Arabic Scribal Cultures Working Group
Beinecke Rare Books & Manuscript Library
BRBL 121 Classroom 9
Find the meeting times below.
If you have questions or concerns, reach out here.
This working group draws on the rich repository of Arabic material culture in the Near and Middle Eastern Books and Manuscripts and the Yale Papyri Collections to bring together scholars with interests in the fields of Late Antiquity and Medieval Studies, Arabic and Islamic Studies, Manuscript Studies, Art History, and Digital Humanities. While primarily focused on Arabic paleography, each session centers on a distinct codicological, scribal, or visual feature of Arabic manuscripts, including but not limited to colophons (kulūfūnāt), margins (ḥawāshī), endowment certificates (waqfiyyāt), student notes (muṭālaʿāt), ownership statements (tamallukāt), and book bindings (tajlīdāt). The purpose of the group is for participants to interrogate and gain greater familiarity with the logics and logistics of the Arabic manuscript tradition and to understand the circulation of manuscripts and documents not merely as texts but as material objects that generated meanings within social networks spanning across time, space, and social class. What does the writing material of a manuscript tell us about its circulation? How can we think about and conceptualize the semiotic relationship between a manuscript's core text and marginal notes? In what cultural and religious terms did writers and scribes articulate their conceptions of Arabic manuscripts and documents? And can we use biological analogies such as the life cycle to understand the production, circulation, and deaccessioning of Arabic manuscripts and documents? The group typically convenes at the Beinecke Library but may meet in other venues depending on the theme of the session. Knowledge of elementary Arabic is desired but not required. Participants are encouraged to communicate their research interests to the organizer for us to study a wide array of manuscripts from the Arabic legal, grammatical, scientific, epistolary, exegetical, and other traditions.
The spring semester schedule can be found below. If you're interested in presenting during the Spring Semester 2025, please reach out here.
This Working Group is sponsored by the Whitney Humanities Center at Yale University.
Spring 2025 Schedule
Multiple DatesThu, Feb 20Sterling Library (Gates Classroom)Yasmeen Khan from the Library of Congress will lead a half-day workshop on Islamic bookbindings, introducing us to different bookbinding techniques and elucidating how we can utilize data gathered from bindings, quires, and trimmed pages for historical research. RSVP required.
Wed, Feb 26BRBL 121 Room 9 (Beinecke Rare Books)Estelle Guéville and I will introduce a variety of DH projects in the field of Islamic MSS research, map out DH tools available for the study of MSS at large, and discuss how the DH are changing the ways in which we do and approach research.
Wed, Mar 26Lobby of the Beinecke Library (upstairs)Robin Dougherty (Librarian for Middle East Studies; WHC Fellow) will guide us through the Beinecke exhibit "Taught by the Pen: The World of Islamic Manuscripts." Robin is one of the exhibit's co-curators and will tell us about the objects on display, and the rationales and planning of the exhibit.
Wed, Apr 09BRBL 121 Room 9 (Beinecke Rare Books)In this session, we will examine different Arabic script types and discuss their function, usage, and available tools for deciphering them.
Past Events
Multiple DatesWed, Dec 04Via ZoomAhmed El Shamsy will give a talk entitled "The Connected and the Disconnected Scribal Traditions of Classical Arabic Literary Culture."
Multiple DatesWed, Nov 20Yale University Art GalleryThe ASC Working Group is proud to have Arielle Winnik and Michelle Al-Ferzly lead this session, introducing us to some of the unique Arabic ṭirāz textiles and bowls at the Yale University Art Gallery. We will meet at the Yale University Art Gallery. Please try to be there by 3:45 PM.
Multiple DatesWed, Oct 23BRBL 121 Room 9 (Beinecke Rare Books)In Arabic manuscripts, the margin (ḥāshiya) occupies an important place for scribes and readers to add corrections, notes, summaries, and scribbles. In this session, we will push the margin to the center and revisit the relationship between the margins and the base text.
Multiple DatesWed, Oct 09BRBL 121 Room 9 (Beinecke Rare Books)Arabic papyri and manuscripts contain many curious features, including watermarks, seals, and stamps. In this session, we will examine these features as marks of state, professional, and individual authority, exploring their function and usage. We will also examine two mysterious boxes.
Multiple DatesWed, Sep 25BRBL 121 Room 9 (Beinecke Rare Books)In this session, we will study Arabic writing supports, their production, and the social logics governing their usage. We will especially focus on the transition from papyrus to paper and its implications for producing documents and literary texts.
Multiple DatesWed, Sep 11BRBL 121 Room 9 (Beinecke Rare Books)This session will focus on colophons in Arabic manuscripts and consider their distinct visual, textual, and codicological characteristics. A colophon is typically placed at the end of an Arabic manuscript and conveys information about its scribe, place, and time of writing.
Multiple DatesWed, Aug 28BRBL 121 Room 9 (Beinecke Rare Books)In this session, we will focus on title pages in Arabic manuscripts with examples from the Beinecke Manuscript Collection. After our first attempts to decipher the notes on these pages, we will examine the function of these pages, the information they convey, and the scribal logic behind them.