- The second manuscript in the Egyptian National Library (م)
This manuscript contains the third and final volume of the book. Its folios are unnumbered, but it comprises more than 23 quires, each containing ten or more folios, as indicated by the scribe in the upper corner at the beginning of each quire. It was copied in 758 AH by “ʿAbd al-Rahmān al-Bilbīsī, the preacher at the Mosque of al-Fakkāhīn in well-protected Cairo,” as stated at its end.
In the centre of the title page is an endowment inscription that reads: “Praise be to Allah. I attest that Sultan al-Malik al-Mu’ayyad Abū al-Nasr (sic) Shaykh has endowed this volume and the preceding one for students of sacred learning, designated his mosque at Bāb Zuwayla as its repository, and stipulated that it must not be taken out on loan or otherwise.”
This al-Malik al-Mu’ayyad is Abū al-Nasr Shaykh ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Mahmūdī al-Zāhirī (759–824 AH), one of the Circassian rulers of Egypt and Syria. He deposed al-ʿAbbās ibn Muhammad in 815 AH, assumed the sultanate, and adopted the title al-Malik al-Mu’ayyad. He demolished “Khizānat Shamā’il,” the prison in which he had been confined, and built in its place the “Mosque of al-Malik al-Mu’ayyad,” which still stands today just inside Bāb Zuwayla in Cairo (1). This is the mosque referred to in the endowment inscription. The manuscript eventually came to be held in the Egyptian National Library under the shelfmark 233 Hadith.
This manuscript is among the most accurate copies. It was collated against the original, as shown by the additions and corrections in its margins and the notation “Collation completed” in places