Sousa, João de.MareMagnum
4 080 résultats
4to. (8), 190, (4) pp. With the academy's woodcut device on the title-page (incorporating the Portuguese coat-of-arms, Athena's owl and Hermes's staff). Set in roman, italic and Arabic types. Modern green morocco, gold-tooled spine with a red morocco spine label with title in gold and the imprint in gold at the foot of the spine, marbled endpapers. First and only edition of a collection of letters written in Arabic during the reigns of Kings Manuel I and João III of Portugal (numbered 1-58 in chronological order, the dated letters from 1503 to 1528), from the official Portuguese state correspondence, with the original Arabic and a parallel Portuguese translation. The letters came from North Africa, the Gulf, East Africa, India and the East Indies. The writers include kings, princes, governors, wazirs, sheikhs and noblemen, including Kings "Mahomed Xáh" and "Mir Abanasar" of Ormus, King "Azarkam" of Barus in Sumatra, and kings of Fez, Malindi and Calicut/Kozhikode. They are especially important for the light they shed on Portugal's East Indian trade, but also provide a rare primary source of information about Islamic leaders for whom little documentation has survived. The original Arabic appears in the inside columns with the Portuguese translation in the outside columns, and the apparatus and notes are in Portuguese. João de Sousa (1734-1812), born in Damascus, came to Portugal in 1750 and was appointed the first professor of Arabic at the University of Lisbon. - The Royal Printing Office in Lisbon had used the present Arabic type in 1774 for Antonio Baptista, Instituições da lingua Arabica. The form of the Arabic type may have been influenced by Robert Granjon's of this size, cut in 1586, his smallest Arabic, which was at this time in possession of the Propaganda Fide in Rome, but the direct model and the circumstances of the cutting remain unknown. The type here measures 96 mm/20 lines (14 point). It is not the Arabic type acquired by the Biblioteca Real in Madrid in 1751 for the 1760 Bibliotheca Arabico-Hispana, which came from the Voskens and Clerk foundry in Amsterdam. - The first page of the first letter is very slightly soiled, otherwise internally fine and clean. Overall in very good condition. A remarkable primary source for numerous Arabic-speaking leaders and their relations with Portugal in the early 1500s. Macro 2098. Palau 320779. Schnurrer 186. Innocêncio IV, 41-42. Palha 2777. Krek, Typographia Arabica, p. 36, no. 3. Streit XVII, 6441. Not in Blackmer or Atabey.
A pair of original watercolours with traces of pencil, measuring 333 x 485 mm each. Framed and matted, captioned on the mat in Indian ink. Exceptionally rare: a pair of near-contemporary watercolours reflecting the English popular imagination of a crucial event in UAE history, the disastrous first sack of Ras Al-Khaimah in late 1809. - The punitive expedition was carried out by a 16-ship fleet of the British navy headed by HMS Chiffone under the command of Captain Wainwright, allegedly in retaliation for repeated acts of piracy against British ships perpetrated by the Qawasim, but certainly a convenient means for the British to expand their power in the Gulf on behalf of the East India Company. The battle, a massacre that is still locally remembered in story and song, was the beginning of a new era: that of British control in the Gulf. - The fleet sailed from Bombay on 14 September 1809, reaching Muscat on 11 November and descending on Ras Al-Khaimah in the dawn of the 12th. All day long the British ships bombarded the town’s defences and homes. In the early morning of 13 November, 600 of the more than 1,300 British soldiers landed on the beach and, after bitter fighting, soon breached Ras Al-Khaimah’s defences. Having demolished the town, the Chiffonne and the rest of the fleet sailed along the coast, wrecking additional fortresses. - The atmospheric watercolours depict the landing operation, with the Chiffonne firing its cannons and the British soldiers reaching the beach, in one picture setting fire to a pirate ship. The set of drawings at hand, apparently the work of a talented enthusiast, may even pre-date the publication of the aquatints by Richard Temple in his famous “Sixteen Views of Places in the Persian Gulph Taken in the Years 1809-10”, published in 1813 from his own drawings made on location as a private in the 65th Regiment. - Provenance: once sold through the London rare book and autograph dealer Frank T. Sabin (1846-1915), with his labels on the back. Latterly in a private UK collection. Cf. Sultan Muhammad Al-Qasimi, The Myth of Arab Piracy in the Gulf (London, 1985). Charles E. Davies, The Blood-Red Arab Flag (Exeter, 1997).
