The Majmū’a of Ahmed Bosanac From Sarajevo

Abstract

Majmū'as form a .specific class of Oriental manuscripts (collections, compilations) written in Arabic, Turkish, Persian or “Bosnian” language. The authors are mainly Bosnians and Herzegovinians. They wrote in majmū'as different things (excerpts from other manuscripts, quṣīdas, ilāhīyās, chronograms, historical notes, receipts, genealogies etc.), described contemporary events and included luable source of interesting information for different scientific their own intellectual products. So the majmū'as are today a vaworks.

The majmū'a of Ahmed Bosanac from Sarajevo originates from the first half of the XVIIth century and it is written in Arabic, Turkish and Persian. lt contains different material from different scientific areas, main[y concerning language and law. One can find there many risaJ.as, some other texts about the subtleties of the Arabic (including definitions, explanations of different words from the philological, legal and philosophico-theological point of view, texts about homonyms and synonyms etc.). There are also many texts from medicine and history, especially the biographies of some scientists and writers.

One of the .important characteristics of this manuscript is that the author cited nearly all sources from which the material originated, unlike many other authors. Along with the texts of famous Arabic, Turkish and Persian scientists and writers he mentions the texts of Bosnians, Herzegovinians, muftis from Skoplje and Sofija and some texts written·by Muniri-efendija Beograđanin.

The majmū'a is exposed, after a preface, in short digests, page by page, sometimes with an abridged, sometimes with complete text.