460 A.H....

460 A.H., edited by Haj Ismail Ansari, Qum, Iran, 1401. This edition is offset of the following: Lithograph edition dated 1082 A.H., copyist, Muhammad Yahya b. Habib Allah. this was copied from the following: Manuscript dated 1068 A.H., Copyist Ahmad b. Haj Tawwali. This has been compared with the following: Manuscript dated 971 A.H., Copyist: 'Imam al-Din' Ali al-Sharif al- Istrabadi. This was copied from the following: Manuscript dated 571 A.H., Copyist: Muhammad b. Idris al-'Ijli.

This has been compared with the original manuscript of "al-Misbah" written by the author, Shaykh Muhammad b. al-Hassan Abu Jafar al-Tusi, d. 460 A.H. The chain of documents to Shaykh al-Tusi is mentioned in "al-Mashikha" by Shaykh Muhammad Muhsin al-Tehrani, d.1389 A.H. in Najaf, Iraq, as well as other sources.

In this translation, we have made all possible efforts to present an English version of Kumayl's Invocation as close as possible to the original Arabic text, based on the meanings of the equivalent roots in both Arabic and English lexicons. Previous…