Al-Maqrizi (d. 845/1442) is considered as a major historian of Egypt. His œuvre embraces a huge amount of books dealing mainly with the history of Egypt since the Muslim conquest up to his own time. It is generally ignored that two dozens of holograph volumes of this important author have been preserved, thus allowing a careful study of his working method. He also devoted his time to the composition of several opuscules on a great variety of subjects. At the end of his life, in 841/1437, he wanted to see all these opuscules, some of which had been composed years before while others were written a few months before the date mentioned, gathered in one volume in order to see it circulate. MS. Or. 560 (University of Leiden, The Netherlands) represents a unique example of this collection as it bears al-Maqrizi’s emendations and corrections, while the core of the manuscript was copied by a scribe he probably hired. Thanks to the study of a great variety of paratextual elements found in this manuscript and others of his, it is possible to analyze how and in which circumstances this collection was produced and how it came to be distributed after the author's death. The aim of this paper is: 1) to detail how this manuscript can help the historian to reconstruct the production process of a manuscript which later came to be copied several times, thus satisfying the author’s wish to see it “published” though it didn’t follow the usual process of transmission (reading sessions); 2) to analyze the relationship between a copyist and the author of the texts he copied (al-Maqrizi was not particularly happy with the work of his copyist and he expressed his discontent in his notes of collation); 3) to demonstrate how codicology and paleography can help to address the issue of book production in the Middle East through the study of what appears to be mere details, but of great significance when put together.

Paratextual elements in manuscripts, such as ownership marks, waqf statements, or notes of consultation, are seldom the core of researchers’ interest, though they carry crucial information about many aspects of the book culture in the Middle East. For instance, our very partial knowledge of the history of libraries, whether private or ’public’, would improve greatly if mention of these aspects of manuscripts were gathered in one virtual and searchable place. Moreover, the geographical circulation of books, and of the ideas they contain, can be approached this way, too. It would be possible to locate the intellectual activity, the reading practices and parts of the biography of scholars through a simple keyword search. Having samples of scholars’ handwriting would help researchers in palaeography and for the identification of holograph manuscripts. More obviously, the evolution of such marks over time and regional peculiarities could lead us to a classification that would be useful for the identification of undated and/or unlocalised marks. But to reach significant conclusions, we must have access to a wide sample. This is why I am creating a collaborative online database of all such paratextual elements. Its contents will be public, and anyone will have the opportunity to propose marks to be added to it. A team of leading researchers in the field of manuscript studies —Arabic, Persian and Turkish manuscripts— will be responsible for the control of the reading of the mark and will feed the database with the marks encountered in the course of their own research. The aim of this presentation is to introduce the project of database and to demonstrate its importance through particular cases of interest: aṣ-Ṣafadī’s numerous reading notes, to be confronted with what we know of his scholarly activity, among other thanks to his Taḏkirah, and some ownership marks common to various manuscripts.

This paper examines the changing role of the Qur’anic manuscript between the 10th and 11th century, and more specifically the use of some Qur’ans as amulets. Through investigating the new role these manuscripts acquired, the paper addresses the question of the symbolic aspect of the Qur’an as a material object. Although it has been perceived symbolically before these two centuries, the paper argues that it is not until the 10th century that this symbolic dimension was visually manifested in the manuscript itself. The paper approaches the changing role of the Qur’anic manuscript through a study of the formal elements involved in its transformation from a support for recitation into an amulet. Among the changes indicating a new use are the appearances of the 99 names of God and blessings to the owner of the Qur’an in illuminated frontispieces. These features are found in contemporary talismanic scrolls and amuletic objects that hold similar benedictory invocations. In addition, the overall design of a Qur’an finispiece and the appearance of a talismanic text at the beginning of a Qur’an aiming at repelling the Jinn (demon) and the shayṭān (devil) away from the owner of the book, points to the manuscript’s new role as an amulet. Finally, the miniature size of a number of Qur’ans produced in these two centuries stresses further this change. By analyzing this transformation, the paper aims at studying the Qur’an as part of the material culture of the period, an approach that is rarely used in the field of Islamic Art History. Moreover, by bringing together the formal analysis of the manuscripts and the study of the historical context of the Qur’an, the paper concludes by calling for a more sustained integration of the codicological approach to the study of Middle eastern books with the study of history, more specifically, bridging the fields of Art History and Islamic Studies.

Although historians of the Ottoman Empire rely heavily on manuscript sources such as histories and biographical dictionaries, we have scant information about how Ottoman manuscripts were circulated and read during the Ottoman period itself. As part of a larger project aimed at identifying which audiences existed for various types of books, this paper will present results from a statistical analysis of almost 900 probate inventories from seventeenth-century Istanbul. The analysis will demonstrate how book-owners differed from non-book-owners and will highlight distinct segments within the book-owning population. I show that book ownership was highly gendered, with almost no women owning books other than the Koran (and very few women owning even a Koran). Surprisingly, wealth (above a subsistence level) had no impact on whether or not an individual owned books; this finding unsettles the common belief that only the wealthy could own books in a manuscript-based written culture. In addition to presenting a high-level statistical analysis, I examine the group most closely associated with books, people educated in religious colleges (madrasas) who bore the title efendi. One of the distinctive contributions of my research is the application of network analysis to books. By analyzing co-occurrences of books among private collections, I have identified a constellation of books that empirically belong together. These book titles give us a new perspective on the intellectual formation of the efendis, who occupied key positions as judges, jurisconsults, and bureaucrats throughout the empire. However, the inventories also hint at other reading publics beyond the efendis. When certain types of texts are placed at the center of analysis – epic-historical works, or Persianate books –readership looks remarkably heterogeneous as far as titles and economic position are concerned. I suggest that the categories with which historians usually understand Ottoman society are inadequate to represent the range and tastes of readers in early modern Istanbul.

This paper traces the evolution of the meanings that the Egyptian khedivate ascribed to their 19th century written output. At the start of the 19th century, the khedivate largely prized manuscripts for their intellectual content. By the century’s end, manuscripts came to represent artistic vestiges of Egyptian traditionalism. With regard to printing, the khedivate first considered printed texts as mere alternatives to manuscripts. But printing’s valence evolved to represent Egypt’s belonging to western modernity and civilization. European ideas about texts inspired the changes in official thinking about manuscripts and printings. The French invasion of 1798 and the education of handfuls of Egyptian students in Europe exposed Egyptians to the western understanding that printing advanced society. So too did Egyptian encounters with European antiquarians in Egypt, who purchased precious manuscripts for European library and museum collections. I chart how these European attitudes towards texts developed within the Egyptian khedivial milieu. In particular, I investigate the khedivate’s establishment of places to produce and store texts, like Meḥmed ‘Alī’s storerooms to Ismā‘īl’s public library, portraits in which the khedivial family posed with texts, the Egyptian government’s exhibitions of texts in Europe, and the very appearance and content of the texts they produced. I also examine official statements that the khedivate made concerning manuscripts, printings, and how they ought to be arranged, accessed, and appreciated. The late 19th century marked the codification of Egyptian written output. Print became the dominant mode for official writings, and Egyptian governmental printings began to consistently take the aesthetic form of European printings. This phenomenon coincided with the government’s effort to print the Egyptian canon. Because the khedivate’s late 19th century valences for texts accommodated longstanding western valences, this transformation remains overlooked by Egyptian and western historians of 19th century Egypt. Addressing this transformation is important because it impacts all subsequent text based research on 19th century Egypt. What the khedivate chose to print, save, and store, and why they did so, shaped the source base of scholarship on khedivial Egypt.