Kodex 8 (2018). Book Studies and Islamic Studies in Conversation

Das Jahrbuch der Internationalen Buchwissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft erscheint seit 2011 und ist jedes Jahr einem besonderen Themenschwerpunkt gewidmet, wie zum Beispiel dem Strukturwandel in der Medienbranche, den Literaturpreisen oder der Autorschaft im Zeitalter der Digitalisierung. Ziel von Kodex ist es, den Buchwissenschaften und den benachbarten Disziplinen eine Veröffentlichungs- und Diskussionsplattform zu bieten und zugleich als Archiv für die Auseinandersetzung mit Themen, Methoden und Theorien, Handlungsfeldern und aktuellen Trends des Mediums Buch zur Verfügung zu stehen. Kodex greift aktuelle Themen und Fragen, Tendenzen und Probleme des Mediums Buch auf – insbesondere im Kontext des gegenwärtigen digitalen Medienwandels. Das Periodikum ist ebenso offen für Berichte und Überlegungen aus der Praxis, denn der Sprach- und Bildzeichenträger Buch wird hier in der ganzen Bandbreite seiner gestalterischen, wirtschaftlichen, rechtlichen und kulturellen Aspekte behandelt.

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Kodex Internationale Buchwissenschaftliche Gesellschaft

Jahrbuch 8  · 2018 Book Studies and Islamic Studies in Conversation Edited by Marta Dominguez

Harrassowitz Verlag

Kodex 8 · 2018

© 2018, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11127-0 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19803-5

Kodex Jahrbuch der Internationalen Buchwissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft Herausgegeben von Christine Haug und Vincent Kaufmann

8 · 2018

Harrassowitz Verlag · Wiesbaden

© 2018, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11127-0 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19803-5

Book Studies and Islamic Studies in Conversation Edited by Marta Dominguez

Harrassowitz Verlag · Wiesbaden

© 2018, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11127-0 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19803-5

Manuskriptangebote bitte an: Prof. Dr. Christine Haug, [email protected] Prof. Dr. Vincent Kaufmann, [email protected] Redaktion: Theresa Lang, [email protected] Kodex. Jahrbuch der Internationalen Buchwissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft (IBG) erscheint mit freundlicher Unterstützung der Waldemar-Bonsels-Stiftung.

Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.dnb.de abrufbar. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibaliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.

Informationen zum Verlagsprogramm finden Sie unter http://www.harrassowitz-verlag.de © Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden 2018 Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen jeder Art, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und für die Einspeicherung in elektronische Systeme. Satz: Theresa Lang, IBG Gedruckt auf alterungsbeständigem Papier Druck und Verarbeitung: Memminger MedienCentrum AG Printed in Germany ISSN 2193-4983 ISBN 978-3-447-11127-0 e-ISBN PDF 978-3-447-19803-5

© 2018, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11127-0 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19803-5



Contents

1.

Acknowledgements.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VII From the General Editors.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IX Vorwort der Herausgeber. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X I. Articles Marta Dominguez Diaz Book Studies and Islamic Studies in Conversation: Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Yasemin Gökpınar (Not at Once) A Love Relationship: Arabic Manuscripts and Their Editions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Bruno De Nicola A Digital Database of Islamic Manuscripts for the Study of the Medieval Anatolia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Rebecca Sauer Books as Memory Devices and the ‘Literary Archive’ in Medieval Islam . . . . . . . 39 Houssem Eddine Chachia The Morisco Aḥmad ibn Qāsim al-Ḥajarī and the Egyptian Manuscript of His Nāṣir al-dīn ʿalā qawm al-kāfirīn (The triumph of faith over the nation of unbelievers).. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Necmettin Gökkir Muṣḥaf Printings during the Colonial Period: Gaining Power and Authority over the Muslim World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Marta Dominguez Diaz Book Culture and Daʿwa: The Role of the Text in Islam’s Religious Proselytism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 Manar Makhoul Paratexts: Thresholds to Palestinian Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 Konstantin Wagner Islambezogene Identitätskonstruktionen in deutschen Schulbüchern . . . . . . . . . . 121

© 2018, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11127-0 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19803-5

VI

Contents

II. Conversations Ein Gespräch mit Ömer Özsoy Der Koran: Das Buch der Muslime? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 Ein Gespräch mit Michael Josef Marx und Tobias J. Jocham Über neue Möglichkeiten zur Datierungen von Koranhandschriften durch die 14C-Methode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 Ein Gespräch mit Meltem Kulaçatan „Notwendig ist die Übersetzungsleistung“. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 A Conversation with Hala Auji Printing Arab Modernity: Book Culture and the American Press in Nineteenth-Century Beirut . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 Ein Gespräch mit Abdullah Takim „Das führt letztendlich auch zu einer inneren Aufklärung“. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191 III. Book Presentation Rachida Chih Sufism, Literary Production and Printing in the 19th Century. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

Contributors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

© 2018, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11127-0 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19803-5



Acknowledgements

1.

A number of people have made it possible for this volume to come to fruition and we would like to devote few lines to acknowledging their support. First of all, our gratitude goes to Vincent Kaufmann who placed his trust in us for this volume and encouraged us to undertake this project. We would also like to thank Stephan Graf and the Research Office at the University of St. Gallen for their support, which made the process of ensuring consistency when transliterating foreign words and addressing the issue of stylistic consistency throughout the manuscript much easier. On a similar note, the editorial work of Phoebe Luckyn-Malone has been key and of the utmost professionalism. We would also like to thank the Kodex team at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and especially the Internationale Buchwissenschaftliche Gesellschaft for making this project possible. In this regard we would like to specially thank Theresa Lang for always addressing our diverse enquiries and for always being responsive and helpful in aiding us throughout the different phases of the project. We would like to thank our families for their support and for the time we have sometimes had to spend away from them for the realization of our academic goals. Last, but not least, we would like to thank all of the contributors, who have taken time from their professional duties to participate in the writing of this issue. To all of them, thank you.

A Note on Transliteration For the transliteration of Arabic, Persian, and Turkish words in this issue, we have adopted the system of the International Journal of Middle East Studies. Terms and place names that are commonly used in English (e.g., Damascus, imam, sultan) have not been italicized or transliterated.

© 2018, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11127-0 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19803-5

© 2018, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11127-0 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19803-5



From the General Editors

1.

Dear Kodex readers, with Kodex 8, the Yearbook of the International Society for Book Studies (IBG) might celebrate a new premiere, like two years ago with Kodex 6, devoted to Chinese book culture. As announced by its title (Book Studies and Islamic Studies in Conversation) Kodex 8 represents an attempt to familiarize readers interested in book studies with the Islamic world or, more exactly, with the very diverse Islamic cultures. It is the goal of this new issue of Kodex to account on the one hand for this diversity, and to explore on the other hand in a more precise way the essential relation the Islamic world maintains with the book. Everybody is probably aware that Islam, as the third branch of monotheism, has fundamentally established itself as a book culture. But it often remains unclear how this culture has been shaped in its diversity and what its main differences with the Judeo-Christian book cultures are. It is our hope that Kodex 8 might close a gap here. By doing so the editors of Kodex keep following an editorial strategy that can be considered successful with regard on the one hand to the sales numbers and on the other hand to the numerous reviews devoted to former issues of Kodex. Alongside with the discussion of topics such as the digital library (Kodex 1), plagiarism (Kodex 4) or censorship (Kodex 7) which are very relevant in terms of interdisciplinary research in the field of book studies in our own cultural spaces, the IBG is clearly committed to the opening of areas of dialogue with other cultures as well as to the internationalization of book studies. The internationalization we aim at is not only a matter of content but also institutional: the scholars involved in this issue don’t come from the German speaking area only, but also from Turkey, Israel, Tunisia, France, the United Kingdom and the USA. In linguistic terms this issue follows the same strategy of internationalization since most of the contributions are written in English. Another innovation implemented in Kodex 8 is that a substantial part of the issue no longer consists of scientific articles but of interviews with experts. We hope that this innovation makes our journal more attractive to an audience that we wish to be broader than just academic. Kodex 8 has been edited by Professor Marta Dominguez, Chair of Islamic Studies at the University of St. Gallen. We would like to thank her warmly for her enthusiastic commitment. Kodex 8 offers a first-hand insight in the very rich, diverse and fascinating Islamic book culture in which for most of the time we move like strangers. Dear readers, we hope that you too will find Kodex 8 fascinating, and that you will keep supporting its international orientation. We would also like to thank you warmly for your confidence. Prof. Dr. Christine Haug Prof. Dr. Vincent Kaufmann

© 2018, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11127-0 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19803-5

Vorwort der Herausgeber Liebe Kodex-Leserinnen und Leser, Mit Kodex 8 darf das Jahrbuch der Internationalen Buchwissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft (IBG) wieder eine Premiere feiern, wie vor zwei Jahren mit dem der chinesischen Buchkultur gewidmeten Kodex 6. Wie durch den Titel von Kodex 8 angekündigt, entsteht mit Book Studies and Islamic Studies in Conversation der erste Versuch, die islamische Welt oder genauer die sehr vielfältigen islamischen Kulturen Leserinnen und Lesern mit buchwissenschaftlichen Interessen näher zu bringen. Ziel dieses Bandes ist es, einerseits dieser Vielfalt gerecht zu werden, andererseits den für die Islamische Welt unentbehrlichen Bezug zum Buch genauer zu untersuchen. Jedermann ist sich bewusst, dass sich der Islam als dritter Zweig des Monotheismus grundsätzlich als Buchkultur etabliert hat, aber wie diese Kultur in ihrer Vielfalt konfiguriert wurde und wie sie sich von den jüdisch-christlichen Buchkulturen unterscheidet, bleibt oft unklar. Es ist unsere Hoffnung, dass mit Kodex 8 diesbezüglich eine Lücke geschlossen wird. Damit verfolgen wir eine Strategie, die wir aufgrund der Absatzzahlen und der Resonanz zahlreicher Rezensionen als erfolgreich einschätzen dürfen. Neben der Aufnahme von Themen wie die digitale Bibliothek (Kodex 1), Plagiat (Kodex 4), Zensur (Kodex 7) usw., die sich besonders eignen, um in unseren Kulturräumen stattfindende Entwicklungen interdisziplinär zu untersuchen, setzt sich die IBG mit der Öffnung von Dialogfeldern mit anderen Kulturen auch dezidiert für eine Internationalisierung der buchwissenschaftlichen Forschungsanliegen ein. Dabei soll es nicht nur um eine inhaltliche, sondern auch um eine institutionelle Internationalisierung gehen: Die an diesem Band beteiligten Forscherinnen und Forscher stammen nicht nur aus dem deutschsprachigen Raum, sondern auch aus der Türkei, Israel, Tunesien, Frankreich, Großbritanien oder aus den USA. Eine weitere in Kodex 8 vorgenommene Innovation, besteht darin, dass wir vom Prinzip von rein wissenschaftlichen Aufsätzen zugunsten einer Reihe Gespräche abkommen. Es ist unsere Hoffnung und ein uns wichtiges Anliegen, dass wir damit auch unsere nicht ausschließlich akademische Leserschaft besser anzusprechen vermögen. Kodex 8 wird von Prof. Marta Dominguez, Leiterin des Fachbereiches Islamwissenschaften an der Universität St. Gallen, herausgegeben. Wir danken ihr herzlich für ihren begeisterten Einsatz. Kodex 8 bietet uns eine ›Ersthand-Einsicht‹ in die uns meist fremde, extrem reiche, vielfältige und zweifelsohne spannende islamische Buchkultur. Wir hoffen, dass auch Sie, liebe Leserinnen und Leser, diese Entwicklung spannend finden und der internationalen Ausrichtung von Kodex weiterhin zustimmen können. Auch für Ihr Vertrauen möchten wir uns herzlich bedanken. Prof. Christine Haug Prof. Vincent Kaufmann

© 2018, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11127-0 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19803-5

Book Studies and Islamic Studies in Conversation: Introduction

1.

Marta Dominguez Diaz Over the past three decades, the emergence and consolidation of the field of book studies as a cross-disciplinary space has resulted in significant rewards, particularly in that it has brought together analyses, studies, and reflections that have previously been more circumscribed to participate in conversations within their own disciplines. Since then, the field has never stopped growing. This burgeoning interest has given rise to numerous fruits in both North America and Europe, where today a plethora of institutions have wellestablished teaching and research programmes devoted to issues related to books, printing culture, and the transmission of the written word. Among them, the work undertaken in North American universities (such as at Toronto and Iowa) and multiple colleges (such as Wellesley, Smith, andr Oberlin), and at European universities (such as Leiden and Amsterdam, among others) is remarkable. In Europe, Germany has been a pioneer and a central scholarly locus in the advancement of these type of studies, with cases such as Leipzig, Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, and, of course, Munich (to name just few) working as the de facto engines in framing the modalities and debates that have come to define the book studies field (BSf ). One of the most appealing aspects of the BSf is its stunning diversity, both methodologically and in thematic terms, something – I just advance this here, as a note the reader can bear in mind when reading this issue – that it shares with the discipline of Islamic studies. The disciplines that have been concerned with issues that have to do with books and manuscripts, their meanings, readership, and modes of production and circulation are quite different to one another: from areas such as communication and media studies to cultural history, codicology, religious studies, literature, philology, and anthropology. As one might expect, all of them approach the BSf in markedly different manners, bringing with them not only the benefits of academic pluralism but also its challenges; namely, how to turn what runs the risk of becoming a cacophony of scholarly perspectives into a meaningful and engaging conversation? The journal Kodex is in this regard a magnificent platform where this joint endeavour can occur, and with this issue we are greatly pleased to join in the dialogue. The sum of academic disciplines that constitute what has traditionally been referred to as area studies has not been absent from the scholarly rendezvous proposed by the BSf, and this makes a lot of sense, because, since its inception, the learning of languages and the study of texts were the key facilitators, it was understood, the disciplines within area studies had, to understand ‘other cultures’. Not surprisingly, Alan Tansman, Professor of Modern Japanese Literatures at Berkeley, speaks of area studies as particular ‘translations’

© 2018, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11127-0 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19803-5

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– translations of texts.1 Certainly, the understanding of what constitutes a ‘text’ has changed over time and does now surpass the limits of the traditionally understood ‘text’; i.e., the written word. Today (and now I am particularly speaking about Islamic studies), we have significantly broadened the object/subject of study, and consider the category of ‘text’ more inclusively and relate it to a variety of other social and cultural products, such as radio and TV programmes, digital materials, speeches, social and religious gatherings, and so forth. Nonetheless, intensive language acquisition is still one of the pillars of the academic training of Islamic studies scholars. If we add to this that an existing overwhelming tendency of language programmes is to prioritize the study of the written over the oral, it is understandable that the field is still primarily dominated by an interest in ‘culturally translating’ written, rather than non-written ‘texts’. Books, manuscripts, and the cultures that produce them are of a centrality to Islamic studies that certainly plays against our understanding of other forms of cultural expression. Yet, to be fair, two observations deserve to be made in this regard. The first is that interest in non-written forms of culture is increasingly common and the number of studies in this direction have mushroomed over the past decade. This interest, it seems, is alive and well, and will keep going. The second (perhaps more of relevance to the common interests of Kodex readers and authors) is that the study of written texts has been transformed in fundamental ways: hermeneutically, theoretically, and thematically, coming to incorporate an attempt to understand our object of study in broader terms, looking at the structures, the historical dynamics, the social contexts, and the meanings and the effects. The current issue of Kodex aims to give a comprehensive overlook of some of the most relevant among these novelties, and hopes to be a window through which the state-in-the-art of the BSf within Islamic studies may be viewed. This issue is designed as tool for people in the field, as well as those less familiar with it, to use to get a glimpse of some of the most cuttingedge methods and topics most recently developed by scholars of Islamic studies on issues related to books and book culture(s). The volume is selective by nature. Although we would have liked to develop a much more overarching panorama of our field, the amount of research conducted on issues related to the production, circulation, preservation, and meaning and reception of written texts in Muslim cultures is endless, and, thus, the task of having a volume that fairly represents the diversity and richness of the BSf within Islamic studies becomes impossible. For this reason, we consider this volume as an initial contribution to open up the conversation – a form of envisaging some of the key lines of scholarly debate that develop from the encounter of the BSf and Islamic studies, and which sets up a conversation that will certainly deserve further

1 Alan Tansman: Japanese studies. The intangible act of translation. In: David L. Szanton (ed.): The Politics of Knowledge. Area Studies and the Disciplines. Berkeley: University of California Press 2004.

© 2018, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11127-0 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19803-5

Introduction

3

exploration. There are a number of consolidated fields of study that are very important within the BSf/Islamic studies interplay, and which are not represented in this volume. This has to do also with the fact that what we know as Islamic studies, if understood as the interdisciplinary study of anything related with the cultures of the Muslim world and its diasporas, is so ambitiously overarching in scope that becomes disappointing because the Muslim world, as such, is a concept that needs substantial re-evaluation and holds little relevance and meaning other than as a colonial and postcolonial gaze. The field of Islamic studies, I would argue, can not really be about the study of the Muslim world, because, as Cemil Aydin2 has recently reminded us, ‘it is a misconception to think that the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims constitute a single […] entity.’ The Muslim world, as he explains, emerged in the nineteenth century as an idea that signified the antithesis of Western Christian civilization, when European empires ruled the majority of Muslim-majority regions in the world. The notion was, since its inception, Orientalist, and served as a legitimizing tool for theories of white supremacy, even though Muslims themselves have played a role in keeping it alive by developing pan-Islamic cultural utopias to reclaim Muslims’ racial and civilizational splendour, of which they often felt deprived. In trying to escape this conundrum, we face a difficult dilemma. On the one hand, and in contesting the scholarly tradition I have just described, we have concentrated on the study of the Muslim Middle East while at the same time being aware of the clear porosity of these two categories: in the case of ‘Muslim’, because, as several contributions suggest, concepts such as ‘Islamization’, ‘Islamic and Muslim identity’ are never clear-cut, instead implying a wide variety of things, and – in not few cases – manifesting processes more than actual fixed, ended, phenomena. Equally, in the case of ‘Middle East’, the term has a similar colonial and civilizational underpinning to that of ‘Muslim’ or ‘Islamic world’, yet I would argue it has, over time, come to define an academic canopy under which the Persian, Turkish, and Arabic worlds are represented. Nonetheless, the more precise umbrella term we have used to define the scope of this issue, we argue, has significant coherence and hermeneutical consistency. And because we see this rationale as applicable to the peoples who are related to the aforementioned cultural niches, the definition of the Persian, Turkish, and Arabic spheres in this volume is not strictly geographic but cultural, thus incorporating contributions that deal with the diasporas of these three (broadly defined) cultural groups in Western Europe. On the other hand, the term ‘Islamic world’ retains nevertheless, surprisingly perhaps, a significant saliency within scholarly circles worldwide. If we had replaced the term with something more specific, such as ‘Middle Eastern Studies’, a significant part of our content could have been evaluated differently. The mashriq centrality often associated with the term ‘Middle East’ means that Turkish and North African cultures are sometimes forgotten, 2 Cemil Aydin: The Idea of the Muslim World. A Global Intellectual History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 2017.

© 2018, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11127-0 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19803-5

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and so even readers potentially interested in these regions might have overlooked those contributions related to these areas. The geographical adscription of ‘Middle East’ also implies that those who are part of their diasporas or the study of those actors that relate to them are similarly disregarded. Therefore, it is for these reasons, and in light of trying to reach the widest number of interested audiences as possible, that we have preserved the term ‘Islamic world’ in the title, despite our reservations. Yet, while a more precise definition of ‘Islamic world’ gives more meaning and purpose to the academic dialogue, it also means that some of the most salient existing research areas within the interplay between BSf and Islamic studies has had to be excluded. Among these, we think that special attention is deserved by two large research platforms: one concerning the study of the Cairene Genizah collection of Jewish manuscripts and the other the collection of manuscripts from Timbuktu. Even after the more precise definition of the field we are concerned with, the reader will notice the wide array of themes, motivations, and methods employed by the contributors to this volume. We understand the discipline as the expanding scholarly area, which comprises the history of the book, past and present, and its relevance and significance in societal and cultural terms. We see the book both as a vessel for the transmission of text and image and as evidence of material culture. In its broadest sense, book studies is perceived here as the analysis of any aspect related to written communication, of which the ‘book’ is only one, but a central part. It provides a framework to understand the social, cultural, economic, and political trends responsible for the emission, divulgation, and reception of written, printed, and digital texts. The scope is interdisciplinary in nature and explores subjects from historic, anthropological, and literary perspectives, to name just a few. Yasemin Gökpınar’s contribution critically assesses several editions of Arabic manuscripts and shows how the use of editorial software facilitates the implementation of professional critical editions. Bruno De Nicola introduces the reader to the European Research Council (ERC) project ‘The Islamisation of Anatolia, c. 1100–1500’, discussing the scope and reach of the project, the challenges faced by the team, methodological considerations, and results. Rebecca Sauer’s article reviews the manifold functions ascribed to books in the Arabicwriting Middle East of the manuscript era, up to the nineteenth century. As she explains, books were produced in order to express religious concerns and support political claims; they also quite often were essential media to memorize the past. Houssem Eddine Chachia develops a historical analysis of an Egyptian Morisco manuscript authored by Aḥmad ibn Qāsim al-Ḥajarī, shedding light on how the use of texts like this gives us insights into the language used to enunciate a variety of Middle Eastern cultural and religious crosspollinations and ambiguities, and its resulting anxieties. Necmettin Gökkir studies several Ottoman muṣḥaf printings of the late eighteenth to early nineteenth century to explore the relationship between Ottoman and European powers at the time. He demonstrates how muṣḥaf printings were used to gain power and authority over Muslims during the clash between the Ottoman Empire and European powers. Marta Dominguez Diaz

© 2018, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11127-0 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19803-5

Introduction

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researches the proselytizing role certain religious literature has in converting non-Muslims to Islam by giving special attention to the ambiguous relationship developed between daʿwa literature and two of the most salient proselytizing Islamic movements operating in Europe today: the Tablīghī Jamāʿat and the Qādiriyya Būdshīshiyya. Manar Makhoul analyzes the first Palestinian novel to be published in Israel after the 1948 war, Tawfīq Muʿammar’s Mudhakkarāt lājiʾ aw Ḥayfā fī al-maʿraka (1958), and reflects on the initial transformations in Palestinian discourse as well as the political motivations that underpin them. In his contribution, Constantin Wagner examines German textbooks concerning Islam-related identity constructions. Whereas there is an established non-Muslim master narrative about Islam as the ‘other’ (with some shifts in the last decade), German Islamic textbooks, he argues, are in the process of adopting this master narrative. In an interview with Ömer Özsoy, the professor for the exegesis of the Qurʾan discusses how far the Muslim book, the Qurʾan, can be understood as a ‘book’. He speaks about the relationship between orality and scripturalism and argues that it should be consequently distinguished between the Qurʾan as a cultic asset and as a source for norm derivation. Özsoy argues that for the latter, textual criticism is necessary and he thereby understands a contextualizing reading as genuinely Islamic. Michael Marx and Tobias J. Jocham elaborate on how methods developed by natural scientists can enhance philological perspectives on Qurʾanic manuscripts. In their studies they make use of the so-called 14C method to date the oldest scripts, and they discuss it with us in their interview. Meltem Kulaçatan deals with the propaganda of the so-called Islamic State (IS). She explains how IS literature relates to broader Muslim thought and how young Europeans are attracted to this propaganda. In a short interview, Abdullah Takım explains what kind of religious literature is read by Muslims in German-speaking countries nowadays, and observes a trend of significant diversification, looking retrospectively at previous decades. Hala Auji has given an interview to Kodex à propos of the publication of her book, Printing Arab Modernity: Book Culture and the American Press in Nineteenth-Century Beirut (2016), based on her pioneering research into the nineteenth-century American Mission Press in Beirut. Last, but not least, Kodex has the pleasure to present an article introducing key research on the BSf/Islamic studies interplay, Sufism, Literary Production and Printing in the 19th Century (2015), by one of its authors, Rachida Chih. The book, she explains, examines the interface between Sufism and printing in the nineteenth century, a window through which to explore the networks of religious scholars and dissemination of ideas in the premodern and modern Islamic world. Overall, we understand that the thematic scope of this issue is comprehensive, as are the historical periods it covers. The issue is markedly cross disciplinary, something we purposely planned with the intention to give proof of the multiplicity of areas within the field that have been concerned with issues related to the BSf. We hope that this volume will shed light on the richness of the latest developments within the field and build bridges to establish lines of debate with other academics interested in the study of books and book cultures.

© 2018, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11127-0 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19803-5

© 2018, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11127-0 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19803-5

(Not at Once) A Love Relationship: Arabic Manuscripts and Their Editions 1.

Yasemin Gökpınar Although there are critical editions of Arabic texts, a large proportion of essential Arabic text corpora do not meet the requirements of modern critical editions. Hence, the creation of more critical editions of Arabic manuscripts will be argued for as an essential basis for further studies, whether they are contentrelated or palaeographical or codicological. The use of editorial software will be briefly discussed, since it facilitates the implementation of professional critical editions while at the same time having functions that are adapted to the new conditions of online publishing.

No other culture in the world has preserved so many manuscripts as has the Arabic. The Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin in Germany alone possesses around 11,100 volumes.1 Other libraries with oriental manuscripts in Germany, such as Munich and Göttingen, each add several hundreds of Arabic manuscripts – a complete list is available in the Catalogue of Oriental Manuscripts in Germany (VOHD). As far as I know, no worldwide count has ever been performed, but there must be hundreds of thousands, and still some are waiting to be discovered in private libraries or in family homes kept as part of their heritage. Only a fraction of this large text corpus has been edited so far. Mere text editions for scholarly use are rarely funded, so most editions of Arabic texts are published embedded within or accompanying studies about these texts. In the following I will try to explain the reasons for the existence of such an astounding number of Arabic manuscripts from the history of the letterpress with Arabic types. I will highlight the importance of editions in general as a precondition for further studies and give an account of the types of editors, past and present, who are typically associated with Arabic texts. It will become clear from the argument that more critical editions of Arabic texts are needed, because only these make it possible to document the origin of their corresponding manuscripts in a consistent and scientific way; this, in turn, is paramount for creating and upholding a system of scholarly reviewing and improvement. This will be illustrated by an example from a contemporary edition of a text about musicians, which I will compare with the three available manuscripts. Finally, I will consider the technical environment which editors of modern critical editions of Arabic manuscripts may avail themselves of, and discuss the standards that ought to be observed.

1 Cf. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (eds): Oriental Department, Arabic Manuscripts homepage. In: Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin website, http://staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/die-staatsbibliothek/abteilungen/orient/ bestaende/handschriften/arabische-handschriften/ (January 19, 2017).

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1. Arabic Manuscripts and the Letterpress The history of letterpress printing with Arabic types started in Europe and not – as might have been expected – in the Arabic world. Why is this so? And why was it not until the nineteenth century that the letterpress became accepted, albeit reluctantly, in the Middle East? A brief sketch of the history of letterpress with Arabic types up until the establishment of the first Arabic letterpress2 will enable us to fathom possible answers to these questions. Precursors of letterpress with Arabic types are found in Italy from around 1600 up until the end of the seventeenth century. Already in 1498, the Venetian printer Democrito Terracino had applied for a licence to print exotic letters, among which Arabic was included. But he never put his plans into action. Another Venetian, Gregorio de Gregorii, was the first to print an Arabic book with movable types. A prayer book for Christians living in the Arabic world, it appeared in Fano in 1514. According to Bobzin, its typeface was not very clear, nor was it regular.3 In fact, if one has a look at the title page4, the impression of a crude and clumsy caption is confirmed. Especially, the ligature lām-alif is not connected in every case, and, while there are good realizations of kāf otherwise, there is one kāf on the title page (9th line on the right side) which rather looks like a hook. The second Arabic book, a polyglot psaltery in three columns, Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic, was printed in Genoa in 1516. Bobzin evaluates it in the following way: ‘Leider ist der arabische Text sowohl aus philologischer als auch aus typographischer Sicht sehr schlecht.’5 The text was edited by bishop Agostino Giustiniani (1470–1536) and was printed by Pier Paolo Porro, who used types that show influences of North African script style. Around ten years later, in 1537 or 1538, Alessandro Paganino printed the famous so-called ‘Venetian Qurʾan’, which is littered with orthographic mistakes. The dentals dhāl and thāʾ, for instance, are invariably printed as dāl and tāʾ. Furthermore, its vocalization is a disaster: all short vowels were marked by fatḥa (= ‘a’). This Qurʾan was supposedly destined for sale in the Ottoman Empire. As it is the Muslims’ divine book, the Sublime Porte was not amused,

2 For the history of letterpress with Arabic types, see above all Hartmut Bobzin: Imitation und Imagination. Bemerkungen zu einigen frühen europäischen Drucken mit arabischen Lettern. In: Ulrich Marzolph (ed.): Das gedruckte Buch im Vorderen Orient. Dortmund: VfO 2002, pp. 29–49. Translations are my own. 3 Cf. Bobzin, Imitation und Imagination (footnote 2), p. 32. 4 Lehrstuhl für Türkische Sprache, Geschichte und Kultur, Universität Bamberg/Staatsbibliothek Bamberg (eds): The Beginning of Printing in the Near and Middle East: Jews, Christians and Muslims. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2001, p. 21. 5 ‘Unfortunately, the Arabic text is both philologically and typographically poor workmanship.’ Bobzin, Imitation und Imagination (footnote 2), p. 32.

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and we are indeed told in the Colloquium Heptaplomeres from the sixteenth century that Paganino lost his hand as punishment for his bad Qurʾan, while his books were burned.6 From the late sixteenth century on, the Typographia Medicea in Rome, a press founded specifically for the printing of oriental languages, set new standards.7 Robert Granjon developed Armenian, Syriac, and Cyrillic types beside the Arabic ones. The director (later owner) of the Typographia Medicea was Giovanni Battista Raimondi (c. 1536–1614), who printed Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī’s8 (ah 597–672/1201–1274 ce) recension of Euclid’s Elementa and sold it with the permission of Sultan Murād III9 (r. 982–1003/1574–1595) in the Ottoman Empire. Other important works included some of the treatises on medicine by Ibn Sīnā10 (370–428/980–1037), al-Qānūn fī al-ṭibb and his Mukhtaṣar Kitāb al-shifāʾ; but also al-Idrīsī’s11 (died perhaps 560/1165) famous book on geography, Kitāb nuzhat al-mushtāq fī ikhtirāq al-āfāq, known as the Book of Roger because it had been ordered by King Roger of Sicily; furthermore, Ibn al-Ḥājib’s12 (after 570–646/after 1174–1249) Kāfiya, a book about Arabic grammar (syntax); as was also the Taṣrīf al-ʿIzzī by ʿIzz al-Dīn al-Zanjānī (d. c. 1257). This last one’s title page was printed in a Persian script called taʿlīq (‘hanging’), which looks, as Bobzin has it, ‘more oriental’13 than those used for the aforementioned books. Even if these books’ typefaces look regular and include some fine ligatures (kāf-lāmalif), as well as different forms (e.g., for the final yāʾ), they contain grammatical mistakes, such as li-Abū ʿAlī instead of li-Abī ʿAlī on the title page of Ibn Sīna’s Qānūn fī al-ṭibb14, which Arabic readers would doubtless have frowned upon. The art of printing in Arabic letters was continued in Italy, France, and the Netherlands, where Franciscus Raphelengius (1539–1597) and Thomas Erpenius (1584–1624) developed ‘nice and readable’15 scriptures. These were used at the two renowned printing shops of Platin and Elzevier. 6 Bobzin, Imitation und Imagination (footnote 2), p. 35. 7 Cf. Alberto Tinto: La tipografia Medicea Orientale. Lucca: Maria Pacini Fazzi Editore 1987. 8 Cf. Hans Daiber/F. Jamil Ragep: al-Ṭūsī, Naṣīr al-Dīn. In: P. Bearman et al. (eds): Encyclopaedia of Islam. Second Edition (EI2), http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_COM_1264 (January 26, 2017). 9 Cf. A. H. de Groot: Murād III. In: EI2, http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_5532 (January 26, 2017). 10 Cf. A. M. Goichon: Ibn Sīnā. In: EI2, http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_COM_0342 (January 26, 2017). 11 Cf. G. Oman: al-Idrīsī. In: EI2, http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_3494 (January 26, 2017). 12 Henri Fleisch: Ibn al-Ḥādjib. In: EI2, http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_COM_0324 (January 26, 2017). 13 Bobzin, Imitation und Imagination (footnote 2), p. 37. 14 Tinto, La tipografia Medicea Orientale (footnote 7), p. 16. 15 Tinto, La tipografia Medicea Orientale (footnote 7), p. 38.

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The oriental guilds of the copyists and scribes (nussākh, pl. of nāsikh, also warrāqūn, pl. of warrāq, ‘bookbinder, librarian, copyist’) were influential and perhaps better organized than European scribes, who often worked in monasteries. Still, a powerful ruler would not have found it too difficult to introduce the letterpress. There also was no prohibition of the new technology; ‘Im Gegenteil! Sultan Murād III. gewährte 996/1588 venezianischen Buchexporteuren ausdrücklich seinen Schutz, als diese sich der Feindschaft lokaler Interessengruppen gegenübersahen, hinter denen man sicher die Schreiber vermuten darf’16, when they were in danger of being attacked, presumably by scribes. A lack of available technology and experts in handling it can also hardly have presented an unsurmountable obstacle, as non-Muslims within Muslim territory were already using printing presses.17 Another proposal was made by André Demeerseman 1954,18 on whose idea Lutz Berger has subsequently expanded. Demeerseman pointed to the concept of tabarruk, which means that Muslim scribes were considered as blessed when they copied the Qurʾan, the most important and therefore the most copied book. On top of this, the process of copying was perceived as establishing an unbroken connection from the scribe back to the earliest time of Islam, and ultimately to Muḥammad himself.19 This connection to Muḥammad’s living time not only refers to the Qurʾan, as Berger stresses, but also to the corpus of ḥadīth, the tradition of Muḥammad’s sayings and good deeds, and to Islamic mysticism. The process of tradition does not only imply handing down written information but combines textual tradition, in the form of written notes or copies of books, with oral tradition, established by explanations and recitations by authoritative teachers. This is particularly true for Sufi literature, whose character was often enigmatic and mysterious and only became clear if explained by a Sufi master. Had books belonging to these religious sciences been printed, not only would the blessing involved in the process of copying have been lost but also the connection to the earliest times of Islam, with its implications of unbroken oral tradition handed down from teacher to student. In the case of Sufi texts, on the other hand, printed books would not have been of any use at all when there was nobody to explain them. The possession of a handwritten book thus implied a social status that was not achieved by just owning a copy of any book, which

16 ‘On the contrary, in 996/1588, Sultan Murād III ensured the specific protection of Venetian book exporters.’ Lutz Berger: Zur Problematik er späten Einführung des Buchdrucks in der islamischen Welt. In: Ulrich Marzolph (ed.): Das gedruckte Buch im Vorderen Orient. Dortmund: VfO 2002, pp. 15–28; here: p. 17. 17 Cf. Berger, Buchdruck in der islamischen Welt (footnote 16), pp. 16–17. 18 André Demeerseman: Une Etape décisive de la culture et de la psychologie islamique. Les données de la controverse autour du problème de l’imprimerie. In: Institut de Belles-Lettres Arabes 17 (1954), pp. 1–48, 101–40. 19 Cf. Demeerseman, Une Etape décisive (footnote 18), pp. 31–32.

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could have been pressed, indeed, but that was guaranteed by the chain of transmitters as proof for the transmitted and authorized knowledge.20 So the transfer of knowledge manifested itself in teacher-student relationships. On the other hand, manually copied codices could be accessed and studied in several foundation (waqf ) libraries. These were accessible to the public and, in this way, ordinary people – as far as they knew how to read – and scientists who could not afford to buy the expensive handwritten copies could study in the libraries.21 This accessibility of books in contrast to the situation in monastic libraries of Europe, which were not made available to the public before the beginning of the nineteenth century, at least not in Catholic regions, may contribute to a further explanation for the late introduction of the letterpress in the Middle East. In Europe, printing was also important for the formation of public opinion through the distribution of pamphlets or leaflets. In the Muslim world, however, different mechanisms were at work. At a regional level, one would address personal petitions to the local rulers, while the Friday sermon (including the conversation afterwards) and – on a more general level – the annual pilgrimage to Mecca were crucial factors in shaping public opinion. Berger opines on this, saying that even though bigger events, such as revolts, may have taken place in the capital of the Ottoman Empire, people in the provinces would not have expected to be able to bring about substantial change there by publishing comments or pamphlets.22 All in all, the introduction of letterpress technique in the Islamic Middle East would not have been so much in the interest of the public than in that of a political elite. This emerges from the launch of the first Arabic letterpress during the time of the nahḍa 23 (at the latest about the second half of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century) in Istanbul and later Būlāq.24 Later on, emerging political discussions about PanIslamism, Ottomanism, Nationalism, and religious Islamism were published in the newly founded Arabic newspapers. These, along with the production of new forms of Arabic literature (e.g., novels, free verse, and other modern poetry) and Arabic translations (e.g., of French sociological studies) finally promoted the Arabic letterpress scene.

