Islamic Manuscripts and Books - Böcker

From as early as the 1600s, Dutch scholars and scholarship have displayed a keen interest in the studies of the Islamic world. Over the centuries, they have collected a wealth of source texts in various languages, Turkish texts being prominent among them.The present catalogue is the fourth and final volume in a series that covers the Turkish manuscripts preserved in public libraries and museums in the Netherlands. The volume gives a detailed description of Turkish manuscripts in minor Dutch collections, found in libraries and museums in Amsterdam, Groningen, The Hague, Leiden, Rotterdam and Utrecht, which hitherto have received little or no attention.

Print culture, in both its material and cognitive aspects, has been a somewhat neglected field of Middle Eastern intellectual and social history. The essays in this volume aim to make significant contributions to remedying this neglect, by advancing our knowledge and understanding of how and why the development of printing both affected, and was affected by, historical, social and intellectual currents in the areas considered. These range geographically from Iran to Latin America, via Kurdistan, Turkey, Egypt, the Maghrib and Germany, temporally from the 10th to the 20th centuries CE, and linguistically through Arabic, Judæo-Arabic, Syriac, Ottoman Turkish, Kurdish and Persian.

The Yahuda Collection was bequeathed to the National Library of Israel by one of the twentieth century's most knowledgeable and important collectors, Abraham Shalom Yahuda (d. 1951). The rich and multifaceted collection of 1,186 manuscripts, spanning ten centuries, includes works representing the major Islamic disciplines and literary traditions. Highlights include illuminated manuscripts from Mamluk, Mughal, and Ottoman court libraries; rare, early copies of medieval scholarly treatises; and early modern autograph copies. In this groundbreaking Arabic catalogue, Efraim Wust synthesizes the Islamic and Western manuscript traditions to enrich our understanding of the manuscripts and their compositions. His combined treatment of Arabic, Persian, and Turkish manuscripts preserves the integrity of the collection and honors the multicultural history of the Islamic intellectual tradition.

There are over 275 Ottoman Turkish and Çaĝatay manuscripts in Canada, including more than 200 in the collection of Professor Eleazar Birnbaum. These are remarkable in terms of age (mostly 15th to 17th century) and subject range. The descriptions in this catalogue are unusually detailed: they include author, title, subject, contents, first and last words, date of manuscript, calligraphy, foliation, dimensions, and the location of similar manuscripts elsewhere. Among other special features are details of watermark designs in the paper (useful for dating undated manuscripts), descriptions of seals and notes of previous owners, and many colour illustrations. The catalogue also describes all Turkish manuscripts in the three other small Canadian collections: at the University of Toronto, McGill University (Montreal), and the Royal Ontario Museum.

Dans L'art du livre en Asie centrale de la fin du XVIe au début du XXe siècle, Marie Efthymiou met en lumière le riche patrimoine manuscrit de cette région encore mal connue. Traditionnellement rattaché au seul monde iranien, il apparaît au confluent de riches transferts culturels et de vastes circuits d'échanges, où émerge le rôle majeur de l'Inde du Nord et d'importantes spécificités locales.Grâce à l'analyse méticuleuse des manuscrits coraniques de l'Institut Al Bīrūnī, Marie Efthymiou décrit les mutations des techniques de fabrication du livre, renouvelant la connaissance du papier de Samarcande et révélant le dynamisme de Kokand comme centre de production. Un questionnement novateur des usages du livre en restitue la place dans la société et les pratiques de dévotion.In L'art du livre en Asie centrale de la fin du XVIe au début du XXe siècle, Marie Efthymiou sheds light on the rich cultural heritage of Central Asia, a still relatively unknown region. Traditionally considered part of a single Persian cultural domain, it in fact bears witness to a rich convergence of cultural transmissions and trade routes, with strong external influences from North India as well as strong local characteristics. By a meticulous analysis of the Quranic manuscripts of the Al Bīrūnī Institute of Oriental Studies, Marie Efthymiou depicts the technical changes of bookmaking, providing new evidence on Samarcand paper and revealing Kokand as a major centre of production. An innovative approach of the manuscripts' uses traces their place in society and in the everyday life of worshippers.

