In Arabic and Islamic studies, the subject of variance in general and that of textual variation in particular has not been investigated exhaustively so far. In the present book the variation in texts of the “closed transmission” will be studied, focusing on a small corpus of didactic and model poems, with a view to establishing what degree of text stability and change was allowed by the medium manuscript. Categories of variance (relating to work-titles, text, number of verses and their sequence, page-layout, context) and the means of controlling them in the manuscripts of the poems are identified and detailed descriptions of the copies are given. The monograph also includes a presentation of some major traits of the cultural background to the study of Arabic didactic poetry and of its dissemination in which memorization has played a crucial role. The intended readers,editors and other users of manuscripts, are helped to acquaint themselves with the methods employed in the manuscripts to control variation and they are given an overview of the large spectrum of Arabic didactic poetry and of its place in the traditional culture of learning in Islamicate societies.

In Arabic and Islamic studies, the subject of variance in general and that of textual variation in particular has not been investigated exhaustively so far. In the present book the variation in texts of the “closed transmission” will be studied, focusing on a small corpus of didactic and model poems, with a view to establishing what degree of text stability and change was allowed by the medium manuscript. Categories of variance (relating to work-titles, text, number of verses and their sequence, page-layout, context) and the means of controlling them in the manuscripts of the poems are identified and detailed descriptions of the copies are given. The monograph also includes a presentation of some major traits of the cultural background to the study of Arabic didactic poetry and of its dissemination in which memorization has played a crucial role. The intended readers,editors and other users of manuscripts, are helped to acquaint themselves with the methods employed in the manuscripts to control variation and they are given an overview of the large spectrum of Arabic didactic poetry and of its place in the traditional culture of learning in Islamicate societies.

Research that focuses on holograph, autograph and authorial manuscripts in Arabic handwritten script has been casual, although these manuscripts raise important and varied questions. In this volume nine contributions and case studies are gathered that address theoretical issues and convey different, disruptive perspectives. A particularly important subject of this book is the identification of an author’s handwriting.

Some manuscripts have been produced for the personal use of their scribe only; whereas a number of them are valued as autographs, most have been ephemeral and were discarded. Personal manuscripts were not written for a patron, commissioner, or client. They are personal copies, anthologies, florilegia, personal notes, excerpts, drafts and notebooks, as well as family books, accountancy notebooks and many others; these forms often being mixed with one another. This volume introduces a number of such manuscripts in a comparative perspective, from Japan to Europe through the Middle East, with a focus on the Near and Middle East. The main concern is the possibility of identifying typical features of such manuscripts in terms of materials, visual organization and content. In attempting this, both the conditions of production and traces of the manuscripts' use are taken into consideration, with particular attention to their material aspects.

Manuscripts have played a crucial role in the educational practices of virtually all cultures that have a history of using them. As learning and teaching tools, manuscripts become primary witnesses for reconstructing and studying didactic and research activities and methodologies from elementary levels to the most advanced. The present volume investigates the relation between manuscripts and educational practices focusing on four particular research topics: educational settings: teachers, students and their manuscripts; organising knowledge: syllabi; exegetical practices: annotations; modifying tradition: adaptations. The volume offers a number of case studies stretching across geophysical boundaries from Western Europe to South-East Asia, with a time span ranging from the second millennium BCE to the twentieth century CE.

Manuscript cultures based on Arabic script feature various tendencies in standardisation of orthography, script types and layout. Unlike previous studies, this book steps outside disciplinary and regional boundaries and provides a typological cross-cultural comparison of standardisation processes in twelve Arabic-influenced writing traditions where different cultures, languages and scripts interact. A wide range of case studies give insights into the factors behind uniformity and variation in Judeo-Arabic in Hebrew script, South Palestinian Christian Arabic, New Persian, Aljamiado of the Spanish Moriscos, Ottoman Turkish, a single multilingual Ottoman manuscript, Sino-Arabic in northwest China, Malay Jawi in the Moluccas, Kanuri and Hausa in Nigeria, Kabyle in Algeria, and Ethiopian Fidäl script as used to transliterate Arabic. One of the findings of this volume is that different domains of manuscript cultures have distinct paths of standardisation, so that orthography tends to develop its own standardisation principles irrespective of norms applied to layout and script types. This book will appeal to readers interested in manuscript studies, sociolinguistics, literacy studies, and history of writing.

