Siraj al-Din Isma’il ibn Abi Bakr al-Muqri al-Shawari al-Yamani (d.1433-34 AD), Kitab 'Unwan al-sharaf al-shafi [al-wafi] fi’l-fiqh wa’l-nahw wa’l-tarikh wa’l-‘arud wa’l-qawafi, an encyclopaedia of sciences, signed by Ilyas ibn Khidr ibn Muhammad ibn Jibra’il al-Batiati (?), Yemen, Mamluk, dated 840 AH/1436-37 AD

Arabic manuscript on polished paper, 87 leaves, plus 2 flyleaves, 17 lines to the page written in naskh script in black ink, each line with 4 words in red ink, keywords picked out in bold, catchwords, f.1a with the title written in thuluth script in alternating gold, blue, red, green and brown ink, later brown stamped morocco binding, with flap

In generally good condition, rebound, the margins have been trimmed and bear occasional later annotations but are overall clean, water staining affecting in particular the spine and various other stain, occasional smudges to the ink and restoration to the pages which are limited to the edges, f.1a with smudges to the ink and later annotations and restoration on the edges, binding worn, as viewed.
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This early copy of al-Muqri's Kitab 'Unwan al-sharaf al-shafi, written only three years after the author's death, is a particularly interesting version as it combines five treatises which are arranged concurrently according to the color and order of letters on the page:

1. The main body of text: a treatise on jurisprudence.
2. The text composed using every first red word on each line: a treatise on prosody (al-arud).
3. The text composed using every last red word on each line: a treatise on rhymes (al-qawafi). 
4. The text composed using every red perpendicular word on each line: a treatise on the history of the Rasulid dynasty of Yemen. 
5. The text composed by every second perpendicular red word: A treatise on grammar.

Three other copies of this work, also dated to the fifteenth century, are in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin (see A. Arberry, A Handlist of the Arabic Manuscripts, volumes VI and VII, Dublin, 1963 and 1964, no.4905 (dated 832 AH/1429 AD), no.5293 and no.5432 respectively). See also Brockelmann: GAL, II. 191; suppl. II. 254. The original work was composed in 1401 AD, and the present manuscript, dating to 1436-37 AD, may be the second earliest recorded copy.