Manuscript Treasures from Najaf in Carl Brockelmann’s Geschichte der arabischen Literatur

In the 1890s, Carl Brockelmann (d. 1956) embarked on what soon turned out to be a mission impossible—to compile single-handedly a bibliography of the entire extant Muslim literary tradition in Arabic language. The supplement volumes (published in 1937, 1938, and 1942), and the second edition (published in 1943 and 1949) that eventually replaced the original Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur, remain until today an indispensible tool for Arabists and Islamicists, especially for the mid-fifth/eleventh century and later, and this despite the volumes’ evident shortcomings, of which Brockelmann was well aware. Little is known about Brockelmann’s work mode during the decades between the publication of the original GAL and the late 1930s and 1940s, when he worked on the GALS and the second edition of the GAL. Access to the relevant primary and secondary material proved challenging, and it varied during Brockelmann’s career. The difficulties he encountered with consulting the relevant materials, were partly alleviated by the support Brockelmann received from colleagues. Among them, Hellmut Ritter, who was based from October 1926 on in Istanbul and had access to the rich manuscript holdings of the local libraries, was perhaps Brockelmann’s most important informant. However, the importance of Ritter’s contributions to the GALS and GAL goes beyond the manuscript holdings of the libraries in Istanbul. For the manuscript treasures of Najaf, for example, Ritter provided Brockelmann with two documents, a letter he had received in March 1936 from a young scholar of Najaf, ʿAlī al-Khāqānī (d. 1400/1979 or 1980), in which the latter described a selection of manuscripts in Najaf, and a handwritten catalogue by one Najafābādī, which Brockelmann had received a few months later from Ritter. Eventually, Brockelmann had access to volumes one and two of Āghā Buzurg al-Ṭihrānī’s (d. 1389/1970) al-Dharīʿa ilā taṣānīf al-shīʿa, his third important sources for the manuscripts of Najaf. The present study analyzes Brockelmann’s usage of these three sources.

Sabine Schmidtke, "Manuscript Treasures from Najaf in Carl Brockelmann’s Geschichte der arabischen Literatur," Shii Studies Review 7 (2023), pp. 78-126