscript which is now lost. It proved "more correct than the garbled and semi-colloquial renderings given by the manuscripts used in the compilations of Calcutta I and Breslau", and was instrumental in stabilising the Thousand and One Nights corpus (Irwin, The Arabian Nights: A Companion, p. 44). It was the main source for Edward Lane’s pioneering English translation (1889-41) and for the last of the four historically important Arabic editions, published at Calcutta in 1839-42 (and known as "Calcutta II"). Bulaq and Calcutta II "superseded almost completely all other texts and formed the general notion of the Arabian Nights. For more than half a century it was neither questioned nor contested that the text of the Bulaq and Calcutta II editions was the true and authentic text" (Marzolph, The Arabian Nights Reader, p. 88). - The printing press at Bulaq, Cairo, founded in 1821 by Muhammad ‘Ali Pasha, was the first indigenous press in Egypt and one of the first anywhere in the Arab world, its literary output catering to a keen export market and increased demand among the expanding professional classes of Muhammad ‘Ali’s Egypt. For the first few years the press used types cast in Italy, then France. "In 1826 Muhammad ‘Ali sent a delegation to Europe to study printing, and by the 1830s printing had reached a good technical level at Bulaq" (Kent et al., eds., Encyclopaedia of Library and Information Science, vol. 24, p. 63). The present edition exhibits the high standards of Bulaq printing, with the main text composed in authentic and legible naskh-style types, interspersed with attractive headings in nasta’liq. - Condition report: 19th-century bibliographical notes on a typed vignette mounted on the endpapers of each volume; bibliographical notes in pencil on endpaper of vol. 1. Handwritten tables of contents loosely inserted to both volumes, probably in Barbier de Meynard's hand in ink and pencil. A few marginal notes in Arabic and French written in pen and pencil throughout. Occasional spotting; pages very slightly yellowed due to age. A tiny hole throughout, at the upper inner corner of the framing rules. Vol. 1: Two small holes at the gutter of fol. [157]2 (pp. 627f.) and minute damage to the upper edge of the last 9 ff. Spine rubbed, upper compartment professionally restored. Vol. 2: A larger light stain to the margin of fol. [4]1 (pp. 13f.), moderately touching the text area but not affecting legibility. Insignificant worming to lower margin of the first 10 ff. Spine rubbed, front hinge professionally restored. Interior of both volumes is clean and firm, overall in very good condition. - Provenance: from the collection of the French oriental scholar Charles Barbier de Meynard (1826-1906) with his stamp and ownership inscription "Bibliothéque de Mr Barbier de Meynard" in both volumes. A member of the Société Asiatique and editor of "Dictionnaire Géographique de la Perse", Barbier de Meynard authored several books and articles and co-translated the 9-volume "Moruj al-dahab" ("Les prairies d'or") of Al-Masudi (Paris, 1861-77). His inscription "Donne par A. Dantan" in the first volume probably refers to Antoine Dantan, a member of the renowned French dragoman dynasty. Chauvin IV, 18, 20K. Brunet III, 1715. Graesse IV, 523. Fawzi M. Tadrus, Printing in the Arab World with emphasis on Bulaq Press (Doha: University of Qatar, 1982), p. 64. Middle Eastern Languages and the Print Revolution. A Cross-Cultural Encounter, Westhofen 2002, p. 184. Heinz Grotzfeld. Neglected Conclusions of the "Arabian Nights": Gleanings in Forgotten and Overlooked Recensions. In: Journal of Arabic Literature, Vol. 16, (1985), pp. 73-87. Ulrich Marzolph (ed.). The Arabian nights in transnational perspective, Wayne State University Press 2007, p. 51.
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Krusinski, Judasz Tadeus, SJ.
Tarikh-i seyyah der bayan-i zuhur-i Agvaniyan ve-inhidam-i devlet-i Safeviyan. Qustantaniyah (Constantinople, Istanbul), Ibrahim Müteferrika, [26 August 1729 CE =] 1 Safar 1142 H.
4to (152 x 220 mm). 2 (instead of 7), 97 ff. (last two leaves mutilated; plus a fragment of the 5th leaf of prelims). Contemporary calf binding; papered spine with typed leather spine label; some loss to lower cover. The third book printed by Ibrahim Müteferrika: a contemporary history of the Afghan-Persian wars of the Safavid era that led to the fall of the Safavid dynasty and the Afghan occupation of Iran. This is the Ottoman Turkish translation of a work by the Polish Jesuit Judasz Tadeus Krusinski, who lived in the royal capital of Isfahan from 1707 to 1725/28, acting as an intermediary between the Papacy and the Iranian court as well as a court translator. Proficient in Persian and well acquainted with the nation and its people, he was a first-hand witness to the sack of the city by the rebellious Afghans in 1722, and his account makes him an important primary source on this particular period of the Safavid era. - Browned, fingerstained and waterstained throughout, several waqf marks; various edge tears and small chips. Lacks the first five leaves of the preliminaries (save for a fragment of the fifth); loss to upper edge of f. 33 (first line) and ff. 96-97 (several lines at the bottom of the page). Zenker 929. Özege 19897. De Backer/Sommervogel IV, 1264. Brunet III, 190. Ebert 4844 (note). Toderini III, p. 34, no. III.
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[Tarikh-i Hind-i gharbi].
Tarikh-i Hind-i gharbi al-müsemma bi-Hadis-i nev [A History of the Western Indies]. Qustantaniyah (Constantinople, Istanbul), Ibrahim Müteferrika, [April 1730 CE =] mid-Ramazan 1142 H.
4to (161 x 212 mm). (3), 91 ff. With 13 woodcut hand-coloured illustrations in the text (lacking the 4 double-page engraved plates). Contemporary half calf binding with marbled covers and fore-edge flap. Rare first edition of this illustrated history of the New World in Ottoman Turkish: the first book published in Turkey to contain illustrations, the earliest book about the New World published in the Ottoman Empire, and one of the first titles printed by a Muslim in Turkey. The contemporary colouring of the woodcuts, which depict curious oddities, fantastic creatures and the native people of the New World, lends this specimen a visual appearance very different from that of the rather plain copies in which this book is usually known (14 copies recorded by OCLC). The only similarly embellished copy of the Hind al-Gharbi we could trace is the one held by the Lilly Library. - "Although ascribed in Turkish bibliographies to one Mehmed Ibn Hasan üs-Su'udi, the authorship is uncertain [...] Despite the title, this is not a history of the West Indies. It opens with a general geographical and cosmological discussion, and follows with an account of the discovery of the New World, with considerable fantastic elaboration in the spirit of the more fabulous passages of Abu Hamid and Qazwini. Among the illustrations are depictions of trees whose fruits are in human form, long-snouted horses, mermen at battle with land-dwellers, and other men and beasts of nightmarish aspect" (Watson). - This work, which survives in a number of manuscripts (none as complete as this printed edition), was composed in Istanbul around 1580. After a synthesis of Islamic geographical and cosmographical writings (notably drawing from al-Mas'udi, who is the most frequently cited source, and Ibn al-Wardi, mentioned almost 20 times), the book relates the discovery of the New World. It is this Chapter 3, which comprises the final two thirds of the text, in which the unidentified author describes the explorations and discoveries by Columbus, Balboa, Magellan, Cortés and Pizarro. As Goodrich's study of the book's sources shows, this section is derived directly from Italian editions of 16th century texts, particularly works by López de Gómara, Peter Martyr, Agustín de Zárate, and Oviedo, which the author excerpted, rearranged, and translated into Turkish. Complete copies are rare: the book was printed in an edition of only 500 copies, many of which were subsequently defaced or destroyed for contravening the Islamic dictum against representing living things. - The "Tarikh-i Hind-i gharbi" is only the fourth book printed in the Arabic alphabet in the Ottoman Empire, produced by Ibraham Müteferrika, an Hungarian convert to Islam who believed he could help arrest the decline of the Empire through his printing press. He established his shop in 1729 in the palace of the Grand Vizier Ibrahim Pasha and was granted a license to print all but religious works (which remained the province of scribes). - A few corners or edges clipped or trimmed, remargined by an early collector. Lacks the engraved maps and astronomical chart present in some copies. Old inscription in Arabic (dated 1341 H) and ownership of the French diplomat Louis Lagarde (dated 1923 CE) to front flyleaf. John Carter Brown 463. Toderini III, p. 41, no. IV. Karatay 250. Sabin 94396. William J. Watson, "Ibrahim Müteferrika and Turkish Incunabula," in: Journal of the American Oriental Society 88, no. 3 (1968), pp. 435-441, no. 4. Özege 19828. OCLC 416474553. Cf. T. D. Goodrich, The Ottoman Turks and the New World (Wiesbaden 1990).