The Yemeni Manuscript Tradition contributes to the study of the manuscript codex and its role in scholastic culture in Yemen. Ranging in period from Islam’s first century to the modern period, all the articles in this volume emerge from the close scrutiny of the manuscripts of Yemen. As a group, these studies demonstrate the range and richness of scholarly methods closely tied to the material text, and the importance of cross-pollination in the fields of codicology, textual criticism, and social and intellectual history. Contributors are: Hassan Ansari, Menashe Anzi, Asma Hilali, Kerstin Hünefeld, Wilferd Madelung, Arianna D’Ottone, Christoph Rauch, Anne Regourd, Sabine Schmidtke, Gregor Schwarb and Jan Thiele.

Arabic is the third most widely used script in the world, and gave rise to one of the richest manuscript cultures of mankind. Its representation in type has engaged printers, engineers, businesses and designers since the 16th century, and today most digital devices render Arabic type. Yet the evolution of the printed form of Arabic, and its development from metal to pixels, has not been charted before. Arabic Type-Making in the Machine Age provides the first comprehensive account of this history using previously undocumented archival sources. In this richly illustrated volume, Titus Nemeth narrates the evolution of Arabic type under the influence of changing technologies from the perspective of a practitioner, combining historical research with applied design considerations.

The Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences ‒ established in 1826 ‒ houses many small and still hidden collections. One of these, the most comprehensive Hungarian collection of Arabic manuscripts, is brought to light by the present catalogue. These codices are described for the first time in a detailed and systematic way. A substantial part of the manuscripts is either dated to or preserved from the 150 year period of Ottoman occupation in Hungary. The highlights of the collection are from the Mamluk era, and the manuscripts as a whole present a clear picture of the curriculum of Islamic education. The descriptions also give an overview of the many additional Turkish and Persian texts thereby adding to our knowledge about the history of these volumes.

In Die Rifāʽīya spürt Boris Liebrenz der Buchkultur des Osmanischen Syrien (16. - 19. Jahrhundert) durch den Fokus der einzig überlebenden Privatbibliothek der Epoche nach. Er fragt nach der Produktion und Transmission von Wissen sowie dem sozialen Hintergrund der Leserschaft im Zeitalter der Handschrift. Studien der arabischen Bibliotheksgeschichte haben oft nur das Mittelalter in den Blick genommen und basierten fast ausschließlich auf literarischen Quellen. Dies ist die erste Monographie, die eine einzige Region während der Osmanischen Periode in den Fokus nimmt und deren auf uns gekommene Handschriften und Notizen ihrer Leser und Besitzer systematisch als dokumentarische Quelle benutzt. So erhellt sie die materiellen, rechtlichen und sozialen Voraussetzungen von Buchbesitz und Lesepraxis. In Die Rifāʽīya Boris Liebrenz explores the book culture of Ottoman Syria (16th to 19th century), using the only surviving Damascene private library of the time as a vantage point. He asks about the production and transmission of knowledge as well as the social background of the reading audience in a manuscript age.Scholarship on Arabic libraries has often focussed on the medieval period and relied nearly exclusively on literary accounts. This is the first book-length study that focuses on a single region in the Ottoman period and systematically uses the vast number of surviving manuscripts as a documentary source by means of the notes left by their readers and possessors. Thus, it sheds light on the material, juridical, and social basis of book-ownership and reading.

The Catalogue of the Arabic, Persian and Turkish Manuscripts in Belgium is a union catalogue aiming is to present the Oriental manuscripts held by various Belgian public institutions (Royal Library, university and public libraries). These collections and their contents are largely unknown to scholars due to the lack of published catalogues. This first volume, consisting of a bi-lingual (English and Arabic) handlist, concerns the collection of the Université de Liège, which holds the largest number of Oriental manuscripts (c. 500). Each title is briefly described, identifying the author and offering basic material information. Most of the manuscripts described in this handlist originate from North Africa.

The Yahuda Collection was bequeathed to the National Library of Israel by one of the twentieth century's most knowledgeable and important collectors, Abraham Shalom Yahuda (d. 1951). The rich and multifaceted collection of 1,186 manuscripts, spanning ten centuries, includes works representing the major Islamic disciplines and literary traditions. Highlights include illuminated manuscripts from Mamluk, Mughal, and Ottoman court libraries; rare, early copies of medieval scholarly treatises; and early modern autograph copies. In this groundbreaking Arabic catalogue, Efraim Wust synthesizes the Islamic and Western manuscript traditions to enrich our understanding of the manuscripts and their compositions. His combined treatment of Arabic, Persian, and Turkish manuscripts preserves the integrity of the collection and honors the multicultural history of the Islamic intellectual traditions.