20 Cf. Berger, Buchdruck in der islamischen Welt (footnote 16) , pp. 20–21. 21 Cf. Berger, Buchdruck in der islamischen Welt (footnote 16) , p. 23. 22 Cf. Berger, Buchdruck in der islamischen Welt (footnote 16) , pp. 24–25. 23 An Arab cultural and literary movement; lit. ‘the awakening’. Cf. N. Tomiche: Nahḍa. In: EI2, http:// dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_5751 (January 26, 2017). 24 Cf. Dagmar Glaß: Die nahḍa und ihre Technik im 19. Jahrhundert. Arabische Druckereien in Ägypten und Syrien. In: Das gedruckte Buch im Vorderen Orient, pp. 50–83.

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2. Arabic Manuscripts and Editions The letterpress with Arabic types established itself with the new literary output of the nahḍa, but, from the very beginning, old classics and key works of literature were printed – such as Ibn Sīna’s Qānūn fī al-ṭibb or grammar books like Ibn Ḥājib’s Kāfiya – not contemporary texts. Regarding the immense number of Arabic manuscripts worldwide in connection with the various levels of difficulty involved in accessing them, the preparation of critical editions would seem to be a major requirement in order to provide a solid basis for further studies. Unfortunately, scientific funding organizations no longer seem to endorse merely editorial projects, though these are still essential for research. Under such circumstances, only the creation of partial editions of high scholarly standards appears feasible because a meticulously prepared critical edition that provides more than just a few introductory remarks needs at least as much time as a carefully researched study on the same text. But why should such an enormous task be undertaken at all? Is it not enough just to publish the version of a single manuscript, or perhaps even only the digitized manuscripts? Composing a critical edition25 means ‘(Entdecken und) Erschließen von Texten, die dem interessierten Publikum in einer lesbaren (und wissenschaftlich vertretbaren) Form zugänglich gemacht werden sollen.’26 By doing so, the editor gets to know the relevant text(s) very well and will consequently be able to answer other questions beyond that of establishing a printed version of one or more manuscript(s). So, to what kind of knowledge would preparing an edition lead? And what is critical in a critical text edition? In the following I will first address some issues of the text form and the critical apparatus of textual variants so as to then present other possible aspects concerning Arabic manuscripts and their edition. The most evident feature of a critical text edition is probably the apparatus of textual variants besides the usual footnotes. In the apparatus those lines of the text are cited for which manuscripts have variant readings; where necessary, the referenced word(s) of the text are quoted as well, so that it is always clear to which part of the text in the edition the listed variants refer. Words occurring twice in one line of the edition need to be indexed in the apparatus of variants so that there may be no confusion. The apparatus may also highlight corrupt passages, indicate when text has been written fī al-ḥāshiya (‘in the margin’), and account for displaced parts of the text, for instance if different manuscripts give a certain 25 Cf. Martin L. West: Textual Criticism and Editorial Technique. Applicable to Greek and Latin Texts. Stuttgart: Teubner 1973; Paul Maas: Textkritik. 4th edn. Leipzig: Teubner 1960. 26 ‘[T]o (discover) and prepare texts in order to make them accessible to an interested public in a readable (and scientifically justified) form.’ Franz Römer: Vom Nutzen des Edierens in der Klassischen Philologie. In: Brigitte Merta et al. (eds): Vom Nutzen des Edierens. Akten des internationalen Kongresses zum 150-jährigen Bestehen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung. Wien, 3.–5. Juni 2004. Vienna: Oldenbourg 2005, pp. 45–47; here: p. 45.

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passage in different chapters (because of incorrect binding or for other reasons). A major advantage of this system is that one does not need to search for textual variants within the general footnotes, making them apparent at a single glance. In creating the apparatus of variants, editors show their way of dealing with the text: What variants are selected for the text, and which are indicated in the apparatus? Where did they emend the text against all transmitted readings? Did they delete text that appears in the manuscripts? Whatever decision an editor has made, the apparatus ought to show it. Other features of critical editions are line counts and indications of the folios or pages of the original manuscripts. A very important aspect of any critical edition is the introduction. There, editors share their profound knowledge of the manuscripts, which they have gained through their textcritical work and which enables them to establish the textual tradition, which is usually shown in a stemma and explained on the basis of representative variants. Before embarking on evaluating the manuscripts and their place in the tradition, however, their palaeographical and codicological features need to be described.27 That is, their script font and outer appearance are characterized, and the incipits and explicits of the manuscripts are given. These, being the beginning and end of a manuscript, often allude to the contents of the book. Special attention is to be paid to the incipit. Usually, Arabic manuscripts start with the basmala, the invocation of God, and the text proper, as it is cited in manuscript catalogues, begins afterwards. Then they are dated, whenever this is possible, for instance on the basis of a colophon28 (the scribe’s statement, usually at the end of a book, containing information about himself and the place and time of the copy) or other hints, such as waqf (‘endowment’) seals and stamps, and ex libris and other ownership statements. These are often found on the title page and the first double page (usually counted as f. 1b+2a), which may also be specially decorated, a feature that also requires detailed description, as does the general page layout. The easiest way of organizing the area of a page was to mark out lines. For this purpose, ink and a straightedge or ‘a hard point or fingernail could be used – with or without a straightedge – to score writing surfaces as different as parchment and paper.’29 By means of a misṭara, the mise en page could be much more elaborated. This tool is ‘a frame made of cardboard or occasionally of wood on which cords various thickness could be stretched,

27 See François Déroche: Islamic Codicology. An Introduction to the Study of Manuscripts in Arabic Script. London: alFurqān Islamic Heritage Foundation 2005; Adam Gacek: Arabic Manuscripts. A Vademecum for Readers. Leiden: Brill 2012; Adam Gacek: The Arabic Manuscript Tradition. A Glossary of Technical Terms and Bibliography, with Supplement. 2 vols. Leiden: Brill 2012. 28 Cf. Rosemarie Quiring-Zoche: The colophon in Arabic manuscripts. A phenomenon without a name. In: Journal of Islamic Manuscripts 4 (2013), pp. 49–81. 29 Déroche, Islamic Codicology (footnote 27), p. 165.

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corresponding to the text frame lines and guidelines.’30 It was used by rubbing a fingernail over the paper after having placed the misṭara beneath it. Moreover, the following aspects are of importance: quires, binding features,31 writing materials (papyrus, parchment, paper, eventually ink), possibly watermarks, and book covers with or without the characteristic Islamic book flap. Looking at the different aspects to be found in an introduction to a critical edition, one could ask the reason for listing and detailing them. Would it not be sufficient to describe the manuscripts paleographically? Codicological features are mainly analyzed in order to help with dating the manuscript and to explore its provenance. Thus, knowing where and when particular features occurred, such as binding techniques, extraordinarily thin or shiny paper with a specific number of laid lines and chain lines prepared, watermarks showing for instance a crowned lion, or perhaps an almond-shaped stamp on a book flap, may be crucial for narrowing down or further specifying the results obtained on the basis of the palaeographical analysis, which may not have produced much more than a terminus ante quem provided, e.g., by a seal. Even if the manuscript as such is dated, careful inspection of other evidence may reveal whether that colophon belongs to the time of the copyist or whether it was itself copied by a later scribe without specifying the actual date of his copy. In this way, the history of a manuscript can be (partially) reconstructed and may contribute to other fields of research; travel routes of manuscripts, for instance, may be of interest for historical studies about the dissemination of knowledge by scribes, scholars, traders, pilgrims, or soldiers. But very few of the editors of Arabic manuscripts are specialists in all of the mentioned aspects. Nevertheless, they ought to account for every aspect in order to facilitate the work of other researchers. Given that Arabic manuscripts are distributed across the whole world, many of them cannot be accessed in those easy ways we are now accustomed to in Europe, mostly as digitized copies available on the Internet or sent on request by email. Another point is the enormous chronological and geographical range of manuscripts production in the Islamic world. Scribes copied books or single pages from Morocco and Andalusia to Indonesia, and from the beginnings of Islam until at least the nineteenth century. Whenever manuscripts are accessed only with difficulty, or have been lost completely, looking at descriptions of them in editions will enable subsequent scholars to select those relevant to their work, or may even serve as basis for their research interest about waqf seals, for instance. What can result from research into the outer appearance of codices may be seen with regard to the Bernstein Project, an international collaboration hosted by the Austrian 30 Déroche, Islamic Codicology (footnote 27), p. 165. 31 Cf. Karin Scheper: The Technique of Islamic Bookbinding. Methods, Materials and Regional Varieties. Leiden: Brill 2015; Karin Scheper: Three very specific binding features, shedding new light on Islamic manuscript structures. In: Journal of Islamic Manuscripts 4 (2013), pp. 82–109.

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Academy of Science.32 By collecting, visualizing, and digitally publishing watermarks and characteristics of different papers from paper mills all over Europe, this project makes it possible to date European watermarked paper, which was widely used in the Ottoman Empire.33 Even though paper may have been stored and used only later, a terminus post quem is thus available for many Arabic (and many Ottoman) manuscripts. Much research is still needed on the codicology of Arabic manuscripts, or, more generally, of manuscripts in Arabic script. Editors, even when they are not codicology specialists themselves, can greatly contribute by describing their material as meticulously as possible.

3. Arabic Manuscripts, Their Editions, and Editors Arab editors from the twentieth century onwards have often pursued a different course than is customary in classical and other European philologies. Sometimes, they use only one manuscript, sometimes two or more manuscripts but without indicating the variants, or, if variants are specified, the information is often rudimentary or ambiguous. The problems will become clearer if we look at the specific example of a more extensive publication, for instance, Ibrāhīm al-Kaylānī’s34 edition of Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī’s al-Baṣāʾir wa-l-ḍahāʾir. It includes the usual appendices at the end of each volume, with biographical indices, indices of places, tribe names, rhyming letters of poems (qawāfī, sing. qāfiya) and poetical variants, and, of course, a bibliography. The text is accompanied by footnote text with prosopographic annotations, with explanations of terms and phrases and also specifying variant readings of the three manuscripts used. Thus, we find the textual variants jumbled together with very different kinds of information as part of a single footnote apparatus. But there are some more serious issues. In the introduction, the author, when describing the manuscripts, qualifies two of the three he has used as sayyiʾa jiddan35 (‘very bad’) and ʿasīrat al-fahm jiddan36 (‘very difficult to understand’), respectively. Nevertheless, he draws upon one of them, probably because it is a complete copy. If it is true that these manuscripts are so bad, one would expect to find many more variants than those actually given in the footnotes. Another problem arises from the form in which the variants are specified. Instead 32 The Bernstein Consortium (eds): The Memory of Paper. Image Based Paper Expertise and History homepage, http://www.bernstein.oeaw.ac.at/ (February 10, 2017). 33 The Bernstein Consortium (eds): The Memory of Paper. Image Based Paper Expertise and History catalogue and other tools, http://www.memoryofpaper.eu/BernsteinPortal/appl_start.disp (February 10, 2017). 34 Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī: al-Baṣāʾir wa-l-ḍahāʾir. Edited by Ibrāhīm alKaylānī. 4 parts in 6 vols. Damascus: Maktabat Aṭlas wa-Maṭbaʿat al-Inshāʾ 1964 [c. 1966]. 35 Al-Tawḥīdī, al-Baṣāʾir wa-l-ḍahāʾir (footnote 34), p. ‫ل‬. 36 Al-Tawḥīdī, al-Baṣāʾir wal-ḍ-ahāʾir (footnote 34), p. ‫م‬.

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of quoting the text, the variants are simply printed following the footnote number. As a consequence, whenever a variant pertains to more than one word, the reference is often ambiguous or cannot be determined at all. There are also no line numbers in the margin of the text, nor are the folio divisions of the manuscript(s) indicated, as is unfortunately the case in most of Arabic editions made by Arab scholars. On the basis of another Arabic edition, it will become clear why we are in desperate need of more critical editions. As recently as 2010, Kāmil Salmān al-Jubūrī edited Ibn Faḍl Allāh al-ʿUmarī’s37 (700–749/1301–1349) Masālik al-abṣār fī mamālik al-amṣār.38 Here, I will draw upon its tenth book, on musicians’ biographies and song texts. The contents are similar to Abū al-Faraj al-Iṣfāhānī’s39 (284–356/897–967) Kitāb al-a-ghānī (Book of songs), combining biographies of and anecdotes about musicians with the texts of their songs, as well as poetical and musicological remarks. In his introduction to the first volume of his edition, al-Jubūrī not only collects all known details about the author’s life and work, but also meticulously describes all extant (and known) manuscripts and partial editions of this particular opus of twenty-seven books (in al-Jubūrī’s edition they are fifteen volumes).40 Having detailed the manuscripts that he uses in his edition41, he goes on to explain his approach as an editor, which is based on the following principles: (i) producing a correct and good text, (ii) taking several other manuscripts (in addition to the most readable or most complete one) into account, (iii) adding new headings where these may be helpful to the reader, (iv) abstaining from providing textual variants, while (v) giving footnotes with prosopographical information as well as information about places and rare terms, as well as (vi) registers with various indices at the end of each volume.42 And indeed, al-Jubūrī’s edition may be considered to be accurate, given its sufficiently detailed footnotes and indices. Nevertheless, it lacks the most important feature of a critical edition: listing textual variants. Surprisingly, al-Jubūrī clarifies that he considers textual variants to be minor details, not worth of being stated. The inclusion of a full critical apparatus bears not only on the presentation of the text but also on the content. Figure 1 shows the beginning of my partial edition of the same text, the tenth volume of al-ʿUmarī’s Masālik al-abṣār.43 It is based on all three extant

37 Cf. K. S. Salibi: Ibn Faḍl Allāh alʿUmarī. In: EI2, vol. iii, pp. 758–59. 38 Ibn Faḍl Allāh alʿUmarī: Masālik alabṣār fī mamālik alamṣār. Edited by Kāmil Salmān alJubūrī and Mahdī anNajm. Beirut: Dār alKutub alʿIlmiyya 2010. 39 M. Nallino: Abu ’lFaradj alIṣbahānī. In: EI2, vol. i, p. 118. 40 Cf. alʿUmarī, Masālik alabṣār (footnote 38), vol. i, pp. 72–95. 41 Cf. alʿUmarī, Masālik alabṣār (footnote 38), vol. i, pp. 95–96. 42 Cf. alʿUmarī, Masālik alabṣār (footnote 38), vol. i, p. 103. 43 Yasemin Gökpinar: Höfische Musikpraxis in der arabisch-islamischen Kultur des Mittelalters von der Abbasidenzeit bis zu den Mamluken. Diss., Bochum, 2016 [unpublished]. Vol. II: Edition und Übersetzung, pp. 2, 4.

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Figure 1. Yasemin Gökpinar’s edition of al-ʿUmari’s Masālik al-abṣār, book 10, p. 1.

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manuscripts, only two of which were consulted by al-Jubūrī (whose edition I quote with the siglum ‫)ج‬: 1. Istanbul: Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi, Ayasofya 3423 ‫ي‬ 2. Istanbul: Topkapı Sarayı, Ahmet III, 2797, no. a10 ‫ح‬ 3. Paris: Bibliothèque nationale de France, ar. 5870 ‫ب‬ In the right margin a line count enables the reader to easily find the indicated variant(s) in the edited text. Longer text variants are identified by indicating the first and last word of the variant. The left margin gives information about the location of the text in the different manuscripts in the form of manuscript siglum plus folio (front = ‫ و‬wajh, back = ‫ ظ‬ẓahr) or page. On the basis of my editorial work, I conclude that al-Jubūrī depended almost completely on the single manuscript from Ayasofya, whose readings he prints unless its text is obviously corrupted. In line 14, al-Jubūrī has changed the manuscripts’ unanimous wa-bi-lfaḍl to wa-bi-ltafaḍḍul, which I regard as a wrong conjecture. Another amendment, siyāqatan in line 11 instead of the manuscripts’ siyāqan, appears unnecessary: both siyāq and siyāqa are acceptable as verbal nouns of the verb (maṣādir, sing. maṣdar). If there is only one extant manuscript, it is more often the editor’s job to conjecture, to amend, or to delete – and sometimes also even if a text is much better attested – but he must declare in the apparatus what has been done. Al-Jubūrī amends tacitly, and apparently also without looking into the other manuscripts (at least MS Ahmed III was available to him). At any rate, he added headings that are lost in Ayasofya from MS Ahmet III. Another aspect of the process of editing – which, by the way, was also an issue that concerned the scribes – is familiarity with the contents of the text. The very first page of al-Jubūrī’s edition contains a major error that can hardly be considered a simple typo: Abū al-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī’s book on slave girls is called ‫ كتاب اآلباء‬Kitāb alābāʾ (Book of the fathers) instead of ‫ كتاب اإلماء‬Kitāb alimāʾ (Book of the slave girls). This may not be al-Jubūrī’s fault, since he mentions the right title in the introduction. Thus, either someone else who just scanned the words with his eyes typed it, or at least he or al-Jubūrī wrote the first draft and al-Jubūrī looked up the names and titles only later without addressing all mistakes in the text. In any case, an ideal editor ought to be familiar with the content of his or her text. By the way, the same is true for translating Arabic texts, especially when its subject is very specific, as musical theory certainly is.44

44 Sawa demonstrates this in his paper about editing and translating texts about music. As a connoisseur of medieval and modern classical Arabic music and a professional translator, he argues for a differentiated translation of Arabic terms into English by means of le mot juste, or if there is none, by means of paraphrases, transcriptions of the Arabic term, or showing the term in Arabic script. This ability to handle the text with ease is also necessary when dealing with manuscripts to make an edition. See George Dimitri Sawa: Editing and translating medieval Arabic writings on music. In: Maria Rika Maniates (ed.): Music Discourse from Classical to Early Modern Times. Editing and Translating Texts.

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Referring to the provenance of the two manuscripts available to al-Jubūrī, the editor explains that they belonged to a waqf library and details their sponsors. In his introduction to the tenth volume of Masālik al-abṣār, al-Jubūrī displays the first and last pages of these manuscripts, which may excuse its brevity. Unfortunately, the codices are mixed up: the manuscript from the collection of Ahmet III that he shows is not MS 2792 no. a10, on musicians, but contains the eleventh book, on emirs. A closer look at the title page and the first page of the text, in order to describe the page layout and scripture as well as to cite the incipit and explicit, would doubtless have prevented such an error. These quibbles should not detract from the fact that al-Jabūrī’s edition is immensely useful because of the valuable information given in the footnotes, especially those referring to textual parallels in other books. But the fact that it is not a critical edition is a serious drawback, as it forces scholars to consult the manuscripts themselves whenever they want to work more closely with the text. Having discussed common issues with editions by Arab scholars, I by no means mean to imply that Arabic editions by Western scholars are always critical editions. Ibn al-Sāʿī’s Jihāt al-aʾimma wa-l-khulafāʾ min alḥarāʾir wa-l-imāʾ45 (Freeborn and slave consorts of the imams and caliphs), for instance, was published merely as a textual edition with English translation. It is notable in several ways. First of all, it was prepared collaboratively by a team, namely, the editorial board of the Library of Arabic Literature (LAL), which appears to make a lot of sense because there are native speakers of the source as well as the target language. Working together may lead to a more precise translation than would be the case with only one translator. Secondly, place names and personal names are explained in glossaries at the end of the volume, not in footnotes. Thirdly, the editorial board decided not to include footnotes with references to other works, since this had already been done in a prior edition by Muṣṭafā Jawād.46 In the introduction to the LAL edition, Shawkat Toorawa, a member of the editorial team, characterizes the single extant manuscript, its script, ink colour, text area, and colophon. He also discusses Jawād’s edition and explains the shortcomings and errors involved in it that had ultimately provided the reason for embarking on a new edition. Afterwards, Toorawa describes the editorial principles followed; surprisingly, not including references to the manuscript foliation or a presentation of textual variants. The text is quite arbitrarily divided into numbered paragraphs. The missing indication of manuscript foliation in the margins makes it very difficult to locate textual variants in the source. Anyway, such variants, referring to both the manuscript, where the editors have changed the text, and the older edition, are not indicated in a Papers given at the Twenty-Sixth Annual Conference on Editorial Problems, University of Toronto, 19–20 October 1990. Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1997, pp. 45–70. 45 Ibn al-Sāʿī: Consorts of the Caliphs. Women and the Court of Baghdad. Edited by Shawkat M. Toorawa, translated by the Editors of the Library of Arabic Literature, introduction by Julia Bray, foreword by Marina Warner; volume editor Julia Bray. New York: New York University Press 2015. 46 Cf. Ibn al-Sāʿī, Consorts of the Caliphs (footnote 45), p. xxxii.

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Figure 2. Yasemin Gökpinar’s edition of al ʿUmari’s Masālik al-abṣār, book 10, pp. 270–71

proper critical apparatus below the text but relegated to footnotes, with all the shortcomings discussed above.

4. Technical Implementation But even if the advantages of critical editions over other approaches are accepted, is the creation of a fully fledged edition technically feasible for scholars without special training, given that even only a few publishing companies are nowadays able to produce the required layout? Using common word processors (such as Microsoft Word or OpenOffice) or layout programs (such as InDesign) is a quite complicated task, since these do not provide many of the required features specific to a text-critical edition. While at least a line count is normally implemented in such applications, and references to the foliation of the manuscripts may be placed within the text in angle brackets instead of at the margins (however, resulting in poor legibility whenever many manuscripts have been collated), a critical apparatus with textual variants in addition to the footnotes cannot be appropriately implemented

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using such ordinary tools. One would have to place a text field at the bottom of each page, manually filling it with references of line numbers, quoted text, the variants, sigla of the manuscripts, and various separators in an incredibly laborious process, which often makes it almost impossible to apply corrections or change readings on second thought. With the emergence of professional editing software, the preparation of critical editions has been substantially improved and facilitated. An early but powerful set of command line-based tools is TUSTEP, which, however, requires specialist training to handle.47 TeX-based solutions are easier to approach48, but still discourage many scholars due to the amount of expertise required, as well as the detraction from editorial work created by focusing on its technical implementation. A more widely chosen option is therefore the Classical Text Editor software, which was specifically created for the purpose of critical editions.49 It offers a tailored implementation of critical apparatuses as well as any other sorts of notes, in addition to a straightforward way of providing the foliation (or any other information) in the margins. Parallel versions side by side are also possible, as are facing translations, all in a professional layout, as is essential for philological purposes (see fig. 2, a sample of the author’s edition and translation of al-ʿUmarī’s Masālik al-abṣār, book 10). Additional features, such as automatic collation of several source texts or linking between text in the edition and the corresponding locations in digital images of the manuscripts, especially when preparing digital publications50, make this word processor a modern and particularly efficient tool for philological work in Arabic and many other languages.

5. Conclusion Worldwide, there are still hundreds of thousands of unedited Arabic manuscripts due to the late introduction of the Arabic letterpress within Islamic territories on the one hand, and the love for the beauty of Arabic calligraphy on the other. The combination of an oral and textual tradition and a highly valued teacher-student relationship contributed to this development. But the transmission of texts through manual copying has necessarily produced innumerable textual variants, which can only be properly addressed in good critical editions. Apart from the usual critical apparatus, these need to include a line count

47 See Zentrum für Datenverarbeitung der Universität Tübingen: TUSTEP homepage, http://www. tustep.uni-tuebingen.de/tustep_eng.html (February 20, 2017) and Die XML-Version von TUSTEP [The XML Version of TUSTEP], http://www.txstep.de (February 20, 2017). 48 See, e.g., Dirk-Jan Dekker: Typesetting critical editions with LaTeX: ledmac, ledpar and ledarab. In: DJDekker.net, http://www.djdekker.net/ledmac (February 20, 2017). 49 See Stefan Hagel: Classical Text Editor homepage, http://cte.oeaw.ac.at (February 20, 2017). 50 Cf. Elias Muhanna (ed.): The Digital Humanities and Islamic & Middle East Studies. Berlin: DeGruyter 2016.

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and indicate the foliation of the sources in the margins; above all, the introduction to the edition is of special interest. Palaeographical and codicological features of Arabic manuscripts have been described by Adolf Grohmann51, François Déroche, and its termini technici explained by Adam Gacek. Their works helped to realize such great cataloguing projects as the above-mentioned VOHD, of which Rudolf Sellheim’s volumes52 set the standards for the description of Arabic manuscripts. But all of the information in these important monographs ought to be used much more in introductions to critical editions instead of just copying the entry of the manuscript catalogue. In contrast to other philologies, such as Greek and Latin philologies, the Arabic one still lacks standards for good critical editions. This is all the more regrettable as there are so many unedited Arabic manuscripts awaiting an edition. It is most deplorable that external funing sources no longer support mere editorial projects unless they are combined with content-related studies. All the more welcome is the related work of individual scientific organizations, such as the Institute for the History of Arabic-Islamic Science (Frankfurt am Main). However, in the face of the vast material even such an institute is forced to adopt a dual strategy. On the one hand, it publishes an enormous number of facsimile editions of hitherto unedited manuscripts concerning Arabic-Islamic science in order to make them accessible to scholars as quickly as possible. On the other hand, selected works are studied in depth and are properly edited. Still, there are not only more texts but also more genres of texts than a single institute would be able to handle. With a view to the special circumstances that formed textual transmission in the Islamic world, universities and independent institutions, as well as funding organizations, would therefore be well advised to rescind recent policies and support projects whose main aim is the creation of a first-rate critical edition. Only in this way will scholarly reviewing and improvement become possible.

51 Adolf Grohmann: Arabische Paläographie. 1. Teil: Beschreibstoffe, Schreibgeräte, Tinte. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 1967; Adolf Grohmann: Arabische Paläographie. 2. Teil: Schriftwesen, Lapidarschrift. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 1971. 52 Rudolf Sellheim: Arabische Handschriften. Reihe A: Materialien zur arabischen Literaturgeschichte. Teil 1. 1976 (Verzeichnis der Orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland 17A:1); Rudolf Sellheim: Arabische Handschriften. Reihe A: Materialien zur arabischen Literaturgeschichte. Teil 2. 1987. (VOHD 17A:2).

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A Digital Database of Islamic Manuscripts for the Study of Medieval Anatolia1

1.

Bruno De Nicola This article offers an overview of potential advantages that applying new technologies can provide for the study of Islamic manuscripts. It focuses on the analysis of the framework and methodology used in the development of the ERC funded project ‘The Islamisation of Anatolia (1100–1450)’. The final aim is to provide a comprehensive overview of the possibilities that the field of digital humanities has in advancing historical research.

1. Introduction Manuscripts have been a fundamental part of the history of the Muslim world. Islam considers the production and transmission of knowledge as a pivotal duty of its believers. In medieval times, the production of handwritten books made from paper became the main support for the diffusion of religious, scientific, and literary knowledge across the Islamic world. These manuscripts were highly valued by different parts of society, from kings to Sufi dervishes, and praised both for their contents and as unique artefacts. An uncountable number of books were produced in the Middle East and a large number of them still survive today in libraries across the Muslim world, Europe, and the United States, but they have only recently begun to be regarded for their value. In the last fifteen years, there has been an increasing awareness of the abundancy, fragility, and research possibilities of Islamic manuscripts. Libraries and research institutions, both in Europe and the Middle East, have made efforts to make improvements in the cataloguing, accessing, and digitizing of their collections ever since. Simultaneously, different research projects across the world have been created with the aim of facilitating access to and enhancing academic research on the abundant, yet often chaotic, sources of information that Islamic manuscripts can provide. It was in this context that ‘The Islamisation of Anatolia, c. 1100–1500’ project was created. Funded by the European Research Council as part of the ERC Starting Grant programme of 2012, Professor Andrew Peacock, the principal investigator of the project, began to develop a five-year scheme articulated around the thematic umbrella of the ‘Islamisation of Anatolia’. It aimed to produce original research on the topic, as well as to develop an online database that would function as a digital tool to facilitate further research on the

1 The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007–2013)/ERC Grant Agreement no. 208476, ‘The Islamisation of Anatolia, c. 1100–1500’.

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subject.2 This short essay aims to introduce this project. Firstly, it briefly discusses the theoretical basis that has been developed on the processes of Islamization as they occurred in Anatolia; secondly, this is then followed by an assessment of the research’s relevance, by looking at how the study of Islamic manuscripts can be used in conducting research on the topic; and thirdly, and finally, it offers an overview of the challenges and possibilities posed by developing an online database of Anatolian manuscripts.

2. The Islamization of Anatolia: A Short Overview3 ‘Islamization’ is a term used to refer to the process by which a group of people, originally attached to another religion, become Muslim. Until recently, the term ‘Islamization’ was not that much in vogue, others were more commonly used, one of which is still commonly found, ‘conversion’.4 And, despite the fact that both ‘Islamization’ and ‘conversion’ are often used to refer to cognate processes, the former, we contend, seems, in its nuance, to better express the complex scenario researchers face when trying to understand the process of adopting a religion that is different to that of a person’s own social group. ‘Conversion’, we suggest, is, by contrast, a more restrictive word that often refers exclusively to the moment at which a person (or group) adopts a new religion though rituals such as baptism, the pronunciation of the shahāda, and so on. Historians of medieval Islamic history are constrained by the sources available, and although, on certain occasions, there are references to the individual conversions undertaken by people, these cases cannot be in themselves used solely to explain what happened at a wider scale. Individual accounts cannot easily be extrapolated to entire populations. In other words, it seems implausible that the transformation of the religious landscape of a vast and highly populated region such as Anatolia, from a majority Christian region in the eleventh century to a majority Muslim one in the fifteenth century, could be solely explained by the multiplication of individual conversions among its inhabitants. This is the most substantial reason why talking about ‘Islamization’ makes more sense than only referring to ‘conversion’; ‘Islamization’ appears as a more comprehensive term to use in studying these phenomena because it gives room to consider social, economic, and political variables in the process that leads to the eventual conversion of a person or group.5 2 For more information on the project, see https://www.islam-anatolia.ac.uk/. 3 This section is based on Andrew C. S. Peacock/Bruno De Nicola/Sara Nur Yildiz: Introduction. In: Andrew C. S. Peacock/Bruno De Nicola/Sara Nur Yildiz (eds): Islam and Christianity in Medieval Anatolia. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Company 2015, pp. 1–20. 4 See, for example, works such as Nehemia Levtzion (ed.): Conversion to Islam. New York: Holmes & Meier 1979. 5 For a recent comprehensive study on the phenomenon of Islamization from a comparative perspective, see Andrew C. S. Peacock (ed.): Islamisation. Comparative Perspectives from History. Edinburgh:

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In the eleventh century, the peninsula of Anatolia was the main territory from which the Byzantine Empire obtained revenues from taxes and products to supply its capital, Constantinople. In this period, the region was almost entirely populated by Christians; them being Greeks and Armenians, but also Georgians and Syrian Christians. Within the wider context of medieval Christendom, these territories had by then been a Christian borderland for more than three centuries, a period that began with the Arab conquest of the Middle East and continued with the Christian resistance of different Muslim offensives, counter-attacking and regaining territories in Eastern Anatolia and northern Syria up until the eleventh century. Initially, the establishment of the Great Seljuk Empire in the 1040s in Iran and Iraq did not pose a different kind of threat to the ones Byzantium had been dealing with since the establishment of the ʿAbbasid Caliphate of Baghdad in 750 ce. However, only thirty years later, a Turkish victory at the battle of Manzikert in 1071 would mark the point of inflexion leading to the collapse of Byzantine domination in the peninsula, which was mostly controlled by Turks already by 1080.6 Although surviving until the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Byzantium lost its Anatolian heartland, and its role as a relevant player in the Middle East was severely weakened despite maintaining some maritime strength in the eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea.7 Besides, Muslim rule of Anatolia from the eleventh century onwards was far from homogeneous. Apart from the better-known dynasty of the Seljuks of Rūm (c. 1081–1307), the Artuqids based in the city of Diyarbakır, the Mengüjekids of Erzincan, or the Danishmendids of central Anatolia also obtained political control of areas in the peninsula. By the thirteenth century, a further degree of complexity was added with the arrival of the non-Muslim Mongols and the victory of the Seljuk sultan of Rūm at the battle of Köse Dagh in 1243.8 This opened a period of political dependence of Anatolia on the Mongol domains in western Iran, which significantly transformed the region. From then onwards, this became a geography of territories that were to be disputed by different regional powers, such as the Ilkhans of Iran, the Mongols of the Golden Horde, and the Mamluks of Egypt. After the collapse of the Mongol domination of Anatolia in the early decades of the fourteenth century, the political map of the peninsula became fragmented into Edinburgh University Press 2017. 6 Carole Hillenbrand: Turkish Myth and Muslim Symbol. The Battle of Manzikert. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 2007. 7 Claude Cahen: La Turquie pré-ottomane. Istanbul: Institut français d’études anatoliennes d’Istanbul 1988. Osman Turan: Selçuklular Zamanında Türkiye. Siyâsi Tarih Alp Arslan’dan Osman Gazi’ye (1071–1318). Istanbul: Turan Neşriyatı 1971. Andrew C. S. Peacock/Sara Nur Yıldız (eds): The Seljuks of Anatolia. Court and Society in the Medieval Middle East. London: I. B. Tauris 2013. Andrew C. S. Peacock/Bruno De Nicola/Sara Nur Yildiz (eds): Islam and Christianity in Medieval Anatolia. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Company 2015. 8 For the history of Anatolia under Mongol rule see Charles Melville: Anatolia under the Mongols. In: Kate Fleet (ed.): The Cambridge History of Turkey. Vol. 1: Byzantium to Turkey, 1071–1453. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2009, pp. 51–101.

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different principalities, known as beyliks, which would fight each other until one of them (the Ottomans) managed to control most of the peninsula in the late fifteenth century.9 Political fragmentation, however, did not mean cultural decadence but rather the opposite. The different local powers would actively promote artistic, architectural, and literary activities, strengthening the patronage of Arabic and Persian literary works but also popularizing the use of Turkish as the third written language in the region. Although Anatolia cannot be considered an almost totally Turkish-speaking Muslim territory until probably the First World War, it was in the period approximately between 1100 and 1500 when Islam became the main religion in the area, and Turkish was added to Persian and Arabic as a literary language. The territories that the Ottomans conquered in the fifteenth century were places where – even if still inhabited by numerous Christians, perhaps often by a majority of Christians – society was dominated by not just the faith of Islam but more generally by Muslim institutions and culture. In the same way that the Arab invasions of the Middle East in the seventh century did not wipe out Christianity from the region, the Turkish invasions did not destroy Christianity in Anatolia. Although, in both cases, Islam would acquire a ‘cultural supremacy’ or higher status on account of the fact that it was the religion of the ruling classes, for a long time both religions coexisted. In fact, the adoption of the new religion by these elites could have contributed, even if partially, to making Islam more appealing to middle and lower sections of society as a religion to which to convert. Yet, one may bear in mind that the adoption of the new religion was gradual and that the transformative process was complex and with a multiplicity of actors involved. In fact, different factors might have come into play in favouring the Islamization in Anatolia in this period. The coexistence between Islam and Christianity suggests that a gradual process of cultural, religious, and societal transformation occurred in medieval Anatolia, something which has been only vaguely researched until recently. Nevertheless, it is thanks to the now-expanding body of scholarly work into the matter that more nuances are being added to our understanding of this multifarious phenomenon. Most of the study of the Islamization of Anatolia has developed in Turkish, European, and North American academia. Most of the Turkish historiography on medieval Islam has been greatly influenced by a nationalistic discourse concerned mostly with justifying Turkye’s ‘national right’ to the land occupied by the present Republic of Turkey.10 9 For general views on the rise of the Ottoman Empire, see (among many others) Colin Imber: The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1481. Istanbul: Isis 1990. Elizabeth Zachariadou (ed.): The Ottoman Emirate, 1300–1389. Rethymon: Crete University Press 1993. 10 In this view, Islam in this period could be divided between ‘high religion’ and a ‘popular’ one, where the interpreted pagan or Christian residues in Islam as shamanistic traces originating from a largely imagined ancient Turkish Central Asian past where an unchanging essence of Turkishness remained and was transmitted through time and geography. See further in Peacock/De Nicola/Yildiz, Introduction (footnote 3), p. 6.