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[Tarikh-i Hind-i gharbi].
Tarikh-i yeni dunya [History of the New World, or America and the Indies]. [Turkish or Ottoman Balkans, Nov./Dec. 1770 CE =] Sha'ban [11]84 H.
4to (146 x 211 mm). Ottoman Turkish manuscript. 284 ff. of polished laid paper. Black naskh with occasional red; 19 lines within red rules; gilt and illuminated sarlowh on first text page. Signed by the scribe Darwish 'Ali. Early 19th century English binding with blind-tooled spine and fore-edge flap in the oriental style. A complete 18th century manuscript of what is famously the first Ottoman history of America. Composed by an unidentified Turkish author in the 1580s, the work is also known as "Tarikh-i Hind-i gharbi" ("History of the West Indies") and "Hadis-i nev". It enjoyed great popularity throughout the 16th and 17th centuries and was printed by Ibrahim Müteferrika in 1730, making it the earliest book about the New World published in the Ottoman Empire. This text appears to be the principal source of information about the Americas circulating in the Ottoman Empire from the 16th to the 18th century. - Binding somewhat rubbed at extremeties; interior well preserved with wide margins. Provenance: from the library of Frederick North, Earl of Guilford (1766-1827), first British Governor of Ceylon, Philhellene and founder of the first university in modern Greece (his engraved bookplate on the front pastedown); annotated on the flyleaf: "A history of the new world, or America & the W. Indies, written in 1184 A.H.". Old French catalogue entry, clipped and mounted on lower pastedown. The son of Lord North, Prime Minister under George III, Frederick North had travelled widely throughout the Mediterranean, visiting not only Greece and Italy, but also Constantinople and the Ottoman Empire, including Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. He gifted his large personal collection of printed books and manuscripts to the Library of the university he created in Corfu. Counter to his wishes, after his death the books were transferred to his heir, George Holroyd, 2nd Earl of Sheffield (1802-76), who had the collection auctioned in London in seven sales held between 1828 and 1835; a substantial part was acquired by the British Museum and still rests in the British Library. - An important text, in a copy with important provenance. Cf. T. D. Goodrich, The Ottoman Turks and the New World (Wiesbaden 1990). The same, "Tarihi-i Hind-i Garbi: An Ottoman Book on the New World," in: Journal of the American Oriental Society 107.2 (April-June 1987), p. 317.
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United Arab Airlines.
2 ticket holders and matches. No place, ca. 1960.
325 x 235 mm; 220 x 145 mm. Pack of matches with 18 matches. Ticket holders for a United Arab Airlines flight (probably to Japan) and a pack of matches promoting the Comet 4c Jet. The bigger holder is illustrated with a lithograph showing Geishas. - The de Havilland DH.106 Comet was the world's first commercial jet airliner. The last Comet variant, the Comet 4C, first flew on 31 October 1959. Ordered by Kuwait Airways, Middle East Airlines, Misrair (later United Arab Airlines), and Sudan Airways, it was the most popular Comet variant and made its final flight in 1997.
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Abdelkader al-Jazairi, Emir of Mascara, Algerian freedom fighter (1808-1883).
Autograph letter with tughra stamp. N. p. [probably Damascus], [24 Aug. 1865 =] 1 Rabi' al-Thani 1282.
Small folio (310 x 210 mm). 8 lines in Arabic on bifolium. With a French translation in a different hand on the same page. Letter of recommendation for one of Adelkader's sons to Stéphane Poignant, the prefect of Algiers: "A sa seigneurie le grand, l'élevé, Monsieur le Préfet d'Alger, que Dieu vous bénisse [...] Nous espérons de votre bonté et de votre excellente initiative, un bon accueil en faveur du porteur Es-Séid Kaddour ben Mahi Ed-din qui est au nombre de mes enfants et qui compte parmi les personnes que nous chérissons le plus. Nous espérons que vous l'aiderez de tout votre pouvoir dans ses affaires [...]". - Stéphane Poignant served as prefect of the Department of Algiers from 1864 to 1869. Emir Abd el-Kader is an important figure in the Algerian resistance to French colonisation. Captured in 1847, he was held in France and released in 1852. After spending some time in Paris, he travelled the Middle East and settled in Syria in 1860. During the anti-Christian riots in the same year, he saved numerous Christians threatened by the Druze from massacre, which brought him international recognition. - Traces of folds and some browning.
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Abulcasis (Albucasis, Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi).
La chirurgie. Traduite par le Dr Lucien Leclerc. Paris, J.-B. Baillière, 1861.
8vo (140 x 222 mm). (10), XIV, (5)-342 pp. With 3 folding lithographed plates. Contemporary half calf over marbled covers with florally gilt spine. Marbled endpapers. First and only edition of this important French translation of the surgical section of the author's "Al-Tasrif", "the first rational, complete and illustrated treatise on surgery and surgical instruments" (Garrison/M.). Abu-l-Qasim Khalaf al-Zahrawi, a 10th-century physician from Cordoba, was the author of a voluminous medico-surgical encyclopedia gathered in a set of thirty treatises under the title of "Kitab at-tasrif liman agiza 'an it-ta'alif", but his fame rests on the section on surgery, which forms the 30th and final treatise in the book. "During the Middle Ages it was the leading textbook on surgery until superseded by Saliceto" (ibid.). The illustrations of the instruments, numbering between 150 and 200 in the various the manuscripts, contributed to the success of the work. - Al-Zahrawi designed several devices used during surgery, for purposes such as inspection of the interior of the urethra, applying and removing foreign bodies from the throat, inspection of the ear, etc. He described how to ligature blood vessels almost 600 years before Ambroise Paré and was also the first to describe a surgical procedure for ligating the temporal artery for migraine, also almost 600 years before Pare recorded that he had ligated his own temporal artery for headache that conforms to current descriptions of migraine. His use of catgut for internal stitching is still practised in modern surgery. - Leclerc based his version on the Oxford edition of the text, improved by comparison with the Paris manuscript. "The French translation by Lucien Leclerc, with a useful introduction, was very influential in making al-Zahrawi's surgery better known to modern historians of science" (DSB). - Spine a little rubbed, occasional browning, but still an appealing copy. Campbell, Arabian Medicine 90. GAL I, 239 (276), 24, no. 1. DSB XIV, 585. M. H. Fikri, Treasures from the Arab Scientific Legacy in Europe, p. 25. OCLC 876228425. Cf. Garrison/M. 5550.
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[APOC - British Oil diplomacy].
Confidential Anglo-Persian diplomatic telegrams relating to the appointment of the British Consul General at Ahwaz, Eardley Garforth Bryan Peel. India, Iran and London, 1922-1923.
