3

Politics, Religion and the Occult in the

Works of Kamal al-Din Ibn Talha, a Vizier,
‘Alim and Author in Thirteenth-century Syria
A. C. Peacock1

U nder the year 652 /1254, several medieval Arabic chronicles mention
the death of a certain Kamal al-Din Ibn Talha, the former khatib (chief
mosque preacher) of Damascus, who is uniformly described as virtuous,
learned and ascetic. Ibn Talha’s claim to fame was that he was appointed
vizier by the Ayyubid ruler al-Nasir Yusuf in 648/1250, but resigned the
post after two days, instead embracing a life of asceticism; according to some
accounts, even rejecting the position after the document of appointment had
been formally drawn up.2 We are given, then, an idealised picture of an ‘alim,
who if briefly tempted by the vanities of this world soon rejected them. This
picture is, however, undermined by references elsewhere in the chronicles to
Ibn Talha’s earlier involvement in Ayyubid politics, serving as an emissary in
the 636/1238 peace negotiations between the Ayyubid princes al-Jawad and
al-Salih.3 Moreover, the notices in al-Safadi and al-Dhahabi conclude with
an intriguing and critical comment: ‘He entered into perdition and error
and made a circle of letters, claiming he could interpret knowledge of the
unknown and of the final hour.’4 This alludes to the ‘science of letters’ (‘ilm
al-huruf), the proponents of which believed that the letters of the Arabic script
and the Qur’an encoded occult knowledge in their numerical values.5
The most detailed account of Ibn Talha’s career comes in Ibn ‘Imad’s
Shadharat al-dhahab, and refers to the same allegations, which, however,
Ibn ‘Imad seeks to defuse. He calls Ibn Talha ‘one of the great preeminent
men and leaders’ (ahad al-sudur wa’l-ru’asa’ al-mu‘azzamin), and reports that

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he was born in 582/1186, and studied hadith in Nishapur with the famous
transmitters al-Mu’ayyad and Zaynab al-Sha‘riyya.6 He became a faqih, ‘and
excelled at jurisprudence, usul and disputation’. Ibn Talha, he says, also wrote
diplomatic correspondence for kings (tarassala ‘an al-muluk), and served as
qadi in Nusaybin, his home town, before becoming khatib of Damascus. Ibn
‘Imad mentions Ibn Talha’s famous two-day vizierate, and also reports that
‘he is attributed with a preoccupation with the science of letters (‘ilm al-huruf    )
and [future] times, and predicting things from the unknown (al-mughibat).
But it is said that he repented.’ Some verses attributed to Ibn Talha are
quoted in this connection:

Do not give yourself to the talk of the astrologer, all affairs belong to God,
that is it. Know that if you ascribe to a star control (tadbir) of an event you
are not a Muslim.7

Ibn ‘Imad is also one of the few chroniclers to refer to Ibn Talha’s liter-
ary works, mentioning two of his books, al-‘Iqd al-farid and al-Durr al-­
muntazam; the latter contained the notorious circle of letters.
Ibn Talha was also the author of several other books, not all of which
have survived.8 However, al-‘Iqd al-farid and al-Durr al-muntazam, a Mirror
for Princes and a work on letters respectively, enjoyed considerable popular-
ity and influence down into Ottoman times and arguably even beyond, and
his Matalib al-su’ul fi manaqib Al al-Rasul, a work on the Twelve Imams,
was also widely read. None of these been the subject of any detailed study
in the West of which I am aware, with the exception of a useful chapter
in the unpublished PhD dissertation by Masad which does, however, need
correcting in several respects and which concentrates on his lettristic works.9
Although editions of sorts exist of his three major works, these are sufficiently
poor to make recourse to the manuscripts absolutely imperative, and the
textual history of all these works is complex, all having been renamed and
rewritten at various stages. These reasons would be enough to merit a study,
but Ibn Talha is also of particular interest as his literary oeuvre gives an insight
into some crucial but neglected currents in the intellectual history of the
thirteenth-century Islamic world. His works may at first seem to comprise
extremely diverse if not wholly separate fields of endeavour; in fact they
share more than immediately meets the eye. Lettrism, prayer, asceticism and

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contemporary political concerns all combined in the works of Ibn Talha,

which we will survey here.

Kitab al-jafr/al-Durr al-muntazam fi’l-sirr al-a‘zam/al-Durr

al-munazzam

The most famous of Ibn Talha’s works, known under several variant titles
which we will refer to here simply as al-Durr al-muntazam, is a short treatise
and is one of the earliest surviving works on the science of jafr – divination
from the numerical value of letters. It was incorporated wholesale into another
famous treatise by the Ottoman specialist in the science of letters ‘Abd al-
Rahman al-Bistami (d. 858/1454), the Miftah al-jafr al-jami‘, together with
which it is usually found in manuscripts, meaning there is a distinct lack
of early versions of the text.10 It was also included in al-Bistami’s Shams
al-afaq.11 Ibn Talha’s famous da’ira, or circle (Plate 3.1), which showed
how to calculate the value of letters and thus prognosticate the future, was
adopted by numerous other writers on jafr, and seems to be found in the
Shams al-ma‘arif al-kubra, the most famous Islamic magical text attributed
to his contemporary al-Buni (d. c.622/1225), which may, however, be a
composite work of much later date or dates.12 While similar circles purport-
ing to demonstrate the power of letters are mentioned or depicted in earlier
magical treatises, sometimes attributed to Hermes Trismegistos, the version
in al-Durr al-muntazam was perhaps much more broadly influential for
being more thoroughly Islamic in inspiration, claiming ‘Ali b. Abi Talib as
its source.13 Popular editions of Ibn Talha’s work still circulate in the Middle
East, attributed to ‘Ali b. Abi Talib.14
The work starts with a description of how an unnamed friend of Ibn
Talha, described as ‘one of the righteous’ (ba‘d al-salihin) was at his devo-
tions, when a tablet was revealed to him. A voice told him to ‘Take it and
make use of it’, and he found that it was a circle with lines and letters. He saw
‘Ali b. Abi Talib, who reveals that he is the one who has given him this tablet
and tells him things that he does not understand. Ibn Talha’s friend tells ‘Ali
he does not understand it, to which ‘Ali replies that Ibn Talha will explain it.

And when it was completely daylight he came to me and told me about this
event in full and recited to me the verses of its sura, and drew a picture of

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the circle and what there was outside and inside and within it. And I studied
it and contemplated it and saw that its writing comprised remarkable fates,
and its root and branches comprised strange secrets, and I looked into its
letters composed both singly and in pairs, and its names both individually
and together, and I realised that it was not possible to understand its full
meaning nor to solve it nor to understand its aim and the secrets of its
purpose except by divine aid.15

