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4.1.2 - List of Available Manuscripts

The following is a list of the most important manuscripts available for the Leave, which we mention according to their importance and the date of copying. We have checked most of them, thanks to the generous brother Abu Ahmed Muhammad Kabir al-Ansari, who provided us with many of them, with invaluable information through lengthy discussions and important observations on the overlapping origins of Sheikh Muhyiddin's books and their various manuscripts:

1. The collection of Shehid Ali No. 2796 from 53a to 56b, which is not explicitly dated, but it was written before 721 AH, because the transcriber is Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Caesar, and there are notes in the handwriting of his father: Muhammad ibn Caesar, who died in 721 AH, or at least these statements are quoted by his son. In this collection, we also find the oldest existing copy of the famous prayer by Sheikh Muhyiddin: al-dawr al-aʿlā. In addition to being the oldest copy, the importance of this manuscript stems from the fact that it is part of the library of Sheikh Mohammed ibn Caesar, who was the head of the library in the mosque of Sheikh Sadr al-Din al-Qunawi, which confirms its attribution to Sheikh Muhyiddin. Therefore, we relied mainly on this copy, and we compared it with the Koprulu, Princeton, and Dhahiriya No. 4679 copies, mentioned below, as well as the Badawi and Adlouni editions, mentioned above. We have also benefited from the other copies in clarifying some words that may not be clear in the other versions. We will refer to this manuscript as "Shehid Ali" version. The transcriber of this manuscript added serial numbers before the titles, but he stopped numbering after 242, and he made some mistakes because of overlapping titles. At the end of the original text of the Leave, he attached thirty-eight titles, which he said were also written by the Sheikh. He then wrote a note saying that the total number of books is 269, which becomes 297 with appendages. However, these figures require further scrutiny due to the errors indicated above. What also adds to the importance of this copy is that its transcriber was extremely accurate in copying, and he seem to have consulted and compared several copies, thus adding many margins explaining some of the differences in names and titles, despite the existence of some persisting errors.

2. The collection of the Koprulu Fazil Ahmed Library No. 766, from page 146b to 151b. This manuscript is undated, but the study of the condition of the volume, such as the type of paper and calligraphy, suggests that it is very old and that it may have been written at the time of Sheikh Muhyiddin. At the end of page 161a, it is noted that this copy was read to the designated sheikh, but this relates to the Treatise of the Solitude (263) that ended at this page. However, the Leave version is most likely written much later, after more than two and a half centuries! We have observed signs on the margins confirming that the date of the copy was in the late 8th century AH, and perhaps in the year 870 specifically. We shall refer to this manuscript as the "Koprulu copy"

3. A collection at Princeton University, No. of 4098, from page 136b to 142a. This manuscript was written in Damascus, in 949 AH, and the transcriber is Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Maqdisi. We shall refer to this manuscript as the "Princeton copy"

4. The collection of Ulu Cami No. 1600, from page 176b to 179a. This manuscript was written in 973 AH, according to other manuscripts in the same collection. We did not examine this copy, but it is worth mentioning that the name of king in this manuscript is: " Bahāʾuddīn Ghāzī", as we shall discuss shortly.

5. The collection of Shehid Ali No. 2717, from page 42a to 44b. This manuscript is written in Mecca, in 977 AH, according to other manuscripts in the same collection. This copy is incomplete and does not contain the list of books, but it is followed by the list of books from the Index, and not the Leave, as we mentioned when we discussed the manuscripts of the Index in Chapter I above.

6. The collection of Reshid Effendi No. 454, the second letter in the volume, from page 206b to 209b. This manuscript was written in 1017 AH, and the transcriber is Ayoub Ibn Ahmed ibn Ayoub. It is a good and clear copy, with titles in red and numbering above each one, but there is some disagreement with the oldest manuscripts in the order of some titles. Also, this copy does not list the sheikhs, but only the list of books, which is also incomplete.

7. The collection of the Egyptian Book House, No. 365 Hadith Terms. This had been copied from a copy written in 1033 AH, and it is among the copies on which the Badawi edition was based, but it includes some stains and restoration, which led to leaving gaps to indicate some of the missing titles.