6 telegram folios (208 x 304 mm), dated 6 to 18 January 1922, pinned together with a cover note marked "very confidential" with the oval embossed seal of the Government of India. Includes a Grant of the Dignity of a Companion of "the Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire" to Eardley Garforth Bryan Peel, issued by King George V, dated 2 June 1923, signed by the King and by Viscount William Peel as Secretary of State for India, to acknowledge the services rendered to secure British interests in the southern provinces of Persia. Stored loosely in later dark green calf document holder box, spine stamped in gold "Residency Ahwaz Bushire 1922/3" (257 x 375 mm). A collection of confidential Anglo-Persian diplomatic cables relating to the appointment of Eardley Garforth Bryan Peel (1888-1976) as British Consul General at Ahwaz (Southern Iran) in view of his good relations with the Bakhtiari Khans, Sheikh Khazal of Mohammerah and the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC). - This group of important telegram exchanges from Percy Lyham Loraine (Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary at Tehran), Arthur Prescott Trevor (Consul General at Bushehr, Southern Iran), and the Indian Political Service at Delhi, are pinned together with a cover note dated 18 January 1921, marked "very confidential" and bearing the stamp of the Government of India, indicating their subtle and yet relevant relation. They testify to the British government's shift of alliance from Sheikh Khazal of Mohammerah to Reza Khan and the central government in Tehran. The Grant of Dignity appointed to Peel further emphasises the connection between this prominent stakeholder and British oil interests. Thus, this collection plays a crucial role in shedding light and understanding the 'behind the scenes' of British foreign politics related to the protection of their oil fields in Khuzestan, and their procurement and management of Iranian oil in the first two decades of the 20th century. - Ever since the British discovery of oil in the Southern Iranian Province of Khuzestan in 1908, and the formation of the APOC the following year, a fine balance was maintained by knowledgeable British Consuls General between the Bakhtiari leaders, seated in Bushehr, and the powerful Sheikh Khazal (who inherited the Emirate of Mohammarah in 1897), seated at Mohammarah. The Khans and the Sheikh, ruler of Arabistan, received annual payments, political support, as well as arms and munitions from the British in return for guaranteeing support and protection of British interests against external attacks and providing security for the oil establishment. Until Reza Shah’s rise to near-absolute power and his coup d’état of 1921, the Iranian government had little control of the de facto autonomous province of Khuzistan and their local leader. This explains why all of Loraine’s formal and informal efforts, as British Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary in Iran from 1921 until 1926, were directed towards achieving the peaceful submission of Britain’s Southern Iranian allies to the regime in Tehran. - In such delicate circumstances and given the inevitability of a conflict between the burgeoning central government in Tehran and the Southern Iranian tribal powers, the re-appointment of Eardley Garforth Bryan Peel, whose term of office at Ahwaz had ended in 1921 at the same time Loraine assumed office at Tehran, became a necessity to be able to mediate between the two litigious parties. In fact, Peel was the only person who not only had an in-depth understanding of the situation but was trusted by all members involved. As shown in our telegrams, the Indian Political Service at Delhi not only accepted Loraine’s advice to allow Peel to remain Consul General at Ahwaz but also nominated him to receive a British CIE order. Peel proved a skilled negotiator and succeeded in his mission of yielding a peaceful transition of power in Southern Persia and avoiding any threats to British interests in the oilfields. He managed to convince Khazal and the Bakhtiari Khans to meet in Dare Khazinah from 22 April to 2 May 1922 and made them promise to cooperate in virtue of protecting British interests, but also to continue to serve the Persian government faithfully and loyally, in order not to irritate Reza Khan. - Despite Peel’s tactful diplomacy, which averted great bloodshed, the British soon abandoned their Southern Iranian allies in favour of good relations with the increasingly powerful central government. Khazal was persuaded to surrender unconditionally and Reza Khan had him abducted and brought to Tehran, where he was kept for several years. His sheikhdom was abolished, and the provincial authority took full control of regional affairs. The Sheikh was stripped of all his powers and Iranian assets, and when he denied relocation to Iraq or Kuwait, he was assassinated in Mohammarah (now Khorramshahr) in 1936. These documents play a crucial role in unravelling the extremely complicated and confidential sequence of events that took place in those years, which stained early 20th-century Anglo-Persian diplomatic relations with the uncontrollable force of nature oil was to be in modern history, and specifically, in the geopolitical chessboard of Middle Eastern foreign affairs. - E. G. B. Peel was a British diplomat who, after achieving the rank of Captain in the Indian army, was posted first as Assistant-Superintendent of Police in Moradabad (Agra province, India) and later as a member of the Indian Political Service to the consulate at Mohammerah, where he rose to the rank of Acting Vice-Consul. In 1918 he was transferred to the consulate in Ahwaz, where he served until 1924 in the posts of Acting Vice-Consul (1918-21), Local rank Consul (1921-22), and Consul (1922-24). After completing his service at Ahwaz, he was posted to Agra and Kashmir provinces in India. He received the illustrious CIE (Companion Order of the Indian Empire) in 1923. - Provenance: the former property of a private English bibliophile, purchased from J & S. L. Bonham's, London, in 1999.
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Burton, Richard / N. M. Penzer (eds.).
Selected Papers on Anthropology, Travel & Exploration. Now edited with an introduction and occasional notes. London, A.M. Philpot, Ltd., 1924.
8vo. 240 pp. Red-brown cloth with title information in gilt on spine. Red upper edge. First edition of a collection of ten quite rare and otherwise inaccessible articles by the British explorer, scholar and soldier Richard Francis Burton (1821-90), compiled and edited by N. M. Penzer, the author of "An Annotated Bibliography of Sir Richard Burton" (1923). - After the publication of Burton's bibliography, Penzer received numerous requests to publish some of the articles he had mentioned but were hard to find by members of the general public. Norman Mosley Penzer (1892-1960) was a scholar who specialised in Oriental studies and a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. He wrote several original works, for example on cotton in British West Africa (1920) or the mineral resources of Burma (1922), but he was possibly more famous for the works he edited. According to the Royal Geographical Society, Penzer was an eminent authority on Sir Richard Francis Burton but failed to write the definitive biography, though "it was well within his power to do". Apart from his works on Burton, Penzer also edited other anthropological works and even translated the tale of Nala and Damayanti from Sanskrit in 1926. - Penzer consciously made a small selection of Burton's more obscure papers, in order to give an insight into the varied activities and achievements of the explorer's life. Thus, the contents of the present work vary in subject. Burton's travels in India, Ethiopia, Gabon, Syria, and to Mecca are represented in separate articles. The subjects of other articles are more anthropological in nature, as expected regarding the title, such as the history and significance of scalping in different cultures around the world or spiritualism and religion in Africa and the Middle East. Other than the introduction, in which he explains his reasoning for including certain articles, Penzer only included short preliminary and explanatory remarks at the beginning of each paper and the occasional footnote, while Burton's work remained the focal point of the book. - Slight browning and foxing throughout, with an autograph in blue ink on the first flyleaf. Overall in good condition. Howgego IV, B98. Cf. Shapero, The Islamic World (2003), 158 (another edition).
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[Cassas, Louis François].
Historisch-mahlerische Reise durch Syrien, Phönicien und Nieder-Ägypten. Vienna, J. V. Degen, 1805.
12mo (96 x 138 mm). Engraved title-page, 1 letterpress leaf, 15 engraved plates (of which 3 are double-page-sized). In a pretty red leather wallet binding with fore-edge flap and tab. Marbled endpapers. Edges gilt. Pretty German issue of engravings showing views from Levantine journeys. The set was published by Degen between 1803 and 1809 in the "Wiener Taschenbuch". The plates were engraved after the monumental, never-completed "Voyage pittoresque de la Syrie, de la Phénicie, de la Palestine et de la Basse Égypte" by L. F. Cassas (Paris 1799, 180 plates in-folio: cf. Cohen/Ricci 204; Tobler 134). The travels during which the illustrations were made largely took place in the years 1778-87; Cassas was one of the engravers whom Choiseul-Gouffier had hired for his "Voyage Pittoresque". The plates show cities, landscapes, ancient and modern buildings in the Near East. - Binding rubbed, interior somewhat brownstained, but an attractive volume.
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Castéra, Jean-Henri / Argyropoulos, Iakovos (Yakovaki Efendi) (transl.).
[Icmal-i eva'il-i ahval-i devlet-i Rusiya. Katerina Tarihi (General Overview of the Russian Empire, or The History of Catherine). Bulaq, Matbaatü Sahibi'l-Fütuhati'l-Bahire, [Oct./Nov. 1830 CE] = Jumada I 1246 H.
4to (175 x 260 mm). (10), 225, (1) pp. Contemporary French half leather over marbled boards, spine prettily gilt with title "Histoire de Cathérine". Marbled endpapers. Early Bulaq imprint; a translation of the French biography of Catherine the Great by Jean-Henri Castéra (1749-1838), "Vie de Catherine II, Impératrice de Russie", published in two volumes in Paris in 1797. It was exceedingly popular in Europe and saw translations into many languages. This was the first Western historical text translated into Ottoman Turkish and printed by the Bulaq press in Cairo, at the time of volatile relations between the Ottoman Empire, Russia, and Egypt. The first edition, comprising only 160 pages, was published by the Bulaq Press in 1244 (AD 1828). The present, enlarged second edition with annotations by the editor Sadullah Said Amedi was issued two years later. The translator Iakovos Argyropoulos ("Yakovaki Efendi", 1776-1850) was a linguist and official translator of the Sultan, appointed as official dragoman in Vienna. - Binding a little rubbed, extremeties slightly bumped. Interior shows occasional light browning, brownstaining and dampstains, but generally very clean. Several juvenile pencil sketches to final endpapers. - Provenance: ownership of the French diplomat Alphonse Nicolas ("Collège de France, 1887") on the front free endpaper; his stamp on the sarlowh and on several pages. Nicolas (1864-1939) was born in Rasht in northern Persia, where his father served as dragoman at the French consulate. He learned Persian and Russian and was admitted to the École des Jeunes de Langues in 1874. He entered the foreign service and was posted in Persia when he signed his name to this work in 1887. Özege 10359. OCLC 951557955. J. Strauss, "An den Ursprüngen des modernen politischen Wortschatzes des Osmanisch-Türkischen", in: Radoslav Katicic (ed.), "Herrschaft" und "Staat". Untersuchungen zum Zivilisationswortschatz im südosteuropäischen Raum 1840-1870. Eine erste Bilanz (Vienna 2004), pp. 197-256, here at p. 208. Arzu Meral, "A Survey of Translation Activity in the Ottoman Empire", in The Journal of Ottoman Studies XLII (2013), p. 116.
