Koranic Science, a Commentary [IO Islamic 598] مجمع البیان لعلوم القران

• al-Qurʼān القرآن الكريم
• This manuscript is now IO Islamic 598 in the India Office collections.
• [metadata: Otto Loth, A Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts in the Library of the India Office, (volume 1), no. 61 here with further notations and hyperlinks].

61.

598. Size 10^1/2 in. by 6 in.; foll. 510. Twenty-five lines in a page.

The First Part of a large Commentary on the Koran, entitled مجمع البیان لعلوم القران. The author, who is not named here, is Abu ‘Alî al-Faḍl b. al- Ḥasan b. al-Faḍl ṬABARSÎ, a Shî’ite (d. A. H. 548). Cf. Catal. Mus. Brit. 671; Bodl. i. 50, and below, No. 64. Ḥ. Kh. v. 400 sq. confounds the author with the well-known Ṭûsî (d. A. H. 460).

The Preface has a double Ḥamdalah, beginning الحمدلله الذی ارتفعت عن مطارح الفکر جلالته and الحمدلله الذی انزل الفرقان هدی للناس respectively. The author says afterwards (fol. 3v.):

قدمت فی مطلع كل سورة ذکر مکیها و مدنیها ثم ذکر الاختلاف فی اعداد آیاتها ثم ذکر تلاوتها ثم اقدم فی کل آیة الاختلاف فی القرآءة ثم ذکر العلل و الاحتجاجات ثم ذکر العربیة و اللغات ثم ذکر الاعراب و المشکلات ثم ذکر الاسباب و النزولات ثم ذکر المعانی و الاحکام و التاویلات و القصص و الجهات ثم ذکر انتظام الآیات

In three volumes, bound together; the second begins on fol. 240, the third on fol. 427; it terminates abruptly at the beginning of Sûrah 7. Plainly written; the second volume in a different hand. Coloured lines round the pages.

[Johnson.]