Ibn Talha therefore prayed and received the necessary divine assistance.
After this introduction, Ibn Talha moves on to the famous circle itself,
which he explains covers time from the prophethood of Muhammad to the
last day. The next section contains examples of calculations from the letters
to generate the dates of historical events and prophecies for the future. The
last concrete event mentioned is the Ayyubid defeat of the Khwarazmians at
Qasab in 644/1246, on which Ibn Talha remarks, ‘It is understood from the
symbols of the circle, and God knows best, that their state shall not return to
them, nor shall fortune.’16 Whereas the earlier calculations were for historical
events such as the beginning of the Seljuq state or the end of Frankish rule
over Jerusalem, after the mention of the Khwarazmian defeat at Qasab, the
other prophecies which continue up to ah 71817 all seem very vague, without
any specifics. Masad is thus probably right to argue that this shows the work
was composed very shortly after Qasab, which he argues had an apocalyptic
significance to contemporaries and Ibn Talha in particular.18 After 718, vari-
ous vague prophecies of bloodshed and destruction suggest the end of time
and calculations for establishing the date of the emergence of the Mahdi and
the Antichrist (Dajjal), and the Day of Resurrection, are hinted at, although
no date is given. Finally, the work concludes with some instructions on how
to make the necessary calculations for jafr, although these are extremely brief
and allusive.
Despite Ibn Talha’s claim to have explained the circle given to him by ‘Ali,
it must be said that al-Durr al-muntazam, at least in the forms that have come
down to us, is extremely allusive. It is hard to see it as a practical do-it-yourself
manual on how to calculate jafr. Indeed, Bistami’s Miftah al-jafr al-jami‘, with
which it survives in most manuscripts, is intended to explain and expound Ibn
Talha’s work and is many times its length – al-Durr al-muntazam taking up a

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mere twelve pages in the printed edition to just over 200 for Bistami’s work. In
a sense, al-Durr al-muntazam seems to aim to defuse claims of the apocalypse
rather than promoting them. While the reign of the Dajjal is certainly to
come, it will not occur until after 718: imminent enough, but not enough to
worry any Ayyubid reader during his lifetime.
Further light on the text is shed by Safadi and Yunini, who record the
identity of Ibn Talha’s pious friend. They write of the well-known Sufi ascetic
Sharaf al-Din al-Ikhmimi, another resident of Damascus, who related hadith
on the authority of Ibn Talha that,

He is the one mentioned by Kamal al-Din Ibn Talha in his composition

on the science of letters. He [Ibn Talha] said, ‘Shaykh Muhammad [that
is, al-Ikhmimi] saw ‘Ali b. Abi Talib in a dream, and the latter showed him
the circle of letters.’19

Al-Ikhmimi, who was noted for his miracles (karamat) and claimed that the
hidden essence of prayers had been revealed to him, said, ‘God has revealed
to me the [hidden] truths of the prayers of things, so that I have seen the trees
and stones with their different prayers.’20 This passage underlines the strong
connection between asceticism and occult interests which can be observed
throughout Ibn Talha’s career and writings. Such an association should not
surprise us. Al-Ghazali himself had been involved with the ‘ilm al-huruf,21
while it seems that in his own time al-Buni was best known as a Sufi ascetic,
rather than a magician. Later lettristic writers like ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Bistami
also sought to legitimise the science of letters by associating it with prominent
Sufis.22

Matalib al-su’ul fi manaqib Al al-Rasul

Ibn Talha’s claim in al-Durr al-muntazam to being in direct communication

with ‘Ali b. Abi Talib, whose instructions he interprets for al-Ikhmimi, is
repeated in his next work to be considered, the Matalib al-su’ul fi manaqib
Al al-Rasul. The only one of Ibn Talha’s compositions to have been pub-
lished in a remotely adequate edition (Beirut, 1419), the editor lists nineteen
manuscripts and three previous editions (two lithographs, Tehran (1275) and
Lucknow (1302), and a commercial edition from Najaf in 1371).23 Ibn Talha
refers in his preface to having compiled an earlier version called the Zubdat

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al-maqal, the manuscript of which he lost. Some library catalogues list the
Zubdat al-maqal, but all surviving manuscripts appear to be of the later
version, the Matalib al-su’ul. Although the work has no date of composition
in the printed text used here or the manuscripts I have seen, a late source,
Muhammad Baqir al-Khwansari’s (d. 1313/1895–6) Rawdat al-jannat, gives
it as Rajab 650/September–October 1252.24 Presumably this information
derives from a statement in a manuscript.
The Matalib al-su’ul is dedicated to the Twelve Imams that suc-
ceeded Muhammad – ‘Ali b. Abi Talib, Hasan, Husayn, Zayn al-‘Abidin,
Muhammad al-Baqir, Ja‘far al-Sadiq, Musa al-Kazim, ‘Ali al-Rida,
Muhammad al-Qani‘, ‘Ali al-Mutawakkil, Hasan al-‘Askari (called here
Hasan al-Khalis) and Muhammad al-Hujja al-Mahdi. Despite this
ostensibly Shi‘ite topic, Ibn Talha is careful to rely exclusively on Sunni
sources, in particular the classical hadith collections such as the Sahihs of
Muslim and Bukhari, al-Tirmidhi and Abu Da’ud. The work is divided
into twelve chapters (babs), one for each imam, most of which are then
each divided into twelve sub-chapters (fasl) which treat each imam’s birth,
genealogy, names, appearance, piety and asceticism, courage, eloquence,
children, age and death. However, in the penultimate chapter dealing with
the obscure Eleventh Imam, about whom even Twelver tradition had little
to say, these fasls become abridged to a single sentence or so, and in the
final chapter, to which we shall return shortly, the structure is abandoned
entirely.
In his introduction, Ibn Talha describes how ‘Ali has ‘mandated me
to elucidate the occult secrets (asrar min al-ghayb), which God only allots
to one of his chosen servants’.25 The occult meaning of letters is alluded in
Ibn Talha’s discussion of the symbolism of the phrases la ilah illa allah and
Muhammad rasul allah, which in the Arabic script are both composed of
twelve letters, signifying the Twelve Imams. Similarly, Ibn Talha notes the
significance of the fact that both day and night are composed of twelve hours
each, and that twelve generations separate Muhammad from his ancestor
Nadr, the founder of the tribe of Quraysh, just as twelve generations separate
him from the Last Imam.26 It is perhaps not coincidental that the number
twelve also commonly appears in the apocalyptic literature, given its associa-
tion with the Twelfth Imam or Mahdi.27

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The chapters are also exceedingly unequal in their treatment of the

Imams. The overwhelming bulk of the Matalib al-su’ul is devoted to ‘Ali
b. Abi Talib,28 with much shorter but still substantial chapters on his sons
Hasan and Husayn.29 The treatment of the other Imams is much more
cursory. Ibn Talha tells us that he had been ordered to write the book by ‘Ali
b. Abi Talib himself:

One of the righteous (ba‘d al-salihin) saw ‘Ali [in a dream] and asked
him questions connected with sacred knowledge (al-ma‘arif al-qudsiyya)
and divinity. ‘Ali replied with words, and he said, ‘O Commander of
the Faithful, I do not have the knowledge to understand them.’ So [‘Ali]
handed over to me the task of explaining to him that, to give details of
everything and to expound the details of his speech and sentences.30

This passage is reminiscent of that at the start of al-Durr al-muntazam, where

Ibn Talha stakes a similar claim to be the interpreter of ‘Ali b. Talib’s words
to ‘one of the righteous’; it is possible that here, too, the allusion is to the Sufi
al-Ikhmimi.
The extensive passages in the Matalib al-su’ul discussing ‘Ali highlight
certain aspects that may have been particularly significant to Ibn Talha with
his interests in the occult and asceticism. Much emphasis is given to ‘Ali’s pro-
motion of asceticism (zuhd) and warnings against the vanity of this world.31
‘Ali’s prominent role in Ibn Talha’s occult writings is also suggested by the
passages which describe ‘Ali’s complete mastery of all forms of knowledge,
in particular of the unity of God (‘ilm al-tawhid), of fate and predestination,
of prophecy, of the Day of Judgement and of the nature of the afterlife.32 A
hadith is cited in which ‘Ali says, ‘Ask me about the ways of the heavens, for
I know more of them than I do of those of earth. If I wanted, I could load a
mule with the interpretation of bismillah al-rahman al-rahim.’33 Nonetheless,
this occult knowledge does not feature particularly prominently in most of
the Matalib al-su’ul, which concentrates on the characteristics of the Twelve
Imams.
The Matalib al-su’ul generally avoids promoting a sectarian agenda,
beyond its philo-‘Alidism. The great dispute at Siffin is mentioned, although
not in great detail, but there is no particular effort to condemn the Umayyads.
At the same time, the work’s broadly pro-Twelver agenda is introduced

