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The study of Islamic manuscripts is a dynamic field of research. This section in the
Islamic manuscripts
site gives a follow-up to stories in the news and signalizes new publications and events.
Readers are invited
to offer their notes and remarks (and if possible images as well) for short news flashes.
Announcements of new books and new issues of scholarly journals are equally welcome.
For further information, please
contact the editor.
Disclaimer: Note that the dates by which these pages are arranged are the dates on which an event
is registered. They are usually not the dates on which the events take place. The owner of
this website does not take responsibility for any misunderstanding, damages or otherwise, which
may be the result of the use of this page. It should be noted that links in older announcements
may not be valid anymore, as broken links are not repaired.
April 3, 2012: New publication from Tehran with relevance to the study of Islamic manuscripts.
March 26, 2012: Important manuscripts of Leiden University online.
March 19, 2012: New publications from Tehran with relevance to the study of Islamic manuscripts.
January 13, 2012: New publication from Tehran with relevance to the study of Islamic manuscripts.
January 9, 2012: New publication on Islamic manuscripts from Tehran.
November 26, 2011: New publications on Islamic manuscripts from Tehran.
November 17, 2011: The first volume of a new catalogue of Arabisc manuscripts of
the Bodleian Library in Oxford.
October 10, 2010: New publication on Islamic manuscripts from Tehran.
July 28, 2010: Teaching materials for conservation course in Mauritania published.
July 16, 2010: Important new publication on Arabic manuscripts by Adam Gacek.
July 8, 2010: Launch on the premises of The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland
of Barbara Brend's new book: Muhammad Juki's Shahnamah
of Firdausi. London (The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland / Philip Wilson
Publishers) 2010. With a contribution by A.H. Morton. x, 214 pp., profusely illustrated in colour.
ISBN 978-0-85667-672-7. 33.5 cm. Price £ 30.00.
July 1, 2010: New publication on Islamic manuscripts from Tehran.
June 14, 2010: New issue of the Iranian Journal for the History of Science.
June 12, 2010: New publication on Islamic manuscripts from Tehran.
May 30, 2010: International Congress on the Codicology and History of the Handwritten
Book in Arabic Script, Madrid 27-29 May 2010.
May 21, 2010: Creation of a cataloguing system for fivehundred Islamic manuscripts in the
Wellcome Library.
May 21, 2010: Oxford & Cambridge Islamic manuscripts catalogue online.
May 18, 2010: Union Catalogue of Mathematical Manuscripts in Iran.
April 20, 2010: New publications from Iran on manuscripts and written heritage.
Of particular importance for the study of Islamic manuscripts is the newly published vol. 15
of Nama-yi Baharistan, year 10 (1388/2009) = No. 15 of the entire series. Beautifully
produced, this volume contains a wealth of essays on a great variety of subjects.
All texts are in Persian, and all are provided with a summary in English. The volume (price 7000
toman) can be ordered from the publisher The Library, Museum and Documentation Center of the Islamic
Consultative Assembly, P.O. Box 11155-954, Tehran - Iran, tel. (+9821 6695 1919 / 6695 3224,
fax: (+9821) 6646 9672.
See the
covers and the tables of contents of
this volume.
September 21, 2009: A new dictionary of terminology in connection with Islamic manuscripts.
September 19, 2009: Sotheby's auction 'Arts of the Islamic World', London 7 October, 2009.
September 10, 2009: Just published: a study on and an edition of one of the oldest
manuscripts of the Qur'an.
July 31, 2009: Persian documents of the Safawid era in the Matenadaran, Yerevan,
Armenia, described and published.
June 2, 2009: Calligraphy exhibition in the Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilization.
March 6, 2009: Publications of the Kufic Encyclopedia in Tehran.
March 5, 2009: New publications from the Juma al-Majid Center in Dubai on Islamic manuscripts.
March 4, 2009: Two new articles on Arabic papyri by Petra M. Sijpesteijn.
February 22, 2009: Facsimile edition of a newly-discovered manuscript on the history of Herat.
February 22, 2009: New publication on Islamic manuscripts from Tehran.
February 22, 2009: An encyclopedia on Islamic calligraphy and illumination.
February 10, 2009: New publication on Islamic Codicology.
January 29, 2009: Exhibition on Islamic calligraphy in the Asia Society Museum, New York,
October 7, 2008 - February 8, 2009.
January 28, 2009: Catalogue of the Oriental manuscripts of Josephus Justus Scaliger
(1540-1609).
December 22, 2008: A Handlist of the Islamic manuscripts in the Parliament
Library in Tehran.
December 22, 2008: New publication on Islamic manuscripts from Tehran.
December 9, 2008: Catalogue of Islamic manuscripts in the Ali Hasjmy Collection,
Banda Aceh, Indonesia, published.
December 8, 2008: The second-oldest dated Persian manuscript published in facsimile.
December 7, 2008: Judeo-Arabic manuscripts in Sotheby's auction, New York,
17 December 2008.
November 18, 2008: Publication of volume 14 of the Journal for the History
of Arabic Science.
November 17, 2008: New publications on Islamic manuscripts from Tehran.
November 12, 2008: Arabic version of a classic of Dutch literature discovered.
November 2, 2008: Auction of Arabic manuscripts of the private library of Prof. Dr. P.S.
van Koningsveld (Institute of Religious Studies, Leiden University).
October 14, 2008: Modern and contemporary Arab and Iranian art and calligraphy.
October 11, 2008: New publication on Egyptian libraries in Late Antiquity.
October 11, 2008: Nos. 11-12 of Nama-yi Baharistan.
October 11, 2008: New publication: the Hans Daiber Festschrift.
October 8, 2008: Important auction of objects of Islamic interest, including Qur'anic
manuscripts.
October 8, 2008: New manuscript catalogue, Aleppo, Syria.
September 30, 2008: Publication of Lecture by Alastair Hamilton: The Forbidden Fruit.
The Koran in Early Modern Europe.
September 15, 2008: Computer-aided typography of the Qur'an.
September 8, 2008: Arabic typography and Typographic matchmaking.
August 23, 2008: New publications from Kuwait.
August 1, 2008: Studies on the Kitab al-Musta`ini by Ibn Baklarish published.
June 30, 2008: Exhibition of Islamic manuscripts in Leipzig, Germany (11 July -
27 September 2008).
June 27, 2008: Conference in Oxford, Wadham College, 14-15 July 2008: The Rise
of the Persian Renaissance.
June 26, 2008: British report on digitized resources in Islamic studies, with special
reference to Islamic manuscripts.
June 24, 2008: New publication on diplomatic documents in the Mamluk era.
June 22, 2008: Islamic manuscripts and books in the Islamic Studies Library, McGill University,
Montreal.
June 12, 2008: New publications on Islamic manuscripts from Tehran.
May 23, 2008: 325th Anniversary of Brill Publishers in Leiden.
May 22, 2008: New publications on Islamic manuscripts from Tehran.
May 13, 2008: New publications on Islamic manuscripts from Tehran.
May 11, 2008: New publication on the dots in Arabic script.
April 18, 2008: Arabic documents from early Islamic Khurasan.
January 24, 2008: Sotheby's Institute of Art offers graduate courses in the
history of art, connoisseurship and the world of art markets.
January 22, 2008: Selected proceedings of Qur'an conference published.
January 17, 2008: Archive of microfilms of ancient Qur'an manuscripts not lost as
previously assumed.
September 18, 2007: The Max Weisweiler Archive in Leiden University Library
described.
September 18, 2007: Exhibition Spice of Life. Raffles and the Malay world.
September 15, 2007: Shahnama Studies I. This well-produced and lavishly illustrated
volume (300 pp.), edited by Charles Melville, and published in 2006 by The Centre of Middle
Eastern and Islamic Studies, University of Cambridge, is the result of the first
Shahnama Workshop held in Pembroke College, Cambridge, in January 2001. Charles
Melville is the co-ordinator of the Shahnama Project which has the ambition to
bring together all miniatures in all manuscripts of Firdawsi’s Shahnama in one
single database. The imposing results so far can be viewed in the new
website
of the Shahnama project .
A paperback copy of the book is available for £ 25 plus postage from the Centre
of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, University of Cambridge, contact.
September 13, 2007: PhD thesis on Islamic scribal practices and manuscript
manufacture in Central Asia defended in Paris.
September 10, 2007: The Smitskamp/Brill Archives now in Leiden University Library.
January 15, 2007: Courses in calligraphy and marbling:
January 9, 2007: New catalogue:
January 8, 2007: Just published:
January 4, 2007: New publication: The detailed defter of the Liwa`
(district) of Noble Jerusalem. Tapu Defter No. 427 (932 AH/1525-26 - 934 AH/1527-28
Basbakanlik Osmanli Arsivi. A critical and annotative study of the Ottoman text with
Arabic translation [by] Muhammad Adnan al-Bakhit and Noufan Raja al-Sawariyyah.
See for a full review here .
January 3, 2007: In August 2006 a new Malay manuscript was acquired by Leiden University
Library. On 7 December 2006 the Leiden library issued a press release on the acquisition of this new
acquisition. See for images and bibliographical and codicological details of this
manuscript here.
July 31, 2013: New publication from Tehran with relevance to the study of Islamic manuscripts.
We have just received from The Written Heritage Research Centre (Miras Maktoob),
address: No. 1182, 2nd Floor, Unit 9, between Daneshgah and Abureyhan St., Enqelab Ave.
Tehran, I.R. Iran, postal code: 1315693519,
[contact,
website],
Gozaresh-e Miras. Bimonthly Journal of Textual Criticism, Codicology and Iranology.
vol. 52-53 (June-September 2012) = Second Series, vol. 6, No. 3 and 4.
See the table of contents.
We have just received from The Research Centre for the Written Heritage (Miras Maktoob),
address: No. 1182, 2nd Floor, Farvardin Building, Between Daneshgah and Abureyhan St., Enghelab Ave.
Tehran, I.R. Iran 1315693519 (P.O Box 13185-519),
[contact or contact,
website], a copy of an important
new publication on codicology and bibliography:
Arif Naushahi, Siyah bar Safid. Magmu`a-yi Goftar-ha wa Yaddasht-ha dar Zamina-yi
Kitabshinasi wa Nuskhashinasi. ('Black on white. Collected Essays and Notes in Codicology and
Bibliography'). Tehran (Miras-e Maktoob) 2011.
See the table of contents and introductions.
Brill's of Leiden have in October 2011 launched their Project 'Pioneer Orientalists'. It aims at making online
available the manuscripts in the collections of Joseph Justus Scaliger (d. 1609), Jacobus
Golius (d. 1667), and others. The original manuscripts remain available in the reading room of the Leiden
library for qualified readers. For readers with campus rights the electronic copies can be viewed free of charge.
All other readers can view the images by paying a fee to Brill's. Other, similar projects are in
preparation at this Leiden publisher. See the publisher's flyer,
and website.
Advisor to the project is Dr. Arnoud Vrolijk, the library's curator of Oriental Manuscripts and Rare Books.
We have just received from The Research Centre for the Written Heritage (Miras Maktoob),
address: No. 1182, 2nd Floor, Farvardin Building, Between Daneshgah and Abureyhan St., Enghelab Ave.
Tehran, I.R. Iran 1315693519 (P.O Box 13185-519),
[contact or contact,
website], copies of several important
new publications:
1. Gozaresh-e Miras. Bimonthly Journal of Textual Criticism, Codicology and Iranology.
vol. 47-48 (2011). See the table of contents.
2. Masoud Ghasemi, Negahi be du chap-i 'aksi wa hurufi-yi Alinama. (A review of the Two Editions
of 'Alinamah Facsimile and Edited Versions). = Ayene-yi Miras, Supplement No. 22. Tehran 2011.
See the table of contents.
3. Ali Safari Agh Ghaleh, Nuskha shenakht. Pazhuheshnama-yi nuskha-shenasi-yi nusakh khattiyye-yi Farsi.
Ba muqaddia-yi Iraj Afshar. (A Handbook of Persian Codicology. An Introduction
to the Study of Persian Manuscripts). Tehran (Miras-e Maktoob) 2011.
See the table of contents.
We have just received from The Research Centre for the Written Heritage (Miras Maktoob),
address: No. 1182, 2nd Floor, Farvardin Building, Between Daneshgah and Abureyhan St., Enghelab Ave.
Tehran, I.R. Iran 1315693519 (P.O Box 13185-519),
[contact or contact,
website], copies of two important
new publications:
1. Jafar Aghayani-Chavoshi (ed.), Studies on the History of Sciences from Antiquity to the XVII Century.
Tehran (Miras-e Maktoob) 2011. See the
cover, table of
contents and introduction.