Oblong album (ca. 260 x 200 mm). 44 silver gelatin photographs (including 3 loose) in slightly varying sizes (ca. 18.5 x 24 cm). Grey faux-leather photo album consisting of 30 clear plastic inserts with a small white label on the front board: "42 x Israël 1967 23-24-25 Juli". A rare collection of fascinating original photographs capturing the first Western tourists in Israel and Israeli captured territories approximately a month after the Six-Day War in 1967 by Dutch journalist and photographer Bianca Maria Dony. The 44 photos in the album show the passenger ship SS Pegasus, soldiers, local people in the streets of Jerusalem and other cities, an early war monument, checkpoints, destroyed military vehicles and other remnants of the war. The album is from the archive of the photographer; some of these photographs were sold to and published in national (Dutch) and international newspapers and magazines, while others remained unpublished. - Bianca Dony was part of a group of 150 Christian tourists from various European countries, who were now - after the Israeli capture of these areas - able to visit the holy places in the old city of Jerusalem, Bethlehem and other places that had previously been inaccessible. "It is perhaps self-evident to suggest that military conquest shares something with tourism because both involve encounters with "strange" landscapes and people. [...] The gradual dissolution of borders between Israel and its newly occupied territories in war's aftermath generated numerous new possibilities for Israeli travel to places that had been inaccessible since 1948. What resulted was a tourist event of massive proportions, passionately documented by the Israeli popular media of the period" (Stein, p. 647). The tourists in the present photographs were the first of many and Dony took this opportunity to not only document the trip itself but also the general aftermath of the war. - The Six-Day War is also known as the June War, the Third Arab-Israeli War, or Naksah, and it was a brief war that took place from June 5 to June 10 1967. It was a conflict between Israel and a coalition of Arab states, including Syria, Egypt, Jordan, and Iraq, over Israel's supposed plan to invade parts of Syria and other neighbouring countries. The war ended in a decisive Israeli victory, which included the capture of the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, the old city of Jerusalem, and Golan Heights by Israel. The status of these territories has since then remained a major point of contention in the general Arab-Israeli conflict. - With an additional leaf in the inside front pocket of the album containing notes of how many photographs were sold to different newspapers and magazines (including 10 to the "Haagsche Courant"), written in blue and red ink and in pencil. Added to the first photograph in the album is a newspaper clipping from the "Jerusalem Post" with the headline "Haifa direct to old city for first time" about the first tourists visiting Israel after the Six-Day War. Some of the clear plastic inserts have small round white stickers on them with different abbreviations, connecting the photographs to the newspapers and magazines that (possibly) printed them (for example "HC" for Haagsche Courant etc.). 3 photographs are loosely inserted into the album and 2 of these are duplicates of other photo's in the album, the 2 duplicates contain a blue stamp "foto bianca dony 147 Malakkastraat Den Haag - Tel. 5582540 Giro 303814" and a manuscript caption in red ink on the back. Most other photographs are simply numbered in pencil on the back. This rare collection of 44 historically significant photographs is in very good condition. Cf. Rebecca L. Stein, "Souvenirs of conquest: Israeli occupations as tourist events", International Journal of Middle East Studies, vol. 40, no. 4 (2008) pp. 647-669.
Oblong folio (560 x 370 mm). 101 plates (72 lithophotographs "Procedé Poitevin", 2 lithographs, and 27 plans, of which 10 folding) and 4 leaves of letterpress text. Stored loosely in contemporary marbled boards with original printed cover label; cloth spine professionally renewed. Cloth ties. Rare, early photobook on the archaeological excavations in Turkey and the Levant during the 1850s, a work which assured the architect-explorer Pierre Tremaux (1818-95) an eminent place in the history of photography. Includes views of Aphrodisias, Corycus, Ephesus, Hierapolis, Jerusalem, Magnesia, Milet, Perga, Priene, Seleucia, Smyrna, Tarsus, etc. - The calotypes here reproduced are among the earliest photographs taken in Asia Minor and are thus of great documentary interest. They were lithographed using the process discovered in 1855 by Alphonse Poitevin (1811-82), later awarded the Grand Prix du Duc de Luynes; Trémaux's work was one of the first to use this method. - "Pierre Trémaux was an architect who trained at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. He was also interested in travel, ethnology, architecture and geography. He is known for one epic series of voyages to Asia Minor, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. The fruits of these travels were published in a series of books" (Jacobson). Having set out in 1847, Trémaux began taking photographs around 1853-54. While the results of his efforts were technically uneven, obliging him to substitute his salt prints with lithographs, the rare images that survive have ensured the photographer's lasting reputation. The entire subscription was announced for a series of 215 plates provisionally titled "Atlas de vues pittoresques, scenes des moeurs, types de vegetation remarquable", but the publication was interrupted in 1864, never to be completed. - Some edge flaws and duststaining to margins. Scattered foxing, more pronounced in some examples, others nearly flawless. Exceptionally rare: the work has appeared at auction only three times in 25 years; it was missing from the two great orientalist collections of Atabey and Blackmer. Provenance: from the collection of the French engineer and archaeologist Paul Gaudin (1858-1921), a major patron of the Asia Minor collections in the Louvre, the Istanbul Museum, British Museum, and other institutions. Ken Jacobson, Odalisques & Arabesques: Orientalist Photography 1839-1925 (Quaritch, 2007), p. 273. Goldschmidt & Naef, The Truthful Lens: A Survey of the Photographically Illustrated Book 1844-1914 (New York, 1980), p. 225. Andre Jammes & Eugenia Parry Janis, The Art of French Calotype (Princeton, 1983), p. 251.
