volume 2 - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian History Workshop

138 Results of the Third Mission.
VI. 52 Arabic and Syriac manuscripts from Mosul
and the neighbourhood.^ These included
" the following rare and curious works " :
1. A commentary by al-Nawawi, who died
A.H. 676, on the Sahih of Mushim, fourteenth
century.
2. Akhbar al-Duwal al-Munkati'ah, a general
history by Abu'l- Hasan 'Ali ibn Zafir,
who died a.h. 623.
3. Kaia'id al-'Ikyan, notices of Spanish poets,
by Ibn Khakan, who died a.h. 539.
4. A volume of the Canon of Avicenna, of the
twelfth or thirteenth century.
5. Jami'al-Gharad, a treatise on hygiene, by
Ibn al-Kuff, who died a.h. 685 ; manuscript
of the fourteenth century.
6. Commentary of Ibn Hisham al-Sibti, who
died A.H. 557, on the Maksurah of Ibn
Duraid; dated a.h. 731 = a.d. 1331.
In the autumn of 1889 the Principal Librarian
suggested to Mr. Le Page Renouf, Keeper of the Department,
that he should send in a report to the
Trustees recommending that my salary be raised to
the maximum of my Class, and pointed out to him that
in 1875 the salary of George Smith, who had done work
similar to mine in Mesopotamia, had been raised to the
maximum of his Class. Mr. Renouf accepted the
suggestion cordially, and in his report on the subject
wrote as follows : Mr. Renouf considers " that it is a
piece of rare and extreme good fortune for the Museum
to have in its service a person who so thoroughly
^ British Museum, Nos. Oriental 4051-4102. Dr. Wright advanced
the money for the payment for these manuscripts, and arranged
with Dr. Rieu, Keeper of the Department of Oriental Manuscripts,
to hand them over to the British Museum when funds became available.
Dr. Wright died before the arrangement could be carried out, and
the manuscripts were despatched to the Museum by his widow. I
mention this to explain the official entry in the Register that the
manuscripts were purchased from Mrs. Wright.