Lecture series: "Reconstructing Libraries of the Medieval and Early Modern Period (the Islamic World)"

The premodern Islamic world is famous for its numerous enormous libraries, many of which have completely vanished. Mention should be made, by way of example, of the royal libraries that were assembled during the Fatimid period which seem to have constituted the largest collection of books during the time. While next to nothing can be said about the actual holdings of the Fatimid libraries, several libraries that had been founded during the medieval or early modern period have survived up until today and can be studied from a large variety of viewpoints. Some premodern libraries have come down to us in their entirety while others can partly be reconstructed on the basis of the dispersed manuscripts from such collections and on the basis of secondary sources. The intellectual, social, and codicological context of a text is increasingly coming into focus in current scholarship—be it through a comprehensive approach to "one-volume-libraries" or by reconstructing and / or studying historical libraries in their entirety. The lecture series focuses on four libraries, situated in different parts of the Islamic world and each representing a different intellectual environment, which have been partly preserved—the library founded by the Zaydi imām al-Manṣūr bi-llāh in the 13th century, the library of the ʿUmariyya madrasa in Damascus, the library of the 15th century Bukharan Naqshbandī scholar, Khwāja Muḥammad Pārsā, and the library of the 17th century Moroccan Sultan Muley Zidan.