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Eberhardt, Isabelle.
Contes et Paysages. Textes originaux. Paris, La Conaissance, 1925.
8vo (175 x 252 mm). (4), IV, (2), 150, (8) pp. With a portrait frontispiece of the author. Original printed wrappers bound within private gilt full brown morocco. First and only edition, limited to 138 copies. A posthumous collection of stories by the Franco-Swiss explorer and writer Isabelle Eberhardt (1877-1904), famous for her intrepid lifestyle and exploits undertaken in male costume throughout the Sahara Desert and Northern Africa. She converted to Islam, disregarding many of its commandments, and adopted the name of Si Mahmoud Saadi. Her works and colourful persona were rediscovered by the women's movement of the early 1970s, and she is today regarded as an early feminist icon. - Inscribed by the editor, René-Louis Doyon, to the French writer Jacques-Napoléon Faure-Biguet (1893-1954). Traces of worming to lower endpapers, otherwise an excellent copy of a rare work. OCLC 550675807.
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Hergé [i.e., Georges Prosper Remi].
Les Aventures de Tintin au Pays de l'Or Noir. Paris, Casterman, 1950.
Small folio (ca. 227 x 304 mm). (2), 62 pp. Original printed boards. Blue pastedowns with white cartoon figures. First edition. - An early adventure of Tintin, set in the Middle East, where the young Belgian reporter attempts to uncover a militant group responsible for sabotaging oil supplies. The story was originally set in Palestine under the British Mandate, but Hergé's publisher requested several alterations, and the setting was transferred to the fictional state of Khemed. - Extremities rubbed and bumped; small flaw to head of spine. Interior somewhat brownstained near the gutter and margins; some marginal tears and creases rarely touching text or image. Rare. OCLC 714202939.
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Hergé [i.e., Georges Prosper Remi].
Tintin au Pays de l'Or Noir. Paris, Casterman, 1963.
Small folio (ca. 230 x 304 mm). (2), 62 pp. Original printed boards. Blue and white illustrated flyleaves. Signed, illustrated (with a portrait of Tintin and Milou/Snowy) and inscribed by the artist on the verso of the front flyleaf to Denis Jamin for his birthday, dated 3 September 1971. The recipient was the grandson of the Belgian caricaturist Paul Jamin (1911-95), an old friend of Hergé's. - An early Tintin adventure, set in the Middle East, where the young reporter attempts to uncover a militant group responsible for sabotaging oil supplies. First published in album form in 1950. The story was originally set in Palestine under the British Mandate, but Hergé's publisher requested several alterations, and the setting was transferred to the fictional state of Khemed. - Extremeties a little bumped and chipped, internally an excellent copy.
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[Horticulture].
Two treatises on horticulture. Ottoman Empire, [1776 CE =] 1190 H.
4to (142 x 195 mm). Manuscript in Ottoman Turkish, 2 parts in one volume. (105), (38) pp. on (84) ff. Text in black (and occasional red) riqa', 15 lines within red (and occasional gilt) rules. 19th century limp brown morocco binding. A collection of two Ottoman Turkish treatises in a single 18th century manuscript, discussing the planting of trees and the cultivation of flowers. - Spine rebacked; altogether well preserved.
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Ibn Sina (Avicenna).
Al-Ilahiyat min al-Shifa' [The Metaphysics from the Book of Healing]. Mashhad, Persia, [1642/43 CE =] 1052 H.
Tall 8vo (136 x 258 mm). Arabic manuscript on unsophisticated oriental paper. 206 leaves. 20 lines, black and occasional red ink with underlinings in red. Restored red morocco oriental binding with blind-tooled medaillons to both covers, using oder material from a shorter binding. The fourth and final part of Ibn Sina's famous "Kitab Al-Shifa'" ("The Book of Healing"), a great scientific and philosophical encyclopedia that covers logic, natural sciences, mathematics including astronomy, and, as here, metaphysics and religion. - Browned throughout with occasional waterstaining. Early waqf stamp near the colophon. In all a good manuscript, copied in Safavid Persia by Shafi' Muhammad bin Muhammad al-Qayni. GAL I, 454, 18.
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Ibn Sina (Avicenna).
Al-Kitab al-Awwal min Kitab al-Qanun fi al-Tibb: Al-Kulliyat [Canon of Medicine, Book I]. Persia, [Nov. 1853 CE =] Safar 1270 H.
Large 8vo (190 x 287 mm). Arabic manuscript on polished paper. 233 leaves. Naskh script in black and occasionally red ink, 15 lines with extensive glosses in the margins and several interleaved smaller sheets of commentary (some bound, others loose, including a few diagrammatic illustrations). Contemporary full leather binding with blind-tooled green corner pieces and central medaillon. Mid-19th century manuscript, written in Arabic in the Persian countries, of the first of the five books that form what is perhaps the most important medical text of the Middle Ages. - Ibn Sina's "Kitab al-Qanun fi'l-Tibb" ("Canon of Medicine"), hailed as "the most famous medical text ever written" (Garrison/M. 43), was widely translated throughout the Middle Ages and formed the basis of medical training in the West as late as the mid-17th century. Completed in 1025, the Qanun is divided into five books, of which the first, also called "al-Kulliyat", concerns general medical principles. It often circulated separately from the rest of the encyclopedia. The remaining four parts are devoted to simple drugs, pathology, diseases affecting the body as a whole, and recipes for compound remedies. - Ibn Sina (ca. 980-1037), known in the Western tradition as Avicenna, was physician to the ruling caliphs. The influence of his Qanun can hardly be overestimated. Translated into Latin in the 12th century, it became a standard textbook of Galenic medicine, influencing many generations of physicians. - Binding rubbed, sewing loosened, but generally well preserved. GAL I, 457 (597), 82.
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[Ibn Sina (Avicenna)]. Jaghmini al-Khwarizmi, Mahmud bin Muhammad bin Omar al- / Abd al-Fattah bin Syed Ismail al-Husaini al-Lahuri.
Sharh al-qanunchah al-Jaghmini [Commentary on the Small Canon]. Likhi, Gujarat, India, [Sept./Oct. 1784 CE =] Dhu'l-Qa'dah 1198 H.
Large 8vo (170 x 274 mm). Arabic manuscript on polished Indian laid paper. 328 leaves, 19 lines per extensum. Naskh script in black and occasional red ink; a few leaves of commentary loosely inserted. Contemporary full leather, spine rebacked, with oriental medaillon stamps to both covers. Expansive Arabic commentary on the "Qanunchah" ("Qanunceh", "Small Canon") of Mahmud al-Jaghmini, the important Persian medical compendium based on Ibn Sina's famous Arabic "Qanun". Al-Jaghmini's handbook of medicine was widely used at Eastern Persian schools as an introductory medical instruction manual for at least three centuries, but also found favour in India early. "One of the first works of medicine compiled in the Indian subcontinent was 'Sharh ul Qanunchah'. It was authored by Syed Abul Fath bin Syed Ismail al-Husaini al-Lahori during the sixteenth century and was a commentary of the well-known 'Qanunchah' of Chaghmini" (Alam, p. 369). The present manuscript was copied by Muhammad Kayyal (?) in Dhul-Qidah 1198 H. - Frequent, early remarginings to edges; some brownstaining and a few waterstains. Binding rubbed and rather bumped at extremeties. 19th century waqf stamps. A prettily written 18th century manuscript specimen of this important 16th century Indian commentary on a principal medical text. Cf. Mumtaz Alam, "Shift to Arabic? Medical Literature and Writing During Medieval India", in: Proceedings of the Indian History Congress 71 (2010/11), pp. 365-376.
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Karabisi an-Nisaburi, Abu'l Muzaffar Jamal al-Islam As'ad ibn Muhammad ibn Husayn al-.
Kitab al-furuq [The Book of Legal Distinctions]. Egypt or Syria, [20 Oct. 1173 CE] = 11 Rabi' al-awwal 569 H.
