Activities

Workshop Arabic Manuscripts and Collaboration in the Digital Environment, Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Leipzig, organized by Boris Liebrenz

The Academy Project Bibliotheca Arabica is honored to host a number of leading specialists in the fields of Islamic manuscript studies, bibliography, and prosopography who focus on different aspects of this large tradition, but share a common devotion to the written heritage of the Islamicate world. Each one represents a project that explores a particular niche in that larger field, be it a certain corpus, a certain regional or sectarian background, or a certain type of source.

Scope:

In practice, we are all confronted with unlimited ambition but limited resources. It is, therefore, desirable not to plough the same ground twice but rather to coordinate our efforts. This workshop aims at exploring how we can manage to benefit from each other’s respective specialized knowledge and at the same time retain distinct profiles. For Bibliotheca Arabica in particular, the workshop is meant to provide an opportunity for learning from the previous experience of our guests and to build our research infrastructure with the utmost compatibility in mind.

It is, thus, highly desirable to come to a common understanding of how and in what format to store the data we collect. Many projects have already developed their own idiosyncratic repositories, some are in the process of doing so, while others are teaming up with larger networks beyond disciplinary boundaries.

The following questions should guide our presentations and discussions: 

• Which (manuscript or biographical) collections do we / will we work on?
• What kind of metadata do we collect?
• How do we normalize names, titles etc.?
• How could our respective systems exchange data?
• How can we integrate other project’s data and findings while giving full credit to their creators?
• How do we deal with the question of sustainability and re-use?

Participants:

• Phasif – Philosophie Arabe et Syriaque en Île-de-France (Dr. Jawdath Jabbour, Ècole Normale Supérieure, Paris)
• Onomasticon Arabicum (Prof. Christian Müller and Muriel Roiland, CNRS / IRHT, Paris)
• Kalīla and Dimna - Wisdom Encoded (Prof. Beatrice Gründler, Freie Universität, Berlin)
• Orient Digital (Christoph Rauch, Director of the Oriental Department, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin)
• Prof. Dr. Astrid Meier (Martin-Luther-University Halle / Saale)
• Bibliotheca Arabica – Towards a New History of Arabic Literature

Project presentation by Daniel Kinitz to expert committee of the Joint Science Conference (www.gwk-bonn.de/en/), meeting this year at the Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Leipzig

The Academy-Project Bibliotheca Arabica – Towards a New History of Arabic Literature is pleased to invite all interested to join us on June 28, 2019, at 11:15 for an Academy-Colloquium on "Was erzählen Manuskripte über arabische Literaturgeschichte? (What Manuscripts Can Tell us on the History of Arabic Literature)". 

Invitation

The team, headed by Prof. Dr. Verena Klemm, will present its work, methodology, and outlook. The project, which launched in 2018, is concerned with exploring and gathering data on the literary production in Arabic between the 12th and 19th centuries. With manuscripts as a central source of this endeavor, we can pose fascinating questions: What were the regional trajectories of texts and books during their transmission throughout the centuries? What do manuscripts tell us about their former owners and readers? What can they tell us about libraries that have since been lost? And what are the new perspectives on the history of Arabic literature that a digital Bibliotheca Arabica offers by combining data from manuscript notes, manuscript catalogues, and other sources?

Presentations

Prof. Dr. Verena Klemm
“Bibliotheca Arabica – Von Büchern und Menschen (Bibliotheca Arabica - Of Books and Men)”

Dr. Boris Liebrenz
“Drei Jahrhunderte im Leben einer Handschrift: Das Unikum von Ibn Hazms ‘Halsband der Taube’ (Three Centuries in the Life of a Manuscript: The Unique MS of Ibn Hazm's 'Neck-Ring of the Dove')” 

Dr. Stefanie Brinkmann
“Islamische Traditionswerke: Metadaten und Randkommentare (Islamic Works on Prophetic Traditions: Metadata and Marginal Commentaries)”

Dr. Daniel Kinitz / Dr. Thomas Efer
“Auf dem Weg zu einer digitalen Bibliotheca Arabica (Towards a Digital Bibliotheca Arabica)”

There will be time for questions and discussions.

International workshop “Glossing from a Comparative Perspective”, Marburg University
Paper presented by Stefanie Brinkmann: Marginal Commentaries in Hadith Manuscripts

Programme

Visit of an Egyptian delegation to Leipzig University Library and the Bibliotheca Arabica Project, organized by Prof. Dr. A. Fuess (Marburg University) in cooperation with Bibliotheca Arabica and Leipzig University Library. Guests were: Prof. Dr. Hesham Azmi (Head of the Cultural Council, Chairman of the Egyptian National  Library and Archives, Dār al-Kutub wal-Waṯāʾiq), Prof. Dr. Atef Mansour (Dean of the Faculty of  Archaeology at Fayoum University, Chairman of the  German-Egyptian Islamic Numismatics Center Fayoum  University/ University of Tübingen), Prof. Dr. Muhammed Younis (Islamic Archaeology  Fayoum University).

