Abi Ya'qub bin Danyal, Kitab Khalq al-Insan wa'l-Furud (an Arabic-Persian Lexicon), Near East, probably Mesopotamia, 9th/10th century

Arabic and Persian manuscript on paper, 49 leaves plus 2 flyleaves, 11-13 lines to the page written in a clear scholar's hand in dark brown ink on buff paper, headings in a bold script verging on Eastern Kufic, f.1a with first part of title written in large foliated Kufic script and second part of title and author's name written in a loose Eastern Kufic style script, early brown leather binding with central stamped knot motif, lower cover with title and author written faintly in black ink, with fore-edge flap

"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

This is an immensely rare and important manuscript - an apparently unique ninth-century copy of an unrecorded work by an unknown early Abbasid author. It is remarkable both for its exceptionally early date and for the fact that both the work and the author are otherwise unknown.

It is an Arabic-Persian lexicon with the title Kitab Khalq al-Insan wa'l-Furud , which translates as The Book of the Creation of Humans and Singulars. The style of script and the subject matter both point to a date around the 3^rd/10^th century, and this is corroborated by the result of a Carbon 14 text that was carried out on the paper, giving a date range of 888–980 AD with a probability of 95.4%. For a discussion of the script see below.

The Text
The manuscript fits well within the strong tradition of Abbasid lexicography, which was at its height during the efflorescent period of intellectual activity in Baghdad and other Abbasid cities in the eighth to eleventh centuries. The text is a long list of words in Arabic, with their Persian equivalents, and the author includes the plurals of the Arabic words as well as occasional proverbs and quotations from pre-Islamic and Umayyad poets to give examples of the usage of certain words. The text is divided into thirty-six chapters (bab), some with sub-sections. The subjects of the chapters are as follows: 1 The creation of mankind (i.e. human reproduction), his names and attributes: The human being (al-insan), the face, the ear, the eyebrow, the eye, the fingers, the chest, the back, the waist; 2 The names of seeds (al-hubub); 3 The names of fruits (al-fawakih); 4 The names of what is found at the victualler; 5  The names of spices, seasoning and dressings (al-tawabil); 6 The names of house utensils (part I), things made from brass and iron (awani al-manzil min as-safar wa'l -hadid); 7 The names of  house utensils (part II), furniture and cupboards (al-awani wa'l- athath wa'l-khaza'in); 8 Description of garments (al-thiyab); 9 On bread and flour (al-khubz wa'l-daqiq); 10 The names of the equipment of the baker (al-khabbaz); 11 On cooking and grilling (al-tabkh wa shiwa'); 12 The names of the days (al-ayam); 13 The names of the months (as-shuhur); 14 On dates (al-tarikh); 15 On times (al-awqat); 16 On times of prayers (awqat as-salat); 17 On relatives and ancestors on the male side (al-aqarib wa al-ansab); 18 On females (unath); 19 On houses and buildings (al-dur wa al-bunyan); 20 The names of makers and craftsmen (as-sina'yyin wa ashab al-huraf); 21 On the earth and mountains (al-ardh wa'l- jibal); 22 On water (al-miyah); 23 On gardens and trees (al-ghiyaz wa'l-ashjar); 24 On green herbs (al-buqul); 25 On medecines (al-adwiyah); 26 On perfumes (al-'utr); 27 Description of jewellery and ornaments (al-hila); 28 On the equipment used for pack animals (al-dawab); 29 On tools used by blacksmiths (al-haddad) and coppersmiths (as-saffar); 30 The description of animals (al-hayawan) and pack animals(al-dawab); 31 On the equipment used on oxen when cultivating the land (al-thiran); 32 The description of predatory animals (al-siba'); 33 The description of birds (al-tayr); 34 On what is in the water (ma-fi'l ma'); 35 Another chapter (untitled); 36 Another chapter (untitled).

The text within the chapters has a recurrent pattern throughout. The author names an Arabic word in the singular. He then gives the Persian translation of that word, and then gives the plural of the Arabic word. Sometimes he gives more than one plural, and he frequently gives qualifying aspects of the meaning. There is a good deal of detailed nomenclature, especially in the chapter on human reproduction and anatomy. On f.6b for instance, he gives the Arabic word al-simakh, which is the ear canal, and on f.9a he differentiates between the fingers in general and the fingertips, as well as specifying the words for thumbs and big toes. There is an explanatory element to the text, above and beyond a simple listing of words. For instance, in the section on human anatomy he gives the Arabic word for kidney, then the Persian word, then the Arabic plural, and then tells us that "there are two kidneys (in humans)". There is also a grammatical element; for instance, when he is giving the plurals of months of the year he tells us that months with one-word names such as ramadan or muharram can have straightforward plurals of ramdanat and muharramat, but for two-word names such as rabi' al-awal the plural is shuhur rabi' al-awal.