Diazoprint map, 111.5 x 75.4 cm. Scale 1:1,000,000. Folded. Highly detailed map of the Arabian Peninsula's coast from Abu Dhabi (Abu Al Abyad island) and Ras al-Khaimah in today's United Arab Emirates to Ras al-Hadd and south to Salala in Dhofar, Oman. The legend identifies wells, towns and villages, wadis, scarps, edges of sand, quicksand, and tracks. Political boundaries are omitted. The latest surveys incorporated are those undertaken by Nick Fallon, Douglas Michael Morton and René Wetzel in the mid- and later 1950s, suggesting that the present map - identified as "TP_773 (Revised)" in the lower left corner but not traced in any institutional collection worldwide - was one of a very small number produced for the internal use of a geological exploration team in the 1960s, when the first discoveries of oil in commercial quantities intensified exploration efforts both in the soon-to-be-independent Trucial States and in Oman. - Light staining and wear; a few minor tears professionally repaired.
Folio (210 x 330 mm). 5 pp. on 5 ff. French draft of the historic business deal between Britain and Persia that would initiate the era of oil in the Middle East. - The chain of events leading to Persia entering the international oil scene began with Antoine Ketabci Khan, the Persian commissioner general at the Paris Exhibition of 1900. Ketabci Khan, of Armenian descent, had held several posts in the Persian government, including the directorship of the customs service. Although the ostensible reason for Ketabci’s visit was the opening of the Paris Exhibition, his main purpose was to find an investor in Europe willing to take up the petroleum concession in Persia. In Paris, Ketabci sought the aid of Sir Henry Drummond Wolff, formerly (1887-90) the British minister in Tehran, who suggested William Knox D’Arcy, an English entrepreneur and financier who had made a fortune in gold mining in Australia and was eager to examine the proposition. On 28 May 1901 the prodigal Mozaffar-al-Din Shah granted D’Arcy an oil concession valid for sixty years, with exclusive rights to oil exploration in the entire country apart from the five northern provinces of Azerbaijan, Gilan, Mazandaran, Astarabad, and Khorasan. These provinces were excluded to avoid offending Russia, which regarded the northern part of Persia as its own sphere of influence, in the same way that Britain saw southern Persia as falling in its own orbit. In return, D’Arcy agreed to pay the Persian government twenty thousand pounds in cash, with another twenty thousand pounds worth of shares, as well as an annual royalty which was defined somewhat vaguely as equal to 16 percent of “annual net profits”. - Small rust stains to first leaf; slightly creased.
4to. 6, (1), 5, 4 pp. In French, English and Persian. Contemporary printed wrappers. Exceedingly rare article defending the oil nationalisation movement in Iran. Directed at Iranian students in the West, the account aims to clarify "the misunderstandings that prevail in the countries where you study", describing the injustice of foreign oil exploration in Iran leading up to several nationalisation laws passed between 1944 and 1951, which prohibited any concessions being granted to foreigners. - Somewhat dampstained near upper gutter. No more than 3 copies traceable in libraries internationally (all at the Mossadegh Foundation in Geneva).
4to. 36 pp. With several photographic prints and tables. Original printed wrappers. Stapled. Bulletin of the National Iranian Oil Company featuring several images of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran, during three inauguration ceremonies. He is depicted opening the 1,200 kilometre Iranian Gas Trunkline, the offshore installations of the Iranian Marine International Oil Company (IMINOCO), and the newly erected Shahpur Chemical Complex in Bandar Shapur. Apart from commemorating these inaugurations in text and image, the present issue includes an English translation of article 11 of the 1957 Petroleum Act as well as tables and statistics of Iranian oil production and "world oil news". - Extremities minimally worn.
4to. 937-959, (1) pp. Original printed wrappers. Stapled. Exceedingly rare paper on international agreements in the oil industry by Fuad Rouhani (1907-2004), the first Secretary General of OPEC. First presented in early 1962 at the United Nations petrol conference in New York, it discusses legal issues of the oil industry, especially adressing the problem of the uneven distribution of profits between oil companies and the countries in possession of the reservoirs: "On sait toutefois que ces dernières années les gouvernements des pays qui ont accordé des concessions ont acquis la conviction qu'il existe un écart trop grand entre les bénéfices que les compagnies retirent de l'indutrie qu'elles financent et les rentrées du pays qui possède les gisements" (p. 949). - Right edge slightly warped, otherwise very well preserved. Offprint from "Revue de l'Institut Français du Pétrole et Annales des combustibles liquides", vol. XVIII, no. 6. An English version is held at Pepperdine University Library in Malibu, California; no other copy traceable in libraries internationally.
