Literature & Poetry

LIFE AND WORK OF FARIS AL-SHIDYAQ


The books in this collection come from, or relate to Fāris al-Shidyāq the Lebanese Arab writer, journalist and intellectual, who became a leading figure in the Arab and Muslim Renaissance (Nahḍah) of the 19th century.

The collection was part of the working library of Dr. Geoffrey Roper (Cambridge) who has published on Fāris al-Shidyāq.
It consists of:
- An autograph manuscript written by Fāris al-Shidyāq in February/March 1868: Sirr al-layāl fī 'l-qalb wa-'l-ibdāl. [Nights' secret, on transposition and substitution.]
- 27 other books written and published by Fāris, (about half of which published between 1836 and 1891)
- 19 books written on the author and his work, and
- Approx. 90 related journal articles and off-prints

> Pdf-Flyer and list of titles available for download. (See below!)

Fāris al-Shidyāq

Fāris al-Shidyāq was born into a Maronite family in Lebanon in 1805 or -06, and was employed as a scribe there in his youth. He acquired an early taste for books, literature and calligraphy, which persisted throughout his life. Between 1826 and the mid-1850s he was employed mainly by English Protestant Missionary organisations in Malta and England to translate and edit religious and educational books for their Arabic press – except for a period in Egypt, 1828-35, where he worked on the first newspaper in the Arab world, and ...
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Kitab-ı Viranî Baba

Manuscript in Ottoman Turkish, copyist unknown, written 1217 H [1802 AD].
70 pages, 20 x 12 cm.
Marbled cardboard cover with leather spine.

Viranî Baba

Viranî Baba, an important figure of the Bektashi order, is considered one of the seven great poets of Sufism. He is a mystical poet who deals with the Bektashi teachings in his works. "Kitab-ı Viranî Baba" is one of Virani's most important works. It deals with topics such as religious and moral advice, the Prophet Muhammad, His Holiness Ali, the Twelve Imams and the love of Ahl al-Bayt. Hurufism is a belief system that assigns new meanings to numbers and letters. Many sources indicate that it has influenced Be...
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Kitāb al-Tawḍīḥ fī Ḥall Ghawāmiḍ al-Tanqīḥ [wa huwa Sharḥ al-Tanqīḥ] (Book of Elucidation on Solving the Ambiguities of the Revision [and this is the commentary on Tanqīḥ al-uṣūl by the same author])

Manuscript in Arabic
Copied by Muhammed el Hac Ilyas in Mahrusa [Istanbul], 867 [1462]
212 pp., 27 x 18 cm
unbound with remnants of original leather cover

ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Masʿūd al-Maḥbūbī, died 746 [1346/1347]

Sadr al-Shari'a, a Bukharan Hanafi theologian and jurist who lived in Bukhara and Herat in the post-Mongol period, attempted to synthesize the prevalent Ash'ari theological tradition with the Central Asian Hanafi juristic tradition. He focused in particular on the Hanafi Usul work of al-Pazdawi (d. 1089), on the one hand, and the two most influential theological works of the period, the al-Mukhtasar (The Abbreviated) of lbn al-Hajib (d. 1249) and al-Mahsul (The Harvest) of al-Razi, on the other. Many commentaries w...
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The Complete Works

Manuscripts and Printed Parts in Ottoman Turkish.
Bound in one volume:
1. Dibace/preface, manuscript, 2 pp.
2. Silsila, manuscript, 1 p.
3. Divân-ı Seyyid Nigâri Be-Zeban-ı Türkî and Çaynâme, Istanbul 1302 [1886], Süleyman Efendi Matbaası 366 pp. (with handwritten additions of parts not printed)
4. Nigarnâme, manuscript, author’s copy, 187 pp.
5. Menâkıb-ı Seyyid Nigârî, manuscript, 10 pp.

Seyyed Mir Hamza Nigârî, • 1219 - 1313 [1805 - 1896]

Mir Hamza Nigari is the most famous mystic in Anatolia and Caucasia in the 19th century. Nigari was born in the town of Zengezur in the Caucasian region of Karaba and received his primary education there. While still young, he moved to Anatolia and joined the smail irvani sect in Amasya. Nigari, who taught mystical principles in Istanbul, Erzurum and Harput, died in Harput and is buried in Amasya. ad 2: Silsila in Sufism is the spiritual chain of a sheikh that connects him to the Prophet Muhammad through previous generations...
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Anqāʾ Meşrık (The Griffin of the East)

Manuscript in Ottoman Turkish
Copied by Zeynel Abidin Pur Taksir, 1227 [1812]
28 leaves,
17.5 x 12 cm.

Mustafa Haşim Baba, •1130 - 1197 [1718 - 1718]

Mustafa Haşim Baba whose pseudonym was "Hâşimî" in his poems, was born in Üsküdar, İstanbul in 1130 [1718]. He was the son of the Yusuf Nizâmeddin Efendi , Sheikh of Bandırmalızade Tekkesi (Dervish lodge). Haşim Baba was educated according to the practices of Jalwatiyya orders, after that he inclinated to Bektashism orders and even he was appointed to the post of Dedebabalık. However, neither the Jalwatis nor the Bektashis had accepted him. He died in 1197 [1718]. After his death, the Hasimiyyas, which was establis...
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Tuhfetü’l-Haremeyn (On Pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina)

Manuscript in Ottoman Turkish.
Due to chronogram written in 1093 [1683]
No name of a copist mentioned, possibly written by Nabi himself.
328 pp., 23 x 16 cm.

Yūsuf Nābī, •1051/52 - 1123/24 [1642 - 1712]

Nâbi, actually Yūsuf Nābī; born 1642 in Şanlıurfa (Ruhā); died 10 April 1712 in Istanbul; was an Ottoman poet of the 17th /18th century and one of the dominant poet personalities of his time. Nâbi belongs to the group of Dīwān poets. In a total of ten works, four of which are in prose, he takes a critical look at the social reality of his time. A collection of poems in Persian is considered lost. He compiled a dīwān of his early poems in Istanbul. During his time in Aleppo, a second dīwān was created at the request of the go...
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Makâmât’ül Evliyâ, Silsilename, Risale Akşemseddin

Three Manuscripts in Ottoman Turkish
Copied by Seyyid İbrahim Şevki
5 Cemazielevvel 1273 [1. January 1857]
Bound in one volume.
27 pp., 20 x 13.5 cm.

Muḥammad Aq Shams al-Dīn / Akşemseddin • 792 - 863 [1390 -1459]

Three manuscripts bound in one: 1. Makâmât’ül Evliyâ, a prominent work of Akşemseddin, master of the conquerer of stanbul, Fatih Sultan Mehmet. Makâmât’ül Evliyâ is a work that contains most of Akşemseddin ’s thoughts about Islamic mysticism (sufizm) and is about seventeen ranks (maqam) of Saints. 2. Silsilename 3. Risale Akşemseddin Copied by Seyyid Ibrahim Şevki 5 Cemazielevvel 1273 [1. Janury 1857] Muḥammad Aq Shams al-Dīn, or Aq Şemseddīn (modern Turkish Akşemseddin), was born in Damascus. His father, Shaykh Ḥamza, was a...
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