2. Sabine Schmidtke & Reza Pourjavadi, Sayyid Muhammad Mahdi al-Burujirdi al-Tabataba'i's
(:"Bahr al-`ulum", d. 1212/1797) Debate with the Jews of Dhu l-Kifl. The Arabic and Persian versions.
Edited and introduced by --. Tehran (Miras-e Maktoob) 2011. See the
cover, table of
contents and introduction.
We have just received from The Research Centre for the Written Heritage (Miras Maktoob),
address: No. 1182, 2nd Floor, Farvardin Building, Between Daneshgah and Abureyhan St., Enghelab Ave.
Tehran, I.R. Iran 1315693519 (P.O Box 13185-519),
[contact or contact,
website],
a copy of the latest number of its Semiannual Journal of Bibliography, Book Review and
Text Information, Mirror of Heritage
(Ayene-ye Miras), vol. 48 (= New Series, vol. 9, Issue No. 1), 1390/2011
(ISSN 1561-9400). Managing director and editor-in-chief of this publication is Akbar Irani. See the
cover, the table of
contents and abstracts of No. 48.
We have just received from The Research Centre for the Written Heritage (Miras Maktoob),
address: No. 1182, 2nd Floor, Farvardin Building, Between Daneshgah and Abureyhan St., Enghelab Ave.
Tehran, I.R. Iran 1315693519 (P.O Box 13185-519),
contact,
website,
a copy of Supplement 21 to its Bi-Quarterly
Journal of Bibliography, Book Review and Text Information, Mirror of Heritage
(Ayene-ye Miras), New Series, vol. 8, 1389/2010-2011 (ISSN 1561-9400).
Managing director and editor-in-chief of this publication is Dr. Akbar Irani. See the
cover and prelims of Supplement 21, entitled The Necessity of a New Edition of
Nayshaburi's Qisas al-Anbiya, by Akram al-Sadat Haji Sayyid 'Aqayi.
We also have just received from The Research Centre for the Written Heritage (Miras Maktoob)
a copy of the latest number of its Monthly
Journal of Textual Criticism, Codicology and Iranology, Heritage Report
(Guzarish-i Mirath), vol. 46 of August-September 2011. Managing
director and editor-in-chief of this publication is Dr. Akbar Irani. See the
cover and the table of
contents of No. 46.
Just published: Emilie Savage-Smith, A New Catalogue of Arabic Manuscripts in
the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Volume I: Medicine. See the
introduction and the table of
contents. This includes (pp. xxix-xxxvi) 'The Arabic Collections in the Bodleian
Library', by Colin Wakefield.
We have just received from The Research Centre for the Written Heritage (Miras Maktoob),
address: No. 1182, 2nd Floor, Farvardin Building, Between Daneshgah and Abureyhan St., Enghelab Ave.
Tehran, I.R. Iran 1315693519 (P.O Box 13185-519),
contact,
website,
a copy of the latest number of its Bi-Quarterly
Journal of Bibliography, Book Review and Text Information, Mirror of Heritage
(Ayene-ye Miras), vol. 45 (= New Series, vol. 7, Issue No. 2), Autumn & Winter
2009-2010 (ISSN 1561-9400). Managing director and editor-in-chief of this publication is Akbar Irani. See the
cover, the table of
contents and abstracts of No. 45.
With the publication by the Centro regionale di catalogazione e restauro dei beni culturali (head
conservation department: Mr. Alessandro Giacomello), address: Villa Manin di Passariano, esedra di ponente,
I-33033 PASSARIANO di Codroipo UD, Italia, of the book by Alessandro Giacomello & Alessandro Pesaro (eds.),
Sauvegarde des bibliothèques du désert. Matériaux didactiques. Passariano
(Centro di Catalogazione e Restauro dei Beni Culturali) 2009, important didactic materials for a course
on the conservation of manuscripts in Mauritania have become available. The book (ISBN 978887445061-9) is
published in French, has many illustrations in colour and contains cntribution by Carlo Federici, Alessandro
Giacomello, Marcella Pellicanò, Gaia Petrella, Maria Luisa Russo and Giulio Zaccarelli.
There is also an Arabic version available: Alessandro Giacomello & Alessandro Pesaro (eds.), Inqadh
Maktabat al-Sahra'. Mawadd Ta`limiyya. Passariano (Centro di Catalogazione e Restauro dei Beni
Culturali) 2009 (without ISBN). To obtain a copy of either of these book,
contact the publisher.
Further information on the teaching project and on the Mauritanian counterparts is available from a
folder (in English, Italian and French).
Already in 2009 appeared with Brill's of Leiden Adam Gacek's newest work on Arabic manuscripts, the
latest of many in a row:
Arabic manuscripts. A vademecum for Readers. The 338 pages of this work read as an encyclopedia
of the Arabic manuscript. The work is alphabetically arranged and gives important, often novel information
on all aspects of the Arabic handwritten book. A conspicuous feature of the book is the great number
of colour illustrations of details of Islamic bookmaking which the reader can find in a manuscript.
Numerous drawings and a few charts complete this work that eloquently addresses both the beginner and the expert.
See the cover, the table of
contents and the preface. (ISBN 978 90 04 17036 0). Price: € 121.00 / US$ 179.00.
The Shahnama produced in the 1440's for Timur's grandson Muhammad Juki is one of the finest
illustrated manuscripts of the period. In this study Barbara Brend for the first time analyses
the thirty-one exquisite miniatures depicting scenes from the epic tale in great detail. A.H. Morton
analyses the notes and seal prints that were discovered inside the backing of the manuscript.
See the cover, the table of
contents and the preface.
We have just received from The Research Centre for the Written Heritage (Miras Maktoob),
address: No. 1304, 2nd Floor, Farvardin Building, Between Daneshgah and Abureyhan St., Enghelab Ave.
Tehran, I.R. Iran 1315693519 (P.O Box 13185-519) a copy of the latest number of its Monthly
Journal of Textual Criticism, Codicology and Iranology, Heritage Report
(Guzarish-i Mirath), vol. 36 of December 2009 and January 2010 (ISSN 1561-9400). Managing
director and editor-in-chief of this publication is Akbar Irani. See the
cover and the table of
contents of No. 36.
We have just received from The Institute for the History of Science of the University of
Tehran (P.O. Box 13145-1836, Tehran, Iran) a copy of the latest number of its Journal,
Tarikh-e Elm, No. 7, for 2008-2009 (ISSN 1735-0537). Editor-in-chief of this
publication is Muhammad Baqiri (Mohammad Bagheri). See the
cover and the table of
contents of No. 7.
We have just received from The Research Centre for the Written Heritage (Miras Maktoob),
address: No. 1304, 2nd Floor, Farvardin Building, Between Daneshgah and Abureyhan St., Enghelab Ave.
Tehran, I.R. Iran 1315693519 (P.O Box 13185-519) a copy of the latest number of its Monthly
Journal of Textual Criticism, Codicology and Iranology, Heritage Report
(Guzarish-i Mirath), vol. 35 of October and November 2009 (ISSN 1561-9400). Managing
director and editor-in-chief of this publication is Akbar Irani. See the
cover and the table of
contents of vol. 35.
From 27-29 May 2010 an international group of experts on manuscripts in Arabic script has held
its conference in Madrid. Participants came from Egypt, France, Germany, India, Iran, Ireland,
Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Turkey, the UK, and the USA. The conference was hosted
by the Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales - Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas,
address: Calle Albasanz, 26-28. Madrid 28037 (Spain). Tel.: +34 91 602 23 00 Fax: +34 91 602 29 71
(website). The
conference was organized by Prof. François Déroche (EPHE, Paris),
Dr. Nuria Martinez de Castilla (CCHS-CSIC, Madrid) and Dr. Francis Richard (BULAC, Paris). It
is the most recent conference of a series of international conferences which was initiated by
François Déroche in Istanbul in 1986. The ideas behind the present conference can
best be read in the
call for papers as
was sent around in the autumn of 2009. This call lead to an interesting and varied
program.
During the conference
abstracts of the presentations were distributed. A decision how and where to publish
the proceedings of this important conference will be taken by the organizers in the near future.
The Wellcome Library, Bibliotheca Alexandrina and King's College, London have formed a
partnership to create a free searchable on-line catalogue of 500 Islamic manuscripts in the
Wellcome Library (London).
This project will see the creation of a specialised cataloguing system which will allow 500 Islamic
manuscript metadata and cover-to-cover images to be accessible online.
A cataloguing system will be designed to create and manage descriptive metadata for Asian
manuscripts, as well as a website to enable sophisticated access to the metadata and images.
The overall aim of this project is to provide remote access to Islamic manuscripts via rich
metadata and associated digital images.
* The main output will be a specialised cataloguing system for Islamic manuscripts. This will help
provide a standard for institutions holding Islamic manuscripts.
* Online access to metadata and cover-to-cover images,
* Technical and cataloguing specifications,
* Cataloguing tool,
* User guidelines,
* Catalogue records for 500 manuscripts.
The organisation of this huge and important project could be an incentive to other libraries
and therefore we herewith publish the
details
of the organisation of the project.
Since 2008-2009 a large project is underway to electronically improve scholarly access to descriptions
of Islamic manuscripts held in the Bodleian Library (Oxford) and Cambridge University Library (OCIMOL).
The joint project between the two libraries aims at making the descriptions of the
Islamic manuscripts in the two libraries better accessible. These catalogue entries
are kept in a number of catalogues, published over a period of more than two centuries,
sometimes in a language (Latin) which is not widely known anymore. Some coordination was
highly desirable. The organisation of this huge and important project could be an incentive
to other libraries and therefore we herewith publish the
details
of the organisation of the project.
We have just received a copy of the newly published Union catalogue of mathematical manuscripts in
libraries in Iran: Fihristwara-yi Mushtarik-i Nuskha-hayi Khatti-yi Riyadi dar Kitabkhana-hayi
Iran. Bi-Kushish-i Farid Qasimlu, Fariba Payrawand Thabit. Tehran (Danishgah-i Azad-i Islami)
1388 [2009], 10 + 693 pp. On the basis of some 69 catalogues, lists and inventories of all sorts the two
authors, Faris Ghassemlou and Fariba Sabet, man and wife in daily life and well-known bibliographers
in Tehran, have compiled a highly useful
survey of mathematical manuscripts. The list enumerating these sources is already impressive enough
(pp. 9-19) and shows that bibliography in Iran is a serious activity. The Union catalogue is
alphabetically arranged by title of each work, after which follows a short author's
reference, and then the references to the library or libraries in which a copy of the work
is preserved. Sometimes a short incipit is given. A few references to lithographic editions
are included as well. Many of the texts described are in Arabic, and Persian is the language
of the rest.The volume is concluded with an authors' index, an index of the titles, an
index of class-marks (from which it becomes clear that there are references to c. 3400
manuscripts), and, finally, an index of (c. 170) references to texts on microfilms.
It is evident that no serious student of the history of mathematics can do without this highly
useful Union Catalogue of Mathematical Manuscripts in Libraries in Iran. See the
covers, table of
contents and the introduction of this volume.
We have just received from The Research Centre for the Written Heritage (Miras Maktoob),
address: No. 1304, 2nd Floor, Farvardin Building, Between Daneshgah and Abureyhan St., Enghelab Ave.
Tehran, I.R. Iran 1315693519 (P.O Box 13185-519) a copy of the latest volume in its series of
supplements (New Series, Supplement No. 15), Tabari texts (Mutun-i Tabari),
containing a number of texts from Tabaristan, edited by Habib Borjian. Apart from original
contributions in Persian the volume also contains translated contribution, originally written by
Aleksander Chodzko and A.K.S. Lambton. (ISSN 1561-9400).
See the covers and the tables of
contents of this volume.
From the same Institute we received No. 44 (= vol. 7, issue 1) of the Institute's Quarterly
Journal of Book Review, Bibliography
and Text Information, Ayene-ye Miras. See the
covers and the tables of contents of
this volume.
Just published: Hamid Reza Ghelichkhani, Farhang-i Wazhegan wa Istilahat-i Khushnawisi wa Hunar-hayi
Wabasteh. Tehran, 2nd edition (Intisharat-i Ruzana) 1388/2009, 464 pp., price 6950 toman (22 cm,
ISBN 978-964-334-013-1. Text in Persian, illustrated). English title: A Dictionary of
Calligraphy and Related Arts. See cover and introduction
(here).
