‘Abd al-Latīf, affiliated with al-Maymaniyya) and Shaykh ‘Abd al-Ghanī ‘Abd al-Khāliq’s edition of Prophetic Medicine. As for the two incomplete manuscripts, they relied on them only rarely, despite their claims about the first manuscript’s exceptional value and their lament over its missing first part.

We shall present evidence of this from the section on medicine, which constitutes the fourth volume of the printed edition. In the first manuscript, this section extends from folio (140) of the second part to folio (11) of the third part.

In the examples below, the two editors departed from their sole manuscript witness and followed al-Fiqī’s edition, whether its wording resulted from the shaykh’s own alterations or was taken from earlier editions.

• (4/ 13): “And charity, prayer, and supplication.” The words “and prayer” are omitted from the al-Risāla edition (4/ 10), although they occur in its manuscript source, because it followed al-Fiqī’s edition (3/ 139).
• (4/ 17): “And whenever the practitioner fails to find the remedy.” Shaykh al-Fiqī added the following words himself (3/ 141): “or the remedy fails to address the illness.” The two editors of the al-Risāla edition (4/ 13) followed him rather than their “precious” manuscript source!
• (4/ 20): “And he found relief from the heat of despair.” Shaykh al-Fiqī (3/ 144) apparently found this expression unusual, so he changed it to “and the heat of despair cooled within him.” The al-Risāla edition (4/ 15) has the same wording.
• (4/ 29): “If it is supposed that it can be dispensed with.” This is how the passage appears in the manuscripts and early editions, without vowel marks. When al-Fiqī (3/ 150) read the verb as qadara (“was able”), he added the preposition ‘alā (“to”) after it. The al-Risāla edition (4/ 22) followed him.