Welcome to Al-Furqan’s E-Database
The largest gateway of Islamic written heritage
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‘World Collections’ databank / collection
The ‘World Collections’ databank / collection holds the digitised outcome of the survey on the collections of Islamic manuscripts in the world, completed and published by the Al-Furqan Foundation in 1994, under the title “The World Survey of Islamic Manuscripts”.. This Survey is available in both the English and Arabic language.
This flagship project (the only one of this type to date) started in 1989, focusing on identifying and recording undocumented Islamic manuscript collections in the world, with the aim to support and instigate research into the field of Islamic manuscripts. A number of known scholars and experts contributed to this encyclopaedic work.
The Survey identified collections in 106 countries. It is a compilation of detailed independent studies, highlighting just over a million and a half Islamic manuscripts from just over 2,500 collections. These collections, in more than 40 languages, belong to public and private libraries in almost 1,300 cities. It gathered extensive information about these libraries, including details about their establishment and the status of their collections, unveiling in the process rare manuscripts. For example, the collection of manuscripts at the Institute of Oriental Culture (University of Tokyo) - that was acquired in 1987 - included several new and unique Islamic manuscripts. The noteworthy discoveries were two copies of Risala fi anwaʿ al-mashruʿat, a comprehensive work on the terminology of jurisprudence, by Luṭf Allah al-Kaydani (died 1349 AD /750 AH). These were significant findings, as they had not even been mentioned in the most renowned classical period references, such as Brockelmann's famous work Geschichte der Arabischen Litteratur (GAL), Sezgin's Geschichte Des Arabischens Schriftums (GAS), and Kaḥḥala's Muʿjam al-muʾallifin.
A large number of the identified libraries have listed and included detailed descriptions about the manuscripts held in their collection, in a form of a document or publication. This publication is known as a ‘catalogue’; with most of them published and available for purchase. Another form of a published catalogue is one that was compiled by a group of libraries, known as ‘library consortium’. These libraries partnered to combine their collections into one unified published catalogue, known as a ‘union catalogue’.
Some libraries held collections that were not catalogued or documented. Others made an attempt to describe their collections in simplified lists and general documentations. These were usually not published and are known as ‘unpublished catalogues’.
A unique outcome of the Survey was the identification of all the various catalogues. Just over 5,500 catalogues of Islamic manuscripts were surveyed, including the listing of almost 700 union catalogues, and almost 1,000 unpublished catalogues.
All this information and much more is ready to be explored on theAl-Furqan Digital Library, under the ‘World Collections’ databank.
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| Date of establishment: | Library—10 December 1878; the Oriental Collections—1880 |
| Status: | Institutional |
| Status Details: | State Public Library |
| Total number of Islamic MSS: | 3,680 (ca. 3,060 Arabic; ca. 120 Persian; ca. 500 Turkish). |
| Description of Collection: | It holds about 1.5 million documents in Bulgarian concerning prominent Bulgarians and about 500,000 documents in Ottoman-Turkish and approximately 3,000 in Arabic. These documents deal with the history of Bulgaria, the Balkan countries and the Arab provinces of the Ottoman empire for the period between the 15th and the 20th century as well as with the relationship of the central Ottoman authorities with the countries of Eastern and Western Europe, Russia, Iran, etc. The National Library is the largest manuscript centre in Bulgaria. It holds about 1,500 manuscripts in the Slavic languages and about 3,680 in the Oriental languages. The foundations of the Oriental collections were laid in 1880. In 1900 the collections were organized in the so-called Turkish Department, which, in 1909, was renamed the Oriental Department. Its official name today is Oriental Collections Department. The first Oriental manuscripts received here were from the library of Meḥmed Husrev Pasha from the town of Samokov—2,485 volumes of manuscripts and early printed books in all. Later, in 1888, the book-stock was enriched with another 650 manuscripts and early printed books from the library of Osman Pazvand-ŏglu from the town of Vidin. After the manuscripts and books from his library were received in Sofia in 1889 a Bulgarian-Turkish commission was formed. It handed over to the Turkish government 2,014 volumes and the remaining 650 were kept for the Public Library of Sofia. The original catalogue of Pazvand-ŏglu's library has recently been found. It consists of 69 leaves with dimensions 465 × 175 mm and was compiled on 23 Dhu 'l-Ḥijja 1252 (March 31st, 1837). 