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­ ithout polemics against, or indeed much reference to, any of the opponents
w
of ‘Ali or the ‘Alids, although the Kharijites are condemned.34 Despite treat-
ing the most sensitive questions in Islamic history, Ibn Talha seems intent on
stripping these of their polemical potency. Of ‘Ali b. Abi Talib, for instance,
we are told that he is the source of knowledge (marja‘ al-‘ilm) for Mu‘tazilites,
Ash‘arites, the Shi‘a and Khawarij.35 Ash‘arism was most likely the theology
to which Ibn Talha himself adhered, it being typically associated with the
Shafi‘i madhhab to which he belonged. Thus, despite the differences of these
groups, ‘Ali is portrayed as a common, unifying element, and no mention is
made of other legal or theological schools. A similar approach can be seen in
a hadith which Ibn ‘Adim reports Ibn Talha as relating. A group of Shi‘ites
from Kufa complain to Hasan b. ‘Ali of their mistreatment by the Umayyad
governor Ziyad b. Abihi, saying, ‘We ask God that He let us kill him with our
own hands!’ Hasan is reported to have condemned the idea of killing him,
saying instead, ‘Let us ask God to make him die in his bed.’36
In the final chapter, Ibn Talha turns to discuss the Twelfth Imam,
whom, in conformity with at least one strand of Twelver thinking, he identi-
fies as Hasan al-‘Askari’s son Muhammad, born in 258/871.37 Ibn Talha
identifies the Twelfth Imam as the Mahdi, and spends some time justifying
this identification on the basis of hadith transmitted from Abu Da’ud and
al-Tirmidhi. The Mahdi is described by the Prophet as ‘with a fairer forehead
than me and a crooked nose, who will fill the world with justice just as it
was [previously] filled with injustice and oppression and will rule for seven
years’. This will happen at the end of time. However, as Ibn Talha says, also
in accordance with Twelver tradition, that although the Twelfth Imam has
been identified – for Muhammad b. Hasan is the only candidate who meets
the description – he has gone into occultation. He is still alive, for God has
prolonged his life. Ibn Talha is careful not to specify a date for the Mahdi’s
return after which his reign of universal justice will be instituted.38 This is
perhaps in keeping with Shi‘ite traditions that tended to be rather more cau-
tious than Sunni ones about predicting the imminence of the apocalypse.39
With its use of Sunni sources to present a basically Twelver view of the
Imams, Ibn Talha’s Matalib al-su’ul represents part of a more general intel-
lectual tendency to the Shi‘itisation of Sunnism in the pre-Mongol period,
of which Eddé has provided a number of examples from Aleppo.40 Nor was

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it unique. A comparable work written at roughly the same time is al-Ghanji’s

al-Bayan fi akhbar Sahib al-Zaman, composed in 648/1250–1, who similarly
identified the Mahdi with the Twelfth Imam, but also drew on Sunni sources
to support an essentially Twelver approach.41 In Ayyubid Damascus, there
were a number of prominent Shi‘ite-leaning Sunnis, such as the Shafi‘i qadi
Ibn al-Zaki, who purported to be a descendant of the Caliph ‘Uthman, yet
preferred ‘Ali to his own ancestor.42 It is interesting to note that Matalib
al-su’ul may also have had some appeal to a Shi‘ite constituency, as a copy
was found in the library of Ibn Tawus, Ibn Talha’s Shi‘ite contemporary
from Baghdad.43 Ibn Tawus himself wrote an apocalyptic work, the Kitab al-
malahim wa’l-fitan, which seems to have drawn exclusively on Sunni sources
despite the author’s Twelver affiliation.44
Thus, the Ayyubid period saw something of a collapse in the boundaries
between Shi‘ite and Sunni, as can also be seen in Ayyubid patronage of
Shi‘ite shrines. Al-Nasir Yusuf is said to have reconstructed a large part
of the Mashhad al-Muhassin in Aleppo, a major shrine commemorating a
child of the Imam al-Husayn in which one inscription mentions the name
of al-Nasir’s father the Ayyubid sultan al-Malik al-‘Aziz Muhammad (r.
613/1213–634/1236) alongside the names of the Twelve Imams.45 Mulder
has argued this patronage was inspired by a variety of factors: as such shrines
were visited by Muslims of sectarian divisions, given a popular Sunni regard
for the ahl al-bayt, they served both to ingratiate the Sunni Ayyubid rulers
with their Shi‘ite subjects,46 as well as legitimising them as Sunni rulers by
‘bringing Shi‘i popular practice within the realms of official Sunni religious
policy’.47 Given the lack of a dedicatee for the Matalib al-su’ul it is perhaps
going a step too far to claim that the work might have been written specifi-
cally to support such a putative state policy, although such an interpretation
has undeniable attractions. Although no patron of the Matalib al-su’ul is
given, al-Nasir Yusuf was the dedicatee of another of Ibn Talha’s works, his
Mirror for Princes entitled the Nafa’is al-‘anasir, discussed below, and one
early copy of the Matalib al-su’ul seems to come from a royal or elite library,
given its elaborate frontispiece (Plate 3.2).
The Matalib shows that this ecumenical approach could also be sup-
ported and indeed promoted by the Sunni ‘ulama’ themselves, who sometimes
are portrayed as the villains whose rigidity could result in intercommunal

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v­ iolence.48 Rather, Twelver piety within the framework of Sunnism was not
simply a matter of popular religiosity or of political necessity but part of a
more general trend toward conciliation, which we can also see in the promi-
nent role of Shi‘ite scholars like Ibn Tawus at the ‘Abbasid court in Baghdad,
and which affected learned, scholarly forms of Islam as well as popular
ones – if indeed such a differentiation has any validity.49 This Shi‘itisation
of Sunnism is also reflected, albeit in different forms, through the Ismaili
influences that are so evident in the works of Ibn ‘Arabi, in the general rise
of apocalyptic thought in the thirteenth-century eastern Mediterranean, and
in the importance of ‘Ali b. Abi Talib as a key figure in the ‘ilm al-huruf and
other forms of occult knowledge that were becoming increasingly widespread
in period.50

Nafa’is al-‘anasir/al-‘Iqd al-farid

Ibn Talha’s political connections are demonstrated by his works entitled

Nafa’is al-‘anasir li’l-Malik al-Nasir dedicated to the Ayyubid al-Nasir Yusuf
and al-‘Iqd al-farid dedicated to the Artuqid ruler of Mardin, Najm al-Din
Ghazi (r. 637/1239–658/1260). Despite their different titles, and dedicatees,
the content of these two works is virtually word for word identical beyond
the mention of the dedicatee in the preface. The only significant exception
is a long passage celebrating al-Nasir Yusuf’s defeat of the Khwarazmians,
which is included in the Nafa’is al-‘anasir,51 indicating that work must have
been composed shortly after the Ayyubids’ defeat of the Khwarazmians under
Berke Khan at al-Qasab near Homs in 644/1246.52 It is clear that this ver-
sion dedicated to al-Nasir Yusuf predates al-‘Iqd al-farid dedicated to Najm
al-Din Ghazi, for in the later parts of al-‘Iqd al-farid the name of al-Nasir is
still found – for example on the table to calculate the first days of the months,
discussed below. One must wonder what the Artuqid dedicatee would have
made of it had he seen the names of his Ayyubid overlord so prominently
displayed on a work purportedly dedicated to him, especially given that,
shortly before, the Ayyubids had sought to extirpate the Artuqids after the
latter had allied themselves with the Anatolian Seljuqs.53
It was as al-‘Iqd al-farid that the work became popular, surviving in numer-
ous manuscripts, and it is also under this title that an unsatisfactory edition
has been published in Cairo,54 whereas the Nafa’is al-‘anasir to my k­ nowledge

