Asher Rare Books

British military terrain map of the Persian Gulf, published in Calcutta

HUNTER, Frederic Fraser (editor); Sir Sidney Gerald BURRARD (director). Southern Asia series - Southern Persia sheet - Persia, Arabia and Turkey in Asia
[Dehradun, Survey of India Office], sold at the Map Record and Issue Office, Calcutta, 1912. 61.5 x 88 cm. Large photozincographed (heliozincographed) folding map on a scale of 1:2,000,000 in black, blue and red, with relief shown by contours, hachures and gradient tints. Folded. Full description

€ 15,000

Arabian Peninsula & Gulf States Charts & Maps India & Sri Lanka Iran / Persia Kuwait Qatar Saudi Arabia Turkey & Ottoman Empire

Pamphlet advertising the independence of Hedjaz

[HUSSEIN BIN ALI, Sharif of Mecca and Frederick Stanley MAUDE]. The king of Hedjaz and Arab independence ... together with the proclamation issued at Baghdad by Lieut.- General Sir Stanley Maude, after the occupation of that city by the British forces.
London, Hayman, Christy and Lilly Ltd., 1917. 8vo. With a photographic portrait of Hussein bin Ali for frontispiece and a folding facsimile proclamation (38 x 28 cm). Original stapled wrappers with red lettering on front wrapper. 14, [1], [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 2,000

Arabic Printing & Calligraphy Turkey & Ottoman Empire

Revised and enlarged edition of a 1933 master's thesis on Arabian-Far Eastern relations to ca. 1500

HUZAYYIN, S.A. Arabia and the Far East. Their commercial and cultural relations in Graeco-Roman and Irano-Arabian times.
Cairo, printed by l'institut français d'archéologie orientale, 1942. 27.5 x 18 cm. With 12 relief-printed folding maps with trade routes, some regions, etc. printed in several colours and with the coat of arms of King Fouad I of Egypt on the title page. Original brown publisher's printed paper wrappers with the title of the work and the coat of arms of King Fouad I of Egypt on the front wrapper and the logo of "la Société Royale de Géographie d'Égypte" on the back wrapper. [2 blank], XXIX, [1 blank], 319, [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 1,800

Arabian Peninsula & Gulf States Central Asia China Economic History & Trade

First substantial English translation of Ibn Batuta's travels through the Islamic world and beyond

IBN BATUTA and Samuel LEE (editor). The travels of Ibn Batuta; translated from the abridged Arabic manuscript copies, preserved in the public library of Cambridge. With notes, illustrative of the history, geography, botany, antiquities, &c. occurring throughout the work.
London, printed for the Oriental Translation Committee (colophon: by J.L. Cox). Large 4to (32 x 26). With various passages including the original Arabic text. Later half calf. "XVIII" [=XX], [2], 243, [1] pp. Full description

€ 17,500

Arabian Peninsula & Gulf States North Africa & Egypt Travel & Voyages Africa Travel & Voyages Asia Travel & Voyages Middle East Turkey & Ottoman Empire

Greek and Arabic physicians on pathology and therapeutics

IBN SARABIYUN, Yahya (SERAPIO the elder). Iani Damasceni Decapolitani summae inter Arabes autoritatis medici, Therapeutice methodi, hoc est, curandi artis Libri VII. partim Albano Torino Vitodurano paraphraste, partim Gerardo iatro Cremonensi metaphraste.
Basel, Heinrich Petri, (colophon: March 1543). Folio (20.5 x 29 cm). 17th century black vellum, made from an earlier liturgical music manuscript. [24], 491, [1] pp. Full description

€ 18,000

Early Printing - 16th century Medicine & Pharmacy (16th Century) West Asia

10 Mediaeval works on health, medicine, food and wine in a rare early edition, including notes by Ibn Sina

IBN SINA (AVICENNA), Maynus de MAYNIS, Arnaldus de VILLANOVA, [Roger BACON] et al. Regimen sanitatis Magnini Mediolanensis ... Insuper opusculu[m] De flebothomia editum ... Reginaldo de Villa Nova. Additur quoq[ue] Astronomia Hippocratis ... de variis egritudinibus et morbis. Item Secreta Hippogratis. Item Averrois De venenis. Ite[m] Quid pro quo apothecariorum ... Nicolaum ... Cum no[n]nullis insuper Avicenne: ...
[Lyon, Barthélemy Trot] (colophon: Lyon, printed by Jacques Myt, 6 February 1517). Small 4to (19 x 14 cm). With title-page in red and black with Trot's woodcut publisher's device, 12 decorated woodcut initials plus 3 repeats. 17th-century(?) calf, gold-tooled spine; rebacked with the original backstrip laid down. CI, [3] ll. Full description

€ 25,000

Medicine & Pharmacy (16th Century) Wine / Viticulture

First edition of Mantino's Latin translation of book 1, part 4 of Ibn Sina's magnum opus The Canon of Medicine

IBN SINA (AVICENNA) (and Jacob MANTINO, translator). Avicennae quarta fen primi libri de universali ratione medendi: nunc primum. m. Iacob Mantini medici hebrei: opera Latinate donata.
(colophon:) Venice, Lucantonio Giunti, 8 April 1530. 8vo. With Giunti's printer's device on the title page (a Florentine lily with the L. A. initials). Later vellum with more recent end leaves. 60 ll. Full description

€ 8,500

Early Printing - 16th century Iran / Persia Medicine & Pharmacy (16th Century)

A commentary on Ibn Sina

[IBN SINA (AVICENNA)]. ODDIS, Oddus de (Oddo degli ODDI). In primam totam fen primi libri canonis Avicenn[a]e dilucidissima & expectatissima expositio. Nunc primum in lucem edita, illustrata, & completa assiduo labore, & longo studio Marci Oddi medici eiusdem filii.
Venice, Paolo and Antonio Meietti, 1575. 4to. With woodcut device on title-page, a woodcut headpiece, 3 large and 17 smaller woodcut decorated initials, and a small woodcut decoration (plus 1 repeat). Contemporary limp vellum, with manuscript title on spine. [8], 499, [33] pp. Full description

€ 7,500

Early Printing - 16th century Medicine & Pharmacy (16th Century)

Al-Idrisi's geographical account of northern Africa

AL-IDRISI, Muhammad and Joannes Melchior HARTMANN (translator). Africa.
Göttingen, Johann Christian Dieterich, 1796. 8vo. Slightly later black half goatskin. CXXIV, 530, [50] pp. Full description

€ 4,500

Geography Islamic Art, Culture & Science North Africa & Egypt

First and only edition of one of the earliest works on Persian grammar

IGNATIUS a Jesus (Carlo LEONELLI). Grammatica linguae Persicae. Auctore Patre Fratre Ignatio à Jesu Carmelita Discalceato missionario, & vicario residentiae Tripolis, & Montis Libani.
Rome, Propaganda Fide, 1661. 4to. With a device on the title-page, 1 woodcut decorated initial, decorations built up from arabesque typographic ornaments and a 4-page letterpress table showing the Persian alphabet with the initial, medial, final and stand-alone forms of the letters. Modern ivory vellum in the style of the time, manuscript title on spine. [2], 60 pp. Full description