Cet ouvrage explore une période charnière de l’histoire du livre islamique et iranien: la période mongole envisagée dans le long terme, sous les dynasties ilkhanide et djalayiride. Il étudie la question de la maturation de la calligraphie arabe classique à travers la vie et l’œuvre de Yāqūt al-Mustaʿṣimī qui sont, pour la première fois, soumises à une analyse systématique, mettant en avant l’importance de son école et des maîtres bagdadiens pour les arts du livre des décennies suivantes. L’ouvrage se penche aussi sur les manuscrits des Ilkhans musulmans et du vizir Rashīd al-Dīn dans le cadre de la problématique de la naissance de la kitābkhānah et de l’affirmation du statut des calligraphes et des peintres sous les derniers Ilkhanides et les Djalayirides.This book explores a pivotal period in the history of the book in the Islamic world and Iran, i.e. the Mongol period viewed in a long-term perspective, under the Ilkhanid and the Djalayirid dynasties. It examines the issue of the maturation of classical Arabic calligraphy through the life and work of Yāqūt al-Mustaʿṣimī, which are for the first time subjected to a systematic analysis, highlighting the importance of his school and the Baghdadi masters for the arts of the book of the following decades. The study also looks at the manuscripts of the Muslim Ilkhans and the Vizier Rashīd al-Dīn in the context of the birth of the kitābkhānah and the rise in the status of calligraphers and painters under the last Ilkhanids and the Djalayirids.

The nine contributions in The Trade in Papers Marked with non-Latin Characters initiated by Anne Regourd (ed.) approach global history through the paper trade. They cover, in addition to a paper used in 14th C Persia, papers used in Africa (Ethiopia, Nigeria, Tunisia) and Asia (the Ottoman Levant, Mecca, Persia, Russia, and Yemen) during the 19th-20th C.Primarily based on paper examination and quantitative data, the book invites us to treat papers as a source, and provides tools to determine the production of manuscripts in space and time for the area of interest. This methodology offers new insights on the competition between suppliers to the various markets particularly in respect of the emergence of import-export trading companies. Le commerce des papiers à marques à caractères non-latins, dont Anne Regourd (éd.) est à l'initiative, a pour projet de traiter d'histoire globale par le commerce du papier. Les neuf contributions réunies ici font apparaître un premier exemple de ce papier, persan, dès le xive s. sous les Moẓaffarides et, principalement, des papiers utilisés en Afrique (Éthiopie, Nigéria, Tunisie) et en Asie (Levant ottoman, La Mecque, Perse, Russie et Yémen), aux xixe et xxe s.S'appuyant sur l'observation des papiers et des données quantitatives, le livre invite à prendre le support de l'écrit comme source de l'histoire du commerce et donne des instruments pour déterminer la production de manuscrits dans l'espace et le temps pour une aire définie. Cette méthode renouvelle notre connaissance de l'approvisionnement des marchés, avec, en particulier, l'apparition de compagnies d'import-export. Contributors are: Michaelle Biddle, Evyn Kropf, Anne Regourd, Francis Richard, Alice Shafi-Leblanc, Jan Just Witkam, Olga Yastrebova.Foreword by Anna-Grethe Rischel.

The Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences was established in 1826. Its collection of Persian manuscripts is the most comprehensive set of its kind in Hungary. The volumes were produced in four major cultural centres of the Persianate world, the Ottoman Empire, Iran, Central Asia and India during a span of time that extends from the 14th to the 19th century. Collected mainly by enthusiastic private collectors and acknowledged scholars the manuscripts have preserved several unique texts or otherwise interesting copies of well-known works. Though the bulk of the collection has been part of Library holdings for almost a century, the present volume is the first one to describe these manuscripts in a detailed and systematic way.

