Risala-yi jild sazi

Before the printing press made its appearance in the Islamic world, books were reproduced in manuscript, as was the case in Europe before Gutenberg (d. 1468) introduced printing in movable type. In that connection, the art of bookbinding was very important. This may be inferred from a special chapter devoted to this subject in Ibn Badis' (d. 453/1061) ?Umdat al-kuttab wa-?uddat dhawi 'l-albab, or from Ibn Abi Hamida's (9th/15th century) didactic poem for bookbinders, called Tadbir al-safir fi sina?at al-tasfir. The present work is a new and improved edition of a didactic poem on bookbinding in Persian, composed in India by a certain Sayyid Yusuf Husayn, somewhere before 1228/1813. About the author not much is known other than that his knowledge of Persian shows some shortcomings and that he must have had mystical leanings. This new edition follows the discovery of another copy of this text in Iran, besides the one kept in Madras (Chennai).