The author quotes  pre- and early Islamic poets on several occasions, including al-A'sha, Imru'l-Qais, Nabighah al-Dhubyani and al-Farazdaq, he quotes the Hilal tribe on one occasion and often quotes anonymous poets (qala al-sha'ir). He also quotes Ali Ibn Abu Talib on one occasion.

For a more detailed list of the contents of the chapters and style of writing see the online version of this catalogue.

The Author and Context
It is worth speculating on the author and context of this work. From the 2^nd/8^th century onwards there was a growing science of lexicography in the Islamic world, centred predominantly on Iraq, which was the seat of the Abbasid caliphate and the central engine of intellectual activity. The background impetus for the growth in the science of Arabic vocabulary was the aim of coming to a true understanding of the language of the Qur'an, revealed, as it was, in early Arabic of the Prophet's time. This led to an interest in the language and diction of the Bedouin tribes of Arabia and of pre-Islamic poets. The scholars of Iraq in the Abbasid period used the Bedouin as an important source for their lexicographic research and it was during this time that the collection of many of the pre-Islamic poets was carried out. The veneration of this type of Arabic became more general in literary and intellectual circles, and we find the brilliant ninth-century author Al-Jahiz mixing with Bedouin tribesmen in order to learn the specifics of their Arabic, as well as with famous philologists such as Al-Asma'i, Abu Ubaydah and Abu Zayd al-Ansari to hear their discussions of linguistic subtleties. In the present work the author quotes pre- and early Islamic poets on several occasions (see above for details).

There was a parallel impetus for this interest in language. While the pursuit of the understanding the language of the Qur'an was focussed purely on Arabic, the administration of the empire and the Abbasid translation movement called for an understanding of other languages. However, notwithstanding this requirement, polyglot dictionaries are rather rare, and the best-known early Arabic-Persian glossary is that of al-Zawzani (d.486 AH/1093 AD). It is interesting and noteworthy that the present manuscript probably pre-dates al-Zawzani by a century or so.

The content of the present work, with its subject matter ranging from human reproduction through anatomy, plants, foods, animals, tools, crafts and geography, and with a great deal of detail within each subject, indicates that its context was probably practical and utilitarian, rather than literary. The fact that the author was Jewish also points to this context, since there were many Jewish administrators employed in various parts of the Abbasid bureaucracy, as well as numerous Jewish merchants and businessmen. The slight focus within the text on provisions and equipment perhaps indicates that the author was himself involved in, or wrote the text for those involved in market trading and supplies.

It is remarkable that this text and author are so far unrecorded, and the explanation for this may be the fact that this was a rather utilitarian text, perhaps even a personal, working copy: a useful professional dictionary rather than a monumental seminal text in lexicography. The author's name is written four times on the title page, and again on f.49a at the end, where he is given the nisba Al-Yahudi. There is also a curious note on the same folio which translates loosely as "the information died with the author". It is highly plausible that this is the author's own copy of his work, in his own hand.

The title Kitab Khalq Al-Insan was a popular one for works of this period, perhaps because many of the lexicographical works began with a listing of terms relating to the human being. Fuat Sezgin, in the volume on Lexicography of his monumental Geschichte des Arabischen Schrifttums lists thirty-two works of the eighth to tenth century with the title Kitab Khalq Al-Insan (see Sezgin 1982, vol. VIII, p.353).

The Script
The script in this manuscript can be separated in to two basic types: the script of the bold headings and the script of the main body of text.

