Recently, I discovered, probably later than many others, that the World Digital Library (WDL) is hosting 57 Arabic-script manuscripts, many of whose originals are kept at the Egyptian National Library (EGL). This post is kind of a review of their online presentation.
Continue reading “Arabic manuscripts at World Digital Library: a few notes”Some preliminary thoughts on the question of medieval qāḍī court archives
At the moment, I am enjoying Marina Rustow’s recently published tome The Lost Archive. Traces of a Caliphate in a Cairo Synagogue. The author is speaking to a number of points which interest me, but today I will concentrate on her discussion of Hallaq’s argument about archiving at qāḍīs’ courts.
Continue reading “Some preliminary thoughts on the question of medieval qāḍī court archives”Time to talk about book stamps
Instinctively, what comes to mind when you hear the word ‘book stamp’? Is it an Ex Libris with a careful inscription and perhaps an illustration as well? Or is it a functional tool that serves basically the same function as an ownership note? In contrast to those, there is little literature on book stamps, and maybe that is why this post deserves to be written—and published?
Continue reading “Time to talk about book stamps”Vanity Post 2: The Changing Legacy of a Sufi Shaykh
This second installment revisits a piece I originally wrote in 2015 about narrative construction in Arabic chronicles from 15th- to 17th-century Damascus. It takes a micro-perspective to explore the construction of narratives focused on one series of events or ‘story’. As in the first instance, the PDF is attached at the end.
Continue reading “Vanity Post 2: The Changing Legacy of a Sufi Shaykh”The Umayyad Mosque: A Review of sorts
One, if not the, major publication on the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus was published by the French Institute (Ifpo) in 2018: Le waqf de la mosquée des Omeyyades de Damas. Le manuscrit ottoman d’un inventaire mamelouk établi en 816/1413. It is a study and edition of a 1518 document on the mosque’s endowment which, in turn, had been established in 1413. This book is massive at 741 pages and the result of the collaboration of three eminent experts in the field: Mathieu Eychenne, Astrid Meier, and Élodie Vigouroux. But because the book is in French, it might not have received all the attention it deserves. Let’s change that.
Continue reading “The Umayyad Mosque: A Review of sorts”