The Technique of Islamic Bookbinding is the first monograph dedicated to the technical development of the bookbinding tradition in the Islamic world. Based on an assessment of the extensive oriental collections in the Leiden University Library, the various sewing techniques, constructions and the application of covering materials are described in great detail. A comparative analysis of the historic treatises on bookbinding provides further insight into the actual making of the Islamic book. In addition, it is demonstrated that variations in time and place can be established with the help of distinctive material characteristics.Karin Scheper’s work refutes the perception of Islamic bookbinding as a weak structure, which has generally but erroneously been typified as a case-binding. Instead, the author argues how diverse methods were used to create sound structures, thus fundamentally challenging our understanding of the Islamic bookbinding practice.Karin Scheper has been awarded the De La Court Award 2016 by The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences for her study of the bookbinding tradition in the Islamic world.

Arabic and Persian Manuscripts in the Birnbaum Collection, Toronto includes many early copies, from the 6th century A.H. / 12th century C.E. onwards. They cover a wide range of subjects. The catalogue gives detailed descriptions of 66 Arabic and 34 Persian works, arranged by subject. Author and title indexes provide easy access, and photographs of selected pages enhance the descriptions. The manuscripts were acquired individually over many decades.

Manuscripts, Politics and Oriental Studies commemorates the life and works of Johann Gottfried Wetzstein (1815-1905) as a scholar, manuscript collector, and consul in Berlin and Damascus. Beyond research into Wetzstein's own time, special attention is given to the impact his efforts to acquire manuscripts have had until this day. Several contributions also illustrate contemporary developments that give context to his own career as a scholar and diplomat. The particular focus of this volume allows to explore the history of Oriental scholarship not purely through the lens of academic posts and publications but encourages us to discover lifes such as Wetzstein's, without academic stardom yet laying the material foundations of textual work for generations. Contributors are Kaoukab Chebaro; François Déroche; Faustina Doufikar-Aerts; Alba Fedeli; Ludmila Hanisch †; Michaela Hoffmann-Ruf; Ingeborg Huhn; Robert Irwin; Boris Liebrenz; Astrid Meier; Samar El Mikati El Kaissi; Claudia Ott; Holger Preißler †; Christoph Rauch; Helga Rebhan; Anke Scharrahs; Jan Just Witkam.

Sources de la transmission manuscrite en Islam : livres, écrits, images is a Festschrift offered to Marie-Geneviève Guesdon, curator of Arabic manuscripts at the BNF, codicologist and specialist in Arabic manuscript books, on the occasion of her retirement.It brings together fourteen original contributions for which the collections of the BNF provided an essential source. Handwritten transmission in Islam over the long period is the central axis of the volume. New hypotheses are emerging, both on questions of transmission by shaykhs or scribe-painters and the circulation of ideas, texts and knowledge, as well as on the status and attribution of writings, the making of books, and the history of libraries.Sources de la transmission manuscrite en Islam : livres, écrits, images sont des mélanges offerts à Marie-Geneviève Guesdon, conservatrice des manuscrits arabes à la BNF, codicologue et spécialiste du livre manuscrit arabe, à l’occasion de son départ à la retraite.Il réunit quatorze contributions originales dont les collections de la BnF forment une source essentielle. La transmission écrite en Islam sur la longue période est l’axe central du volume. De nouvelles hypothèses emergent, aussi bien sur les questions de transmission par les shaykhs ou les scribes-peintres, de circulation des idées, des textes et des savoirs que de statut et d’attribution des écrits, de fabrication du livre et d’histoire des bibliothèques.Avec: Annie Berthier, Zouhour Chaabane, Khalid Chakor-Alami, François Déroche, Alain J. Desreumaux, Anne-Marie Eddé, Abdelouahad Jahdani, Khaled Kchir, Françoise Micheau, Anne Regourd, Francis Richard, Muriel Roiland, Jacqueline Sublet, Tal Tamari, Saadou Traoré, Annie Vernay-NouriAnnie Berthier, Zouhour Chaabane, Khalid Chakor-Alami, François Déroche, Alain J. Desreumaux, Anne-Marie Eddé, Abdelouahad Jahdani, Khaled Kchir, Françoise Micheau, Anne Regourd, Francis Richard, Muriel Roiland, Jacqueline Sublet, Tal Tamari, Saadou Traoré, Annie Vernay-Nouri