4to (180 x 260 mm). Arabic manuscript on oriental paper. 190 leaves. 20 lines of unvocalized black naskh in black and occasional red ink. Numbering of quires partially preserved in the upper left corner, foliation and part of the claims subsequent to the copy, numerous marginal glosses. Later coloured paper boards with leather spine and fore-edge flap. The earliest surviving textual witness, copied during the author's lifetime from his lost autograph, of what is the first and still the most popular Hanafi text on legal distinctions: the "Kitab al-furuq" by Abu al-Muzaffar As'ad ibn Muhammad ibn al-Husayn al-Nisaburi al-Karabisi al-Hanafi (d. 1174/75). Composed in the 6th century AH, most likely in Samarkand, where the author was living at the time (cf. Saba, pp. 71, 204), this is the only text on furuq (legal distinctions) to have been composed in that century and is also important as the first work on the subject in the Hanafi Madhhab. Several manuscripts of it are preserved (Cairo, Dar al-Kutub, 292 fiqh hanafi, undated; Cairo, Dar al-Kutub, 293 fiqh hanafi, dated 622 H [1224/25 CE]; Istanbul, Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi, Fatih 2039, dated 776 H [1374/75 CE]; Istanbul, Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi, Carullah 821, 1007 H [1598/99 CE]). - The present manuscript is of major importance as the oldest surviving manuscript of this text. The colophon provides the date of completion of the copy, Sunday, 11th of the month of Rabi I 569 H (20 October 1173), as well as the name of the copyist, Muhammad b. Hibatallah b. Muhammad b. Hibatallah b. Ahmad b. Abi Jarada. The colophon further states that the copyist prepared the manuscript for his personal use by collating the text (balagha) against the autograph, which is not preserved for us. - The scribe can be identified as a calligrapher who belonged to a powerful family of Aleppine intellectuals, the Banu'l-Abi Jarada, a Sunni family of the Hanafi rite (cf. James, p. 354). While no other manuscript in his hand is known to survive, he is referenced in the oldest dated manuscript of al-Hariri's "Maqamat". This codex, which bears an ijaza of al-Hariri dated Sha'ban 504 H (February 1111 CE), belonged to his first cousin, the famous historian and jurist, Kamal al-Din Abu 'Umar b. Ahmad b. Abi Jarada, known as Ibn al-'Adim. A reading mark dated 17 Jumada II 604 H (8 January 1208 CE) attests to the presence of our scribe in Aleppo and to his involvement in the literate circles of the time (on the subject of the manuscript and the reading mark, see MacKay, p. 22). He is later traced in Süleyman Müstakimzade's biographical dictionary of calligraphers, which states that Muhammad b. Hibatallah Abi Jarada was known to work in the manner of the great calligrapher Ibn al-Bawwab and copied an entire Qur'an during each month of Ramadan (Tuhfe-i hattatin [Istanbul, 1928], p. 464). He is said to have died in 628 H (1230/31 CE) at the age of 82. - Binding rubbed and chipped; sewing loosened. Restored in the 19th century, notably the first leaf, with several remarginings and an added table of contents. Provenance: from the collection of Paul Lebaudy (1858-1937), with the bookplate of his library at the Château de Rosny "La Solitude". The Château de Rosny is the former property of the Duchess of Berry. GAL I, 375 (464) & S I, 642. Cf. Elias G. Saba, Harmonizing Similarities. A History of Distinctions Literature in Islamic Law (Berlin, 2009). David James, "Qur'ans and Calligraphers of the Ayyubids and Zangids", in: Robert Hillenbrand and Sylvia Auld (eds.), Ayyubid Jerusalem. The Holy City in Context, 1187-1250 (London 2009). Pierre MacKay, "Certificates of Transmission on a Manuscript of the Maqamat of Hariri (MS. Cairo, Adab 105)", in Transactions of the American Philosophical Society NS 61, no. 4 (1971).
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Lokman.
Amthal Luqman al-Hakim [The Fables of Luqman, ed. Jean Jacques Antoine Caussin de Perceval]. [Paris, Molé for Eberhardt, 1818/1819].
Large 4to (210 x 263 mm). 23, (1) pp. Contemporary unsophisticated wrappers. Early edition of the text of Lokman's Fables, never released in the regular book trade. Edited by Caussin de Perceval père (1759-1835), professor of Arabic at the Collège de France sice 1784. Includes four additional Fables not previously edited. "Ce livre n'a pas été mis dans le commerce. Il y a des exemplaires en grand papier. Caussin utilise le manuscrit de Paris et, aux 37 fables connues, ajoute le texte des quatre nouvelles, qui Marcel avait traduites en 1803" (Chauvin). - Wrappers frayed; wrinkled and browned with edge flaws throughout. Stamps of the Paris Jesuit Seminary. Chauvin III, 13. OCLC 978526580.
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Nasreddin (Nasir ad-Din) Khodja.
Lata'if-i Khaja Nasr al-Din Efendi. Bulaq (Cairo), Dar ut-Tiba'at il-Amire, [1838 CE =] 1254 H.
8vo. 40 pp. Contemporary half calf over marbled boards. First Bulaq edition of this collection of witty anecdotes centered on the humorous folk figure Nasreddin; the second edition altogether following that published in Istanbul the previous year. "The influential Cairo prints of 1254 H (1838), 1256 H (1840), 1257 H (1841), and 1259 H (1843) [...] became the basis of European translations, and an unbroken line of [...] Nasreddin Hoca tales thus became cemented in the literary tradition" (Palabiyik). In Ottoman Turkish throughout. - Binding markedly rubbed; some dampstains and traces of worming throughout; several leaves loose. Handwritten ownership of the French diplomat Louis Lagarde (dated 10.11.1932) on first page. Özege 11624. N. Palabiyik, "Justus Raphelengius and the Turkish Folk Tradition", in: Journal of the American Oriental Society 139.2 (2019), p. 335.
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[Palestine - American Colony].
Album with 66 photographs of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and environs. Palestine, 1946-1947.
Oblong 8vo (190 x 130 mm) 57 albumen prints (mostly 90 x 65 mm) mounted on 15 black sheets, 9 more loosely inserted. Wooden boards with a coloured view of Rachel's tomb, captioned in Hebrew and English. Charming souvenir album, privately assembled by a British soldier and captioned by him throughout with his ownership entry "Jerusalem. E. Stacey. 9.9.46" to inner front board and a photo ("Boys of the Shack 147") showing him among his comrades in front of their baracks. The majority of the photos bear the ink stamp of the Matson Photo Service on the reverse. The Matsons were handed the management of the American Colony photo service in 1934. The American Colony was a utopian Christian sect formed by religious pilgrims who emigrated to Jerusalem from the United States and Sweden.
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Paris, Charles, French draughtsman (fl. 1890s).
Signed and dated pencil drawing of a dressage scene with two Arabian horses. N. p., 1897.
33 x 44 cm (neat line). Pencil on paper. Charming dressage scene between an Arab in back view and two bridled Arabian horses with luxurious saddles and a backdrop of tents. The stallion on the left is carrying a round shield and a bow. The signing artist Charles Paris was probably an amateur and is not otherwise known. - Professionally restored. The upper and right margins show traces of tears and brittleness, probably due to old water damage. Browning and minor foxing overall. Some light spotting to the lower margin. The drawing is little affected by the paper flaws.
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[Qur'an Juz'].
An illuminated Qur'an, Juz' XIX. China, [April 1546 CE =] Safar 953 H.
4to (188 x 254 mm). Arabic manuscript on paper. 51 ff. Script in bold black sini, 5 lines within red rules, vowel markers in black and corrections in red, surah headers in red, illuminated double-page frontispiece 'Unwan decorated with geometrical and floral designs in gold and colours in a typical Yunnan style of mainly gold on a red ground highlighted with green and blue. 16th century full brown leather with fore-edge flap, prettily ruled and stamped in blind with Islamic and Chinese-influenced designs. Very early Qur'an Juz (one of thirty parts of varying lengths into which the Qur'an is divided) written in 16th century China. - Arab presence in China dates back as far as the first Caliphate: the Prophet's companion Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas is traditionally credited with introducing Islam to China as ambassador in 650. Indeed, many major cities in China, such as Xi'an (or Chang'an, as it was known during the height of the Silk Road) and Beijing, boast a long and rich Muslim history. Qur'an sections written by Chinese Muslims show Chinese influence clearly in both the decoration and the script, which is derived from naskh. Juz' 19 begins with surah 25, al-Furqan (The Criterion), contains in full surah 26, ash-Shu'ara (The Poets), and closes with the beginning of surah 27, an-Naml (The Ant). - The colophon in red script on the recto of the last leaf states that the manuscript was "copied by Shams al-Din ibn Musa al-Sini in the month of Safar of the year 953 AH in the city of Yunnan, one of the Chinese cities which has been honoured and blessed by Islam". - Binding rebacked and spine and endpapers professionally replaced; subtle paper repairs. An excellent example of the Islamic Chinese style of Qur'anic calligraphy and illumination. Provenance: Private UK collection formed in the 1960s and 1970s.
