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MANUSCRIPT AB

Introduction

The author of AB was Ahmad ibn Isma'il "el Azhari." Both his father and mother belonged to the Dahmashia section of Bedayria

and were therefore ultimately Ga'aliin, claiming descent from el

'Abbas the uncle of the Prophet.

Ahmad "el Azhari " was born at el Obeid in Kordofan, and about

1 830-1 840 went to Egypt and entered the University of el Azhar. He remained there for twelve years as a student and teacher of the Maliki code, and then returned to el Obeid.

In 1 88 1 he proposed returning to Cairo, but on reaching Khar-

toum was requested by Ra'uf Pasha, the Governor-General, to accompany an expedition against the newly arisen Mahdi and attempt

conciliation. The party was, however, all but annihilated and "el Azhari" was among the slain.

The original manuscript, written in 1853, is in the keeping of the

head of the Isma'ilia tanka, to which the family of the author all belong, and was lent to me temporarily in 1907 by "el Sayyid" Isma'il el Azhari, the son of the author and then Kadi of el Obeid.

He had borrowed it from the son of that Sayyid el Mekki who had been the head of the tanka and the Mahdi 's foremost adherent in Kordofan. Since then I have seen various other copies and ex-

tracts, and probably they are very numerous. The headmaster of

el Kamlin school made a copy of the original for the author's son in December 1910, and copies of this copy both for the Director of Education and for me. Having done no more in 1907 than translate the original and not copied out the Arabic I have made frequent use, when in doubt, of the copy made for me.

Of the manner in which the work was composed no more is known than what the author himself states. He seems to have collected a number of current pedigrees, and after eliminating much that he thought worthless to have embellished the remainder with a series of pious aphorisms and arguments, some inferior verses of his own composition, and a wealth of detail as to the present ramifications of his own family. Much of this extraneous matter has been omitted in translation.