Welcome to Al-Furqan’s E-Database
The largest gateway of Islamic written heritage
matches
- Language
- XAlbanian
- XAmharic
- XArabic
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- XBamum
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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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| Contact: | Department of Manuscripts and Archives Givat Ram campus of the Hebrew University, West Jerusalem 91004 |
| Telephone: | 972-2-6585027 |
| Date of establishment: | 1892 (Hebrew University 1925) |
| Status: | Institutional |
| Status Details: | University and national library. |
| Condition of access: | Access to the manuscript collection is open to qualified scholars upon presentation of proper identification and letter of introduction to the Curator. Orders for MSS are filled upon written agreement that the applicant will undertake no publication of the copied material in whole or in part without prior permission, proper identification of the MS., and presentation of two copies of the final publication to the library. Open 09:00-15:30 Sun.-Thurs.; closed Fri.-Sat. |
| Total number of Islamic MSS: | 2,143 (1,860 Arabic; 1 Gurani; 234 Persian; 45 Turkish; 3 Urdu). |
| Description of Collection: | There are three different collections of Islamic MSS at the JNUL. The original collection (call no. Ms. Ar.) consists of 465 MSS; others deposited by the government (call no. AP. Ar.) amount to 543 MSS; and a major bequest (call no. Yah. Ms. Ar.) by the late scholar and collector A.S. Yahuda (1877–1951) contains 1,135 MSS. The MSS in the collection contain more than 5,000 titles, and many of the majamiʿ listed as Arabic MSS also contain works in Turkish or Persian. All MSS are maintained under professionally controlled conservation conditions, and the Library has its own conservation department. The MSS cover all fields of the Islamic and Arabic sciences. There are more than 120 Qurʾan MSS, dating from the third century AH to modern times; most of these codices, as well as ca. 120 Persian illuminated MSS of the Ottoman period, are of artistic interest. About 500 works contained in the MSS do not exist in other collections, so far as has been determined at present. There are also numerous autographs by such important authors as ʿAbd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi, Murtaḍá 'l-Zabidi, Shams al-Din ibn al-Jazari, and ʿAli b. Ibrahim al-Ḥalabi. See: Turkish manuscripts: cataloguing since 1960 and manuscripts still uncatalogued, Part 3.By Eleazar Birnbaum.Journal of the American Oriental Society 103, pp. 704–705. The Inter Documentation Company (IDC) has microfiched the entire Yahuda collection, and copies of the complete microfiche set or of individual MSS or works are available directly from the Company, PO Box 11205, 2301 EE Leiden, Netherlands (Fax: 31–71–13 17 21); or from the library. |
| Notes: | See published World Survey of Islamic Manuscripts. 1992 - 1994, Vol.2, p 583. |
| Published Catalogues: | 2 |
| Unpublished Catalogues: | 1 |
| Online access: | http://jnul.huji.ac.il/eng/index.html |
| Published Catalogues Total: 2 | 1967 |
1979 | |
| Unpublished Catalogues Total: 1 | Detailed card catalogues (in Arabic) of all three of the Islamic collections, according to the following subjects: Proper names (authors, scribes, owners, etc.), in alphabetical order; Titles and minor subjects, in alphabetical order; Dates of MSS (both specified and estimated), in chronological order; Names of places where MSS were copied, in alphabetical order; Major subjects, according to the order of Al-Azhar Library; Incipits, in alphabetical order. |
| Union Catalogues & Surveys Total: 16 | 1928 |
1938 | |
1945 – 1946 | |
1947 | |
1954 – 1964 | |
1976 | |
1981 | |
1981 | |
1982 | |
1983 | |
1983 | |
1984 | |
1986 | |
1987 | |
1987 | |
1989 | |
| Bibliographical appendix Total: 11 | 1947 |
1967 | |
1978 | |
1982 | |
1983 | |
1983 | |
1984 | |
1986 | |
1986 | |
1988 | |
1991 |
Cities surveyed
Libraries surveyed
Catalogues surveyed