2,211 manuscripts (2,390 volumes in all) and 73 early printed books were described in it, all of them presented in 22 sections. A paper on this catalogue and the questions it raises was presented by Dr. St. Kenderova at the Scientific session on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of Sofronij Vrachanski (1739–1813) held in the town of Vratsa in 1989. The title of the paper is “The library of Osman Pazvand-ŏglu at the time of Sofronij (according to a newly found inventory)” (the Acts of the conference are in press). These are the two most numerous accessions of manuscripts. It is impossible, however, to say even today what proportion of the collections were manuscripts or were early printed books, for they have not been properly studied yet. During the following years the library received manuscripts (as well as archival materials), found in state and municipal institutions of many Bulgarian towns which were deserted by the former Turkish authorities or by Turks who emigrated from the country. Many manuscripts have been received as donations or through purchase. This practice continues, for example, for the period from 1980 till the end of 1989 inclusive, the book-stock was enriched by 31 manuscripts in Arabic and Turkish mainly through purchase from private owners. Of these 9 are copies of the Qurʾan and three of Inshaʾ in Turkish. By the end of October 1990 the total number of manuscripts in the library amounted to 3,680 codices. The Oriental manuscripts are preserved in separate store rooms in the Library building itself; a building into which the Library was moved in 1953. The store rooms are equipped for maintaining proper climatic conditions. They are in cardboard boxes to protect them from dust. On the whole, they are in good physical condition. A few copies have been damaged by humidity or book worm, and such MSS are periodically handed over for restoration to the Scientific Laboratory for Conservation and Restoration in the National Library, where they receive disinfection, mechanical and chemical cleaning. Afterwards they are restored (including the binding), and re-bound by a specialist. The original binding is preserved where possible, but when it is greatly damaged or is not present at all, the manuscripts are bound in leather. During the period 1985–1990 (i.e. six years), 54 Oriental MSS were restored. One of the five full copies in existence today of the famous work of al-Idrisi “Nuzhat al-mushtaq fi ʾkhtiraq al-afaq” was restored here in 1981 and is kept in the Library. The restoration was necessary because the ink had a high acid content and had damaged the leaves by yellowing the paper. A considerable number of the manuscripts are copies (the autographs found up to now are isolated cases) in Arabic—about 3,060 codices. It should be noted, however, that a fairly large number of the manuscripts kept at the National Library are majmuʿat containing several (even tens of) works, preserved entirely or in fragments. Some are in mixed languages. The Arab manuscripts cover the following subjects: Qurʾans, ca. 115 copies; Qurʾanic sciences, ca. 110 MSS; commentaries on the Qurʾan; ca. 240 MSS; Ḥadith, ca. 200; Islamic Law, ca. 620; dogmatics, ca. 260; prayers ca. 200; sermons, ca. 300; philosophy, ca. 300; linguistics and grammar, ca. 950; history and biographies, ca. 80; geography, ca. 12; literature, ca. 60; others (medicine, astronomy, mathematics, geometry, etc.) ca. 150 MSS. The manuscripts in Turkish hold the second place numbering about 500 codices. They cover the following subjects: Islamic religion (tafsir, ḥadith, etc.) ca. 130 MSS; Islamic Law, ca. 80 MSS; philosophy, ca. 20; linguistics and grammar, ca. 60; history and biographies, ca. 60; literature, ca. 90; diplomatic (mainly Inshaʾca. 20; medicine, ca. 20; others (geography, astronomy, mathematics, botany, encyclopaedias, etc.) ca. 70 MSS. The collection of Persian manuscripts is the least numerous—it consists of about 120 codices. Most of these are copies of literary works (see more detailed description in the published Catalogue of the Persian MSS). The manuscripts of the National Library are predominantly copies dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It is considered that the oldest dated copy in the collection is Tafsir from 458 Hijriya (1066 CE). The attribution of the undated manuscripts written on European paper is carried out mainly from analysis of their watermarks. On the history of the Oriental Department and the setting-up of its collections see: Istorija na Narodnata biblioteka v Sofija. Po slucaj 50 godišninata i. 1879–1929. (History of the Public Library in Sofia. On the occasion of its 50th anniversary, 1879–1929).By V. Jordanov.Sofia. Orientalistikata v Sofijskata narodna biblioteka. (The Oriental studies in the Public Library of Sofia). B. Nedkov.In :Godišnik na BBI za 1945–1946. Sofia, pp. 226–239. 90 godini Orientalski sbirki v Narodnata biblioteka “Kiril i Metodi” (90 years Oriental collections in the National Library “Cyril and Methodius”).By M. Mikhajlova.Annales de la Bibliothèque Nationale “Kiril i Metodij”, Vol. XII (XVIII), pp. 351–357. Published catalogues: The cataloguing of the Oriental manuscripts began soon after they were received in the National Library. An author and topographic catalogue is available on cards. Unfortunately, the first people who prepared them, even though they knew Ottoman-Turkish well, had not had the proper training in Arabic and Persian and, more importantly, they had not had the necessary experience with a similar type of material. For several reasons these catalogues are de facto inappropriate to be used for scientific purposes. Their failings were noted as early as 1909 by Dr. Ivan Dimitrov—the first specially trained in such work when he was head of the department. A. Shishmanov, most probably drawing information from Dr. Ivan Dimitrov's descriptions, published in 1913 the first list of a very small part of the manuscripts collection, 37 codices in Arabic and 1 in Persian, with the intention of informing specialized university circles in St.