Hamasah of Abu Tammam, an anthology of early Arabic poems, containing 10 books of poems, with 884 poems in total. Many are part of longer poems, and include satires, love poems, dirges, epic poems, classified by subject.
Copied in 1886, for presentation to William Tweedie. Red and black lettering. In naskhi, Arabic.
General William Tweedie (1836-1908) was the son of Rev William King Tweedie, an alumnus of St Andrews University. He served in the Bengal Staff Corps, was Political Resident in Turkish Arabia and H.M.'s Consul-General at Baghdad. He wrote The Arabian Horse, his Country and People, with Portraits of Typical or Famous Arabians and Other Illustrations (1894), a study of the Arabian horse and the Arab people, written while in Baghdad between 1885-1891.
Abu Tammam (804-845) was born near Damascus into a Christian family, and was apprenticed to a weaver. He later travelled to Egypt where he became an accomplished writer of panegyrics at the the court of Al Mutasim, younger son of Harun al-Rashid of the Abbassid dynasty. He continued to travel, in Armenia and Iran, where tradition has it that while snowbound in Hamadan, he used the fine library to compile the important anthology of early Arabic poetry known as the Hamasah. He produced his own diwan on the theme of historical events. He died in Mosul in Northern Iraq.
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Part of the Tweedie Collection, catalogued by DM Dunlop.
Call number used to be ms msPJ7641.A1
Individual Manuscripts and Small Collections database available as part of Manuscripts Database.
Description compiled by Maia Sheridan, Archives Hub project archivist, based on material from the Manuscripts Database
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