The first edition of this dictionary of terminology used in calligraphy and related arts
appeared in Tehran in 1994. The second, greatly enlarged and completely rewritten, edition
appeared in 2008. The edition which we have under review here seems to be a reimpression
made in 2009. The author, Hamid Reza Ghelichkhani (born 1347/1968-1969), is head of the
Calligraphy Departement in The Iranian Academy of the Arts in Tehran. Presently he is working,
together with a group of calligraphy masters, on a series of biographies and studies on
the works of great calligraphers, meant to be an elaboration and expansion of this work on terminology.
The present dictionary is not the first work of its kind, nor will it be the last one. In
the study of Islamic book arts Ghelichkhani's dictionary is certainly a landmark and
its publication deserves more than casual attention.
The dictionary is an integral work containing classical, traditional and modern terminology,
the latter often of Western origin. This makes sense because calligraphy, and the other arts
of the book for that matter, are enthoustically practiced in Iran nowadays where they enjoy a
wide popularity, even more so - it would seem - than in the neighbouring countries of the Middle
East. This does not only go for the modern practice of calligraphy in the educated layers of
Iranian society, but also for the impressive heritage of Persian calligraphy. Calligraphy and
book art have always been an outstanding Persian speciality, both within the political boundaries
of present-day Iran and beyond, and Mr. Ghelichkhani's dictionary proves this once more. I am
not aware of any other Islamic country where calligraphy plays such an important and
all-pervasive role as in Iran, even to the extent that the two major writing styles, nasta`liq
and the more difficult shikasteh, have come to be directly associated with Iranian culture.
Writing well and beautifully is taught from early school years onwards, and in that sense Iran too
can be called a calligraphic state (though in a somewhat different sense from Brinckley Messick's
book of 1993 on the Yemen which goes by that title).
So, far from describing a historical phenomenon, Ghelichkhani describes an old craft that
is still vibrantly alive in present-day Iran. A look around in the bookshops opposite Tehran
University will easily convince the scepticist. Shelvings full of books on calligraphic
styles and techniques, supplemented by a generous supply of reed pens, inks, drawing papers and
pen cases of all kinds,
just prove the point.
Knowing the terminology is knowing the field
in which that terminology is used, and Ghelichkhani's dictionary is so attractively written
and illustrated that it invites reading, not just looking for references. The dictionary's
use is further enhanced by the inclusion of Persian-English and English-Persian glossaries.
In all, some one-thousand terms and concepts are treated, sometimes with succinct, very
matter-of-fact explanations, but sometimes with descriptions that verge on the encyclopaedic.
The book is well-illustrated, in black-and-white, the illustrations showing not only images
from both Iranian and foreign manuscript collections, but also objects and instruments which
are important to calligraphy and the art of the Islamic book.
The half-yearly auction of Sotheby's, London, of Islamic manuscripts and Islamic art is held
on 7 October 2009. The catalogue, lavishly illustrated as always, is just out. See the first
items in the (catalogue). The first number
in the catalogue is a collection of 59 Arabic papyri. This is remarkable, because one sees these
rarely come for sale nowadays. The auction also comprises a number of remarkably old scholarly
and scientific manuscripts, among other things a 12-13th century copy of al-Ghazzali's Ihya' `Ulum
al-Din (No. 14), a treatise on chess from North Africa, datable to the 13th century (No. 16), the
Masa'il fil-Tibb lil-Muta`allimin by Hunayn b. Ishaq, dated 496/1102. This latter manuscript
also contains a few notes in Hebrew (No. 17). Two manuscripts with texts by Nasir al-Din al-Tusi
(d. 672/1274) stand out as well. There is a manuscript of the Kitab al-Mutawassitat, the
'Compendium of Intermediate books' with colophons dated 682/1283 and 706/1306 (No. 21), and there is an
early copy (in safina shape) of the Tahrir Usul Uqlidis, Tusi's edition of Euclid's
Elements, with an estimated date of completion of c. 1280 AD (No. 22). All these manuscripts are described
in a thorough and scholarly way in the catalogue.
As usual there are also Persian and Indian miniatures, historical instruments, Qajar painting,
weapons, sculpture and textiles. See the (online)
version of entire illustrated auction catalogue.
Professor François Déroche (Paris, École des Hautes Études Pratiques)
has published with Brill's of Leiden & Boston a monograph on one of the oldest Qur'an
manuscripts extant. This is mainly MS Paris, BnF, Arabe 328 a, but fragments of what was sometime one
and the same codex as the Paris manuscript are now also preserved in the National Library of
Russia (St. Petersburg), the Vatican Library and the David N. Khalili Collection in London. The Paris fragments
had already been published in full-colour facsimile by Sergio Noja Noseda and François Déroche
in the course of 1998.
In his La transmission écrite du Coran dans les débuts de l'Islam. Le codex
Parisino-petropolitanus. Leiden & Boston (E.J. Brill) 2009 [ISBN: 978 90 04 17272 2, ISSN: 1567-2808], Prof. François Déroche
describes the acquisition history of the fragments, and he further gives a detailed description of the
codicological and orthographic details of the manuscript. He adds to his important observations
(in French) a full edition of the fragments. In his edition Déroche reproduces the rasm of the
text exactly as it is preserved in the manuscript. As point of departure for that edition
he has taken the Cairo edition of the Qur'an. The quasi-total absence of diacritics and
other reading signs in Déroche's edition is an exact rendition of the written text as preserved
in the manuscript.
It is the first time in the history of Qur'anic studies that such an edition has been
produced. It is a first step towards a critical edition of the Qur'an. Such a critical edition
is an old plan in Western Islamic studies, and the completion of it will take make more years.
See Déroche's English summary here (pdf).
See the publisher's (website).
See for f. 10b of the Paris manuscript (here)
and see for the latter part of the corresponding page and the beginning of f. 11a
in Déroche's edition of the text (here).
Dr. K.P. Kostikyan, Persian documents in the Matenadaran. Decrees. Volume 3 (1652-1731).
Yerevan (Institute of Oriental Studies) 2005, 728 pp., illustrations (ISBN 99941-1-105-1).
The book is available from the publisher, the Institute of Oriental Studies in the National
Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia, Yerevan. Price not known.
Our attention was recently drawn to volume 3 of an illustrated edition, with translations
(one in Armenian, one in English) of the Persian documents kept in the Matenadaran
in Yerevan, the National Manuscript Library of the Republic of Armenia (Address: 53
Mesrop Mashots Avenue, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia). The Matenaderan, that great
repository of manuscripts, contains more than the precious Armenian manuscripts for
which it righly enjoys a great fame all over the world. There is, among other things,
also an important collection of Persian documents and manuscripts. This is in fact
less amazing than one would think since the country that we now know as Armenia has
been part of Iran for a long time. Part of Armenia's history is therefore written in
Persian.
That we now know a bit more about this is the merit of Dr. Kristine P. Kostikyan who
four years ago published her Persian documents in the Matenadaran. Decrees. Volume 3 (1652-1731).
As publications from Armenia are not easy to obtain, and since one must first know
that they exist at all, we are glad to mention this important work here, even if it
is not a very recent publication. The two volumes that have already been published
in this series were done by the Armenian scholar H. Papazian, the first in 1956 (vol. 1,
containing twenty-three decrees dated 1449-1594), then the second in 1959 (vol. 2,
containing forty-three decrees dated 1603-1650). Papazian's work was published in
Armenian, so that it went largely unnoticed. This third volume by Dr. Kostikyan, a pupil of
Papazian, has come out in 2005, and it has by its use of the English language a more
international appeal. It treats ninety documents which were issued in the period between
1652-1731. The documents that are contained in the third volume date from the reigns of
the Safawid Shahs Abbas II, Sulayman, Sultan Husayn and Tahmasp II. The land that we
now call Armenia was at the time by and large part of Azarbaijan, then a province of
Persia, as was the name of Iran then.
These historical circumstances in the Matenadaran tell a remarkable tale, since most of them
describe cases and questions between Christian Armenians and their Muslim rulers. When the
central authority of the Safawid state gradually wained, problems between Christians and
Muslim increased correspondingly and these found their way in the documents here described.
But that is not all. Apart from the increasing intolerance of Muslim clergy, the Armenian
Christians were at the time also targeted by Roman Catholic missionary activities. As
missionaries from Rome are strictly forbidden, till today, to try to convert Muslims, they
often turn to other Christian denominations in the region and make an effort to convert these
to submission to the Holy Father in Rome, and not always without success. Every soul counts.
The collection of documents which has now been published (edition of the Persian texts,
translations in Armenian and English, reproductions of the originals, unfortunately not
of the best graphical quality) by Dr. Kristine Kostikyan, tells this story. Each document
focusses on a particular and isolated case, but together they provide a more general image.
It is the merit of Dr. Kostikyan to show that image by her exempary work on this difficult
material.
The book is divided into three parts. Pp. 1-221 are Armenian translations of the Persian
documents which are described in this volume. Most readers outside Armenia will therefore
start from p. 222 onwards. There they will find an erudite historical introduction (pp. 223-242).
Then follow the annotated translations of the ninety documents (pp. 243-378), which in turn
are followed by a glossary of fiscal, social and administrative terminology (pp. 379-388).
Then follows the edition of the Persian texts together with the reproductions of all
documents (pp. 389-707). The book is concluded by a highly useful index (pp. 708-719)
and an annotated table of contents (pp. 720-728).
The author of this important collection of documents, Dr. Kostikyan of the Institute
of Oriental Studies in Yerevan, is presently preparing a catalogue of the Persian manuscripts
in the Matenaderan.
From April 29 till September 26 the Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilization organizes the
exhibition "Eternal Letters: From the Abdul Rahman Al Owais Islamic Calligraphy Collection, Sharjah".
Read the article by Mariam M. Al Serkal, "Sharjah museum hosts rare calligraphy show" posted on May 29,
2009 in Gulfnews.com: (pdf).
See the press release on the opening of the exhibition of pieces from the Abdul Rahman Al Owais Islamic
Calligraphy Collection posted on June 2, 2009 in the Arab Media Forum Agenda of 2009 as published by the
Sultan Bin Ali Al Owais Cultural Foundation: (pdf).
Address of the museum: Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilization, PO Box 39939, Sharjah, UAE.
Tel:+ 971 6 5655455 - Fax: + 971 6 5652988 - contact.
How to visit: The Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilization is located on the Corniche Street
in al-Majjarah Area. It is situated on the opposite side of the Corniche Street from Sharjah
Creek, and is highly visible due to its size and gold dome. Ample parking is available behind
the museum, accessible from Gulf Road.
The founder and author of the Kufic Encyclopedia in Tehran (Kufic Encyclopedia, P.O. Box 16765-1776,
Tehran, Islamic Republic Iran, telephone +60123245737, contact,
website), is Seyed Mohamad Vahid Mosavi Jazayeri
(portrait).
He was born in 1969 in Iran. He majored in graphics and in
1994 he graduated from university.
In 1988 he took up learning classic calligraphy (Naskh and Thuluth) from masters of these
styles. In 1993 he started teaching the same styles at a professional level at the
'Calligraphers' Society of Tehran'.
In 1992 he began researching on the Kufic script and practically experienced Kufic calligraphy.
It was in 1994 when he managed to discover the special pen or quill for writing in the primary
Kufic style. Then he taught Kufic style at universities for three years.
Mosavi Jazayeri SMV has been able to design over three thousand logotypes and several fonts which
enjoy modern visual capabilities. In each special topic in this volume (one-word or multiple-word) what has been considered greatly is creating characters in a variety of forms with utmost capabilities.
He has also invented a new methodd to invert designing Persian logotypes (as an exclusive word) to designing
characters.
He has also taught for two years the course 'Designing Persian Letters and Logotypes' to students
majoring in graphics at technical schools.
His orientation as a calligrapher, and his knowledge of graphics enabled him to design Latin
characters and logotypes as well. One of his achievements in
this field creating two unique 'Latin fonts with oriental qualities of calligraphy',
showing his experience and ability in classical Latin calligraphy.
He has won several awards in different festivals; he has also displayed his artistic
works in a number of exhibitions both individually and in group work (from the introduction
to Kufic Encyclopedia. First Volume. "Learning how to write the primary Kufic style of
calligraphy", Tehran 2006. This work contains numerous illustrations of old 'Kufic' specimens
and what is possibly the most interesting, a description of how to write Kufic script as
devised and reconstructed by Mr. Jazayeri. See the beginning
(p. 123)
of the instruction manual for writing Kufi script.
