Mawlid al-Mustafa [Birth of the Chosen One].

8vo (160 x 225 mm). 39 ff. Arabic manuscript on paper. Black naskh script in 13 lines per page, with angled marginal commentary. Contemporary purple cloth and marbled boards, with flap. A treatise on Mawlid - that is, the birth of the Prophet Muhammad - by the Egyptian Shafi'i scholar Hasan al-Madabighi (d. 1756/57 CE), who studied at al-Az'har, Egypt's oldest university. Al-Madabighi's work is itself an abridged version (Mukhtasar) of another work on the same topic: "al-Mawlid al-Sharif" by al-Najm al-Ghayti (1504/05-1573/74 CE), who also lived and worked as a Shafi'i scholar in Egypt. - Originally composed in 1151 H (1738/39 CE), the work preserved in this manuscript was copied in 1271 H (1854 CE) by the scribe 'Abd Allah al-Wafi, likewise of Egypt. Two manuscript copies of the same work are available at Yale, both copied several years later, in 1857 CE. - Being a Shafi'i scholar, al-Madabighi's other known works are commentaries on Muslim law, hadith, and grammar; a Mawlid text is an interesting inclusion to round out his oeuvre. Mawlid literature is often composed for the holiday by the same name, when Mawlid works may be read or sung aloud as part of celebrations across much of the Muslim world. - Light wear to boards; disbound, but without any loss or disorder. - Not listed in Brockelmann.