A total of 382 topographic maps, colour-printed, ca. 58 x 45 cm. Constant ratio linear horizontal scale. In Russian (Cyrillic). Most of the Soviet Union's 1:200,000 General Staff map quadrangles showing the Arabian Peninsula: from the Russian series of maps produced during the Cold War, based on high-quality satellite imagery, but usually also ground reconnaissance. While there are a few lacunae in the eastern and central part of the Peninsula, mainly concerning Oman and the UAE, and a few Saudi Arabian quadrangles are lacking, most of the area is well-covered. Assembled continuously, the quadrangles would form an enormous map spanning ca. 13 x 11 metres!. - Products of a massive, clandestine cartographic project begun under Stalin and ultimately encompassing the entire globe, the Soviet General Staff maps are today noted for their extreme precision. Indeed, even in post-Soviet times they provide the most reliable mapping for many remoter parts of the world: "Soviet-era military maps were so good that when the United States first invaded Afghanistan in late 2001, American pilots relied on old Russian maps of Afghanistan. For almost a month after the United States began a bombing campaign to help oust the Taliban government, American pilots were guided by Russian maps dating back to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s" (Davies/Kent, p. xi). - Although the details of the cartographic programme evolved over the decades, its overall system and plan remained remarkably constant. "The basic quadrangle is the 1:1,000,000 sheet spanning 4° latitude by 6° longitude [...] Each 1:1,000,000 sheet is [...] subdivided into 36 1:200,000 sheets in a six-by-six grid [... They] normally contain on the reverse side a detailed written description of the districts (towns, communications, topography, geology, hydrology, vegetation, and climate) together with a geological sketch map" (ibid., p. 19-21). "Printing such large-format plans in so many colors with near-perfect print registration itself testifies to the skill of the printers in the military map printing factories across the former Soviet Union. The quality of printing reflects the level of training and the reliability of humidity-control equipment and the electricity supply at the time" (ibid., p. 6f.). - The 1:200,000-scale maps are specifically labelled "For Offical Use". Indeed, all General Staff maps de facto constituted closely guarded military material, none of which became available in the West before the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s. - Light traces of folds, occasional wrinkles and a few odd edge flaws, but altogether in excellent condition. Cf. J. Davies / A. J. Kent, The Red Atlas (Chicago/London, 2017).
8vo. (24), 216 (misnumbered as 226), (8) pp. (pagination skips from pp. 80 to pp. 91 due to a printers' error, with no missing text). 18th century full leather ruled in blind and gilt, titled in gilt on red morocco spine label. Early English account of Muslim North Africa. An early example of notoriously difficult Arabic typesetting appears in the index of 'Moorish Words' at the rear, where Arabic terms are listed in both romanized and Arabic alphabets. - The Reverend Lancelot Addison (1632-1703), father of the essayist Joseph Addison, lived and worked as a chaplain in Tangier in northwest Morocco for seven years, which provided the basis for his historical accounts and gave him some knowledge of Arabic. Here he discusses, with some editorialising, the marital dramas of Moroccan dynastic struggles as well as the local traditions of cattle farming, and explains the camel to his European audience. - Leather rubbed and scuffed; spine, binding, and corners repaired; some offsetting to endpapers and half-title; light toning and foxing. Contemporary handwritten ownerships "Tho. Willughby" to front free endpaper and "T. Willughby" to title-page, probably belonging to the influential Tory politician Thomas Willoughby, 1st Baron Middleton (1672-1729), second son of the Warwickshire naturalist Francis Willughby (1635-72).
8vo. VI, (7)-69, (1) pp. Publisher's original green printed wrappers. First edition of the story of Nur al-Din and Shams al-Din, edited by the French oriental scholar (Jacques-)Auguste Cherbonneau (1813-82), professor at the Collège Arabe Française in Algier. Arabic text with French notes. - Well preserved. Chauvin VI, 102, no. 270, 2. OCLC 4432899.
Engraved map. 60 x 84 cm. Constant ratio linear horizontal scale ca. 1:1,500,000. With insert maps: "A Plan of the Harbour of Suez" and "A Plan of the Harbour of Tor". Rare map covering the Red Sea from Jeddah in the south to the Gulf of Suez in the north. Published as part of Robert Sayer's "Complete East-India pilot or Oriental Navigator" (1778ff., subsequently reissued by Laurie & Whittle), it is based on D'Après de Mannevillette's "Neptune Oriental" (1745), incorporating information gleaned from the 1762-63 surveys of Carsten Niebuhr. - A few professionally repaired edge tears. OCLC 733624449.