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Raymond, Jean.
Mémoire sur l'Origine des Wahabys, sur la Naissance de Leur Puissance et sur l'Influence dont ils jouissent comme Nation. Rapport de Jean Raymond daté de 1806. Document inédit extrait des Archives du Ministère des Affaires Étrangères de France. Cairo, Société Royale de Géographie d'Égypte, 1925.
4to (182 x 275 mm). (6), VIII, 40 pp. Publisher's original illustrated printed wrappers. First edition of this study on the origins of the Wahhabis, published from the archives of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. With a preface by the French historian Édouard Driault (1864-1947). An Arabic translation ("al-Tadhkirah fi asl al-Wahhabiyin wa-dawlatihim") appeared at Riyadh as recently as 2004. - Binding somewhat frayed and chipped. Uncut, untrimmed copy from the library of the respected Cairo-based Egyptologist and dealer in antiquities, Roger Khawam (1922-2016), who dispersed his library four years before his death (his Scarab bookplate to the front free endpaper). Macro 1874. OCLC 5277329.
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Thomas, Bertram.
The Arabs. London, Thornton Butterworth, 1937.
8vo. 372 pp. With frontispiece portrait, 4 maps (1 folding) & 17 plates. Publisher's gilt cloth with chipped and spotted dustjacket. First edition of this overview of Arab history and culture work that draws upon the author's own experience in the region and includes some of T. E. Lawrence's exploits. - Inscribed on the front free endpaper in the year of publication: "To the Rt Hon and Mrs L.S. Amery, With respects, Bertram Thomas, May 1937". - Bertram Thomas's (1892-1950) "first crossing of the Empty Quarter, albeit by the shortest and easiest route, assured him a permanent place in the history of European exploration of Arabia. He was admired by T. E. Lawrence (who wrote a preface to one of his books) and by his successor Wilfred Thesiger, who found twenty years later that Thomas was remembered by the Bedouin as an honourable, brave, and tolerant man" (ODNB). Leopold Amery (1873-1955) served a Colonial Secretary as well as Secretary of State for India and Burma in Churchill's war ministry. - A few minor spots, but still a very good copy. Macro 2186.
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[Zangaki Brothers].
Deux femmes d'Abissinie. [Ethiopian Empire, ca. 1880].
Albumen print, 279 x 218 mm.
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Aaronsohn, Aaron / Oppenheimer, Hillel.
Tsemah 'Ever Ha-Yarden: mifkad bikoret li-tsemahim asher ne'esfu u-miktsatam hugderu 'al yede Aharon Aharonson be-meshekh mas'otav (1904-1908) be-'Ever ha-Yarden uva-'Aravah. Zichron Yaakov, Ma'sav (privately published), 1934.
8vo. (8), 384 pp. Cloth-backed red boards with title inked on spine, likely privately bound. Very rare privately published botanical text on the famous expedition of the Jewish agronomist Aaron Aaronsohn (1876-1919) through the Anti-Lebanon mountain range and his subsequent discovery of what was claimed to be the oldest wild wheat, ancestor of all farmed wheat today. - While the exact line of descent of modern wheat is contested and complex, Aaronsohn's wheat - wild emmer - was indeed ancient, and its discovery remains a landmark moment in historical botany and the study of the history of human civilization. Like much of Aaronsohn's work, his detailed notes on the wild wheat distribution and other botanical notes on the landscapes he surveyed were published posthumously by Aaronsohn's family. The text includes numerous scientific names and an index, plus 13 botanical designs and 38 photoplates documenting the expedition. A folding map at the rear is titled "Aaronsohn's travels in Jordan and the distribution of wild wheat in the land of Israel". Largely in Hebrew, supplemented with scientific Latin, this Hebrew version is very uncommon, as Aaronsohn's work was originally published in French as "Florula transiordanica: révision critique des plantes récoltées et partiellement determinées", also by his family, in 1931. - Binding bumped at extremeties; a few library stamps to title-page, along with some minor paper repairs. Altogether in good condition. OCLC 42945306.
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[Arabian American Oil Company].
Aramco World. New York, Aramco, 1952, 1954-1955.
Small folio (280 x 212 mm). 5 issues. Original illustrated wrappers. Five issues of Aramco World. In November 1949 the Arabian American Oil Company launched "Aramco World" as an interoffice newsletter that linked the company's U.S. offices with "the field" - primarily Dhahran, in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. The journal quickly grew into a monthly (later bi-monthly) educational magazine featuring historical, geographical and cultural articles that helped the American employees and their families appreciate an unfamiliar land. - The present collection comprises vol. 3, nos. 2, 4, and 11; vol. 5, no, 10, and vol. 6, no. 7. - Heads of spine somewhat worn. Interior in excellent condition.
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[Arabian American Oil Company].
Report No. ZD-340:006. Detail Type Specification for Consolidated Vultee Model 340 Airplane for Arabian American Oil Company. San Diego, CA, Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation, 1952.
4to. 106, 22 ff. (as numbered; some leaves numbered with 'a' numbers according to preceding leaf, per standard industry practice). Published as a mimeographed typescript with inset illustrations, many folding. Bound in original wrappers with metal split pin fasteners. Second revised edition. A very extensive report supplied to Aramco regarding the Convair CV-340, a passenger jet designed largely for airlines like United, but quite popular in Saudi Arabia during the first decades of Saudi passenger air service. - The early 1950s saw the dawn of what would become Saudi Arabian Airlines, precipitated in part by the gift of a Douglas DC-3 passenger jet from U.S. President Roosevelt to King Ibn Saud in 1945. It would be the DC-3 and the CV-340 which would comprise the first fleets of passenger planes in Saudi Arabia. That Aramco, a large regional employer, might be interested in the CV-340 is thus understandable; in fact, both planes are remembered by Aramco employees from the 1950s and 1960s - and especially by their children, who were often sent to prep schools in cities like Rome, but flew home on DC-3s and CV-340s to Aramco installations like Dhahran with their peers for holidays. - The CV-340 was developed by Consolidated Vultee (later Convair) from the earlier CV-240, but was newer and larger; the first flight test took place on 5 October 1951. The CV-340 seated at total of 44 passengers. In all, 209 aircraft of this type were sold to airlines but 37 went to private operators, potentially including those interested in purchase at Aramco and more generally in Saudi Arabia and along the Gulf. In extensive text and diagrams, every aspect of the engineering and design of the plane is presented, from the new layout of the tailfin to the shocks in the landing gear to the fire extinguishing system. - A touch of wear, otherwise a well-preserved example of a rare publication produced in a very limited number of copies for promotional and reference use only.
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Baqir, Muhammad, ibn Muhammad Jawad al-Musawi.
Kitab-i mostatabb-i patuluji-yi tibbi. Tehran, 1300 H [= 1883 CE].
Large 8vo (180 x 250 mm). (288) ff. Full auburn leather, titled on paper spine label. A volume of medical pathology printed lithographically in Persian (with occasional Arabic), featuring detailed descriptions of physical ailments, including the appearances of ailing organs as might be seen by a surgeon, the areas of the world in which a particular disease or ailment was more common, and the history of a disease as known to medical science at the time. Each entry is titled and numbered, though not always consecutively, and a table of contents can be found at the rear. - An interesting and detailed medical textbook, covering everything from the venereal to the cardiovascular, probably reproduced lithographically from a contemporary manuscript. The likely scribe of that original manuscript, named in the colophon, was Muhammad Baqir ibn Muhammad Jawad al-Mussawi al-Asfahani. - Blindstamps from the library of the Fabryky Sergyeva, Ukraine, appear on some pages. Light exterior wear. Title-page loose with edge flaws, occasional light stains, otherwise generally in good condition.
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Burnes, Alexander.
Travels into Bokhara: containing the narrative of a voyage on the Indus from the sea to Lahore [...]. London, John Murray, 1839.