References to and samples of other work by Mr. Jazayeri can be
found in a beautifully printed bibliography or catalogue: About published calligraphic
works. Tehran 2008. Other works by Mr. Jazayeri include: Seventh Heaven, an album of 18
designs in connection with the basmala, further Divine Love, an album with Kufic specimens,
then also Messiah of Souls, an album of Kufic, Naskh and Thuluth calligraphy, and logotype designs,
and finally Diffusing Musk, an album of calligraphy. Other works are in preparation.
We just received from the Juma al-Majid Center for Culture and Heritage, address: P.O. Box 55156,
Dubai, U.A.E., telephone: +971 4 262 5999 / 262 4999; fax: +971 4 2696950
(homepage,
e-mail address and
English website page of the
manuscript department) their latest periodical publications:
- Akhbar al-Markaz, year 6, No. 36 (Dhu al-Higga 1429 / December 2008). See for the covers and
the table of contents (pdf).
- Afaq Al Thaqafa wa'l-Turath, a Quarterly Journal of Cultural Heritage, vol. 16, No. 64
(Muharram 1430 / January 2009). See for the covers, the table of contents and
abstracts (pdf).
Two articles with relevance to Arabic papyri by Petra M. Sijpesteijn, the newly appointed
professor of Arabic in Leiden University, have just appeared:
- 'A seventh/eighth-century list of companions from Fustat', in: F.A.J. Hoogendijk and B.P.
Muhs (eds.), Sixty-Five Papyrological Texts. Presented to Klaas A. Worp
on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday. Leiden (E.J. Brill) 2008, pp. 369-377.
(Papyrologica Lugduno-Batava, 33)
(pdf).
- 'Landholding Patterns in Early Islamic Egypt', in Journal of Agrarian Change, 9/1
(January 2009), pp. 120-133 (pdf).
Just appeared: History of Herat (a newly-discovered manuscript). Probably by Shaykh
'Abd al-Rahman Fami Hiravi (472-546 A.H. / 1079-1152). The Facsimile in the Original Size
of the Manuscript from the Personal Library of Dr. Mohammad Hasan Mirhosseini. Copied in the 13th
Century. Introduction by: Mohammad Hasan Mirhosseini, Mohammad Reza Abouyi Mehrizi. Preface:
Iraj Afshar. Tehran (Miras-i Maktub) 1387 (2008). 44, 180, 7 pp. (ISBN: 978-964-8700-48-0).
Available from The Research Centre for the Written Heritage (Miras Maktoob),
address: No. 1304, 2nd Floor, Farvardin Building, Between Daneshgah and Abureyhan St., Enghelab Ave.
Tehran, I.R. Iran 1315693519 (P.O Box 13185-519). The facsimile edition was published in cooperation
with the Iranian National Commission for UNESCO and the Association for the Study of
Persianate Societies (ASPS). The facsimile of the History of Heran (in Persian) is printed in
full-colour.
See for the title-pages, table of contents, preface and a sample of the facsimile
edition (pdf).
We have just received from The Research Centre for the Written Heritage (Miras Maktoob),
address: No. 1304, 2nd Floor, Farvardin Building, Between Daneshgah and Abureyhan St., Enghelab Ave.
Tehran, I.R. Iran 1315693519 (P.O Box 13185-519) a copy of the latest two numbers of its Monthly
Journal of Textual Criticism, Codicology and Iranology, Heritage Report
(Guzarish-i Mirath), vol. 25-26 of October and November 2008, and vol. 27-28
of December 2008 and January 2009. (ISSN 1561-9400).
See the cover and the table of
contents of vol. 25-26. And See the cover
and the table of contents of vol. 27-28.
From the same Institute we received also the Cumulative Index of all articles which have
appeared in vols. 1-42 (1377-1387/1998-2008) of the Institute's Quarterly Journal of Book Review, Bibliography
and Text Information, Ayene-ye Miras. See the
cover and the table of contents of
this Index, together with the preface by the Institute's director, Dr. Akbar-i Irani.
Dr. Hasan Özönder Karaman Caddesi No. 78, Konya (Turkey) is the author of
an interesting encyclopedia (in Turkish) of the arts of calligraphy and illumination,
Ansiklopedik hat ve tezhip sanatlari deyimleri, terimleri sözlügü. Konya 2003.
The work seems to be privately published and is also available from Uysal Kitabevi,
Cumhuriyet Alani, 8/A 42200 Meram, Konya, Turkey, and from the major bookshops in Turkey
(ISBN: 975-94341-2-1). See the front cover.
Just published: Stefanie Brinkmann & Beate Wiesmüller (eds.), From Codicology to Technology.
Islamic Manuscripts and their Place in Scholarship. Berlin (Frank & Timme GmbH Verlag für
wissenschaftliche Literatur) 2009. 215 pp., many colour illustrations. Price € 29.80 (ISBN
978-3-86596-171-6).
The articles in the volume are based on the lectures given at the panel 'Islamic Manuscript -
Projects and Perspectives' at the Congress of German Oriental Studies, Freiburg im Breisgau
(Germany), 24-28 September 2007.
See the cover.
From the cover:
Islamic manuscripts are voices from the past, revealing scholarly
debates and networks, as well as aspects of daily life. They allow us to witness
the transmission of knowledge and economic and cultural exchanges of centuries gone by.
The present articles mirror this variety of aspects involved when dealing with
Islamic manuscripts, and emphasize their importance as sources for our knowledge of
history. The articles cover research on single manuscripts, as well as collections,
the problems of editing, as well as cataloguing. New technologies have extended the
possibilities of preserving and presenting manuscripts - accessible online, digitised and
catalogued, they serve an international research community and become a worldwide
cultural heritage.
About the editors:
Stefanie Brinkmann is lecturer at the Institute of Oriental Studies at Leipzig University,
Germany. She is active as team member of projects on Islamic manuscripts held at Leipzig
University Library. Educated in Arabic and Persian Studies, as well as Italian Philology,
she holds a PhD in Arabic Studies.
Beate Wiesmueller has been research associate in projects on cataloguing Islamic manuscripts
and Oriental rare books. Since 2006 she is research associate in Leipzig for projects on
Islamic manuscripts. She has authored several publications on Oriental collections and holds
a M.A. in Islamic Studies, English Philology and Comparative Religious Studies.
Table of Contents:
Acknowledgment, p. 7
Notes on the edition, p. 9
Notes on Contributers, p. 11
Stefanie Brinkmann & Beate Wiesmüller, Introduction, 15
SCHOLARS AND MANUSCRIPTS
Rosemarie Quiring-Zoche, 'An early manuscript of al-Baydawi's Anwar al-tanzil and
the model it has been copied from', p. 33
Oman Fathurahman, 'Further Research on Ithaf al-Dhaki Manuscripts by Ibrahim al-Kurani', p. 47
Arnoud Vrolijk, 'Entirely free from the urge to publish'. The 18th-century attempts at an
edition of the Arabic proverbs of al-Maydani, p. 59
CODICOLOGY
François Déroche, 'Inks and page setting in early Qur'anic manuscripts', p. 83
Edwin P. Wieringa, 'Some Javanese characteristics of a Qur'an manuscript from Surakarta', p. 101
Nikolaj Serikoff, 'An Arabic "Book of Dreams" from an Ottoman Imperial collection', p. 131
Avihai Shivtiel, 'The Arabic Manuscripts at the University of Cambridge and the position
of the Cairo Genizah documents among other collections', p. 149
Michaela Hoffmann-Ruf, 'Private Documents from Oman: The Archive of the 'Abriyin of al-Hamra'', p. 159
Marijana Kavcic, 'Arabic Manuscripts of the National and University Library "St. Kliment
Ohridski", Skopje, Republic of Macedonia', p. 175
Stefanie Brinkmann, Thoralf Hanstein, Verena Klemm & Jens Kupferschmidt, 'From Past to Present:
Islamic Manuscripts in Leipzig', p. 195
From the exhibition's press release:
Two complementary exhibitions at Asia Society Museum explore Islamic art's quintessential art
form, calligraphy. Traces of the Calligrapher: Islamic Calligraphy in Practice, c. 1600-1900
and Writing the Word of God: Calligraphy and the Qur'an demonstrate the breadth and beauty
of Islamic calligraphy and the traditions of its practice across several centuries and two continents.
¶ Together, these exhibitions examine the artistry of the tools used to create masterful works,
examples of calligraphy, such as practice exercises, manuscripts, and folios from the Qur'an,
and the social prestige associated with calligraphy. Approximately 150 objects and works from
an important private collection in Houston, from the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University
Art Museums, and the Morgan Library & Museum, convey the elegance of the esteemed art form and
reveal the skills of the many artisans—calligraphers, paper makers, gold beaters, illuminators,
bookbinders, and metalworkers, to name a few—involved in the creation of the tools, the
calligraphies, and the manuscript folios.
¶ The practice of calligraphy constituted an expression of piety, as stated in the hadith
(associated with the Prophet Muhammad): "the first thing created by God was the pen."
Calligraphy became a worthwhile endeavor for men of all stations and served as a permanent
record of the calligrapher's character.
¶ Traces of the Calligrapher maps the practice of the calligrapher from the seventeenth through
the nineteenth centuries both through examples of calligraphy as well as through tools of
the trade. The objects in the exhibition come from Iran, Turkey, and India, and include
reed pens, penknives (used to cut the nib of the pen), and maktas (used to hold the pen
during this process), in addition to inkwells, scissors, burnishers, storage boxes, and writing tables.
¶ The fine craftsmanship of these objects is revealed in the exquisite and detailed designs,
which often employ precious materials such as jade, agate, ivory, ebony, silver, and gold.
Calligraphic practice exercises and fair copies are displayed alongside these implements,
and a video shows a master calligrapher at work. Together, the objects and their output
present a comprehensive overview of the intimate world of the calligrapher and the environment
in which he worked.
¶ Writing the Word of God: Calligraphy and the Qur'an is devoted to key developments of the
Islamic scripts of distinct cultural areas, spanning from Spain and North Africa to Greater
Iran from the seventh to the fifteenth centuries. A selection of approximately twenty folios
from now dispersed Qur'ans from the regions will illustrate the rich variety and system of scripts.
¶ Exhibition Organization and Sponsorship:
Traces of the Calligrapher and Writing the Word of God have been assembled by guest curators
Mary McWilliams, Norma Jean Calderwood Curator of Islamic and Later Indian Art at the Arthur
M. Sackler Museum, and David J. Roxburgh, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Professor of Islamic
Art History at Harvard University. In Houston, Christine Starkman, curator of Asian art,
and Vivian Li, curatorial assistant in the Asian art department, oversaw the presentation.
At Asia Society, the in-house curator and coordinator is Adriana Proser, John H. Foster
Curator of Traditional Asian Art. The exhibitions are organized by the Museum of Fine Arts,
Houston, and Harvard University Art Museums. Generous support is provided by Mr. and Mrs.
Vahid Kooros; The Hagop Kevorkian Fund; Mr. and Mrs. Ali Ebrahimi; Douglas Jaffe III –
Horseshoe Bay Resort; Mr. and Mrs. Pat R. Rutherford, Jr.; The Seaver Institute;
Fariba and Rainer Buchecker; and Mr. Kay-Ghobad "Kiddie" Zafar. The exhibitions are
presented at Asia Society as part of Creative Voices of Islam in Asia, a three-year
initiative funded in part by the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art.
¶ Exhibition Catalogues:
The exhibition Traces of the Calligrapher: Islamic Calligraphy in Practice, c. 1600-1900
is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue
written by McWilliams and Roxburgh and published by the MFAH.
The exhibition Writing the Word of God: Calligraphy and the Qur'an is accompanied by an illustrated
catalogue, written by David J. Roxburgh.
Both catalogues are published by MFAH and are available for sale at AsiaStore at Asia Society
Museum.
¶ About the Asia Society:
Asia Society is the leading global and pan-Asian organization working to strengthen
relationships and promote understanding among the people, leaders and institutions of the
United States and Asia. Founded in 1956 by John D. Rockefeller 3rd, Asia Society is a
nonprofit educational institution with offices in Hong Kong, Houston, Los Angeles, Manila,
Melbourne, Mumbai, New York, San Francisco, Seoul, Shanghai, and Washington, DC.
¶ Asia Society Museum presents groundbreaking exhibitions and artworks, many previously
unseen in North America. Through exhibitions and related public programs, Asia Society
provides a forum for the issues and viewpoints reflected in both traditional and contemporary
Asian art.
¶ Asia Society and Museum, 725 Park Avenue (at 70th Street), New York City.
