Introduction to Islamic Manuscript Culture

Introduction to Islamic Manuscript Culture

In May 2019, UCLA hosted a workshop on Islamic manuscripts and manuscript culture sponsored by the UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies and co-sponsored by UCLA’s Islamic Studies Program, Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, and the California Rare Book School. Participants obtained hands-on experience using the Collections at the Charles E. Young Research Library.

UCLA has recently made the presentations from this workshop available to the public, as well as PDF’s of lecture material, which can be accessed here

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Qiṣṣat al-Sindbād al-baḥrī wa-l-Hindbād al-barrī, UCLA Bound Manuscript Collection, MS 170/46, fol. 10r. Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library.

Topics included:

Overview: Luke Yarbrough, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures (UCLA)

Session 1 – An Introduction to Codicological Studies; Writings Materials; Parchment and Paper

Evyn Kropf, Librarian for Middle East Studies and Religious Studies; Curator of Islamic Manuscripts (University of Michigan)

Session 2: Structures: The Codex and Beyond; Bindings

Evyn Kropf (University of Michigan)

Medical and Scientific Manuscripts at UCLA

Alexandre Roberts, Classics (USC)

Session 3:  Layout / Ruling, Media, and Ornament; Scripts and Hands

Evyn Kropf (University of Michigan)

Visual and Artistic Elements in Islamic Manuscripts at UCLA

Lamia Balafrej, Art History (UCLA)

Session 4: Paratexts, Annotations, Marks of Ownership

Evyn Kropf (University of Michigan)

“Text and performance through the manuscripts of al-Ḥarīrī’s Impostures”

Michael Cooperson, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures (UCLA)

Session 5: “Overview of Describing Manuscripts”

Evyn Kropf (University of Michigan)

“Demonstration of Describing a Manuscript”

Evyn Kropf (University of Michigan)

 

© International Qur’anic Studies Association, 2019. All rights reserved.

Call for Papers: Sharḥ, Tafsīr, and Ḥāshiya, University of Zurich

zurichThe University of Zurich will host Sharḥ, Tafsīr, and Ḥāshiya,  a workshop on the form, function, and context of pre-modern commentary writing in Arabic, on June 15-16, 2020.

About the workshop: The pre-modern Arabic literary landscape is full of commentaries, meta-commentaries, and auto-commentaries of various shapes and sizes, such that commentary-writing indisputably stood as one of the main forms of scholarly textual output over the centuries. Some features of this tradition have received their fair share of attention; others remain yet to be explored. While the importance of, for example, Quranic or philosophical commentary as a source for Muslim intellectual history has been recognised in the last decades, commentaries in most other fields are often mentioned only for the purpose of demonstrating the popularity of the text commented upon. Questions relating to why commentaries were composed in the first place, in what institutional settings, according to what conventions and with what techniques remain generally under-explored.  This workshop will focus on two principal aspects of the study of commentary and commentating practices: (1.) the techniques of commentary-writing; and (2.) its audience and reception. In the first area, we are interested in the interaction and connections between text and commentary.  This could be summarised with the simple question, “how does commentary work?”. In the second, we encourage papers that give consideration to readers and likely readerships of commentaries, either by studying the para-texts of commentaries (e.g. marginalia etc.) or sociologically, by looking at groups of readers, and owners of manuscripts. This could be summarised with the question, “how was commentary used?”.

We invite papers dealing with commentaries written in Arabic any time before roughly the 15th century, belonging to any genre (philosophy, theology, literature, medicine, sciences, etc.). Possible questions to be dealt with may include (but are not limited to):

  • How does a commentary work? Which elements of a text receive what kind of attention, which parts are not commentated upon? What kinds of relationship exist between the text and the commentary?
  • What is considered a good commentary, a bad commentary?
  • Why was it ever important to write a commentary? Are there different kinds of motivation that lead to different kinds of commentary?
  • Who wrote commentaries and when? Is commentary writing something a beginner does or rather the opposite? Do people write different kinds of commentaries at different stages in their careers?
  • Who are the intended readers and audiences?
  • Who really commissioned, read, owned, or taught a commentary? Where were they composed?
  • How are commentaries presented in their manuscripts? How is the link between the base-text and the commentary established, both linguistically and at the level of layout?
  • Why are there so many “auto-commentaries”, i.e. commentaries written by the author of the commented work?

