Al-A‘raj al-Nīsābūrī, Tawḍīḥ al-Tadhkirah (4 Ramaḍān 752 [25 October 1351])
MS 103
A medieval version of a popular science bestseller?
Our only medieval Arabic manuscript on astronomy is the earliest known copy of al-Nīsābūrī’s Tawḍīḥ al-Tadhkirah ‘The Explication of the “Memoir”’, a commentary for non-astronomers on the great Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī’s al-Tadhkirah, which is itself an introduction to astronomy for non-specialists (Savage-Smith, p. 6). It was produced forty years after al-Tadhkirah had been completed in 1311. Al-Nīsābūrī (d. 1329) produced three astronomical commentaries, all on writings of al-Ṭūsī. This one is the last he completed, but perhaps the first one he had started writing (Morrison). The work investigates ‘theoretical topics, such as the non-Ptolemaic models for planetary motions, and topics that combined theory and observations, such as the physical hypotheses accounting the observed variations in the obliquity of the ecliptic’ (Morrison). Tawḍīḥ, which had not been written for astronomers, became an important text for a type of religious worship for which astronomy was relevant and which was widely used in Islamic education, including Ulugh Beg’s school in Samarkand (Morrison). Today, however, al-Nīsābūrī is best known for a commentary on the Quran, in which he demonstrates the importance of science for religious schools (Morrison).
It would appear that St John’s copy of al-Nīsābūrī’s Tawḍīḥ was among those used in Islamic schools. An ownership inscription on folio 1a indicates that the volume once belonged to a teacher in the Khanjarīya [?] madrasa (Savage-Smith, p. 10); a madrasa being a secular or religious Islamic school providing education at different levels. We know from two other ownership inscriptions that the volume was in Constantinople in 1485 and that it once was part of a gift made by Sultan Mehment Murād Khān. Somehow the manuscript made its way into the hands of Kenelm Digby, an English
courtier, diplomat, and privateer with an interest in science. It is now one of the eight Arabic
manuscripts William Laud donated to St John’s College that had previously belonged to Digby.
Further Resources
Full digitization available at Digital Bodleian
Descriptive catalogue records available at our Digital Library (scroll down to MS 103)