Binding: European binding (repaired) of pasteboards covered with mottled brown leather. The covers have a central frame of four fillets with scallops interspersed with palmettes; at each corner of the central frame are large blind-stamped flower-heads. The covers also have narrow outer frames of two fillets. The spine (five cords) is undecorated. The pastedowns and endpapers (fols. ii–ii, iii–iv) are modern. The numeral 91 has been inked on the fore-edge of the manuscript.Contents note: Ff. 10a-12a are incomplete; f. 12b is blank; some of the tables ff. 48a-49a are incomplete; f.50a has been added by a later hand. Ff. 4b-5a, 12b and 93b-94a contain pencilled notes in several languages by John Greaves (1602-1652), Savilian Professor of Astronomy (1643-8).Dimensions: 26.4 × 18.0 (17.2 × 11.0) cm; the pages have been trimmed.Hand: Main text in Arabic naskh; notes in several other Arabic and Persian hands in addition to three European hands: Greaves, Bernard and unidentified.Layout: 21 lines per page, blank ink with red rubrics; from f. 50a, the text is enclosed in red-inked frames. Tables are laid out in grids using red and black ink.Record origin: "Description abbreviated from Emilie Savage-SmithRecord origin: A descriptive Catalogue of Oriental Manuscripts at St John's CollegeRecord origin: Oxford (Oxford: Oxford University PressRecord origin: 2005)Record origin: Entry No. 6Record origin: pp. 26-30."
Watermarks: initials AG in roman; stars in shield with crown. See Edward Heawood, Watermarks, Mainly of the 17th and 18th Centuries (Hilversum, 1950), p. 36 and nos. 860 and 3886.Text rubricated; copy incomplete.Date of mid-19th century based on author's death date."A commentary on Wasīlat al-mubtadiʾīn li ʻilm ghurrat al-shuhūr wa 'l-sinīn, a poem in 48 verses on the calendar by the same author." Cataloging by Elinor M. Husselman, 1945.
Set of works on mathematics and astronomy copied together in what appears to be the same hand. The second work has a supercommentary copied in the margins. Several leaves of calculations and notations tipped or laid in; two tipped in pages have been foliated along with the leaves (f. 26, 33). Also includes one page in Ottoman Turkish (f.94v).