Traditional Yemeni Scholarship amidst Political Turmoil and War

Traditional Yemeni Scholarship amidst Political Turmoil and War

Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl b. al‐Muṭahhar al‐Manṣūr (1915‐2016) and His Personal Library (Oriens Academic)

Schmidtke, Sabine (Autor/a)

The rich holdings of private and public manuscript libraries in Yemen constitute a unique laboratory providing ample material to engage a wide array of scholarly interests, ranging from historical anthropology and social sciences to intellectual history, Islamic studies, codicology, and the history of libraries. The present study highlights the great potential for future research that the available and for the most part still unexplored material offers, by focussing on Muhammad b. Muhammad b. Ismahil al-Manhur (1915-2016), one of the most prominent scholars, bureaucrats, and politicians of twentieth-century Yemen, and his private collection of manuscripts.Based on his ijaza («licence to transmit»), his own writings, and other documentary materials, the book opens with a chapter discussing his biography and intellectual milieu. The remaining three chapters revolve around Muhammad al-Manhur’s personal collection of manuscripts and the many handwritten comments and notes added by al-Manhur. The numerous purchase notes open a window onto the gradual growth of al-Manhur’s personal library, and the additional information included in these notes provides insights into the ways in which manuscript codices changed hands during his lifetime (Chapter Three). Another striking feature of the collection are the codices al-Manhur copied in his own hand—while he had produced some during his student days, he copied out others decades later as a pious excercise. With respect to al-Manhur’s intellectual biography and his education, the information contained in the paratextual materials often corroborates or even supplements what is known on the basis of other sources.

Como citar:

Schmidtke, Sabine (aut.) (2018), Traditional Yemeni Scholarship amidst Political Turmoil and War. Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl b. al‐Muṭahhar al‐Manṣūr (1915‐2016) and His Personal Library (Oriens Academic). Córdoba: UCOPress – Editorial Universidad de Córdoba.