The Museum is open Tuesday through Sunday from 11:00 am to 6:00 pm and Friday from 11:00 am
to 9:00 pm. Closed on Mondays and major holidays. General admission is $10, seniors $7, students $5,
and free for members and persons under 16. Free admission Friday evenings, 6:00 to 9:00 pm.
¶ The Museum Store of the Asia Society sells several related titles, which were recently published.
These include:
- E. Atil & Michael Monroe, Mohamed Zakariya, Islamic Calligrapher. Bellevue Arts Museum,
2006. See announcement.
- Sheila S. Blair, Islamic Calligraphy. Edinburgh University Press, 2008/Columbia Univ Pr, 2006.
See announcement.
- Gabriel Mandel Khan, Rosanna M. Giammanco, Arabic Script: Styles, Variants and
Calligraphic Adaptations. Abbeville Press, Incorporated, 2006.
See announcement.
- Fahmida Suleman (ed.), Word of God, Art of Man. The Qur'an and its Creative Expressions. Oxford
(OUP) 2008. See announcement.
On 21 January 2009 it was exactly four hundred years ago that Josephus Justus Scaliger, Europe's
greatest philologist and humanist scholar, died in Leiden. The Leiden University Library,
where since 1609 the manuscripts and part of the printed books of Scaliger are kept has
organized, together with Scaliger Institute in Leiden, an exhibition of Scaliger's Oriental
collections. A beautifully printed catalogue was pubished at the occasion:
Arnoud Vrolijk & Kasper van Ommen (edd.), "All my Books
in Forein Tongues". Scaliger's Oriental Legacy in Leiden 1609-2009. Catalogue of an
exhibition on the quatercentenary of Scaliger's death, 21 January 2009. With an introductory
essay by Alastair Hamilton. Leiden (Leiden University Library) 2009 (131 pp., all illustrations
in full colour). See the
title-page of the catalogue.
The authors of the
descriptions of manuscripts and printed books in this catalogue are: Theodor Dunkelgrün,
Anthony Grafton, Toon van Hal, Alastair Hamilton, Albert van der Heide, Jan Paul Hinrichs,
Henk Jan de Jonge, Robert M. Kerr, Kasper van Ommen, Karin Scheper, Jan Schmidt, Arnoud
Vrolijk, Edwin Wieringa and Jan Just Witkam.
The catalogue can be ordered from The
Scaliger Institute, c/o Mr. Kasper van Ommen, Leiden University Library, P.O. Box 9501,
NL-2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands, at the price of € 15.00 plus postage.
Just published: Sayyid Muhammad Tabataba'i Behbehani (Mansur), Fihrist-i Mukhtasar-i
Nuskha-hayi Khatti-yi Kitabkhana-yi Maglis-i Shura-yi Islami. Teheran 1386 [2007], 1305 pp.
(ISBN: 964-6690-62-9).
¶ This is a handlist of the Islamic manuscripts in the Library of the Maglis-i Shura-yi
Islami, the Library of Parliament, in Tehran. The handlist is arranged alphabetically
by title of each text and refers to library's class-marks. The 8710 descriptions are of minimal
proportion in order to facilitate the use of this handlist. The title section is followed by
several indexes (by subject, by author, by place of copying, by copyist). At the end a survey
is given of the library's ambitious publication program. See
the prelims and the author's preface.
We have just received from The Research Centre for the Written Heritage (Miras Maktoob),
address: No. 1304, 2nd Floor, Farvardin Building, Between Daneshgah and Abureyhan St., Enghelab Ave.
Tehran, I.R. Iran 1315693519 (P.O Box 13185-519) a copy of the latest number of its Quarterly
Journal of Book Review, Bibliography and Text Information, Mirror of Heritage
(Ayene-ye Miras), New Series, vol. 6, issue 3 (= No. 42) of Winter 2008. (ISSN 1561-9400).
See the table of contents of No. 42.
Within the framework of the Aceh Project for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage,
organized by Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (TUFS), Centre for Documentation & Area-Transcultural
Studies, address: 3-11-1, Asahi-cho, Fuchu-shi, TOKYO 183-8534, Japan,
website, a catalogue of
the Acehnese manuscripts in the Ali Hasjmy Collection, a private collection, has been
published: Oman Fathurahman & Munawar Holil, Katalog Naskah Ali Hasjmy Aceh. Catalogue
of Aceh Manuscripts: Ali Hasjmy Collection. Tokyo 2007 (ISBN 978-4-925243). See the
preliminaries and the indexes (pdf)
of the catalogue.
Most manuscripts described in the catalogue are in Arabic and Malay. A relatively small number of
texts is in the Acehnese language. The catalogue is arranged according to subject: Qur'an,
Hadith, Tafsir, Tawhid, Fiqh, Tasawwuf, Grammar, Dhikr and Du'a', Hikayat, other texts. The descriptions
are extensive, with ample literary and codicological detail. Many manuscripts have
been illustrated. The catalogue is preceded by a Foreword by Prof. Sugahara Yumi and
a Peface by Prof. Edwin Wieringa (Professor of Languages and Cultures of Indonesia and the
Study of Islam in the University of Cologne, Germany). The publication of the catalogue
is the result of co-operation between the following institutions: Yayasan Pendidikan dan
Museum Ali Hasjmy, Banda Aceh; Pusat Pengkajian Islam dan Masyarakat (PPIM) UIN Jakarta;
Masyarakat Pernaskahan Nusantara (MANASSA); Centre for Documentation and Area-Transcultural
Studies (C-DATS) of Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (TUFS).
¶ Press release by TUFS (2005): The Great Earthquake and Indian Ocean Tsunami on 26 December 2004 resulted in the
death and missing of nearly three hundred thousand people around the Indian Ocean.
We would like to offer our condolence to those on their bereavement. As part of our
effort to help the people in Aceh to restore and preserve their cultural heritage,
especially those in the form of written documents, the Aceh Project for the Preservation
of Cultural Heritage was initiated in March 2005.
In Tir 1387 (June-July 2008) the second-oldest dated Persian manuscript was published in a facsimile edition.
This is the work Hidayat al-Muta'allimin fil-Tibb, a medical compilation by Abu Bakr Rabi' b.
Ahmad al-Akhawayni al-Bukhari, who must have conceived that work sometime before 370/981 as
a medical textbook for his son. The manuscript is preserved in Oxford (Bodleian Library) as MS Pers.
c. 37, and is dated beginning Rabi' I 478 (1085, colophon on p. 661). The present facsimile was edited
by Iraj Afshar, Mahmud Omidsalar and Nader Mottalebi Kashani. It is the first volume in a new series
Folia Medica Iranica. The present volume could be published thanks to generous subsidy by
the Bonabi family.
This new facsimile edition (ISBN 978-964-96998-6-8) was published in 500 copies by Bahram Publishers
in Tehran. The book is available from the well-known Tehran Bookshop Tahouri, Khiyabane Enghelabe
Eslami No. 1348 (opposite Tehran University), P.O. Box 13145-1648, Tehran, I.R. Iran (tel. 6640 6330).
To the facsimile edition of the manuscript are added several useful introductions. First there are
the codicological observations by Mahmud Omidsalar on the Oxford manuscript (pp. 5-10, in English
[pdf]).
The introductory part on the Persian side of the volume is much more extensive: First there is an essay on the position
of the Hidayat al-Muta'allimin in the history of medicine (pp. 7-16, by Dr. Ghulamreza
Bonabi. Then follows a detailed and important codicological introduction (pp. 17-37)
by Iraj Afshar. This is followed by a short anonymous survey of the reception history of the Hidayat al-
Muta'allimin ever since Charles Rieu mentioned, in 1895, the existence of the manuscript in his
catalogue of the Persian manuscripts in the British Museum (pp. 39-40). This is followed (pp. 41-42) by
a re-edition of the notes by that great philologist of Persian literature, Muhammad Qazwini, taken
from vol. 9 of his Memoirs. Then follows a note by Mujtaba Minovi (pp. 43-46), which was taken
from an article in Yaghma, which is followed on pp. 47-48 by the text of a
letter from Mehdi Bayani to Mojtaba Minovi, taken from the same No. of Yaghma.
This is followed (p. 49) by the Persian translation (by Dr. Minuchihr Mortazawi) of an extract of a study
by Gilbert Lazard on the Soghdian terminology in the Hidayat al-Muta'allimin. On pp. 50-54
follows the essay by Gilbert Lazard on the Hidayat al-Muta'allimin in the Persian translation by
Leila 'Askari. On pp. 55-57 is a survey by Dr. Jalal Matini of some of the grammatical
peculiarities of the text of the Hidayat al-Muta'allimin. The Persian introductory part
of the facsimile edition is concluded by text which was omitted in the Meshhed edition of the
Hidayat al-Muta'allimin (p. 58, provided by Nader Mottalebi Kashani), a list of coloured chapter titles in the Oxford manuscript
(pp. 59-60, by Iraj Afshar), an introduction to another manuscript of the Hidayat al-Muta'allimin, MS. Tehran, Malek
Library No. 4501 (pp. 61-62, by Iraj Afshar), and on pp. 63-66 is a comparison by
Nader Mottalebi Kashani between the two manuscripts
(Bodleian and Malek), with two photographs taken from the Malek manuscript. Finally follows the facsimile
edition of the second-oldest manuscript in the Persian language (668 pp., in in black and white).
¶ As is well-known, the oldest dated Persian manuscript is al-Abniya 'an Haqa'iq al-Adwiya by
Abu Mansur Muwaffaq al-Din b. 'Ali al-Harawi, the original of which was copied by 'Ali
b. Ahmad Asadi Tusi (the author of Lughat-i Furs), and which is now preserved in the Library
of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna. Several editions of that text exist, and in 1974
Manuchihr Amiri published a dictionary of the medical terminology of that text.
As part of the so-called
Delmonico Collection
of Important Judaica,
Sotheby New York will
auction off, among other things,
a number of Hebrew and Judeo Arabic manuscripts from the Yemen, and one from China. These are:
No. 195. Commentary on Alfasi's Halakhic code on Hullin, Hebrew manuscript on vellum. [Yemen, 13th century].
(description and illustration of
102-103 and
159).
No. 196. Al-Mansuri (A treatise on medicine), Abu Bakr Muhammad b. Zakariya al-Razi (Rasis),
with several other medical texts by Hunayn b. Ishaq, Maimonides, and others, in Judeo-Arabic.
Manuscript on paper [Yemen, 13th century]
(description and illustration of
98 and
122-123).
No. 197. Deuteronomy, in Hebrew, with Targum and Judeo-Arabic translation. Manuscript on vellum.
[Yemen, 14th century] (description and illustration of
26-27).
No. 198. Haftarot ha-Torah, with Targum, Hebrew manuscript on vellum. [Yemen, 14th century]
(description and illustration of
110-111).
No. 199. Haftarot ha-Torah, with Targum, Hebrew manuscript on parchment. [Yemen, 14th century]
(description and
illustration).
No. 200. Midrash ha-Hefez (Midrashic commentary on Pentateuch and Haftarot, in Judeo-Arabic,
Zachariah ben Solomon-Rofe. Manuscript on paper. [Yemen:] completed 4 February 1500
(description and illustration of
138-139).
No. 206. Hebrew letter to the Jewish community of Kai-Fung-Foo (Kaifeng), endorsed in
Chinese, Isaac Faraj ben Reuben ben Jacob, Manuscript on paper. Shanghai, 31 October 1850
(description and
illustration).
Note that several of these manuscripts originate from the collection of David Solomon
Sassoon (1880 - 1942).
Prof. Dr. Moustafa Mawaldi, Director of the Institute for the History of Arabic Science (Aleppo University, Aleppo, Syria, tel. +963
21 22 38 170, fax: +963 21 26 32 162, email: ihas@alepuniv.shern.net), announces the publication
of volume 14 of the Institute's Journal for the History of Arabic Science. See the
text of the announcement and a survey of this volume's contents
(pdf).
We have just received from The Research Centre for the Written Heritage (Miras Maktoob),
address: No. 1304, 2nd Floor, Farvardin Building, Between Daneshgah and Abureyhan St., Enqelab Ave.
Tehran, I.R. Iran 1315693519 (P.O Box 13185-519) Nos. 19-20 and Nos. 21-22 of its Monthly Journal
of Textual Criticism, Codicology and Iranology Heritage Report (Gozaresh-e Miras)
of April-May 2008 and June-July 2008 respectively.
See the table of contents and abstracts of Nos. 19-20, and
see the table of contents and abstracts of Nos. 21-22.
