COMPLETED IN THE RAWDAH OF THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD, OTTOMAN MEDINA, DATED END OF SHAWWAL AH 979/MARCH 1572 AD

The text of this manuscript is a recension of al-Samhudi's earlier work wafa' al-wafa' bi-akhbar dar al-mustafa, a history of Medina. Born in Egypt in AH 844 / 1440-1441 AD, al-Samhudi moved to Medina where he died in AH 911 / 1505-1506 AD. Another copy of the Tarikh-i Medina is in the John Rylands Library, Manchester, dated to AH 1130 / 1717 AD (Persian MS 436). Many other examples of the manuscript were illustrated with diagrams of the mosque in Medina, including a 19th century Moroccan copy which was sold in these Rooms, 28 October 2020, lot 98. As well as reaching the Western Islamic world, soon after al-Samhudi's death the scholar 'Abd al-Haqq ibn Sayf al-Din Dihlavi wrote a Persian translation, of which a copy survives in King's College, Cambridge (Pote 134).

Several manuscripts survive which were copied in the Haramayn. A manuscript of the wafa' al-wafa' in King's College, Cambridge was copied in Mecca in Shawwal AH 886/November-December 1481 AD, during the author's lifetime (Pote 99). Another manuscript copy of this text, dated to AH 1013 / 1605 AD, sold in these Rooms, 9 October 2015, lot 374, which may have also been copied in the Hijaz. The reference in the colophon of our manuscript to being copied in the Rawdah of the Prophet is unusual, but not unprecedented. A similar note appears in the colophon of a Qur'an offered at Sotheby's London, 23 October 2024, lot 217. A copy of the Futuh al-Haramayn copied in Abu Qubays in Mecca recently sold in these Rooms, 26 October 2023, lot 131.