8. The collection of the Dhahiriya Book House in Damascus, No. 4679, from page 15 to 20. The transcriber is Mohammed Jamal al-Din al-Qasimi, this manuscript was copied on 23 Shaaban in 1305 AH, but what gives special importance to this copy is that it is fully compatible with the first version mentioned above, which was written by the son of Sheikh Mohammed ibn Caesar, and that the transcriber added some statements at the end, after counting 273 Titles, quoting the original from which he copied: "Our Master Sheikh Muhammad Ibn Caesar, may Allah Almighty benefit us with him, said: this is the last (title) that we know attributed to him, and we have accepted his Leave, since he said at the beginning of this book that he had authorized all those who realized his Leave to transmit all his narrations that he transmitted after his his sheikhs, and all that he read, heard, and authored of poetry, prose, and other things. Therefore, I have accepted this from him and I am the poor inefficient servant Muhammad Ibn Caesar, may Allah be kind with me and all believers." We will refer to this manuscript as the "Dhahiriya copy".

9. The collection in the Public Library of Rabat, No. 241 in Documents Section. This manuscript was copied in 1309 AH, by Muhammad Bahaa al-Din. This is the copy that Muhammad al-Adlouni adopted in the book "Texts from the Sufi Heritage" that we mentioned above.

10. - The collection in King Ibn Saud University No. 3189, from page 11 to 16. This is a clear copy, but it is copied from a defective origin, as its scribe, Ahmed ibn Hassan al-Ustuwani, declared. He copied it in Damascus in 1315 AH, and this collection also contains the Index treatise as we mentioned in Chapter I above.

11. The collection in the Egyptian Book House, No. 19945 B Sufism. This is undated copy, and it was one of the copies on which the Badawi edition was based. It contains 286 titles (with the Appendix), and was owned by person with the name of Ahmad Muayyad Azami Zadeh. We see, therefore, that the Badawi edition depended on quite late versions, maybe because he did not have access to the manuscripts in Turkish libraries at that time.

12. The collection in the Egyptian Book House, No. 633 in Talaʿat collections. The Leave is from page 104 to 109, and it is undated, and the name of the transcriber is Ahmed al-Homsi. This is also one of the copies on which the Badawi edition was based.

13. - The collection in the Egyptian Book House, No. 158 Hadith Terms, which is among the copies on which the Badawi edition was based, but we did not examine it.

14. - The collection of the Dhahiriya Book House in Damascus, No. 5240. The Leave is the first treatise in this collection, from page 1 to 6, and the transcriber is Muhammad al-Hajari.

15. The collection of the Dhahiriya Book House in Damascus, No. 5924. The Leave is from page 29 to 35b. It was copied on 1287 AH, and compared with another copy in 1324 AH, with some correction made to it on the margins. The scribe is Abdul-Ghani Ibn Hassan Al-Shatar.

16. - The collection of the Dhahiriya Book House in Damascus, No. 6824. The manuscript is undated, and it is from page 58 to 61.

17. - The collection of the Dhahiriya Book House in Damascus, No. 7426. This manuscript is also not dated, and it was owned by a person with the name Khairallah Abdul-Razzaq.

18. - The collection of Reshid Effendi No. 447. The Leave is the first treatise in this collection, from page 1 to 5. It is undated, and only gives the list of books, and then adds seventeen titles after the end of the Leave.

19. - The collection in Berlin Library No. 1723, we.147. The Leave is from page 1 to 5. We did not examine this copy.

20. - The collection in Berlin Library No. 1771, we.148. The Leave is from page 22 to 23.

21. - The collection in Berlin Library No. 2992, we.27. The Leave is from page 7b to 13b.

22. - The collection in Berlin Library No. 743, spr.149. The Leave is from page 21. We did not examine this copy.

23. - The collection of Ismail Saib No. 1218, the second treatise.

24. - The collection of Ismail Saib No. 1852.

25. - The collection of Esad Effendi 1478. We did not examine this copy..

26. - The collection No. 5110 at the National Book House in Tunisia, from page 99 to 103.

In addition, we have examined some manuscripts that we have not been able to determine their origin precisely, so we have not mentioned them here. In all cases, the study of all these publications and manuscripts shows in the conclusion that the Leave contains 262 titles, most of which are also mentioned in the Index, as we will explain in more detail, and that the discrepancy between these sources is nothing more than additions by the transcribers or publishers, and they often declared that they have added some of the known titles after the end of the main text. We will also discuss the discrepancy over the name of the king to whom this Leave was written.