Manuscripts have their own biographies. And those are not defined by their respective points of creation nor by the place where they end up. A book bio can be much more topsy-turvey or bodacious, depending on how you want to frame it. And often enough, we can only reconstruct parts of such a biography, exactly because they became embroiled in their own adventures at different points. This much is certainly true for the item which today is referred to as MS 1514 in Trinity Library, Dublin.
Continue reading “The archival biography of MS TCD 1514”Introducing: ʿAʾisha al-Salihiyya
This week we return to the final biography in the chapter on women in Ibn Tulun’s work al-Ghuraf (fol. 359a). The subject of the following short biography sheds light on some intriguing aspects of such transmission. It also poses somewhat of a riddle with regard to her own role within transmission.
Introducing: Sitt al-Wuzaraʾ
The second biography of a woman in Ibn Ṭūlūn’s work al-Ghuraf is longer than the first. It is also concerned with a woman whose very name (as given in the text) already implies reverence towards her: Sitt al-Wuzarāʾ al-Māridāniyya al-Ḥanafiyya. In fact, it almost appears as if this biography was meant to be the center piece of Ibn Tulun’s short chapter on women.