Zayn al-Din Abu Ibrahim Isma’il Ibn Hasan Ibn Ahmad Ibn Muhammad al-Husaini al-Jurjani (d.1136), Dhakhireh-yi Khwarazmshahi ('Treasury dedicated to the King of Khwarazm', an encyclopaedia of medical science), Book II, western Persia, late 13th century

Persian manuscript on paper, 190 leaves plus 3 flyleaves, 25 lines to the page written in naskh script, keywords picked out in red, misbound with an index folio bound towards the middle of the manuscript, some folios replaced, no catchwords, opening double page with illuminated heading in white eastern Kufic script in gold foliated panels, f.1a with elaborate dedication roundel with inscribed cartouches above and below, later brown leather binding

In fair overall condition, paper repairs throughout and opening pages rubbed, binding with tears to spine, minor waterstaining around leaf edges, some wormholes, as viewed.
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The Dhakhireh-yi is a comprehensive medical compendium divided into nine books to which a tenth book on simple and compound medicines was added later. The present manuscript, (book II) deals with health and diseases, the causes and symptoms of diseases and accidents of the body. It is modelled on Avicenna’s Canon, and considered the first major work to be written in the Persian language. According to Seyyed Hossain Nasr “The work is without doubt the most important  of its kind in the Persian language and second in influence only to the Canon in the Persian and Indian worlds. Besides its significance for technical medical terminology in Persian, it is one of the most systematic treatments of Avicennan medicine including pharmacology. Altogether, he is perhaps responsible more than any other figure for the perpetuation of the medical teachings of the early masters especially Ibn Sina during the later centuries wherever Persian was spoken” (see Seyyed Hossain Nasr, Islamic Science. An Illustrated Study, Festival of Islam, London, 1976, p.182). 

There are 12 copies of this work in the Wellcome Institute Library, and 2 copies in the British Library, London. A further very similar copy from the same period as the present work was sold in these rooms 2 May 1977, lot 163.