Arabic Manuscripts

Reflexiones sobre la catalogación de ejemplares alcoránicos

by Juan Pablo Arias Torres

Co-authored with F. Déroche

The Song of Hannah in Arabic from Vat. Barb. Or. 2 and Other Sources

by Adam McCollum

Pre-publication draft. To appear in a volume on the Song of Hannah.

Muʿtazilism in a 20th Century Zaydī Qurʾān Commentary

by Gregor Schwarb أغريغور شوارب גריגור שוורב

to be published in Arabica 59,3-4 (2012):371–402

The Zaydīs in Yemen are the only current within Islam that fostered the continuous transmission and study of Muʿtazilī... more The Zaydīs in Yemen are the only current within Islam that fostered the continuous transmission and study of Muʿtazilī kalām up to the present time. This article aims to examine the presence and quality of Muʿtazilī kalām in a major Zaydī composition of the 20th century, namely ʿAlī b. Muḥammad al-ʿAǧrī’s (1320-1407/1902-1987) Miftāḥ al-saʿāda, which was completed in May 1952. The Miftāḥ and other works of Zaydī scholars written during the first half of the 20th century provide us with valuable insights into Zaydī-Hādawī scholarship in Northern Yemen prior to the Republican revolution of 1962 and furnish important information about the education of 20th century Zaydī-Hādawī scholars and the contents of their libraries. The wide range of Muʿtazilī and non-Muʿtazilī sources used and quoted in the Miftāḥ sheds light on the distinct impact of various phases of a centuries-old school- and teaching-tradition.

Manuskripte im Portrait: Eine Sprache, viele Schriften

by Gregor Schwarb أغريغور شوارب גריגור שוורב

published in:
Newsletter of the Research Unit Intellectual History of the Islamicate World 2 (2011):4.
A more detailed study of these manuscripts is in preparation.

On a Samaritan copy of Maimonides’ Dalālat al-ḥāʾirīn (Arabic in Arabic script, Hebrew in Samaritan script) and... more On a Samaritan copy of Maimonides’ Dalālat al-ḥāʾirīn (Arabic in Arabic script, Hebrew in Samaritan script) and excerpts from al-Rashīd Abū l-Khayr Ibn al-Ṭayyib’s Tiryāq al-ʿuqūl in a 17th century Garshūnī manuscript.

“Iʿtizāl pas az ʿAbd al-Jabbār: Kitāb Masāʾil al-khilāf fī uṣūl al-dīn-i Abū Rashīd-i Nīshābūrī. Muṭālaʿātī dar barā-yi intiqāl-i ʿulūm az Īrān beh Yaman dar qarn-i 6-7/12-13)

by Sabine Schmidtke زابينه اشميتكه סבינה שמיטקה

Payām-i bahāristān. Nashriyya-yi dākhilī-yi Kitābkhāna, Mūzah u Markaz-i Asnād-i Majlis-i Shūrā-yi Islāmī 2/4/13 (1390/2011), pp. 919-967
co-authored with Hassan Ansari
Persian translation (by M.K. Rahmati) of “Muʿtazilism after ʿAbd al-Jabbār: Abū Rashīd al-Nīsābūrī’s Kitāb Masāʾil al-khilāf fī l-uṣūl (Studies on the transmission of knowledge from Iran to Yemen in the 6th/12th and 7th/13th c. I),” Studia Iranica 39 (2010), pp. 227-78

إرشاد المتعلم والناسي في صفة أشكال القلم الفاسي، مع دارسة عن القلم الفاسي واستخداماته

by tamer elgebaly تامر الجبالي

نشر في مجلة معهد المخطوطات العربية بالقاهرة، المجلد (53) الجزء (2)، نوفمبر 2009

إعادة نشر وتحقيق لكتاب إرشاد المتعلم والناسيفي صفة أشكال القلم الفاس" لأحمد العياشي سكيرج، المتوفى سنة 1363هـ،... more إعادة نشر وتحقيق لكتاب إرشاد المتعلم والناسيفي صفة أشكال القلم الفاس" لأحمد العياشي سكيرج، المتوفى سنة 1363هـ، والكتاب هو شرح لمنظومة القلم الفاسي لعبدالقادر الفاسي المتوفى سنة 1091هـ
هذا، بجانب إعداد دراسة عن القلم الفاسي ونشأته واستخداماته

Les plaintes de l'archevêque: chronique des premiers échanges épistolaires entre Pise et le gouverneur almohade de Tunis (1182)

by Pascal Buresi

in N. Martinez (ed.) M.J. Viguera and P. Buresi (dir.), Documentos y manuscritos árabes del Occidente musulmán medieval, Madrid, CSIC (col. DVCTVS, 2), 2010, pp. 87-120

Ghazal and Grammar

by Bilal Orfali

« Les documents arabes et latins échangés entre Pise et l’Empire almohade en 596-598/1200-1202 : la chancellerie au cœur des relations diplomatiques »

by Pascal Buresi

to be published in Anne Regourd (ed.), Documents et histoire, Paris, Louvre-EPHE, 2011