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Furthermore, regarding the Islamization of Anatolia, it has remained largely subjected to nineteenth-century paradigms of religious studies and has generally been isolated from later trends developed mostly in the West.11 This paradigm survived into the second half of the twentieth century and many of the arguments of this trend remain widely accepted in Turkish scholarship.12 However, attempts have been made to break this paradigm by authors such as Cemal Kafadar, who, with his influential study, Between Two Worlds. The Construction of the Ottoman State, attempted to approach the religious landscape by going beyond the dichotomy between orthodoxy and heterodoxy exposed by more traditional voices.13 Studies like his have contributed, in recent years, by adding nuance to the nationalistic discourse. They have been critical of the ways in which traditional historiography has approached the expansion of Islam after the Seljuq conquest and its role in the establishment of the Ottoman Empire. Furthermore, the interaction between Islam and Christianity in this period, and the role played by Sufi dervishes and Turkmen tribes in the processes of transformation, have also been significantly questioned. With regard to the scholarship produced in the West, Speros Vryonis has become one of the leading contributors to the subject of the Islamization of Anatolia.14 In his work, he sees the Turkish conquest as responsible for the destruction of an Anatolian Christian society, a social milieu that predominantly was a part of Greek culture. Hence, he explains, it was war and military conflict which were, according to Vryonis, the main triggers to the dislocation and destruction of the Christian and Hellenic culture of Byzantine Anatolia. He mentions the devastation caused by the Turkish conquests – in the eleventh century first, and in the mid-thirteenth and fourteenth centuries later – as historical moments marked by the physical destruction of towns, the uprooting of the Christian population, the decline of agriculture, and the resulting hardship brought upon to the local Christian communities. The work is concerned with the decline of Hellenistic culture and consequently only mentions the conversion of Christians in passing reference, suggesting nonetheless that Muslim Turks constituted a strong minority, who, by settling in Anatolia, may have forced at least part of the native population to convert to Islam. The conversion of these populations was, in turn, favoured by a parallel destruction of the church administration, which, together, would have brought about the destruction of Christian urban centres and towns, and their ecclesiastical structures. The main criticism raised in response to this 11 For example, Mehmet F. Köprülü’s nationalistic paradigm was based on nineteenth-century European modernist ideas, which in turn came to be applied to pre-Ottoman Anatolia. See Markus Dressler: How to conceptualize inner-Islamic plurality/difference. ‘Heterodoxy’ and ‘syncretism’ in the writings of Mehmet F. Köprülü (1890–1966). In: British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 37 (2010), pp. 241–60. 12 This trend prevails among some scholars such as Mélikoff and her student, Ahmet Yaşar Ocak. 13 Cemal Kafadar: Between Two Worlds. The Construction of the Ottoman State. Berkeley: University of California Press 1995. 14 Speros Vryonis: The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of Islamization from the Eleventh through the Fifteenth Century. Berkeley: University of California Press 1971.

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otherwise impressive work is that it offers a mostly Byzantine perspective on the Islamization of Anatolia, and does not provide any real insight into Anatolian Islam. Rather, it offers a mostly one-sided picture; yet succeeds in detailing the decline and demise of Christianity in the region. Thus, while the work is ostensibly in part about the Islamization of Byzantine society, we learn little about the actual process of Islamization from an Islamic perspective. An alternative view to Vryonis’s perspective of a violent replacement of one religious landscape by another is that presented in the work of Frederick W. Hasluck, which mainly concentrates on the transference of religious places from Christianity to Islam.15 Although based on an anthropological approach, and therefore different from that of Vryonis, Hasluck’s sees processes of religious syncretism in the development of Muslim Turkish Anatolia. This approach perceives the process as gradual, and provides evidence that Islamic culture eventually replaced traditional Christian spaces across Anatolia after the Turkish conquest in the eleventh century. Hasluck believes that the process of transformation from a Christian to an Islamic milieu occurred through interim periods in which religious spaces were ‘shared’. These spaces acted as loci where a mostly peaceful and continual transition developed, marked by periods that existed between the prevalence of one religion and its replacement by the other.16 In more recent years though, some scholars have questioned the peacefulness attributed to the religious transformation of the landscape in medieval Anatolia. Tijana Krstić acknowledges, for example, the fact that the newly arrived Turks were slightly Islamized, but does not agree with Hasluck or Irène Mélikoff that acquiring a supposedly ‘superficial’ conversion to Islam would bring about a ‘syncretic’, adaptable, and ‘open-minded’ form of religion. She also questions that these religiosities could presumably act as transitional stages that would attract into Islam those newly converted from Christianity.17 Instead, Krstić argues that although Hasluck’s shared spaces between Islam and Christianity existed in medieval Anatolia, the phenomenon of ambiguous religious spaces does not mean that people’s beliefs were ambiguous too. Instead, she suggests, these spaces should be understood as sites of perpetual competition and negotiation, occurrences that need to be understood in terms of local power relations rather than as locales of merely peaceful religious coexistence. In any case, what all these works evidence overall is that the study of the Islamization of medieval Anatolia is still in its infancy. It is encouraging to see that the field is beginning to move beyond the dominance of the paradigms of Köprülü and Hasluck, but it still somehow 15 Frederick W. Hasluck: Christianity and Islam under the Sultans. 3 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1929. 16 The quintessence of this syncretic paradigm would be Bektashism, where Christian saints are replaced by Bektashi ones or awliyāʾ (Turk. evliya). 17 Tijana Krstić: The ambiguous politics of ‘ambiguous sanctuaries’. F. Hasluck and historiography of syncretism and conversion to Islam in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Ottoman Rumeli. In: David Shankland (ed.): Archaeology, Anthropology and Heritage in the Balkans and Anatolia: The Life and Times of F. W. Hasluck, 1878–1920. Istanbul: Isis Press 2013, vol. iii, p. 248.

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remains under the shadow of Vryonis’s great, but problematic, work. It is worth noticing that one of the significant obstacles faced in the progress of scholarly work in these areas is the fact that few specialists can master both the Christian and Muslim source materials with enough familiarity concurrently. Furthermore, only occasional multidisciplinary collaborations have existed across disciplines so far.18 It is nonetheless clear from the evidence we have obtained so far and from the research that has been carried out, especially in recent years, that the mutation of a society from one religion to another can only be explained as the result of a complex and multi-causal process, a multifarious phenomenon compelled to be studied from different angles and perspectives. In this scholarly context, Andrew Peacock proposed in 2012 to carry out a project at the University of St. Andrews to explore the Islamization of Anatolia from an, at that time, largely unexplored point of view. He proposed to focus attention on the literary production of medieval Anatolia and, more specifically, on the production of Islamic manuscripts in this period.

3. Islamic Manuscripts as Sources for the Islamization of Anatolia Unlike historians studying more modern periods in the history of Turkey, those concerned with pre-Ottoman Anatolia lack any archival documentation from which to produce systematic research on a topic of interest. Instead, the most abundant and relevant information is contained in manuscripts that have become the core of research material available when trying to explain the circumstances that propitiated premodern phenomena, such as the Islamization of Anatolia. One of the advantages of undertaking research directly from Islamic manuscripts, instead of from edited sources, is that manuscripts can hold a twofold interest for researchers. On the one hand, scholars will find the actual content of the manuscripts appealing; that is, the subjects covered by the work written and the information expressed by the author of these texts. In this regard, the type of contents contained in medieval Islamic manuscripts is very diverse, ranging from literary works in prose and poetry to scientific works on astronomy or mathematics, historical narratives, and religious texts – in this last category, a wide array of genres are represented, including hagiographic material, commentaries on the Qurʾan, and works on fiqh (Islamic law). On the other hand, the additional potential research interest of manuscripts is that, unlike edited/printed books, each copy of a literary work is in itself a unique artefact, whose unique characteristics and unique history, when studied, shed light onto yet other different historical aspects. Therefore, our work on this project has highlighted the clear difference that exists between the manuscript contents, which can often be repeated in different copies of the same work, and the characteristics of the manuscript as a material 18 See the exception of Peacock/De Nicola/Yildiz (eds): Islam and Christianity in Medieval Anatolia (footnote 7).

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support of the text, containing elements unique to each specific codex. These attributes are generally referred as the codicological aspects of a book.19 It is the study of the codicological aspects of manuscripts (paper, ink, name of copyist, place of copying, patron, ownership marks, etc.) studied in conjunction with the content of the text that is especially interesting in the present project, because the combination of both can illuminate certain aspects of the literary evolution of medieval Anatolia that are omitted in edited sources. Because each manuscript is different, two copies of the same work might have not only been copied in different places but may also contain, for example, different dedications to different patrons; these features make the circulation of each copy of the same work very different to one another. Similarly, the existence or absence of copies of the same text copied in luxury manuscripts (including illustrations and/or more expensive paper) and more popular ones could suggest a differentiation of class in the taste for a literary work. In addition, many of these manuscripts contain marginal annotations made by readers in different periods, notes that provide unique insights into the mind of the readers of a particular book in specific times and places. Finally, scarce systematic research has been done so far on the identity of copyists, patrons, and owners of these manuscripts. This study helps us to make sense of the production and distribution of manuscripts in medieval Anatolia. A considerable number of codices contain this type of information, but the volume of works available is such (see a discussion on that below) that a methodical survey collection that covers the extent of materials the project ‘Islamisation of Anatolia’ considers has been hitherto lacking. Handwritten texts that were relevant in the Islamization of Anatolia are kept in different public institutions and private collections across the Middle East, Europe, and even India, but the bulk of this literary production has remained in Turkey. The different collections of these Anatolian manuscripts are the product of different historical processes that have influenced their contents and the codicological characteristics they display. For example, the most obvious type of collection is that comprising manuscripts written, translated, and copied in Anatolia. These manuscripts offer a fundamental insight into the literary tastes of different periods in the history of Anatolia, how these tastes were transformed, and what kinds of works were most consumed by readers in each period. In addition, they offer invaluable information on the potential proficiency of a given population (being a religious, royal, or economic class) at a given time and place, and they contain unique information on the ‘economy of books’ marked by a variety of sponsorship relationships between patrons, authors, and copyist of these works developed in the region. Apart from these ‘autochthonous’ manuscripts, many codices kept today in Anatolian libraries were not produced in the peninsula. For example, many have been brought into 19 On the discipline of Islamic codicology see especially François Déroche: Islamic Codicology. An Introduction to the Study of Manuscripts in Arabic Script. London: Al-Furqān Islamic Heritage Foundation 2006. Also Adam Gacek: Arabic Manuscripts. A Vademecum for Readers. Leiden: Brill 2009.

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Anatolia by immigrant scholars coming from different parts of the Islamic world. The process of migration of Muslim literati into Asia Minor (Anatolia) was especially important in the thirteenth century, when many scholars, religious personalities, and men of letters moved to the court of the Seljuqs of Rūm, partially due to the advance of the Mongol invasions of Central Asia and Khurasan but also thanks to the attraction that the financial incentives offered by Seljuqs sultans generated among cultured people in the Islamic world.20 Part of the knowledge contained in those manuscripts brought by the émigrés not only resulted in the presence of copies of previously unknown works in Asia Minor but also granted the possibility of copying and disseminating these new texts and ideas in the region. Furthermore, other manuscripts were also brought by merchants and traders. The fact that manuscripts were unique and occasionally deemed luxury products gave them an important economic value. It is difficult to estimate the number or proportion of manuscripts that reached Anatolian collections in the hands of traders or migrants, but they certainly underlie the fact that we find manuscripts produced in regions of the Islamic world far away from Asia Minor, such as Tabriz, Cairo, Baghdad, Herat, or Samarkand.21 The total number of manuscripts kept in Turkish libraries today is difficult to establish. Although there have been improvements in library infrastructure, cataloguing efforts, and accessibility of the material lately, the exact number of texts held by different institutions is not always known by library staff or shared with researchers in Turkey. Furthermore, an imprecise number of manuscripts remain in private collections owned by individuals or corporations with different degrees of commitment to allow research on their holdings. Despite the difficulties, it has been estimated that there are around 250,000 manuscripts written in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish remaining in the Republic of Turkey today.22 Özgüdenli has done extensive research on these collections in the past years, visiting all these libraries and collecting, whenever possible, quantitative data on the different existing Turkish collections. His estimations suggest that out of the quarter of a million manuscripts held in Turkey, some 150,000 of these can be found in different Istanbul libraries. Table 1 offers a breakdown of the different numbers of manuscripts contained in Istanbul libraries, and the proportion of these works written in different languages.

20 A good account of the literary legacy of Persian writers in pre-Ottoman Anatolia can be found in Muḥammad Amīn Riyāḥī: Zabān va adab-i Fārsī dar qalamraw-i ʻUs̲mānī. Tehran: Pāzhang 1369 [1990]. 21 A good number of manuscripts copied outside of Anatolia were also brought into Turkish libraries during the centuries of Ottoman territorial expansion in the Middle East, specially between the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries. 22 Osman Gazi Özgüdenli: Persian manuscripts. I. In Ottoman and modern Turkish libraries. In: Encyclopedia Iranica, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/persian-manuscripts-1-ottoman.

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Arabic

Persian

Turkish

Süleymaniye Library

8,084

67,571926

5,801

Istanbul University Library

6,963

1,615

9,943

Topkapı Saray Museum Library

9,043

940

3,090

Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum

15,858

164

359

Beyazıt Devlet Library

9,107

443

1,569

Millet Library

5,728

509

2,528

Nuruosmaniye Library*

3,667

466

919

258

44

3,836

Köprülü Library

3,284

139

390

Atıf Efendi Library*

2,615

95

518

Hacı Selimağa Library

2,226

131

595

Murad Molla Library

2,129

82

126

633

179

1,304

98

274

1,389

1,165

41

68

Atatürk Library

Istanbul’s Archaeological Museum Yapı Kredi Cultural Center Sermet Çifter Library Ragıp Paşa Library*

Table 1. List of manuscripts Istanbul Collections are accessible via the libraries Süleymaniye The remaining 100,000 in codices arelibraries. distributed acrossthat different provincial in the Library digital catalogue are marked with an asterisk (*). Republic of Turkey; table 2 offers a statistical representation.

This impressive amount of documentation is complemented by several manuscripts The remaining 100,000 codices are distributed across different provincial libraries in the that, at present, are distributed in different collections across Europe and the United Republic of Turkey; table 2 offers a statistical representation. States. Not all the material contained in these European collections is equally valuable This impressive amount of documentation is complemented by several manuscripts in understanding the Islamization processes undertaken by the inhabitants of Anatolia in that, at present, are distributed in different collections across Europe and the United medieval times. The number of manuscripts which are actually potentially relevant for States. Not all the material contained in these European collections is equally valuable the study of the Islamization of Anatolia is more limited than the number of works these in understanding the Islamization processes undertaken by the inhabitants of Anatolia in collections contain. However, some of these collections are significantly valuable in terms medieval times. The number of manuscripts which are actually potentially relevant for of their relevance for this project. Some of the most relevant collections include those the study of the Islamization of Anatolia is more limited than the number of works these manuscripts held in the United Kingdom in places such as the British Library in London, collections contain. However, some of these collections are significantly valuable in terms the University Library of Cambridge, and the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford. of their relevance for this project. Some of the mostcollections relevant collections includesuch those Besides, in continental Europe, there are noteworthy held in libraries as manuscripts held nationale in the United Kingdom places such as the British the Library in London, the Bibliothèque de France, the in Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Österreichische the University Library of Cambridge, and the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford. Besides, in continental Europe, there are noteworthy collections held in libraries such as the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, or at the University Library in Leiden, the Netherlands (collection of Turkish manuscripts), which offer some extraordinary exemplars and rare volumes that are unique in nature and significance.

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Ein Gespräch Abdullah Takim A Digital Databasemit of Islamic Manuscripts Arabic

Ankara University School of Language, History, and Geography Library

Persian 8,084

National Library

Turkish 926

5,801

1,300

1,252

8,813

Adnan Ötüken Public Library (Ankara)

2,640

Department of Religious Affairs Library

4,800

Ankara University School of Theology Library

Konya

approx. 2,000

Yusuf Ağa Library

4,656

109

375

Koyunoğlu Museum and Library

2,060

296

2,112

Regional Manuscript Library

3,053

75

529

Mevlânâ Museum Bursa

2,298 11,155

1,315

405

4,201

271

672

Kastamonu

3,439

157

660

Çorum

2,891

48

555

Manisa

Selimiye Library (Edirne)

2,701

125

469

Izmir

1,423

190

1,439

Kütahya

2,473

192

420

Diyarbakır

1,629

51

1,321

Burdur

2,027

57

232

Kayseri

1,587

95

283

Cyprus

1,984

96

211

The remaining 100,000 codices are distributed across different provincial libraries in the Table 2. ListofofTurkey; manuscripts in 2theoffers Republic of Turkeyrepresentation. (outside Istanbul). Republic table a statistical

This impressive amount of documentation is complemented several manuscripts In sum, the available material is enormous, varied in content, by spread across different that, at present, are distributed in different collections across Europe and the United regions, and difficult to interpret from a research point of view. With this vast number States. Not all the material contained in these European collections is equally valuable of existing codices, the aim of the ‘Islamisation of Anatolia’ project was to bring together understanding the Islamization processes undertaken inhabitants of Anatolia in ainselection of the most relevant manuscripts concerningby thethe processes of religious transmedieval times. The number which are relevant for formation into Islamdom that of themanuscripts region underwent, andactually to offerpotentially a representation of the the study of the Islamization of Anatolia is more limited than the number of works these literary legacy that was produced in this context, in a way that could be freely, quickly, collections contain. However, some of these collections and are significantly valuableWith in terms and comprehensibly be made accessible to researchers the general public. this of their relevance for this project. Some of the most relevant collections include idea in mind, the team has produced an online database that makes available for thethose first manuscripts held in the United in places as the British Library in time a large representation of theKingdom manuscripts about such the process of Islamization of London, Anatolia the University Library of Cambridge, and the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford. from 1100 to 1450. Besides, in continental Europe, there are noteworthy collections held in libraries such as the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, the Österreichische

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4. A Manuscript Database for Medieval Anatolia As the members of the project embarked on mapping the literary production of Anatolia before the consolidation of the Ottoman Empire in the fifteenth century, a number of methodological issues needed to be addressed. Firstly, it became apparent that the actual geographical scope of the project needed to be established from an early stage, especially in terms of what we understood as ‘Anatolia’ and what would be considered its limits for the purpose of the data collection. Certainly, from a basic geographical point of view, the consensus would lead us to consider simply the territories of the present Republic of Turkey. However, in medieval times there were no clear-cut borders between central Anatolia and its adjacent regions, and places such as Azerbaijan (including the present independent republic as well as the Iranian region) had loci of literary production that are certainly relevant to understand the Islamization of the region. Thus, urban centres of manuscript production, such as Tabriz, were in close cultural interaction with Anatolia. Nevertheless, Tabriz, for example, stands as an instance of a centre that had a significantly rich literary tradition of its own; and, additionally, including all of this body of material was unrealistic in the time frame given to the project. Thus, one of the limitations the project has identified is that the setting of the limit will ultimately have an arbitrary component and that places with a certain degree of relevance (such as Tabriz) would regrettably have to be excluded. The opposite case was also considered. Cities, such as Mardin, which today are part of the Republic of Turkey were culturally tided up and considered part of the area of influence of Damascus and the Arab world rather than that of Anatolia; yet, they have fallen within the scope of the geography we have decided to cover. In the end, it was a matter of clarity that ultimately defined our choice. We finally decided that, for the sake of avoiding confusion, we would consider the current frontiers of the Republic of Turkey. Taking these considerations into account, however, gives us a more adequate idea of what could and could not be covered by the project, highlighting interesting lines for possible future research. Secondly, there was a need to establish a clear interpretation of who could be considered an ‘Anatolian author’. Certainly, would make sense to be include those born in the region, we considered initially. However, when considering the type of data that could end up being most meaningful, it seemed more relevant to consider only those individuals who composed works in the region. These individuals would give us more insightful hints from the perspective of mapping the literary production and intellectual development of Anatolia, rather than just those merely born in the area. In this way, we could ensure that those who were not only born in Anatolia but also had an intellectual impact in the region would appear as part of the database. That includes also relevant foreign authors, such as Ibn ʿArabī (d. 1240) or Quṭb al-Dīn Shīrāzī (d. 1311), who, despite coming from abroad settled permanently in Anatolia, and had a great impact on the development of intellectual life in the region.

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Finally, it was clear that the project would not include works composed after the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottomans in 1453 because the historical and cultural context of Anatolia after the second half of the fifteenth century is markedly different from that preceding it. However, many authors who lived in Anatolia prior to this date may not have been very influential during their lifetime – with no manuscripts dated from our period of interest having survived – but then became popular thereafter, for example, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, during Ottoman rule. In those cases, the members of the project decided that these authors were to be included, being, as they were, products of a cultural milieu covered by our period of study, even though, and there is also mention of this, their work has rather a posteriori relevance in terms of literary influence. Considering the quantity of material that exists, tackling the gigantic amount of data available and being able to relate it to the Islamization of Anatolia would have been an impossible task had it not been for the aid of new technologies. The project is not only a pioneer in thematic terms but also in terms of the amount of material that it succeeds in considering. Without the use of these technologies and the tools provided by the framework from the digital humanities, our ambitious objectives would not have been accomplished. The project carried out at the University of St. Andrews envisioned the development of an online database that could be used as a digital tool to help systematize this vast amount of information.23 Digital technology allows us to collect, store, and process large amounts of data and then render it back to the researcher in an organized manner that becomes useful for scientific enquiry. However, the challenge of this online platform lies in the design of the database’s rationale, a coherence that has to facilitate the correct disposition of information. Furthermore, this rationale has to give clear and precise guidelines that permit solving potential methodological problems that could arise in the daily handling of information. In addition, this framework has to give us the possibility of anticipating potential uses of the stored data and be able to provide a rational rendition of data to the users’ requests. The development of the database and the systematic collection of data from manuscripts was done simultaneously, allowing the database to develop in accordance with the type of data that was being made available by project members in the field. Apart from the general information regarding a given manuscript (author, title, location, number of folios, etc.), it was the codicological aspects of the manuscripts mentioned above that were especially relevant for the project. Hence, information on copyists and patrons contained in manuscripts’ colophons, ownership marks, the type of script used, and any information concerning the date of production of the manuscript was identified and introduced in the database. The data were converted into XML files representing individual manuscripts, following the guidelines of the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI), a consortium which collectively develops and maintains a standard for the representation of texts in digital form, 23 The database can be accessed online at https://arts.st-andrews.ac.uk/anatolia/data/.

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chiefly in the humanities, social sciences, and linguistics.24 Individual files are being created simultaneously in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish and transliterated based on the guidelines provided by the Department of Cataloging and Acquisitions of the Library of Congress (US).25 Similarly, those names appearing in a manuscript and the related subjects of the works were standardized, whenever possible, according to the Library of Congress authority headings and provided with a link to the Virtual International Authority File.26 When a name could not be found in these databases, we have generated a local authority file that can be used for keeping internal consistency in the treatment of names. From the beginning of the project, the vision was to produce solely an online version of a library catalogue, or rather a collective online catalogue along the lines of those that already exist.27 Instead, we complemented the main metadata of the manuscripts by adding to the location of the manuscript mentions of the author and title, data obtained from research done based on the manuscripts themselves, and also little-known secondary material available in Middle Eastern languages. In the case of some well-known authors such as Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī (d. 1273), Ṣadr al-Dīn Qūnawī (d. 1274), etc., there is abundant information in European languages, but for other less well-known authors, such as the fifteenth-century Turkish poet al-Fīrūzābādī (d. 1413/14), the information is less abundant and often found only in Turkish secondary sources. In this way, the corresponding metadata for each manuscript that can be found in library catalogues is complemented, in addition, by codicological information on the specific manuscript obtained by our team directly from the text. Likewise, for each individual record, we have added biographical information on the author of the text obtained from primary and secondary sources, a description of the contents of the work(s) contained in the codex, and a list of further reading that includes not only secondary sources in oriental and European languages but also references to any existing editions and translations of the work. After the collection of the data, the coding into the XML computer language, and its input into the database, the software designed by the IT team at the University of St. Andrews indexes all of the data in its own servers. The specific coding of the data following the TEI guidelines allows the software to organize the information received and interconnect the data of different manuscripts and group similar information between them. In this way, the individual information obtained for each manuscript is collated with others and gathered to identify similar authors, work titles, and the collections to which the manuscripts belong. Yet, in order to maximize the interconnectivity of the data, 24 See http://www.tei-c.org/Activities/Projects/oc01.xml, which gives specific guidelines for Islamic manuscripts developed by a join project carried out by the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge and funded by JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee). See https://www.jisc.ac.uk/. 25 http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/roman.html. 26 http://authorities.loc.gov/ and https://viaf.org/. 27 See, for example, the union catalogue for manuscripts in Arabic script in the United Kingdom at http://www.fihrist.org.uk.

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the above-mentioned biographical information and description of works is systematically tagged to produce an interactive ‘hypertext’ allowing quick navigation and highlighting concordances of data across the database. This systematic tagging of keywords, proper names, and location also allows the potential user of the database to navigate the site transversally, making it more dynamic and able to provide different possibilities for research across the whole database spectrum. After four years of collecting data from manuscripts in Europe, the Middle East, and India, coding the information obtained into XML files, and developing a user-friendly search interface for the database, we have accomplished our goal of interconnecting over 7,000 elements of metadata for manuscripts produced by ‘Anatolian authors’ in the medieval period. The open access of the database to researchers and the general public will hopefully soon become a tool for unveiling new aspects of the cultural milieu of preOttoman Anatolia. Its potential usages are multiple. For example, the systematic collection of data on the names of copyists and patrons will allow users to connect the production of different manuscripts to a single person. This apparently easy task is something that carries on a number of complexities not having been for the help of digital tools, due to the mobility of books in the medieval and modern periods and the dislocation and centralization of manuscript collections in national and local libraries in more recent times. In this way, finding a person that copied an Arabic manuscript in, for example, Amasya in the early fourteenth century can be once again be found copying another manuscript, this time in Turkish, in Kastamonu, in the 1330s. This feature will offer the potential to open new areas of research on lesser-known aspects of the literary production of pre-Ottoman Anatolia, such as the mobility of these copyists, the multilingual characteristics of society, or the interest of patrons on subjects in each period and place of medieval Anatolia. It is a vision of the project to contribute to the development of a new perspective on the literary development of medieval Anatolia, aided by examining this generally neglected sort of information. This data will, in turn, contribute to our understanding of the Islamization of the area. An example of one of these under-researched areas refers to the language of preference in the composition of certain works. In this sense, the database shows how the production of manuscripts underwent a slow but steady transference of certain topics – subjects in which the main trend previously was to write in Persian, and which became more normally addressed in Turkish from the fourteenth century onwards. Persian language in Anatolia remained a prestige language, and works of famous Persian authors continued to be copied well into Ottoman times, but Turkish would become the main language of poetry, literature, and history from the 1350s onwards. Concurrently, there was a burgeoning effort being made in translating works from both Arabic and Persian into Turkish in the same period. The case evidences how, by looking only at the language of composition of a significant number of manuscripts collected in the database, it is possible to back, with statistical data, the existence of a parallel process of Turkicization, a linguistic process

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that accompanied and seems to be key in understanding, the Islamization of medieval Anatolia. Finally, despite the ending of the project in December 2016, the design of the database allows for the continuation of its expansion after that date. It is hoped that users and researchers will continue to contribute to the database by supplying new data collected in the field and amending, whenever necessary, the existing data.

5. Conclusion The study of Islamic manuscripts is still in its infancy. The existing literary corpus held in libraries, universities and other institutions in the Middle East and the West is vast and remains still largely unexplored. The technological advances in digitization and cataloguing of manuscripts allow facilitating access to a large part of these documents to researchers and the general public. However, we are at a point where a further step from the plain description of data into a more comprehensive collection, organization, and rendition of the information is needed. The project described in this article has tried to take that step forward. By focusing on medieval Anatolia and on the specific topic of Islamization, the team have managed to design and build an online database that helps to rationalize at least a portion of the available documents on the subject. In doing so, the project has developed a digital tool that will enhance the study of medieval Anatolia from a unique perspective, different from the one normally offered by the study of Islamic manuscripts, and leaves a legacy consisting of a flexible database that can continue to expand beyond the duration of the project.

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Books as Memory Devices and the ‘Literary Archive’ in Medieval Islam1

1.

Rebecca Sauer This review article focuses on the manifold functions ascribed to books in the Arabic-writing Middle East of the manuscript era – a period that lasted well into the nineteenth century. Books were not only produced by scholars in order to preserve their teachings for the afterworld, they were also means by which to express piety, support political claims, and stabilize international relations. Moreover, they were essential media to memorize the past; i.e., they were memory devices, albeit to the neglect of other means to preserve information from the past, such as documentary evidence.

1. Introduction In his Introduction to history (al-Muqaddima), the famous Ibn Khaldūn (d. 1406) bemoaned the essential dilemma of scholarship in his days: the great number of specialized works, so he reported, was a vital hindrance to becoming a great scholar, as one had to be proficient in a diversity of approaches, methods, and contents. (Let) Alone in the field of jurisprudence of the Mālikī rite (his own school of legal thought), the student had to know the writings of the forefathers as well as commentaries and super-commentaries. Turning to abridgements (so-called mukhtaṣar works) was no real solution either, as the student had to struggle with concise synthesis here – synopsis which left out considerable content without providing necessary contexts. This ‘confuses the beginner by presenting the final results of a discipline to him before he is prepared for them’, he criticizes. The overabundance of books written seems to be relevant not only in medieval Islamic culture. The problem seems to be part of literate cultures of all times and religious provenance. Literary critic Franco Moretti testifies to a very similar condition with regard to ‘Western literature’: Many people have read more and better than I have, of course, but still, we are talking of hundreds of languages and literatures here. Reading ‘more’ seems hardly to be the solution. […] the point is that there are thirty thousand nineteenth-century British novels out there, forty, fifty, sixty thousand – no one really knows, no one has read them, no one ever will. And then there are French novels, Chinese, Argentinian, American …2

1 This article emerged from the Heidelberg Collaborative Research Centre 933 ‘Material Text Cultures. Materiality and Presence of Writing in Non-Typographic Societies’. The CRC 933 is financed by the German Research Foundation (DFG). The term ‘archive’ is understood here as a collection of (mostly historical) information. 2 Franco Moretti: Distant Reading. 4th edn. London: Verso 2015, p. 45.

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Ibn Khaldūn and Moretti both propose their respective remedies to this dilemma – but these will be discussed further below. For the time being, let us just grasp the essential message of this paragraph: as for the core religious disciplines, the fifteenth-century intellectual Ibn Khaldūn observes a great variety of works which cannot be properly accessed by the student due to their breadth and diversification. This phenomenon was neither unique to medieval Islamic civilization nor confined to the specific branches of knowledge scrutinized by Ibn Khaldūn. As early as the tenth-century, the Baghdad bibliophile Ibn al-Nadīm (d. 995) listed several thousand authors, albeit only indicating those of their works he had seen in person and/or had been reported to him by trustful colleagues.3 In the Mamluk era, there were several undertakings by scholars who listed their teachers as well as the books used for their studies.4 Legendary reports on the stocks of individual and/or public libraries were also common in various literary genres. The libraries of the Fatimid caliphs in Cairo – a dynasty that ruled from the early ninth through late twelfth century – were said to host between 200,000 and 600,000 volumes. A brief look at manuscript catalogues testifies to the same phenomenon: the medieval Islamic world was a realm of great bibliophiles.5 Books were not only produced by scholars in order to preserve their teachings for the afterworld, they were also a means by which to express piety, to support political claims, and to stabilize international relations. Moreover, they were essential media to remember and memorize the past; i.e., they were memory devices, albeit apparently to the neglect of other means to preserve information from the past, such as documentary evidence. In the following, I will go into detail as to the aspects just mentioned. Section 2 will discuss the book as a transmitter of scholarly and/or literary knowledge and highlight its role within the premodern Islamic approach to learning and education. Section 3 will deal with the religious impacts of the book, and section 4 will focus on the political implications of book culture. In section 5, I will ask why it was the book that was chosen to store knowledge from the past, thereby elaborating on the ‘literary archive’. 3 Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq Ibn al-Nadīm and Bayard Dodge: The Fihrist of al-Nadīm. A Tenth-Century Survey of Muslim Culture. 2 vols. New York: Columbia University Press 1970 (= Records of Civilization: Sources and Studies 83), vol. ii, pp. 931–1135. 4 Bruna Soravia: Bibliographies, Arabic. In: Kate Fleet et al. (eds): Encyclopaedia of Islam. THREE (EI3), http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_24336 (February 13, 2017). 5 Despite the constantly reiterated image of Islam as being a ‘religion of the book’, during the early history of Islam there was a debate on whether writing was a legitimate means of communication, as has been mentioned by Michael Cook: The opponents of the writing of tradition in early Islam. In: Arabica 44.4 (1997), pp. 437–530, and Gregor Schoeler: Die Frage der schriftlichen oder mündlichen Überlieferung der Wissenschaften im frühen Islam. In: Der Islam 62.2 (1985), pp. 201–30. The codification of the Qurʾan was processed only after the death of the prophet Muḥammad, and is often explained by the threat of the loss of memorizers of the revelation (qurrāʾ). The Qurʾan itself testifies to the ambiguous assessment of writing vis-à-vis orality, as the analysis of Daniel Madigan: The Qurʾān’s Self-Image. Writing and Authority in Islam’s Scripture. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 2001, pp. 79–105, has shown.

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2. Books, Education, and Memory In our days, it is usual to assume that knowledge and education are necessarily connected to books. As for the medieval Islamic sphere, the situation appears rather ambiguous, especially regarding early Islamic times (seventh to eighth century). Scholarly controversies centred around the question of which branches of knowledge were to be transmitted orally, and which branches were licit for writing down in books. Thus, in the field of ḥadīth (which belonged to the most influential disciplines of the Islamic educational canon), many preferred the oral or aural transmission of religious knowledge, as this mode of communication was deemed more authoritative due to its reliance on personal contacts and networks – a preference that even brought the development of a sub-branch of the ‘sciences of men’ (ʿilm al-rijāl), recording the reliability of individual transmitters of ḥadīth. Early Arabic sources do use the term kitāb (translated as ‘book’ or ‘writing’) regularly, although it is more likely that by this usage they are referring to hypomnemata (aide-mémoires) than to thoroughly composed textual entities.6 However, these caveats notwithstanding, a great number of ḥadīths have come down to us in material and written form, as during the ninth century most reports were canonized in six major compilations, the so-called kutub al-sitta (The six books) by al-Bukhārī (d. 870), Muslim (d. 875), al-Tirmidhī (d. 892), Abū Dāʾūd (d. 889), al-Nasāʾī (d. 915), and Ibn Māja (d. 886). The proliferation of religious and historiographical information through the written word coincided with an important development that can be termed a ‘media revolution’. By the mid-eighth century, paper was introduced to the Islamic lands, purportedly by Chinese prisoners of war who were stationed near Samarkand (in present-day Uzbekistan). As early as the end of the same century, under the famous caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd (r. 786–809), the new material was said to have been introduced as official writing support to the ʿAbbasid chancery. The first paper mill in Baghdad was founded in 794/95. According to narrative sources, there were two primary reasons the material was so successful from its very beginning. First, unlike parchment (which was primarily in use before then), paper was relatively secure against forgeries, as scratches or damage related to water could be easily detected. And second, the production of paper provided for a writing support that was affordable and more accessible to a variety of customers.7 The aforementioned Ibn Khaldūn described the development as follows:

6 Gregor Schoeler: Writing and publishing on the use and function of writing in the first centuries of Islam. In: Arabica 44.3 (1997), pp. 423–35. See also Gregor Schoeler and Shawkat Toorawa: The Genesis of Literature in Islam. From the Aural to the Read. Rev. edn. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 2009 (= The New Edinburgh Islamic Surveys). 7 For details of this discussion see Carla Meyer and Rebecca Sauer: Papier. In: Thomas Meier/Michael Ott/Rebecca Sauer (eds): Materiale Textkulturen. Konzepte, Materialien, Praktiken. Berlin: De Gruyter 2015 (= Materiale Textkulturen 1), pp. 355–70.

