The Book of Fundamentals on the True Nature of Remedies in Vienna is a manuscript copy of the so-called Kitab al-Abniya 'an haqa'iq ad-adwiya by the 10th-century Persian physician Abu Mansur Muwaffaq ibn 'Ali al-Harawi, the content of which he attributes to the Samanid writer Mansur b. Nuh around 961-976 AD. The book, which features the description of 585 drugs, is remarkable for being the oldest known surviving Islamic manuscript in the Persian language. According to the colophon, it was copied in monumental calligraphic angular (kufic) script by 'Ali b. Ahmad al-Asadi at-Tusi Ash-Shatr in 1055-1056 AD, possibly in Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan. In a later time, Turkish glosses were added in the margins, revealing that the codex resided in Turkey before its eventual inclusion in the Austrian National Library's collection in 1811.
We have 1 facsimile edition of the manuscript "Book of Fundamentals on the True Nature of Remedies": Abu Mansur Muwaffak ibn Ali al-Harawi: Das Buch der Grundlagen über die wahre Beschaffenheit der Heilmittel facsimile edition, published by Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt (ADEVA), 1972
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