-Petersburg of the presence of Oriental manuscripts in Sofia. Much later, after 1942, serious work in the description of the Turkish manuscripts was undertaken by Dr. Boris Nedkov. Up to 1960, for the time during which he had been the head of the Oriental Department, nearly the whole collection present in Turkish at that time comprising about 450 copies of approximately 330 titles of works had been described on cards. He died in 1975, leaving his catalogue unpublished. Arabic and Iranian studies (in contrast to the Ottoman studies) were developed in Bulgaria during the last few decades and this is reflected in the work on the Arabic and Persian manuscripts in the National Library. Because of the lack of Bulgarian experts in this field, the authors of the first catalogues are foreigners. In 1963 Dr. Adnan Darwīsh from Syria worked for six months in the National Library. As a result he published in 1969 and in 1974 two volumes in different degrees of detail with the descriptions of 1025 codices in all. Two years later, in 1965, the Iraqi expert Furat Muhammad Mahdi al-Awāhirī was drawn into the work of the National Library. Up to 1967 inclusive he produced about 1830 descriptions of the contents of approximately 900 codices—copies of the Qurʾān, tafsīr, ḥadīth, philosophy, Islamic Law, dogmatics, history, geography and literature. In 1967, the Iraqi scientist Dr. Yūsuf ʿIzz al-Dīn worked in the Library 16 days only. After his return to Iraq he published a catalogue containing the descriptions of 141 selected codices, mainly in the field of history, geography and literature. Later on the work on the description of the Arab manuscripts was taken up by Bulgarian experts and Furāt al-Jawāhirī was drawn in as one of the editors. The aim was the complete presentation of the collection in a few volumes arranged according to subject-matter. A scheme for a detailed description of each manuscript was adopted. On the basis of this scheme the first volume of the series, compiled by G. Petkova-Bojanova, was prepared and published in 1977. The volume included 95 copies of the Qurʾān. On account of the wide interest in the manuscript collection and with the purpose of acquainting scientific circles in Bulgaria and abroad with its contents, it was later decided that cataloguing should continue in the form of shorter descriptions, and the preparation of the detailed descriptions left for a further stage. For this reason a new and shorter scheme of description was proposed, but it contained the most important elements for the cataloguing of a written work. This scheme was applied in the preparation of Volume III of the Catalogue of Arab manuscripts compiled by Dr. Stojanka Kenderova which includes 260 copies of ḥadīth. It is being applied now in the preparation of the volume including all MSS in the field of linguistics and grammar (compiler A. Stoilova); the volume covering history, geography, literature, medicine and the exact sciences (compiler Dr. st. Kenderova), and also in the preparation of the Catalogue of the Turkish manuscripts (compilers: Prof. Dr. B. Nedkov, Dr. St. Kenderova, Z. Ivanova and R. Tomova). Only the collection of manuscripts in Persian is almost entirely catalogued. The catalogue was prepared by the lecturer in Persian at the Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridsky” Dr. Jamshīd Sayyar and it contains descriptions of 75 works in Persian in 188 volumes. In addition to the titles in Persian the author reveals the contents of 22 other MSS in Turkish and 5 MSS in Arabic. It should be noted that the book-stock contains 30 more works in Persian mainly in majmūʿāt that were not taken into consideration by Dr. Sayyar and have not been catalogued yet. |
| Notes: | The SS Cyril and Methodius National Library was established on 10 December 1878 as a public library in Sofia. Its foundation at this historic moment bears witness to the longing of the young Bulgarian state for a new economic, political and cultural life. The Library is named after the two brothers Cyril and Methodius who created the Slav—Bulgarian alphabet in 863. This is the biggest academic public library in the country. It provides scientific and methodical control for all libraries in the country. |
| Published Catalogues: | 7 |
| Unpublished Catalogues: | 1 |
| Published Catalogues Total: 7 | Volume III of the new series “Catalogue of the Arabic manuscripts” |
1913 | |
1968 | |
1969 | |
1973 | |
1974 | |
1977 | |
| Unpublished Catalogues Total: 1 | A Topografski Katalog on slips is available, but not reliable for scholarly work. |
| Union Catalogues & Surveys Total: 1 | 1988 |
| Bibliographical appendix Total: 11 | 1893 – 1894 |
1949 | |
1967 | |
1971 | |
1972 | |
1978 | |
1982 | |
1982 | |
1983 | |
1984 | |
1986 |
Cities surveyed
Libraries surveyed
Catalogues surveyed