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Rebecca Sauer Originally, copies of scholarly works, government correspondence, and diplomas were written on parchment especially prepared from animal skins by craftsmen, because there was great prosperity at the beginning of Islam and the works that were written were few. In addition, government documents and diplomas were few in number. The production of books and writings then developed greatly. Government documents and diplomas increased in number. There was not enough parchment for all that. Therefore, al-Faḍl ibn Yaḥyā [al-Barmakī] suggested the manufacture of paper. Thus, paper was used for government documents and diplomas. Afterwards, people used paper in sheets for government and scholarly writings, and the manufacture [of paper] reached a considerable degree of excellence.8

Two corresponding developments occurred at roughly the same time. By the ninth century, writers of Arabic relied more and more on carbon ink, which was easier to produce and was preferable for applying on paper surfaces. New, more easily legible round scripts became increasingly popular. These three developments facilitated an ‘explosion of books’, as Jonathan Bloom has characterized the situation.9 Paper and books became readily available to a broadening readership. With regard to a longue durée (the ninth to sixteenth century discussed in this article), one thus notices an essential reliance on the proliferation of knowledge by the written word, with ever-increasing estimated literacy rates.10 Thus, the availability of a cheap writing surface that was safe against forgeries transformed societies that had previously mostly relied on oral modes of transmission. However, notwithstanding this rather positive assessment of the ‘media revolution’ briefly sketched so far, there are two points that should be kept in mind alongside this success narrative. First and foremost: not all kinds of writing seem to have been deemed worthy of preservation. Intriguingly, the pioneers of the paper-based ‘media revolution’, that is, the chancery personnel (kuttāb) and the documents and letters they were issuing in great number, seem at first sight to have fallen into ‘cultural oblivion’, as chancery archives are seldom preserved in their originals. Documentary writings, therefore, were often only conserved as long as they were of immediate concern. These pieces of writing were seldom deemed to be transmitted to posterity in their originals, as ‘files’ properly. However, essential contents of governmental action were preserved for the future – though more through a loophole and being embedded in different textual environments than in dedicated state archives.11 Books have become essential memory devices, and not files or archives.

8 ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Ibn Khaldūn: Al-Muqaddima. Al-Manṣūra: Dār al-Ghadd al-Jadīd 2012, pp. 392–93. 9 Jonathan Bloom: Paper before Print. The History and Impact of Paper in the Islamic World. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press 2001, p. 110. 10 Konrad Hirschler: The Written Word in the Medieval Arabic Lands. A Social and Cultural History of Reading Practices. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 2012, p. 29; Nelly Hanna: Literacy and the ‘great divide’ in the Islamic world, 1300–1800. In: Journal of Global History 2.2 (2007), pp. 175–93. The availability of even cheaper European paper imports from the fourteenth century onwards did certainly add to this development. 11 Details will be discussed in section 5.

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Second, the oral and aural transmission of knowledge remained of the utmost importance for many centuries to come. Similar to many other premodern cultural contexts, individual reading was not the primary approach to knowledge.12 Even during the middle period, it was not the books one knew about that provided for the cultural capital of the scholar. Rather, it was the teachers consulted who added to an individual’s reputation. Thus, the jurist Badr al-Dīn Ibn Jamāʿa (1241–1333) insisted that the student read with a learned shaykh.13 And likewise, the solution to the dilemma outlined above by Ibn Khaldūn was the consultation of a teacher in order to be guided through the masses of books.14 Thus, vitae of scholars as found in the vast prosopographical literature read as depictions of personal networks. Knowledge as social capital was acquired by the practices of reading aloud and taking notes under the supervision of a teacher. Certificates of attendance of a certain lesson usually took the form of samāʿāt (listening certificates) or ijāzāt (transmission certificates) that usually named the works studied as well as the names of the respective teacher and student.15 Learning and education were necessarily bound to personal contacts. Individual learning and reading (i.e., reliance on books alone) was usually strongly discouraged. However, these normative assumptions notwithstanding, books – at least from the middle period onwards – were increasingly designed for diverse audiences and readerships. Thus, a look at manuscripts suggests that individual reading practices grew in importance among advanced scholars. Two brief examples might suffice to illustrate this development. Manuscripts and marginal notes reveal interesting insights into the scholarly process. The working method of the Mamluk historian al-Maqrīzī (d. 1442), for example, has been thoroughly analyzed. According to a series of articles appearing in the 2000s, this author used notebooks while reading a great variety of sources. From the comparison of his notebooks and the sources (‘actual’ composed books) he consulted, one can deduce that he was primarily working while reading individually, which seems to

12 For an exception to the idealization of teacher-based education, see the mirror for princes discussed by Houari Touati: Pour une histoire de la lecture au Moyen Âge musulman. À propos des livres d’histoire. In: Studia Islamica 104/105 (2007), pp. 11–44. 13 Jonathan Porter Berkey: The Transmission of Knowledge in Medieval Cairo. A Social History of Islamic Education. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 1992 (= Princeton Legacy Library), p. 26. 14 Ibn Khaldūn, Al-Muqaddima (footnote 8), pp. 536–38. 15 See Stefan Leder: Understanding a text through its transmission. Documented samāʿ, copies, reception. In: Andreas Görke/Konrad Hirschler (eds): Manuscript Notes as Documentary Sources. Würzburg: Ergon-Verlag 2011 (= Beiruter Texte und Studien 129), pp. 59–72; Andreas Görke: Teaching in 5th/11th-century Baghdad. Observations on the lectures of Abū l-Fawāris Ṭirad b. Muḥammad al-Zaynabī and their audience. In: Görke/Hirschler (eds): Manuscript Notes as Documentary Sources, pp. 91–118; Konrad Hirschler: Reading certificates as a prosopographical source. Cultural and social practices of an elite family in Zangid and Ayyubid Damascus. In: Görke/Hirschler (eds): Manuscript Notes as Documentary Sources, pp. 73–92; Hirschler, The Written Word (footnote 10), pp. 32–81.

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have been in accordance with the practices of his contemporary colleagues.16 Ibn Ṭawq, the late Mamluk author of a remarkable ego-document has also been revealed to be a proponent of individual reading.17 But, even for scholars working over a century earlier than al-Maqrīzī and Ibn Ṭawq, this reading/writing practice was by no means marginal, though apparently confined to the upper echelons of scholarly circles.18 Furthermore, when taking into consideration the growing importance of encyclopaedias, abridgements, anthologies, and compendia from the thirteenth century onwards, one encounters a downright culture of visual reader-guidance. For example, the manuscript of al-Qalqashandī’s handbook on writing, Ṣubḥ al-aʿshā fī ṣināʿat al-inshāʾ (The dawn of the nightblind in the domain of the chancery craft), is visually structured in such a way as to permit access to knowledge quickly, as chapter headings are written in bold characters, which was useful to the reader more familiar with the scribal profession. For those who were newcomers to the branch of kitābat al-inshāʾ (composition of chancery documents), the author has also a useful approach to offer, as he guides the reader in a way that Ibn Khaldūn would have assessed as exemplary: from the general principles of kitāba to the minutest details, furnished with a great variety of illustrating examples. This pedagogical structure is supported by detailed tables of contents belonging to each volume.19 It is highly likely that this form of visual paradigm was designed for silent, individual reading, not for reading in a scholarly or semi-scholarly assembly. Thus, the book stands for itself; it replaces the teacher. As the Ṣubḥ is to be understood in the framework of an ever-increasing ‘encyclopaedic habit’20 during the middle period, we can assume that authors responded to certain expectations on the part of their possible or prospective readership, although it would be misleading to suggest a market-based situation. In sum, silent, individual reading and learning did exist, but they were not the only ways to access knowledge. Rather, it 16 Frédéric Bauden: Maqriziana II. Discovery of an autograph MS of al-Maqrīzī. Towards a better understanding of his working method. Analysis. In: Mamluk Studies Review 12.1 (2008), pp. 51–118; Khaled El-Rouayheb: The rise of ‘deep reading’ in early modern Ottoman scholarly culture. In: Sheldon I. Pollock (ed.): World Philology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 2015, pp. 201–25. Intriguingly, the existence of individual notebooks seems to have risen enormously from the sixteenth century onwards (according to communication with Torsten Wollina on February 22, 2017). 17 Stephan Conermann and Tilman Seidensticker: Some remarks on Ibn Ṭawq’s (d. 915/1509) journal Al-Taʿlīq, vol. 1 (885/1480 to 890/1485). In: Mamluk Studies Review 11.2 (2007), pp. 121–35. 18 Etan Kohlberg: A Medieval Muslim Scholar at Work. Ibn Ṭāwūs and His Library. Leiden: Brill 1992 (= Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Science 12). 19 Rebecca Sauer: The social life of texts. Shihāb al-Dīn al-Qalqashandī between chancery practice and the normative (forthcoming). 20 Elias Muhanna: Why was the fourteenth century a century of Arabic encyclopaedism? In: Jason König/Greg Woolf (eds): Encyclopaedism from Antiquity to the Renaissance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2013, pp. 343–56. See also Maaike van Berkel: Opening up a world of knowledge. Mamluk encyclopaedias and their readers. In: König/Woolf (eds): Encyclopaedism from Antiquity to the Renaissance, pp. 357–75.

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is more accurate here to understand the reception of texts within a set of a ‘plurality of [reading] practices’.21 Among the prevalent places to store books were princely treasuries, such as the one described in the following report from the Fatimid era: [It was said] that the number of book chambers (khazāʾin al-kutub) was forty, including eighteen thousand books on ancient sciences and two thousand four hundred complete manuscripts of the Qurʾān (khatmah) [kept] in Qurʾān boxes (rabʿah). They were written in well-proportioned (mansūb) calligraphy of the highest beauty and illuminated with gold, silver, and other [paints]. This was apart from [the books] kept in the vaults (khazāʾin) in Dār al-ʿIlm (The House of Learning) in Cairo.22

This quotation alludes to the different contexts in which a book could be used and stored. Whereas those manuscripts described in the first two sentences are magnificent and splendid copies that were more likely to be stored and shown to public only occasionally, the books of the last sentence were probably of more immediate concern to scholars and students. With the rise of public institutions of learning such as the madrasa or the Dār al-Ḥikma (House of Wisdom) from the eleventh century onwards, books were available to those studying within these circles. Many of these institutions were pious foundations (waqfs), which entailed an entanglement between various social groups – the founders, the personnel of the institution, the learners, and even the adjacent population.23 Besides, there were also other groups that collected and stored books, which are better understood within the lines of cultural connoisseurship.24

3. Books and Salvation Books were also powerful media for religious expressions and experiences. The natural point of departure here is the sacred scripture of Islam, the Qurʾan. Even more than the phenomenon as depicted in the previous section, the importance of the aural and oral proliferation of the word of God cannot be overestimated. The meaning of the term Qurʾan itself, ‘recitation’, illustrates that the divine book was first and foremost related to experience by the ear and the voice. This aspect has been thoroughly discussed by several 21 Hirschler, The Written Word (footnote 10), p. 15. 22 Ibn al-Zubayr and Ghāda al Ḥijjāwī al-Qaddūmī: Book of Gifts and Rarities. Cambridge, MA: Center for Middle Eastern Studies of Harvard University 1996, p. 240 (square brackets in the original). 23 Hirschler, The Written Word (footnote 10), pp. 32–81; Ira Lapidus: Muslim Cities in the Later Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1984, pp. 79–115; Michael Chamberlain: Knowledge and Social Practice in Medieval Damascus, 1190–1350. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1994, pp. 69–90; Berkey, The Transmission of Knowledge (footnote 13), pp. 95–160. 24 Houari Touati: L’armoire à sagesse. Bibliothèques et collections en Islam. Paris: Aubier 2003 (= Collection historique), pp. 21–57.

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authors.25 A point we will focus on in this review article will thus be a different one: the material expressions of religious encounters as found in book culture. Not surprisingly, the Qurʾan is the book most often copied, an all-time bestseller in Islamic culture. The various formats of this enterprise range from large, richly illuminated, gilded copies to less ‘representative’ examples.26 Of special interest in the present article, however, are the material traces that let us grasp the religious practices of individuals or/and groups who dealt with the tangible object representing the divine word.27 The tangible object, the codex of the Qurʾan, is called muṣḥaf (pl., maṣāḥif ) in Arabic. Up to the eleventh century, the physical form of the Qurʾanic muṣḥaf was in constant evolution in terms of palaeography and layout.28 After the scribal reform of the Abbasid calligrapher and bureaucrat Ibn Bawwāb (d. 1022), the visual appearance of script as applied in Qurʾan manuscripts stabilized to a certain extent. Copies of the Qurʾan produced within the lines of Ibn Bawwāb’s reform thus appear very similar to what is known to readers of Arabic in our day.29 From the thirteenth century onwards, however, certain materializations of the Qurʾan reveal glimpses of everyday piety, not seldom related to mystical and magical practices. The division of the Qurʾan into thirty parts in order to be recited during each night of the feasting month of Ramaḍān was a widespread practice that was centuries old.30 Though, when in later times the ownership of Qurʾans gradually diversified (i.e., shifted from institutional to individual 25 Important scholarly works that have very recently reminded us of this phenomenon are Navid Kermani: Gott ist schön. Das ästhetische Erleben des Koran. Munich: Beck 1999; Angelika Neuwirth: Der Koran als Text der Spätantike. Ein europäischer Zugang. Berlin: Verlag der Weltreligionen 2010. 26 The more ‘representative’ strand of Qurʾan production has been conceptualized for the general public in numerous exhibition projects and beautiful exhibition catalogues, such as François Déroche: The Abbasid Tradition. Qur’ans of the 8th to the 10th Centuries ad. The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1992; David James: The Master Scribes. Qur’ans of the 10th to the 14th Centuries ad. New York: Nour Foundation in association with Azimuth Editions and Oxford University Press 1992; or David James: After Timur. Qurans of the 15th and 16th Century. London: The Nour Foundation in association with Azimuth Editions and Oxford University Press 1992. 27 We do not doubt that the production of magnificent Qurʾan copies, as was commissioned by the powerful at the Islamic courts, was related to piety. However, many of these copies were also part of diplomatic exchange scenarios and will therefore be discussed in the following section. 28 François Déroche: Le livre manuscrit arabe. Préludes à une histoire. Paris: Bibliothèque nationale de France 2004 (= Conférences Léopold Delisle), pp. 12–24. 29 The present article cannot go into further detail as to the intricate motivations for the script reforms. However, the interested reader may consider consulting the series of articles authored by Yasser Tabbaa, who describes the (anti-Shiite and hegemonic) ideological background of this development: Yasser Tabbaa: The transformation of Arabic writing. Part I. Qur’ānic calligraphy. In: Ars Orientalis 21 (1991), pp. 119–48; Yasser Tabbaa: The transformation of Arabic writing. Part II. The public text. In: Ars Orientalis 24 (1994), pp. 119–47, and Yasser Tabbaa: Canonicity and control. The sociopolitical underpinnings of Ibn Muqla’s reform. In: Ars Orientalis 29 (1999), pp. 91–100. 30 François Déroche: Written transmission. In: Andrew Rippin (ed.): The Blackwell Companion to the Qurʾān. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing 2006, pp. 172–86.

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facilities), the extraction of parts of the text became more common. For example, from the twelfth to sixteenth centuries, small-format collections of four to seven suras, preferably containing Qurʾan chapters from the rearward (and, generally speaking, historically earlier) parts of the scripture have come down to us in great numbers.31 Besides, Qurʾan verses were increasingly applied in ‘magical’ contexts, which implies they were written on a great variety of media that were portable. Manuscript glosses, talismans, and amulets from this era reveal a diversity of possible situations in which individuals sought the intercession (shafāʿa) of the divine in everyday affairs.32 Literature dealing with the precise functions of each verse (khawāṣṣ al-āyāt) complement our knowledge of these very mundane circumstances: the opening sura, al-Fātiḥa, was said to protect against all illness and provide for one’s general well-being; Q 34:18–20 was said to save one from complications during childbirth; whereas Q 32:16 was designated to ‘exorcise jinns’.33 However, the Qurʾan was not the only text symbolically charged with diverse hopes of deliverance. Popular reading sessions in medieval Damascus were attended by an audience that was firmly interested in ritual matters, as part of the material recited alluded to the hạdīth corpus.34 Yet another manuscript ‘bestseller’ with clear religious impact was a poetical expression of praise for the prophet Muḥammad, the Mantle Ode (Burda). This poem, in its later medieval elaboration, was composed by the Cairene poet Muḥammad ibn Saʿīd al-Būṣīrī (d. 1294 or 1297) and contains around 160 verses. It has become one of the most popular pieces of poetry since, entailing ‘a vast body of imitations, expansions, translations, and commentaries’.35 The Mantle Ode has been (and is still) widely received all over the Muslim world, with translations into Persian, Urdu, Turkish, and Indonesian, as well as languages of sub-Saharan Africa.36 Copies of the poem range far into the thousands, dating from the time of its first transcription until the end of the manuscript age in the nineteenth century, and from splendid courtly versions to ‘personal’ copies and talismanic

31 Efim Rezvan: The Qurʾān and its world. VII. Talisman, shield, and sword. In: Manuscripta Orientalia 4.3 (1998), pp. 24–34. 32 For manuscript glosses, see Marie Efthymiou: Persian glosses on a Qurʾanic manuscript from Central Asia. In: Fahmida Suleman (ed.): Word of God, Art of Man. The Qur’an and Its Creative Expressions. Selected Proceedings from the International Colloquium, London, 18–21 October 2003. Oxford: Oxford University Press in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies 2010 (= Qurʾanic Studies Series 4), pp. 157–74; for amulets and talismans see Rezvan, The Qurʾān and its world (footnote 31). 33 For a list of these khawāṣṣ al-āyāt, see Rezvan, The Qurʾān and its world (footnote 31). For similar ascriptions valid for whole Suras see Efthymiou, Persian glosses on a Qurʾanic manuscript (footnote 32). 34 Hirschler, The Written Word (footnote 10), pp. 52–53, 60. 35 Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych: From text to talisman. Al-Būsīrī’s Qasīdat al-Burdah (Mantle Ode) and the Supplicatory Ode. In: Journal of Arabic Literature 37.2 (2006), pp. 145–89, quoted from p. 145. 36 Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych: The Mantle Odes. Arabic Praise Poems to the Prophet Muḥammad. Bloomington: Indiana University Press 2010, p. 70.

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applications.37 But even after the implementation of the printing press the success of the ode continued.38 The liturgical functions of the poem are also manifold, as they ‘range from personal acts of piety […], to Ṣūfī [liturgical uses] (in particular the Shādhiliyyah order) in chanted or sung form’ to recitational proliferation of the poem during Friday prayers, funeral rituals, or the feast of mawlid al-nabī (birthday of the prophet), with many practices established primarily on local terms.39 Comparable to the khawāṣṣ al-āyāt mentioned above, Muslims transmitted khawāṣṣ al-burda, traditions as to the special applicability of certain verses of the poem in ‘magical’ contexts. Thus, in a commentary on the Burda, the nineteenth-century scholar al-Bājūrī (d. 1860) notes: The beneficial property of these two [i.e., the first two] verses is that if you write them on a cup, that is, a glass, and dissolve them in rainwater and then give this drink to an untrainable, intractable beast, it will become tractable, docile, and quick to learn. And if you have a foreign slave who is slow to learn Arabic, write these two verses on a piece of gazelle parchment, hang it on his right arm, and he will speak Arabic in no time.40

Apart from the problematic content of the advice, which equates animals with human beings deemed as less ‘worthy’, it gives us insight into everyday affairs for which a cure by recourse to ‘magical’ practices was sought. The solutions to these problems were to be found in books that many believers interpreted as ‘saviours’ and daily ‘companions’.41 The Burda was not only a text that was important spiritually – it was also bestowed with political implications and thus leads us to the following section. In his autobiography, when recounting the story of his encounter with the Mongol ruler Tamerlane (Timur Lenk) in 1401/02, Ibn Khaldūn writes:

37 Stetkevych, From text to talisman (footnote 35), pp. 149–50; Annemarie Schimmel: And Muhammad Is His Messenger. The Veneration of the Prophet in Islamic Piety. 10th edn. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press 2006 (= Studies in Religion), pp. 176–215. See also Muhsin al-Musawi: The Medieval Islamic Republic of Letters. Arabic Knowledge Construction. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press 2015, pp. 38–46, who argues that the ode functioned as a cultural broker within a politically destabilized ‘Islamic republic of letters’. 38 Stetkevych, The Mantle Odes (footnote 36), pp. 151–233. 39 Stetkevych, The Mantle Odes (footnote 36), pp. 70–71. For contemporary liturgical practices, see Ines Weinrich: Between poem and ritual. The Burda by al-Būṣīrī (d. 1294–1297). In: Ines Weinrich (ed.): Performing Religion. Actors, Contexts, and Texts. Case Studies on Islam. Würzburg: Ergon 2017 (= Beiruter Texte und Studien 122), pp. 103–26. 40 Quoted according to Stetkevych, From text to talisman (footnote 35), p. 146. 41 Due to the specific scope of this overview, I will not be able to elaborate on this idea of ‘companionship’; thus, I’d like to draw attention to Geert Jan van Gelder: Persons as texts/texts as persons in classical Arabic literature. In: Stephan Guth/ Priska Furrer/Johann Christoph Bürgel (eds): Conscious Voices. Concepts of Writing in the Middle East. Proceedings of the Berne Symposium July 1997. Stuttgart: Steiner 1999 (= Beiruter Texte und Studien 72), pp. 237–53.

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When I had met him and been let down the wall to him, as already related, one of my friends who from previous acquaintance with them knew their [i.e., the Mongols’] customs advised me to present him some gift, however small its value might be, for that is a fixed custom on meeting their rulers. I therefore chose from the book market an exceedingly beautiful Qurʾān copy […], a beautiful prayer rug, a copy of the famous poem al-Burda by al-Būṣīrī in praise of the Prophet – may Allāh bless him and grant him peace! – and four boxes of the excellent Cairo sweetmeats. I took these gifts and entered to him while he (Timur) was in the Qaṣr al-Ablaq [a fortress where Tamerlane was residing at that time], sitting in its reception hall. […] After having sat there for a little while, I moved over in front of him and pointed to the presents which I have mentioned and which were in my servants’ hands. I set them down, and he turned toward me. Then he opened the Qurʾān, and when he saw it he hurriedly arose and put it on his head. Then I presented the Burda to him; he asked me about it and about its author, and I told him all I knew about it.42

Though the Mongol ruler did not seem to be familiar with the poem – which would be plausible for a ruler who was deemed as coming from the periphery of Islam, at least in the eyes of the Mamluks who ruled in Cairo at that time – its symbolic function in this narrative becomes quite clear. It is a present that is offered alongside the noble Qurʾan, which would be a classical part of gift exchange in the highest courtly environments. In the next section, we will take a closer look at books in the framework of gift exchange and their political implications.

4. Books and Politics In this section, we will shed light on the intricate relationship between books and politics in the pre-print Islamic Middle East as reflected in courtly gift culture. The political implications essential to the composition of many works (that is praise of a specific ruler or regime, or the condemnation of these) will not be discussed in this section. However, these intentions and aspirations of individual authors did exist and are essential to the understanding of specific books in their respective contexts.43 Books – among other objects – were important artefacts of symbolic character and were part of gift exchange practices among the most powerful: […] gift giving was an integral part of the social fabric, especially as a means of formalizing alliances, as a signifier of power and expression of political aspirations, or as an instrument to obtain salvation. […] Gift giving intended to further princely ambitions or diplomatic goals, to seal peace treaties, to promote devotion, or to reward loyalty was integral to maintaining a vast network of personal, social,

42 Walter Joseph Fischel: Ibn Khaldūn and Tamerlane. Their Historic Meeting in Damascus, 1401 a.d. (803 a.h.). A Study based on Arabic Manuscripts of Ibn Khaldūn’s ‘Autobiography,’ with a Translation into English, and a Commentary. Berkeley: University of California Press 1952, pp. 41–42. 43 For examples, see the thorough study by Konrad Hirschler: Medieval Arabic Historiography. Authors as Actors. London: Routledge 2006 (= Routledge Classics 5), pp. 86–114.

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Rebecca Sauer political, economic, and religious relationships, and rare, costly, and aesthetically pleasing objects were at its core.44

The Book of gifts and rarities (Kitāb al-hadāyā wa-l-tuḥaf ), originating from Fatimid times and still current among literates up to the sixteenth century, reports the contents of diplomatic gift packages as well as those of royal treasuries. Among other items, books were frequent gifts, and after their reception they used to be stored in the state treasuries. More often than not, the ‘biography’ of a book added to its pure monetary value, as a report on the Fatimid treasuries of Cairo from the eleventh century illustrates (the following report comes immediately after one describing a number of pens sharpened by the legendary master calligraphers Ibn Muqla and Ibn Bawwāb that had been found): There was also found a number of complete manuscripts of the Qurʾān (khatmāt), in the handwriting [calligraphy] of both Ibn Muqlah and Ibn al-Bawwāb, [the letters of which] were written in gold outlined (mukaḥḥal) with lapis lazuli.45

Whether the ascription of the manuscripts to these two artists was ‘real’ or rather mythic cannot be verified anymore. However, it is important here to note that objects that had a ‘history’ of sorts were held in high esteem and used to embody symbolic values. One episode illustrates the highly symbolic function ascribed to the giving of manuscripts. As late as the middle of the sixteenth century, only half a century after the Ottomans had overthrown the Mamluk Empire in Egypt (1517), Sultan Selim II (r. 1566–1577) received an embassy from his (Shiite) competitor in Iran, the Safavid Shāh Ṭahmāsp (r. 1524–1576). The gifts had to be carried by over thirty camels, and among the presents were two particular objects that were to leave a powerful message. The first item was nothing less than a gilded copy of the Qurʾan that was said to have been written by the fourth caliph ʿAlī (son-in-law and cousin of the prophet Muḥammad) himself. The second item was a copy of the Book of kings (Shāhnāmah), containing over 200 illustrations. By including these two artefacts, the Safavids sought to underline their right to dominate the Muslim hemisphere, as they claimed prophetic ancestry and adherence to ancient Iranian culture and kingship. The lineage of the Ottomans, in contrast, was regarded as rather obscure. However, the receivers of the gift, taking into consideration the fact that, despite ‘problems’ in lineage, they were the more powerful militarily, interpreted the books quite differently. In an illustrated manuscript from 1591, the Safavid emissaries are depicted as receiving robes of honour from the Ottoman sultan while carrying the books. One major member 44 Linda Komaroff: The art of the art of giving at the Islamic courts. In: Linda Komaroff (ed.): Gifts of the Sultan. The Arts of Giving at the Islamic Courts. Los Angeles, CA: Los Angeles County Museum of Art/Yale University Press 2011, pp. 17–32 , quoted from pp. 20–21. 45 Al-Zubayr and Qaddūmī, Book of Gifts and Rarities (footnote 22), p. 234 (square brackets in the original).

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of the group even bows before the ruler, all of which clearly indicates their acceptance of Selim’s suzerainty.46 Books were not only offered as part of diplomatic missions. They could also be commissioned and offered to mosques, schools, shrines, and other pious foundations (waqfs). Such donation practices were especially popular during the Mamluk Sultanate (1250–1517), when splendidly decorated manuscripts were produced in the hundreds in order to be presented to pious institutions.47 The Mamluks, not unlike the Ottomans, were in need of legitimizing their rule, as many of them were first-generation Muslims with no ‘real’ acceptable lineage. Spending on behalf of the pious foundations was a means to underline their adherence to the Muslim faith. More often than not, the act of giving was embedded in a public ceremony, and the donors were firmly interested in keeping their memories alive, as they used to be named as the commissioners of the respective manuscripts.48 As this section has shown in all its brevity, books could become powerful symbolic objects that were used to convey political messages.

5. Books, Documents, and the Literary Archive In the preceding sections of this overview, we have tried to assess the manifold functions of books for Islamic societies during the era before the printing press started to dominate cultural production at large. The very concise character of these elaborations notwithstanding, we have tried to point out that, despite the importance of oral means of communication, the reliance on books for the proliferation of knowledge in spiritual matters and in the political sphere should not be underestimated. In the section to come we will add yet another function of the book: that of ‘storing’ history and cultural heritage, thereby resuming a point that has already been mentioned towards the beginning of this article and which is of concern to a major debate within historical Islamic and Arabic studies.

46 Komaroff, The art of the art of giving (footnote 44), pp. 17–19. A similar episode, yet being of different focus, is reported to have happened during times of Ilkhanid-Mamluk rivalry in the fourteenth century, when a multi-volume Qurʾan manuscript was presented to reinforce alliances between two rulers; see Anne Broadbridge: Kingship and Ideology in the Islamic and Mongol Worlds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2010 (= Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization), p. 105. See also Doris BehrensAbouseif: Practising Diplomacy in the Mamluk Sultanate. Gifts and Material Culture in the Medieval Islamic World. London: I. B. Tauris 2014, pp. 150–51. 47 For an overview, see David James: Qurʼāns of the Mamlūks. London: Alexandria Press 1988. 48 Julien Loiseau: Les Mamelouks. XIIIe-XVIe siècle. Paris: Editions Seuil 2014 (= L’Univers historique), pp. 265–85; Sheila Blair: On giving to shrines. ‘Generosity is a quality of the People of Paradise’. In: Komaroff, Gifts of the Sultan (footnote 44), pp. 51–73.

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When Stephen Humphreys assessed the field in the early 1990s, he declared: ‘In medieval Islamic history we are poor in archives but rich in documents.’49 Actually, there are several major pre-Ottoman archival collections that have been discovered during the last few decades, from the Geniza records in Cairo, the Ḥaram al-Sharīf findings in Jerusalem, to the recently excavated writings belonging to the Red Sea port of al-Quṣayr al-Qadīm.50 Furthermore, there are large collections of waqf (charitable trust) documents.51 However, when compared to the quantity of literary, historiographical, and religious knowledge transmitted through the medium of the book, these collections seem to be rather sparse – a phenomenon that has given rise to a set of rather biased research questions: Is it just a problem of random transmission techniques, that is ‘Überlieferungszufällen’ in Arnold Esch’s words?52 Or does it have to do with certain cultural filtering techniques that value ‘literary’ and ‘religious’ sources more than documentary material? Some scholars argue that it is possible that there were certain dominant genres, and others that are not regarded as such. According to these scholars, in medieval Muslim civilization cultural, economic, and social capital was simply not acquired by recourse to ‘the state […] or the autonomous corporate or religious body’ but rather the elite household (bayt); accordingly, the preservation of state, family, or court archives was not held in high esteem.53 However, recent publications have added to a deeper understanding of the situation. First of all, it is quite clear now that state administrators were firmly interested in preserving original documents, and we do have evidence of several organizing principles as to the preservation of such material.54 Second, there is a growing number of scholars who are advocating for 49 Stephen Humphreys: Islamic History. A framework for Inquiry. Rev. edn. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 1991, p. 40. 50 Shlomo Goitein: A Mediterranean Society. 6 vols. Berkeley: University of California Press 1967–1993; Donald Little: The significance of the Haram documents for the study of medieval Islamic history. In: Der Islam 57.2 (1980), pp. 189–219; Andreas Kaplony: Fünfundzwanzig arabische Geschäftsdokumente aus dem Rotmeer-Hafen al-Quṣayr al-Qadim (7./13. Jh.). [P.QuseirArab. II]. Leiden: Brill 2014 (= Islamic History and Civilization 109). 51 Carl Petry: A Geniza for Mamluk studies? Charitable trust (waqf) documents as a source for economic and social history. In: Mamluk Studies Review 2 (1998), pp. 51–72. 52 Arnold Esch: Überlieferungs-Chance und Überlieferungs-Zufall als methodisches Problem des Historikers. In: Historische Zeitschrift 240 (1985), pp. 529–70. As to this ‘transmission by chance’, it should be noted here that the climatic conditions for the preservation of written material in the area of the Middle East are generally better that in other regions of the world. 53 Chamberlain, Knowledge and Social Practice (footnote 23), p. 2. 54 For example, Maaike van Berkel: Reconstructing archival practices in Abbasid Baghdad. In: Journal of Abbasid Studies 1.1 (2014), pp. 7–22; Petra Sijpesteijn: Shaping a Muslim State. The World of a Mid-Eighth-Century Egyptian Official. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2014 (= Oxford Studies in Byzantium); Geoffrey Khan: A copy of a decree from the archives of the Fatimid chancery in Egypt. In: Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 49.3 (1986), pp. 439–53; Anne Regourd: Folding of a paper document from Quseir al-Qadim. A method of archiving? In: al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 20.1 (2008), pp. 13–16. ‘Literary’ sources such as the scribal manual authored by al-Qalqashandī also

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considering ‘decentralized’ techniques to preserve documents.55 This latter approach seems to be the most convincing way to deal with the problems in sources, notably when taking into consideration that state documents from archives could be dispersed and recycled, as several studies have shown. For the Mamluk period, we have evidence that the often large-format state documents would be cut into smaller pieces in order to be re-sold on the paper market. The Cairene historian al-Maqrīzī’s notebooks (already mentioned above) again are illustrative of this practice, as they were made of such recycled material.56 Another approach towards the particular situation with regard to archives in the pre-Ottoman Middle East has also been suggested: to define the ‘documentary’ designation in broader terms as applying to sources such as manuscript notes and glosses, and thereby including artefacts from the literary sphere in the cultural archive of the area.57 Though all of these approaches are very valuable and remarkable contributions to the phenomenon of source availability, they tend to evade asking a question that is all too obvious: Why is it that these archives do not exist anymore, despite the fact that there was an ‘archival mind’58 claimed by many authors? And how does the scarcity of archives preserved in situ correspond to the phenomenon of the constant literary reproduction of documents in chancery manuals, and historiographical and adab compendia? Without reiterating an essentialist bias that functions along the lines of ‘there is no […] in Islam’, it is nevertheless important to raise the question of the possible cultural predominance of certain transmission channels over others. For the time being, with regard to the intricate functions of books in the preOttoman Middle East, it might suffice to imply a few working hypotheses.59 These will briefly be elaborated by looking at al-Qalqashandī’s manual, Ṣubḥ. The Ṣubḥ is a work of adab al-kātib. One primary concern of this genre was to emphasize the moral and behavioural standards of the state secretary; i.e., how to behave at court, testify to elaborate archiving practices – let alone the possibility of someday finding a whole ‘state archive’. 55 Tamer El-Leithy: Living documents, dying archives. Towards a historical anthropology of medieval Arabic archives. In: Al-Qanṭara 32.2 (2011), pp. 389–434; Lucian Reinfandt: Mamlūk documentary studies. In: Stephan Conermann (ed.): Ubi Sumus? Quo Vademus? Mamluk Studies – State of the Art. Göttingen: V & R unipress 2013 (Mamluk Studies 2), pp. 285–309; and, especially, Frédéric Bauden: Du destin des archives en Islam. Analyse des données et éléments de réponse. In: Denise Aigle/Stéphane Péquignot (eds): La correspondance entre souverains, princes et cités-états. Approches croisés entre l‹Orient musulman, l‹Occident latin et Byzance, (XIIIe–début XVIe siècle). Turnhout: Brepols 2013 (= Miroir de l’Orient musulman 2), pp. 27–49. 56 See, for example, Frédéric Bauden: The recovery of Mamluk chancery documents in an unsuspected place. In: Michael Winter/Amalia Levanoni (eds): The Mamluks in Egyptian and Syrian Politics and Society. Leiden: Brill 2004 (= The Medieval Mediterranean 51), pp. 59–76. 57 Andreas Görke/Konrad Hirschler: Introduction. Manuscript notes as documentary sources. In: Görke/ Hirschler (eds), Manuscript Notes as Documentary Sources (footnote 15), pp. 9–20. 58 Sijpesteijn, Shaping a Muslim State (footnote 54), pp. 1–11. 59 Elaborated in detail in Sauer, forthcoming (footnote 19).

