The following press release has been issued by the Bodleian Library, Oxford.

The Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford has purchased what may
be the most important Islamic scientific manuscript to come on the
market for the last 100 years. 'The Book of Strange Arts and Visual
Delights' is a remarkable medieval Arabic manuscript which contains an
important and hitherto unknown series of colourful maps, giving unique
insight into medieval concepts of the world.

The purchase of the manuscript, which cost £400,000, was made possible
thanks to generous grants and donations from the Heritage Lottery Fund,
the National Art Collections Fund, the Friends of the Bodleian Library,
a number of Oxford colleges, and individual firms and supporters.
The manuscript is made up of two books, the first on celestial matters
and the second on terrestrial matters, and consists of 48 folios (96
pages). It includes two world maps, a map of Sicily and one of Cyprus, as
well as astronomical diagrams, most of which are unparalleled in any other
Greek, Latin, or Arabic material known to be preserved today.

The author is unnamed and has not so far been identified. Internal evidence
regarding the sources used by the author (largely of the 9th or 10th
centuries), the dates mentioned in the text,and acknowledgement of the
Fatimid imams, who ruled at Cairo from969-1171, enables experts to suggest
that the treatise was composed inthe late 11th or early 12th century, and
that this copy was probably made in the late 12th or early 13th century in
Egypt or Syria.
Lesley Forbes, Keeper of Oriental Collections at the Bodleian Library,
said: 'This is not only an Islamic scientific manuscript of the first
importance for scholarship, but its acquisition by the Bodleian, most
fittingly in the year of the Library's 400th anniversary, also provides
a magnificent opportunity to increase public awareness of the Islamic
contribution to our common heritage.

'Additionally the manuscript is of supreme importance for the Bodleian's
collections. The Bodleian has one of the few important collections of
medieval Islamic cartographic manuscripts in Europe, including two of
the six other [later] known copies of the famous al-Idrisi map, which is
also included in this medieval atlas.'

In addition to meeting the balance of the purchase price of the
manuscript, the grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) will enable
the manuscript to be conserved so that it can be displayed to the public
and made available for study. In addition, the HLF grant will allow a
web-site devoted to the manuscript and interpreting it to be created,
and an outreach programme to be developed, so that this important
scientific manuscript can be made available to the widest possible
audience.

The manuscript, which is in a fragile state, will be on special
temporary display from 1-8 July 2002 as part of the Bodleian 400th
anniversary exhibition 'Wonderful things from 400 years of collecting:
the Bodleian Library, 1602-2002', before being removed to enable
essential conservation work to begin. It is expected that a working copy
will be provided by the end of 2002.