8vo. 3 vols. XXIV, (2), 328 pp. XII, 304 pp. XII, 384 pp. With 8 plates, 4 of which are folding, and one folding map. 19th century cloth-backed brown boards, paper spine labels. Second edition. "Acclaimed by critics as one of the most valuable books on travel that had ever appeared, it was the first comprehensive account of the whole of Central Asia" (Howgego, p. 83). - The best-known work of Alexander Burnes (1805-41), a Scottish diplomat, military officer, spy, and explorer who was once nicknamed "Bukhara Burnes" for his role in establishing contact with and exploring Bukhara, a historical stop along the Silk Road and today the seventh-largest city in Uzbekistan. Burnes began his career serving in the army of the East India Company and swiftly became enmeshed in what the British called The Great Game: a series of disputes between the British and Russian empires as each sought to acquire Afghanistan and surrounding areas under imperial rule. This had large ramifications in West Asia and the subcontinent, and Burnes was familiar with many of the local political actors who rose to become major players in the Game, such as Ranjit Singh (1780-1839) and especially Mohan Lal Zutshi (1812-77), an Indian fellow explorer and diplomat who guided Burnes on his trip to Bukhara. Zutshi and Burnes remain at the heart of Burnes's narrative. The folding map at the rear of vol. 1 illustrates the path Mohan Lal Zutshi and Burnes took through West Asia. - Light exterior wear, front cover of vol. 3 detached, otherwise in good condition. OCLC 3813162. Cf. Wilson 35 (1835 ed.). Howgego, 1800-1850, B77.
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Fuad Erden, Ali / Erdemgil Senai, Osman.
Musavver 1904-1905 Rus-Japon seferi. Ilan-i harbdan muahede-i sulhiyeye kadar güderan eden wukuat-i harbiyeyi kafe-i tefsilatile camidir. Istanbul, Kitabhane-i Islam ve Askeri (Islamic and Military Library / Ebrahim Halimi), [1905 CE =] 1321 Rumi.
Large 8vo. Vol. 1 (out of 5) only. 320 pp. With numerous charts and in-text illustrations, folding map at rear. Burgundy cloth ruled and stamped in blind, covers with bevelled edges, title in gilt, with a colour map of Russia and Northeast Asia decorating the front cover. First volume of this illustrated history on the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 in Ottoman Turkish, featuring numerous in-text illustrations and a large colour folding map depicting China and Manchuria, Korea, Japan, and Russia at the moment of conflict. - The Russo-Japanese war was one of the precipitating events of the 20th century, and played its part in leading Russia towards destabilization and revolution as well as affecting the trajectory of Japan's relations with the West. It is of particular interest to Turkish history and indeed was of great contemporary interest in Ottoman Turkey; the outbreak of war "generated waves of enthusiasm in Turkey as a traditional arch-rival of Russia", though the results of war "on the empire proved disastrous" (Esenbel). Many in Turkey identified with the Japanese, having recently fought and lost territory to Russia themselves. Though the official Ottoman stance was neutrality, in an attempt not to antagonize Russia, individuals felt differently: "When Muslim newspapers celebrated Japan’s defeat of Russia as the victory of the downtrodden Eastern peoples over the invincible West, a Turkish nationalist feminist, Halide Edip, like many other women, named her son Togo after the commander of the Japanese fleet, Admiral Heihachiro Togo" (Esenbel). The Ottoman fascination with the war and with Japan is clear from the text and its numerous illustrations of Japanese people and scenes. - There are at least four Persian translations of this history held in the Afghanistan Digital Library in Kabul, but no copy of the original version, which, interestingly, is always labelled as "unknown Turkish work" by the cataloguer. - Spine shaken and splitting, binding remains firm. Özege 14434. Selçuk Esenbel, "The Impact of the Russo-Japanese War on Ottoman Turkey", in Shingetsu Electronic Journal of Japanese-Islamic Relation 4 (Sept. 2008), pp. 16-24. OCLC 645667890.
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Gauer, Bernhard (illustrator).
Guide-Map of Jerusalem. Jerusalem, Boulos Afif / Syrian Orphanage Press, ca. 1935.
565 x 441 mm chromolithograph map, folding down to a 240 x 120 mm pamphlet. Original pink wrappers. A rare map of Jerusalem during the British Mandate Period, printed especially for British and allied forces stationed in the area. The map is a chromolithograph by the Düsseldorf-born artist Bernhard Gauer (1882-1955), with outer districts pleasantly hand-coloured in yellow and pale green and selected buildings depicted pictorially. On the reverse is a brief guide to everything a serviceman was expected to need in Jerusalem: churches of various denominations (Church of England, Methodist, Greek Orthodox, etc.), four Masonic lodges, officer's clubs for the well-to-do and YMCAs and hostels for the less affluent, and, naturally, bookshops. A map of Palestine and southern Syria is printed on the rear wrapper. An uncommon and thorough guide to the city, from the minutiae of taxi service rates to the locations of holy sites and Europeans' preferred neighborhoods. - Light wear, otherwise in excellent condition. OCLC 1100427555.
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[Hemmeter, German].
[Photograph album - Iraq]. [Iraq, 1950s].
Oblong folio (327 x 232 mm). 13 ff. containing 52 mounted silver gelatin photographs, with one press photo laid in (photograph sizes range from 60 x 60 mm to 90 x 140 mm and 170 x 235 mm). Contemporary saddle-stitched red cloth decorated in blind. Loosely inserted is a 1952-62 German passport with a 1957 residence permit/visa for Iraq and many stamps from Iraq in the 1950s. The photo album of German Friedrich Hemmeter (1928-2019), featuring construction, building projects, and interesting scenes of 1950s Iraq. Hemmeter was likely in Iraq employed as a construction manager or similar; certainly, he had an interest in the architecture, engineering, and modernization of the country's infrastructure. - Hemmeter's photographs capture both traditional buildings and ways of life and the sweeping changes of the construction yard, often with an artistic eye for the camera. Alongside striking photographs of workers shoveling concrete under a bright desert sky, or taking a break in the shade of a small shed, are photographs of the elegant architecture of mosques and ancient sites in Iraq and Egypt. Mounted next to a photograph of a modern European-style building is a snapshot of the Taq Kasra; this contrast provides an illuminating picture of Iraqi architecture in the twentieth century. - Laid in is a 1964 press photo of Vice President of Egypt Mohamed Abdel Hakim Amer and Iraqi president Abdul Salam Arif during Amer's visit to Iraq. - With just a few minor creases, quite well preserved.
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Hunter, F[rederick] F[raser].
Map of Arabia and the Persian Gulf. Calcutta, Survey of India Offices, 1908/1910.
Folding map of Arabia (180 x 135 cm), coloured in outline, dissected and mounted on cloth (24 sections). The exceptionally rare first independently issued edition of this famous, meticulously prepared map of Arabia and the Gulf. The "Hunter map" is an enormous, wall-size chart showing an astounding degree of detail. The "Gulf portion being largely based on actual surveys can be considered fairly accurate. [...] Kuwait (except that portion based upon actual surveys) Hasa, Jabal Shammar, Qasim, 'Aridh, Oman, Hadhramaut are the result of exhaustive use of detail supplied by travellers supplemented by months and months of enquiry by local Political Officers. The map of these portions can certainly claim superiority over any previous work of the kind" (Notes on the Map of Arabia and the Persian Gulf [...] compiled by Capt. F. Fraser-Hunter 1905-1908 [Calcutta, 1910], p. 1). - The Canadian-born Hunter later became a major figure in British India's Intelligence Service. As the author recalled in his 1919 "Reminiscences", "a great deal of the information on the map was from sources considered secret at the time" (p. 357). Special surveys of the country's interior areas were carried out to achieve a hitherto unprecedented degree of accuracy: "The map was a distinct advance on anything which existed, as in 1908 no general map of Arabia on such a large scale existed" (p. 360). - Hunter's map was first issued in a very limited press-run to accompany John G. Lorimer's "Gazetteer of the Gulf" (1908); at that time it still bore the title, "Map of the Persian Gulf, 'Oman, and Central Arabia". It was subsequently used (and praised) by St John Philby during his journey across Arabia. Indeed, reliable topographical information was an invaluable asset not least to the local Sheikhdoms in their territorial disputes during this politically volatile age: Hunter recounts that on one occasion, the Sheikh of Umm-al-Qaiwan went so far as to torture his relative, the Sheikh of Abu Dhabi, into signing away his right to strategically important islands in the Arabian Gulf, a stratagem foiled only by the happy intervention of the British Political Resident. - Stamp of the University Library of Nijmegen on the cloth backing. A very few minute traces of worming, otherwise in fine, spotless condition. Never seen in the trade: the only two copies of this map in auction records were both of the 1914 issue (Christie's, 2012, and Sotheby's, 2013). Not in Al Ankary or Al-Qasimi.
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[Iraq - Photo Album].
