“Reading Arabic Manuscripts”
Mediterranean Studies Summer Skills Seminar
24-27 June 2024 • Remote
Registered Participants enter the zoom sessions here.
Bare-Bones Resources + Basic Schedule with Recommended Readings
Bare-Bones Resources
UCLA+ manuscript ‘courses’ (recordings):
https://www.international.ucla.edu/cnes/islamic
https://marbas.princeton.edu/arabic-manuscripts-workshop-august-23-27-2021
Other free online ‘courses’:
Leiden Arabic paleography lessons (https://mouse.digitalscholarship.nl/)
HMML Arabic paleography samples and commentary (https://hmmlschool.org/arabic/)
Arabic Papyrology School (https://www.apd.gwi.uni-muenchen.de/aps/home/)
Islamic codicology and paleography bibliographies (courtesy of Evyn Kropf):
https://guides.lib.umich.edu/islamicmsstudies (left-hand bar)
Basic Schedule with Recommended Readings
Monday, 24 June 2024
Please sign on and test your connection between 9:40 and 9:50 am.
10am–noon; 1:00–3:00pm (MOUNTAIN DAYLIGHT TIME=GMT minus 6)
1. Introductions. Basics & Materiality.
Welcome. Course foci. Basic terminology. Material anatomy of manuscript codex. Practice on ownership statements and samples of other text types.
Recommended reading: Islamic Manuscript Basics (https://kislakcenter.github.io/islamicmss/); Gacek, Vademecum, ‘Bookbinding’, ‘Bookcovers’, ‘Ink’, ‘Ownership statements’, ‘Paper’, ‘Quire’, ‘Watermarks’.
2. Textual Features.
Textual anatomy of a manuscript. Samples of features. Focus on incipits.
Recommended reading: Gacek, Vademecum, ‘Book titles’, ‘Chapter and section headings’, ‘Composition (text)’, ‘Explicit’, ‘Line management and justification’, ‘Page layout (mise-en-page)’, ‘Prefaces (of compositions)’, ‘Tables of contents’, ‘Textual formulae’, ‘Textual dividers and paragraph marks’, ‘Title page’, ‘Transcription’.
Tuesday, 25 June 2024
10am-noon ; 1:00-3:00pm
3. Scripts & hands I: Early periods.
Historical scripts (hijazi thru early naskh). Incipits.
Recommended reading: Déroche, Islamic Codicology, pp. 205–224 (PDF in folder); Gacek, Vademecum, ‘Abbasid bookhand’, ‘Early Abbasid scripts’, ‘Ḥijāzī script’, ‘New Abbasid style’, ‘Letterforms (allographs)’, ‘Scripts and hands’.
4. Scripts & hands II: Middle through modern periods.
Historical scripts (naskh thru ruqʿa). Colophons.
Recommended reading: Déroche, Islamic Codicology, pp. 311–44;Gacek, Vademecum, ‘Calligraphy and penmanship’, ‘Colophon’, ‘Dates and dating’, ‘Naskh script’, ‘Muḥaqqaq script’; ‘Rayḥān script’, ‘Riqāʿ script’, ‘Ruqʿah script’, ‘Six pens’, ‘Tawqīʿ Script’, ‘Thuluth script’. Quiring-Zoche, ‘The Colophon in Arabic Manuscripts’.
Wednesday, 26 June 2024
10am-noon; 1:00-3:00pm
5. Scripts & hands III: Regional case studies.
Major regional scripts (maghribi, sudani, bihari, etc.). More colophons + waqfiyyas, ijāzas, other paratexts.
Recommended reading: Gacek, Vademecum, ‘Bequest statements and documents’; ‘Bihārī script’, ‘Maghribī script’, ‘Sūdānī script’.
6. Focus on Maghribi script.
Practice reading Maghribi hands. Scribal and readerly interventions: collation notes; commentarial notation; scribal errors, etc.
Recommended reading: Nico van den Boogert, “Some Notes on Maghribi Script” (PDF in folder). Gacek, Vademecum, ‘Abbreviations and abbreviation symbols’, ‘Andalusī script’, ‘Certificates of transmisison’, ‘Collation’; ‘Collation notes and marks’, ‘Glosses and scholia’, ‘Omissions and insertions’, ‘Primitive critical apparatus’, ‘Scribal errors’, ‘Signes de renvoi’, ‘Study and reading notes’.
Thursday, 27 June 2024
10am-noon; 1:00-3:00pm
7. Focus on Eastern scripts and hands (taʿliq/nastaʿliq, etc.).
Practice reading Eastern hands. Focus on manuscript notes.
Recommended reading: Spooner & Hanaway, Reading Nasta‘liq, pp. 9–30.
8. Documentary hands.
Practice reading documents of the Middle Periods.
Recommended reading: Peruse Arabic Papyrology School. Rustow, Lost Archive, ch. 4–5 (PDF in folder). Sample from Khan, Arabic Legal and Administrative Documents (PDF in folder). Re-watch Vanthieghem session in Princeton+UCLA MARBAS workshop.