抄録
Badr al-din Mahmud al-'Ayni, a celebrated 'alim of the Circassian Mamluk Period, is also known as the author of the huge world chronicle, 'Iqd al juman. In spite of its importance as a source for the Bahri Mamluk Period, 'Iqd remains unpublished except for very small parts; neither has the relationship among the various manuscripts been studied.
To grasp the whole structure of 'Iqd, I investigated a number of manuscripts, including 16 autographs, and identfied the following series:
1. Series of 19 volumes (autographs and al-Ikhmimi's set)
2. Series of (presumably) 38 half-volumes (al-Azhari's set etc.)
3. Series of four large volumes, which is composed of fragments from the above two series (Ottoman set)
It also became clear that several manuscripts of unknown origin were wrongly labeled as 'Iqd, like Ahmad al-'Ayni's set, and that a few fragments of Ta'rikh al-badr, another of al-'Ayni's chronicles, were mingled with 'Iqd in the Ottoman set.
Next, as a sample, I took the descriptions of the year 728AH from eight manuscripts, including not only 'Iqd MSs, but also Badr MSs, and compared them. Consequently, I was able to identify four groups of al-'Ayni's writings as follows:
1. The complete version of 'Iqd (MS Ahmet 2911/a17, Süleymaniye 835, Besir Aga 457)
2. The extract version of 'Iqd (MS Ahmet 2911/a18)
3. The complete version of Badr (MS Süleymaniye 830, BL Add. 22360)
4. The extract version of Badr (MS Carullah 1591, Selim Aga 837)
Thus, when we investigate the period from 725 to 745AH, i. e. Vol. 17 of the 19-volume series, we should refer to the complete version of 'Iqd, and also to the complete version of Badr, which contains information beyond that in 'Iqd.
