TUHFAT AL-A’YAN FI SIRAT AHL ‘UMAN: A HISTORY OF OMAN (VOLS I AND II)
Muhammad Al Salimi (1869 - 1914), 1913 and later

Arabic printed book on paper, the first volume of a two-part series a first edition, 332pp., each folio with 21ll. to the printed page, Hugh R Leach Ex Libris book plate on the opening endpaper, in blind-tooled flapped black binding, the folio 24.4cm x 16cm; and the second volume, 316pp., Hugh R. Leach Ex Libris book plate on the closing endpaper, in blind-tooled indigo cloth binding, the folio 24cm x 15.5cm.

Muhammad Al Salimi (1869 – 1914) was a blind Omani historian, teacher, and activist who helped restore the Imamate of Oman (known as the present-day Sultanate of Oman) after it had been divided by the British Imperialist influence in the late 18th century. It is thought Al Salimi wrote twenty-two or more works in his lifetime, beginning at the tender age of seventeen. His history of Oman was his most recognised work among Western readers and influential on successive Islamic scholars. He completed the Tuhfat al-A ’yan fi sirat ahl ‘Uman’ only one year before his death. Praised for being very comprehensive, including accurate quotations and contextual citations, it was also criticised for promoting his political ideas.

As described in his obituary, Hugh Raymond Leach OBE MBE (MIL) was ‘a man of many parts’. Between 1955 and 1967, he served as a soldier; then as a diplomat (1967 – 1982), he was an ‘Arabis, [a] traveller and explorer, photographer, circus owner, scholar, [and] author.’ Notably, he fell in love with Oman writing: ‘The joy of spending nights in utter solitude or with the Bedouin must be among the most rewarding things in life’. Leach often lectured and published his own papers and books, in an effort to share his experiences and romanticism of the Middle East and Central Asia. The Hugh Leach Library resides within the collection of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs, which Leach joined in July 1962, and was his personal library. It is now housed at Haileybury boarding school in Hertfordshire, England.

Dimensions: the folio 24.4cm x 16cm and the folio 24cm x 15.5cm