with a new title page bearing the inscription: “The second part of al-Hady al-Nabawī (The Prophetic Guidance), by the shaykh, the imam, the learned scholar who acted upon his knowledge …” The text that follows has been obliterated. Beneath it, in another hand, is written: “An endowment of the late ‘Ilmī ‘Alī Efendi.”
It was collated against another manuscript. In several places, the margin bears the notation “Collation reached here”; it also contains additions restoring omitted text. Elsewhere, variant readings are recorded and marked “kh”, indicating the other manuscript. A marginal note on 151/b states: “Collation and correction have reached this point against a manuscript read to the author, may Allah have mercy on him.”
The manuscript is generally good, but it frequently preserves readings and additions not found in the others. Some of these additions may have been supplied through collation against the source from which the author quotes. They often agree with the additions in manuscript (n), or with those entered in a different hand in the margins of (z).
- The Ahmad III manuscript (th)
This manuscript consists of three volumes, of which only the second was available to us. It extends from the beginning of “Chapter on the Beginning of the Emigration” (3/ 52) to the words: “The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, then recited to him the verse from Sūrat al-Nūr (Light) and said: ‘Do not marry her’” (5/ 161).
It is held in the Ahmad III Library in Turkey under number 444. Previously, it had been endowed to the library of the Mahmūdiyyah Madrasa in Medina, as indicated by the seal on the second page.
This volume comprises 269 leaves, with 25 lines per page. The cover page bears several ownership inscriptions, some of which have been crossed out.