Risalat Usul al-Tashih - Musawwada - ضمن "Athar al-Muallimi
- Author died
- 1386 AH
- Editions
- Dar Alam al-Fawa'id lil-Nashr wa-al-Tawzi'
Risalat Usul al-Tashih (Musawwada) is a treatise on the principles and methodology of textual editing and critical correction (tashih) by the Yemeni scholar Abd al-Rahman al-Muallimi al-Yamani (1313–1386 AH / 1894–1966 CE).
Background and Purpose
Al-Mu'allimi drafted the treatise after several years of direct professional experience correcting classical Arabic texts at the press of Da'irat al-Ma'arif al-Uthmaniyya in Hyderabad, Deccan. Observing that many contemporaries and print shop managers underestimated the difficulty and scholarly value of textual correction, he composed the work to delineate the requirements and standards expected of a competent editor. Along with al-Mu'allimi's related writings on the subject, it represents one of the earliest modern Arabic treatments of critical editing (tahqiq), drafted prior to the appearance of Abd al-Salam Harun's manual on manuscript editing.
Contents and Method
The treatise begins with an introduction outlining the value of textual correction and the widespread neglect of its scholarly demands. Al-Mu'allimi examines the prevailing approaches adopted by commercial printing presses and publishers, critiquing their shortcomings. He highlights the deficiency of restricting correction to mere typographical conformity with a single handwritten exemplar, noting that manuscript copies are rarely free from scribal errors, corruptions, and ambiguous scripts.
At the conclusion of the treatise, al-Mu'allimi proposes a comprehensive organizational model for editing classical works: that a publisher establish a dedicated library and maintain a staff of salaried, qualified scholars tasked with handling all three branches of the editing process—manuscript collation (muqabala), substantive scholarly correction (al-tashih al-haqiqi), and typographical proofreading (al-tashih al-matba'i).
Manuscript and Publication
The author's autograph manuscript of this draft is preserved in the Makkah Library of the Holy Mosque under shelf mark no. 4720. It comprises 28 pages written in a pocket notebook and is considered by the editors of his collected works to be his earliest draft on the subject, bearing the explicit title Usul al-Tashih in al-Mu'allimi's own hand. The work was published as the third treatise within Volume 23 of his multi-volume collection Athar Abd al-Rahman ibn Yahya al-Muallimi al-Yamani, which gathers his essays and studies on textual editing and critical correction.
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