Manuscript of the famous Maqāmāt (Orations, literally: sittings, sessions, meetings); a genre of highly developed Arabic rhythmic prose; intended to amuse and entertain but also with critical social, moral and political undercurrents, by Abū Muḥammad al-Qāsim ibn ʻAlī al-Ḥarīrī al-Baṣrī (1054-1122), from al-Baṣrah (Iraq), one of the most celibrated and prolific authors of the 11th/12th centuries. The Maqāmāt have been translated into many European and Oriental languages. They are also known by the titles: al-Maqāmāt al-Ḥarīrīyah and Maqāmāt Abī Zayd al-Surūjī (a fictitious charachter). They are fifty in number. Copied for "Ruhbān Dayr Mārī Yūḥannā al-Shuwayr al-Rūm" (the Melkite (Greek Catholic) Monks of Saint John the Babtist in the town of Shuwayr, Lebanon. The Monastery was founded in 1710). The name, place and date of the copyist is not mentioned. But it was probably in Lebanon and around 1718, few years after the founding of the Monastery; the date of ownership (folio 117a) by Jirjī Dimyān is 1131 (1718 or 1719). The Maqāmāt are followed by two epistles by al-Ḥarīrī: al-Risālah al-Sīnīyah, and al-Risālah al-Shīnīyah addressed to his friend the poet Shams al-Shuʻarāʼ Ṭalḥah (i.e. Ṭalḥah ibn Muḥammad ibn Ṭalḥah al-Nuʻmānī (from al-Nuʻmānīyah, Iraq), d. ca. 1126) in which are mentioned anecdotes and poems. Both epistles were dictated to Ṭalḥah by al-Ḥarīrī in al-Baṣrah (folios 115b-117a).