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is only extant in three manuscripts.55 Al-‘Iqd al-farid certainly enjoyed an

appeal to later rulers; a fourteenth-century copy comes from an unidentified
royal library (MS Süleymaniye Library, Yeni Cami 985, Plate 3.3), as did a
fifteenth-century copy now held in the Landesbibliothek Gotha.56 Moreover,
parts of the text of al-‘Iqd al-farid were incorporated into a ‘Mirror for Princes’
written for the Mamluk sultan Barquq (d. 801/1399), al-Durr al-nadid fi
manaqib al-Malik al-Zahir Abi Sa‘id, offering further testimony to Ibn Talha’s
influence.57 The Nafa’is al-anasir/al-‘Iqd al-farid also appeared under a third
title as Miftah al-falah fi i‘tiqad ahl al-salah which is preserved in Cairo (Dar
al-Kutub MS Tasawwuf M ‘Arabi 201, comprising 239 folios, copied in
Ramadan 1114/January 1703 by Muhammad b. ‘Abdallah b. Muhammad
b. Jum‘a al-Hindi). The Miftah al-falah differs from the other versions in its
preface, which emphasises that the text was composed as a precis (zubda) of
earlier works dealing with correct behaviour and belief and how to emulate
the Companions of the Prophet and the righteous forebears (al-salaf al-sahih).
From the microfilm I have seen, it appears that the first folio, which presum-
ably contained details of the dedicatee, is missing, and there is no reference
to the Khwarazmian defeat. In other respects, the work seems to contain the
same text as the other two versions, right down to the tables including the
name of al-Nasir Yusuf. The late date of this copy and its variant title and
preface confirm the text’s lasting appeal in a variety of incarnations.
At first sight the work appears to be a conventional ‘Mirror for Princes’,
urging the ruler to justice. However, its contents are rather more complex
than the standard ten-chapter format for the genre popularised by al-Ghazali.
The work is divided into four qa‘idas, which are then further subdivided. The
work is thus structured as follows:

i. The first qa‘ida, on important morals and attributes, divided into ten
babs:
1. On the intellect (‘aql) and the necessary belief in the unity of God
(tawhid) and the required rituals (‘ibadat) which are based on it
2. In praise of patience and acting carefully, and in condemnation of
weakness and haste
3. On the character of thankfulness and in praise of it, and condem-
nation of ingratitude

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4. On consultation and its blessings and in condemnation of failing to

do it
5. On justice, and in condemnation of injustice and oppression
6. On agreement and alliance and in condemnation of division and
dissent
7. In praise of loyalty and in condemnation of treachery
8. On being alert and seizing the opportunity, and in condemnation
of dilatoriness and inattention
9. On forgiveness and doing good
10. In praise of honesty and condemnation of lying

ii. The second qa‘ida, on the sultanate and dominion, divided into two
babs:
1. On the sultanate, and the attributes of the sultan
2. On the officials upon whom the kingdom relies and in whose hands
are the reins of public interest, in five tabaqat:
a.  The vizierate
b.  The chancery
c.  The secretariat of the army
d.  The secretariat of the treasury
e.  The remaining retinue (hashiya)

iii. The third qa‘ida, on sharia and religion, in four rukns:

1. The office of mufti
2. The office of qadi
3. The office of muhtasib
4. The awqaf

iv. The fourth qa‘ida, on perfecting the goal [of the book] through various
additions, consisting of diverse questions:
1. On questions of ritual (‘ibadat)
2. Questions on purchases (muba‘ayat),
3. Questions on marriage law (munakahat),
4. Questions on crimes (jinayat)
5. Mathematical questions

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Conclusion of the book: on prayers which are answered

Admonition: Stories of the righteous.

This division into four qa‘idas is most immediately reminiscent of al-­Ghazali’s

works. His Kimiya-yi sa‘adat is divided into four quarters which are then
subdivided into ten sections, as is the Ihya ‘ulum al-Din, which shares many
of the Kimiya’s concerns and its structure (with some variation in the arrange-
ment of the sections). Neither of these works – both of which are consider-
ably larger than al-‘Iqd al-farid – are mirrors, but rather were more generally
concerned with expounding Sufism, although the Persian Kimiya was written
for the Seljuq political elite. The Kimiya was known in Syria and influenced
Mirrors for Princes, for it was a major influence on the Persian Bahr al-
fawa’id composed in Aleppo in the mid-twelfth century.58
The first qa‘ida of the ‘Iqd, in ten chapters, offering moral advice, forms
a self-contained homiletic Mirror for Princes in its own right. This ten-part
structure, ultimately derived from the idea of the ten branches of the tree of
faith popularised by [pseudo?]-Ghazali in his Nasihat al-muluk, which had
become the standard format for Mirrors for Princes by the thirteenth cen-
tury,59 and can be observed, for instance, in the near-contemporary Arabic
mirror from Anatolia, al-Zanjani’s al-Lata’if al-‘ala’iyya.60 Unlike al-Zanjani’s
work, however, the debt to al-Ghazali for structure or contents is not explicitly
acknowledged by Ibn Talha, although like al-Zanjani and al-Ghazali (at least
in the first part of the Nasihat al-muluk), Ibn Talha draws heavily the Qur’an,
hadith (with highly abbreviated isnads) and stories of early caliphs (down
to the ‘Abbasid era),61 to illustrate anecdotes pointing to correct behaviour,
although on occasion there is also reference to Isra’iliyyat.62 However, there
are very few Iranian elements compared to al-Ghazali or al-Zanjani’s work,
with just one passing mention of the Sasanian ruler Ardashir b. Babak in the
text.63 This emphasis on Arab and Islamic models is reminiscent of another
near-contemporary work, Ibn Haddad’s al-Jawhar al-nafis dedicated to Badr
al-Din Lu’lu’ of Mosul.64
The second qa‘ida is also fairly typical of other examples of the genre which
seek to offer both ethical and practical advice, such as the Bahr al-fawa’id,
composed a century or so earlier in Aleppo. Unlike the Bahr al-fawa’id (or
indeed its Arabic counterpart, the Mufid al-‘ulum),65 Ibn Talha’s work has

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a much stricter and more logical structure. The practical advice on ruling,
if idealised, is at least to some degree adjusted to the circumstances of the
Ayyubid state, again in contrast to many works in which the prescriptions are
so general that they could apply almost anywhere. Thus the sultan is lauded in
conventional terms as the one who ‘upholds the protection of God’s servants,
land, religion and upholds his prescribed punishments (hudud) and preserves
God’s rules,’66 while being warned against the five negative characteristics
of arrogance, conceit (‘ujb), pride, meanness and lying.67 The sultan is also
advised to delegate his authority to his vizier, whose role is also described
in largely formulaic and conventional terms as the king’s ‘eye and hand,
the writer of his speech, the chamberlain of his nature, the messenger of his
tongue’.68 The vizier is described as

the pole of the state and its axis, the forearm of the kingdom and its knight
who enlightens the sultan in the darkness of important affairs by the lights
of his administration, and relieves him of the burdens of events, great or
small, noble or low …69

