In 1934 the New York Public Library (NYPL) purchased a sizable collection of 250 volumes of Arabic manuscripts through the fund for Semitic literature that had been provided by Jacob Heinrich Schiff. Ms New York Public Library, Manuscripts and Archives Division, Arabic Manuscripts Collection, Volume 51985A, a facsimile of which is included in the present publication, belongs to the Shīʿī material among the collection.