117 x 78 cm. Constant ratio linear horizontal scale: 1:5,000,000. Relief shown by hachures, contours, and spot heights. Depth shown by soundings. Loosely stored within printer wrappers. Third edition of this German wartime map of the Middle East, parts of Asia, and India, first published thus in 1940. Based on "Stielers Handatlas" and issued within Perthes' "Ubique terrarum" series (no. 20). - In excellent state of preservation, detached from its original wrappers. OCLC 164843864.
A single hand-carved woodblock (ca. 170 by 110/92 by 220 mm) for use as printing block, together with a print on 18th century paper (165 x 105 mm). Woodblock in Ottoman Turkish for a Hebrew publication of the Song of Solomon, probably produced in the Ottoman regions of the Levant for a rural printing press. A rare survival of a printing tool, and also an important witness to cross-cultural printing for minority audiences in the Ottoman world. - Includes a print of the text reading "Safr Nishd al-Nishad li-Suleyman wa'ighal ba-l'Abraniyat Sir Hashirim", printed on a piece of 18th-century paper pasted to a cutting from a Croatian printed book ("Pasha Duhovna", on Spirituality and the Passover). - Some small wormholes in the wood, post-dating the print; carved side stained black from ink used for printing. Printing devices such as this are often discarded or recycled and rarely survive in such condition as the present example.
8vo (170 x 253 mm). 38, (2), 112 pp. With a wood-engraved portrait of Abou Naddara and numerous illustrations. Modern marbled half calf with gilt-stamped spine. Silk divider. Inscribed to Paul Leclerc, "ami de l'Égypte, hommage respectueux du Cheikh Abou Naddara", also signed in Arabic. - "Abou Naddara" was the first Arabic magazine to feature cartoons (with captions in French and Arabic), as well as the first work to use in the press a form of colloquial Arabic, radically different from the literary form. - The Egyptian journalist James Sanua ("Ya'qub Rufa'il Sanu'" in Arabic, but usually known simply by his pseudonym, Abou Naddara, "father of spectacles") was born into a family of Sephardic Jews in Cairo. He played an important role in the development of the Arabic theatre in the 1870s, but it was as a satirical journalist that he became best known, targeting the Khedive as well as the British interlopers. He founded the satirical magazine "Abou Naddara" in 1877, which immediately enjoyed a broad appeal and was quickly suppressed; of the 15 issues that appeared between March and April 1877, no copies are known. Sanua went into exile in 1878, but his celebrated journal, reproduced lithographically from manuscript in Arabic and French, continued to appear, printed in Paris at a shop aptly located in the Passage du Caire in the 2e arrondissement. Within Egypt, where the magazine's smaller format allowed it to be smuggled inside other larger newspapers, its circulation was considerable, with possibly over 3000 copies of each issue printed. There is evidence of its presence in the highest echelons of Egyptian society, and its content focused on the political and financial turmoil in Egypt, as Sanua was undoubtedly privy to information from friends and informants well-placed inside administrative circles. - Extremely rare. Loosely inserted is a folded original issue of the "Journal Oriental" ("Directeur & Rédacteur en chef: J. Sanua Abou Naddara"), no. 8, dated 25 September 1886 (entirely lithographed in Arabic). OCLC 25737746.
8vo (155 x 228 mm). 45, (5) pp. With a folding, coloured map and 14 wood-engraved illustrations in the text (one repeated as a frontispiece). Publisher's original blue wrappers, printed in red and black. First edition thus: a French translation of the author's essay on the Hajj first published in Arabic in the "Roznémé Tounsié" (Annuaire Tunisien). The folding map at the back of the volume shows the route of the Hejaz railway, its course completed only as far as Tabouk at the time of publication, while the remainder of the line is shown in its projected state, still planned to run as far as Mecca. Indeed, when the rails reached Al-'Ula station very soon after this book came out, local tribes protested against the railroad, fearing it threatened their livelihood as providers of transport camels. Afterwards, Sultan Abdulhamid ruled that the railway would only run as far as Medina, where the line was completed on 1 September 1908. - M'hamed Bel-Khodja (1869-1943) was born into an Ottoman and Tunisian religious dynasty that was among the most important in the country in the 19th century. In 1902 he became director of the government press; in 1919 he was appointed qaid governor of Gabès and Bizerte, remaining an influential government adviser even after retirement. - A few tiny edge chips to covers, but generally very well preserved. Extremely rare: OCLC lists a single copy (Bibliothèque Gernet-Glotz in Paris). OCLC 690876832.
