[i6]

MANUSCRIPT BA

Introduction

Three copies of this work have been read and carefully compared by me: they are alluded to as MSS. i, 2 and 3 respectively. In addition, portions of it have been incorporated by the author of AB in his work. Innumerable other copies, more or less complete or faulty, also exist in the Sudan. MS. i is in the possession of el Nur

Bey 'Ankara, an ex-Dervish amir, at Omdurman, and it was from it, excepting where the contrary is specifically stated, that the following

translation was actually taken ^.

Subsequently Sheikh el Abbas Muhammad Bedr of Um Dubban, an ex-Kadi of the Khalifa and a Mesallami by race, sent me a copy (MS. 2) taken from a MS. in his possession; and a year later Mr S. Hillelson of the Gordon College lent me a third copy (MS. 3) which had been given him by an old pupil.

All three MSS. are in close agreement, and in several cases the same errors occur in all three.

From internal evidence it is likely that MS. i (excepting paras, ccxxv-ccxxviii) was copied from the original of MS. 2 : the owner of the latter was very positive that the converse could not have taken

place.

MSS. I and 2 are written in a clear fine script, but MS. 3 is written roughly and hastily.

In MS. 3 we have some of the errors of MSS. i and 2 repeated, but in quite a number of cases MS. 3 is right and MSS. i and 2 wrong.

On the other hand, MS. 3 is very carelessly written and contains many fresh slips and inaccuracies not occurring in the other two.

As regards the authorship of the original work, it appears from paragraph ccxxiii that this nisba was written or, more probably,

copied by el Shen'f el Tahir ibn Abdulla of the Rikabia in Dongola early in the sixteenth century (see note to para, ccxxiii and D 5 {d)).

I in the name of God ....

II This is a pedigree giving the origins of the Arabs; for the

' A marginal reference of " reading {x) for {y) " means that x is either an obvious emendation or else the version given by MS. 2 or MS. 3 or AB as opposed to MS. 1 (y).