رسالة د. كهلان الخروصي

… Later came the well known Ib~‡‚ biographer Abƒ al-Q~sim al-Barr~d‚⁽¹⁾ (the beginning of the ninth/ fifteenth century). He included in his list of Ib~‡‚ works “™ifŒ Ab‚ ^ufra”.⁽²⁾ Although he does not claim to have seen the book or part of it، as he usually does when he has really seen a work، he states that the work “is well known among us as Kit~b ?um~m …al-ma`rƒf `indan~ bi-kit~b ?um~m”⁽³⁾ which means that he has no doubt about the book he is describing. Yet from those two sources one cannot draw a definitive clue about the exact name of the work. Thus we have، apart from the title extant in the manuscripts of the work، three different titles so far: Kit~b Ab‚ ^ufra، as Ibn Khalfƒn names it، ™ifŒ Ab‚ ^ufra according to al-Barr~d‚ at his first mention and Kit~b ?um~m as he calls it later.