The importance of the office of vizier is sanctioned through reference to

the Qur’an and hadith.70 Ibn Talha distinguishes two different types of
vizier, the wazir tafwid (vizier of delegation) and the wazir tanfidh (executive
vizier). The first of these, the wazir tafwid, is the most important, for the
sultan invests his authority in him. The wazir tafwid has complete authority
over the running of affairs, with only two exceptions: he cannot choose the
heir apparent (wali al-‘ahd), nor can he depose one whom the sultan has
appointed. The wazir tanfidh is an intermediary between the sultan and his
people, responsible for executing the sultan’s orders, but he does not have
the authority to intervene in decisions, to investigate abuses (mazalim) or to
make senior appointments. Unlike the wazir tafwid, however, the wazir tan-
fidh may be a slave and may not know the rules of sharia, may be ignorant of
the conduct of war and, according to al-Mawardi, may be a dhimmi, although
Imam al-Haramayn al-Juwayni is quoted as forbidding this.71
The section on the vizierate derives from Chapter 2 of al-Mawardi’s
al-Ahkam al-sultaniyya.72 The discussion of administration also draws on
al-Mawardi but is adapted in places to suit Ayyubid circumstances. For
instance, in his description of army administration and pay, Ibn Talha seems

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to be indebted to al-Mawardi (albeit in abridged form), describing the tribal

system of the Arabs and their precedence for pay according to their proximity
to the Prophet. However, when it comes to discussing non-Arab peoples,
al-Mawardi had mentioned Turks, Indians, Daylamis and Jibalis, who he
recommended should be paid according to their precedence in converting to
Islam. In al-‘Iqd al-farid, however, Indians and Jibalis are omitted, and rather
‘Turks, Kurds and Daylamis’ are listed, in recognition of the realities of the
composition of the Ayyubid forces.73
Despite the substantial borrowings from al-Mawardi, much of the text
is independent. The organisation of the work owes nothing to al-Ahkam
al-sultaniyya, which had little to say about the moral qualities required of
the ruler. Even in chapters which share concerns with al-Mawardi, there can
be substantial differences of content and approach. The section in the ‘Iqd
on the office of qadi, for instance comprises ten exemplary anecdotes about
‘Abbasid qadis that are not paralleled in al-Mawardi or al-Ghazali.74 It is
interesting that Ibn Talha offers no discussion whatsoever of the role of the
caliph: there is not even al-Mawardi’s famous attempt to justify the imarat
al-istila’. Rather the sultan is conceived of as God’s representative on earth,
and Ibn Talha specifically refers to the ‘kings’ as doing the duties which jurists
had previously allotted to the caliphs, for example mentioning, ‘kings whom
God had established to protect religion and protect the people (milla) and the
sharia’.75 Thus even before the Mongol conquest of Baghdad and extirpation
of the ‘Abbasid line, at least for this author the caliphate simply does not exist,
although tales of the praiseworthy conduct of ‘Abbasid caliphs of the eighth
and ninth centuries abound.76 This is thus not a case of Shi‘ite anti-‘Abbasid
prejudice but rather a reflection of the irrelevance of the caliphate even to
theoretical discussions of Islamic governance in the years before its demise.
In other passages, Ibn Talha seems to allude to his own distinctive con-
cern with ‘the science of letters’. In his discussion of the necessary qualifica-
tions of a secretary (katib), he stresses that the secretary must know ‘the state
of the letters’ ‘in order that he can open locks thereby, and put their correct
state and explain their forms’, and says he has written in detail on letters in
a treatise entitled al-Kawkab al-najim fi ma‘rifat al-tarajim.77 However, it is
far from certain that this was a numerological, occult treatise. Another work
possibly suggestive of lettristic interests which Ibn Talha mentions in al-‘Iqd

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al-farid as one of his compositions is the Zubdat al-musannafat fi al-asma’

wa’l-sifat,78 although again its nature is not wholly clear and no manuscripts
have come to light. Apart from al-Durr al-muntazam, one other such lettristic
work by Ibn Talha has come down to us, the Inas al-hikam min anfas Abi’l-
Hakam, a short treatise preserved in an apparently unique manuscript, today
in Leiden.79 The association of Ibn Talha’s mirror with lettrism for at least
some of its audience is suggested by the final folio of the oldest surviving
manuscript of the Nafa’is al-‘anasir, dated 777/1375, which was copied from
the autograph; the manuscript concludes with mysterious letters (laghz al-
huruf    ) apparently copied from the original (Plate 3.4).
The most distinctive section of al-‘Iqd al-farid is the fourth qa‘ida, with
its problems of fiqh and mathematics. Ibn Talha remarks that he has included
these various topics

for the benefit of men of knowledge, and action, for those who come and
go, and I started with that which is a means to the knowledge of scholars
who strive to bear knowledge in their breasts and went deep to obtain it
until they reached the limit of their abilities.80

The fiqh questions are further subdivided into questions on rituals (‘ibadat),81
questions on purchases (muba‘ayat),82 questions on marriage law (munaka-
hat)83 and questions on crimes (jinayat).84 These comprise sixty questions in
total. Here is an example of the type of question and solution:

Problem: A man rented a house from a man to store in it one kurr of wheat,
but he stores there two kurrs of wheat. Should the tenant pay an excess on
the agreed rent because of his extra wheat or not? Neither an absolute yes
or no is correct.
Answer: If the rented house is on the ground, there is no need to pay
extra for the excess wheat, but if the house is a room on the roof, he must
pay rent representing the extra wheat, because the extra wheat can cause
extra damage to the roof.85

Another example is as follows:

Problem: A man has two wives, one Muslim, one Christian. He says to the
Christian one, ‘You have apostacised and become a Muslim.’ He says to

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the Muslim one, ‘You have apostacised and become a Christian.’ Both of
them call him a liar, but one of them is not telling the truth. Are both of the
marriages void or not, or is just one void and the other still valid? Neither
of these answers is correct.
Answer: If it is before consummation, both marriages are void owing
to the presence of a factor which voids them in his claim, on account of
which he criticises them: in the case of the Muslim woman because of
his declaration that she has apostacised and the Christian woman because
of her denial of Islam has apostacised according to his claim. If it is after
consummation, the marriage of the Muslim woman remains valid, but the
marriage of the Christian woman is suspended until the end of the ‘idda,
when her marriage is cancelled.86

Ibn Talha then moves on to a second type of question which demands

considerably more complex answers, which, he tells us at some length, were
extremely popular at the Ayyubid court:

The second type [of problem] is more perfectly beautiful, more compre-
hensive in meaning, and only one who has devoted himself heart and soul
to learning can give the correct answer. And the sultan al-Malik al-Kamil –
may God sanctify his soul and bestow blessings upon our generous87 lord
the sultan al-Malik al-Nasir – used to make particular use of it and devote
his attention to it on occasions when the most excellent men of the land
cane to him, and when great men came to him on days of [great] occasions,
festivals and gatherings of the the pilgrimage caravan (mahfal). He would
ask them these questions which would inform him of their level of virtue
so that he would look after them to his [best] ability, and he would settle
each one according to the station he deserved in his generosity and char-
ity, and those who were conciliatory and those who were contrary would
thereby become evident by their report and expertise. By my life, my noble
lord al-Malik al-Nasir Salah al-Din, may God pour upon him the lights
of certainty and make him one of his pious servants, by the purity of his
essence, the intelligence of his mind, the perfection of his understanding,
the light of his perception and the perfect awareness with which God has
singled him out, the strength of his nature, the excellence of his talent,