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how to deal with the ruler’s personality and his entourage, how to become an excellent yet loyal adviser of the ruler, etc. Another very important complex was education: the ideal kātib (pl., kuttāb) should not only be capable of providing a beautiful hand and taking care of his scribal equipment, but also have sufficient knowledge of history, genealogy, and social order, as these determined how exactly letters and documents were to be designed – both in wording and materiality. The most important (and perhaps most difficult) point, however, was related to epistolography and adab – that is, balāgha (stylistics). The scribe should interiorize certain stylistic models, of course the Qurʾan and ḥadīth, but also works ascribed to the paragons of the profession – that is, epistles of early and more recent adabadherents, such as ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd al-Kātib (d. 750) or al-Qāḍī al-Fāḍil (d. 1200), Salāḥ al-Dīn’s legendary secretary. In sum, the Ṣubḥ is a massive compendium (14 volumes, c. 7000 pages) that contains all of the relevant information for a state administrator available at the time of its composition, which was at the beginning of the fifteenth century (at least when taking the author seriously).60 It consists of ten chapters (maqālāt), ranging from the general to the detailed (see above, section 1). Chapters four to ten are basically collections of model documents relevant to the chancery, containing advice as to how to compose letters and documents to foreign kings, notables of the Mamluk state, and subjects of the sultan at various levels, giving insight into historical as well as contemporaneous practices, and including information on the storing of documents. The last chapter is even dedicated to ‘private’ correspondence (socalled ikhwāniyyāt). The largest part of the whole work thus consists of copies, or alleged copies, of historical documents. Furthermore, what strikes one as interesting is that compendia collecting these writings were very common in the pre-Ottoman Middle East, from the ‘correspondence’ of the legendary Qāḍī al-Fāḍil to Ibn Faḍl Allāh al-ʿUmarī’s (d. 1349) al-Taʿrīf bi-l-muṣṭalaḥ al-sharīf and Masālik al-abṣār fī mamālik al-amṣār or Ibn Ḥijja al-Ḥamawī’s (d. 1434) Qahwat al-inshāʾ. Even in later Ottoman times, these vade mecum works still seem to have been popular, as a privatissime copy of a certain trilingual (Persian, Arabic, and Ottoman Turkish) Inshāʾ-Nāmah from 1834 in manuscript form illustrates. The author compiled the ideal beginnings of official letters, adding the intricacies of different dating methods.61 Thus, it should have become obvious by now that ‘actual’ archives were not as thoroughly maintained as the ‘archival mind’ might have suggested, though they were supported and partly replaced by another form of collection of historical records, the literary archive of adab al-kātib literature. Within these lines, the Ṣubḥ and other works occupied not only the functions of teaching personnel (as shown above in section 1). Moreover, these works 60 Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī al-Qalqashandī: Ṣubḥ al-aʿshā fī ṣināʿat al-inshāʾ. Cairo: al-Maṭbaʿa al-Amīriyya 1913–1919, which is subject to a thorough study being carried out by the author of the present article (see above, footnote 19). 61 Cod. Heid. Orient 34, which will be subject to a thorough analysis by the present author.

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can also be interpreted as literary archives which represented the massive ‘backup versions’ of otherwise lost collections of documents. These backup versions are useful tools to access – at least – copies of extant documents, albeit they are not complete reflections of a given extant archive. Moreover, they tend to have their own foci, be they on the preservation of the individual compiler’s or author’s letters and documents, or on the presentation of exemplary language and style. Accordingly, these collections are recontextualizations rather than mere reproductions. Though, the general problem with backups is that the ‘original’ is likely to be neglected, particularly in case the recontextualization is more reader-friendly than a file. Thus, it seems that narrative context and a certain frame of reference seemed to have mattered – an aspect that was implemented more easily in book form than otherwise, albeit leading to a phenomenon that led to a literary ‘excess’ in the eyes of some contemporaries. This reminds us of Ibn Khaldūn and Franco Moretti, the dissimilar observers of literary and scholarly overproduction of their respective days. Whereas Ibn Khaldūn glances at a traditional form of knowledge proliferation, Moretti glorifies the future of the ‘digital archive’, wishing to attain new insights from a bird’s-eye perspective. In this respect, he might not be that far from authors such as al-Qalqashandī, who tried to make knowledge available to a broader readership – knowledge that would otherwise perhaps have been ‘stored away’ for good, secluded from the public.

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The Morisco Aḥmad ibn Qāsim al-Ḥajarī and the Egyptian Manuscript of His Nāṣir al-dīn ʿalā qawm al-kāfirīn (The triumph of faith over the nation of unbelievers)1

1.

Houssem Eddine Chachia The work at hand is founded upon study and analysis, and it presents the biography of the author Aḥmad ibn Qāsim al-Ḥajarī based on information gleaned from the edited text and other sources related to al-Ḥajarī. In addition, modern information and documents located by researchers studying the life of al-Ḥajarī have also been used. The biography of al-Ḥajarī is followed by a description of the Egyptian manuscript and a comparison of it with the previously edited copy of the Tunisian manuscript.

1. Introduction The abbreviated version of Riḥlat al-shihāb li-liqāʾ al-aḥbāb (The voyage of the shooting star to meet the beloveds), entitled Nāṣir al-dīn ʿalā qawm al-kāfirīn (The triumph of faith over the nation of unbelievers) is the most important historical source written by a Morisco on the expulsion of the Moriscos from Spain between the years 1609 and 1614 ce. Written by the Morisco Aḥmad ibn Qāsim al-Ḥajarī al-Andalusī, this work presents us with a narrative of the expulsion from the viewpoint of the Morisco émigré community. The longer work on which Nāṣir al-dīn is based, Riḥlat al-shihāb, has remained lost to the present day. However, the edition and analysis of the Tunisian copy of the manuscript of Nāṣir al-dīn – an autograph by al-Ḥajarī copied in Tunis in the year 1641 – has already been undertaken. Today, we present the reader with the Egyptian copy of the of the manuscript of Nāṣir al-dīn, which was written in Cairo in the year 1637 and has remained largely forgotten for more than three centuries. Biography of Aḥmad ibn Qāsim al-Ḥajarī Aḥmad ibn Qāsim ibn al-Faqīh Qāsim ibn al-Shaykh al-Ḥajarī al-Andalusī, whose patronymic (kunya) was Abū ʿAbbās and whose nickname (laqab) was Shihāb al-Dīn Afūqāwī2 Bejarano.3 The Christian name that he carried before the expulsion was Diego Bejarano.4

1 The translation of this article from Arabic into English was done by Nur Sobers-Khan. Thanks. 2 It seems that he was nicknamed ‘Afūqāwī’ in Morisco milieus, which is a corruption of the word ‘abogado’, which means ‘lawyer’ in Spanish; this nickname refers to his legal defence and representation of the Moriscos who were robbed by French ship captains. 3 Clelia Sarnelli: L’écrivain hispano-marocain al-Hagari et son ‘Kitâb Nâsir al-Din’. In: Míkel de Epalza and Ramón Petit (eds): Recueil d’études sur les Moriscos Andalous en Tunisie. Madrid: Dirección general de relaciones culturales 1973, pp. 248–57; here: p. 250. 4 Mercedes García-Arenal/Fernando Rodríguez Mediano: Un Oriente español. Los moriscos y el Sacromonte en tiempos de Contrarreforma. Madrid: Marcial Pons Historia 2010, p. 151.

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The sources differ on the year of his birth, and while Harvey and Luis Bernabé Pons, following in his footsteps, both claim that he was born in the year 1569, Ismail El-Outmani claims that he was born in 1571.5 However, through the information that has emerged from Nāṣir al-dīn, we can establish the approximate year of al-Ḥajarī’s birth with a great deal of accuracy. He states that when he was writing the work studied here, he had reached the age of sixty-four lunar years6, and if it is known that he finished composing this work on the twentieth of Rajab in the year ah 10517, it implies that he was born in the year ah 977, which corresponds to the second half of the year 1569 ce. However, the location of al-Ḥajarī’s birthplace remains open to discussion, as he claims that he originated in the area of al-Ḥajar al-Aḥmar8, a village that historians cannot precisely identify. While some historians claim that he originated in the village of Láchar9, which is located near Granada, others, such as Mercedes Garcia-Arenal and Fernando Rodríguez Mediano10 consider him to have originated in the village of Hornachos. While this final opinion seems to be the most plausible, the possibility cannot be excluded that the village of which al-Ḥajarī speaks is the Tierra de Barros, as Ismail El-Outmani also claims, located in the region of Extremadura, which is not far from Hornachos.11 The precise circumstances in which al-Ḥajarī acquired his knowledge of the Arabic language were unknown until recently, as the paragraph in which this issue is discussed is missing from the manuscript used for the edition of Nāṣir al-dīn.12 However, it is present in the manuscript held in al-Azhar Mosque13, wherein it is mentioned that he ‘sat for years learning a foreign tongue [al-ʿajamiyya]’. When he reached the age of ten, he went to the 5 Luis F. Bernabé Pons: Una nota sobre Ahmad ibn Qâsim al-Hayrî Bejarano. In: Sharq Al-Andalus 13 (1996), pp. 123–28. Ismail El-Outmani: Tierra de Barros, tierra de Al-Haŷari Bejarano. In: Los Moriscos De Túnez, http://moriscostunez.blogspot.com/2010/01/tierra-de-barros-tierra-de-al-hayari. html (September 6, 2012). 6 Al-Ḥajarī: Riḥlat Afūqāwī al-Andalusī. Mukhtaṣar Riḥlat al-shihāb li-liqāʾ al-aḥbāb 1611–1613. Edited by Muḥammad Razzūq. Beirut: Dār al-Suwīdī and al-Dār al-ʿArabiyya li-l-Dirāsa wa-l-Nashr 2004, p. 107. 7 Al-Ḥajarī, Riḥlat Afūqāwī (footnote 6), p. 164. 8 Al-Ḥajarī, Riḥlat Afūqāwī (footnote 6), p. 30. 9 Sarnelli, L’écrivain hispano-marocain al-Hagari (footnote 3), p. 25. 10 García-Arenal/Rodríguez Mediano, Un Oriente español (footnote 4), p. 151. 11 Ismail El-Outmani claims that al-Ḥajar al-Aḥmar is the translation of Tierra de Barros, a village that was known for its red clay, which the inhabitants used in the manufacture of ceramics. El-Outmani, Tierra de Barros (footnote 5). 12 Al-Ḥajarī: Nāṣir al-dīn ʿalā qawm al-kāfirīn. Edited and translated by P. Sj. van Koningsveld/Qāsim Sāmarrāʾī/Gerard Albert Wiegers. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas 1997, p. 173. Al-Ḥajarī: Nāṣir al-dīn ʿalā qawm al-kāfirīn. Edited by Aḥmad Basaj. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya 1999. Al-Ḥajarī, Riḥlat Afūqāwī (footnote 6), pp. 133–34. 13 Al-Ḥajarī: Nāṣir al-dīn ʿalā qawm al-kāfirīn. Edited by Houssem Eddine Chachia. Beirut: Dār Al-Suwīdī and al-Dār al-ʿArabiyya li-l-Dirāsa wa-l-Nashr 2015, pp. 136–38; al-Ḥajarī, Nāṣir al-dīn edited by van Koningsveld et al. (footnote 12), pp. 255–57.

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house of his father’s cousin, from whom he learned the Arabic language, without notifying his father, as they were both frightened of the ‘harsh punishment that was meted out by the Christians to whoever busied himself with the books of the Muslims.’ In addition to his mastery of Spanish, Portuguese, and Arabic, he also understood French and Italian, although he could not speak them.14 After spending his childhood in the village of al-Ḥajar al-Aḥmar, he headed to Granada around the year 1588, when he would have reached the age of nineteen, where he studied with the shaykh and jurist al-Ukayhil al-Andalusī15, ‘the shaykh from whom he received his certificate in translation’, and he became a translator ‘for the high priest’16, who gave him three hundred riyals and permission to translate from Arabic to ʿajamiyya and from ʿajamiyya into Arabic. In addition to his translation work in Granada, it seems that al-Ḥajarī would apply medical treatments using spells and charms without telling his patients that he was using the Qurʾan in his remedies.17 Despite all of the advantages that al-Ḥajarī enjoyed in Granada, he chose to flee to the Maghreb around the year 1598, undertaking a complex and dangerous journey under the shadow of the Spanish laws that forbade the Moriscos from travelling. Al-Ḥajarī was twenty-nine years old when he journeyed to Marrakech, where he entered the service of Mawlāy Zīdān (1603–1628) as a translator18, and married the daughter of al-Barṭāl19,

14 Al-Ḥajarī: Nāṣir al-dīn edited by Chachia (footnote 13), p. 121. 15 For information on al-Ukayhil al-Andalusī, see García-Arenal/Rodríguez Mediano, Un Oriente español (footnote 4), p. 110. 16 For information on the high priest Pedro de Castro, see Manuel Barrios Aguilera: Pedro de Castro y los plomos del Sacromonte. Invención y paradoja. Una aproximación crítica. In: Mercedes García-Arenal/ Manuel Barrios Aguilera (eds): Los plomos del Sacromonte. Invención y Tesoro. Valencia: Universidad de Valencia 2011, pp. 17–50. 17 Al-Ḥajarī, Riḥlat Afūqāwī (footnote 6), p. 135. 18 Ibrāhim ibn Aḥmad Ghānim al-Rayyāsh: al-ʿIzz wa-l-manāfiʿ li-l-mujāhidīn fī sabīl Allāh bi-l-mudāfiʿ. Translated by Aḥmad ibn Qāsim al-Ḥajarī al-Andalusī. Algeria: National Library of Algeria, MS 1511, states: ‘After we arrived in the city of Tunis – may God protect her – my brother and companion in God, the writer asked me to translate his book from al-ʿajamiyya into Arabic, because he knew that in Marrakech, I was the translator for Sultan Mawlāy Zīdān and Sultan Aḥmad.’ See also Leonard Patrick Harvey: The Morisco who was Muley Zaidan’s Spanish interpreter. In: Miscelánea de Estudios Árabes y Hebraicos 8 (1959), pp. 67–97. 19 Al-Barṭāl is considered one of the most famous leaders of the revolt of al-Basharāt. He was called ‘Mármol’ because he was imprisoned by the Inquisition court before the revolt, and he was sentenced with the prohibition from leaving the limits of the city of Granada. However, he requested permission to travel to the mountain of al- Alpujarras (al-Basharāt) to sell some of his possessions and then travel to Barbary, but he instead joined the revolt. Upon the failure of the revolt, he fled with his family to Morocco. Mármol Carvajal: Historia del rebelión y castigo de los Reyno de Granada. Madrid: Imprenta de Sancha 1797, p. 234.

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the head of the Andalusīs in Marrakech, and she bore him two boys and two girls.20 It is possible to examine in greater depth one of his sons, who undertook the copying of the manuscript preserved in the library of Algeria of the work al-ʿIzz wa-l-manāfiʿ li-lmujāhidīn fī sabīl Allāh bi-l-mudāfiʿ, and was called Muḥammad Khūja ibn Aḥmad ibn Qāsim al-Ḥajarī al-Andalusī.21 After this period as a translator, al-Ḥajarī was given the responsibility of advocating for the Moriscos who were robbed by the captains of French ships during their exodus from Spain.22 During this mission, he visited a number of French cities, such as Paris, Bordeaux, and Lyon, as well as Dutch cities such as Amsterdam, Leiden, and The Hague. In this mission he made the acquaintance of Dutch Orientalists such as Thomas Erpenius23 and Jacobus Golius24. His return to Morocco took place around the year 1613. Al-Ḥajarī’s sojourn in Morocco, and specifically in Marrakech, after his return from Europe lasted roughly until the year 1635. This is a period about which we know little, except that 20 Jaime Oliver Asín: Carta de Bejarano a los moriscos de Constantinopla. In: Dolores Oliver (ed.): Conferencias y apuntes inéditos. Madrid: Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional 1996, pp. 145–50; here: p. 146. See also the English translation of this letter: Gerard Wiegers: A Learned Muslim Acquaintance of Erpenius and Golius. Aḥmad b. Kasim al Andalusî and Arabic Studies in The Netherlands. Leiden: Documentatiebureau Islam-Christendom, Faculteit der Godgeleerdheid, Rijksuniversiteit 1988, pp. 33–44. See the Arabic translation of this letter: Houssem Eddine Chachia: The Sephardim and the Moriscos. The Journey of Expulsion and Installation in the Maghreb (1492–1756). Stories and Itineraries [in Arabic]. Beirut: Dār al-Suwīdī and al-Dār al-ʿArabiyya li-Dirāsāt wa-l-Nashr 2015, vol. ii, pp. 71–81. 21 Al-Rayyāsh, al-ʿIzz wa-l-manāfiʿ (footnote 18). Likewise, in the historical documents pertaining to religious trusts (awqāf), we find the name Muḥammad Khwāja al-Andalusī registered as one of the landowners in the area of Zaghwān at the end of the seventeenth century. Aḥmad al-Saʿdāwī: Tūnis fī qarn al-sābiʿ ʿashr. Wathāʾiq al-awqāf fī ʿahd al-dāyāt wa-l-bāyāt al-murādiyyīn. Manouba: University of Manouba 2011, p. 382. 22 Al-Ḥajarī, Nāṣir al-dīn edited by Chachia (footnote 13), p. 78. 23 Thomas Erpenius, the famous Dutch Orientalist, is considered the founder of Oriental studies in Holland. Born in 1584, he studied Oriental languages at the University of Leiden, travelled to many European countries, and learned Arabic in France from an Egyptian. In 1613, he was appointed professor at Leiden University, as he was the official state translator for the Dutch envoys to the Islamic world. He wrote a number of works, such as his Grammar of the Arabic Language, and founded an Arabic printing press in his house. He died in November 1624. See Arnoud Vrolijk/Richard van Leeuwen/Alastair Hamilton: Arabic Studies in the Netherlands. A Short History in Portraits, 1580–1950. Leiden: Brill 2014, pp. 31–40. 24 Jacobus Golius, born in 1596, studied mathematics, Arabic, and Oriental languages at the University of Leiden. In the year 1622, he accompanied the Dutch diplomatic mission to Morocco. Upon his return, he was appointed professor at the University of Leiden, succeeding his teacher, Thomas Erpenius. He then travelled to Syria and Lebanon, after which he returned to Holland in 1629. Among his most important works is the Arabic-Latin Dictionary. He passed away in the year 1667. See Vrolijk/ van Leeuwen/Hamilton, Arabic Studies in the Netherlands (footnote 23), pp. 41–48. See also Aḥmad Yūsuf Ḥasan/Maqbul Ahmed/Albert Zaki Iskandar: Science and Technology in Islam. Technology and Applied Sciences. Paris: UNESCO Publications 2001, p. 50.

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al-Ḥajarī was in the service of the sultans of Marrakech, Mawlāy Zīdān and his two sons Abū Marwān ʿAbd al-Mālik (1628–1631) and Mūlāy al-Walīd (1631–1636). After that he settled for a brief period in the fortress of Salé25, at which point he states that he undertook a journey by sea with the intention of making the pilgrimage to Mecca.26 Although al-Ḥajarī suggests that his departure from Morocco took place with the intention of making the pilgrimage, certain indications lead us to conclude that this explanation may be revised, as al-Ḥajarī’s departure occurs at the same time as the deterioration of the Moriscos’ situation in certain regions of Morocco. There also occurred at this time a crisis in the Moriscos’ relations with other groups, as was the case with the Moriscos of the small town of Salé and Muḥammad al-ʿAyyāshī (1563–1641)27 and his community, who accused the Moriscos of treachery and of forming an alliance with the Christians. This same accusation is confirmed by al-Ifrānī through his presentation of al-ʿAyyāshī’s request for a fatwā on the Moriscos from the important ʿulamāʾ of the period, such as Sīdī al-ʿArabī al-Fāsī and Sīdī ʿAbd al-Waḥīd ibn ʿAshr, upon which he issued an initial fatwā that directly […] permitted the killing of [the Moriscos] because they are the enemies of God and his Prophet, and they are the friends of the infidels and are loyal to them, and because they spend the money of the Muslims and prevent them from receiving their due, and they obstruct the people from buying and selling and they encourage their community to undertake these activities and are the true friends of the Christians, and they help them by providing them with food and weapons.28

Whereas when the second jurist relocated to Salé, he […] saw with his own eyes…the Andalusīs transporting food to the infidels and deceiving the Muslims, whereupon he issued a fatwā permitting their slaughter, and ruled their beheading by sword for as many days as it would take to extinguish their heresy and return them to the faith.29

Al-Ifrānī verifies this information in another passage, presenting new details, particularly in regard to the fate of the Moriscos, some of whom, he claims, headed toward Marrakech, while another group journeyed to Algeria, and ‘a group fled to the Christians, and a small

25 On the Moriscos in Salé, see Mercedes García-Arenal: The Moriscos in Moroco. From Granadan Emigration to the Hornacheros of Salé. In: Mercedes Garcia-Arenal/Gerard Albert Wiegers (eds): The Expulsion of the Moriscos from Spain. A Mediterranean Diaspora. Leiden: Brill 2014, pp. 286–328. 26 Al-Rayyāsh, al-ʿIzz wa-l-manāfiʿ (footnote 18), 117v. 27 Muḥammad al-ʿAyyāshī or Sidi al-Ayachi, was a Moroccan marabout and jihadist. For more details, see ʿAbd al-Laṭīf Shādilī: al-Ḥaraka al-ʿAyyāshiyya. Ḥalqa min tārīkh al-Maghrib fī al-qarn 17. Rabat: Kulliyyat al-Ādāb wa-l-ʿUlūm al-Insāniyya 1982, pp. 91–140. 28 Al-Ifrānī: Nuzhat al-hādī bi-akhbār mulūk al-qarn al-ḥādī. Edited by Octave Victor Houdas. Paris: Ernest Leroux 1888, p. 267. 29 Al-Ifrānī, Nuzhat al-hādī (footnote 28), p. 267.

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group were hanged’, of those who tried to mediate for the Moriscos with Muḥammad al-ʿAyyāshī, ‘the opinion [against] mediation is irrevocable’.30 In addition to this information, our investigation of the text demonstrates that al-Ḥajarī settled in the city of Tunis31 for a period of time after his departure from Salé, where he left his family.32 This information confirms to some degree that al-Ḥajarī’s reason for his departure from Morocco in the year 1635 was not purely for the purpose of making the pilgrimage, but rather resulted from all of the factors that we mentioned previously. From another point of view, al-Ḥajarī’s sojourn in Tunis did not occur prior to his return from the pilgrimage; rather, it constituted a new migration to a new country, about which he states, ‘At all times and in any situation, even today, Tunisia is the best place for the Moriscos to settle’.33 As regards to the voyage on the Ḥajj, al-Ḥajarī headed first toward Makka (Mecca), and from there, on his return, his route passed through Egypt34, where it seems that he settled for a short time, working as the keeper of the shop of Muḥammad ibn Abī al-ʿĀṣī al-Andalusī35, after that moving to Tunisia around the end of the year 163736, where he died after the year 1641. In addition to the book Nāṣir al-dīn ʿalā qawm al-kāfirīn and the book al-ʿIzz wa-lmanāfiʿ li-l-mujāhidīn fī sabīl Allāh bi-l-mudāfiʿ37, al-Ḥajarī indicates38 that he translated (with the collaboration of a captive priest) a geographical work concerning cosmography and the stars from Latin into Arabic for Mawlāy Zīdān, just as he translated a book of religious polemic against Judaism from Arabic to ‘al-ʿajamiyya’ for an Andalusī jurist in

30 Al-Ifrānī, Nuzhat al-hādī (footnote 28), pp. 270–71. Likewise, note this piece of information from al-Nāṣirī, copied from al-Ifrānī, affirming the previous narrative and adding some detail on the relationship between the Moriscos and the Christians: ‘[…] The tie between the people of al-Andalus and the Christians inherited from those who were in their land […].’ From Jaʿfar al-Nāṣirī/Muḥammad al-Nāṣirī (eds): al-Istiqṣā li-akhbār duwal al-maghrib al-aqṣā. Casablanca: Dār al-Kitāb 1995, vol. vi, p. 76. 31 Al-Ḥajarī, Nāṣir al-dīn edited by Chachia (footnote 13), p. 63. 32 Al-Ḥajarī, Riḥlat Afūqāwī (footnote 6), p. 139. We at least know that one of his children – quite probably Muḥammad al-Andalusī – and his wife were living in Testour, the most important of the Morisco cities in Tunisia, around the year 1640. 33 Oliver Asín, Carta de Bejarano (footnote 20), p. 146. 34 We know that he was present in Egypt from the year 1636. 35 Al-Ḥajarī, Riḥlat Afūqāwī (footnote 6), p. 139. 36 We arrived at this conclusion on the basis that his stay in Egypt – as has been verified – took place only with the intention of completing the abbreviated copy of his travelogue, and if the completion of the abbreviated version occurred on September 10, 1637, this means that he left immediately after this date. 37 There exist at least five known copies of this work, all preserved in Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco: MS 1511, National Library of Algeria; MS 18488, MS 03433, and MS 18120, National Library of Tunisia; and MS 1342D, National Library of the Kingdom of Morocco. 38 Al-Ḥajarī, Riḥlat Afūqāwī (footnote 6), p. 138.

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Figure 3. An approximate map of the voyages of Aḥmad ibn Qāsim al-Ḥajarī al-Andalusī (© 2015 by H. E. Chachia).

Salé.39 As such, it appears that al-Ḥajarī, as has been affirmed previously, translated several books from Arabic to Spanish before his flight from Granada on the order of the religious authorities.40 Al-Ḥajarī also undertook, as is apparent from the letters that he sent to his Dutch friend Jacobus Golius, the translation of a book on medicine called al-Kitāb al-Mustaʿīnī and this is the book that has remained in the library of the University of Leiden to this day, with annotations and corrections and replacements in the hand of al-Ḥajarī.41 39 ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq al-Islāmī/Sulaymān ibn Ismāʿīl/ʿAbd al-Majīd Khayalī (eds): Risālatān fī al-radd ʿalā al-Yahūd. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya 2001. 40 There exists a copy of one of the books of Torre de Turpiana, signed by al-Ḥajarī and translated by him before his flight to Morocco, in the archive of Granada. For further details, see: Isabel Boyano Guerra: Al-Haŷarī y su traducción del pergamino de la Torre Turpiana. In: Mercedes García-Arenal/ Manuel Barrios Aguilera (eds): La historia inventada? Los libros plúmbeos y el legado sacromontano. Granada: Universidad de Granada 2008, pp. 137–57. 41 For further details on this manuscript in the University of Leiden, and al-Ḥajarī’s work on it, see Jan Just Witkam: The Leiden manuscript of Kitāb al-Mustaʿīnī. In: Charles Burnett (ed.): Ibn Baklarish’s Book of Simples. Medical Remedies between Three Faiths in Twelfth-Century Spain. London: The Arcadian Library 2008, pp. 75–94.

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In the National Library of France, there also exists a manuscript in Arabic copied by al-Ḥajarī for Étienne Houbert42, and there is a note about the Arabic language spoken in the time of Jesus. This manuscript also includes a qaṣīda penned by al-Ḥajarī in Spanish, and which expresses his longing for his loved ones, and especially for his wife, whom he described as ‘a white dove’, a description that calls to the reader’s mind the city of Seville and, in particular, the image of the Virgin Mary.43

2. Description of the Egyptian Manuscript of Nāṣir al-dīn ʿalā qawm al-kāfirīn The Egyptian manuscript of Nāṣir al-dīn ʿalā qawm al-kāfirīn, preserved in the fonds of the library of al-Azhar Mosque, number 307014, is a majmūʿa (collected work), which occupies folios 247r–284r. The manuscript was available on the website of the Al-Azhar Online Project.44 Regarding the codicological details of the manuscript, the folio number is 38 and the dimensions are 12 x 16 cm. The page contains twenty-one lines. The script is naskhī, clear and easy to read in most cases. The manuscript has a good state of conservation. This copy of the manuscript was deposited by al-Ḥajj Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad as a trust (waqf ) in the library of al-Azhar Mosque in the quarters of the North African students (riwāq al-Maghāriba). In many pages of this manuscript we find comments written by the Shaykh of al-Azhar, Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad al-ʿAṭṭār, as the following inscription is found on the first folio: ‘Written by the poor Ḥasan al-ʿAṭṭār, may God have mercy on him with His benevolence and generosity.’ Similarly, we occasionally find commentaries on the margin that suggest that Ḥasan al-ʿAṭṭār added them, such as the following: ‘Nuzhat al-mushtāq fī ikhtirāq al-āfāq, written by al-Sharīf al-Idrīsī on the request of Rajāz al-Naṣrānī, the king of Sicily. I read and examined it in its entirety, and I know its chapters well. Written by Ḥasan al-ʿAṭṭār.’ When the Shaykh of al-Azhar, Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad al-ʿAṭṭār, is interested of Nāṣir al-dīn ʿalā qawm al-kāfirīn, this, in my opinion, is very significant. In order to understand the significance of this, we have to present the biography of Shaykh al-ʿAṭṭār: it reveals that he was born in Cairo in the year ah 1181/1768 ce, that he was born from a father with Moroccan origins, and that he studied jurisprudence (fiqh) with the teachers of alAzhar. While he undertook religious studies, we find that al-ʿAṭṭār was also enamoured 42 For more about Étienne Houbert, see Henry Castries: Agents et voyageurs français au Maroc, 1530–1660. Paris: E. Leroux 1911, pp. 22–28. 43 García-Arenal/Rodríguez Mediano, Un Oriente español (footnote 4), p. 155. 44 The digital copy of the manuscript was part of the H. H. Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Project to Preserve Al Azhar Scripts and Publish Them Online (the ‘Al-Azhar Online Project’). Unfortunately, the website of the project (www.alazharonline.org) is no longer available.

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of engineering, mathematics, and astronomy, and that he was interested in examining works on geography and science translated into Arabic; this interest was also manifested in his involvement in the creation of a sundial and his mastery of the use of the astrolabe. Ḥasan al-ʿAṭṭār lived through the events of the campaign of Napoleon Bonaparte in Egypt in 1798, when he fled at first from Cairo to Asyūṭ, after which he returned to Cairo and was in contact with the scientists and scholars associated with Napoleon’s campaign. He excelled in the French language, as well as in Turkish and Arabic. As such, he had the opportunity to undertake a number of important journeys, during the course of which he visited Jerusalem, and then Constantinople. He also resided for a period of time in Syria and lived in Albania in a town called Uskhudar (Shkoder). After his many travels, he returned to Egypt, where he took up a teaching position in al-Azhar, and where he was among those who supported the development of a new teaching curriculum and the insertion of modern sciences and forms of knowledge, such as the study of foreign languages, medicine, and engineering, in addition to the traditional subjects. He also encouraged the sending of Egyptian students abroad, and among the most famous of his students was Rifāʿa Rāfiʿ al-Ṭahṭāwī (1801–1873), who was advised by Shaykh al-ʿAṭṭār to record his impressions of France and his observations of French culture. The result of this advice was the book Takhlīṣ al-ibrīz bi-talkhīṣ Bārīz.45 In addition to his teaching position, he was appointed by Muḥammad ʿAlī Pāshā in 1828 to found the first Egyptian newspaper in Arabic, al-Waqāʾiʿ al-Miṣriyya, a sort of a chronicle of official events. Within two years he became the Shaykh of al-Azhar in 1830, and he passed away in 1835 at the age of sixty-five.46 Based on what has been presented, we can say that perhaps al-ʿAṭṭār’s reading of al-Ḥajarī was the factor that caused him to encourage his pupil al-Ṭahṭāwī to compose an account of his journey to France and observations of French culture, just like al-Ḥajarī had done.

3. Comparison between the Egyptian and Tunisian Copies of the Manuscript Before the Tunisian and Egyptian copies of the manuscript can be subjected to a comparison, we must first make an excursus on the writing of Nāṣir al-dīn ʿalā qawm al-kāfirīn. Al-Ḥajarī mentions in a number of places that when he returned to Marrakech from his journey to France and Holland (or the ‘Land of the Franks’ and the ‘Land of the Flemish’, as he calls them) that ‘he spoke to a number of companions’ about the events that befell

45 Al-Ṭahṭāwī: Takhlīṣ al-ibrīz bi-talkhīṣ Bārīz aw al-Dīwān al-nafīs bi-īwān Bārīs. Edited by ʿAlī Aḥmad Kanʿān. Beirut: al-Muʾassasa al-ʿArabiyya li-l-Dirāsāt wa-l-Nashr 2002. 46 For further details on the life of Shaykh Ḥasan al-ʿAṭṭār, see Ashraf Fawzī Ṣāliḥ: Shuyūkh al-Azhar. Cairo: al-Sharika al-ʻArabiyya li-l-Nashr wa-l-Tawzīʿ 1997, vol. ii, pp. 35–40.

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him during his travels, and that they encouraged him to write about his experiences.47 However, this undertaking became necessary after nearly twenty-four years following his return, when the Skaykh al-Ajhūrī al-Mālikī requested it of him48, during his return from his pilgrimage via Egypt. In response to this request, al-Ḥajarī authored Riḥlat al-shihāb li-liqāʾ al-aḥbāb; however, he claims that his time in Egypt was too limited to copy the entire book for al-Ajhūrī, who ordered him to shorten it in order to concentrate in particular on what befell him during his interactions with the Christians.49 Al-Ḥajarī therefore penned the abbreviated version, called Nāṣir al-dīn ʿalā qawm al-kāfirīn, in response to this request. He completed it in Egypt in 163750, then copied and revised it in 164151 in the city of Tunis. Logically, the chronology should dictate that the Egyptian text was first because it was written before the Tunisian text was copied; however, we choose to present this last copy of the manuscript because it is the version that has been widely disseminated and is generally well known. The editors of the text published in 1997, and Muḥammad Razzūq in his 2004 edition52, employed a copy of the manuscript held in the National Library of Egypt (Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣriyya) in Cairo, written in the hand of the author and preserved under the shelf mark 1634B53 in creating their critical editions. The Tunisian manuscript consists of an introduction and thirteen chapters that differ in terms of length and subject matter, in addition to an appendix entitled by the author, ‘On the aptitude for pious deeds’. Al-Ḥajarī organized the chapters in chronological order, beginning with his flight from Granada to Marrakech and his journey to France and Holland, then his return to Marrakech and his departure to Salé, his sea voyage ‘for the pilgrimage’, and his return via Egypt, closing with his settling in Tunis. As regards the language in which this work was written, it is generally distinguished by the absence of the digressions and rhetorical exaggerations that characterize the writings of this period. An explanation for this absence of embellishments is the nature of the book itself, as it is

47 Al-Ḥajarī, Nāṣir al-dīn edited by Chachia (footnote 13), p. 47. 48 Al-Ḥajarī, Nāṣir al-dīn edited by Chachia (footnote 13), p. 47, n. 1. 49 Al-Ḥajarī, Nāṣir al-dīn edited by Chachia (footnote 13), p. 49. 50 The exact date of the Egyptian copy of the manuscript is Rabīʿ al-Thānī 21, 1047/September 10, 1637. See al-Ḥajarī, Nāṣir al-dīn edited by Chachia (footnote 13), p. 146. 51 The exact date of the Tunisian copy of the manuscript is Rajab 20, 1050/October 25, 1641. Al-Ḥajarī, Riḥlat Afūqāwī (footnote 6), p. 164. 52 Al-Ḥajarī, Riḥlat Afūqāwī (footnote 6). It is worth noting the presence of a further publication in 1999 of the Tunisian copy of Nāṣir al-dīn by Aḥmad Basaj, who reprinted the version of the work edited in 1997, with the addition of some of the marginalia and commentary; see al-Ḥajarī, Nāṣir al-dīn edited by Basaj (footnote 12). 53 Muḥammad Razzūq likewise indicates his reliance in the editing process on another incomplete fragment of the Nāṣir al-dīn, present in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris under the shelf mark 7024 Arabe; al-Ḥajarī, Riḥlat Afūqāwī (footnote 6), pp. 12–13.