Lecture by Boris Liebrenz: „Bibliotheca Arabica – Was Handschriften und über die arabische Literatur verraten”, Centrum für Nah- und Mittelost-Studien, Philipps Universität Marburg

Paper presented by Boris Liebrenz: “Aḍwā’ ǧadīda ʽalā maktabat al-ḥāǧǧ Aḥmad al-Rabbāṭ (New Light on the Library of Aḥmad al-Rabbāṭ)” at the workshop Maktabāt Dimašq wa-tiǧārat al-kutub fīhā fī l-qarn al-tāsiʽ ʽašar (Damascene Libraries and the Book Trade in the 19^th Century), Beirut, Orient-Institut Beirut in collaboration with Free University Berlin

Programme

Boris Liebrenz was an instructor at the international workshop “Codicological and Paleographical Aspects of Islamic Manuscripts, with a Special Focus on Manuscript Notes” within the Scriptorium workshop series at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, organized with al-Furqān Islamic Heritage Foundation, London

Programme

International Workshop ”Prophetic Traditions Materialised: Dimensions of Ḥadīth Manuscripts”, Center for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (CSMC Hamburg), organised within the scope of the A11-project at the CSMC by Stefanie Brinkmann and Ali Zaherinezhad, with the support of the Bibliotheca Arabica Project

Paper presented by Stefanie Brinkmann: Two Bukhārī Manuscripts from Timurid Shiraz – Marginal Commentaries

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Invited lecture by Prof. Dr. Maribel Fierro, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid: “The Medieval Islamic West in the East, intellectual connections and cultural impact – The project AMOI”

Keynote lecture given by Boris Liebrenz: “Bibliotheca Arabica: The Past and Future of Arabic Bibliography”, Columbia University, New York City, Bibliography Week, organized with the Grolier Club

Project Presentation by Verena Klemm “Presentation of the Project Bibliotheca Arabica”, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid

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Project Presentation by Daniel Kinitz at the Academy Colloqium „Wither Digital Islamicate Humanities“, Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, Amsterdam

International Conference “Theory and Practices of Commentary”, Goethe Universität Frankfurt a.M. , paper presented by Stefanie Brinkmann: “Marginal Commentaries in Hadith Manuscripts”

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Poster presentation with short talk on "Uncovering Networks within 700 years of material textual culture in the Arabic world" held by Thomas Efer

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Summerschool on Islamic Manuscripts: Zweiter Alfried-Krupp Sommerkurs für Islamische Handschriftenkultur in Leipzig 2018, Leipzig University Library
Organised by Prof. Dr. Verena Klemm (Institute of Oriental Studies, Leipzig University), the Bibliotheca Arabica team, and Leipzig University Library; instructors: Cornelius Berthold, Stefanie Brinkmann, Claudia Colini, Boris Liebrenz, Helga Rebhan, Beate Wiesmüller

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Project Presentation Verena Klemm: "Bibliotheca Arabica. Towards a new history of Arabic Literatures" at the 29th Conference of the Union Européenne des Arabisants et Islamisants, Münster

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Contributions on graph schema integration and on text data and metadata modeling by Thomas Efer

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Symposium “New Research on Ottoman-Era Manuscript Libraries”, Orient-Institute Istanbul,organised by Stefanie Brinkmann and Boris Liebrenz in cooperation with the Orient-Institute Istanbul and The Islamic Manuscript Association (Cambridge, UK).
Paper presented by Boris Liebrenz: “Exploring the roots of Ottoman libraries: A case study of the Fazil Ahmet Pasha Manuscripts and the Bibliotheca Arabica Project”

“A Medieval Muslim Scholar’s Legacy. Ibn Ṭāwūs and the Afterlife of His Library”, in: Boris Liebrenz (ed.): “The History of Books and Collections through Manuscript Notes”, (Leiden: Brill, 2018), S. 218-224.

One-day Work Session on Marginal Commentaries & Glosses in Manuscripts, organised by Stefanie Brinkmann, Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Leipzig
Participants: Paul Babinski (Princeton University), Stefanie Brinkmann (SAW Leipzig), Boris Liebrenz (SAW Leipzig), Christian Mauder (University of Leipzig, Humanities Centre for Advanced Studies: Multiple Secularities – Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities), Darya Ogorodnikova (Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures, Hamburg University (Islamic Manuscripts with a Wide Spaced Layout as Mediators of Teaching Practices in West Africa), Walid Saleh (University of Toronto, Department for the Study of Religion & Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations), Ronny Vollandt (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München), Ali Zaherinezhad (Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures, Hamburg University (The Leipzig Manuscript B. or. 227: Paratexts as witnesses of Islamic Ḥadīṯ scholarship)

Project Presentation by Thomas Efer at the Thuringian Digital Humanities Day in Gotha, organized by  the research group "Netzwerk für digitale Geisteswissenschaften und Citizen Science" of the University of Erfurt, together with the Marbach Weimar Wolfenbüttel Research Association and the DHnet Jena

Programme

Thomas Efer as participant in a hackathon on historical geo-temporal data of the arabic world organized by Maxim Romanov (University of Vienna).

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