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and the cleverness of his character, does not need to mention problems to
distinguish between one who gives voice to delusions, for he wears the robes
of falsehood, and one whom God has singled out from the lamp of lights
with light upon light. However, emulating the excellent habits of bygone
sultans is counted a custom (sunna), and following their praiseworthy tracks
is a good deed. Therefore, I include a glimpse of this type of problem in
this book so that it may serve the sultan and he can use it as a pretext for
testing [people], even if, with his noble gaze, he has no need of it. I have
made it as brief as possible, mentioning the form of the question, the way
of answering, and some analysis.
Problem: Two men go out hunting and they find a prey. They both
go after it and shoot at it with their arrows successively, one after the other.
They wound it and it later dies. What is the judgement? This is the form of
the question upon which many judgements depend, despite its brevity and
the simplicity of its form.88

The answer to this extends over two and a half printed pages, assessing the
various possibilities for rights of ownership of the prey, whether it was licit
to eat it, and the circumstances under which one of the men might have
to compensate the other for it, and the rate that compensation should be
set at.
Of similar type are the mathematical puzzles which conclude this section
of the book. These represent fairly basic examples of algebraic problems and
their solutions involving linear equations. They are not, however, set out as
algebraic problems with equations and explicit variables as one would see in
a formal mathematical work such as those of al-Khwarazmi,89 just as the fiqh-
type problems and their solutions are not set out as they would be in a formal
fiqh work. To give one example of these algebraic problems:

Problem: A man owns a horse which three people come to him to buy. They
ask him about the price, and he tells them. The elder one tells the middle
one, ‘If you give me three fifths of what you have with you in dinars, I’ll
have the price of the horse.’ The middle one says to the youngest, ‘If you
give me four sevenths of the dinars you have, I’ll have the price of the horse.’
How much is the price of the horse? And how many dinars did each one
of them have?90

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While there is some evidence for Ayyubid patronage of mathematicians and

interest in mathematics, mainly for the purposes of astrology and the con-
struction of automata,91 these sorts of basic mathematical problems would
have contributed little or nothing to such fields. Yet to be cultivated in
the Ayyubid age, to be an adib, was to have a broad knowledge of all fields
of learning, which perhaps explains why these problems are presented in
laymen’s terms. Just as the first qa‘ida seeks to address the sultan’s personal
morals and conduct, the fourth qa‘ida aims to give him the tools to appear
as a cultivated layman, to hold his own with the scholars who frequented his
court. Ibn Talha’s description of al-Kamil’s questioning of scholars suggests
that the questions and answers in the fourth qa‘ida were intended as a sort
of cheat-sheet for the sultan, whatever his polite disclaimers about al-Nasir
Yusuf having no need of it. Equally, however, it might be valid to under-
stand them as another expression of the love for puzzles and problems that
­characterised court life.92
Finally, we have the diagram for calculating the first days of months
through the name of al-Nasir Yusuf (Plate 3.5). The interpretation of this is
somewhat problematic. In apocalyptic malhama literature, the day on which
a given month began is vested with a divinatory significance.93 However, the
dates in our table are all historical rather than in the future, so it can have had
no use practical use for determining on what day to undertake a task. The
table may point, like the questions, to an Ayyubid court culture which loved
brain-teasers and puzzles, but it may have other implications too. A parallel
to the table of dates can be found in Ahmad al-Buni’s al-Lum‘a al-nuraniyya,
a roughly contemporary work dealing with the magical properties of the
divine names. Al-Buni’s table is to determine what prayers should be said at
what hour of what day, the efficacy of the prayers depending on the correct
choice, and has very similar instructions for use to that in al-‘Iqd al-farid.94
The correspondence between the two is intriguing, and suggests that a proper
understanding of the far from apparent use of Ibn Talha’s table may be found
through looking at comparable magical works. Moreover, it must be signifi-
cant that the table in al-‘Iqd al-farid goes up to the year 644/1246 – the very
year of the Khwarazmian invasion, which seems to have had such importance
for Ibn Talha; indeed such importance that even after the rededication of
the work to Najm al-Din Ghazi there was no effort to update or change this.

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Certainly, the presence of occult elements in a Mirror for Princes would

not be unprecedented: the Bahr al-fawa’id contains a chapter to devoted to
ikhtilaj (palmomancy).95
The final sections of the work, after the conclusion of the fourth qa‘ida
and the table of dates, superficially have a very different tone, being devoted
to prayer and homily. After the table in al-‘Iqd al-farid, a passage largely based
on hadith emphasises the necessity of prayer,96 then a new section opens
under the heading tanbih (warning). This section is devoted to the necessity
of piety towards God given the proximity of death and the next world, based
on hadith and Qur’anic quotations such as al-Infitar 13–14: ‘The virtuous are
in heaven and the wrongdoers in hell’, and al-Baqara 281: ‘Fear a day when
you return to God, every soul will be compensated for what they have gained,
they will not be oppressed.’ There follow anecdotes on the theme of rulers
facing death, for instance:

Hasan al-Basri wrote to ‘Umar b. ‘Abd al-Aziz when he sent to him saying,
‘Tell me something useful, but be brief.’ He wrote to him, ‘O Commander
of the Faithful, even if you had the life of Noah, the wealth of Solomon, the
certainty of Abraham and the wisdom of Luqman, there would still be fear
of death before you, and behind it are two doors, one heaven, the other hell
and if you make a mistake you will go to that one. Behave accordingly.’97

Similar stories are related of other caliphs. Ibn Talha then cites al-Ghazali at
length on the necessity of preparing oneself for death.98 Finally, there appears
a long anecdote set in Umayyad times about three brothers, one an ascetic
(zahid ), one a great amir associated with ‘Abd al-Malik b. Marwan, and the
other a respected merchant. The anecdote shows how the amir and the mer-
chant learn from their ascetic brother to divest themselves of wealth in order
to prepare for death.99 Then at the very conclusion of the work, Ibn Talha
draws these threads together. Embracing a lifestyle of asceticism, he says, is
the way to ensure one can enter paradise; but God has also created another
way, which is through just rule.100
Such homiletic passages are found elsewhere in advice literature. Pseudo-
Ghazali’s Nasihat al-Muluk, for instance, also stresses the necessity of prepar-
ing oneself for death, and in the near-contemporary works of Najm al-Din
Razi, the ruler is urged to embrace an ascetic Sufi lifestyle, and contain none

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of the practical reflections on how the diwan should be organised.101 In the

Bahr al-fawa’id too, a whole chapter (number 33) is devoted to admonishing
the ruler to remember the Hereafter.102 However, such concerns are much
less evident in the more legalistically minded normative advice literature such
as al-Mawardi’s al-Ahkam al-sultaniyya, which as we have seen is a major
influence on Ibn Talha. To a degree then, one may see Ibn Talha’s project as
successfully weaving together two disparate strands in the Mirrors for Princes
tradition, the more homiletic, religiously motivated works with the legalistic
and normative. To this is added Ibn Talha’s own unique contribution, the
fourth qa‘ida with its problems and solutions. At the same time, given Ibn
Talha’s commitment to asceticism – the factor which as the medieval chroni-
cles tell us, led to him abandoning the vizierate – it is also tempting to see
this work as reflecting his own personal agenda. Yet in the first half of the
thirteenth century, enthusiasm for asceticism was becoming widely spread
among not just the piety-minded but broader swathes of society, including
the elite. Another Syrian ‘Mirror for Princes’ of the period to emphasise the
need for asceticism was Sibt b. al-Jawzi’s al-Jalis al-salih wa’l-anis al-nasih,
dedicated to the Ayyubid al-Ashraf Musa in 613/1216.103 Ayyubid interest
in piety is reflected in another short treatise by Ibn Talha, on the benefits of
prayer over fasting (Tahsil al-maram fi tafsil al-salawat ‘ala al-siyam),104 which
was written at the request of a learned friend to resolve a debate raging at the
court of al-Nasir Yusuf over the relative virtues of these two forms of piety.105

