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The Escorial Monastery collection is the most
celebrated, significant, variegated Arabic manuscript collection in
Spain. In 1997, Her Majesty Queen Sophia of Spain generously donated a
microfilm copy of the complete collection to the BA. It includes 553
microfilms comprising 3108 manuscripts- according to the recent
cataloging carried out by the Microfilm Unit in the BA. An exhaustive
catalog of the collection was published by the official inauguration of
the Library. It is worth noting that the BA’s catalog differs from the
one published by the Monastery itself and edited by Aurora Cano Ledesema
in 1997 (the same year of donating the collection). The latter is more of
a list than a comprehensive catalog recording only 1954 manuscripts.
Whereas the BA’s catalog included 3108 titles with full authenticated
bibliographical data.
The manuscripts in the Escorial collection cover a wide scale of
subjects: Islamic jurisprudence, Qur'anic sciences, philology, logic, and
others. Some of them are extremely rare, being the only surviving copy in
the world such as the autograph of Libāb al-Muhassil (Mukhtasar Muhassil
Afkār al-Mutaqaddimīn wal-Muta’akhkhirīn of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī) by Ibn
Khaldūn, transcribed in 752 AH in Maghribi script.
Among other rarities in the collection are:
• Šarh Risālat Jālīnūs ilā Aghlūqin fīl-Ta’attī li-Šifā’ al-Amrād by ‘Alī
bin-Radwān, transcribed in 473 AH.
• Kitāb al-Maqāmāt by Abū-Muhammad al-Qāsim bin-‘Alī al-Basrī al-Harīrī,
transcribed during the life of its author in 483 AH.
• Šarh Fusūl Abūqrāt by Galen translated by Hunayn bin-Ishāq al-‘Ibādī,
transcribed in 494 AH.
• al-Kāmil fīl-Lugha by al-Mubarrid.
• al-Iqtidāb fī Šarh Adab al-Kuttāb by Ibn al-Sīd al-Batlaūsī.
• al-Qānūn fīl-Tib by Ibn Sīnā.
• Manāfi‘ al-A‘dā’ by Jālīnūs.
And many others.
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