4to (160 x 214 mm). (80), (4 blank), (32), (4 blank), (19), (1 blank), (13), (1 blank), (81), (1 blank) leaves. Contemporary full calf with cover borders ruled in gilt and prettily gilt spine. All edges gilt. Considered lost: a volume of Ali Ufki Bey's famous Bible translation, "the lineal ancestor of today’s Turkish Bible" (Privratsky), the last manuscript in private hands. - A project born of Protestant disappointment with the outcome of the 30 Years' War, the 17th century enterprise to translate the Bible into Turkish was informed by Christian eschatological hopes that Protestantism and Islam might form a political alliance to defeat the common enemy, idolatrous Catholicism, and bring about world peace. To advance this cause, the Czech-born educator John Amos Comenius championed a Turkish translation of the Holy Scripture, whose power alone, it was assumed, would soon convert the Muslim world to Christianity. Enjoying financial backing from the wealthy arms dealer Laurens de Geer and the academic support of Jacob Golius, professor of Turkish at Leiden, Comenius's venture was entrusted to the Dutch ambassador in Constantinople, Levinus Warner. - Though himself proficient in Turkish, Warner chose to contract a translator rather than perform the arduous task himself. After his first recruit, the Jewish dragoman Hâki (Yahya bin Isaak), delivered a manuscript version around 1661 which was found deficient, Warner in 1662 entrusted the work to Ali Ufki Bey, a talented linguist and former servant of the Sultan's. Born Wojciech Bobowski in Lwów around 1610, he had been captured by Tatars as a young man, sold into Ottoman slavery, and given the name Ali. He subsequently served at the Topkapi Palace as a respected musician and translator for about 20 years, eventually gaining his freedom in 1657. - Ali Bey completed his task in December 1664; in 1665 he then proceeded to have a few fair copies produced under his supervision. One of these, in 5 volumes, is very nearly complete; another contains only Isaiah and several books of the Apocrypha. These copies, sent to Golius together with Ali Bey's rough draft in four volumes, today form part of the Warner Collection at Leiden University Library. - Only in 1888 did the Leiden Library accession an additional manuscript copy (Cod. Or. 3100), containing part of the New Testament in the hand of one of Ali's secretaries, with interlinear and marginal corrections by Ali Bey himself. The present volume is the missing part of this New Testament copy, comprising Acts, Romans, Philippians, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, Hebrews, James, 1 & 2 Peter, 1-3 John, Jude, and Revelation. Written under Ali Bey's direction and copied from his personal draft, it, too, contains marginalia and corrections in his own hand (we thank Dr Arnoud Vrolijk, curator of the Warner collection, for his kind confirmation). - Ali Bey's translation, aimed at Muslims as a target audience and full of popular Islamic cultural references, did not find favour with Golius and his colleagues. After Warner, de Geer, and Golius all died in quick succession between 1665 and 1667, the Turkish Bible project ground to a halt, in spite of the fact that Ali Bey was anxious to continue it. Not until 1819 would the New Testament alone be published in a revision of his translation (in Paris), and only eight years later would Ali Bey's entire Turkish Bible see print. A critical edition of his manuscript is still outstanding, and there is ample material for research. It remains unknown from what language Bobowski translated the Bible: "A study of Ali Bey's spellings of proper names, e.g. Petro, Se’mun, Filipo, Pilato, could reveal much about his connections with Christian tradition. Several of these are Italian spellings and suggest a Catholic connection. The fact that Ali Bey refers to St John the Baptist as Yuhanna Ma’madant, a Christian construction of John’s name in Arabic, suggests that he was in contact with the Oriental churches also, perhaps the Syrian Orthodox Church” (Privratsky, p. 19f.). - Provenance: early 18th century autograph ownership of the Hamburg theologian Johann Friedrich Winckler (1679-1738), professor of theology in Hamburg, on the title-page, and successive ownership of the Dutch theologian and orientalist Hendrik Sypkens (1736-1812) below. Subsequently owned by Nicolaus Wilhelm Schroeder (1721-98), professor of oriental languages at Groningen, and sold as no. 24 of his estate auction by van Boekeren in 1835. Purchased in the 1960s from Wrister's bookshop (Utrecht) by a Dutch theologian and acquired from him directly. Pars altera bibliothecae Schroederianae (Groningen 1834), p. 6, no. 24. Cf. Bruce Privratsky, A History of Turkish Bible Translations, v. S (2014), pp. 18-26. Darlow/Moule 9453 (the 1819 printed NT).
2 volumes. Oblong 8vo. Together 370 pp. Printed forms filled in by hand. Contemporary full cloth with blindstamped cover title. Uncommon set of flight records kept by the Imperial Airways pilot Ernest Bicknell, who was active in Africa and the Arabian Gulf region in the 1940s, with destinations including Bahrain, Dubai, Cairo, Mozambique, Durban, Khartoum, and Luxor. The present log books state the type of aircraft and duration of each flight, as well as occasional information on unusual events such as night landings, radio or instrument trouble, damage, weather conditions, or the unfortunate incident of the plane hitting a flock of ducks. In addition, Bicknell registered his visits to the Durban medical board and the hours he had flown since his last checkup. A resident of Durban since 1945 at the latest, Bicknell flew a total of 11,428 hours throughout his career. - Very well preserved.