Conclusion

Ibn Talha’s works show that the biographical dictionaries mislead: dedicated
to Ayyubid and Artuqid rulers, they indicate a much closer involvement
in court and political life than his two-day vizierate implies. Asceticism,
occultism and contemporary political concerns all blend together in his vari-
ous works in different ways. Despite the very different contents of al-Durr
al-muntazam and al-‘Iqd al-farid, both share an interest in asceticism, and
both allude to the fateful year of 644/1246, the date of the Khwarazmian
defeat. Courtly concerns about piety are reflected in the Tahsil al-maram,
and possibly even in the Matalib al-su’ul, which seems to be an expression
of the Sunni–Shi‘ite conciliation that was a hallmark of the late Ayyubid
period and was encouraged by members of the dynasty such as al-Nasir

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Yusuf, the dedicatee of the Nafa’is al-‘anasir. Ibn Talha thus serves as leading
representative of the Shi‘itisation of Sunnism in the period, and his court
connections suggest his part in giving intellectual credibility, as a leading
‘alim, to this process. However, it would be wrong to see this process of
Shi‘itisation as purely a matter of practical politics, an effort to conciliate
rival communities. It may also reflect the growing interest in the occult
exhibited in the works of Ibn Talha and his contemporaries like al-Buni, in
which ‘Ali b. Abi Talib plays a crucial part alongside Sufism. Although the
critical comments of the biographical dictionaries indicate that his occult
interests certainly provoked disapproval among some, Ibn Talha seems an
important representative of the process by which the occult entered the
intellectual mainstream in Islamic society, as it did increasingly from the
thirteenth century. Indeed, Ibn Talha’s own claim to be able to convey
and interpret ‘Ali’s hidden words and the mystical secrets of the letters of
the Arabic script was sufficiently potent to ensure the continued circulation
of his works in later generations.

Notes
1. The research leading to these results has received funding from the European
Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme
(FP/2007–2013)/ERC Grant Agreement n. 208476, ‘The Islamisation of
Anatolia, c.1100–1500’.
2. Al-Dhahabi, 1960–66, V: 213; a short reference in al-Yafi‘i, 1997, IV: 99–100;
Ibn Kathir, 1966, XIII: 186; Abu Shama, 1947, 188; al-‘Ayni, 1987, I: 64; Sibt
b. al-Jawzi puts his death under ah 653, but gives no information about him;
Sibt b. al-Jawzi, 1343, XV: 92.
3. Humphreys, 1977, 247; Ibn Wasil, 1977, V: 200.
4. Al-Safadi, 1974, III: 176; al-Dhahabi, 1960–66, V: 213.
5. For an overview, see Lory, 2004.
6. Further evidence for Ibn Talha’s interest in hadith comes from an ijaza of a
manuscript where he is cited as auditor of Majd al-Din Ibn al-Athir’s Jami‘
al-usul in 604; Ritter, 1953, 72.
7. Ibn ‘Imad al-Hanbali, 1998, V: 389–390. Ibn ‘Imad’s entry seems to rely
partly on al-Safadi’s but contains additional information.
8. For an overview of manuscripts of his surviving works, see Brockelmann,
1943–1947, I: 463–464, S, I: 838–839.

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9. Masad, 1998. A few passing references to Ibn Talha appear in Pouzet, 1988,
134, 231, 258, 419, and there is a short discussion of his circle in Coulon,
2016b, 525–529.
10. A rare and early independent manuscript is Leiden University Library, MS Or
2832, which may be thirteenth century, although while the famous da’ira is
referred to here it is not actually represented in this manuscript. In this study
I rely largely on the printed edition by ‘Atiyya (n. 15 below) and MS Istanbul,
Süleymaniye Library, Hafid Efendi 204, a fifteenth-century manuscript that
also includes al-Bistami’s Miftah al-jafr al-jami‘, and which does illustrate the
circle. See also my remarks on the text in note 19 below. On ‘Abd al-Rahman al-
Bistami, an extremely important but neglected figure, see Gril, 2005, 183–195.
11. On this see Coulon, 2016b, 525–528.
12. It seems that in fact some versions of the Shams al-ma‘arif attributed to al-Buni
drew on one of Bistami’s works, meaning it can be no earlier than the fifteenth
century. On this see Coulon, 2016a, 1–26, esp. 13; Gardiner, 2012, 81–143,
esp. 102–103, 123–129. Further research on the relationship of Ibn Talha’s
al-Durr al-munazzam with the Corpus bunianum is required.
13. Compare, for instance, another recently published circle, which shows remark-
ably little Islamic influence and shows how the letters are served by angels who
all have Hebrew names. Bonmariage and Moureau, 2016, esp. 11–37 for a
discussion.
14. Al-Imam ‘Ali b. Abi Talib, n.d. [c.2014].
15. Ibn Talha, 2004, 17.
16. Ibid., 25.
17. Masad wrongly says 728; 718 is confirmed by both the MS Hafid Efendi 204
and the edition (Ibn Talha, al-Durr al-muntazam, 26).
18. Masad, 1998, 72.
19. Safadi, 1974, II: 353; cf. al-Yunini, 1434, 298 (under the notice for al-
Ikhmimi, ah 684). This passage may suggest that the text seen by the medieval
biographers was rather different from the manuscripts of al-Durr al-muntazam
I have seen, for al-Ikhmimi is not mentioned.
20. Cited in Masad, 1998, 85–86. However, Masad was unaware of the references
in Yunini and Safadi, which were later copied by ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Bistami.
Masad therefore argued that Bistami’s identification of Ibn Talha’s pious friend
as al-Ikmimi was not credible. See also Coulon, 2016b.
21. The authenticity of these works needs examining. See Hamdan, 1985.
22. Coulon, 2016a, 8–13; Gardiner, 2012, 91–94.

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23. Ibn Talha, 1419, 19–22.

24. Al-Khwansari, 1390–1392, V: 259, unseen by me, cited by Kohlberg, 1992,
264.
25. Ibn Talha, 1419, 34.
26. Ibid., 42–44.
27. Cook, 2002, 36–38.
28. Ibn Talha, 1419, 61–224.
29. Ibid., 225–245 deal with Hasan; Husayn is treated in ibid., 246–266.
30. Ibid., 33.
31. Ibid., 119, esp. 185–195.
32. Ibid., 111, cf. 178–179.
33. Ibid., 111.
34. Ibid., 166.
35. Ibid., 110.
36. Ibn al-‘Adim, 1988, V: 2127.
37. Ibn Talha, 1419, 211–213; cf. Newman, 2000, 150.
38. Ibn Talha, 1419, 219–220.
39. Cook, 2002, 195.
40. Eddé, 1999, 443–445.
41. Masad, 1998, 153–155.
42. Pouzet, 1988, 248–250.
43. Kohlberg, 1992, 264.
44. Cook, 2002, 28.
45. Mulder, 2014, 76–80, 103–105; on the Shi‘ite population of Aleppo see also
Eddé, 1999, 436 fols.
46. Mulder, 2014, 103–105.
47. Ibid., 105.
48. Ibid., 1–2.
49. Cf. the comments of Pouzet, 1988, 260.
50. On apocalyticism, see Masad, 1998; on Ibn ‘Arabi and Ismailism, see Ebstein,
2014; for ‘Ali’s role in the occult, see Coulon, 2016b.
51. Ibn Talha, Nafa’is al-‘anasir, fol. 82b–83a.
52. Humphreys, 1977, 286–287.
53. However, for other examples of cultural exchange between Artuqids and
Ayyubids in this period, see Taragan, 2012, 79–88.
54. Ibn Talha, 2000. I have also consulted MS Istanbul, Süleymaniye Library, Yeni
Cami 985, which is dated to 767/1365.

