Lot 15: A ARABIC MATHEMATICAL MANUSCRIPT NUZHAT AL-UQUL WA-AL-ALBAB, A RARE DUBAI REGION MANUSCRIPT, 1834 A.D.

AL-MAHRI, SHIHAB AL-DIN SULAYMAN BIN AHMAD (D. 1553 AD). NUZHAT AL-UQUL WA-AL-ALBAB (THE DELIGHT OF MINDS AND HEARTS). AN ARABIC MANUSCRIPT ON THE SCIENCE OF CALCULATION AND NAVIGATION, DATED 1250 AH (1834 AD).

This Arabic manuscript is a nineteenth-century mathematical treatise titled Nuzhat al-Uqul wa-al-Albab fi Marifat Ilm al-Hisab (Delights of Minds and Hearts in the Knowledge of the Science of Calculation). The work was composed by the author Shihab al-Din Sulayman bin Ahmad bin Muhammad al-Mahri al-Quda’i al-Majdi al-Maliki. The text is written in a neat Naskh script in black ink, with important headings and keywords rubricated in red. The content covers various aspects of arithmetic and geometry, featuring several mathematical tables, numerical grids, and a page of geometric diagrams illustrating circles, triangles, and quadrilaterals. The colophon on the final page states that the transcription was completed by the scribe Yurak bin Battah al-Rashidi on the 4th of Sha’ban in the year 1250 AH, which corresponds to November 1834 AD. The volume is bound in a half-leather binding with a dark maroon pebbled leather spine and paper-covered boards. The title page contains several ownership marks, including those of Abd al-Rahman bin Mut’ib bin Salih al-Khatib al-Ahsa’i, identified as a calculator, and Mutlaq bin Ghayth al-Khadi al-Hanbali, it was written in the town of Wasal (Sahal Bahar al-Arab). This area is historically associated with the coastal settlements that would become modern-day Dubai. 

35 pages 

20.5 x 15cm