Mobile manuscripts : Arabic learning across the early modern western Indian Ocean / Christopher D. Bahl.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bahl, Christopher D., author.

Series:

Cambridge oceanic histories.

Cambridge oceanic histories

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Manuscripts, Arabic--South Asia--History.

Manuscripts, Arabic.

Transmission of texts--South Asia--History.

Transmission of texts.

Learning and scholarship--South Asia--History.

Learning and scholarship.

Islamic learning and scholarship--History.

Islamic learning and scholarship.

South Asia--Intellectual life--History.

South Asia.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xvi, 323 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2035.

Summary:

In this essential new work, Christopher D. Bahl departs from the established historiography on trade, shipping, and pilgrimage to argue for the emergence of Arabic learning as a crucial form of transoceanic mobility from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries. From Egypt to the Hijaz, Yemen and further on to Gujarat and the Deccan, networks of manuscript circulation created shared social and cultural spaces across the early modern western Indian Ocean, in which South Asia was a key node of connection. Largely unstudied Arabic manuscripts from collections in eight different archives offer a new source base to explore the region as a hub of Arabic scholarly culture, while marginalia and notes provide an empirical treasure trove for the study of social spaces and cultural practices. This is the first book to trace these truly transoceanic encounters between scholars, sultans, scribes, readers, and librarians.

Contents:

Cover

Half-title

Series information

Title page

Imprints page

Dedication

Table of Contents

List of Figures

List of Maps

List of Tables

Acknowledgements

Notes on Dates, Places, and Transliterations

Introduction

Histories of Circulation

Arabic Textual Practices as Arabic Learning

Of Networks and Entanglements

Setting Sail: Historiographies of Maritime Connections

Empirical Troves: A Corpus of Manuscripts Assembled across Continents

Plan of the Book

1 The Prosopographical World of Maritime Mobilities

The Emergence of a Transoceanic World of Arabic Learning: The Fourteenth to the Fifteenth Centuries

Arabic Learning across the Sixteenth-Century Western Indian Ocean

Entangling Arabic and Persian Learning across the Early Modern Western Indian Ocean

Perspectives on Arabic Learning in Seventeenth-Century South Asia

2 The Royal Library of Bijapur: The Emergence of a Textual Entrepôt

The Royal Library of Bijapur: Sultans and Librarians

A Manuscript Culture of Gift-Reception

The Islamicate Library: Transactions of Scholarly Professionals

The Shrine Library as a Textual Entrepôt

Bijapur's Sufis and Local Forms of Book Circulation

Conclusion

3 Arabic Philology in Early Modern South Asia

Seventeenth-Century 'Paper Revolutions' and the Spread of Arabic Philological Texts

From 'Definitive Texts' to Their Multiple Audiences

Scribes: The Proliferators of Arabic Manuscripts

The Social Field of Book Exchanges

'Paratexts of Social Silence'

Manuscripts as 'Commonplace Notebooks'

4 Mobile Arabic Learning from Egypt to the Deccan

The Patchwork Quilt of Transoceanic Patronage Networks

A Tale of Two Commentaries: Textual Mobility through Narrative Strategies

Arabic Scholarship on the Move: Changing Frameworks of Textual Transmission.

Conclusion

5 From the Deccan to Istanbul: A Transoceanic Community of Readers

Early Modern Courts and the Preservation of al-Damāmīnī's Texts

Transregional Scholarly Transmission

Transregional Text Transmission

Reading Strategies in a Transoceanic Scholarly Field

New Text-Based Reading Practices and Readers

Conclusion: Arabic Learning across the Early Modern Western Indian Ocean World

Appendix

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 28 Jan 2025).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781009359740

1009359746

9781009359733

1009359738

9781009359719

1009359711