Middle East & Islamic World / Islamic Art & Culture

AL-JAZULI, Muhammad ibn Sulaiman. Dalâ'il al-khayrat. [= "Waymarks of benefits"].
[Eastern Turkestan, now Xinjiang, China, early 17th century CE]. 4to (19 x 14 cm). Manuscript written in black ink on paper in Arabic script, with a red single- or double-line frame around each page, rubricated throughout, and two illustrations on pages 47 and 48) showing the "Ka'ba of Allah" (!) and the burial sites of the first three Rashidun Caliphs. The Arabic script is in the sini calligraphic style used in China, an archaic form mixing features of naskh and muhaqqaq. Contemporary(?) black, red and gold painted and lacquered leather over paper and cloth. The painted sides show floral designs in black and gold on a red background, in a black border with red wave designs. With remnants of leather on the brown cloth spine. [1], 337 pp. Full description

[ARABIAN HISTORY]. Hedendaagsche historie; of het vervolg van de algemeene historie; ... Behelzende het leeven van Mohammed; en het begin van de historie der Arabieren, onder de drie eerste Khalifs ...
Utrecht, Hermanus Besseling (vols. 1-2), Leiden, Amsterdam, P. van der Eyk, G. de Groot and son, K. van Tongerloo and P. Schouten (vol. 3), 1760-1764. 6 parts in 3 volumes. 4to. With 3 engraved frontispieces, engraved coat of arms and 6 folding plates. Contemporary boards covered with sprinkled paper. Full description

[ARABIAN NIGHTS]. LANE, Edward William (translator). The thousand and one nights, commonly called, in England, the Arabian nights entertainments.
London, Charles Knight and Co. (back of title-page volume 1 & 3: William Clowes and sons; volume 2: Whitehead & Co.), 1840 (vol. 2)-1841 (vols. 1 & 3). 3 volumes. 8vo in 4s. With a different lithographed title page for each volume and hundreds of wood-engraved illustrations in the text. 19th-century red morocco (signed on flyleaf: "Jefferies & Sons, Bristol" - the sons joined the firm in 1863), richly gold-tooled spines, boards, board edges, and turn-ins, gilt edges. XXXII, 618; XII, 643, [1]; XII, 763, [1] pp. Full description

[ARABIAN NIGHTS]. BURTON, Richard F. The book of the thousand nights and a night[:] a plain and literal translation of the Arabian nights entertainments.
With:
(2) BURTON, Richard F. Supplemental nights.
(3) BURTON, Richard F. [Autograph manuscript book review of an 1881 Panchatantra edition].
(Colophons:) U.S.A. [Boston, MA?], The Burton Club, [ca. 1940]. 16 volumes (incl. 6 supplements). 8vo. With an original manuscript leaf written by Burton (with the manuscript heading: "Proof to Sir R.F.B. Hotel des Bains, Aigle, Canton Vaud, Switzerland" and a note "Long Primer Pressig.") and each volume with a different frontispiece in two states (coloured and uncoloured). Contemporary richly gold-blocked green morocco, boards with Arabic script in gold, spine with raised bands, gold-tooled turn-ins, marbled pastedowns. Full description

[ARABIC MANUSCRIPT].

Kitab Al-Waqi'at fi'l-Fatawi.
[Levant, ca. 1290]. Small 4to in 6s (17 x 14) cm. Arabic manuscript, 15 to 17 lines to the page, written in clear cursive ta'liq script on brown Middle Eastern paper. With occasional red rubrication. Contemporary (?) blind-tooled calf, mostly covered with later calf leaving only the contemporary back cover exposed. 19th century European paper endpapers. With a loose leaf of 18th century European paper with Arabic manuscript writing on one side. 374 ll.

Full description

[ARAMCO]. Aramco World. Vol. 21 no. 2: March-April 1970.
New York, Aramco, 1970. 4to. Illustrated wrappers. 32 pp. Full description

ARIF PACHA, Muchir. Les Anciens Costumes de l'Empire Ottoman, depuis l'origine de la monarchie jusqu'a la reforme du Sultan Mahmoud ... Tome 1er [all published].
Paris, Lemercier, 1863. Folio (54.8 x 40 cm). With lithographic portrait of Arif Pacha, drawn on stone by M. Julien, printed on India paper, with caption and imprint lithographed directly on the leaf, 16 tinted lithographic plates after Arif Pacha (image size 24.5 x 34 cm), coloured and finished by hand. Modern cloth. 24 ll. printed both sides, plus plates. Full description

[ARMILLARY SPHERE]. [Rotating celestial globe, bordered by four pivotable concentric rings, the uppermost with ornamental mount].
Arabic, 1125 AH (1713 CE). 53 cm. Engraved and etched gilt brass with lettering in Arabic. Total height from ring to base: 53 cm. Full description

AVERROES (Muhammad IBN AHMAD IBN RUSHD). [Tahafut al-Tahafut - latine: Destructiones destructionum philosophi Algazelis]. Eutyci Augustini Niphy Philotei Suessani in librum destructio destructionum Averroys com[m]entationes ad Dominicum grimanum cardinalem maximum.
With: NIPHUS, Augustinus. De sensu agente.
[Venice, Bonetus Locatellus] for the heirs of Octavianus Scotus, [ca. 1500]. Small folio. With numerous woodcut initials. Printed in Gothic type, in 2 columns. Near contemporary limp vellum. 130 ll. Full description

BECKFORD, William. The History of the Caliph Vathek.
London, Sampson Low, Son, and Marston, [ca. 1900]. Contemporary gold-tooled cloth, gilt edges. X, 189, 16 pp. Full description