Mathematics and Astronomy [IO Islamic 1748] خلاصة الحساب

• Mathematics and Astronomy.
• This manuscript is now IO Islamic 1748 in the India Office collections.
• [metadata: Otto Loth, A Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts in the Library of the India Office, (volume 1), no. 758 here with further notations and hyperlinks].

758.

1748. Size 9 in. by 5 in.; foll. 26. From thirteen to nineteen lines in a page.

A Compendium of Arithmetic, called خلاصة الحساب  by BAHÂ AL-DÎN MUḤAMMAD B. ḤUSAIN ‘ÂMULÎ العامُلى (d. A.H. 1030 ¹ or 1031).

Printed, with a Persian translation and commentary, at Calcutta, 1812, and also at Constantinople, A.H. 1268. Edited in German by Prof. [Georg Heinrich Ferdinand] Nesselmann, [Versuch einer kritischen Geschichte der Algebra] Berlin, 1843 ; and translated into French by M. Aristide Marre, [Essence du calcul, Paris] Rome, 1864 (2nd edit.). Cf.  Ḥ. Kh. iii. 168; Cat. Mus. Brit. 622; Cat. St. Petersb. 230.

The preface contains here a dedication to a Ṣafawî prince, styled السلطان ابن السطان ابن السلطان ابو الغالب سلطان حسن ² بهادر خان which is in none of the other copies. At the end is given the date of the original copy, Ṣafar, 1004 [=October 1595]. The present copy is dated Saturday, Rabî’ II., 1056 [=June 1646]. The scribe gives his name as

غلام محمد عبدالقادر لجائى

Legibly written In Nasta’liḳ, with copious notes. Stained by damp.

On the title-page is a table of the ‘’Indian numerals,’’ اسماء العدد الهندية , as follows : يكن (meaning آحاد ,(دهن (meaning عشرات ), etc.

[Tippu.]

¹ So according to a note at the end of this MS.

² Variant حمزة .This appears to be the correct reading, the person in question being Amîr Ḥamzah, son of Muḥammad Khudâbandah [reg. 1578-87], and grandson of Shâh Ṭahmâsp [1514-76].

• [ed note: Ḥamza Mīrzā was born in 1568 and was assassinated in 1586, so the “original copy,” as Loth puts it, with a date of 1595, postdates his death. The discrepancy is explained in Sayyid Muḥsin Nājī Naṣrābādī, Kitābshināsī-yi Shaykh-i Bahāʾī (کتابشناسی شیخ بهائی), 1:267, which analyses the chronological transmission of Shaykh-i Bahāʾī’s mathematical and scientific texts, specifically tracing the shift in patron dedications across the three Safavid princes during the late tenth century AH (1580s–1590s CE). See also Āqā Buzurg al-Tihrānī, al-Dharīʿa ilā taṣānīf al-shīʿa (الذريعة إلى تصانيف الشيعة), 7:225 (s.v. “Khulāṣat al-ḥisāb”), documenting manuscript variations in the opening preface (dībāja) and noting that early surviving copies bear dedications to Sulṭān Ḥamza Bahādur Khān, others to his brother Sulṭān Ḥasan Bahādur Khān, and later standardised court editions directly to Shāh ʿAbbās I. Loth's assertion hthat the dedication is in no other copies has been overtaken] 
• [ed note: Quick link to other copies of this work in FIHRIST]