it was transferred to the Ahmet III Library in Istanbul.

Is this volume part of the original book, as the wording of the waqf notice affixed to every volume seems to indicate, or did the work actually finish with volume thirteen, with this volume serving as the author’s appendix—an appendix from which al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar drew in al-Durar al-Kāmina 1/3? Both possibilities remain open, and deciding conclusively between them awaits decisive proof.

Description of the volumes of this copy:

1 – Volume Three opens with the biography of Abū ʿUbaydah ʿĀmir ibn al-Jarrah and ends with the biography of Abū Hurayrah, comprising 252 folios. At its close we read: “Copying was completed on the night preceding Friday, the first of the blessed month of Shaʿbān, 739 AH.”

2 – Volume Four opens with the biography of Abū Bakrah Nufayʿ ibn al-Ḥārith, the Prophet’s freedman—peace and blessings be upon him—and ends at the beginning of the biography of Saʿīd ibn Abī l-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī. It runs to 286 folios, apart from the final folio, on which is written: “The fourth part of Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ by the shaykh, imām, authoritative scholar Shams al-Dīn Ibn al-Dhahabī—may Allah prolong his life—has been completed. This is the first copy produced from the author’s own handwriting and collated against it. Following it in the next part, which is the fifth, is Abū Burdah ibn Abī Mūsā ʿAbd Allah ibn Qays ibn Ḥiḍār al-Ashʿarī—may Allah be pleased with him. Copying was finished in 739 AH. Praise belongs to Allah, Lord of the worlds, and may Allah bless Muhammad, His Prophet and the choicest of His creation, and grant him peace.”

Between folio 286 and that last folio there is a gap estimated at eight folios; in it, sequentially, are found the remainder of the biography of Saʿīd ibn Abī l-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī and the biography of al-Akhtal,