Rare first edition, combining two important and complementary texts which outline the rites of hajj and umrah, with descriptions of Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem; an online institutional search locates five copies only: Library of Congress, Stanford, Ohio State, Utah, and University of Basel; included is the first printed edition of Majmu'at al-manasik by the eminent 16th century Hanafi scholar Rahmatull h al-Sindi. Rahmatull h al-Sind (d. 993 H/ 1585 CE) was, as his name implies, born in Sind (in modern day Pakistan). As a young man he fled with his father to Hejaz, "frequently the destination for Sindhi scholars fleeing imperial unrest" (Baig, p. 63). Having completed his studies at Mecca under the Indian Sunni scholar al-Muttaqi, he proceeded to Medina, where he lectured in hadith literature. In 1574 he travelled to India, accompanying Haji Begu, empress consort of the Mughal emperor Humayun, who had just completed the hajj. He visited Agra and read hadith with the distinguished historian and translator 'Abd al-Qadir Badayuni, before teaching at Ahmadabad. Returning to Hejaz he "contributed to a new generation of Hanafi scholarship that was steeped in the hadith sciences and was intimately connected to political and intellectual developments in South Asia The vast oeuvre of Rahmatull h al-Sind 's work was on 'ilm al-man sik, the discipline of the rites of pilgrimage. He wrote encyclopaedic tomes for scholars, as well as abridgements as hajj guides for general pilgrims, thus encompassing both scholarly and non-scholarly communities. Rahmatull h wrote his largest Jam' al-Man sik wa Naf' al-N sik (The Compilation of Rites and the Benefit of the Pilgrim) in 950/1543 in Medina, while still in his early twenties [this is not to be confused with the work of the same name by Gümüshânevî]. Though it initially attracted local opposition, it became a landmark in the field that Hanafi scholars in South Asia and the Ottoman Empire consulted for centuries. Drawing upon more than 150 sources of Hanafi law, Rahmatull h laid out in encyclopaedic detail the rulings of pilgrimage, claiming to have produced an unprecedented compilation [striving] to synthesize the vast array of differences amongst Hanafi scholars" (ibid., 65). Fittingly, he died at Mecca. On the page, Rahmatull h's text surrounds that of the Turkish mystic Ahmed Ziyauddin (1813-1893), known as Gümüshânevî or Kumushkhanawi. Gümüshânevî's text, Jam' al-Man sik wa Naf' al-N sik (The Compilation of Rites and the Benefit of the Pilgrim) was also published separately the same year. "Ziyauddin Gümüshânevî had been initiated into the Khalidiya [a branch of Naqshbandiya Sufiism] in 1847 by Shaykh Ahmad b. Sulaiman al-Arwadi After his initiation Gümüshânevî acquired a steadily expanding following which met under his guidance at the Fatma Sultan mosque in the Cagaloglu section of Istanbul. Numerous members of the Ottoman bureaucracy became his followers, and the tekke (religious lodge) he established was visited several times by Sultan Abdulhamid II. In addition to activities conventionally associated with Sufi shaykhs, Gümüshânevî was remarkable for enlisting with his murids [Sufi novices] to fight on the eastern front in the Russo-Ottoman War of 1877; for establishing a printing press to produce works written by himself and others; and for setting up public libraries in Trabzon, Rize, and Of" (Gross, p. 118). The present work may have been published by Gümüshânevî's own press in Istanbul. It is lithographed throughout in naskh script, the first 16 leaves comprising a comprehensive index and the page preceding decorated with simple biomorphic motifs in the hatâyî style; the opening of the text is embellished with an intertwining foliate headpiece. Lithography was introduced to Ottoman Turkey in 1831 by Henri Cayol, a Marseille printer who established a press at Istanbul under the patronage of the admiral and statesman, Koca Hüsrev Mehmed Pasha. Lit
