ENGLISH

Arabic, Persian and Gujarati Manuscripts: The Hamdani Collection in the Library of the Institute of Ismaili Studies

By Francois de Blois

Book information

Publisher
I. B. Tauris in Association with the Ins
Year
2011
ISBN
1848857640, 9781848857643
Open Library ID
OL25036831M
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
23 MB (23683388 bytes)
Pages
294\294
Orientation
yes
Scanned
yes
Time added
2012-02-04 16:00:00
Языки и языкознание;Лингвистика;Письмо (письменнос

Description

The Muhammad Ali Hamdani Collection in the Library of The Institute of Ismaili Studies represents a large segment of the library collected over seven generations by an eminent family of scholars from the Da'udi Bohra community in India and the Yemen. The bulk of the manuscripts are Ismaili religious writings, but there are also a good number of interesting books of general Islamic, or indeed secular content, and these give a rare insight into the whole cultural range of a learned family of Indian religious scholars. The overwhelming majority of the books are in Arabic, but there are also a small number in Persian and in Bohra da'wat language (lisan al da'wat), Gujarati in Arabic script. Most of the manuscripts were produced in India, but some of the most interesting ones are from the Yemen, the ancestral home of the Hamdani clan (the oldest of these is from the 14th century CE, or perhaps earlier). The catalogue contains detailed descriptions of the manuscripts in this Hamdani collection, discussing both the content of the works and the codicological features of the manuscripts. The introduction contains also a comprehensive history of the Hamdani family.

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