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PRESENTATION
Beruni "s book Kitab al-Jamahir fi Ma'rifat al-Jawahir is presented to
the reader, in English translation, under the Great Books Project.
This solid work — historically the first worthy text on mineralogy —
has not received the scholarly attention commensurate with its importance, though the need for its detailed study has been felt for a long time.
It was during the thirties of this century that Fritz Krenkow edited the
Arabic text which was published by the Da'irat al-Ma"arif, Hyderabad
Deccan. in 1355 A.H./1936 A.D. He used all the three known manuscripts of the book — the more complete and correct Tope Kapi Sarai
Ms. (Tibb. 2047) transcribed in 626 A.H., the less accurate Escurial Ms.,
and the more legible Rashid Effendi Ms. (Qaysariyah) - and also offered
the following description of the Tope Kapi Sarai Ms.:
'"The copyist of this manuscript (Tibb. 2047) calls himself at the end
Ahmad b. SiddTq b. Muhammad, the physician, and says that he completed the copy for his own use and of those after him, on the first
day of the month of Safar, 626 A.H. . . In the margins of this copy
are frequent notes often correcting or disputing statements of Beruni,
by another scholar who claims to have had other works of our author
at hand, and calls himself Muhammad b. Ahmad Khatib Dariya in the
Salihiyya of Damascus, He lived somewhat later as he cites the book
of drugs by Ibn al-Baitar. In a note on the front-page he states that he
acquired the manuscript in 678 A.H. The next owner is Muhammad
b. Ibrahim b. Sa'id al-Ansari. 1 have not been able to find a biography
of the first, but the second is beyond doubt the celebrated Ibn alAkfani who died in 749 A.H. of plague. He also composed a work
on jewels (Nttklutb ad-Dhahha'ir, a short treatise of 15 pages, published by Cheikho in the journal al-Mashriq in 1908)".
With modifications wherever necessary, the present translation is
based on the Arabic text as edited by Krenkow, with some of the gloss
supplied by KhatTb Dariya translated under the footnotes (pp.231—235)
which follow the text. In his epilogue (in Arabic), Krenkow mentioned
his grappling with the terse style of Beruni (with whom economy of
words and purposive brevity was a must) and the difficulty involved in
identifying the unknown place names mentioned in the text. This would
indicate the need for preparing a more thoroughly annotated edition of
the book through a joint effort of specialists from different disciplines.
It is to be hoped that the publication of this translation will, in a
measure, facilitate this task.
In the Arabic edition, the contents are placed in the following order.
The text of Kitab at-Jamahir, beginning with the first Part (Fasl) comprising the introduction (pp. 1-31), followed by the second Part (Ka.d)
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