Oblong 4to. Album with 148 small original black and white photographs on 18 ff. Contemporary giltstamped full cloth with printed title and 2 silhouette images. Extremley rare photographs from the first successful motor crossing of the desert from Damascus to Baghdad in 1919, preceding by four years the well-known efforts by the Nairn brothers, which resulted in the establishment of the overland mail service between Damascus and Baghdad. The photographs were taken by the 18-year old Eric Blackwell, who had planned to enlist as a pupil pilot in the RAF, had his training cut short by the Armistice, and decided instead to volunteer for the projected desert expedition. Carried out by a military convoy of 10 Model T Fords and some 15 men under the command of Lt. Col. Keeling, the aim of the expedition was to set up a chain of whitewashed stone markers to aid the pilots of an air mail service between the eastern Mediterranean and India, cutting out the lengthy Suez-Aden-Bombay sea route. - The photographs document the journey from Cairo to Haifa by train, then on to Damascus on established roads, up to the expedition's last outpost before the open desert, Dumair. The following pictures show the men setting up the stone signs, repairing their vehicles, sometimes having to push them forward (a total of six Fords had to be abandoned along the way), posing for group pictures, and travelling through the vast desert landscape, stops along the way including Abu Kamal, Ana, Ramadi and Fallujah, before reaching Baghdad, and going on to the ruins of Babylon, Basra, Bombay, Aden, and Suez. - Photographs are mounted in groups, with captions in English. Enclosed is an envelope containing seven loose photographs torn from the album, as well as a brief typewritten account of the journey, and correspondence relating to the loan of photographs for a magazine article, referring to it as a "grand trip". - Extremities lightly bumped. A few photographs loose; traces of photographs torn away in places. Impressive visual material of this little-known epic journey. Cf. Aramco World July/August 1981, vol. 32, nr. 4.
8vo (127 x 192 mm). 107, (5) pp. Original printed green wrappers. Only edition of this rare account of the "North African War Pilgrimage", the Hajj of the year 1940 - the last before the Second World War brought an effective hiatus on the Meccan pilgrimage for two years. Together with the French journalist and ethnographer Robert Boutet, the Moroccan and Tunisian radio journalist and theatre critic Noureddine ben Mahmoud (1914-1990) published the account of his pilgrimage to Mecca, performed between 19 February and 2 March 1940. The book describes the special travel conditions imposed by the war and the struggle for influence by the European powers, who feared that the pilgrimage would serve as a platform for North African separatists under the leadership of King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud. - Ben Mahmoud also published on the Saudi press, in particular about the periodical "Um El Qurra", whose editorial staff he visited while in Arabia. Later based in Paris, he became one of the heads of the Mosquée de Paris and the Institut de Paris in 1961. - Covers a little foxed, otherwise fine. Uncut and untrimmed as issued. OCLC 5544875.
Tall 8vo (150 x 246 mm). Persian manuscript on sturdy cream paper. 254 (instead of 264) ff., 15 lines per extensum, paginated by later hands (lacking pp. 35-42 and 45-46; pp. 43-44 transposed after p. 30). Cursive nasta'liq calligraphy in black ink, catchwords in red. Illustrated with 56 (instead of 77) coloured horse drawings in the text (numbered in pencil by a later hand). Later illustrated binding with black leather spine and lacquered wooden boards with coloured floral designs. A late 18th century Indian manuscript copy of a celebrated treatise on horsemanship, the "Farasnama" ("The Coloured Book of Horses"). Constituting a Persian translation of the Sanskrit "Salihotra", its topics include horse-breeding, grazing, dressage, veterinary advice and horseracing. - The "Salihotra" is attributed to Durgarasi, son of Surgarasi, who is believed to have composed it for Mahmud Ghaznavi (d. 1030). A note on p. 2 of the present manuscript indicates that the text was translated from Sanskrit into Persian during the reign of Shah Jahan (d. 1666); other traditions give credit to 'Abdullah bin Safi, who was active under the earlier reign of Bahmanid ruler Ahmad Shah Wali (d. 1436). The present manuscript contains numerous coloured drawings of thoroughbred horses, along with observations on their salient traits, the illnesses to which they are prone, and prescriptions for their treatment. Their execution is an interesting illustration of the iconoclastic tendencies characterising painting under the later Mughal emperors. - Occasional slight traces of worming; some waterstaining to margins; some leaves remargined by an early owner. In spite of the loss of five leaves that would have contained an additional 21 horse illustrations, a fine manuscript in an attractive illustrated lacquer binding.
