Title
A leaf from a manuscript of al-Qazwini’s 'Aja'ib al-Makhluqat
Year/Period
ca 1570
Region
India, Deccan, Bijapur
Material
Dimension
Object size: 32.6 x 25.3 cm
Accession No.
2015-00583
Collection of
This double-sided folio from a dispersed manuscript of al-Qazwani’s ‘Ajab’ib al-Makhluqat describes the circulation of the lunar and solar eclipses, with annotated diagrams. It is written in black and gold Arabic naskh script. Abu Yahya Zakariya Ibn Muhammad Ibn Mahmud al-Qazwini (1208-82 AD) was a physician, astronomer, and geographer born in Qazwin, Persia. His cosmography, the 'Aja'ib al-Makhluqat wa Ghara'ib al-Maujudat (The Wonders of Creation and the Peculiarities of Existing Things) was immensely popular in the Islamic world for centuries, and survives to us in many copies. Written in Arabic around 1270, it was later translated into Persian and Turkish.