The script used for the bolder headings is a script proper, the letters consciously formed in to what could be termed a rather rounded and early version of Eastern Kufic. But it is a chancery or scholar's version of that script, rather than the grand and calligraphically refined version that developed on luxury manuscripts of the Qur'an in the eleventh and twelfth century, and which is more readily recognisable. Scripts of the style and scale of the bold headings in the present text appear on several Arabic manuscripts of the ninth to eleventh century, including a small-format multi-volume Qur'an on parchment dated to 292 AH/905 AD or before, in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin (see James 1980 no.12, p.26; Blair 2006, fig.5.2, p.148); a ninth-century Egyptian fragment of the title-page and text of the Thousand Nights which bears a date of 266 AH/879 AD, in the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago (see Bosch et al, no.98, pp.223-4); a manuscript of Abu Ubayd's Gharib al-Hadith, dated 252 AH/866-7 AD in Leiden University Library (see Blair 2006, fig.5.1, p.146; Bloom 2001, fig.27, p.60); a manuscript of the Kitab al-Ashriba dated to 332 AH/943 AD or before (see Al-Azami 2003, fig.12.5, p.183); a bi-lingual Arabic-Greek manuscript of the Gospels dated 1043 AD, in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris (see Déroche and Richard 1997, fig.1, p.166); and an Arabic copy of the New Testament dated 902 AD, again in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris (see Tabbaa 2001, fig.5, p.32).

The script of the main body of text is a scholar's hand rather than a formal script, and as a result it varies between a relatively upright hand and one that slants to the right in a tighter fashion. The fact that it is a scholar's personal handwriting (and may be the handwriting of the author) makes it more difficult to find exact comparisons, each scribe having a slightly different way of writing when not using a formal script. However, there are several manuscripts and documents of the ninth to eleventh century written in scholars' or chancery hands that give ample general comparison to the present example, including: a manuscript of Thabit Ibn Qurra's Kitab fi Alat al-Sa'at dated 370 AH/980 AD in the Koprulu Library, Istanbul (see Déroche and Richard 1997, fig.3, p.196); a manuscript of the Ma'ani al-Qur'an dated 395 AH/1004 AD, also in the Koprulu Library, Istanbul (see Déroche and Richard 1997, fig.5, p.197); an Arabic fragment dated 327 AH/938 AD (see Al-Azami 2003, fig.15.2, p.254); a fragment on papyrus of the Maghazi Rasulullah of Wahb bin Munabbih dated 227 AH/841 AD (see Al-Azami 2003, fig.12.3, p.180); a fragment on papyrus of Ibn Wahb's Jami dated 276/889 (ibid, p.185); a ninth-century papyrus scroll of the Sahifat Abd Allah Ibn Laha'i in the Institut fur Papyrologie, Heidelberg (see Guesdon and Vernay-Nouri 2001, p.35, no.12); and a document of sale on paper dated 423 AH/1031-2 AD in the Egyptian National Library and Archives (see Moritz 1905, pl.115); a tenth-century copy of the Sirr al-Nahw of Al-Zajjaj in the same collection (ibid, pl. 122); a manuscript of Ibn Jinni's Al-Khasa'is al-Arabiya dated 430 AH/1039 AD in the same collection (ibid, pl.126) and a manuscript of part four of Ibn Sina's Al-Qanun fi-Tibb dated 466 AH/1073 AD (see sale in these rooms, 13 April 2000, lot 13). It is interesting to note certain features of the script here that are still closely comparable, even at this stage in the tenth century, to the some of the earliest examples of dated Arabic handwriting. When a terminal alif occurs, such as in the word mithlaha on f.24b, the alif has a short vertical tail that protrudes downwards (other examples can be seen on ff.16b, 22b, 23a). This feature can be seen frequently on papyri of the Umayyad period, such as five examples dated between 90 and 117 AH/709-735 AD, all in the Egyptian National Library and Archives (see Moritz 1905, pls.102-106). It also worth noting the form of the small circle with a dot in the middle that the scribe uses to separate each word definition in the present text. The same device can be seen on several of the manuscripts mentioned above, including Abu Ubayd's Gharib al-Hadith, dated 252 AH/866-7 AD.

There are four manuscripts that show a very useful comparison to the combination of bold heading script and scholar's hand that we find in the present manuscript: a copy of the Risala Imam Shafi'i datable to circa 350 AH/961 AD; a copy of the Gharib al-Hadith of Abu Ubayd on paper dated 311 AH/923 AD; a copy of Sibawaihi's Grammar on paper dated 351 AH/962 AD; and a tenth century copy of al-Tabari's Ikhtilaf al-Fukaha (all four are in the Egyptian National Library and Archives, for illustrations see Moritz 1905 pls.117-121, 124-125).

The date range of the comparable manuscripts mentioned above is 841–1073 AD, and the examples that are closest overall range in date from 923 to 962 AD, all of which accord well with the result of the Carbon 14 test on the paper of the present manuscript of c.888-980 AD