We have also just received from the same Institution a copy of its Quarterly Journal of
Book Review, Bibliography and Text Information, Mirror of Heritage
(Ayene-ye Miras), New Series, vol. 6, issue 1 (= No. 40) of Spring 2008, and vol. 6, issue 2
(= No. 41) of Summer 2008. (ISSN 1561-9400).
See the table of contents of No. 40 and
see the table of contents of No. 41.
Recently, Prof. Herman Teule, chair of Oriental Christianity in the Catholic Radboud University of Nijmegen, The
Netherlands, discovered the Karshuni version of a classic of medieval Dutch literature.
This classic is the story of Marieken of Nimwegen, a miracle play which was first published in
Antwerp in or around 1515. The storyline is this: Marieken ('Little Mary'), a young woman from
Nimwegen, lets herself be seduced by the devil, with whom she lives in sin, in Antwerp,
during seven years. In the end
she decides to return to her hometown Nimwegen, and repents. After a long and eventful journey
she succeeds in receiving absolution from the Pope in Rome. The book instantly became popular.
Herman Teule has retraced the story, through the contemporary Latin translation, to its inclusion
in Italian in Glorie di Maria by Alfonso de Liguori (1696-1787), which was first
published in Naples in 1750 and reprinted many times. The Arabic translation of that version may have been part of the
repertoire of texts used by the Roman Catholic Church in the dissemination of the Christian
faith in the Middle East. The manuscript seems to originate from Mardin (Anatolia), and came
into the possession of the Radboud University of Nimwegen as part of the collection donated in 2003 by
the Dutch Syriacist Dr. J.C.J. Sanders. Address of the library of the Institute for Oriental
Christianity (IVOC): Erasmusplein 1, NL-6525 HT Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
See the press release by Nijmegen University
(pdf)
and the article by Berthold van Maris in NRC/Handelsblad of November 11, 2008
(pdf).
On 18 November 2008 ten Arabic manuscripts of the private library of Prof. P.S. van Koningsveld
are auctioned off in Leiden by the auctioneers Messrs
Burgersdijk & Niermans (see the auction catalogue, Nos. 675-684). The texts and images
of the catalogue are provided here as a download from the site of the auctioneer,
and were slightly reformatted, but otherwise are left unchanged. The short introductory
text was copied from the printed catalogue (p. 76), of which the title-page is
given here as well.
Follow-up: On 21 November 2008 the prices for which the manuscripts were actually sold
have been added to the auctioneer's estimates. The total collection fetched € 15,800 (hammer price,
without the 23,8% buyer's premium)) against an estimate of € 17,000.
Several manuscripts have been purchased by Leiden University Library.
On 23 October 2008 Sotheby's in London auctions a remarkable collection of pieces of modern and
contemporary Arab and Iranian art and calligraphy. Two lavishly illustrated catalogues have been
published. These catalogues (Session One, Nos. 101-171, 170 pp., and Session Two, Nos. 201-274,
166 pp., price £ 33 each), and other catalogues,
which in due course will become important reference works, if only
because of the illustrations, can be ordered from Sotheby's, London (tel. +44 (0) 7293 5444), through
Sotheby's website, or from Sotheby's offices,
34-35 New Bond Street, London W1A 2AA, United Kingdom.
In addition to the well-described and illustrated items, either catalogue contains
biographical details of most of the artists in question, and a few have been interviewed
especially for this
sale by Roxanna Zand. Apart from the interesting figurative paintings and objects there is
quite a large number of calligraphies and objects inspired by Arabic calligraphy.
Mohammad Ehsai
is again among the painters whose work is sold, but there are many more. Mentioning a few is
doing injustice to the others who remain unmentioned, but some of the calligraphies immediately
catch the eye. This is particularly the case with
Twelve fingers
by Iranian-born Charles Hossein
Zenderoudi (born 1937). The canvas which is painted in acrylic (No. 235 of the catalogue,
estimate € 62,000-86,500) is
entirely filled with small numbers in different colours. From afar the painting gives the impression
of a woven textile. The twelve fingers are, of
course, the twelve imams. The provenance of the painting points to a cosmopolitan interest. It was
first part of the art collection of the Iranian architect Kamran Diba in Paris, then went to
an unmentioned art collection in Egypt and now it has emerged in London.
Another interesting piece (No. 128 of the catalogue, estimate € 7,500 - 9,900)
is Tajvid No. 12
by Ms. Pouran Jonchi (born 1959, originally trained as a calligrapher in Meshed).
This is how the Sotheby catalogue describes this painting: "Tajvid #12 is part of a new body of work
by Pouran Jinchi that takes as its departure point the Quran, the sacred text for Muslims. For each
of the Recitation drawings, of which Tajvid #12 is one, Jinchi has taken a surah, a chapter from
the Quran, and has rewritten it; she has emitted all the consonant letters of the original text
but retained the guiding vowels and numbers that are present within it as well as a reference
to its name. As the chapter's vowels linger on, floating above the missing letters to indicate
how they are to be properly pronounced (tajwid), a harmonious motif of bright green lines and
curls results. In the absence of the consonant letters, the copied passage becomes incomprehensible:
its vowels are stripped of their linguistic meaning or purpose and they emerge as purely aesthetic
decorations. As always, however. Jinchi leaves reminders in each of her drawings of the origin of
her markings, in this case allusions to the surahs' names, which provide relief from otherwise
utter ambiguity. In addition, the vagueness created by that which is excluded in Jinchi's
distorted surahs and the array of possibilities of what the removed may disclose give a nod
to the complex and protracted debates that have, at length, surrounded the manifold interpretations
of verses, even words, that appear in the Quran; these debates are largely rooted in differences
over guiding vowels and pronunciations. Tajvid # 12 and the remainder of the Recitation
drawings are part of Pouran Jinchi's project to emphasize the visual and auditory delight to
be derived from the Quran as well the open-ended meanings one can read between the lines of
this sacred text."
Finally, mention may be made here of a painting (No. 126 of the catalogue, estimate € 8,700 -
12,400) by Mohamed Kanoo (born 1963). He is the son of Abdul Latif Jassim Kanoo, the founder of
the Beit al-Qur'an in Manama, Bahrain. Mohamed Kanoo's calligraphic work is based on the principle
of minimalism (tajrid,
and the painting
Barcode, now up for auction, showing the first sentence of the Muslim Creed
in the form of a barcode, is an eloquent example of the potential of this approach. The artist
declares about this painting that he let himself be inspired by Dan Brown's The Da Vinci code.
The calligraphic pieces in the two catalogues of the 23 October 2008 sales show how much the
old craft of writing beautifully remains a source of artistic inspiration in the modern world.
The cosmopolitan backgrounds of the artists, who were all born in the Middle East or North
Africa and who all conquered the attention of an international public through their exhibitions
and sales worldwide, is another point worth
remarking. The presence of their works in Sotheby's auctions means that they have broken
through the ceilings of regional limitations and that they find appreciation, also in the literal sense
of the word, in all quarters.
Just published: Harald Froschauer & Cornelia Eva Römer (eds.), Spätantike Bibliotheken.
Leben und Lesen in den frühen Klöstern Ägyptens. Wien (Phoibos Verlag) 2008,
8 + 150 pp, numerous illustrations. Price € 29.50. ISBN 978-3-901232-99-2 (= Nilus,
volume 14). Contributions in the volume are in German, French and English. See the
table of contents.
This is the accompanying volume for a small
exhibition in the
Papyrusmuseum der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek, Heldenplatz, Neue Burg, 1010 Wien
(the Papyrus Museum in the Austrian National Library in Vienna).
It is in so far relevant for the student of Islamic manuscripts that it describes the role of
the book in pre-Islamic Egypt. Islam did not invent the book culture which played such an
important role in it later on, it found a living book culture in the Eastern Mediterranean
when it started to conquer this area. The present catalogue takes the reader to the manuscripts
in the Library of the White Monastery in Upper Egypt, not far from Akhmim, but on the Western
shore of the Nile. The book is available from the
publisher
and in the Papyrus Museum in the Austrian National Library. The exhibition runs from 18 April -
14 November 2008.
In April 2007 the combined volume of Nos. 11 and 12 of Nama-yi Baharistan has been
published in Teheran (ISSN 1608-912X). This is the International Iranian Journal for Research into Islamic
Manuscripts. Nos. 11-12 are also counted by the publisher as vols. 6-7, Nos. 1-2 (2005-2006),
437 + 43 pp., many illustrations, price not indicated. Most contributions are in Persian,
there are abstracts in English of all articles.
This is an important periodical for the study of Islamic manuscripts. See the
table of contents
of volume 11-12. Nama-yi Baharistan is published by
the Iranian Parliament Library (The Library, Museum and Documentation Center of Majles-e
Shora-ye Eslami, the Islamic Consultative Assembly). Director of this publication is
Mohammad-Ali Ahmadi-Abhari, the editor-in-chief is Nader Mottalebi-Kashani. This and other
volumes are available from the publisher, P.O. Box 11155-954, Tehran, Iran,
telephone: +9821 66 95 19 19 / 66 95 32 24, fax: +9821 66 46 96 72, by
e-mail to the publisher, or
by e-mail to the editor. See also the
publisher's website.
Just published by Brill's in Leiden: Anna Akasoy & Wim Raven (eds.), Islamic Thought
in the Middle Ages. Studies in Text, Transmission and Translation, in Honour of
Hans Daiber. Leiden - Boston (Brill's) 2008 (711 pp.) ISBN 978 90 04 16565 6. Price: € 185
(= approximately US$ 276). The book is at the same time volume 75 of the series Islamic
Philosophy, Theology and Science. Texts and Studies (ISSN: 0169-8729).
This important collective volume on contains anumber of articles Islamic Philosophy and Theology,
the Hstory of Science, the Cross-cultural transmissions of Arabic Philosophy and
Science, and on Language and Literature. Manuscripts are the subject of a number of the
contributions in the volume. See the
table of contents.
The history of Islamic thought in the Middle Ages, the impact
of Greek philosophy and science, and the formation of an own theological tradition,
is a long and complex one. The articles in this volume dedicated to Hans Daiber,
one of the pioneering scholars in this field, offer new insights from a variety of
perspectives: philological, philosophical, and historical. The subjects range from
Islamic philosophy and theology, over the history of science, the transmission into
other medieval cultures to language and literature. In addition to their specific
discoveries, they give an impression of the dynamics of medieval Islamic intellectual
history as well as of the diversity of approaches needed to understand this dynamics.
About the two editors: Anna Akasoy, PhD. (2005) in Oriental Studies, University of
Frankfurt, is Lecturer at the Oriental Institute, University of Oxford. She has published
on the history of Islamic philosophy and science, including The Arabic Version of the
Nicomachean Ethics (Brill, 2005). Wim Raven, PhD. (1989) in Arabic Studies, University
of Leiden, taught at the Free University of Amsterdam and Frankfurt University, is now
Lecturer at the Centre of Near and Middle East Studies, University of Marburg. He has
worked on Hadith and early Islam. Available from the
publisher.
Today one of the half-yearly auctions at Sotheby's London is being held. The lavishly
illustrated catalogue Arts of the Islamic World shows a number of manuscripts,
textiles, tile works, ceramics, wood work, weapons, sculptures and carpets from a variety of
origins and periods. Together the catalogue can be read as a virtual museum of Islamic
art, the exhibits of which have in one single day changed hands and will
for the time being disappear from sight.
There is a trend, since a year or two, to auction off textiles from holy places, notably
curtains and the like originating from the burial chamber of the Mosque of the Prophet Muhammad
in Medina. Sotheby's catalogues are a rare occasion to view these very special objects,
which even Muslims visiting the Prophet's grave cannot always view at ease (Catalogue Nos.
28-36.
The Sotheby Islamic catalogues usually begin with a section on manuscripts and manuscript leaves.
In the present catalogue, as in the previous one, the first items are Qur'anic fragments
on parchment of a variety of origins, sizes and periods (present catalogue Nos. 1-27).
The present catalogues is in so far exceptional that it offers for sale as its third
item a single leaf (measuring 35.5 x 27.5 cm) of what is said to be Higazi and to date
from the second half of the
7th century AD. Even if one dismisses such an early dating as pious or wishful thinking, the leaf
makes an old impression. See the recto side,
the verso side,
and a detail of
the verso side. The leaf which had an estimate between GBP 400,000 and GBP 500,000
was sold for (hammer price + buyer's premium) GBP 481,250.
