“The Earliest Turkish Archery Manual”

A 14th-Century Archery Treatise in Mamluk-Kipchak: Kitab fi ‘Ilm an-Nushshab

Published 2002
Istanbul

An expert archer made this compilation from various Arabic archery sources, most notably from the masterly work of Taybugha al-Ashrafi al-Baklamishi al-Yunani, entitled Kitab Ghunyat at-Tullab fi Ma’rifat Rami an-Nushshab. This archer occasionally offers his personal opinion or preference.

The original manuscript consists of the following chapters:

1. Who Was the First Archer?
2. The Names of the Previous Master Archers
3. The Fundamentals of Archery
4. Shooting Arrows While Standing and Sitting
5. The Faults Committed by Archers While Shooting

This bilingual edition of Kitab fi ‘Ilm an-Nushshab consists of the following sections:

• English section (pp. 1-126)
  
  • Introduction
    • Historical Background
    • Muslim Military Literature
    • Mulsim Archery Literature
    • Description of the Manuscript
    • Summary of the Work
    • Previous Research on the Work
    • The Paris Copy
    • A linguistic comparison of the two copies
  • Linguistic analysis of the text
  • Transcription of the text in the Latin script
  • An English translation
  • A Mamluk-Kipchak-English glossary
  • Bibliography
  • Appendices
    • Technical terminology
    • A Reverse English-Mamluk-Kipchak glossary)
• Turkish section (pp. 127-233)
  
• A facsimile of the original manuscript (pp. 235-367)