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an abbreviation, tending toward conciseness rather than the use of rhetorical digressions; other literary devices perhaps influenced the form taken by the work. When discussing the differences between the Egyptian and Tunisian copies, it is worth noting the general outlines of these two copies, with the exception of the appendix that al-Ḥajarī himself added in Tunis. The Egyptian copy consists of an introduction and thirteen chapters, and the final paragraph is missing from the sixth chapter, as well as the entirety of chapters seven, eight, and nine, and pages from chapter ten. In this respect, it is possible to see the Egyptian copy as a defective copy – as three entire chapters have been omitted – although this does not diminish the value of the manuscript. It nevertheless allows us to compare it with the Tunisian copy of the manuscript and to discuss the new information brought to light by the juxtaposition of the two texts. For the purpose of comparing the two texts, an investigation of the corrections written in the margin confirms that almost all of these corrections and additions are found in the Tunisian copy. These corrections are primarily related to the naming of the book, or to the addition of a story about two Turkish women whom al-Ḥajarī met while in Paris.54 About thirty-seven additions can be found in the Tunisian copy, which differ in terms of their length and importance; for instance, an episode related to the exodus of the Moriscos to Tunisia, which is not found in the al-Azhar manuscript. It seems that al-Ḥajarī added this episode after relocating to Tunisia and meeting the elites of the community. They may have provided for the arrival of the migrants to Tunisia55, where he perhaps read local and Morisco writings that provided the context for the inclusion of this information: Of those who arrived from the frontier, there was an Andalusī man named Qalash, who mentioned to me: the scribes of the Sultan’s dīwān (the king’s chancery) in Madrid said, ‘In the end, the Andalusīs’ numbers reached eight hundred thousand people, including their children56, and most of them departed for Tunisia. ʿUthmān Dāy [1593–1610] was the ruler there, and he appointed the inhabitants of the city and others in the villages in charge of the affairs of the Moriscos, and he was very kind and generous to them – may God be generous with him – and he died – may God have mercy on him – in the year 1019 [ah] and similarly the famous governor, Sīdī Abū Ghayth al-Qashshāsh57, and he 54 Al-Ḥajarī, Riḥlat Afūqāwī (footnote 6), pp. 22 and 115, respectively. 55 On the Moriscos in Tunisia, see: Luis Bernabé Pons: La nación en lugar seguro. Los moriscos hacia Túnez. In: Raja Yassine Bahri (ed.): Actas del coloquio. Los moriscos y Túnez. Tunis: Embajada de España en Túnez 2009, pp. 307–32; Houssem Eddine Chachia: La instalación de los moriscos en el Magreb. Entre el relato oficial y el relato morisco. In: Enrique Pérez Cañamares (ed.): Actas del II congreso internacional de descendientes de andalusíes moriscos. Ojos-Murcia: Ayuntamiento de Ojós 2015, pp. 125–42; Oltaz Villanueva Zubizarreta: The Moriscos in Tunisia. In: Mercedes Garcia-Arenal/Gerard Albert Wiegers (eds): The Expulsion of the Moriscos from Spain. A Mediterranean Diaspora. Leiden: Brill 2014, pp. 357–88. 56 Al-Ḥajarī, Nāṣir al-dīn edited by Chachia (footnote 13), p. 91. 57 Míkel de Epalza: Sidi Bulgayz, protector de los moriscos exiliados en Túnez (s. XVII). Nuevos documentos traducidos y estudiados. In: Sharq Al-Andalus 16–17 (1999–2002), pp. 145–78.

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used to give them every day approximately one thousand and five hundred loaves of bread out of charity, may God reward both of them greatly.58 Among the thirty-seven approximate additions, al-Ḥajarī only highlights nine that are located at the end of the Tunisian manuscript59, pointing out at times their sources and subjects, which are the following: Chapter one: The belief of Taṣfīyūn ibn al-ʿAṭṭār in the oneness of God. Source: the book of Shaykh al-Akayḥal al-Andalusī. (pp. 37–38). Chapter one: ‘Some anecdotes’ on the lead tablets. (p. 35) Chapter ten: The story of ‘Bakht Naṣr’. Source: the book of Bālrā al-Ishbīlī.60 (pp. 92–103). Chapter ten: The commentary of the Prophet Daniel – upon him be peace – and other works. Source: The book of Bālrā al-Ishbīlī. (p. 96) Chapter ten: A further note on conception. Source: The book of Bālrā al-Ishbīlī. (p. 103). Chapter eleven: The translation into Arabic of the decree of expulsion of the Moriscos. (pp. 117–19). Chapter twelve: The testimonial of the monk and al-Ḥajarī’s response. (pp. 120–24). Chapter thirteen: The story of the golden parasol that al-Ḥajarī found in his house in the city of Tunis. (p. 139). Chapter thirteen: The discussion of the chapter of al-Sūdānī on the pronouncing of ‘God is Great’ at the completion of the book. (pp. 144–45).61 In terms of the new information presented by the Egyptian copy, the text sheds light on a number of words, and even paragraphs, that appeared in previous editions in the margins as corrections to the draft; these additions have been indicated throughout our edition.62 Among the most important details revealed in the Egyptian manuscript, also discussed above in al-Ḥajarī’s biography, is the information concerning the author’s sojourn in Tunisia after his departure from Salé in Morocco when he was on his way to Mecca to undertake the Ḥajj. This detail is significant bcause it implies that al-Ḥajarī’s arrival in Tunis for the first time did not occur after his return from the Ḥajj, approximately at the end of 1637, but rather at the end of the year 1635 or at the beginning of 1636. This new information explains al-Ḥajarī’s statement in the first chapter, when he wrote that he met the jurist 58 Al-Ḥajarī, Riḥlat Afūqāwī (footnote 6), p. 58. 59 Al-Ḥajarī, Riḥlat Afūqāwī (footnote 6), pp. 147–48. 60 Muḥammad Razzūq indicates that the source intended by the name ‘Bālrā al-Ishbīlī’ is Cipriano de Valera (1532–1600), and his book goes by the title of Los dos tratados del Papa y de la misa. Cipriano De Valera: Los dos tratados del Papa, i de la misa. Madrid: Juan Aguirre 1851. 61 The page numbers given in parentheses refer to al-Ḥajarī, Riḥlat Afūqāwī (footnote 6). 62 Al-Ḥajarī, Nāṣir al-dīn edited by Chachia (footnote 13).

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Figure 4. First folio of the Egyptian manuscript of Nāṣir al-dīn ʿalā qawm al-kāfirīn; al-Azhar Mosque Library, MS 307014, 247r.

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Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Rafīʿ in the city of Tunis: ‘He said to me in Tunis – may God protect this city – the jurist and imam Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Rafīʿ al-Andalusī […]’.63 The Egyptian manuscript also presents information of great importance on the value of the goods that al-Ḥajarī managed to obtain in France for the Moriscos who had appointed him as the representative from their village, al-Ḥajar al-Aḥmar. However, after he wrote down this piece of information in the Egyptian copy, he later removed it from subsequent copies, such that an entire page is missing from the Tunisian copy.64 The value of the goods returned (to the Moriscos) was, according to al-Ḥajarī, ‘around 1000 okkas of silver in Morocco reckoning, two-thirds of it was spent on the documents of the lawsuit with the judges and scribes and others’.65 In addition, the Egyptian manuscript from al-Azhar sheds greater light on al-Ḥajarī’s learning of the Arabic language.66 The corresponding paragraph at the beginning of the thirteenth chapter in the Egyptian manuscript has remained blank in the Tunisian manuscript.67

63 Al-Ḥajarī, Nāṣir al-dīn edited by Chachia (footnote 13), p. 63. Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Rafīʿ al-Andalusī was a Morisco born into a family who traced their lineage to the Prophet, but who was educated in Christian schools in Murcia. Between 1604 and 1605, he and his family secretly escaped to France and then settled in Tunisia. He played an important role in the émigré Morisco community in the Maghreb and was their representative in interactions with the Ottoman government. For more details about the biography of Ibn ʿAbd al-Rafīʿ, see Houssem Eddine Chachia (ed.): Entre las orillas de dos mundos. El itinerario del jerife morisco Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Rafīʿ. De Murcia a Túnez [Between the shores of two worlds. The itinerary of a noble Morisco Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Rafīʿ. From Murcia to Tunisia]. Murcia: Universidad de Murcia 2017; Houssem Eddine Chachia: Muḥammad Ibn ʿAbd al-Rafīʿ. In: David Thomas/John Chesworth (eds): Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History 1600–1700. Leiden: Brill 2017, pp. 189–94. 64 Al-Ḥajarī, Riḥlat Afūqāwī (footnote 6), p. 105. 65 Al-Ḥajarī, Nāṣir al-dīn edited by Chachia (footnote 13), p. 114. 66 Al-Ḥajarī, Nāṣir al-dīn edited by Chachia (footnote 13), pp. 136–38. 67 Al-Ḥajarī, Riḥlat Afūqāwī (footnote 6), pp. 133–34.

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Muṣḥaf Printings during the Colonial Period: Gaining Power and Authority over the Muslim World 1∗ 1.

Necmettin Gökkir For this paper, muṣḥaf printings and their relation to international politics have been studied. Using historical materials like archive documents and newspapers shows the role of muṣḥaf printings in the conflict between two world powers: Europe and the Ottoman Empire. This paper thereby focuses on three cases: The first case is the muṣḥaf printing in Russia in 1787 right after the Crimean War. The second case is the muṣḥaf printing in 1798 after the occupation of Egypt, and in the 1830s during the invasions of Africa. Like Russia before it, Europe thereby tried to establish itself as the new patron for the colonized Muslims. Ottomans defended themselves against these colonial activities by establishing print houses and control mechanisms to make clear that they themselves were the real leaders of the Muslims. The most significant case is the third one: the English black propaganda against the Caliphate. As a conclusion, the paper demonstrates how muṣḥaf printings were used to gain power and authority over Muslims during the clash between the Ottoman Empire and European powers.

1. Introduction In the Islamic world, the first muṣḥaf (pl. maṣāḥif ; i.e., the Qurʾan) was printed only in 1803 (three centuries later than in Europe) in the city of Kazan, which lies within the present-day borders of Russia. The first muṣḥaf, indeed, was printed in Europe. The oldest printed muṣḥaf that remains to our day dates back to 1537 and was printed in Italy by the Paganini Printing House. This printing was produced for the Ottoman market. However, there are errors in the placement of the ḥarakāt (the vowel system of the Qurʾan) in almost every word. In the following years, the muṣḥaf was also printed in other European cities. However, Muslim scholars have mostly looked at the issue of muṣḥaf printing from a legal perspective. It is commonly known that the printing of Islamic books in general encountered strong opposition within the Islamic world. The reason given for this resistance against it is mostly related to the religious sensitivity relating to textual corruption of Islamic sources, particularly the muṣḥaf. It is true that before being printed the Qurʾan was transmitted in manuscripts written by calligraphers in a special artistic way that has certain rules aiming to protect the original form of the muṣḥaf, preventing the addition of anything that does not belong to it, and which presents the Qurʾan’s words and letters in a most decorative manner. This reason cannot be ignored; however, there are also other arguments and the case seems to be more complicated. Some suggest that politicians wanted

1∗ This work was supported by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBİTAK) under project number 113K241.

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to protect the calligraphers’ welfare and their economic status.2 This seems to make sense, as, at the time, well-equipped European print houses were publishing Arabic books and selling them to Muslims, and hence Muslim calligraphers were economically affected. Another argument is that the technicality of printing before 1800 was not good enough to preserve all the elements of Arabic writing forms. Whereas the number of printing types used in a Latin book is not more than thirty, more than 450 are needed for printing an Arabic book. Because of this lack of equipment in printing technology for covering all characters, Arabic books were not allowed to be printed before 1800 in the Islamic world. The muṣḥaf was finally printed in the Islamic world in the Volga city of Kazan in 1803. It was reprinted in 1809, 1820, and 1842, and afterwards annually by different print houses. In the following years, the muṣḥaf was printed in specific Islamic centres, such as in India in 1852, 1865, and 1875; Iran in 1829; and in Egypt in 1864. However, the muṣḥaf was not yet printed in the Ottoman Empire. It is known that the Ottoman Empire first allowed the printing of non-religious texts in 1729, and then Islamic religious books in 1803, and finally the Qurʾan in 1874. The question is why Muslims – and particularly the Ottomans – changed their minds and allowed the printing of the muṣḥaf in 1874. While the aforementioned reasons (i.e., the religious, economical, and technical problems) still existed, it seems that they somehow changed their perspective and printed the muṣḥaf. Were there any political reasons behind this shift that we should take into consideration? Drawing on archive documents and newspapers, this paper will give information about the history of the muṣḥaf printing in Europe and connect it to international political relations and the conflict between two world powers, Europe and the Ottoman Empire.

2. First Printings of Maṣāḥif The muṣḥaf was printed in Europe before it was printed in the Muslim world. The first copies were printed in 1537 in Venice during the time of the clash of two civilisations – Islam and the West – caused by the Vienna War I (1529) and the collapsing of Muslim Andalusia in Spain (finalized in 1492). Aleksandro Paganini printed this muṣḥaf probably for the purpose of selling it to Muslim markets in Muslim lands like Sicilia. However, for several reasons, including the lack of Muslim interest caused by lots of errors in practically every word and the phobia of Islam in Europe, it was finally recalled by the Pope for the purpose of burning it. It had been thought that this edition had been totally eradicated until Angela Nuovo discovered a copy in a library in Franciscan Friars.3 This copy, which 2 For further information about this reason, see Hüseyin Gazi Topdemir: İbrahim Müteferrika ve Türk Matbaacılığı. Ankara: Kültür Bakanlığı 2002, pp. 27–38. 3 For further information see: Angela Nouvo: A lost Arabic Koran rediscovered. In: The Library 12.4 (1990), pp. 273–92.

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Figure 5. A page from the muṣḥaf of Aleksandro Paganini (1537).

is now in the Vatican and called Alcoranus Arabice was reprinted by Brill in 2004 as part of the series of Early Printed Korans (see figure 5). After the Venice edition, the muṣḥaf went on to be printed in Germany, Hamburg, in 1694. This muṣḥaf was printed by the pastor Abraham Hinckelmann under the title of Al-Coranus Lex Islamitica Muhammedis, Filii Abdallæ Pſeudoprophatæ, Ad optimorum Codicum Fidem edita (see figure 6). The reason for printing was declared like this: to cope with Islam by knowing it through its book, the Qurʾan. This muṣḥaf was printed (with a Latin introduction) according to the orthography used in the Muslim world, but without fine calligraphy. It has also provided new forms to the muṣḥaf like the numbers of verses, indexes, etc. Adding numbers for every verse was a new arrangement and continued in later printings, like the muṣḥaf of Ludovico Marraci4 and Gustav Flügel5. Scholars have been using this muṣḥaf more then Paganini’s one, which was recalled to be burned. 4 This muṣḥaf is well known as Alcorani Textus Universus, printed in an Arabic edition and in a Latin translation. For further information, see Michael W. Albin: Printing of the Qurʾan. In: J. D. McAuliffe (ed.): Encyclopaedia of the Qur’ān. Leiden: Brill 2004, vol. iv, p. 265. 5 This muṣḥaf is appeared in 1834 and was widely used by western scholars of the time until the Egyptian muṣḥaf, Amīriyya, became available in 1924. For further information, see Albin, Printing of the

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Figure 6. The cover page of the muṣḥaf printed in Hamburg (1694); Württembergische Landesbibliothek, Stuttgart.

The muṣḥaf was printed in various European cities, such as Leipzig in 1768, Dublin in 1785, St. Petersburg in 1787, and, finally, in Paris in 1789. Nevertheless, in the Muslim world the muṣḥaf was not yet printed. The question as to why these printings started in various European countries in the eighteenth and nineteenth century comes to mind. The main motivation behind the printing of maṣāḥif in Europe was certainly the economic relation to the Muslim market. However, the first printings in Europe lacked any aesthetic concerns and hence could not compete in the market with a muṣḥaf that was illustrated with fine calligraphy. For this reason, the motivation behind the persistent printings in Europe is not understandable. There must be other motivations to explain these activities. Is it possible to claim that political motivations and concerns affected the printing in Europe? The answer to this question is affirmative when we consider the time of the printing activities as it was a period of invading and colonizing Muslim lands. This is definitely visible in the process of printing the muṣḥaf in 1787 in Russia right after the Crimean War, during which Russia invaded the lands of the Tatar Muslims (today, forming

Qurʾan (footnote 3), vol. iv, p. 265.

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part of Ukraine, but which had previously been an Ottoman protectorate).6 Catherina II (also known as Catherine the Great) printed the muṣḥaf in St. Petersburg for the first time, writing her name on the muṣḥaf expecting to be accepted as the ‘new patron’ of the Muslims in the region, and also to imply that Russia had taken over responsibility for the religious affairs of Muslims from the Ottoman sultan. By doing so, Russia wanted to show that the Ottoman caliphate had no more power over the Muslims in its territory, both in religious and political affairs.7 The political expectation of disseminating the muṣḥaf to Muslims was not only to connect Muslims to their own country but also to sever the link between Muslim citizens and the caliphate. This was meant to state the authority over Muslims that had been taken over by Russia, which presented itself as the new protector and patron of Muslims. These activities of Catherina II were met with reactions from Christian missionaries. They accused Catherina of strengthening Islam. However, Catherina did not reduce her support of Muslims in response to this accusation, but rather increased it. On December 15, 1800, the restrictions on the printing of Muslim religious books were abolished, and in 1802 the first printing house was established in Kazan. At this same printing press, what became known as the ‘muṣḥaf of Kazan’ was first published by Muslims. This muṣḥaf spread not only within Russia but also to many Islamic countries and elsewhere in Europe. Our research, which has been conducted in Istanbul, Edirne, and Bursa libraries, shows that the most common publication we have come across is this muṣḥaf (see figure 7). This means that the muṣḥaf of Kazan is privileged when it is evaluated in the context of the Ottomans’ prohibition of printing. However, the Russian muṣḥaf policy changed in the following years under the influence of Orthodox Russian missionaries. In 1849, we see that the publication of the muṣḥaf was prohibited. As a result of the publication of the muṣḥaf, Islam spread rapidly in Russia and many people who had initially converted during the Russification and Christianization process now preferred to be Muslim again. From the beginning of the 1900s, Russia seemed to accept the Ottoman authorities as being in charge of giving permission for muṣḥaf printing in Russia. In 1904, for instance, the Russian ambassador informed the Ottoman Ministry of Higher Education that a Russian printing house had asked for permission to print the muṣḥaf. In response to this, the Ministry of Education refused to answer affirmatively, saying that the right of printing and representation of the muṣḥaf was under the control of the Ottoman government, the caliphate of Islam.8

6 Albin, Printing of the Qurʾan (footnote 3), p. 265. 7 E. A. Rezwan: Qurʾan and its world: VIII/2. West-Östlichen Divans (The Qurʾan in Russia). In: Manuscripta Orientala 5.1 (1999), p. 36. 8 For further information, see Necmettin Gökkır: Tanzimattan Günümüze Osmanlıda Din-Devlet İlişkileri ve Siyaset Bağlamında Mushaf Basımı. Istanbul: İFAV 2015, p. 55.

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Figure 7. A page from the muṣḥaf of Kazan; Selimiye Library, Edirne.

France also printed the muṣḥaf in 1798, after the invasion of Egypt, and in the 1830s, while colonizing Africa, and distributed it freely to Muslims out of the same motivation as Russia; namely, to present itself as the new patron for African Muslims.9 The printing of maṣāḥif by non-Muslims and their distribution to Muslims led the Ottomans to develop counter-policies. The first policy taken by the Ottoman Empire was to detain all Islamic books printed in Europe in customs. The Ottoman Empire, at this time, not only banned the printing of the muṣḥaf but also outlawed the distribution of maṣāḥif printed in other lands within its domain. This position extended not only to Europeans but also, even more strictly, to non-Sunni countries, particularly to Iran. The reason is that the Ottoman Empire tried to pose itself as the defender of the Qurʾan and of Islam in contrast to its eastern rival, the Shiʿa, and the western enemy, the European colonial powers. The issue of prohibiting the circulation of the European-printed maṣāḥif 9 For more information about the printing of the muṣḥaf in France and the political motivations behind it, see: Mahmut Gündüz: İlk Kur’an-ı Kerim Basmaları. In: Diyanet İlmi Dergi 7.1 (1974), p. 10.

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should be considered in this context. The Ottoman Empire defended itself against colonial activities by controlling the transportation of maṣāḥif printed in Europe into its territory.10

3. Printing the Muṣḥaf in the Ottoman Empire Whereas the printing of the muṣḥaf started and developed in Europe, the Ottoman Empire did this through private and state printing houses alike. However, the first official houses were established in Istanbul in 1727 by İbrahim Müteferrika and Yirmisekiz Mehmed Çelebi, who was sent to France as an Ottoman ambassador. Müteferrika had prepared a treatise called Wasīlat al-ṭibāʿa, which explains the advantages of the printing press, and presented it to Nevşehirli Damad İbrahim Paşa, the Sadrazam (‘Grand Vizier’), and Abdullah Efendi, the Shaykh al-Islām. Eventually, Shaykh al-Islām Abdullah Efendi excluded the publication of religious books such as maṣāḥif, tafsīrs (Qurʾan exegeses), and ḥadīth and kalām (theology) books, but allowed the printing of other books. Sultan Ahmed III allowed the establishment of a printing house in 1727. This house was opened with the name of Dār al-Ṭibāʿa al-Maʿmūra, later called the Dār al-Ṭibāʿa al-ʿĀmira, Tabʿhane-yi Hümayun, Tabʿhane-yi ʿĀmire, Dār al-Ṭibāʿa al-Sultaniyya, and Matbaʿa-yi ʿĀmire. In this printing house, the dictionary of Vankulu was first published in 1729, and seventeen works had been printed by 1743.11 In spite of the fatwā issued by Shaykh al-Islām Abdullah Efendi, it took time to make the printing house functional. Historians have attributed the reasons for this to the lack of required technical equipment, the lack of adequate paper, and the lack of adequate readers. However, the sociocultural and religio-cultural worries have to be considered as effective reasons for this delay. According to Niyazi Berkes, there is no definite evidence that there was prevention by the ʿulamāʾ, the religious scholars. According to him, if religious books such as the Qurʾan, and those on ḥadīth, tafsīr, and fiqh, were allowed to be published, religious calligraphers would be worried about becoming unemployed.12 So the reason was not dealing with religious sensitivity but more precisely economic concerns. The Ottoman authorities might have wanted to prevent the publication of religious books in the first place. Moreover, the different writing system of the Arabic alphabet, which has more than 450 characters, made printing in the first years most difficult and complicated from a technical point of view. In the case of a printing error – which may occur in any work – it could have led to negative results in the case of the Qurʾan, tafsīr, and fiqh. This delicate situation is a more plausible reason for the delay in using the printing press for 10 For further information, see: Gökkır, Tanzimattan (footnote 7), pp. 28–32. 11 For further information about the first printed books in the Ottoman Empire, see: Turgut Kut/Fatma Türe (eds): Yazmadan Basmaya. Müteferrika, Mühendishane, Üsküdar. Istanbul: Yapı Kredi Kültür Merkezi 1996. 12 Niyazi Berkes: Türkiyede Çağdaşlaşma. Istanbul: Yapı Kredi Kültür Sanat Yayınları 2002, pp. 57–58.

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Figure 8. The first religious book printed in the Ottoman Empire, Risāla by İmam Birgivi; Atatürk University Library, Erzurum.

religious works. This sensitivity seems to have been overcome in 1803 with the publication of Imam Birgivī’s famous work, Risala, published by a printing house in Üsküdar (see figure 8). In fact, the printing of Islamic works had become necessary. It seemed that the reform movements, especially when modernization came from the military level to the social level, brought this need to the surface.13 Like that, the printing of the muṣḥaf, tafsīr works, and other religious texts, which was not mentioned in the fatwā, finally began in Istanbul. Still, non-Muslims living in Istanbul were still prohibited from printing the muṣḥaf, as well as Muslims, according to a regulation issued by Abdülmecid (1839–1861) on Muḥarram 25, 1269/October 8, 1852.14 It is worth mentioning that most of the customs inspections were conducted on muṣḥaf 13 For further information, see M. Brett Wilson: The Qur’an after Babel. Translation and printing the Qur’an in late Ottoman and modern Turkey. Diss., Duke University, 2009 [unpublished]; Christoph K. Neumann: Book and newspaper printing in Turkish, eighteenth–twentieth century. In: Eva Hanebutt-Benz/Dagmar Glass/Geoffrey Roper (eds): Middle Eastern Languages and the Print Revolution. Westhofen: WVA-Verlag Skulima 2002, pp. 227–48. 14 See Gökkır, Tanzimattan (footnote 7), p. 23.

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printings that originated in Iran. According to the Ottoman authorities, Iranians printed the muṣḥaf carelessly and insolently, and brought it to the land by secret ways. Finally, Ottomans took measures against the entry of Iranian maṣāḥif into the country. An archive document dated July 19, 1857, reveals the arrest of three Iranians who, unauthorized, imported muṣḥaf printings to Istanbul. Persian printers and merchants continued to trade in spite of all these preventions.15 However, there were more and more muṣḥaf printings from Europe and Iran, and, eventually, Ottomans changed their strategy from being only controllers to being themselves publishers. An official printing of the muṣḥaf first occurred in 1874 in Istanbul following the founding of lithography, a new technology in printing at the Ottoman royal print-house, Matbaʿa-yi ʿĀmire. The Ottoman scholar, historian, and statesman Ahmed Cevdet Paşa gave a lengthy account of this first legal muṣḥaf printing in Istanbul. Ahmed Cevdet underlined the illegal publishing and selling of printed maṣāḥif in Istanbul by foreigners, especially Iranians, and argued that the Ottoman governmental and organizational structure should print the Qurʾan in order to prevent such illegal actions.16 When the time for the first legal printing of the muṣḥaf in Istanbul came, the Ottoman authorities emphasized the link between print culture and the long-established calligraphic tradition. The Qurʾanic manuscript of the famous calligrapher Şekerzade Mehmed Efendi (see figure 9) was used in the first lithographic muṣḥaf print.17 Unlike the maṣāḥif printed in Europe, the Ottoman edition was well illustrated with fine calligraphy and orthography. Yet, also, religious authorities noted that the errors found in that manuscript were to be corrected before printing.18 The ʿulamāʾ played a role by approving the proof copy before it went into circulation and reached the hands of many people.19 Almost 337 years after the European attempt (in 1537), and 147 years after the establishment of a printing house in the Ottoman Empire (in 1727), a printing of the muṣḥaf was finally realized in Istanbul in 1874. The publication of the muṣḥaf was considered to be a serious issue and for this reason it was carried out under the control of the state authority. Afterwards, the printings of the muṣḥaf became widespread. With the release of the publications of the muṣḥaf, Abdülhamid II ordered that muṣḥaf printing be controlled. A new assembly was formed in the name of Tedkik-i Mesahif ve Müellefat (Inspection of Maṣāḥif and Books), which consisted of a chairman, seven members, and two clerks. For printing and distributing a muṣḥaf, approval from this assembly was required. In 1892, another assembly, consisting of a president, eight members, and a clerk, called Teftiş-i 15 For further information on Iranian muṣḥaf printings and their banning in the Ottoman Empire, see: Gökkır, Tanzimattan (footnote 7), pp. 40–45. 16 Ahmed Cevdet Paşa explains the procedure himself in his record: Vak’anüvis Cevdet Paşa’nın Evrakı. In: Tarih-i Osmani Encümeni Mecmuası 46 (1333), p. 228. 17 Wilson, The Qur’an after Babel (footnote 12), p. 68. 18 Wilson, The Qur’an after Babel (footnote 12), pp. 67–68. 19 The original copy of the muṣḥaf is in the Süleyaniye Library, under the shelfmark Yeni Cami 3.

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Figure 9. The first printed muṣḥaf in Istanbul, the muṣḥaf of Şekerzade; Atatürk Library, Istanbul.

Mesahif-i Şerife Meclisi (Council of the Inspection of the Glorious Maṣāḥif ), was set up independently from the assembly regarding general book-printing. The control over houses printing the muṣḥaf has been continued up to day under the same regulation.20

4. British Propaganda: The Caliphate Printed a False Muṣḥaf. So, Rise Up Muslims! During the establishment of the assembly in 1892, some interesting things happened. Several British journals issued black propaganda against the Ottoman Sultan, Abdülhamid II, accusing him of printing a false/corrupted muṣḥaf for the sake of his personal political desires. Britain actually intended by this kind of blackmail and propaganda to break the

20 For further information about control system of Ottomans over printing, see: Gökkır, Tanzimattan (footnote 7), pp. 19–48.

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power of the caliphate and to finally trigger an uprising among Arabs and Indians against the sultan. Part of this black propaganda featured in a column written in Illustrated London News on August 27, 1892. The article was written by James Payn under title of ‘Our Note Book’ on page number 258. The relevant part is as follows: The Sultan of Turkey, we are told, has just done a stroke of business in the autocratic line decidedly original. He has issued a revised edition of the Koran, adapted to his own views. This is the most ‘highhanded outrage in Utica’ that has yet been attempted by ‘the authorities.’ It used to be forbidden to read the Bible, but nobody, save that unlucky printer who was burnt to death for it, ever thought of altering the text to suit his little weaknesses. The Mollahs are naturally very angry; more furious than even our classical head masters would be if the Queen in Council should decree ‘longs’ to be henceforth ‘shorts,’ and ‘shorts’ to be ‘longs,’ for it is the quality and not the quantity of the Koran that has been altered. Certain ‘vital passages of the original text’ have been expunged, such as ‘God doth not leave oppressors,’ a remark which the Father of the Faithful no doubt considers as too personal. Whether the exact contrary is asserted in its place is not stated; perhaps it will ‘appear in a later edition.’

According to this news, Sultan Abdülhamid II reprinted ‘the revised edition of the muṣḥaf ’ according to his political advantages, and therefore the Muslim scholars revolted against the Ottoman authorities. But, in fact, this did not happen at all. There was no printing of a new edition or a corrupted version of the Qurʾan, nor any uprising in any Muslim land for this reason. However, Britain intended to trigger an uprising against Istanbul, particularly in the occupied lands of India and Egypt.

5. Conclusion This paper has given basic information about the first printings of the muṣḥaf in Europe and the Muslim world. The muṣḥaf was first printed in Europe (in 1537 in Venice and in 1694 in Hamburg) before it was printed in the Muslim world. The main motivations behind the European initiatives were economic relations with the Muslim world, theological concerns, and, finally, the political relations between the Ottoman Empire and Europe. However, this paper has tried to reveal political relationships by presenting three cases. The first case was the 1787 muṣḥaf printing in Russia right after the Crimean War, when Russia invaded the Muslim part of the Ukraine in 1783. Catherina II, for the first time, printed the muṣḥaf in St. Petersburg, writing her name on it. By that, she tried to present herself as the new patron of the Muslims in the region and to show that Russia had taken over responsibility for the religious affairs of Muslims from the Ottoman caliphate. By doing so, Russia wanted to show that the Ottoman Empire had no more religious and political power over Muslims. In the second case, France also printed the muṣḥaf in 1798 after the occupation of Egypt and in the 1830s during the invasions of Africa, having the same motivation. The Ottomans defended themselves against these colonial activities by

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establishing a control mechanism and, later, their own print houses to demonstrate that they were the real leaders of the Muslims. They controlled and banned the transportation of maṣāḥif printed not only in the Muslim world but also in Europe. They kept a monopoly over printing the muṣḥaf, on the one hand, and tried to control the publication of it all over the world, on the other hand. In terms of the connection between muṣḥaf printing and the political relationship between the Ottoman Empire and Europe, the most significant case is the third one: the English black propaganda against the Ottomans. British journals accused the Ottoman sultan, Abdülhamid II, of printing false/corrupted maṣāḥif for the sake of his own political desires. They intended by this kind of misinformation to trigger an uprising among Arabs and Indians against the caliphate. The three cases show that during the clash between Ottomans and European powers, both sides used muṣḥaf printings to gain authority over Muslims. The world of Islam began to print the muṣḥaf quite late compared to Europe. It is commonly known that the printing of Islamic books in general encountered strong opposition by Muslims. The resistance against printing is mostly explained by religious sensitivity towards textual corruption of Islamic sources. But political and economical reasons should also be taken into the consideration. It is true that, before the arrival of printing, the Qurʾan was transmitted through manuscripts written by calligraphers in a special artistic way that has certain rules to protect the original form of the Qur’an, thereby preventing the addition of anything that does not belong to it, and which presents the words of the Qur’an in the most decorative shape. Furthermore, the calligraphers’ economic status was protected by the prohibition on printing the muṣḥaf. In addition, printing technology had not yet been fully developed and the printing of Arabic letters was difficult and complex. However, the printing of the muṣḥaf rapidly spread in the nineteenth century after the introduction of new technology in printing, namely lithography. This technology allowed the muṣḥaf to be printed with fine calligraphy, and also with fewer errors. Yet, the Ottoman Empire also had political reasons to start printing the muṣḥaf.

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1.

Book Culture and Daʿwa: The Role of the Text in Islam’s Religious Proselytism Marta Dominguez Diaz

Islam is a religion with a significant missionizing side, an endeavour often referred to by the Arabic term daʿwa. In this article I explore the relationship between daʿwa and book culture, to see how the written word is used (or not) in propagating Islam’s religious message. I argue that the relationship between daʿwa and book culture is complex, because the written word has sometimes been used to support or has even been a key element in missionizing activities, whereas at other times writings may have been considered an obstacle in religiously persuading others. This can be seen from those instances in which religious groups overtly reject any form of writing to support their religious call and accompany their anti-literary stance with a form of faith spread largely by relying on face-to-face meetings. In this article I will compare the approaches to the written word developed by two of the most salient proselytizing Islamic movements operating in Europe today: the Tablīghī Jamāʿat and the Qādiriyya Būdshīshiyya. I will demonstrate how, by designing different strategies of daʿwa that establish opposite relationships to religious literature, these two organizations have in turn developed distinct types of relationships with their devotees. The article explores how a religious organization’s relationship with the written word not only determines how many potential members they can reach but also the types of relationships it develops with them once they enter the group.

1. Introduction

Islam is a religion with a significant missionizing side, an endeavour often referred to by the Arabic word daʿwa. The meaning of the word daʿwa is ample and ambiguous. It is often simply translated as ‘missionizing’, but the actual root of the word daʿwa may more accurately refer to the verb ‘to call’, even ‘to summon’. In many contexts daʿwa is only translated as ‘to invite’. In the first centuries of Islam, daʿwa was mainly used in the context of God’s command to follow its/her/his path; that is to say, that it was mainly understood as a resource to inspire fellow Muslims to more righteously follow the precepts of Islam, to increase their piety. This understanding of the term daʿwa has prevailed until our days, serving in many cases to extol non-observant Muslims to lead more pious lives. The attributions of the term have, however, kept expanding. Today, especially in contexts of increased religious pluralism and augmented sectarianism, another understanding of daʿwa implies inviting Muslims who participate in Islam from a perspective other than that of oneself to turn into one’s way of living religion. In this approach, Muslims engage in convincing people from other sects or denominations to abandon their current lifestyles and accept new forms of approaching their faith, readdressing their religious method, in the view of the propagator, by purifying it.

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This mechanism triggers processes of re-affiliation (changing from one religious denomination to another within the same religion) and reversion (making non-observant Muslims become observant). Nowadays, daʿwa is widely used both to try to strengthen the piety of co-religionists through both re-affiliation and reversion, as well as to approach nonbelievers, attempting to trigger in them conversion. Daʿwa efforts have not only diversified but today are also undertaken by a multiplicity of diverse actors in more or less organized forms – religious and non-religious celebrities, religious intellectuals, ordinary Muslims, and a wide array of religious organizations. Books have been a relevant component in the missionizing project of many proselytizing religions. In the Middle East, for example, evangelical groups were pivotal in the introduction of the printed word, not only importing books but also establishing some of the most significant earlier presses.1 In this article, however, I contend that the relationship between daʿwa and book culture is nevertheless complex, since the written word has sometimes been used to support or has even been a key element in missionizing activities, whereas at other times writings may have been considered an obstacle in religiously persuading others. This can be seen from those instances in which religious groups overtly reject any form of writing to support their religious call and accompany their anti-literary stance with a form of faith spread largely by relying on face-to-face meetings. In these article I will compare the approach to the written word developed by two of the most salient proselytizing Islamic movements operating in Europe today: the Tablīghī Jamāʿat and the Qādiriyya Būdshīshiyya. I will demonstrate how, by designing different strategies of daʿwa that establish opposite relationships to religious literature, these two organizations have in turn developed distinct types of discipleship. The article explores how a religious organization’s relationship with the written word not only determines how many potential members they can reach but also the types of relationships it develops with them once they enter the group.

2. Islam’s Missionary Appeal The missionary nature of Islam has been evident since its inception and was a fundamental pillar in Islam’s imperial dimension, which followed the death of Muhammad in ah 10/632 ce. Since then, daʿwa, along with military conquest, is what has turned Islam into the second largest and the fastest growing religion of the world. The Sufis, who often had a more ascetic way of approaching Islam, developed religiosities that showed a great degree of malleability and could more easily adapt into the very diverse cultural milieus 1 An interesting comparative analysis on the introduction of the press in various parts of the Middle East is to be found in Nile Green: Journeymen, middlemen. Travel, transculture, and technology in the origins of Muslim printing. In: International Journal of Middle East Studies 41.2 (2009), pp. 203–24.

