(the original), (B), (C), and (D); the verification and collation were conducted on the basis of the first three copies. Copy (D) was consulted only rarely, for corroboration, for reasons that will be given when that copy is discussed.

1 – The “original” copy
This manuscript is preserved in the Egyptian National Library in Cairo under catalogue number (13) Majāmiʿ, entitled: “A Treatise by Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah.” The microfilm number is (53073). It forms part of a collection whose opening work is Ibn al-Qayyim’s Al-Dāʾ wa al-Dawāʾ; the colophon of that work is dated 1187 AH. After six interpolated lines containing a tawassul through the Prophet ﷺ, our treatise appears, occupying ten folios, from 140a to 149a. It is followed by a treatise called Radd al-Quburiyyah, selected from Ighāthat al-Lahfān min Maṣāyid al-Shayṭān, and the compilation ends at folio 192.

The written area measures 20 × 15 cm, each page containing 23 lines in a neat, clear hand. No date of copying is recorded, but the handwriting resembles that of the preceding work, which—as noted earlier—was penned in the last quarter of the twelfth century AH. The scribe is unknown.

The manuscript introduces the treatise with the words: “This is a book sent by the shaykh, the imām, the scholar, the erudite authority, Shaykh al-Islam, Muftī of the Muslims, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr, known as Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah—may Allah have mercy on him—which he wrote to one of his brothers for the sake of Allah, Exalted is He.”