Talk:Risālat al-Ṣūfī fī al-kawākib

The difference between manuscripts and texts

Hey ho @पाटलिपुत्र! Thanks for creating this article: great to have improved coverage of Arabic-language writing and manuscript production. Further to our discussion at Template talk:Arabic manuscripts, I'm just dropping a note here to say that this is a good example of where we need to conceptualise the difference between texts and manuscripts more clearly.

At the time of writing, the lead of this article says "Risālat al-Ṣūfī fī al-kawākib ("Epistle of al-Ṣūfī on the Stars"), also called "RAM al'Sufi", is a 13th century Arab manuscript, dated to circa 1225, and possibly originating from Baghdad."

But Risālat al-Ṣūfī fī al-kawākib is actually an eleventh-century poem, probably composed in Rayy.

What actually is from the thirteenth century, and possibly Baghdad, is the manuscript Tehran, Reza Abbasi Museum (RAM), M. 570, a manuscript in which the poem is written.

Possibly me writing this note is overkill, and our previous discussion has already sorted this out for you, but I thought this article was a good example of the distinction between text and manuscript at work.

I'm planning to make some edits to resolve this problem when I have time :-) Alarichall (talk) 10:22, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

@Alarichall: You're absolutely right, thank you for making this distinction very clear (it's nice to have some knowledgeable editors who can actually bring something to such subjects!). Please copy-edit at will. Best पाटलिपुत्र (Pataliputra) (talk) 11:16, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Earlier, regarding this comment at Kitāb al-bayṭara: "Clearly this isn't the only datable manuscript whose production can be localised to Baghdad" [1]. It actually seems that Kitāb al-bayṭara (Cairo manuscript) is the only pre-Mongol illustrated manuscript which is securely attributable to Baghdad. In fact, from what I gather in the literature, it is suspected that most other illustrated manuscripts were rather made in Northern Iraq, the Jazira region or Syria. See "Grabar 1984, p. 10 "We have certainly been cured of the tendency to attribute almost all Near Eastern examples of pre-Mongol painting to Baghdad, but even a more limited ascription of only four manuscripts to the Baghdad school (...) is based on the colophon in only one, the Cairo Kitab al-Baytarah, which was no doubt completed in Baghdad." (Grabar p.10). Best पाटलिपुत्र (Pataliputra) (talk) 11:16, 28 January 2024 (UTC)