Die Montage der Brücke in Amara (Provinz Maisan) im Südosten des Irak im Jahre 1957. Iraq, 1957.
Oblong folio (297 x 216 mm). 12 ff. 10 silver gelatin photographs mounted in photo corners, each 175 x 115 mm. Contemporary patterned cloth with saddle-stitched binding. Rare original photographs of bridge construction in Amara, taken shortly before the 1958 Iraqi revolution the following year. Sequential photographs show materials and cranes gathering on the banks, the cranes at work lifting steel girders, wooden pylons being sunk, the busy construction zones on each bank, and workers inspecting their materials. The album's title is handwritten in German on the first leaf. - Between 1950 and 1960 two steel-deck-type plate-girder highway bridges were designed in Britain for the Iraq government, the first of which was the New Amara Bridge, a twin-box girder bridge with pier foundations featuring large bored piles, likely the project pictured here. - Quite well preserved.
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[Iraq - Photo Album].
[Photo album of politicians and soldiers in the Kurdistan Region]. Iraq, 1955-1967.
Oblong folio (240 x 166 mm). 20 ff. 25 silver gelatin photographs, one of which is laid in at the rear; each is roughly 90 x 140 mm. Contemporary textured brown cloth, saddle-stitched with tassel. A rare collection of photographs of the political actors of 1950s and 1960s Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, each set having been taken only a year before the revolutions of 1958 and 1968, respectively. The photographs have been collected here with handwritten captions in German, possibly by one of the German engineering technicians featured in one snapshot. The earlier photographs feature the royal family, including the crowds of spectators awaiting King Faisal in 1957, the banquet for the guests of King Faisal in Sulaymaniyah, and the visit of the Regent and Crown Prince of Iraq, Abd al-Ilah, to Sulaymaniyah in the wake of the flooding in Autumn of 1957. - The laid in photographic print is dated 1955 and titled "im Garten v. Naji Khedairy", featuring a nighttime snapshot, presumably of Khedairy, staring down the camera with a glass in hand. - The later photographs are from September of 1967, several months after the Six Days' War, and feature the political landscape once again on the brink of change: two photos of Iraqi Prime Minister Tahir Yahya in a pinstripe suit walking with leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party Mustafa Barzani, another photo of Barzani walking alone; several shots Abdul Razzak, Mustafa Barzani, and Tahir Yahya seated together with refreshments, including one of Barzani and Yahya laughing together, another photograph of Barzani captioned "Der kurdische Führer im Gespräch mit einem irakischen Militär", several casual snapshots of the "Kurdische Delegation" relaxing between meetings, one of which features one woman in Western dress, and a snapshot of the Kurdish military headquarters in Quaradagh. - Altogether, a photographic record of the political leaders of the region during two tumultuous decades, and their meetings amid conflict. Well preserved.
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[Iraq - Royal Air Force].
[R.A.F. photograph album]. Iraq, 1926-1927.
Oblong folio (335 x 240 mm). 16 ff. 110 albumen and silver gelatin photographs mounted in photo corners, with handwritten captions. Contemporary saddle-stitched faux crocodile leather boards with tassel. Over one hundred original photographs of R.A.F servicemen in interwar Iraq. Scenes range from the wreckage of a deadly plane crash, men driving an early tank, locals going about daily life, and servicemen entertaining themselves in their recreational time. Most photographs are captioned by the anonymous owner of the album, with a few captioned in plate; all provide a snapshot of the early days of both the R.A.F. and of modern Iraq. - Various contemporary aircraft are photographed, including a Vickers Vimy Commercial experiencing an awkward landing, the first-ever prototype of the Vickers Victoria (captioned simply, "John's plane"), the de Havilland DH.60 Moth ("Stack and his 'Mooth' aeroplane"), a Halifax II which would go on to be shot down over France during the second world war (captioned "Soap with Snipe"; it is unclear between the plane and the pilot which is Soap and which is Snipe). - One photograph of "Alan Cobham and his plane" shows Cobham (1894-1973), by then already a world-famous aviator posing with a biplane, and another five (one of which has been colorized) show Cobham's de Havilland DH.50 floatplane on the Tigris, likely en route through Baghdad on his record-breaking flight from Britain to Australia. These photos would have been taken very shortly before Cobham's engineer of the D.H.50 aircraft, Arthur B. Elliot, was shot and killed after the pair left Baghdad on the 5th of July 1926. More somberly captioned are five photographs of the "Result of the Vernon Crash", dated two weeks after the incident and showing the wreckage of the No. 45 Squadron's Vickers Vernon, which had crashed into a shed at Hinaidi, killing seven: Oswald Kempson Stirling Webb, Reginald Carey Brinton Brading, Eric Miller Pollard, Edgar Kennedy, Francis Crawford Inglis, Horace Leslie Davies, and Edgar Whittle. - Photographs of local Iraqis and scenery around Baghdad include a line of convicts, a pontoon bridge spanning the Tigris, milk sellers, farming methods, money changers, pottery shops, letter writers, butchers, an Armenian family, a flooded Baghdad North Station, the "Baghdad Bridge", falconers, copper merchants, the Kadi mosque, mourners at a funeral, a distant view of the crumbling crusader fort Qal'at al-Shaqif (captioned "Belfort Castle"), and an "oil gusher" spouting in Kirbuk district. - The remainder of the photographs are devoted to soldiers at rest and the mishaps of military life (including many lorries stuck in the mud); men play tug-of-war, and one serviceman poses with his accordion and a small dog sitting atop a stool with a pipe in its mouth. There are fancy dress parties, snapshots of the barracks and troop ships, and servicemen tromping through calf-deep mud. A thorough collection that provides a sum of daily life in interwar Iraq, ranging from the humorous to the tragic, including both military and civilian life. - Quite well preserved.
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[Iraq - Royal Air Force].
[R.A.F. photograph album]. Iraq, 1926.
Oblong folio (387 x 265 mm). 16 ff. 20 silver gelatin photographs mounted in photo corners with handwritten captions; photographs range between 150 x 207 mm and 120 x 185 mm. Contemporary saddle-stitched faux leather boards with tassel. Twenty R.A.F. photographs of Iraq in the interwar period and associated with the No. 45 Squadron, many of them aerial views and mid-flight snapshots of contemporary aircraft. Most are labelled and numbered in the plate, possibly as official R.A.F. photographs. Aerial photographs of R.A.F. aircraft include the Vicker Victoria Troop Carrier, a "Formation of Vickers Vernous" (that is, Vickers Vernons), and several shots of a pilot referred to simply as "Henry" testing out the newly arrived Airco DH.9A over the mountains and hills of Iraq. Further aerial shots show the Ctesiphon Arch from "200 feet" (61 meters) as noted in-plate, the R.A.F. British Hospital, the Al-Askari Shrine of Samarra surrounded by the old city, and the Maude Bridge in Baghdad. The remainder of the photographs are dedicated to scenes around Baghdad, from British military headquarters to a crowd outside a post office. The first photograph of the album shows what is presumably the No. 45 Squadron (who were in Baghdad in 1926, and are the only squadron in Baghdad known to have flown both the Vickers Vernon and the Airco DH.9A ca. 1926), captioned "All the 'Boys' and me". The No. 45 Squadron famously nicknamed themselves "The Flying Camels" after their squadron badge, which featured a winged camel. - Quite well preserved.
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[Jewish Community of Palestine, General Council].
Tazkirim historiyim. 'Al tsefifut ha-ukhlusim ve-khamutam be-Erets-Yisra'el ha-'atikah, 'al ha-yishuv ha-Yehudi be-Erets-Yisra'el me-hurban ha-Bayit ha-Sheni ve-'ad 'aliyat ha-Biluyim, ve-'al gale ha-'aliyah la-Arets. [Historical survey on the number and density of the population of ancient Palestine]. Jerusalem, ha-Omen (the Council), 1946 [but: 1947].
8vo. 84 pp. 5 folding maps. Contemporary loose cardstock wrapper, stapled. Slightly altered version published in 1947 as "Historical Memoranda" or "Historical Survey". A rare Zionist booklet issued in Hebrew by the General Council of the Jewish Community of Palestine to the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry. This publication was part of a series of three such pamphlets issued in 1946-47, each presenting a history of Jewish populations in Palestine and diasporic movement. Of the three, this pamphlet deals the most with the history of ancient Palestine. The folding maps illustrate waves of Jewish immigration from 640-1882 CE and identify sites of Jewish settlements in Roman, early Muslim, Crusade, Mamluk, and Ottoman periods. - Somewhat toned; maps are bright and clear. OCLC 244129609.
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