Workshop: Marginal Commentaries in Arabic Manuscripts

Vom 2.–3. Dezember 2019 organisiert das Akademieprojekt Bibliotheca Arabica einen englischsprachigen Workshop zu Marginal Commentaries in Arabic Manuscripts an der Sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig. Ziel ist es, Text-Praktiken und die Bedeutung von Randkommentaren in verschiedenen Gattungen, geographischen Regionen und zu verschiedenen Zeiten vergleichend zu diskutieren. Interessenten sind herzlich willkommen.

The international workshop on Marginal Commentaries in Arabic Manuscripts (2–3 December 2019), organised by the project Bibliotheca Arabica, brings together colleagues with different areas of expertise in order to compare the use, significance, and impact of scholia in Arabic manuscripts of different genres, regions, and times. The presentations range from geographical, natural scientific, philological, philosophical, and historical, to a number of different Islamic religious texts. Manuscript traditions from West Africa, al-Andalus, the Middle East and India, dating from the 7^th to the 18^th centuries are represented.

Programme / Abstracts
Further information

PROGRAMME

MONDAY, 2 DECEMBER 2019

9.30–10.00
Welcome Address
VERENA KLEMM (Leipzig), project leader at the Bibliotheca Arabica project
STEFANIE BRINKMANN (Leipzig), research fellow at the Bibliotheca Arabica project

Sciences: East & West

10.00–10.45
NADJA DANILENKO (Hamburg)
No comment. Marginalia in Geographic Literature from the Tenth Century onwards

10.45–11.30
LUCIA RAGETTI (Bologna)
Drop a Line between the Lines: Annotations and Commentaries in Arabic Scientific Manuscripts

11.30–12.00
Coffee break

12.00–12.45
DEBORAH SCHLEIN (New York)
Citational and Citationless: The Development of Yūnānī Ṭibb in Mughal and Colonial India

12.45–14.00
Lunch

Philosophy – Towards the East

14.00–14.45
BERAT ACIL (Istanbul)
Cārullāh Efendi (d. 1738) on Ibn al-ʿArabī (d. 1240): Correcting Misconception via Manuscript Notes

Language & Literature

14.45–15.30
CHRISTOPHER BAHL (Beirut)
One Man’s Treasure is another Man’s Study Book – Enacting Arabic Philology at Shah Jahan’s Court

15.30–16.00
Coffee break

An outlook: History & Persian

16.00–16.30
PHILIP BOCKHOLT (Leipzig)
Footnotes in Premodern Times? On the Phenomenon of minhīyāt in Historiographical Narratives

16.30–16.45
Discussant: BILAL ORFALI (Beirut)

18.00
Dinner

TUESDAY, 3 DECEMBER 2019

Law, Religion & the West

9.30–10.15
DARYA OGORODNIKOVA (Hamburg)
Interlinear and Marginal Annotations in West African Islamic Manuscripts

10.15–11.00
JOSEF ŽENKA (Prague)
Writing a Commentary During the Ḥajj and the Ziyāra by an Andalusi Pilgrim

11.00–11.15
Coffee Break

The Qur’ān

11.15–12.00
ASMA HILALI (Lille)
Annotating the Qur’ān in the seventh century – The ‘Ṣanʿā’ Qur’ān palimpsest’ as example

12.00–13.00
Lunch

Ḥadīth & Prayer

13.00–13.45
FLORIAN SOBIEROJ (Jena)
Ms. Süleymaniye, Feyzullah Efendi 1296, the Unique Copyof Ibn Khafīf’s Collection of Transmitted Prayers, K. Sharḥkhāṣṣiyyat al-āyāt al-mubayyināt wajawāmiʿ al-daʿawāt fi l-awqāt al-mukhtalifāt.Codicology, Marginalia, Paratexts and Transmitters’ Strategies

13.45–14.30
ALI ZAHERINEZHAD (Tübingen)
Tracing Scholarship in the Margins of a Manuscript of al-Bukhārī’s Ṣaḥīḥ

14.30–14.45
Coffee Break

14.45–15.30
STEFANIE BRINKMANN (Leipzig)
Glossing a Post-Canonical “Digest Collection”: al-Baghawī’s Maṣābīḥas-Sunna

15.30–15.45
Discussant: BILAL ORFALI (Beirut)

15.45–16.00
Coffee Break

16.00–17.00
Work Session

INTRODUCTION

The Bibliotheca Arabica project is pleased to announce an international workshop on Marginal Commentaries in Arabic Manuscripts (2–3 December 2019), which brings together experts from different fields in order to compare the use, significance, and impact of scholia in Arabic manuscripts from different genres, regions, and periods. Mehr

Unlike in many other academic disciplines, glosses and scholia are a comparatively unexplored field of research in Arabic and Islamic Studies. However, the practice of annotating a text in the margins of a manuscript or between the lines was a widespread cultural practice that fulfilled a variety of functions. Apart from guiding the reader and providing translations of texts within a multilingual context, such annotations were meant to explain and interpret the main text, or even to explain other annotations in the margins. It was here, that commentaries were produced, transmitted, and used for teaching and studying purposes. As such, these marginal commentaries constitute an imprint of intellectual history and a rich source that illuminates how knowledge production worked.

The workshop aims at exploring the potential inherent in analysing scribal and textual practices as seen in marginal commentaries in Arabic manuscripts. These scribal and textual practices will be discussed with respect to a number of variables, such as: different genres, geographical regions, and times in history. The presentations range from geographical, natural scientific, philological, philosophical, and historical texts, to various Islamic religious writings. The workshop covers a broad range of manuscript traditions from West Africa, al-Andalus, and the Middle East to India, dating from the 7^th to the 18^th century. 

The aim of the workshop is to establish a first systematic approach to this material in an edited volume. The edited volume on marginal commentaries and glosses in Arabic manuscripts will be published in the book series of the Bibliotheca Arabica project (Brill Publishers).

The workshop is organised by Stefanie Brinkmann, research fellow at the Bibliotheca Arabica project at the Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Leipzig, Germany. It will take place 2 – 3 December 2019 at the Saxon Academy in Leipzig. Presentations will be in English.