LJS 51 Collection of alphabets and encoded correspondence

[LisaFaginDavis]

Ironically, I used to work for Larry Schoenberg and I studied and described this very manuscript for him in the mid-1990s, before he donated his collection to Penn! Here's my description...although I should add that I last saw this manuscript thirty years ago, so I don't remember much about it and some aspects might have been updated since then:

LJS 51. A BOOK OF ALPHABETS AND ENCODED LETTERS], IN ARABIC, MANUSCRIPT ON PAPER
[Syria?, s. XV]
106 folios, collation:I2, II10, III-IV8, V10, VI4, VII6, VIII-XII10, XIII8 , with catchwords in the lower left corner of each verso, 1 column, 13 lines, written in black naskhi and a variety of other scripts, some with the Arabic equivalent written above in red, occasional notes in the margins, half-leather binding, stamped, over plan varnished wood, with paper endsets, some staining and damage, lacking at beginning and end, 178 x 133 (119 x 82) mm.
PROVENANCE:
1) Christie’s 1996.
2) Acquired from Sam Fogg, June 1996.
TEXT:
A remarkable record of encrypted correspondence together with Arabic translations. This volume records communications written between the compiler and various correspondents. The original communications are in approximately one hundred and fifty invented and different ‘alphabets’, some of the letters of which have had the Arabic equivalent written above in red, possibly at a later date. They are decoded and transcribed also in Arabic. Islamic science is an important branch of Arabic medieval knowledge. It was an integral part of Islamic agriculture, chemistry, medicine and mathematics. Islamic culture developed numerous cryptograms for use by close social groups including scholars and magicians as well as tradesmen. They developed arcane scripts for bookkeeping and recording numbers. There are several other Islamic works on cryptograms including Ibn Wahshiyyā’s Kitāb Shauq al-mustaham fi Ma ‘rifat Rumuz al-Aqlam and the book called the Book by Ishrasim.
There is no colophon and neither the author nor the copyist is named in the text. The author’s correspondents include Sharaf al-dīn Mūsā ibn Ijli al-Baridi, shams al-Dīn al-Ridha and, probably the most frequent, al-Shaykh Shihab al-Dīn Ahmad al-Mutarjim who is also called al-Makhdumi al-Ala’i. This is a slightly corrupted form of the name Shibab ad-Dīn al-Djundi al-Ala’i who is also the author’s major authority for the codes. Other authorities mentioned include Burhan al-Dīn al-Qudsi al-Hanafi and Taqi al-Dīn Muhammad ibn Ja’far al-Husayni. The text mentions the towns of Aleppo and Damascus and one of the passages recounts something that occurred in ‘the 730s’ (AH, 1330s AD). This date would be consonant with the script and format of the book. The material is similar to the manner of explanation and arranging of Aydamir Djildaki, a well-known Arab alchemist who died in Cairo in 1342.
One of the alphabets employed, the ‘tree-like’ alphabet (al-qalam al-mushajjar) is identical to one of the same name given in the Kitāb Shawq al Mustaham fi ma’rifat rumuz al-aqlam (Book of the frenzied devotee’s desire to learn about the riddles of ancient scripts) written in about 241 AH (855 AD), where its invention is ascribed to Abū Bakr Ahmad ibn ‘Alī ibn Wahshiyah; edition and English translation by J. Hammer-Purgstall, Ancient Alphabets and Hieroglyphic Characters Explained; with an Account of the Egyptian Priests, the Classes, Initiation and Sacrifices (London 1806), p. 38. Features of some of the other alphabets employed in this manuscript are also to be found in the treatise attributed to Ibn Wahshiyah but many of the alphabets are quite different.
While some of the characters in the alphabet used bear a structural or aesthetic resemblance to characters of the Arabic or Hebrew alphabets, the primary influence on their forms seems to be from the old square inscriptional forms of Aramaic. Some of the characters are composed of lines and combinations of lines ending in small circles, a resemblance to the Kalmosin or Angelic script used among Jews for cabalistic, alchemical and astrological symbolism and occasionally for ciphers. It is thought that these may have evolved from the copying onto papyrus or vellum of the hieroglyphic script of the Akkadians.
In the medieval Christian world cipher-alphabets were not frequently used. The preferred method was the systematic substitution of each Latin or Coptic letter by another. The nature of Arabic script, which involves many compulsory ligatures between neighboring letters and the use of variant forms at word-endings, was not conducive to the application of this kind of substitution cipher, encouraging the use of these arcane alphabets as an alternative method.