Most of the texts produced by the Almohad Chancery have been transmitted to us solely through quotations in... more Most of the texts produced by the Almohad Chancery have been transmitted to us solely through quotations in literature: chronicles, literary or poetical anthologies, bio-bibliographic dictionaries of the scholars of the time. Most of these documents, copies rather than originals, have been published by Évariste Lévi-Provençal (1941) and Aḥmad ʿAzzāwī (1995-2006). This process of transmission of the documentation raises many questions of a diverse nature, concerning notably conservation, disappearance and dispersion of the archives, as well as processes of rewriting documents. Indeed, from one author to another, the quoted letters reveal a great number of variations which provide substantial information concerning terminological, ideological, political or administrative aspects. Furthermore, some of the published documents originate from a manual of chancery whose author, Aḥmad al‑Balāwī, was a secretary-scribe in the Almohad Chancery during the first decades of the 13th C. The original manuscript of this manual can be found in the Royal Library of Rabat. It contains models of letters: appointment of governors or judges, letters of information or recommendation, letters-fatwá, letters of allegiance to new sovereigns (bayʿa), the study of which opens interesting new horizons. Nevertheless, we possess a small amount of original documents, acts of the provincial Almohad chanceries, which have been available for a long time as they are conserved in Western collections, especially Italian ones. Their publication and translation, dating from the 19th C., explain the fact that they have been neglected since that time. This paper proposes a fresh view of those original documents, enlightened by a renewed historiography of the questions.

Arabo-Byzantine traffic of manuscripts and the connections between the Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement and the first Byzantine 'Renaissance' (9th–10th Centuries)

by Jakub Sypiański

Paper from the conference "Byzantium and Renaissances. Dialogue of Cultures, Heritage of Antiquity - Tradition and Modernity" (Warsaw, 19-21 October 2011)

The 9th and 10th centuries saw the parallel appearance in different corners of the Mediterranean of movements that... more The 9th and 10th centuries saw the parallel appearance in different corners of the Mediterranean of movements that shared common characteristic: unprecedented interest in ancient culture. Escalations of literary interest in ancient Greek culture, in Byzantium and in the Abbasid caliphate, took place almost simultaneously. Interestingly, there is almost a perfect correlation between the list of works translated into Arabic at that time and the list of the very first manuscripts that have undergone the process of transcription into minuscule in Byzantine scriptoria. In this paper I am developing a theory of Dimitri Gutas who maintained that these two processes were connected and that the manuscripts in Byzantium could have been copied because of the specific Arabic demand for these works. As the Arabs were highly interested in the Greek philosophical and scientific literature and as they needed the manuscript, the Byzantines possibly became aware of this matter and according and they may have provided the Arabs with fresh copies of the Greek manuscripts that were in their possession.

Manoscritti arabi decorati della Biblioteca Nazionale di Roma

by arianna D'OTTONE

published in: "Nuovi Annali della Scuola Speciale per Archivisti e Bibliotecari" XVI (2002), pp. 149-159 e 12 figg.

A collection of 84 Arabic manuscripts, only partially catalogued, is held by the National Central Library of Rome... more A collection of 84 Arabic manuscripts, only partially catalogued, is held by the National Central Library of Rome "Vittorio Emanuele II". The contribution aims at describing the illustrations and the decorated bookbindings of the most significant examples of this collection and at giving the first description of some of them.

Arabic Scripts in West African Manuscripts: A Tentative Classification from the de Gironcourt Collection

by Mauro Nobili

Islamic Africa Journal 2/1 (2011): 105-133.

Manuscript culture of West Africa. Part 1: The disqualification of a heritage.

by Mauro Nobili

Comparative Oriental Manuscript Studies Newsletter, 2, 2011

Rediscovering the ‘de Gironcourt’ Manuscript collection

by Mauro Nobili

Annual Review of Islam in Africa, 10, 2008-2009

Snapshots from manuscripts of the Epistle on Character Traits/Ethics (al-Risala fi’l-akhlaq) from the Rasa'il Ikhwan al-Safa (The Epistles of the Pure Brethren), corresponing to the edition by Butrus al-Bustani (Beirut, Dar Sadir, 1957), vol. 1, p. 299, l. 11ff.

by Omar Ali-de-Unzaga (عمر علي دي أونثاغا)

These are snapshots from manuscripts of the Epistle on Character Traits (al-Risāla fī’l-akhlāq) from the Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ (The Epistles of the Pure Brethren), corresponing to the edition by Buṭrus al-Bustānī (Beirut, Dār Ṣādir, 1957), vol. 1, p. 299, l. 11ff.

I am currently working on a critical edition and translation of this text

From the Madrasah to the Museum: The Social Life of the Kietaabs of Cape Town

by Saarah Jappie

published in 'History in Africa: a Journal of Method' Volume 38, 2011.

Los marcos legales de la islamización: el procedimiento judicial entre cristianos arabizados y mozárabes

by Ana Echevarria

The Arabic manuscripts of the Zanzibar National Archives: a checklist

by Lorenzo Declich

Pseudo-Thaʿālibī's Book of Youths

by Adam Talib

Forthcoming in Arabica (2012)

This article presents a critical edition and study of a 17th/18th-century poetry collection that had previously been... more This article presents a critical edition and study of a 17th/18th-century poetry collection that had previously been mistaken for al-Thaʿālibī’s lost Kitāb al-Ghilmān. It provides a codicological analysis of Berlin MS Wetzstein II 1786 in which the poetry collection is contained and also explains and corrects long-held misconceptions regarding al-Thaʿālibī’s connection with this text. Finally, the article situates this poetry collection in the context of Mamluk- and Ottoman-era epigram anthologies and the critical apparatus to the edition demonstrates the key features of intertextuality and popularity that characterised these poetry collections.

Scripture and Schism: Samaritan and Karaite Treasures From the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary: An Exhibition December 14, 2000-April 5, …

by Marina Rustow