Details
Object numberMS 1499 [Handlist83]
TitleKanz al-walad
CreatorIbrāhīm b. al-Ḥusayn al-Ḥāmidī (Author)
DescriptionThis manuscript begins with a note on the flyleaf identifying it as Kitāb Kanz al-walad and stating that it is ‘in an invented script which the people of truth employ. My father al-‘allāma sayyidī Muḥammad ‘Alī al-Hamdānī wrote it in his own hand on his pilgrimage journey between the years 1294 and 1304’. A comparison with other copies of the Kanz al-walad confirms that this is indeed that work and allows us to crack the code easily enough; the script used is a straightforward cipher, but it is not the secret script used elsewhere in these manuscripts and described in our introduction. The statement that the manuscript is ‘in an invented/artificial script’ (bi khaṭṭ mawḍū‘), that is: a script invented to purpose, is indeed an apt one.
I have no grounds to doubt that this copy was produced by Muḥammad ‘Alī al- Hamdānī and that it has a connection with his long journey to Mecca and specifically with his desire that this ultra-secret work should not fall into the wrong hands, but it is a bit difficult to believe that he actually produced it during his pilgrimage, for in this case he would have had to take with him a copy of the Kanz al-walad in ordinary Arabic script from which to transcribe the coded copy. It would be easier to imagine that he wrote it before his departure from India, so as to be able to study this secret work while away from home in a hostile environment.
Ibrāhīm b. al-Ḥusayn al-Ḥāmidī is counted as the second da‘i. He acceded to this rank after the death of Dhu’ayb in 546/1151 and held it until his own death in Ṣan‘ā’ in 557/1162. He is reported as having enjoyed the patronage of the Hamdanid ruler Ḥātim b. Aḥmad. His Kanz al-walad is regarded as one of the most important and most secret of the esoteric books of the Ṭayyibīs (its great secrecy is presumably the reason that it is not mentioned in the main body of al-Majdū‘'s Fihrist), but the modern reader seeking for profound revelations will probably be disappointed by it. It consists to a large extent of quotations from readily available works by al-Sijistānī, al-Kirmānī and al-Mu’ayyad and from the Treatises of the Sincere Brethren. It is discussed briefly in Madelung’s article ‘al-Ḥāmidī (1)’ in EI2.
One of the three manuscripts used by Muṣṭafā Ghālib in preparing his edition ends with a transcript of what seems to be either the author's original colophon, or that of a copy made in his lifetime, giving the date of completion as Tuesday 25 Jumada I 555 (31 May 1160) ‘fī dār min maḥallāt ...’; the two place names are given in (ordinary Ṭayyibī) secret script and both are garbled in the edition, but the second is clearly ‘(al-)Yaman’, while the first seems to be ‘Ḥarāz’.
In the present manuscript, the text is preceded (on the verso of fol. 'a') by half a page in ordinary Arabic script (I think in the same hand as the rest) with instructions for performing the 'voluntary prayer' (ṣalāt al-khīra).
EDITIONS: Muṣṭafā Ghālib (Wiesbaden, 1971); reprinted (Beirut, 1979).
REFERENCES: al-Majdū‘ (appendix), p. 279; Ivanow (1933), no. 190; Ivanow (1963), no. 198; Goriawala (1965), no. 84; Poonawala (1977), p. 142, no. 1 (where the present Ms. is described as being 'in secret symbolic language'); Gacek (1984), no. 42; Cortese (2000), nos 26, 27; Cortese (2003), no. 45 (2 copies); Daftary (2004), p. 113.
DESCRIPTION: soft red leather binding, tooled; 83 folios (now numbered 'a', 'b' and 1-81; the text of Kanz al-walad begins on the verso offal. b); catchwords; 20.5 x 14 em; size of the written area, size of the script, and number oflines vary considerably; black ink with rubrics in red; marginal corrections and notes; diagrams on fols 13a, 20b, 21a, 28a, 28b, 40a and 77a; title and author indicated on the label on the front cover; title and name of the copyist (Muḥammad ‘Alī al-Hamdānī) indicated on the title page, as quoted above.
I have no grounds to doubt that this copy was produced by Muḥammad ‘Alī al- Hamdānī and that it has a connection with his long journey to Mecca and specifically with his desire that this ultra-secret work should not fall into the wrong hands, but it is a bit difficult to believe that he actually produced it during his pilgrimage, for in this case he would have had to take with him a copy of the Kanz al-walad in ordinary Arabic script from which to transcribe the coded copy. It would be easier to imagine that he wrote it before his departure from India, so as to be able to study this secret work while away from home in a hostile environment.
Ibrāhīm b. al-Ḥusayn al-Ḥāmidī is counted as the second da‘i. He acceded to this rank after the death of Dhu’ayb in 546/1151 and held it until his own death in Ṣan‘ā’ in 557/1162. He is reported as having enjoyed the patronage of the Hamdanid ruler Ḥātim b. Aḥmad. His Kanz al-walad is regarded as one of the most important and most secret of the esoteric books of the Ṭayyibīs (its great secrecy is presumably the reason that it is not mentioned in the main body of al-Majdū‘'s Fihrist), but the modern reader seeking for profound revelations will probably be disappointed by it. It consists to a large extent of quotations from readily available works by al-Sijistānī, al-Kirmānī and al-Mu’ayyad and from the Treatises of the Sincere Brethren. It is discussed briefly in Madelung’s article ‘al-Ḥāmidī (1)’ in EI2.
One of the three manuscripts used by Muṣṭafā Ghālib in preparing his edition ends with a transcript of what seems to be either the author's original colophon, or that of a copy made in his lifetime, giving the date of completion as Tuesday 25 Jumada I 555 (31 May 1160) ‘fī dār min maḥallāt ...’; the two place names are given in (ordinary Ṭayyibī) secret script and both are garbled in the edition, but the second is clearly ‘(al-)Yaman’, while the first seems to be ‘Ḥarāz’.
In the present manuscript, the text is preceded (on the verso of fol. 'a') by half a page in ordinary Arabic script (I think in the same hand as the rest) with instructions for performing the 'voluntary prayer' (ṣalāt al-khīra).
EDITIONS: Muṣṭafā Ghālib (Wiesbaden, 1971); reprinted (Beirut, 1979).
REFERENCES: al-Majdū‘ (appendix), p. 279; Ivanow (1933), no. 190; Ivanow (1963), no. 198; Goriawala (1965), no. 84; Poonawala (1977), p. 142, no. 1 (where the present Ms. is described as being 'in secret symbolic language'); Gacek (1984), no. 42; Cortese (2000), nos 26, 27; Cortese (2003), no. 45 (2 copies); Daftary (2004), p. 113.
DESCRIPTION: soft red leather binding, tooled; 83 folios (now numbered 'a', 'b' and 1-81; the text of Kanz al-walad begins on the verso offal. b); catchwords; 20.5 x 14 em; size of the written area, size of the script, and number oflines vary considerably; black ink with rubrics in red; marginal corrections and notes; diagrams on fols 13a, 20b, 21a, 28a, 28b, 40a and 77a; title and author indicated on the label on the front cover; title and name of the copyist (Muḥammad ‘Alī al-Hamdānī) indicated on the title page, as quoted above.
DocumentationBlois, François de. Arabic, Persian and Gujarati Manuscripts: The Hamdani Collection. London: I.B. Tauris in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2011.
Object typemanuscript