See the description of this
fragment in the catalogue, which appears to be identical to a section of 32 leaves in
the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin (James 1980, no.1. p.14).
This catalogue (416 pp., price £ 33), and other catalogues, which in due course will become important reference works, if only
because of the illustrations, can be ordered from Sotheby's, London (tel. +44 (0) 7293 5444), through
Sotheby's website, or from Sotheby's offices,
34-35 New Bond Street, London W1A 2AA, United Kingdom.
New catalogue published: The library of the George and Mathilde Salem Foundation
(Aleppo) is one of the most important private collections of manuscripts in the
Syrian Arab Republic. It contains 547 copies in Arabic, Syriac and other languages
about Christian and Islamic theology, history, grammar, science, liturgy, poetry and
literature. The new catalogue offers a detailed record and description of these manuscripts. It
includes full indices of titles, personal names, subjects and places.
The catalogue is published in the series Sprachen und Kulturen des Christlichen Orients, edited by Johannes den Heijer,
Stephen Emmel, Martin Krause und Andrea B. Schmidt, vol. 16:
Catalogue des manuscrits de la fondation Georges et Mathilde Salem (Alep, Syrie), par
Francisco del Río Sánchez 2008. 8-vo, 352 pp., bound., price € 98,00.
ISBN 978-3-89500-628-9
Availabe from: Reichert Verlag Wiesbaden, Tauernstrasse 11, D-65199 Wiesbaden, Germany.
Contact the
publisher.
Prof. Alastair Hamilton has added another
title to the number of his publication on the relations between
Europe and the Arab World. In The Forbidden Fruit he gives a lucid survey of how
Christian Europe developed its attitudes towards the Holy Book of Islam and he describes the
political and religious backgrounds of the publication of the early European Qur'an
translations (16th-18th centuries).
This beautifully illustrated lecture was published in May 2008 by
LMEI the London Middle East Institute, a
division of SOAS (Thornbaugh Street, Russell Square, LONDON WC1H 0XG, UK).
On September 8, 2008, the Minister of Awqaf and Religious Affairs of the Sultanate of
Oman gave the go-ahead to DecoType,
a Dutch firm established in Amsterdam, for designing a Koran in Unicode using
Tasmeem software at the occasion of the Holy month of
Ramadan 1429. Mr. Thomas Milo, president of Decotype: "I gave a brief lecture about the project
in the Grand Mosque. I did so in Arabic alternating with English for an audience
consisting of two ministers (one of whom is the heir apparent to H.M. Sultan Qaboos),
dignitaries, including the Anglican bishop and the head of a protestant Christian
mission institute in Muscat, and members of the corps diplomatique.
The project is starting this month and involves tackling a series of unresolved problems
regarding the Unicode coverage of Koran orthography, as well as the related typographic
issues."
Here is some footage.
'Unicode' appears at 1:00 / 2:59 (total duration of the item about Electronic Koran
in Unicode is from 0:27 / 2:59 to 1:37 / 2:59)
Earlier, Decotype's Tasmeem software had been used for the private
publication in 2007
of Dr. Laban Kaptein of the first critical text edition of the Dürr-i Meknûn,
the Turkish cosmography by the famous dervish Ahmed Bican Yazicioglu (ISBN: 978-90-9021408-5).
See some sample pages of that edition here.
September 2007 saw the publication of the attractively designed book by Huda Smitshuijzen
AbiFarès, entitled Typographic matchmaking. Building cultural bridges with type face
design. Amsterdam 2007. Published by BIS Publishers, P.O. Box 323, Amsterdam 1000 AH, The
Netherlands (website), jointly with the Khatt Foundation
(website), equally in Amsterdam.
The book describes the
project Typographic matschmaking by which five Arab-Dutch design teams have created Arabic
companions for Latin fonts. This concerns the following teams and fonts:
- Seria, designed by Martin Majoor.
- Sada, designed by Martin Majoor & Pascal Zoghbi.
- Fresco, designed by Fred Smeijers.
- Fresco Arabic, designed by Fred Smeijers & Lara Assouad-Khoury.
- Fedra Serif A & Fedra Sans, designed by Peter Bilak.
- Fedra Arabic, designed by Peter Bilak & Tarek Atrissi.
- TheMix, designed by Lucas de Groot.
- TheMix Arabic, designed by Lucas de Groot & Mouneer Al-Shaarani.
- BigVesta, designed by Gerard Unger.
- BigVestaArabic, by Nadine Chahine in collaboration with Gerard Unger
Together with the book comes a CD with fonts, but this proves to be somewhat of a disappointment,
since the added fonts (TrueType) are only beta versions of some of the designs introduced in
the book and cannot, apparently, be used in a word processor, but only, as it would seem, in the Middle East version
of Adobe's InDesign. Nevertheless, the books remains an attractive account of a successful
attempt to improve Arabic typography.
Earlier work by Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFarès includes Experimental Arabic Type, Dubai
(Saatchi & Saatchi) 2003, and Arabic typography. A comprehensive sourcebook, London
(Saqi Books) 2001.
- Just published: volume 26 (2008) of Hadeeth ad-Dar, the quarterly publication of the
Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyya (address: National Council for Culture, Arts and letters,
P.O. Box 23996, Safat, 13100, Kuwait). The present number
contains a selection of the lectures held during the Cultural Seasons 2003-2008, organized by
Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyya in Kuwait. Texts in Hadeeth ad-Dar are published both in English and in Arabic.
See the title-page and table of contents.
"The journal Hadeeth ad-Dar of Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah (DAI)
is intended to share the wealth and beauty of Islamic culture contained within the extensive
and comprehensive al-Sabah Collection of Islamic art and the variety of scholarly and artistic
activities associated with the collection.
The collection itself, ranging from early Islam to the 18th century, is organised according to
both historical period and geographical region. The reference library and the publications of
DAI are closely related to the collection.
DAI has sponsored archaeological excavations in Bahnasa, Upper Egypt that date to the Fatimid
period. We are also involved in the Raya excavation at al-Tur, in Sinai Peninsula in Egypt.
At present, our annual lecture series has been revived and is a focal point for historians
and other specialists in the field. It features talks by prominent international scholars
on various topics of Islamic art, history archaeology and architecture."
- Simultaneously published: issue 2 of year 10 (2008) of Bareed ad-Dar, the bi-monthly
newsletter of The Friends of Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyya (same address). It contains among other things reports on the celebration
of the 25th anniversary of Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyya, on a trip to the island of Failaka, and on the
lectures held in February-April 2008 during the 19th Cultural Season organized by Dar al-Athar
al-Islamiyya. At the end is a list of objects still missing after Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyya was looted
during the Iraqi invasion. The Bareed ad-Dar is published in English.
See the cover.
Complimentary subscriptions to either publication are available upon written request.
Just published: Charles Burnett (ed.), Ibn Baklarish's Book of Simples. Medical remedies
between three faiths in twelfth-century Spain. London (The Arcadian Library in association
with Oxford University Press) 2008. Price: US$ 170. The magnificently published and
lavishly illustrated book is available from the
publisher.
In October 2003 the Arcadian Library in London purchased a previously unknown manuscript
of the Kitab al-Musta`ini by Ibn Baklarish, an important book of materia medica written in the
Iberian peninsula at the turn of the eleventh and twelfth century. The copying of Arcadian
Library manuscript was completed on 18 January 1130 AD.
On 10 September 2005 a number of scholars (Charles Burnett (London), Ana Labarta (Valencia),
Joëlle Ricordel (Paris), Juan Carlos Villaverde Amieva (Oviedo), Jan Just Witkam
(Leiden), Geoffrey Khan (Cambridge), David Wasserstein (Nashville), Emilie Savage-Smith (Oxford),
Anna Contadini (London)) came together in the Arcadian Library and shared their expertise
on the content of the Arcadian manuscript and assessed its significance in relation to
other manuscripts of the same text and within the context of 11th- and 12th-century medicine
in Islamic Spain. The present publication contains the papers presented at that symposium.
See the title-page and table of contents.
'Ein Garten im Ärmel ('A Garden up your sleeve', so called after a metaphor invented
by al-Gahiz) is the title of an exhibition on Islamic book culture which is held in the Library
of the University of Leipzig, Germany (Address: Beethovenstrasse 6, Leipzig), from 11 July
through 27 September 2008. The manuscripts which are exhibited all come from the collections
of Leipzig University Library, which is the proud owner over some 1800 Islamic manuscripts.
The exhibition is part of the project on Islamic manuscripts, financed by the
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. It embodies the co-operation between Chair of Arabic Studies
and Oriental Philology (Prof. Dr. Verena Klemm [contact]) at the Oriental Institute of Leipzig University and the Director
of the Library of that same University (Prof. Dr. Ulrich Johannes Schneider
[contact]). The results of
this project can be read in the project's
website.
A lavishly illustrated catalogue of the exhibition is published and can be obtained from Leipzig
University Library (further details on price and availability to be obtained during the exhibition
from the Leipzig Library). In the
course of July 2008 the exhibition will be accompanied by a lecture series (details in the Library's
website). See also the exhibition's official
announcement.
See the cover, title-page, table of contents
and list of authors of the catalogue.
This conference is part of a
joint programme between three European universities of Leiden, Cambridge and Oxford on
the history of Persian literature and culture.
The programme was discussed and developed at the inaugural meeting of the European League of
Non-Western Studies (ELNWS), which was established in Leiden in July 2006. The first conference
of this programme 'Traditions in Persian Linguistics and Literature', scheduled for five years
(2007-2011) was successfully organized jointly by the Leiden and Oxford Universities in
Leiden in July 2007.
The main aim of the two day conference is to investigate the phenomenon of the 'sudden'
revival of Persian culture in the 9-10th centuries after a chronological gap of two
centuries. This period in the scholarly literature dedicated to the Iranian studies
is usually called 'two centuries of silence' due to the lack of almost any evidences of
written monuments between the Arab invasion in Sasanian Iran in 7th century A.D. and the
earliest surviving literary examples in the New Persian language of the period of the
Samanid dynasty (819-999) with their capital in Bukhara.
Convenors: Firuza Abdullaeva (University of Oxford) and Asghar Seyed-Gohrab (University of Leiden).
See the full program.
In February 2008, Exeter University Library was awarded GBP 34,900 by the Joint Information
Systems Committee (JISC) of behalf of HEFCE (Higher Education Funding Council for England),
to carry out a survey into User Requirements for Digitised Resources in Islamic Studies.
A team led by Paul Auchterlonie and Ahmed Abu Zayed worked on the project (named DigiIslam)
between March and May, using a mixture of questionnaires, focus groups, telephone
interviews and bibliometric analysis. The resulting report has now been sent to JISC.
JISC will study this report and will pass on any recommendations to HEFCE, who will be
announcing their wider strategy for Islamic Studies in Higher Education later this summer.
See the full text of the JISC report.
It is a substantial document, but the Executive Summary and Recommendations can be found on
pages 5-11.
For details of all the other reports which have been commissioned by HEFCE since June
2007, when Islamic Studies was designated a Strategic Subject by the UK Government, go to
the HEFCE website (subsection
Islamic Studies).
Communication by Paul Auchterlonie, Librarian for Middle East Studies, University of Exeter,
Old Library, Prince of Wales Rd., Exeter EX4 4SB, U.K.
Frédéric Bauden (University of Liège, Belgium) has just published his
article 'Les relations diplomatiques entre les sultans mamlouks circassiens et les autres
pouvoirs du Dar al-islam. L'apport du ms. ar. 4440 (BNF, Paris)', in Annales islamiques
41 (2007), pp. 3-29. See the article.
Mark Abley has just written an interesting article, 'Understanding Islam', in McGill News,
Spring/Summer 2008, pp. 23-27, on Islamic books and manuscripts in Montreal, with interviews with
Robert Wisnovsky, F. Jamil Rageb, Khalid Mustafa Medani and Adam Gacek.
See the article.
We have just received from The Research Centre for the Written Heritage (Miras Maktoob),
address: No. 1304, 2nd Floor, Farvardin Building, Between Daneshgah and Abureyhan St., Enqelab Ave.
Tehran, I.R. Iran 1315693519 (P.O Box 13185-519) Nos. 10-11 of its Monthly Journal
of Textual Criticism, Codicology and Iranology Heritage Report (Gozaresh-e Miras) of July-August 2007.
See the table of contents.
We have also just received from the same Institution a copy of its Quarterly Journal of
Book Review, Bibliography and Text Information, Mirror of Heritage
(Ayene-ye Miras), New Series, vol. 5, issue 4 (= No. 39) of Winter 2007
(ISSN 1561-9400).
