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PREFACE.
Early in 1870 I was honoured by the Indian Government with the commission to prepare
a Catalogue raisonné of the Arabic MSS. in the Library of the India Office. I was engaged
on this task, in London, from April 1870 to July 1872. Unfortunately nearly double
that time has been spent in carrying the work through the press.
The larger half of the MSS. belong to the great collection of Muhammadan MSS.
of the East India House. This collection was formed from the libraries of Warren Hastings,
Tippu Sultan, Richard Johnson, the Gaikwar, Dr. Leyden, etc. It comprised above
3000 volumes, which were not even classed according to the different languages (Arabic,
Persian, Urdu, Malay, etc.). In 1869 the Arabic portion was picked out, for the first time,
by Dr. G. Hoffmann (now Professor in Kiel), who also drew up a list, in which the numbers
were arranged according to subjects. The original numeration was left unaltered.
With the exception of the library of Tippu,—of which Major Charles Stewart had
prepared a catalogue, whilst it was still in the College of Fort William,*—these Arabic MSS.
have remained comparatively little known, and only one has, to my knowledge, been used
for an edition.†
The remaining MSS. belong to the Bîjâpûr collection, which consists almost entirely
of Arabic books, only a few being Persian. A full account of the discovery of this collection,
and of the transactions connected with its removal from Bîjâpûr, may be found in the
Bombay Government Records, No. XLI., New Series, pp. 210 sqq. It was once the Royal
Library of the 'Âdil-Shâhs, but was subsequently removed to the Asar Maḥall ائر محل, an
ecclesiastical establishment, which owed its name to the possession of some relics of the
Prophet. There the library was still to be found in 1849, when the attention of the
Government of Bombay was drawn to it by a report of Mr. H. B. E. (now Sir Bartle)
Frere (see Bomb. Gov. Rec., l.c., pp. 215 sqq.). This gentleman also prevailed on a learned
Muhammadan, named Ḥamîd al-dîn Ḥakîm, to prepare a catalogue in Urdu, which was
translated by Mr. Erskine (Bomb. Gov. Rec., l.c., pp. 221 sqq.). After being removed, in
* A Descriptive Catalogue of the Oriental Library of Tippoo Sultan of Mysore, etc. etc. Cambridge, 1809. These MSS. are now
described partly as MSS. of Tippu, and partly as MSS. of the College of Fort William.
† 1442 Johnson (No. 382 of this Catalogue).
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