The third copy:
It is a photographic copy of the original manuscript preserved in the Ẓāhiriyyah Library in Damascus, under number (1010). We have designated it with the symbol (J).
The copying of it was undertaken, as stated on its final folio, by al-Sayyid Kamāl al-Dīn, son of al-Sayyid Ibrāhīm al-Dusūqī by lineage, al-Shāfiʿī by school of law, al-Biqāʿī by place of origin.
He completed copying it on the morning of Friday, the sixth day of the month of Shawwāl, in the year one thousand ninety-eight [AH].
This copy came into the possession of the eminent scholar, muḥaddith, and jurist, Shaykh ʿAbd al-Ghanī ibn al-Nābulusī, who died in Damascus in the year (1143) AH and was buried at the foot of Qāsiyūn.
It then passed after that to the governor of Syria, Muḥammad Pasha ibn Muṣṭafā ibn Fāris ibn Ibrāhīm, who died in the year (1197) AH(1), and he endowed it for students of knowledge, stipulating that it should not be removed from its place except for consultation.
This copy is complete, written in a clear naskh script, with few errors occurring in it. At its beginning is an index of the book's contents, which amount to thirty-six books.
Its number of folios is (303) leaves, with each page containing forty lines or more, and each line containing more than twelve words.
Shaykh ʿAbd al-Ghanī ibn al-Nābulusī, who was a venerable and accomplished scholar in ḥadīth, undertook a meticulous collation of it against numerous copies and added--------------------------------------------
(1) Biographical notice in "Silk al-Durar" 4/ 98–102.