Dhayl Kashf al-Zunun - al-Tihrani
- Author died
- 1389 AH
- Editions
- al-Maktabah al-Islamiyyah and al-Ja'fari Tabrizi
Dhayl Kashf al-Zunun is a bibliographical supplement and critical commentary composed by the Shi'i scholar Agha Buzurg al-Tihrani (1293–1389 AH / 1876–1970 CE) on Katib Celebi’s (Hajji Khalifa) major bio-bibliographical dictionary Kashf al-zunun 'an asami al-kutub wa-l-funun (The Removal of Doubts Concerning the Names of Books and Arts) . It was arranged, edited, and supplemented by Muhammad Mahdi al-Khirsan .
Composition and Context
The work originated as marginal glosses and annotations (ta'liqat wa-taqyidat) that al-Tihrani recorded on his personal copy of Kashf al-zunun (the 1310 AH print, which he had acquired around 1325 AH) . Beginning in 1329 AH in Samarra, while compiling his encyclopedic bibliography of Shi'i writings, al-Dhari'a ila tasanif al-shi'a (The Means to the Works of the Shi'a), al-Tihrani documented numerous works by Sunni authors that Katib Celebi had omitted, continuing to record additions and corrections until 1386 AH .
The prominent bookseller Nu'man al-A'zami visited al-Tihrani in Samarra towards the end of his life, intending to reprint Kashf al-zunun with these annotations appended as a supplement, but al-A'zami died before realizing the project . Later, in Najaf, the publisher Sayyid Isma'il al-Kitabji of al-Maktaba al-Islamiyya in Tehran undertook an offset reproduction of the Turkish Ministry of National Education edition of Kashf al-zunun and requested al-Tihrani's marginalia to publish at the end of the reprint .
Editing and Structure
Because al-Tihrani's handwritten notes were keyed to the pagination of the 1310 AH print, correlating them with the new offset edition required extensive textual alignment . Al-Kitabji enlisted Muhammad Mahdi al-Khirsan to transcribe the notes, and al-Tihrani granted al-Khirsan permission to organize, revise, and augment them with additional historical information . Al-Khirsan completed this editorial work in Najaf on 26 Jumada al-Ula 1387 AH .
The work opens with an introductory survey addressing Katib Celebi’s life, birth and death dates (noting conflicting reports such as 1066, 1067, and 1068 AH), and the history of subsequent interpolations into Kashf al-zunun, such as the additions made by Ibrahim Efendi (d. 1190 AH) . It also reviews earlier continuations (dhuyul) and supplements written by scholars such as Muhammad Izzati Efendi Veshne-zade (d. 1092 AH), Hanifizada Ahmad Tahir Efendi (d. 1217 AH), Arif Hikmat Bey (d. 1275 AH), Isma'il Pasha al-Baghdadi (d. 1339 AH), and Isma'il Sa'ib Sencer (d. 1360 AH) .
The main text is arranged sequentially by the volume, page, and line numbers of Kashf al-zunun, providing corrections to author names, death dates, book identifications, and descriptions of manuscript copies and related polemical and theological works .
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