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that the Islamic empires reached through expansion. By being central actors in inculcating religious principles among the popular classes, Sufis had been prominent actors in the formation of Muslim societies across the globe and in defining their religious identities. Often supported by the political elites of the territories they originally came from, much of the large-scale proselytizing activity developed by Islam throughout the centuries has had a Sufi component in one way or another – a missionary trend still alive today, as I shall demonstrate later on in this article. But Sufism does not stand alone in holding Islam’s missionary zeal. In premodern times, traders were also very important in the spread of Islamic ideas, together with the improved legal conditions a subject from a region conquered by Muslims experienced if they converted to Islam. In most parts of the world, modernity, with its expanding forces of political democratization, combined with the opening up of spaces for public religious expression, has led to a boom in newly minted religious groups, as well as significant growth in some of the older ones.

3. Proselytism Today There has been an increase on religious pluralism in most areas of the globe since the 1990s, a tendency mainly motivated by the expanding of religious rights affecting a significant number of countries, as Witte explains: In the past three decades, more than two-hundred major new statutes and constitutional provisions on religious rights have been promulgated – many replete with generous protections for liberty of conscience and freedom of religious exercise; guarantees of religious pluralism, equality and nondiscrimination; and several other special protections and entitlements for religious individuals and groups.2

Actually, the broadening of the ambit of religious rights can be seen as both cause and consequence for the mushrooming of religious choices worldwide. In general, countries that define themselves as secular tend to be more permissive of religious diversity. For example, the principle of laïcité in France implies that religion shall not interfere in state matters and vice versa, providing an optimal ground for religious preaching that has created a vivid market of religious forces. In the Muslim world, secular states like Turkey have, at least until recently, also tended to generate significantly diverse religious landscapes with, for example, numerous Muslim and non-Muslim New Religious Movements having consolidated a permanent following in the country.3

2 John Witte: A Dickensian era of religious rights. An update on religious human rights in global perspective. In: William and Mary Law Review 42.3 (2001), pp. 707–70, 709. 3 The Orient-Institut has an interesting project on New Religiosities in Turkey, for more information on the project, visit their website, http://www.oiist.org/orient-institut/ (January 16, 2017).

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The generally restricted role of religion in European states has often resulted in the magnificent fructification of daʿwa activities, endeavours led by organizations that have faced obstacles when operating in certain other areas of the world due to local political restrictions. In particular, those countries in which religion plays a significant role in the configuration of the state and, even more so, when particular missionary movements have a strong relationship with the ruling elites, any other religious movement– and especially those of missionary nature – are generally prohibited. This is the case in Saudi Arabia, where one of the successful daʿwa ideologies in modern Islam, Wahhabism, has been in charge of the government for the last two centuries, and where non-Wahhabi religious alternatives are certainly not welcomed. Nevertheless, the picture of an inclusive Europe has, as well, often been put to the test. In the continent, the triumph of religious pluralism has not occurred without bringing in, paradoxically, its own setbacks, and it is worth noticing that some of the countries that have advanced some of the most significant legal religious protections have also implemented some of the strictest measures to try to delimit them. This is, for example, the case in Austria, Belgium, France, and Germany, where proponents of political secularism, laicization, and nationalism have joined efforts to pass legislation against a wide array of religious expressions, targeting in particular those minority religious groups that evidence low levels of conformity with the values of the cultural majority.4 These measures have equally affected indigenous and foreign New Religious Movements as well as more traditional and consolidated groups of non-European origin. When these groups appeared or first became established in Europe, local religious groups tended to welcome them. In the context of the growing effect of non-religion, local religious groups saw, in these newly established ones, partners with whom they could fight joint battles for public recognition. But the honeymoon, at least for some of these groups, appeared to be somehow short. The tensions between more and less sizeable religious groups began to emerge not the least because of the relative success of some of these small organizations in attracting significant numbers of new followers. Perhaps in connection to the aforementioned prosperity of small groups, some of the major religious denominations began to concomitantly develop a missionary zeal of their own, contributing to the consolidation of the highly competitive nature that defines Europe’s religious market today. However, proselytism always holds a dual dimension, a difference between what it predicates and what it achieves, since missionary groups stand between the intent of their preaching and its actual results. In this way, we see that a highly competitive religious market often does not necessarily translate into large-scale conversions. In other words, the success of proselytizing endeavours should always be carefully evaluated. This is clear in the European context; despite the growing popularity of proselytizing groups, religion in Europe continues to be in decline, largely because of a rupture in the intergenerational 4 John Witte, A Dickensian era of religious rights (footnote 2), pp. 707–70.

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transmission of religious values and practices. This is the case even among groups in which the levels of religious adherence are much higher than among most of the rest of society. Among members of ethnic minorities, including Muslim communities, the transmission of religious practices and values to the next generation is also diminishing. Studies suggest that parents do not, or only partially, pass their religious beliefs and practices on to their offspring.5 Although we may want to point out that it is often assumed that the majority of those who have received a more lax or non-existent religious education do not return to religion once they reach adulthood. Further research would be needed in this sense to evaluate the real impact of religious reversion in adulthood.6 Although the general public takes for granted the idea of Europe’s religious recession, the decline is a matter of heated controversy among academics. The dispute is not over the issue of ‘de-churchification’ – on the contrary, the diminution in church attendance is a fact demonstrated in a multiplicity of works7 – but on whether religion is merely being rejected and thus shows a tendency to disappear8 or whether it has transformed into something else that escapes the statistical gaze. Grace Davie was one of the scholars who more clearly opposed the decline thesis, instead considering that this was more a case of religion’s change of appearance rather than of an actual decline in belief. What became known as the ‘believing without belonging theory’9 suggested that decline in church attendance did not meant an increase in atheism and agnosticism, but rather the holding

5 Alasdair Crockett/David Voas: Generations of decline. Religious change in twentieth-century Britain. In: Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 45.4 (2006), pp. 567–84. 6 There is no quantitative data available on the phenomenon of acquisition of religious beliefs by former non-believing adults. Part of the research I have conducted with members of the Qādiriyya Būdshīshiyya Sufi order present this profile, but the study is qualitative in nature, as some others are, particularly on the issue of conversion to Islam. For example, Ali Köse: Conversion to Islam. A Study of Native British Converts. New York: Kegan Paul International 1996; Kate Zebiri: British Muslim Converts. Choosing Alternative Lives. Oxford: Oneworld 2008. 7 See, for example, Wolfgang Jagodzinski/Karel Dobbelaere: Der Wandel kirchlicher Religiosität in Westeuropa. In: Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie. Sonderheft  33 (1993), pp. 68–91; Grace Davie: Religion in Modern Europe. A Memory Mutates. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2000; Grace Davie: Praying alone? Church-going in Britain and social capital. A reply to Steve Bruce. In: Journal of Contemporary Religion 17.3 (2002), pp. 329–34; Steve Bruce: Religion in the Modern World. From Cathedrals to Cults. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1996; Gert Pickel/Olaf Müller (eds): Church and Religion in Contemporary Europe. Results from Empirical and Comparative Research. Berlin: Springer-Verlag 2009; Detlef Pollack/Gert Pickel: Church-state relations and the vitality of religion in European comparison. In: Pickel/Müller (eds), Church and Religion in Contemporary Europe, pp. 145–66. 8 See, for example, Peter L. Berger: The Social Reality of Religion. Harmondsworth: Penguin 1973; and Steve Bruce: God Is Dead. Secularization in the West. Malden: Blackwell Publishing 2002. 9 Grace Davie: Religion in Britain since 1945. Believing without Belonging. Oxford: Blackwell 1994.

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of new types of religious identities that, for being private, became increasingly invisible.10 Davie even proposed a frame by which the relationship between the religious group and these new types of believers was to be explained: ‘the notion of religion performed by an active minority but on behalf of a much larger number, who (implicitly at least) not only understand, but, quite clearly, approve of what the minority is doing’.11 Whether disappearing or transforming, both approaches to religion seem to still be inconclusive, as most of the debate is mainly theoretical, and, where empirical studies do exist they provide only concise data on particular countries.12 There is no comprehensive cross-national database on the subject. In addition, most of these works still exclusively refer to Christianity, with few exceptions in which extra-ecclesiastical religiosities are addressed.13 Quite remarkably, most of the existing work still concentrates on religious organizations and not on believers; what this means, with regard to our understanding of religious proselytism, is that we seem to know far more about the proselytizing intent than about its results. In academia, therefore, proselytism is mainly regarded as an effort, a project, and an initiative, and its actual impact is largely understudied. The lacunae are even more acute in our understanding of proselytism in reference to Islam. In comparison, the lack of knowledge on the subject of religious proselytism in Europe is much more acute when we look at Islam, with the most prominent and not quite recent work exclusively devoted to the study of mission in Islam in the North American context.14 Besides, the few existing other works that deal with Europe appear to only tangentially mention the missionary appeal when more generally studying certain groups.15 In this article I explore daʿwa efforts in European Islam by looking at the role that the written word has in Islam’s mission by looking at the relationship between book

10 Hubert Knoblauch: Populäre Religion. Auf dem Weg in eine spirituelle Gesellschaft. Frankfurt: Campus Verlag 2009. 11 Grace Davie: Vicarious religion. A methodological challenge. In: Nancy Tatom Ammerman (ed.): Everyday Religion. Observing Modern Religious Lives. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2007, p. 22. 12 For example, Grace Davie, Religion in Modern Europe (footnote 7); or Steve Bruce, Religion in the Modern World (footnote 7). 13 For example, Eileen Barker: The Making of a Moonie. Choice or Brainwashing? Oxford: Blackwell 1984; or Dick Houtman/Peter Mascini: Why do churches become empty, while New Age grows? Secularization and religious change in the Netherlands. In: Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 41.3 (2002), pp. 455–73. 14 Larry Poston: Islamic Daʿwah in the West. Muslim Missionary Activity and the Dynamics of Conversion to Islam. New York: Oxford University Press 1992. 15 See, for example, Thomas K. Gugler: The new religiosity of Tablighi Jamaat and Dawat-e Islami and the transformation of Islam in Europe. In: Anthropos 105.1 (2010), pp. 121–36; David Tittensor: The House of Service. The Gülen Movement and Islam’s Third Way. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2014. Dietrich Reetz: Tablighi Jama‘at. In: Frank Peter/Rafael Ortega (eds): Islamic Movements of Europe. Public Religion and Islamophobia in the Modern World. London, New York: I. B. Tauris 2014, p. 30.

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culture and proselytism in two of the most successfully proselytizing groups operating in Europe today: the Tablīghī Jamāʿat and the Qādiriyya Būdshīshiyya.

4. The Proselytism of the Personal Encounter: The Tablīghī Jamāʿat in Europe A number of the missionary initiatives undertaken by Islamic groups in Europe promote face-to-face encounters between members of these organizations and potential joiners. The Tablīghī Jamāʿat, for example, is a highly proselytizing group, whose more enthusiastic estimates suggest it has a worldwide number of devotees of up to 80 million (most of them from South Asia).16 It is considered one of the most sizeable religious organizations worldwide and it was one of the first Muslim ones to set foot in Europe17, where it developed a significant following during the 1970s and 1980s.18 The missionary objective of the Tablīghīs is overt: the word tablīgh in itself is revelatory of their aims, as it means ‘propagation’. They are well known for their extreme religious conservatism and their tactics of spatial segregation; devotees, according to their dogma, must live their daily lives spatially segregated from the impious, mainstream society, including non-Tablīghī Muslims, although in Europe they have, depending on the case, adopted a more adaptive stance. In Europe, the Tablīghī Jamāʿat headquarters are based in the United Kingdom, the country where it has the majority of its followers. In February last year, Europe’s Tablīghī Jamāʿat leader, Hafiz Mohammad Patel, died at the age of 92, opening a period of relative uncertainty for the leadership of the organization in the continent. In any case, the capacity that this transnational organization has shown in attracting new devotees has been demonstrated to be particularly forceful, especially back during the days when Muslim communities were mainly made up of first-generation Muslims, recently arrived migrants with little relationship to the host society. It attracted the most disenfranchised sectors of society: ‘migrant workers deprived of any cultural access to European society, “lost” teens, drug addicts and others’.19 It soon was present in most European cities, and had developed good relationships with local political and religious groups. However, it lost a significant part of its appeal from the 1990s onwards, primarily because Muslim communities have dramatically changed 16 Muhammad Khalid Masud: Introduction. In: Muhammad Khalid Masud (ed.): Travellers in Faith. Studies of the Tablīghī Jamāʿat as a Transnational Movement for Faith Renewal. Leiden: Brill 2000. 17 Tablīghīs were not the first organized Muslim missionaries from the Indian subcontinent to spread to America and Europe. That role was played by the Aḥmadīs, a controversial modernizing movement that emerged in the late nineteenth century around the figure of a charismatic teacher, Mīrzā Ghulām Aḥmad (d. 1908). 18 Gilles Kepel: The War for Muslim Minds. Islam and the West. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press 2004, p. 261. 19 Gilles Kepel, The War for Muslim Minds (footnote 18), p. 261.

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since then, because the children of migrants became a much more significant proportion of people within Europe’s Muslim communities. These youngsters – European Muslims born, raised, and educated in the continent – had their own religious tastes and showed less interest in Tablīghī Islam; in general terms, they tended to develop a more intellectualized approach to religion. They opted instead for other religious choices, perhaps less emphatic on the ritual and corporeal aspects of the faith, but much more ratiocinated in their arguments. Nonetheless, more recently, the picture has changed again in favour of the Tablīghīs. The fact that some previously relatively popular Salafi trends and jihadi networks have come under close scrutiny, having been persecuted in many cases, has facilitated the development of a Tablīghī second spring. Besides, the economic crisis has also benefitted a group whose ascetic appeal is particularly successful among the most disadvantaged. During the beginning of the twenty-first century, the organization experienced a noticeable revival, especially in the UK, France, and Spain. In 2010, its European membership was estimated at about 150,000 devotees.20 Tablīghīs engage mainly in a face-to-face tactic of religious proselytizing, through the practice of a religious commandment called the khurūj, from the Arabic root kharaja, meaning ‘to leave’, ‘to go out’. Tablīghīs interpret the term as a commandment to go out for the sake of Allāh; that is to say, to propagate God’s message. Khurūj is not a discretionary practice; one of the strengths of the movement is that everybody is compelled to engage in khurūj, turning every single member of the organization into a missionary. It is not something one must do only once or occasionally, the precepts of the organization dictate that devotees must undertake khurūj at least three nights monthly, plus forty continuous days annually, in addition to 120 days at least once in a lifetime.21 One of the advantages that Tablīghī preachers have in terms of the success of their proselytization mission is that they do not require any formal structure or material to undertake their task of propagating their religious message. Everybody is involved in the endeavour, and nothing, other than the preachers, is really needed for it. Thus, the movement is mostly comprised of small groups of itinerant preachers, who proselytize in small groups – usually of no more than ten people. These small, close-knitted groups use the facilities and resources of local communities. They are itinerant, sometimes sleep rough, but in other cases use local mosques and prayer rooms to eat, wash, and pray: things they often do together with the rest of the Muslim, non-Tablīghī community. Sometimes they stay in those places overnight, too, benefitting from the hospitality of local religious centres. The goal of the movement is bringing people to what they consider to be true Islam. The Tablīghī Jamāʿat is clearly not trying to become a fringe and purist movement; on the 20 Peter Mandaville: Muslim Networks and Movements in Western Europe. The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. Pew Research Center 2010, http://www.pewforum.org/2010/09/15/muslim-networksand-movements-in-western-europe-tablighi-jamaat/ (January 12, 2017). 21 Barbara D. Metcalf: New medinas. The Tablighi Jamaʿat in America and Europe. In: Frédéric Volpi (ed.): Political Islam. A Critical Reader. London: Routledge 2011.

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contrary, Tablīghīs’ aim is to infiltrate mainstream Muslim life. That is why the idea of using existing facilities within Muslim communities makes sense: their ultimate goal would be turning them to Tablighism. Tablīghīs place special emphasis on the core values of Islam and the example set by the Prophet Muḥammad. In principle, at least, they do not try to instil any view that does not pertain to mainstream Sunni Muslim thought and belief. The group seems to have a preference for preaching in non-affluent Muslim areas. There, they reach out to both Muslims and non-Muslims, and although they seem to be more successful in effecting religious reversions (i.e., the process by which a Muslim changes their religious orientation within Islam) they have also attracted converts. Despite of the fact that Tablīghīs themselves abstain from making notorious public appearances, and certainly hide away from the type of visibility given by platforms like the Internet, there have been a few exceptions. One of the very few clips that they themselves have sponsored and posted online is an interview with one of the organization’s preachers legitimizing, in religious terms, the undertaking of religious proselytization among Muslims, which is something that, in principle, is potentially highly controversial in Islamic thought.22 But apart from the possibility of questioning their missionary tone, Tablīghīs are known for propagating nothing specific other than Islam; they concentrate on educating others about basic core Islamic values shared by the vast majority of Muslims, Tablīghī and non-Tablīghī alike. Within few days of interacting with the locals, however, Tablīghīs begin to present their method for fulfilling a rightful Muslim path. Even if the beliefs they defend do not differ from those of the majority of Sunni Muslims, it is the method that is distinctively Tablīghī. This method is basically a lifestyle of strict religious observance and highly regulated social relations; a lifestyle which is unique to the Tablīghī understanding of Islam. Therefore, Tablighism distinguishes itself from the rest of the Muslim community more for what they do than for what they belief. Tablighism is thus a conservative religious routine with added emphasis on the eradication of social differences, but with a strict delimitation of the roles and duties of individuals according to their gender. Their religious lifestyle involves a major configuration of gendering practices vis-à-vis a general deemphasis on hierarchy, and a highly inclusive character: everybody, they insist, ‘poor or rich, learned or not, can participate’.23 The group has an added emphasis on religious practice, but not much of an intellectualized reading of Islam. The practice of khurūj is the cornerstone of their religious activism, something that also finds expression in the organization once people become devotees. A significant aspect of the life of a Tablīghī is that s/he enters a new relational network, often abandoning her/ his old personal ties. Face-to-face meetings end up creating long-lasting relationships that ensure the commitment of the individual to the group. This type of networking generates 22 Sheikhsadi: Is dawah to Muslims bidah? In: Tablighi Jamaat website (June 16, 2016), http://www. tablighijamaat.org/is-dawah-to-muslims-bidah/ (January 14, 2017). 23 Metcalf, New medinas (footnote 21), p. 359.

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a unique sense of camaraderie among members, links that have proven to be successful for sealing an individual’s loyalty to the religious organization. Nevertheless, this is not unique to them. In the case of Islam in Europe, this type of selective and ultimately discriminatory networking appears to be a common feature of groups of very diverse religious tastes, from Salafi networks to Sufi orders. What seems to be more exceptional about Tablīghīs is that they also largely place all the efforts of their mission on personal encounters. Tablīghī daʿwa is mainly interpersonal. In fact, in the days that predated the Internet, Tablīghīs were well known for eschewing forms of media in spreading their religious message, including products such as cassettes or videos that had been proven to be successfully used with missionary aims by other Islamic groups.24 Tablīghīs’ resistance to the printed word is less acute today, even if they mainly continue to maintain an anti-written perspective: they finally established a small press in Bangladesh, the Idara Ishaat-E-Diniyat (Institute for Disseminating Works on Religion), but the number of works produced by the press is still very small. The main role of the press is actually translating these few works into the many languages spoken by Tablīghīs today. They have a shop in Dhaka, where the crowds of visitors buy these few resources to take back to their home countries: ‘[the press] mainly translates into English and, to a lesser degree, into Arabic and French’.25 The success of the press has forced the organization to open similar small printing facilities in other countries, like the Aziz Publishing House in Lahore, yet the volume of publishing is still remarkably limited. Even while devotees crave these written resources, the role of the written word as promoted by the leadership in this religious group remains minimal, especially when compared to other organizations. What is more remarkable is not that the religious identity of the group disregards any form of literary output (other Islamic groups do this more or less openly as well) but the fact that they avoid using any form of digital or analogue written or visual resource in their missionary work. Rory Dickson, who conducted fieldwork among members of the group in Canada, concludes that: Tablīghī elders discourage learning religion from print or electronic media because they want to replicate exactly the ways of the prophets in understanding religion. Tablīghī activities hence take place exclusively between real live people meeting, speaking, and praying together. This ensures that the movement remains purely interpersonal, and hence to some degree communal in nature.26

In his work he explains that the only texts occasionally used in daʿwa by Tablīghīs are two short booklets employed for teaching the basics of Islam and imparting devotion

24 Metcalf, New medinas (footnote 21), p. 359.  25 Metcalf, New medinas (footnote 21). 26 Rory Dickson: The Tablighi Jamaʿat in southwestern Ontario. Making Muslim identities and networks in Canadian urban spaces. In: Contemporary Islam 3.2 (2009), p. 110.

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through stories about Muḥammad and his companions.27 Besides these texts, however, the organization recommends no media, either among followers or among potentials joiners. What is even more interesting is that, as opposed to other groups that distribute printed materials as part of their proselytizing agendas, Tablīghīs tend to use them only in their gatherings, for reciting. Once the popularity of the Internet increased, Tablīghīs adopted a similar stance by rejecting the use of practically all digital materials and formats to support their religious mission. They do have a website, but one that is extremely simple and offers very little information other than their justification for daʿwa. In this regard, what they propose is a translation of verse Q 16:125 in which ‘inviting’ is understood as ‘preaching’, and ‘wisdom’ is seen merely as the Qurʾanic message. In this way, daʿwa becomes a compulsory element of Muslim religious life: Allah (swt) says in the Quran: ‘Invite (mankind, O Muhammad) to the Way of your Lord (i.e., Islam) with wisdom (i.e., with the Divine Revelation and the Quran) and fair preaching, and argue with them in a way that is better. Truly, your Lord knows best, who has gone astray from His Path, and He is the Best Aware of those, who are guided.’ (An-Nahl 16:125)28

The justification elaborated from an excerpt of a ḥadīth is even more abstract. Still, in their website they mention a tradition, followed by the Tablīghī reading of the section: The Prophet (sa) has said: ‘Convey from me even one verse’ (Bukhari). Conveying the message, therefore, is not the responsibility of the scholars only; it is, in fact, a responsibility of each and every Muslim, according to his or her ability. This call towards Allah (swt) is called ‘Dawah,’ and the one, who calls towards Allah’s (swt) Deen, is a Da’ee.29

This argument is one of the few contents of the website. The site is modest, both in style and content, with a brief post summarizing the history of the group and its ethos30, and few other documents. Despite the aversion for the digital word manifested by the Tablīghī Jamāʿat leaders, disciples from diverse locations have occasionally used the Internet to express their ideas, feelings, and to celebrate their religious identity. But a quick online search will make everybody aware of the fact that an overwhelming number of pages talking about Tablīghīs on the Internet have not been produced by members of the group. They are intended mainly 27 Muhammad Talib: Construction and reconstruction of the world in the Tablighi ideology. In: Muhammad Khalid Masud (ed.): Travellers in Faith. Studies of the Tablīghī Jamāʿat as a Transnational Islamic Movement for Faith Revival. Leiden: Brill 2000, p. 71. 28 See Dawah. In: Tabligi Jamaat website, http://www.tablighijamaat.org/dawah/ (January 14, 2017). Comments in parentheses in original. 29 See Dawah, Tabligi Jamaat website (footnote 28). 30 See sheikhsadi: The Tablighi Jamaat Movement. In: Tablighi Jamaat website (January 6, 2017), http:// www.tablighijamaat.org/the-tablighi-jamaat-movement/ (January 14, 2017).

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to discredit rather than support them; among them, a variety of positions are evident, from the most virulent31 to the critical yet somewhat restrained ones.32 This shows, besides giving evidence of the controversial nature of the organization, that an overwhelming number of disciples follow the guiding principles of the group’s official stance and refrain from making digital and analogue resources part of their religious capital.

5. The Text as a Form of Daʿwa, Against and For The Tablīghī Jamāʿat are not unique in their rejection of secondary religious sources (i.e., texts other than the Qurʾan and the Sunna) as fundamental parts of the religious capital in shaping the religious identity of the group. A significant number of reformist groups, from very diverse ideological backgrounds, openly reject identifying their religious ethos with that of particular authors and texts. In many cases, this is an official stance by which leaders do not align themselves with specific viewpoints in order to attempt to attract the largest following possible. Jihadi networks, for example, are well known for using only scarce references to literature. Similarly, the bodily engagement with the Divine promoted by a number of the most successful Sufi orders of today is in fact a dramatic departure from the training that devotees were compelled to undertake in the past, which consisted of an arduous process of learning that, alongside the corporeal practices of Sufi rituals, had a significant intellectual and scriptural component. The case of the Qādiriyya Būdshīshiyya serves here as a good example to exemplify the shifts experienced in the nature of religious instruction. The Order, prior to their exponential expansion, which started in the 1980s, was made by a reduced group of committed pupils who lived in the central lodge of the organization in Madāgh, a small, quiet village in Morocco’s Berber north-eastern border region with Algeria. Today, the Order is a transnational organization with members in various African countries, Europe, North and South America, and South East Asia. Disciples before the 1980s were part of a reduced group of boarding students who lived at the Sufi lodge. They had to live there because the bodily and intellectual training they undertook as part of their education to become disciples of the leader was so intense that it required full-time dedication. The shift towards orality meant that disciples did

31 There are numerous examples, see for example, ZarbeSunni: Deobandi Taliban filthy rituals/dance. In: YouTube.com (July 10, 2009), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gN7Hpbi7L-A, or https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=fqUgSHv-ejQ (January 14, 2017). 32 See for instance, Final fatwa of Shaykh ›Abdul-‹Azeez ibn Baaz warning against the Jamaa‹ah at-Tableegh. In: Ummah.com (October 19, 2012), http://www.ummah.com/forum/showthread.php?343794Final-fatwa-of-Shaykh-Abdul-Azeez-ibn-Baaz-warning-against-the-Jamaa-ah-at-Tableegh (January 14, 2017).

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not need to live in Madāgh anymore. They, in addition to being disciples of the walī33, could carry on with their normal lives, be parents, spouses, and go to work. Religious instruction became restricted to a few hours of ritual practice once a week. The leader of the Order, Ḥamza Būdshīsh, who has only authored a work of about 2000 words (text that constitutes the only mandatory text to be read by members of the organization), says, in order to convince disciples that having a part-time religious education is actually better, that: ‘work is paramount in this world because Divine Law requires that one has to provide for one’s family. It is equally important to take care of one’s family, spouse and children [as it is to care for religion]’.34 Reducing the degree of dedication that devotees had to put into their instruction facilitated the growth of the group. With no need for training in Islamic sciences, authorized dignitaries, with basic religious knowledge, could lead ritual sessions everywhere in the world. Since then, the Order only recognizes one text besides the leader Ḥamza Būdshīsh’s sayings as central to the teachings of the Order, Ibn ʿAṭāʾ Allāh’s (d. 1309) sayings. Most importantly, eliminating a part of the instruction that involved reading and writing about religious sciences in fuṣḥa meant that people from other cultural backgrounds could become part of the organization, too. With no need for holding a vast knowledge of Islam, the group attracted a very diverse type of discipleship. For example, in Morocco, the Order has a significant number of Berber members, whose knowledge of Arabic is sometimes scant. Similarly, in Western Europe and North America, it has attracted a second generation of disengaged Muslims, youngsters who had either abandoned Islam for considering it too ‘old-fashioned’ or who had never received any kind of education in religious values, being the children of non-religious parents. Not surprisingly, the organization also attracts significant numbers of converts with no prior knowledge of Moroccan culture or Islam. When we look at the type of relationship with the printed word (digital or analogue) that the Sufi organization has developed, one finds a number of parallels with the Tablīghī Jamāʿat. The two groups have a leadership that explicitly rejects relying on texts for religious apprehension. Disciples explain that a previous leader of the Order, Boumediene Qādirī Būdshīsh, explicitly forbade any reading about Sufism for his disciples, except for Ibn ʿAṭāʾ Allāh’s (d. 1309) works.35 He is said to have stated, ‘it is better to experience 33 Walī Allāh; pl. awliyāʾ Allāh (Ar.): walī can be translated as manager, guardian, protector, and also intimate or, most commonly, friend. Walī Allāh generally translated as ‘friend of God’, is the term used to designate a Muslim ‘saint’, one who intercedes for others as God’s deputy or vice-regent on earth. It is (especially in North Africa) also commonly rendered as marabout (a French adaptation of the Arabic murābiṭ, the one at the ribāṭ, the lodge or retreat; Berbers often use the Amazigh term agourram (masc.), tagourramt (fem.). 34 Ḥamza Būdshīsh sayings, available online: Sayings. In: Tariqa Qadiriya Boutshishiya website, http:// www.soufisme.org/tariqa/qadiriya/texts/sayings.html (January 16, 2017). 35 Ibn ʿAṭāʾ Allāh’s (d. 1309) writings, particularly his aphorisms, are popular among some disciples. There are several translations of Ibn ʿAṭāʾ Allāh’s works into European languages, notably, those into

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things first hand than to have preconceived ideas about them which shield them with a veil. Our path is the middle of the road.’ The resonances with the Tablīghīs are evident: by discouraging people’s identification with one particular text or author, they aim to appeal to a diverse audience and the largest number of followers possible. Būdshīshis, as the Tablīghīs, do not aim to become puritanical fringe organizations but to conquer the heart of mainstream Islam. In both groups, the anti-textual approach is central in their missionary appeal. In the case of the followers of Ḥamza Būdshīsh, and in line with the aim of becoming mainstream, they actually refer to themselves just as Muslims; in many cases, rejecting the use of words like ‘Sufi’ or ‘Būdshīshī’ that make people feel like they are set apart from the rest of the umma. Where the Qādiriyya Būdshīshiyya and the Tablīghī Jamāʿat’s relationship to the written word most strikingly differs, however, is in the use of the text in their pursuit of daʿwa. Whereas Tablīghīs largely refrain from using books, websites, and other sources of written and visual materials for proselytism, Būdshīshis are not only avid users of these resources but have turned them into the central tool of their religious missionary endeavour. In that, Būdshīshis are similar to a wide array of other Islamic groups who have used written materials effectively in the propagation of their religious message: Some Internet sites created by Muslim scholars and organizations reserve significant space for literature on Christians converting to Islam. Conversion efforts are promoted also by print media, books, and DVDs, but the Internet shines as an especially effective medium.36

Two are the main types of written and visual materials that are used by Būdshīshīs to propagate their message, both online and in analogue formats: informative sources and experiential ones.

6. ‘Information Is Key in the Path towards Allāh’ Many members of the Sufi Order Qādiriyya Būdshīshiyya simply believe that the reason why the entire population of the world is still not Muslim is because they do not yet have the information they require to be it. In line with this belief, a devotee of the Order once told me that ‘information is key in the path towards Allāh’. In fact, some even go further and suggest that there is an actual Muslim inside every one of us, and that it is just that most people do not know it. It is common among converts to present their conversion as a reversion; that is to say, to suggest that they have come to the realization that their beliefs French by Paul Nwyia. 36 Uriya Shavit/Frederic Wiesenbach: Muslim strategies to convert Western Christians. In: Middle East Quarterly 16.2 (2009), available online at http://www.meforum.org/2104/muslim-strategies-to-convertwestern-christians (January 14, 2017).

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have always been Islamic, and that by coming to learn about Islam they have simply been made aware of it. By using the idea of the inner Muslim, they see themselves as going back to Islam and not as adopting something completely anew. In this way, I would suggest, they try to tune down the oddity often associated with their newly made religious choice and present it as something natural. Other studies on conversion find similar self-delusional mechanisms being put in place.37 Information is not only key in converting non-Muslims but also in re-engaging the religiously disengaged. This is particularly the case in the West, where Muslims living as minorities constantly see Islam as being under threat of being subsumed into the mainstream non-Islamic culture. The growing trend of public recognition of ex-Muslims has actually begun in Western Europe and does nothing but keep growing exponentially.38 In this context, information on Islam is also used to reinforce religious piety among Muslims, and we see how ‘those who were born Muslim [are believed to] need education to become both more “pious” and better able to interact successfully with majority society’.39 A major feature of daʿwa – not only in the West but even more so there – is that it is often directed towards both Muslims and non-Muslims. In the cases analyzed here, both the Tablīghī Jamāʿat and the Qādiriyya Būdshīshiyya regularly engage in trying to simultaneously attract non-Muslims, religiously disengaged Muslims, as well as pious Muslims from other denominations. Although the Būdshīshiyya, in line with the Tablīghī Jamāʿat, can also be considered a proselytizing group, the ways in which daʿwa is undertaken by the latter differ significantly from the more forthright methods used by Tablīghīs. For many in the Moroccan Sufi Order, daʿwa is merely an act of providing information. The degree to which devotees engage in informing others is also a matter of personal choice. It is, however, true that many of them spend a significant amount of their time and resources generating written materials with that purpose. Among the Order’s followers there have been a number of scholars on Islamic studies, some of them with an impressive scholarly output, like Eva de Vitray-Meyerovitch (d. 1999)40, who may have seen their scholarly engagement as part of their religious piety. There have also been a number of good-selling authors whose prose stands between academia and outreach, who may see their output through a similar religious

37 Kathleen M. Moore: Daʿwa in the United States. In: Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad/Jane I. Smith (eds): The Oxford Handbook of American Islam. New York: Oxford University Press 2014, p. 281. 38 See, for example, the Council of ex-Muslims of Britain website, http://ex-muslim.org.uk/ (January 12, 2017). 39 Moore, Daʿwa in the United States (footnote 37), p. 282. 40 See, for example, Eva de Vitray-Meyerovitch: Mystique et poésie en Islam. Djalâl-ud-Dîn Rûmîet l’ordre des derviches tourneurs. Bruges: Desclée de Brouwer 1972 ; Eva de Vitray-Meyerovitch:Anthologie du soufisme. Paris: Sindbad 1978 ; Eva de Vitray-Meyerovitch: La mecque. Ville sainte de l’Islam. Paris: R. Laffont 1984.

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gaze. The international religious celebrity of the Order, Faouzi Skali (b. 1953)41, founder and director of the Fes Festival of Sacred Music, is also a prolific author. At a more local scale, authors such as Rachid Ben Rochd42 and Karim Ben Driss43 have made substantial efforts to bring general Islamic topics to general audiences with their books. Nevertheless, the book culture of the Order is changing, and, currently, the trend of writing books is increasingly being replaced by one of creating Internet materials. It is therefore common to find devotees who create online content on religious matters, and that, as part of their being part of the organization, have become better acquainted on how to develop, post, and present materials online in a way that is accessible and attractive to the wider public. This phenomenon has resulted in a plethora of websites, blogs, videoblogs, and others, produced in a wide range of languages – a linguistic phenomenon that evidences the transnational reach of the organization.44 Like the booklets used by members of the Tablīghī Jamāʿat, many of these sites provide general information about Islam, and in general not much on it is specific to the Būdshīshiyya. They often include sections arguing in favour of the centrality played by Sufism in the Islamic tradition, historically and today45, but, even in these sections, one finds more similarities than differences with the guiding principles adopted by other Sufi organizations and almost never a clear missionary call. Many of these sites, however, subtly offer information on the times and places in which the community of devotees meet in different cities and, quite crucially, there is always an email address (usually of the local authorities in each of the groups of the country), where one can get in touch with the organization. Būdshīshīs do not preach in the street. There is some evidence suggesting that some have preached at work, since some of the groups have found a significant number of devotees in the workplace. There are groups in France and Morocco that are almost exclusively made 41 See, for example, Faouzi Skali: La voie soufie. Paris: Albin Michel 1985; Faouzi Skali: Traces de lumière. Paroles initiatiques soufies. Paris: Albin Michel 1996; Faouzi Skali: Le face à face des coeurs. Le soufisme aujourd’hui. Gordes: Éditions du Relié 1999; Faouzi Skali: Jésus dans la tradition soufie. Paris: Albin Michel 2004. 42 Rachid E. Ben Rochd: Le Soufisme. Patrimoine universel méthode d’epanouissement et doctrine d’harmonie. Casablanca: Dechra 2002. 43 Karim Ben Driss: Sidi Hamza al-Qadiri Boudchich. Le renouveau du Soufisme au Maroc. Beirut: Albouraq 2002. 44 See, for example, http://www.saveurs-soufies.com/, http://www.soufisme.org/tariqa/qadiriya/index. html, http://www.sufiway.net/, http://www.soufisme.org/tariqa/ar/index.php, http://gozokiak.blogspot. ch/2008/09/sama-tariqa-qadiria-buchichia.html (January 14, 2017). 45 See http://www.saveurs-soufies.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=section&layout=blog &id=1&Itemid=3 (January 13, 2017). On the linguistic diversity of the Būdshīshiyya, see: Marta Dominguez Diaz: The Būdshīshiyya’s Tower of Babel. Cultural and linguistic diversity in a transnational Sufi order. In: Sipra Mukherjee (ed.): Languages of Religion. Exploring the Politics of the Sacred. New Delhi: Routledge 2017.

