Subh al-A'sha fi Kitabat al-Insha

Subh al-a'sha fi kitabat al-insha ("Dawn for the Night-Blind in the Craft of Chancery Writing") is Abu al-Abbas Ahmad al-Qalqashandi's encyclopedia of the chancery secretary's craft in the Mamluk sultanate at Cairo, printed in fourteen volumes by Dar al-Kutub al-Misriyya and al-Matba'a al-Amiriyya between 1922 and 1938. ^{1 2} Its author arranged it "in an introduction, ten maqalas and a conclusion". ³

In his preface al-Qalqashandi ranks chancery writing above every other kind of writing, being "to writing what its sultan is", and praises Egypt for having become the seat of the Abbasid caliphate and the capital of the Islamic realm. ⁴ He says that authors on this craft had differing aims: some set out its principles, some its technical terms, some collected letters, and none had produced a comprehensive work; the finest book on the subject was al-Ta'rif bi-l-mustalah al-sharif by Ibn Fadl Allah al-Umari, but it left out matters such as the pigeon-post slips and confidential notes, so Ibn Nazir al-Jaysh followed it with Tathqif al-Ta'rif to make good the gaps, though he too omitted things such as charges of appointment and descriptions. ^{5 6}

He relates that "around the year 791", on taking up his post in the chancery at the sultan's court, he composed a maqama arguing that writing is the one livelihood fit for a man of learning, preferring chancery writing to the writing of accounts, and setting out what a chancery secretary needs; because it was terse, someone whose judgement he trusted urged him to follow it with a full work serving as its commentary, and after delays he began it. ^{6 7} He says he took in everything in al-Ta'rif and al-Tathqif with additions, described the realms that correspond with this kingdom, their capitals and routes by land and sea, spelled out place names letter by letter, and named the book Subh al-a'sha fi kitabat al-insha. ³

• Introduction, in five babs: the merit of writing, praise of excellent secretaries and blame of foolish ones; the meaning of kitaba and insha, the precedence of chancery writing and of prose over verse; the qualities and manners of secretaries; and others. ⁸
• Maqala 1, what the secretary needs; 2, routes and realms; 3, names, kunyas and titles and what letters and appointments share; 4, correspondence; 5, appointments. ^{9 10 11 12 13}
• Maqala 6, religious charges, remissions, grants, tarkhan exemptions, the change of the fiscal year and memoranda; 7, iqta' grants and tax-farms; 8, oaths; 9, peace treaties and their annulment; 10, kinds of writing practised by secretaries outside the government offices. ^{14 15 16 17}
• Conclusion, in four babs: the barid stations to the Citadel, Gaza, Damascus, Aleppo and Tripoli and the stages to the Hijaz; the routes and towers of the pigeon post; the ice camels and ships; and the beacons and crop-burnings. ^{18 19}

Al-Qalqashandi says that the rulers of Egypt, for all the sweetness of Nile water, the summer heat and the absence of ice there, brought it from Syria to cool their water, and cites Abu Hilal al-Askari that the first to have ice brought to him was al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf in Iraq. ²⁰ He quotes al-Ta'rif that in the days of al-Zahir Baybars there were three ice ships a year, rising under al-Nasir Muhammad ibn Qalawun to eleven; they reached Damietta, the ice went up the Nile to the shore of Bulaq and then by the sultan's mules to the royal drinks store. ²¹ Carriage by camel began under al-Nasir: stations from Damascus to the Citadel, six camels at each, kept there only in the ice season, which he gives as "Haziran and Tishrin II", seventy-one loads, each with a courier and an expert ice-man; ice carried overland was kept for the sultan's own drink, arriving cleaner. Al-Qalqashandi adds that a receipt (raj'a) was written by the chancery for each load arriving by land or sea, which is how the matter concerned the chancery. ^{21 22}

His mainstay for chancery usage is al-Umari's al-Ta'rif and Ibn Nazir al-Jaysh's Tathqif al-Ta'rif, as he says in his preface, and in the conclusion he repeatedly writes "he says in al-Ta'rif" and then adds "I say". ^{3 23 24} He also quotes al-Rawd al-mi'tar and Ibn Sa'id's Haya al-mahall and al-Mughrib. ^{25 26}