in that form. Sometimes he proposes a word in the margin and marks it “perhaps.” If a word is unclear in the main text, he writes it out clearly in the margin and marks it “clarification.”

• Part Two: 233 folios. At its end, the copyist dates its completion, saying: (The poorest of Allah’s servants and the most in need of His mercy, Ismāʿīl ibn Hājī—may Allah pardon him through His bounty and generosity, amen—finished copying it at the beginning of the revered month of Ramadan in the year 767 AH).

• Part Three: 188 folios. He completed it (… at the beginning of the month of Dhū al-Qaʿda in the year 767 AH).

• Part Four: 184 folios. He dated its completion to (the beginning of Allah’s month of Muharram in the year 768 AH).

The final page also contains the following, in a hand other than the copyist’s: “Shaykh Tāj al-Dīn Muhammad, son of the shaykh, imam and scholar Imād al-Dīn Abū al-Fidāʾ Ismāʿīl ibn Bardis al-Hanbalī, praised him in these verses:

The Prophet’s guidance, by Allah’s aid, is now fully set forth,
Encompassing the ways of Allah’s Messenger.

The work of a learned, pious man, with no partisan leaning
Toward any school, but following the sound path.

He follows truth wherever it may be,
And makes it plain to the burdened soul who knew it not.

May Allah’s mercy, morning and evening,
Flow unceasingly from our Lord to his grave.

And I ask my Lord to pardon all
Whose eyes have looked into his books, or who have copied them.”

This Ibn Bardis is the copyist of manuscript (k), described below. He may have included these verses at the end of the third volume, which has not reached us.