Zakhire'ye Kharazamshahi,

Largest encyclopedia of galenic medicine in persian. Zayn al-Din Jurjani (d. 1137) was a Persian physician who worked under the patronage of to Kharazamshahs during his lifetime: Qutb al-Din Khwarazm Shah Abu'l-Fath Muhammad ibn Yamin-al-Din (r.1097-1127 AD) and Atsiz ibn Muhammad (r.1127-56 AD). This text is his most comprehensive and influental work and it is dedicated to Qutb al-Din Khwarazm Shah, believed to have been authored around 1110.

The Zakhire'ye Kharazamshahi is considered the first medical encyclopaedia written in Persian, supplying information from all branches of medicine in the interest of saving a physician the time involved in consulting multiple sources during their practice. It is the largest encyclopaedia of Galenic medicine in the Persian language and an important text for the study of Persian medicine in for it's use of 'pure Persian' technical medical language and vocabulary.

This text contains 9 of the 'kitabs' (books) which are each subdivided into multiple guftars and babs (teachings and chapters), which are enumerated in the preface. The subjects of those respective chapters are as follows: (I) Definition and utility of medicine; composition, structure, and powers of the human body; (II) Health and disease; causes and symptoms of disease; accidents of the body; (III) Preservation of health; (IV) Diagnosis of diseases; crisis and prognosis; (V) Fevers, their various kinds, their symptoms and treatment; (VI) Local diseases and their treatment; (VII) Tumours and ulcers etc; (VIII) The care to be taken of the external parts of the body, hair, skin, nails etc; (IX) Poisons and antidotes.

Early manuscript copies of this text are scarce and often only contain 2 or 3 of the books, by comparison this copy is extensive and represents a scarce early example of the text, containing 9 of the 10 books, from the Timurid Period.

3 volumes, containing 9 chapters (of 10), decorated manuscript on paper, in Farsi, circa 800 leaves, 9 some leaves in later manuscript facsimile to complete the text (3 at the beginning of vol. 1 and 6 at the end of vol. 3), each vol. 285 x 205 mm (11¼ x 8 inches); single column, 27 lines informal black naskh or nasta'liq, copied in a number of different hands, leaves foliated and with catch-words, headings and important words in red, some leaves with margins repaires, a few later ink inscriptions, some light finger soiling or smudging, a few early ink seal impressions, mostly to the ends of each 'kitab'; eighteenth-century boards, rebacked and edges repaired, lower boards of volumes 2 and 3 replaced with later leather-backed boards, edges rubbed.