Given the limited durability of most textual supports, texts must be reproduced if they are to survive. And given the proliferation over time of users, practices, and places which need to have access to the texts that are important for cultural institutions, this is particularly true for authoritative texts. But the reproduction of texts by traditional means – either orally or by hand – inevitably produces variations. These variations can arise because of inattention, confusion, misunderstanding, deliberate modification, physical damage, and many other factors. In general, the more a text is reproduced, the more variations are likely to occur. But although the fact of textual variation in general is doubtless an anthropological universal, the specific forms it takes and the specific attitudes to its occurrence seem to vary widely from culture to culture. How variations develop in different cultures, on the basis of which forms of scholarly practices, collaborations, and institutional frameworks; what variants say about a culture’s understandings of text, authorship, and collective authorship; what happens when variants become creative and generate their own strands of tradition; to what degree changes in transmission media and processes of distribution, translations, or the migration of texts into different cultural or institutional contexts can influence or be influenced by the development of variants – these are the questions that this book addresses in a historical and culturally comparative perspective.

This second collective volume of the series The Presence of the Prophet explores the growing importance of the figure of the Prophet Muhammad for questions of authority and power in early modern and modern times. The authors provide a rich collection of case studies on how Muhammad’s material, spiritual, and genealogical heritage has been claimed for the foundation of Muslim empires, revolutionary movements, the formation of modern nation states and ideologies, as well as for communal mobilization and social reform. This novel comparative, and diachronic study, which is unique for its wide coverage of regional cases and perspectives, reveals diverse political representations of the Prophet in an increasingly globalised struggle over the control of his image between secularization and sacralization. Contributors Gianfranco Bria, Rachida Chih, Christoph Günther, Gottfried Hagen, Jan-Peter Hartung, David Jordan, Soraya Khodamoradi, Jamal Malik, Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen, Alix Philippon, Martin Riexinger, Stefan Reichmuth, Dilek Sarmis, Renaud Soler, Jaafar Ben El Haj Soulami, Florian Zemmin.

Physiognomy and ekphrasis are two of the most important modes of description in antiquity and represent the necessary precursors of scientific description. The primary way of divining the characteristics and fate of an individual, whether inborn or acquired, was to observe the patient’s external characteristics and behaviour. This volume focuses initially on two types of descriptive literature in Mesopotamia: physiognomic omens and what we might call ekphrastic description. These modalities are traced through ancient India, Ugaritic and the Hebrew Bible, before arriving at the physiognomic features of famous historical figures such as Themistocles, Socrates or Augustus in the Graeco-Roman world, where physiognomic discussions become intertwined with typological analyses of human characters. The Arabic compendial culture absorbed and remade these different physiognomic and ekphrastic traditions, incorporating both Mesopotamian links between physiognomy and medicine and the interest in characterological ‘types’ that had emerged in the Hellenistic period. This volume offer the first wide-ranging picture of these modalities of description in antiquity.

The Routledge Handbook on the Sciences in Islamicate Societies provides a comprehensive survey on science in the Islamic world from the 8th to the 19th century. Across six sections, a group of subject experts discuss and analyze scientific practices across a wide range of Islamicate societies. The authors take into consideration several contexts in which science was practiced, ranging from intellectual traditions and persuasions to institutions, such as courts, schools, hospitals, and observatories, to the materiality of scientific practices, including the arts and craftsmanship. Chapters also devote attention to scientific practices of minority communities in Muslim majority societies, and Muslim minority groups in societies outside the Islamicate world, thereby allowing readers to better understand the opportunities and constraints of scientific practices under varying local conditions. Through replacing Islam with Islamicate societies, the book opens up ways to explain similarities and differences between diverse societies ruled by Muslim dynasties. This handbook will be an invaluable resource for both established academics and students looking for an introduction to the field. It will appeal to those involved in the study of the history of science, the history of ideas, intellectual history, social or cultural history, Islamic studies, Middle East and African studies including history, and studies of Muslim communities in Europe and South and East Asia.