Treasures of knowledge : an inventory of the Ottoman Palace Library (1502/3-1503/4) /
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The subject of this two-volume publication is an inventory of manuscripts in the book treasury of the Topkapı Palace in Istanbul, commissioned by the Ottoman sultan Bayezid II from his royal librarian ʿAtufi in the year 908 (1502-3) and transcribed in a clean copy in 909 (1503-4). This unicum inventory preserved in the Oriental Collection of the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (Magyar Tudományos Akadémia Könyvtára Keleti Gyűjtemény, MS Török F. 59) records over 5,000 volumes, and more than 7,000 titles, on virtually every branch of human erudition at the time. The Ottoman palace library housed an unmatched encyclopedic collection of learning and literature; hence, the publication of this unique inventory opens a larger conversation about Ottoman and Islamic intellectual/cultural history. The very creation of such a systematically ordered inventory of books raises broad questions about knowledge production and practices of collecting, readership, librarianship, and the arts of the book at the dawn of the sixteenth century. The first volume contains twenty-eight interpretative essays on this fascinating document, authored by a team of scholars from diverse disciplines, including Islamic and Ottoman history, history of science, arts of the book and codicology, agriculture, medicine, astrology, astronomy, occultism, mathematics, philosophy, theology, law, mysticism, political thought, ethics, literature (Arabic, Persian, Turkish/Turkic), philology, and epistolary. Following the first three essays by the editors on implications of the library inventory as a whole, the other essays focus on particular fields of knowledge under which books are catalogued in MS Török F. 59, each accompanied by annotated lists of entries. The second volume presents a transliteration of the Arabic manuscript, which also features an Ottoman Turkish preface on method, together with a reduced-scale facsimile.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references. :
9789004402508 :
0921-0326 ;
Catalogue of the Arabic, Persian and Turkish manuscripts in Belgium /
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The Catalogue of the Arabic, Persian and Turkish Manuscripts in Belgium is a union catalogue aiming is to present the Oriental manuscripts held by various Belgian public institutions (Royal Library, university and public libraries). These collections and their contents are largely unknown to scholars due to the lack of published catalogues. This first volume, consisting of a bi-lingual (English and Arabic) handlist, concerns the collection of the Université de Liège, which holds the largest number of Oriental manuscripts (c. 500). Each title is briefly described, identifying the author and offering basic material information. Most of the manuscripts described in this handlist originate from North Africa.
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Includes indexes. :
1 online resource. :
9789004328464 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.