“In the past, to reproduce books, scribes copied from books and then calligraphed and engraved a calligraphy on the stone, and it was embossed, inked and finally printed on paper.” Ojabi, Director General of Manuscripts and Rare Books of NLAI Said, He added that there is a complete stone book bank in this organization. Some libraries, such as the Marashi Najafi Library or the Astan Quds Razavi Library, specialize in focusing on religious books. Still, the NLAI, the Majlis, or the University of Tehran libraries possess a wide variety of manuscripts.
The book “Single Spice” consists of five volumes. It includes the knowledge of medicine and pharmacology of centuries ago, which belongs to the Andalusian physician and pharmacologist named Ibn Samagūn, who had collected all the ideas of his previous and contemporary physicians with a critical approach.
The prominent biologist Sezgin identified the second to fifth volumes of this immortal work of pharmacology and published it as a facsimile, stating in the abstract that the first volume had not been found.
Fortunately, the General Directorate of Manuscripts and Rare Books of the NLAI found and purchased the first volume of this book, which belongs to the 6th lunar century.
In the end, Ojabi spoke about the purchase of several prominent copies in this organization, which are:
- Al-Amali manuscript of Al-Shaykh al-Saduq with the calligraphy by Ibn Sakūn along with the printed books of the library of the late Abbas Qomi (in the field of religion);
- A small octagonal Qur’an with a diameter of 3/2 written in 784 AH;
- The second old Divan of Hafez and Kulliyat e Saadi (written in 989 AH); a complete version of Shahnameh related to the early Safavid era .
