Islamic Manuscripts

HMML’s growing Islamic manuscript holdings represent a range of Islamic cultures, including the West African tradition centered in Timbuktu (Mali), manuscripts from Harar in Ethiopia, major libraries of Jerusalem and Gaza, the Zaydī tradition of Yemen, Persian and Urdu manuscripts from South Asia, and Ottoman-era collections from Bosnia and Herzegovina. They also include Islamic manuscripts located in Southeast Asia, hosted in partnership with the DREAMSEA Project.

HMML’s first partnership to focus on the digitization of Islamic manuscripts began in 2010 with a project in Harar, Ethiopia, followed in 2011 by four projects with family libraries in Jerusalem. In 2013, HMML partnered with SAVAMA-DCI (Sauvegarde et Valorisation des Manuscrits pour la Défense de la Culture Islamique) in Bamako, Mali, to digitize the manuscripts evacuated from Timbuktu. Digitization in Mali expanded to include libraries that remained in Timbuktu and to Djenné, another center of Islamic culture in Mali. Digitization of Islamic manuscripts continues to be the focus of projects in Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Europe, and South Asia.

Repository Highlights

• Libraries of Timbuktu: Aboubacar Ben Said Library (7,600 items), Abdoulahi ben Abdourahamane Family Library (12,700 items), Attaher Mouaz Family Library (39,000 items), Mamma Haidara Library (37,500 items), Bibliothèque de Manuscrits al-Imam Essayouti, Bibliothèque des Manuscrits al-Wangari, and over 20 others (Search Repositories for ‘SAV’ or 'ELIT')
• Djenné Manuscript Library, Djenné: 150 local family collections of Qurʼanic material, texts on religion, grammar, history, literature, Sufi mysticism, and magic
• Muslim family collections in Jerusalem: Āl Budayrī Library (1,300 items); Khalidi Library (1,680 items), Isʻāf Nashāshibī Center for Culture and Literature (750 items), and al-Zāwiyah al-Uzbakīyah (181 items)
• Zaydi Manuscript Tradition Project: manuscripts from Yemen as well as European and North American collections, made available through the project at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ
• Sherif Harar City Museum, Harar, Ethiopia: digital copies of hundreds of manuscripts gathered from families and shrines in this historic center of Islam, deposited by Abdullahi Ali Sherif, founder of the museum
• Great Omari Mosque, Gaza City, Gaza: approximately 250 manuscripts on Islamic jurisprudence, Qur’ans, Qurʼanic texts, works of philosophy, theology, poetry, Sufism, Arabic language, education, medicine, astronomy, history, and geography
• Anjuman-i Taraqqī-yi Urdū Pākistān, Karachi: approximately 2,000 manuscripts on Urdu literature and language, Qur'ans, epic poetry, Sufi treatises, historiographical works, autobiographies, and dictionaries in Urdu, Persian, and Arabic