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55. For a preliminary survey of the manuscripts of these works see Brockelmann,
1942–1947, I: 463–464, S, I: 838–839. Note that Brockelmann is mistaken
in his reference to a London manuscript of the Nafa’is al-‘anasir, which he
gives as Br. Mus. 1530; in fact this is entry no 1513 in Cureton’s catalogue,
corresponding to British Library MS Add 25,753 (dated ah 1166).
56. This is Gotha, Landesbibliothek, MS orient A. 1882. Korn describes this
manuscript as belonging to ‘a later phase of Artuqid cultural patronage’, but
this seems uncertain to me as the manuscript is dated 856/1452, after the
conventional dates for the end of the dynasty. Unfortunately, the inscription
on the shamsa has been erased, but it clearly is from a royal library. See Korn,
2011, 385–407, at 397–398 (with a reproduction of the title folio). I am grate-
ful to Bruno De Nicola for supplying me with images from this manuscript.
57. These are the fiqh questions discussed on p. xx. See Ibn Talha, 2000, 214 fols,
which is incorporated word for word into al-Durr al-nadid fi manaqib al-Malik
al-Zahir Abi Sa‘id, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, MS Wetzst. I. 133, fol. 24aff. I
am very grateful to Anne-Marie Eddé for drawing my attention to this text, of
which I understand she is currently preparing an edition.
58. On these works and their relationship, see Carole Hillenbrand, 2013, 59–69.
See also Anon., The Sea of Precious Virtues, 1991, xv–xvi.
59. Al-Ghazali 1971, 4; cf. Marlow, 2004, 180.
60. Peacock, 2016, 285.
61. Ibn Talha, 2000, 81 on al-Mu‘tasim; ibid., 90 on al-Rashid billah; ibid.,
134 on al-Ma’mun; ibid., 110 on al-Mansur; ibid., 126 on al-Muntasir b.
al-Mutawakkil, ibid., 147 on al-Mahdi.
62. Ibid., 79.
63. Ibid., 119.
64. On whom see Stefan Leder, 2015, 106–107.
65. On the relationship between these works see van Gelder, 2001, 313–338.
66. Ibn Talha, 2000, 158.
67. Ibid., 161–163.
68. Ibid., 169.
69. Ibid., 170.
70. In particular Suras Taha 29, al-Furqan 34 and al-Qiyama 11.
71. Ibn Talha, 2000, 173.
72. Cf. al-Mawardi, 2013, 39–49; tr. Yate, 1996, 37–47. Ibn Talha does briefly
mention al-Mawardi (Ibn Talha, 2000, 214), although the book cited here is
al Mawardi’s al-Hawi fi’l fatawa.

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73. Ibn Talha, 2000, 183; cf. al-Mawardi, 2013, 334–335; tr. Yate, 1996, 289.
The following passage dealing with the rate of pay is more or less identical in
the ‘Iqd (184) and al-Mawardi, 2013, 336, tr. Yate, 1996, 291).
74. Ibn Talha, 2000, 196–206.
75. Ibid., 191. Leder, 2015, 99 suggests a distinction was made in this sort of
literature between sultans (who were reconcilable with sharia, even if the insti-
tution was influenced by Iranian royal traditions) and kings, who were not.
However, in this text Ibn Talha clearly uses malik and sultan as synonyms.
76. See note 61 above.
77. Ibid., 181.
78. Ibid., 247.
79. Leiden University Library, MS Or 2833. The manuscript consists of twelve
pages and is dated by Voorhoeve to the thirteenth century (Voorhoeve, 1957,
129). However, readers’ notes on the final folio dated ah 923 and 919 indicate
it continued to circulate in the sixteenth century, perhaps in conjunction with
al-Bistami’s works – a note in a later hand on the cover seems to confuse the
two authors (hadhihi rumuz Ja‘far b. Talha al-Bistami). The Inas al-hikam deals
with the values and meaning of letters in the Qur’an. According to a note at the
end of Leiden MS Or 2832, fol. 19a (al-Durr al-muntazam), with which this
manuscript was probably bound, the works contain the answers given by Ibn
Talha to questions about the tafsir of al-Imam Abu’l-Hakam b. Abi al-Tarkhan.
This copy of the Inas al-hikam was evidently originally bound together with
another short work by Ibn Talha, the Tahsil al-maram fi tafsil al-salwat ‘ala
al-siyam, now held in Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, MS Ldbg. 681, which on
palaeographic grounds was copied by the same scribe and was evidently part of
the same collection of Medinan manuscripts purchased by Landberg.
80. Ibid., 213.
81. Ibid., 214.
82. Ibid., 218; title from MS Yeni cami 985, fol. 214a.
83. Ibn Talha, 2000, 222.
84. Ibid., 227, title from MS Yeni Cami 985, fol 224a.
85. Ibn Talha, 2000, 221.
86. Ibid., 224.
87. Read ghamr with Yeni Cami 985, not ‘umr as the printed text has.
88. Ibn Talha, 2000, 228–229.
89. I am very grateful to Scott Trigg for examining these problems and offering
these comments.

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90. Ibn Talha, 2000, 228–229, 238.

91. Brentjes, 2011, 326–365, esp. 342–344.
92. Cf. the chapter by Julia Bray in this volume.
93. See for example the richly illuminated malhama composed for an unidenti-
fied Mamluk patron, Istanbul, Süleymaniye Library, MS Hekimoğlu 592,
fol. 294b–295a: if the Syrian month of Kanun al-akhir begins on a Sunday, it
means the winter will be mild and rainy, the summer hot and travel danger-
ous; if it begins on a Monday, it means there will be high prices, fighting and
bloodshed in the land of Rum, and so on.
94. Coulon, 2013, III, edited text of al-Lum‘a, 36; analysis in ibid., I: 454–456.
95. Anon., Sea of Precious Virtues, Chapter 31. On ikhtilaj, see Fahd, 1966,
397–429.
96. Ibn Talha, 2000, 245–248.
97. Ibid., 251.
98. Ibid., 255–257.
99. Ibid., 259–261.
100. Ibid., 261.
101. See the discussion of Razi’s Mirsad al-‘ibad and marmuzat-i Da’udi in Peacock,
2016, 289–295.
102. Anon., Sea of Precious Virtues, 301–306.
103. Sibt b. al-Jawzi, 1989. The ninth chapter of this work is devoted to accounts of
‘the righteous and ascetics’ (al-salihin wa’l-zuhhad).
104. MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Ldbg. 681.
105. Wa dhakara innahu jara fi al-maqam al-‘ali al-mawlawi al-sultani al-maliki
al-nasiri al-salahi … tashajur fi al-tafdil bayna al-‘ibadatayn salatan wa-sawman
(MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Ldbg. 681. fol. 1b). The work draws on the
hadith collections of Muslim and Bukhari, but work also reflects contemporary
intellectual trends in its division into an argument based on transmitted sci-
ences (naqli, that is, the hadith collections), and one based on reason, ‘aqli).

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