THE SIGNIFICANCE OF ISLAMIC MANUSCRIPTS Proceedings of the Inaugural Conference of Al-Furqan Islamic Heritage Foundation

This volume is the issue of the Inaugural Conference held in London by Al-Furqan Islamic Heritage Foundation in November/December 1991. A number of eminent scholars were invited from the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia, Europe, and America to present papers concerning the heritage of Islamic manuscripts. Al-Furqan Foundation was fanned as a result of the important initiative of His Excellency Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani, and pursues its activities under his inspiration and patronage. In the opening address to the conference, he set out the purpose and ideals of the Foundation, from which can be understood the ambitious nature of the enterprise he has launched. Papers presented are an initial contribution to the work of the Foundation, whose aims are the cataloguing, preservation, and archiving of the vast body of manuscripts of the Islamic sciences, languages, and literatures which are today spread over almost the entire world. Many of the contributors presented papers reflecting their considerable first-hand experience of manuscript collections, while others concentrated on particular areas of their research interests. Almost all of the papers presented appear here both in Arabic and in English.

Papers were divided into three sections: on general topics concerning the Islamic manuscript tradition as a whole, on area studies dealing with collections in particular geographical locations (countries, etc.), and on subject studies in one or other of the Islamic sciences.

The first section starts with a paper which presents the kinds of problems faced by the text editor in establishing a definitive version of any text. Establishing the manuscript edition of the text, hunting down particular manuscripts - often located in libraries difficult of access -, and trying to eliminate the layers of confusion introduced by copyists' errors, are some of the difficulties.

The second paper in the first section starts with the conference's introductory paper, The Significance of Islamic Manuscripts. Professor Nasr's overview of the entire spectrum of the Islamic manuscript heritage stresses the importance of cataloguing, conserving, archiving, and editing, which define the principles on which Al-Furqan Foundation has been established.

In the second section, concentrating on different geographic areas of the production and collection of Islamic manuscripts, the first paper concerns Persian manuscripts in particular, but discusses in general the problems of training specialists in the cataloguing of Islamic manuscripts. Iraj Afshar points out that most of the catalogues prepared in this field have been compiled by persons who have built up their expertise over long and distinguished careers, and this expertise may be passed on to students or may simply be lost with the death of the scholar.

Anas Khalidov's paper gives a thorough overview of the Islamic manuscript collections in the former Soviet Union, which serves as an excellent foreword to the Al-Furqan Foundation volume on these collections in their first series of publications in the World Survey of Islamic Manuscripts. Angelo Michele Piemontese presented a paper on Islamic manuscripts in the West, specifically in Italy, drawing attention to manuscripts outside the main library collections of the Ambrosiana and the Vatican. Finally, Ramazan Sesen gives a survey of Islamic manuscripts in Turkish and Turkic languages. In a paper given at the conference, but not included here, M. S. Khan gave references to several important Islamic manuscripts in libraries in India, and made some comments on the religious importance of calligraphy.

Salahuddin al-Munajjid gave a paper, which is to be published at a later date, summarizing his vast experience of manuscript collections covering almost the whole world. The final section of this volume contains those papers presented at the conference which dealt with particular areas of Islamic learning in which the study of manuscripts plays an important role. Muhammad al-Habib al-Hilah gave a paper on manuscripts in a specific area of Islamic law, the nawazil, from Andalusia and Northwest Africa, from the fifth to the ninth century AH. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu reported in his paper on the work being done by the Research Centre for Islamic History, Art and Culture in Istanbul. He presented the latest findings of the Centre on the places of origin, the present locations, and the languages, of translations of the Holy Book still surviving in manuscript form. Late Hamad al-Jasir's paper, not only communicates his profound love of Makkah and Madinah, but gives the benefit of his long study of the libraries of the Hijaz and the manuscript treasures they contain, particularly for the historian of these two cities.

David King gave a survey of the present state of scholarship in the area of Islamic scientific instruments as well as scientific manuscripts, and suggested some important areas for future research and work on manuscripts in this field. Mehdi Mohaghghegh's paper refers to some important philosophical texts which have recently been edited and mentions the important work which has been and continues to be done by the Tehran branch of the McGill University Institute of Islamic Studies. Abdul Aziz Ahmed al-Rifai's paper dealt with an individual private library, that of 'Abd al-Qadir al-Baghdadi (1030/1621-1093/1682), whose reconstitution, throws an interesting light not only on the library interests of a particular Muslim scholar, but on the literary tastes and preoccupations of his time.

It is hoped that the presentations in this volume will give some idea of the wide scope of Al-Furqan Foundation's projects, and this volume will be itself a contribution to the important task of preserving the Islamic scientific and cultural heritage.

The scholarly papers in this volume pave the way for further study and research. It will be very useful for students of Islamic bibliography and scholars in this field generally. -- Muslim World Book Review, 14, no. 3, 1994