Muḥammad b. al-Ḥājj ʿAlī (active by 1051 AH / 1641–42 CE.); ʿAlī b. al-Ḥājj Ḥasan al-Qaramānī [scribe].

Imdād al-ḥukkām wa-muʿīn quḍāt al-Islām.

Ottoman lands, probably Anatolia, copied by ʿAlī b. al-Ḥājj Ḥasan al-Qaramānī, completed in Shaʿbān 1082 AH / December 1671–January 1672 CE.

8° (19.5 x 13.5 cm), Arabic manuscript on paper. 243 folios, numbered in Arabic numerals. Arabic text in black ink with red rubrication, red overlining, and frequent red textual markers, written in a neat Ottoman nastaʿlīq hand, mostly 27 lines per page. Table of chapters at the beginning, arranged in black and red.

With extensive marginal notes, ownership inscriptions, seal impressions, and later Ottoman Turkish annotations throughout.

Bound in plain limp brown leather with writing on the edges.

A later Ottoman Turkish farāʾiḍ text, dated 1167 AH / 1753–54 CE, was added to the manuscript; its date coincides with an ownership note of Aḥmad Najīb/Ahmed Necib b. Wāfī(?) Sulaymān Efendi al-Kutāhī, suggesting that the addition belongs to his period of ownership, though authorship is not established.

The main work is by Muḥammad b. al-Ḥājj ʿAlī and was copied in 1082 AH by ʿAlī b. al-Ḥājj Ḥasan al-Qaramānī. It is followed by an anonymous Ottoman Turkish text on Islamic inheritance law (farāʾiḍ), dated 1167 AH / 1753–54 CE.

               A substantial dated Ottoman manuscript of Imdād al-ḥukkām wa-muʿīn quḍāt al-Islām, a Hanafi legal compendium for judges and administrators. The author identifies himself in the opening as “the poor servant ... Muḥammad b. al-Ḥājj ʿAlī, one of the judges of Islam” (Muḥammad b. al-Ḥājj ʿAlī min quḍāt al-Islām). The work belongs to the practical Hanafi legal tradition, gathering rulings, procedural guidance, and selected questions useful to qāḍīs, governors, and officials responsible for applying Islamic law.

The manuscript opens with an extensive table of contents, listing the books, chapters, and sections of the work. The text cites or draws on major Hanafi authorities, including al-Hidāya, Qāḍī Khān, al-Khāniyya, al-Wiqāya, Kanz al-daqāʾiq, Majmaʿ al-baḥrayn, and related legal manuals. The red rubrication marks chapter divisions, key terms, and cited authorities, giving the manuscript the appearance of a working judicial reference book.

Muḥammad b. al-Ḥājj ʿAlī was a Hanafi jurist and judge active in the mid-17th century. In the opening of Imdād al-ḥukkām he describes himself as “one of the judges of Islam,” and the work reflects this professional context: it is a practical compendium of Hanafi rulings for judges and administrators. His biography remains obscure, but manuscript records place the composition of the work in or by 1051 AH / 1641–42 CE.

The colophon is preserved and records the completion of the copy in Shaʿbān 1082 AH / 1671–72 CE, by the hand of ʿAlī b. al-Ḥājj Ḥasan al-Qaramānī. The main Arabic text is followed by a shorter Ottoman Turkish text on Islamic inheritance law (farāʾiḍ), opening with the basmala and a red heading mentioning farāʾiḍ. This appended text ends with a separate dated note in 1167 AH / 1753–54 CE.

The volume preserves rich later paratext. Several Ottoman ownership inscriptions and seal impressions occur on the endleaves and margins. One important Ottoman Turkish note appears to belong to Aḥmad Najīb/Ahmed Necib b. Wāfī(?) Sulaymān Efendi al-Kutāhī, dated 12 Rabīʿ II 1167 AH / 6 February 1754, close in date to the appended inheritance text. Together these notes show that the manuscript remained in active Ottoman legal and scholarly use for several generations after its copying.

Condition: Binding worn, with rubbing and small losses. Smell label on front cover. Endleaves soiled end loosening, occasional edge wear, some paratextual notes and seal impressions rubbed or partly illegible. Main text generally in very good condition.