 

Please send a 400-word abstract to james.weaver@uzh.ch and forster@zedat.fu-berlin.de no later than August 31, 2019.  We welcome contributions in English, French or German.

The selected participants will be notified by October 30, 2019.

Accommodation in Zurich will be provided.  We will probably also be able to cover travel costs, but please try to obtain funding for travel from your home institution in the first instance.

Conveners:
Dr. James Weaver, University of Zurich
Prof. Dr. Regula Forster, Freie Universität Berlin/University of Zurich

 

© International Qur’anic Studies Association, 2019. All rights reserved.

 

 

Workshop: The Senses in the Qur’an and in Early Islam | 26 October 2018, Utrech

The Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Utrecht University, in collaboration with the SENSIS project, will host a workshop on the Quran’s and early Muslims’ conceptualization of the senses and sense perception. The workshop’s aim is two-fold: first, to unearth the roots of the qur’anic/early Islamic sensorium in Late Antique culture, and secondly, to examine the processes of sensory disambiguation of “Muslim” identity as distinct from other identities (Christian, Zoroastrian, etc.) in the formation of Islam. Sources considered include the Qur’an, sīra and Hadith (both Sunni and Shiʿi), as well as texts from the surrounding literary cultures, and potentially non-textual evidence. Prior to the meeting, but no later than 18 October, participants will circulate one or several short texts (in the format of a handout) for close reading in the workshop. Each paper will be 40 minutes long, and include a paper presentation (20 minutes); Q&A (10 min.); a.nd a joint reading and discussion of texts led by the presenter (10 min).

utrect

Utrecht in the heart of the Netherlands

Programme

Location: Janskerkhof 13, 3512 BL Utrecht, room 0.06

Panel 1: Scriptural bases

9:00-9:40: Nora Schmid (Berlin), “Sense perception and the formation of ascetic knowledge in the Meccan surahs of the Qur’an”

9:40-10:20: Thomas Hoffmann (Copenhagen): “The Weltinnenraum of the Qur’an: Towards a visceral phenomenology”

10:20-11:00: Christian Lange (Utrecht): “Sensation in the canonical Sunni hadith corpus”

11:00-11:30: COFFEE BREAK

Panel 2: Sensations in early Islamic thought and sensory practices

11:30-12:10: Adam Bursi (Utrecht), “The old women of Quraysh did that: Touch and its contestations in early Islamic pilgrimage rituals”

12:10-12:50: Maroussia Bednarkiewicz (Oxford): “Diversity in the acoustic space: From the birth of the ādhān to the disappearance of the nāqūs

12:50-14:00: LUNCH

14:00-14:40: Youshaa Patel (Lafayette College): “Looking different: Some hadith traditions against imitation”

Panel 3: Sensory alterities

14:40-15:20: Eyad Abuali (Utrecht): “Voices and Visions in Early Sufi Qur’an commentaries”

15:20-15:50: COFFEE BREAK

15:50-16:30: Arash Ghajarjazi (Utrecht): “The senses in Nahj al-balāgha

16:30-17:10: Mary Thurlkill (University of Mississippi): “Muhammad’s sweet sweat:  Modeling ritual purity in early Islam”

17:10-17:30: Concluding session

18:30-: DINNER (for speakers and invited guests)

No registration is required for participation, but those interested in attending are kindly requested to contact the event’s co-organizer Dr. Adam Bursi at: a.c.bursi@uu.nl

© International Qur’anic Studies Association, 2018. All rights reserved.