8vo. 371 pp. With black & white illustrations and plates throughout. Publisher's orange cloth with gilt lettering to upper cover and spine. Original dust jacket (slight defects). First edition. The personal copy of HH Said bin Taimur (1910-72), the 13th Sultan of Muscat and Oman from 1932 until 1970, with his handwritten ownership in black ink to the front pastedown, and subsequently inscribed by him in blue ink to Captain (later Brigadier) Colin Maxwell on the half-title: "To Captain C. C. Maxwell / Said / 29.1.53". The gift would have been partly in recognition of Maxwell's key role in raising the first standing army of Oman, in preparation for ejecting Saudi Arabian forces from the Buraimi Oasis. - The Arab Legion was the army of the Emirate of Transjordan and of Jordan after the country's independence in 1946. When Glubb became the Legion's commander in 1939, he they transformed it into the best-trained military force in the Arab world. - Binding rubbed and stained, spine chipped and ends and professionally rebacked. Paper somewhat browned as common. Dust jacket shows light chipping to edges with a larger portion torn from the lower jacket cover without loss to blurb; protected under cellophane sleeve.
4to (170 x 240 mm). Persian manuscript on polished paper. 137 (instead of 143) ff. (lacking ff. 97-102) in elegant black nasta'liq script, 14 lines, 2 columns. With an illuminated shamsa on fol. 1r (specifying the name of the sponsor Khawaja Nasir as well as the place and date of production) and an illuminated 'unwan headpiece on fol. 1v. Light brown full morocco with blindstamped borders, corners and central ornaments. An elegantly executed Eastern Persian manuscript that chronicles the epic life and victories of one of history's most famous emperors and military leaders, Timur Leng (Tamerlane), from his birth near Samarqand in modern-day Uzbekistan in 1336. "Certainly the most famous of Hatefi’s poems [... The work] extols Timur’s deeds in accordance with the main works of Timurid historiography such as Sharaf-al-Din Yazdi's Zafar-nama [...] Hatefi’s Timur-nama became a model for subsequent poems. It certainly introduced a new genre which was developed further by Hatefi himself [...] Written in 1498, the Timur-nama has been published twice in India (1869, 1958)" (Encyclopaedia Iranica XII, 55-57). - Abdallah Hatefi (Hatifi) was the nephew of 'Abd-al-Rahman Jami, one of the greatest Persian poets and composers of Sufi mystical works. The Timur-nama, modeled after Nizami's "Iskandar-nama", appears to be his only completed work. The oldest extant copy was completed the year after Hatifi's death, 927 H (1521 CE), and was stored in the India Office Library. - Descended from the Mongol hordes of Genghis Khan, Timur participated in various military campaigns from a young age, and his victories quickly made him known as a highly skilled military leader. After a decade of internal political wrangling, he became ruler of the Timurid Empire in 1369. For the next 35 years, until his death in 1405, Timur continued to lead a number of great expeditions and wars; his conquests stretched as far west as Baghdad and the Black Sea, the shores of the Arabian Gulf, and far into modern Afghanistan and northwestern India; he took Herat, where this manuscript is written, in 1381. Timur began military campaigns against the Ottoman ruler Bayezid I and the Mamluks in Syria, as well as expeditions to Armenia and Georgia. His final campaign was in the winter of 1404, but he was stricken with fever and plague and died in February of the following year. His line continued through the glory of the Timurid period under his direct descendants, including Babur (1483-1531), the famous founder of the Mughal dynasty in India, who continued to rule until 1857. - An beautiful manuscript containing an illuminated headpiece of the greatest refinement; the illuminated border of the shamsah on fol. 1r. is a hallmark of Herati work. Surrounding the shamsa are several stamped waqf seals and various inscriptions by previous owners; fol. 140v has an inscription by Muhammad Taqi Qarakuzlu, dated 1237 H (1821 CE). - Provenance: Arts of the Islamic World, Sotheby's, 5 April 2006, lot 30. Sam Fogg, 2009.
12mo. 85, (3) pp. Original wrappers with lettering. A rare pamphlet in Arabic, containing Saddam Hussein's speech on the role of women in revolutions. The speech was given in 1977, two years before Saddam formally came to power in 1979. The pamphlet was reprinted in the year of his election. With this speech Saddam touched the problem of women's liberation vs. strong local traditional values in the time of the Arab national struggle. In the 1970s Iraqi women had free access to the education, voting rights, could own property and were encouraged to pursue posts in high positions, but during the following decades the importance of the traditional patriarchal family started undermining these rights. - Wrappers slightly stained and with soft folds, old signature on the top of the title-page, otherwise in good condition. Rare; we could not find any institutional examples.