See the table of contents.
At the celebration of the 325th anniversary of Brill's, the well-known publishing house
in Leiden, a history of the firm, from the early beginnings in 1683 till the present day,
has just been published: Sytze van der Veen (met bijdragen van Paul Dijstelberge, Mirte D.
Groskamp & Kasper van Ommen), Brill. 325 jaar uitgeven voor de wetenschap. Leiden/Boston 2008,
180 pp. See the cover and title-page.
The text of the book is in Dutch, but since it is profusely illustrated this should not pose a
problem for the interested reader. Brill's has been known, and is still well-known,
for its prestigious publications in the field of Oriental studies. See the publisher's own jubilee
website.
We have just received from The Research Centre for the Written Heritage (Miras Maktoob),
address: No. 1304, 2nd Floor, Farvardin Building, Between Daneshgah and Abureyhan St., Enqelab Ave.
Tehran, I.R. Iran 1315693519 (P.O Box 13185-519) No. 12 of its Monthly Journal
of Textual Criticism, Codicology and Iranology Heritage Report (Gozaresh-e Miras) of September 2007.
See the table of contents.
We have also just received from the same Institution a copy of its Quarterly Journal of
Book Review, Bibliography and Text Information, Mirror of Heritage
(Ayene-ye Miras), New Series, vol. 5, issue 3 (= No. 38) of Autumn 2007
(ISSN 1561-9400).
See the table of contents.
We have just received from The Research Centre for the Written Heritage (Miras Maktoob),
address: No. 1304, 2nd Floor, Farvardin Building, Between Daneshgah and Abureyhan St., Enqelab Ave.
Tehran, I.R. Iran 1315693519 (P.O Box 13185-519) Nos 8-9 of its Monthly Journal
of Textual Criticism, Codicology and Iranology Heritage Report (Gozaresh-e Miras) of May-June 2007.
See the table of contents.
We have also just received from the same Institution a copy of its Quarterly Journal of
Book Review, Bibliography and Text Information, Mirror of Heritage
(Ayene-ye Miras), New Series, vol. 5, issue 1, 2 (= Nos. 36-37) of Spring, Summer 2007
(ISSN 1561-9400).
See the table of contents.
Prof. Andreas Kaplony (University of Zürich, Switzerland) has just published
an enlightening article on the writing of dots in Arabic script based on research on
a corpus of texts from the first and second centuries of the Islamic era:
Andreas Kaplony, 'What Are Those Few Dots For? Thoughts on the
Orthography of the Qurra Papyri (709-710), the Khurasan Parchments (755-777) and the
Inscription of the Jerusalem Dome of the Rock (692)', in: Arabica 55 (2008), pp.
91-112. Read this article: (pdf).
Contact the publisher, Brill's in Leiden,
about this journal.
Just published: Arabic documents from early Islamic Khurasan by Geoffrey Khan.
Published by The Nour Foundation in association with Azimuth Editions. (Studies in the Khalil
Collections, Vol. 5) London 2007, 183 pp., many illustrations. Price US$ 46.00
The history of Eastern Iran (Khurasan) in the Abbasid period has so far been based on literary
sources, which, regrettably, tell us practically nothing of its administration, and the
documentary material in Arabic has related almost entirely to papyri from Egypt.
The lacuna has now, however, been dramatically filled by the discovery of the documents
published in this volume, apparently from a private archive of landowners in north-eastern
Afghanistan in the later 8th century AD. They appear to complement the more or less
contemporary corpus of Bactrian documents in the Khalili Collection published by
Nicholas Sims-Williams, which mention many of the persons and place-names in the Arabic
documents. Together the two collections are of prime importance for the history of daily
life in early Islamic Khurasan.
After an exhaustive introduction on the subject Prof. Khan provides a detailed analysis of 32 Khurasani documents
kept in the Khalili Collection in London, which includes high quality reproductions of each
document, a transcription, an English translation and a commentary on language and content.
Available from the publisher.
Sotheby's Institute (London, New York, Singapore) has just published its
program for 2008-2009.
Among the wide range of courses offered by Sotheby's Institute (see the Institute's
site) there are unfortunately no
specific courses for Islamic art, but the courses on the international art trade
may be interesting for all those interested in developing a career in the field of Islamic art.
Oxford University Press, in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London,
on 18 February 2008 publishes the selected proceedings of the conference "Word of God, Art of Man.
The Qur'an and its Creative Expressions". The volume is edited by Fahmida Suleman. The
conference was held in London, 18-21 October 2003. See the announcement of the publisher
(pdf).
See the original programme of the conference of 2003
(pdf).
What had been known for several years among specialists has now seeped out into the international press:
The microfilms of ancient Qur'an manuscripts which were collected by pre-war German scholars with
the purpose to prepare a critical edition of the Qur'an were not lost in the war,
contrary to what always had been thought. The international press has taken up the issue
with strong conspirational overtones.
- Read the article "Indiana Jones meets the
Da Vinci Code" by Spengler in Asia Times online of January 15, 2008
(pdf).
- Read the article "The Lost Archive" by
Andrew Higgins in the Wall Street Journal of January 12, 2008 (on-line version) or January 17, 2008
(paper version): press cutting
(pdf) or text
taken from the website
(pdf)
of the Wall Street Journal.
- In the course of July 2007 Ms. Beate Wiesmüller saw her catalogue of the Max Weisweiler
Archive being published as volume 37 in Codices Manuscripti, a series of manuscripts
catalogues published on behalf of Leiden University Library: Das Max Weisweiler Archiv
der Universitätsbibliothek Leiden. Leiden 2007, text entirely in German, illustrated,
153 pp. (ISSN 0169-8672 volume 37). Price: € 15.
- Leiden University Library had in 1989 purchased the scholarly notes of the German
Orientalist Max Weisweiler (1902-1968). These notes, which are basically the
contents of Weisweiler’s desk in his private study, had been kept for many years
by his widow. Only when she died, Weisweiler’s private library and study notes
came up for sale and were purchased by Brill’s antiquarian bookshop in Leiden.
The scholarly notes were eventually acquired by the Leiden Library, where they
were registered as Or. 22.307. The greater part of the archive reflects Weisweiler’s
interest in Islamic bindings. A large collection of rubbings from bindings in Germany,
Holland and Turkey is part of the archive.
- The author of the catalogue, Ms. Beate Wiesmüller, is young a German islamologist,
who is presently attached to the University of Leipzig where she works on catalogues
of Arabic manuscripts in collections in Germany.
- Source: Extracted from Nieuwsbrief Universiteit Leiden, dated 18 September 2007,
with additional information from the book itself.
Picton Reading Room, Central Library, Liverpool, 9 August - 28 October 2007
Extract from the introductory leaflet by Annabel Teh Gallop:
Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles (1781-1826) is best known today as the founder of
Singapore, but he was in fact a passionate scholar of all aspects of the Malay world
during nearly twenty years in Southeast Asia in the service of the British East India
Company. Raffles was first posted to Penang and Melaka, and later served as governor
of Java (1811-1816) and of Bengkulu in Sumatra (1818-1824). His monumental work The
History of Java, published in 1817, made his name and earned him a knighthood.
But at the heart of his scholarly legacy is a tragic black hole.
Read more
September 16, 2007: Just appeared:
Constant Hamès (ed), Coran et talismans. Textes et pratiques magiques en
milieu musulman. Paris 2007. 416 pp.,
illustrated. (Éditions Karthala).
Price € 29. ISBN 978-284586-873-1.
This collective work is the result of research undertaken between 2000 and 2003 in
the French National Centre for Scholarly Research in Paris (CNRS) under the
title ’Magic and islamic writing in the African and European Worlds’
(Magie et écriture islamique dans les mondes africain et européen).
Textual magic in Islam has had few students. Edmond Doutté’s Magie et
religion dans l’Afrique du Nord dates from as early as 1908. Tawfic Fahd’s
ground breaking thesis, La divination arabe, dates from 1965. A recent collective
work was edited by Emilie Savage-Smith (Magic and divination in early Islam, Aldershot
2004). So the present work is a welcome addition to the field.
The authors concentrate on contemporary magical practice of classical Islamic
texts, from the Qur’an itself till al-Buni. And within that field they have
focussed on the use of Arabic writing in magical practice, be it on paper, textile
or metal. They combine an anthropological and islamological approach, and refer to
practices in Tunisia, Yemen, Mauritania, Senegal, Mali, the Comores, Madagascar and
France. One of the major works used is al-Buni’s Shams al-Ma`arif.
The editor of the present volume has a longstanding familiarity with the subject
as is clear from his thesis L’art talismanique dans l’islam d’Afrique
occidentale (‘Talismanic art in the Islam of West Africa’), which he
defended in 1997.
See for the full table of contents of the volume here.
See for the full table of contents of the volume
here.
On Thursday 13 September 2007 Ms. Marie Efthymiou defended her thesis entitled
Transmission manuscrite du Coran. Pratiques scribales et techniques de fabrication
du livre manuscript en Asie centrale (`The written transmission of the Qur'an. The
history of scribal practices and manuscript production in Central Asia’, 313 pp,
illustrated). Supervisor of the thesis was Professor François Déroche of the
École Pratiques des Hautes Études, Sorbonne, Paris. Ms. Efthymiou passed
her examination with honours. The thesis, which was written in French, will hopefully
be published at some stage in the not too far future.
This is probably the first time that a PhD thesis has been written which exclusively
focusses on the codicology of an Islamic area. The author has used the Qur’anic
manuscripts from Central Asia as a representative group which seems large enough to
draw conclusions from about many aspects Islamic book making in Central Asia.
In her abstract (pp. vi-vii) the author describes her work as follows:
`This study includes the techniques of the book making and written transmission in
Central Asia from the 16th to the 19th century. It identifies a lot of local
specificities on paper making, page setting, calligraphy, book bindings, patterns and
colours of illumination, and describes foreign influences, such as Persian, Indian,
and lately Russian. The Indian influence is particularly strong in the Bukhara
school. By analyzing the craftsman's role and the place of the manuscripts in society,
the book clarifies a part of the culture and the social past of the Central Asian
societies. The 17th century is a turning point. The manuscript becomes easier
to afford and is spread on a wider scale. The Soviet period has turned this tradition
to its end, and this study restores it. The marginal notes guiding the recitation of
the Qur’an are unique. A madhhab seems to appear, because a real intellectual
effervescence is observable in the last two centuries. Its consequences are important
as well in the education as in devotion practices.’
An important source for the history of the Oriental booktrade in The Netherlands
has now been incorporated in the Library of Leiden University. In the course of
the summer of 2007 Mr. Rijk Smitskamp, founder and owner of the Leiden-based antiquarian
bookshop ‘Smitskamp Oriental Antiquarium’ (formerly Brill’s antiquarian bookshop)
donated his archives to Leiden University Library. The archive consists of ...
Read full text here.
The Turkish artist Dr. Mehmet Refii Kileci in
Rotterdam, The Netherlands, starts from 2 February 2007 onwards his course
in marbling (level 1). From 20 January 2007 onwards he starts his courses in marbling
(level 2), and calligraphy. Place: Rumi Kunst Instituut, Piekstraat 23 f,
3071 EL Rotterdam, tel: 020 471 0026.
Catalogue of manuscripts in al-Khalidiyya Library, Jerusalem. Prepared by Nazmi Al-Ju`beh.
Edited by Khader Salameh. (With a preface by Sheikh Ahmad Zaki Yamani, and an introduction
on the history of the Khalidiyya Library by Walid al-Khalidi). Al-Furqan
Islamic Heritage Foundation. London 2006/1427.
Available from the publisher: Al-Furqan Foundation, Eagle House, High Street, Wimbledon,
LONDON SW19 5EF, U.K.
A thematically arranged catalogue in Arabic describing 1985 manuscript volumes, with
indexes for book titles and authors’ names.
M.H. Custers, Al-Ibadiyya. A bibliography. Maastricht 2006. 3 vols. Vol. 1. Ibadi`s of the
Mashriq, 432 pp.; vol. 2. Ibadi`s of the Maghrib
(incl. Egypt), 371 pp.; vol. 3. Secondary literature, 348 pp.
Recently published by the same author: Ibadi publishing activities in the East and in the West,
c. 1880-1960s. An attempt to an inventory, with references to related recent publications.
Maastricht 2006, 114 pp.
These works are privately published by the author and can be ordered directly from him: Mr. Martin
H. Custers, Emilionlaan 3, NL-6213 GL MAASTRICHT, The Netherlands.
Mail for further information.