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up of university staff, faculty, and/or students of humanities subjects, and others made up of hospital personnel, which seems to suggest that the organization acquires a certain corporate character at a times.46 By and large, however, Būdshīshīs, if they do preach, do so only with significant discretion. Instead, they have mainly used the Internet as a source to appeal to potential joiners. As a result, we see that most devotees have come to know the Order either online or via an acquaintance, someone they knew before. Wordof-mouth seems to be effective in bringing new people to the organization; the Internet, however, may be much more successful in giving visibility to the Order, and there seems to be some indication that the World Wide Web is generating new types of discipleship. In circles of reverted, re-affiliated, and convert Muslims, the Būdshīshiyya’s websites, together with a plethora of other sources informing about Islam, have shown significant success in increasing, or generating, new modes of religious engagement and feeling. Some people either convert or become much more religious as a result of engaging with online resources – something I have found out during my research, but which is also a common finding among others who have conducted studies about converts in Europe. Previous studies, for example, suggest that converts to Islam, especially in the earlier stages of their religious transformation, go through a phase in which they become emotionally obsessed with the new religion. At this stage, new Muslims typically spend large amounts of time reading about Islam, something which also occurs, I have found out, among revert Muslims.47 Sophie Roald explains how converts, at the beginning, ‘would sit and read Islamic books every spare moment they had’48 and she cites a convert woman whose obsessiveness is neatly summarized when she states that, ‘I just want to learn every single Islamic rule and start to practice everything I have learnt at once.’49 The accessibility and privacy Internet that sources have has meant that, nowadays, this first rush of information is obtained online. Furthermore, many people decide to become Muslim after a solely online relationship with Muslims and/or Islam. This is so to the extent that, for some, converting or reverting to Islam actually mainly means spending time online, searching and reading about Islam. With regard to the Būdshīshiyya, however, it is interesting to note that the huge number of visitors that some of their websites have (for example, the French portal Saveurs Soufies, the Arabic al-Ishāra journal50, or the YouTube videos of Hamza Bouchich) do not translate into a large number 46 Marta Dominguez Diaz: Women and Sufism. Female Religiosities in a Transnational Order. New York: Routledge 2015, p. 135. 47 This is not so common among re-affiliated Muslims, who are more prone to meet the new community than reading, something they may have done, perhaps, in the past. 48 Sophie Roald: The making of Scandinavian Islam. Converts and gender equal opportunity. In: Karin van Nieuwkerk (ed.): Women Embracing Islam. Gender and Conversion in the West. Austin: University of Texas Press 2006, p. 49.  49 In Roald, The making of Scandinavian Islam (footnote 48), p. 49. 50 See the journal al-Ishāra, http://www.tariqa.fr/ishara/ (January 12, 2017).

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of people turning into devotees of the Order. This seems to indicate that we are facing a new type of relationship between disciple and organization. I have also encountered a number of Internet consumers of religious sites that have declared the information they have found on the websites created by Būdshīshīs have been central in their discovery or rediscovery of Islam (there were both converts and reverts), but that despite having entered Islam, they have never contacted or had any interest in getting in touch with members of this religious organization. This rather new type of approach generates what we can define as a liquid adherence to the Order, as it develops following Zygmunt Bauman’s identity patterns of what he defines as a liquid modernity.51 In a society defined by the increasing privatization of services and by the information revolution, people easily move from one social position to another, adopting a kind of identity nomadism. The liquid modern subject, according to Bauman, flows through her/his own life like a tourist – permanence is what s/he mainly lacks. The person, thus, shifts between places, jobs, partners, and values on a regular basis. The subject who is prototypical of a liquid modernity excludes herself/himself from traditional networks of support whilst maintaining a certain degree of freedom due to abandoning the constrains and requirements characteristic of those structures.52 In the case of the Būdshīshiyya, the liquid devotee is a convert or revert who acquires a new religious identity thanks to feeling a certain degree of identification with the identity of the Order, but who does not necessarily become part of the ranks of this religious organization. This somehow increasingly normalized pattern of religious identification includes the Būdshīshiyya within the larger religious landscape of Europe, in what Davie defined as vicarious religion53; the idea that religions are made up of a reduced core committed to the structure of the religious organization and a large body of loose devotees who may concur with the ideas of the group but who escape the formal organizational structure. Vicarious religions are typical of late European modernity. The relationship of individuals to digital materials is here demonstrated as key to developing these liquid forms of belonging to vicarious religions; the liquid convert/revert heavily relies on the writings of others in the process of transforming the religious self. Stefano Allievi, when presenting us with a typology of religious conversion, proposes a threefold model. He says, people convert either (i) because they marry a Muslim (most of them); (ii) because they have met a Muslim who has changed the way they perceive Islam, not necessarily establishing a long-term relationship with that person, what Allievi calls ‘relational’ conversions; and, (iii) because they have encountered books on Islam, especially on Sufism, what he calls ‘rational’ conversions.54 Nowadays, the Internet is 51 Zygmunt Bauman: Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press 2000. 52 Bauman, Liquid Modernity (footnote 49). 53 Davie, Vicarious religion (footnote 11). 54 Stefano Allievi: The shifting significance of the halal/haram frontier. Narratives on the hijab and other issues. In: Karin van Nieuwkerk (ed.): Women Embracing Islam. Gender and Conversion in the West.

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replacing analogue materials as the main resource used by rational convert and revert Muslims. A significant number of the materials they use are informative in nature. But there is another type of resource that is also key to understanding people’s path towards Islam: these are the accounts of other convert and revert Muslims, what are often referred as conversion narratives.

7. The Power of Biographical Accounts in Persuading Others Conversion narratives are effective tools of psychological support in the decision to join a new religion made by converts. In the Qādiriyya Būdshīshiyya, the publication of biographical accounts given by reverts and converts on how and why they joined the Sufi Order have proven to be a central mechanism used both online and offline to encourage individuals to join the group. These accounts are a much more direct and frank tool for religious propagation, and are quite more open in their missionary tone, than the informative resources. These types of text have created a genre of its own, the conversion narrative, a type of autobiographical prose in which the author instils meaning and a sense of purpose to his/her detour of religious becoming. The genre is extremely popular among readers in Islam; actually, one of the most famous novels ever written by a Muslim is the biographical narrative of the famous convert to Islam, Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X.55 The book is a vivid account of the life of the African American human rights activist, and has been inspirational to many Western Muslims, converts and non-converts alike. Although the Internet has triggered a boom in the autobiographical conversion genre, popularizing it and making it possible for humble converts to also tell their stories, it is interesting to see how the biggest impact and effectiveness is often exerted by the biographies written by famous people. This is clear in the case of the Qādiriyya Būdshīshiyya, where the two biographical works of the arguably most famous disciple of Ḥamza Būdshīsh, Abd Al Malik, are well-known texts by a significant number of devotees in this organization. Abd Al Malik, born Régis Fayette-Mikano (b. 1975), is a Paris-born, Strasbourg-raised hip-hop singer of Congolese origin, a former vocalist of the NAP (North African Poets) and nowadays a solo artist. He is not only acclaimed for his musical career but for his outspoken stand against Islamophobia and his defence of Sufi Islam. His fame as a writer is mainly due to his two main biographical works; in 2004, he published Qu’Allah bénisse la France56, about his impoverished childhood in a Strasbourg banlieue as a sibling of seven other children and the son of a single Congolese mother. The book won the Belgian Laurence Trân Prize in 2005, it has been translated into English and has been turned into Austin: University of Texas Press 2006, p. 123. 55 Malcolm X/Alex Haley: The Autobiography of Malcolm X. New York: Ballantine Books 1992. 56 Abd Al Malik: Qu’Allah bénisse la France! Paris: Albin Michel 2004.

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a movie that premiered at the Festival du film francophone d’Angoulême in August 2014, and won the FIPRESCI Discovery Prize at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival. In 2009, and following an episode of banlieue rioting that spread across the country, he also published La guerre des banlieues n’aura pas lieu57, where he mixes his reflections on the social and political situation of France’s urban ghettoes with his personal biographical accounts. This time, the book won the Prix de littérature politique Edgar-Faure, in 2010. His latest book, L’Islam au secours de la République (2013)58, is his first fictional work and does not contain any biographical references. Hailing from a Strasbourg ghetto, his biographies explain, Malik converted to Islam in his youth amid a climate of police riots and violence. His conversion narrative presents a violent world that many of his readers will find familiar. He describes the religious options available to the young Muslim and non-Muslim in poor urban neighbourhoods, places in which the socio-religious fabric of Islam often provides the emotional and social support that the communities so commonly lack. He explains his initial sympathizing with groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood and his later belonging to the Tablīghī Jamāʿat. He also explains the influence of preachers and Islamic intellectuals such as Ahmad Didat and Tariq Ramadan on the young generations of disengaged youngsters from the ghettoes. The author, after presenting a reality that many will identify with, goes onto detail about the reasons to choose one among all the other religious choices. After several years of spiritual searching, one of his books reads, Malik recognizes in these other types of religiosity ‘un islamisme agressif, en marge de la société’59, and decides to enter the Būdshīshiyya to palliate the effects of religious marginalization. Since then, the narrative continues, he has been enlightened by the love of his shaykh, Ḥamza Būdshīsh, which has also translated into the flourishing of his life on both professional and personal levels. It is not only the text he uses to proselytize; since 2004, Malik has launched a number of albums (e.g., Le face à face des coeurs, Gibraltar, Dante, and Château rouge), which have made it to the top of the charts. They contain, among others, songs that tell of his love for Ḥamza and lyrics that speak out against the Salafi politicization of Islam of the banlieues. We can define Malik’s biographies as narratives of salvation, a typical feature of the genre within and outside Islam (e.g., in Pentecostal Christianity60): a horrible past ends in an enlightened future thanks to the adoption of a new religious identity. It also echoes Malcolm X’s account: an early life in a low-class Boston suburb, heavily marked by crime and drug abuse. After conversion, he enters the Nation of Islam and finds a true Islam that rescues him from the malaises of his previous life. Similarly, Malik’s account of his 57 Abd Al Malik/Juliette Greco: La guerre des banlieues n’aura pas lieu. Paris: Le Cherche midi 2009.  58 Abd Al Malik: L’islam au secours de la République. Paris: Flammarion 2013. 59 Abd Al Malik, Qu’Allah bénisse la France! (footnote 56). 60 Sara Rismyhr Engelund: Salvation and social work. Conversions and charity among Pentecostal Christians in Los Angeles. MA thesis, Oslo, 2013. Available online: https://www.duo.uio.no/handle/10852/36995.

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conversion offers a mechanism for turning negative experiences into something positive, a recipe to survive the hardships of life in the ghetto and a way to build a new life. Interestingly, Malik’s daʿwa is not merely pointing to the non-Muslim and the nonpractising Muslim; it also speaks to young Muslims from other denominations by calling them to abandon their current affiliations, reject the ‘incendiary’ rhetoric of integriste Muslim preachers, by opening for them an alternative, joining the ‘path of love’ of the Būdshīshiyya. For the revert, I argue that part of the daʿwa effectiveness of the text is that it provides practical steps to cope with Islamophobia, police abuse, and failure of the school system and social services. As a convert and then re-affiliated Muslim, his biographical work is perceived as a mirror in which lower-class young people can find an example to follow – what mechanism of daʿwa could be more effective than that?

8. Conclusion This article has explored the relationship between religious proselytism in Islam and book culture by exploring the diverse types of relationships that missionary organizations develop with the written word. In both cases studied, the organization refuses to closely associate itself with the writings of given individuals, as it perhaps assumes that this will halt their insatiable drive to expand. On the other hand, however, the body of disciples often turns to writing as a means to communicate their religious feelings and piety. Whereas in some cases, such as with the Tablīghī Jamāʿat, organizations refuse to use these materials in their missionary processes, in others, like with the Qādiriyya Būdshīshiyya, the use of such materials has proven to be a highly effective means of religious propagation. This is particularly true with regard to those texts authored by celebrities, such as the hip-hop singer Abd Al Malik. In some other cases, the simple production of informative resources, nowadays made more easily available through the Internet, has meant a larger number of individuals may join Islam after being groomed exclusively through online platforms and sites. That has generated new types of liquid relationships between people with a newly acquired faith and the religious organizations that have actually triggered that change. The result is a looser relationship in which devotees may agree with the precepts and style of a given religious organization without intending to put themselves through the demands and commitments required by formal membership. The study of book culture in relationship to religious proselytism proves to be a significantly telling way to understand these new forms of religious belonging.

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1.

Paratexts: Thresholds to Palestinian Identity Manar Makhoul

Although Palestinian citizens of Israel remained in their homeland, this community has undergone massive transformations in almost all aspects of life. The 1948 War, during which Israel was created, was a catastrophe (Nakba) for the Palestinians. Some 750,000 Palestinians were displaced during this war, which erupted in November 1947, and became refugees. A group of 156,000 Palestinians remained to become citizens in Israel. How did the Palestinian citizens of Israel adapt to their new status as a minority, numerical and political, and to the subsequent social and political reality? To answer this question, in this article I will analyze the first Palestinian novel to be published in Israel after the 1948 War. Mudhakkarāt lājiʾ aw Ḥayfā fī al-maʿraka (A Refugee’s Memoirs or Haifa in the Battle, 1958), by Tawfīq Muʿammar. This novel registers some aspects of the initial transformation in Palestinian discourse, as well as the considerations that underlie them. This article will focus on the political motivations as well as the inhibitions that surround the publishing of this novel.

1. Introduction Palestinian citizens of Israel are the remnants of Palestinian society who, after the 1948 War, were to become citizens in the newly established Israel. Although they remained in their homeland, this society has undergone massive transformations in almost all aspects of life. The 1948 War, during which Israel was created, was a catastrophe (Nakba) for the Palestinians. Some 750,000 Palestinians were displaced during this war, which erupted in November 1947, and became refugees. A group of 156,000 Palestinians remained to become citizens in Israel. How did the Palestinian citizens of Israel adapt to their new status as a minority, numerical and political, and to the subsequent social and political reality? To answer this question, in this article I will analyze the first Palestinian novel to be published in Israel after the 1948 War. Mudhakkarāt lājiʾ aw Ḥayfā fī al-maʿraka (A Refugee’s Memoirs or Haifa in the Battle, 1958), by Tawfīq Muʿammar, deals exclusively with the events leading to the occupation of Haifa, detailing the expulsion of its inhabitants in April 1948, through the eyes of the protagonist Ghālib ʿAbd al-Karīm. The point of departure for this article lies in seeing novels as historic documents that store valuable information on social, cultural, and political discourse and transformation.1 Analyzing the first Palestinian novel in Israel allows us to peek into the initial adaptation of Palestinian discourse under Israeli rule. To decipher the clues embedded in this novel, I will utilize the logic and analytical tools of the sociology of texts, which studies the ‘social, economic, and political motivations of publishing, the reasons why texts were written and

1 Edward Said: Culture and Imperialism. London: Vintage 1994, p. 13.

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read as they were, why they were rewritten and redesigned, or allowed to die’.2 Moreover, according to McKenzie: A ‘sociology of texts’, then, contrasts with a bibliography confined to logical inference from printed signs as arbitrary marks on parchment or paper. […] Physical bibliography – the study of the signs which constitute texts and the materials on which they are recorded – is of course the starting point. But it cannot define the discipline because it has no adequate means of accounting for the processes, the technical and social dynamics, of transmission and reception, whether by one reader or a whole market of them.3

More precisely, this article will focus on the political motivations as well as inhibitions that surround the publishing of this novel. To achieve this, I will analyze the text and the paratexts of the novel. Paratexts include the titles, epigraphs, notes, dedications, and prefaces. They are thresholds, or ‘framing devices, that are neither fully inside the text, nor completely outside it’.4 In the following, I will provide a brief historical context for the period in which the novel was written. Afterwards, I will discuss the explicit and implicit discourses expressed in the novel through analyzing its text and paratexts.

2. Context The events of, and years immediately following, the 1948 War had a tremendous effect on the Palestinian community. The social fabric of Palestinian society was dramatically and irreversibly altered as a result of the mass exodus, culminating in the traumatic loss of family members, many of whom were never to be seen again. Military rule5 following the war entailed harsh and repressive policies against Palestinians who stayed on to become citizens of Israel. These policies brought about the loss of sources of livelihood, loss of property due to confiscation, and put severe restrictions on movement. The 1948 Nakba was, in fact, the peak of a process that began earlier, with active hostilities starting in November 1947, after the adoption of the Partition Plan at the United Nations. As violent clashes broke out between the Palestinians and the Jewish settlers, the Zionist leaders realized the magnitude of the historic opportunity before them. They decided in early 1948 to adopt a more offensive approach.6 Carrying out an offensive 2 D. F. McKenzie: Bibliography and the Sociology of Texts. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press 1999, p. 15. 3 McKenzie, Bibliography and the Sociology of Texts (footnote 2), pp. 15–16. 4 Yasir Suleiman: Arabic in the Fray. Language Ideology and Cultural Politics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 2013, p. 95. 5 ‘Military rule’, ‘military government’, ‘military administration’, and ‘military regime’ are different terms denoting the military rule imposed on the Palestinians inside Israel between 1948 and 1966. 6 Avi Shlaim: The Iron Wall. Israel and the Arab World. London: Penguin Books 2000, p. 31.

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approach meant the expulsion of Palestinians from many areas of Palestine, starting with the urban centres. This first phase of the 1948 War, which was, in fact, a civil war, resulted in the uprooting of about 250,000 Palestinians.7 It was only after the termination of the British Mandate on May 15, 1948, that the Zionist movement could proclaim the establishment of Israel, and it was then that the Arab armies entered Palestine. This date marked the beginning of the second phase of the war, which ended with the signing of armistice agreements in January 1949.8 In 1950, Israel declared military rule to control the Palestinian population within its borders, continuing the military control of Palestinian territories held during the war. For nearly two decades, the sole means of communication between Israel and the Palestinian population would remain the army or the police. To encompass all aspects of the administration, military officials were granted extensive powers, both executive and judicial: These regulations give the authorities extensive and extremely rigorous powers, and their enforcement can destroy individual freedom and individual rights to property almost completely. They cover every aspect of life, from control over the freedom of speech, movement, and the press, to the regulation of the possession of arms, the expropriation of property, and the control of means of transportation.9

The origins of the military rule lay in the British Mandatory Defence (Emergency) Regulations of 1945 (which reached back to the 1936−1939 revolt) and the Israeli Emergency (Security Zones) Regulations, 5707 of 1949.10 Military rule was enforced in all areas populated by Palestinians. These were the Galilee, the Triangle, and the Negev. For a short time, military rule was also enforced in the cities of Ramla, Lydda (Lod), Jaffa, and Ashkelon (formerly al-Majdal). However, since it was impossible to enforce military rule in these mixed cities, it was lifted in July 1949.11 Military rule served various objectives beyond the declared ‘security’ justification. It was essentially a tool to control the Palestinian population inside Israel in order to take over the remainder of their lands and villages. Military rule also aimed to prevent the return of any Palestinian refugees to their homes. Short-term uses of military rule included the

7 Ilan Pappé: The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. Oxford: Oneworld 2007, p. 40. 8 Walid Khalidi: A Palestinian perspective on the Arab-Israeli conflict. In: Journal of Palestine Studies 14.4 (1985), pp. 35–48; Pappé, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (footnote 7), p. 40. 9 Sabri Jiryis: The Arabs in Israel. New York, London: Monthly Review Press 1976, p. 16. 10 Jiryis, The Arabs in Israel (footnote 9), p. 9. 11 Jiryis, The Arabs in Israel (footnote 9), p. 9; Sara Ozacky-Lazar: The military government as an apparatus of control of the Arab citizens in Israel. The first decade, 1948–1958. In: Hamizrah Hehadash (The New East) 43 (2002), pp. 104, 111; Ilan Pappé: A History of Modern Palestine. One Land, Two Peoples. 2nd edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2006, pp. 154–55.

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regulation of the Palestinian labour force according to the needs of the Israeli market, and a political tool in the hands of the ruling party, Mapai, on election days.12

3. Text and Paratexts The historical narrative expressed in Mudhakkarāt lājiʾ corresponds to the discourse outlined above. However, in contrast to the historical narrative and language, novelistic description allows for the expression of emotions such as shock and anger. The following excerpt from the novel exemplifies the Palestinian national and historical narrative of the events of the 1948 War in Haifa, as expressed by the protagonist on page 110: ‫ م ّرت عىل هذه البالد يف تاريخها الطويل ِمحن ونَكَبات وتع ّرضت‬.‫نهب عا ٌم شامل مل تشهد له هذه املدينة مثيالً يف أحلك عصورها وأشدّها همجية وبربرية‬ ٌ ‫كل مكان […] ولكن مل‬ ّ ‫كل حدب وصوب نرشت املوت والدمار يف‬ ّ ‫ واجتاحتها جيوش غازية من‬،‫ وتعاقبت عليها أقوا ٌم ودول كثرية‬،‫ملآس أليمة وويالت‬ ‫ يف هذه‬،‫مم شاهدته يف هذه الفرتة من التاريخ‬ ّ ،ً‫يحدث أن شاهدت هذه البالد دمارا ً أكرث شموالً ونهباً أوسع نطاقاً ومتزيق شمل وإبادة أش ّد هوالً وفظاعة‬ .‫الحقبة من حقب القرن العرشين يف عهد الدولة الربيطانية املنتدبة„ الحليفة“ والدول العربية السبع ويف ظل هيئة األمم املتحدة ومنظامت حقوق اإلنسان‬ ‫قب القرن العرشين‬ Nahb ʿāmm shāmil lam tashhad lahu hādhihi al-madīna mathīlan fī aḥlak ʿuṣūriha wa-ashadduhā hamajiyya wa-barbariyya. Marrat ʿalā hādhihi al-bilād fī tārikhihā al-ṭawīl miḥan wa-nakabāt wa-taʿrraḍat li-maʾāsin alīma wa-waylāt, wa-taʿāqabat ʿalayhā aqwāmun wa-duwal kathīra, wa-ijtāḥathā juyūsh ghāziya min kull ḥadb wa-ṣawb nasharat al-mawt wa-l-damār fī kull makān […] wa-lākin lam yaḥduth an shāhadat hādhihi al-bilād damāran akthar shumūlan wa-nahban awsaʿ niṭāqan wa-tamzīq shaml wa-ibāda ashaddu hawlan wa-faẓāʿa, mimmā shāhadathu fī hādhihi al-fatra min al-tārīkh, fī hādhihi al-ḥiqba min ḥiqab al-qarn al-ʿishrīn fī ʿahd al-dawla al-barīṭāniyya al-muntadiba ‘al-ḥalīfa’ wa-l-duwal al-ʿarabiyya al-sabʿ wa-fī ẓill hayʾat al-umam al-muttaḥida wa-munaẓẓamāt ḥuqūq al-insān.

The account of the ‘comprehensive looting’ (nahb ʿāmm shāmil) and battle over Haifa are comparable to historical accounts of the occupation of Haifa.13 The documentary character of this novel, as I will show in the following discussion, is evident in the language employed in it. Specifically, it is apparent in the use of terms such as ‘historical era’ (ḥiqba), ‘international ally’ (ḥalīfa), ‘the British Mandate’ (intidāb), and ‘the United Nations’ (hayʾat al-umam al-muttaḥida), as well as referring to ‘human rights organizations’ 12 Jiryis, The Arabs in Israel (footnote 9), p. 16; Walid Khalidi: Plan Dalet. Master plan for the conquest of Palestine. In: Journal of Palestine Studies 18.1 (1988), p. 37; Alina Korn: Military government, political control and crime. The case of Israeli Arabs. In: Crime, Law & Social Change 34.2 (2000), p. 159; Rebecca B. Kook: The Logic of Democratic Exclusion. African Americans in the United States and Palestinian Citizens in Israel. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books 2002, p. 69; Ozacky-Lazar, The military government as an apparatus of control (footnote 11), p. 104; Nur Masalha: Present absentees and indigenous resistance. In: Ilan Pappé (ed.): The Israel/Palestine Question. A Reader. 2nd edn. London: Routledge 2007, pp. 258–59. 13 Walid Khalidi: The fall of Haifa revisited. In: Journal of Palestine Studies 37.3 (2008), pp. 30–58; Pappé, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (footnote 7).

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(munazzamāt ḥuqūq al-insān). Nevertheless, in addition to the historical language, for the .. protagonist, the expulsion of the indigenous Palestinian population of Haifa, estimated at 70,000 individuals14, is comparable to the darkest (aḥlak), most barbaric (hamajiyya wa-barbariyya) catastrophes (nakabāt) that assaulted the country during its long history. The description moves from dealing with the particular case of Haifa, to encompass the entire country. The many catastrophes (nakabāt), invasions (ijtiyāḥāt), hardships (miḥan, maʾāsin, waylāt), destructions (damār), and exterminations (tamzīq shaml, ibāda) that struck the country throughout history do not compare to the Zionist crimes in the 1948 War, thereby making the war, by implication, the worst nakba of all. Additionally, in this description the narrative aims to tell not only about the Palestinian predicament but also to stress the cruelty of the occupying army. The political-historical discourse voiced in the above excerpt, and generally in the novel, extends to ridiculing the allies of the Palestinians during the war, especially Britain, but also the seven Arab countries that took part in the war. His ridicule is directed at international institutions, such as the United Nations and human rights organizations, all of which failed to protect the Palestinians from the cruelties of the Zionist army. The ‘barbarity’ in the opening of the excerpt contrasts with the ‘human rights’ that close the paragraph. This contrast implies, in an ironic way, that the Palestinians did not have true allies to protect them. Their so-called allies have, on the contrary, turned their backs on them, leaving them an easy target for the Zionist occupation. In the general historical debate over the events of the 1948 War, the discourse presented in Mudhakkarāt lājiʾ aw Ḥayfā fī al-maʿraka resembles the Palestinian narrative rather than the Israeli one.15 The reason I point out this issue is to establish this as a reference point against which we can later compare the discourse implicit in the paratexts of this novel. According to Suleiman, paratexts ‘signpost and navigate the text […] in addition to mediating the interaction between the text, the reader and the public’.16 It is precisely this liminality that we aim to investigate in this article, seeking to understand the dynamics between the ‘outside’ and the text ‘inside’. The dynamics that take place on this paratextual threshold contain valuable information on discourse transformation in light of a transforming sociopolitical context. According to Gérard Genette, the title should identify

14 Ian Lustick: Zionism and the state of Israel. Regime objectives and the Arab minority in the first years of statehood. In: Middle Eastern Studies 16.1 (1980), p. 132. 15 Edward Said: Zionism from the standpoint of its victims. In: Social Text 1 (1979), pp. 7–58; Khalidi, Plan Dalet (footnote 12); Avi Shlaim: The debate about 1948. In: International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 27.3 (1995), pp. 287–304; Ghazi Falah: The 1948 Israeli-Palestinian war and its aftermath. The transformation and de-signification of Palestine’s cultural landscape. In: Annals of the Association of American Geographers 86.2 (1996), pp. 256–85. 16 Suleiman, Arabic in the Fray (footnote 4), p. 95.

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Figure 10. Title page, Mudhakkarāt lājiʾ aw Ḥayfā fī al-maʿraka by Tawfīq Muʿammar (1958).

the work, designate the work’s subject matter, and play up the work.17 In the following, I will address how the novel at hand fulfils these functions in order to reveal important clues as to its political orientation. The title comprises two parts connected by the conjunction ‘or’ (aw). The first part indicates that the novel is the memoir of a refugee. This refugee is Palestinian, since the second part of the title states that the novel talks about Haifa in the battle. There seems to be an implied causal relationship between the two parts of the title: becoming a refugee is a result of a battle raging in Haifa. The implied relationship between the two parts of the title is prompted by the use of the conjunction ‘or’ (aw). Aw equalizes the two sections of the title, suggesting that either of them could be a title for the novel. The battle (al-maʿraka) to which the title refers is the one that took place during the 1948 War in Palestine. The use of the definite article (al-) reflects the commitment of the author to the Palestinian cause, since for Muʿammar there is only one battle – the battle over Palestine – that one (a Palestinian), could write about. Seen from this angle, it is possible to say that the act of writing the novel reflects the historical engagement of Muʿammar in the battle for the memory of Haifa, Palestine, and the events of the 1948 War. The title is directed at many more people than the text, people who by one route or another receive it and transmit it and thereby have a hand in circulating it. For if the text

17 Gérard Genette: Paratexts. Thresholds of Interpretation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1997, p. 76.

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is an object to be read, the title (like, moreover, the name of the author) is an object to be circulated – or, if you prefer, a subject of conversation.18 The title of Mudhakkarāt lājiʾ aw Ḥayfā fī al-maʿraka plays an important role in terms of playing up and circulating the work. One of the main outcomes of the Nakba is the displacement of most of the Palestinian nation out of their homes, villages, and cities. Writing about the memories of a refugee is derived from the importance of this issue to the author. Seen from this perspective, ‘memoirs of a refugee’ is directed and aims to appeal to the widest Palestinian audience. The second title refers to the particular case of the displacement of Haifa. Although most the book focuses on the events of the 1948 War in Haifa, choosing to entitle the book within the broader context of Palestinian displacement reflects the author’s orientation regarding the conflict in Palestine. In other words, the author found it important to appeal to a wider Palestinian audience by using ‘refugee’ in the first title, rather than framing his book within the micro-events of Haifa that are the primary focus in the novel. This ‘hierarchy’ is reflected also in the larger typeface given to the first title. Besides, if the function of the title is to identify the work and its content then Muʿammar aimed to convey two messages in the title: the first refers to the documentary nature of the work (Memoirs), and the second specifies its context. This hierarchy reflects the political balance of power, as seen by Muʿammar, between Israel and the Palestinian citizens in it. I will elaborate on this in the following discussion about the novel’s preface. The preface of Mudhakkarāt lājiʾ mediates between the text and the context in various ways. I will address these functions and show what they reveal about the Palestinian discourse in this period.

4. Credibility and Factuality The opening sentence of the preface states that the events of the story (qiṣṣa) that is told in this book take place in Haifa in the early months of 1948, and end in Jordan: ‫ إنّها تص ّور ناحية ها ّمة من نواحي‬.‫ وتنتهي بعد ذلك يف األردن‬8491 ‫قصة تقع حوادثها يف حيفا يف الشهور األوىل من عام‬ ّ ‫إ ّن موضوع هذا الكتاب هو‬ ‫ وهي مستوحاة من صميم حياتنا وكفاحنا ومبنية‬.‫„الحرب الفلسطينية“ والكفاح العريب إبان الحوادث الدامية التي سبقت رحيل العرب وخالله وما بعده‬ .‫عىل اختبارات شخصية وانطباعات كان لها وقع اليم يف النفوس‬ ‫ وما رافقها من فوىض وفساد وخيانة لجديرة بالتدوين والنرش لتكون عربة ألوالدنا وأحفادنا‬،‫ وتناولت مصري شعب بأرسه‬،‫إ ّن هذه الكارثة التي نزلت بالعرب‬ ‫ ويجدر يب أن أو ّجه انتباه القارئ الكريم اىل أ ّن‬.‫القصة الواقعية ونرشها عىل املأل‬ ّ ‫ من هنا نشأ اهتاممي باملوضوع حتى انتهى اىل وضع هذه‬.‫من بعدنا‬ ‫القصة من أقوال ثائرة وعبارات هائجة يف وصف الرحيل ومآسيه وما أحاط بالحرب الفلسطينية من مؤامرات‬ ّ ‫ما جاء عىل لسان غالب عبد الكريم بطل‬ ‫ وهو أقل ما يجب أن يقال يف ظروف املحنة القاسية اذا أخذنا بعني االعتبار الجروح العميقة واآلثار البعيدة املدى التي خلفتها يف‬،‫وخيانات لهو قول حق‬ .‫النفوس ويف كل مكان‬

18 Genette, Paratexts (footnote 17), p. 75.

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Figure 11. Preface, Mudhakkarāt lājiʾ aw Ḥayfā fī al-maʿraka. ‫ يف دار البلدية يف حيفا يف الثاين‬،‫ بإرشاف الجرنال ستوكويل قائد القوات الربيطانية‬،‫القصة رشوط الصلح اليهودية التي دار البحث حولها‬ ّ ‫ويجد القارئ يف ثنايا‬ ‫ وهي وثيقة تاريخية ها ّمة أث ّبتها كام حصلت عليها من السيد الياس كوسا املحامي الذي‬.‫ بني املمثلني العرب واليهود‬8491 ‫والعرشين من شهر أبريل سنة‬ .‫حرض االجتامع واشرتك يف أبحاثه‬ Inna mawḍūʿ hādha al-kitāb huwa qiṣṣa taqaʿ hawādithuhā fī ḥayfa fī al-shuhūr al-ūlā min ʿām 1948 wa-tantahī baʿda dhālik fī al-ʾurdun. Innahā tuṣawwir nāḥiya hāmma min nawāḥī “al-ḥarb al-falasṭīniyya” wa-l-kifāḥ al-ʿarabī ibbān al-ḥawādith al-dāmiya allatī sabaqat raḥīl al-ʿarab wa-khilālahu wamā baʿdahu. Wa-hiya mustawḥāt min ṣamīm ḥayātinā wa-kifāḥinā wa-mabniyya ʿalā ikhtibārāt shakhṣiyya wa-inṭibāʿāt kān lahā waqʿ alīm fī al-nufūs. Inna hādhihi al-kāritha allatī nazalat bi-l-ʿarab, wa-tanāwalat maṣīr shaʿb bi-asrihi, wa-mā rāfaqahā min fawḍā wa-fasād wa-khiyāna li-jadīra bi-l-tadwīn wa-l-nashr li-takūn ʿibra li-awlādina wa-aḥfādina min baʿdinā. Min hunā nashaʾ ihtimāmī bi-l-mawḍūʿ ḥattā intahā ilā waḍʿ hādhihī al-qiṣṣa al-wāqiʿiyya wa-nashruhā ʿalā al-malaʾ. Wa-yajdur bī an uwajjih intibāh al-qāriʾ al-karīm ilā anna mā jāʾa ʿalā lisān ghālib ʿabd al-karīm baṭal al-qiṣṣa min āqwāl thāʾira wa-ʿibārāt hāʾija fī waṣf al-raḥīl wa-maʾāsīhi wa-mā aḥāṭa bi-l-ḥarb al-falasṭīniyya min muʾāmarāt wa-khiyānāt la-huwa qawl ḥaqq, wa-huwa aqall mā yajib an yuqāl fī ẓurūf al-miḥna al-qāsiya idha akhadhnā bi-ʿayn al-iʿtibār al-jurūḥ al-ʿamīqa wa-lāthār al-baʿīda al-madā allatī khallafathā fī al-nufūs wa-fī kull makān. Wa-yajid al-qāriʾ fī thanāya al-qiṣṣa shurūṭ al-ṣulḥ al-yahūdiyya allatī dār al-baḥth ḥawluhā, bi-ishrāf al-jinirāl stūkwīl qāʾid al-quwwāt al-bariṭāniyya, fī dār al-baladiyya fī ḥayfā fī al-thānī wa-l-ʿishrīn min shahr abrīl sanat 1948 bayna al-mumaththilīn al-ʿarab wa-l-yaḥud. Wa-hiya wathīqa tārīkhiyya

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hāmma uthabbituha kamā ḥaṣaltu ʿalayhā min al-sayyid ilyās kūsā al-muḥāmī alladhī ḥadar al-ijtimāʿ wa-ishtarak fī ʾabḥāthahi.

This temporal and spatial designation places the events of the story in the 1948 War that started in November 1947 with the adoption of the United Nations Partition Plan of Palestine, through to the occupation and displacement of Haifa in April of 1948. The final detail in the first sentence, relating to the events of the story ending in Jordan, refers to the whereabouts of the refugee protagonist. The following sentence stresses the importance of dealing with this subject – namely, the ‘departure of the Arabs’ (raḥīl al-ʿarab) and the events that led to it.19 The departure of the Arabs is the focal concern of the Palestinian War (al-ḥarb al-falasṭīniyya) and the Arab struggle (al-kifāḥ al-ʿarabī), around which everything else revolves (before, during, and after). In the second paragraph of the preface, the author elaborates on the origin and the circumstances that brought him to write this novel.20 Muʿammar says that the objective of this novel is to document (tadwīn) and to publish (nashr) the events that took place in Haifa and Palestine in 1948, ‘for them to be a lesson to our children and grandchildren’. In other words, writing, publishing, and disseminating the text widely (nashruhā ʿalā al-malaʾ) is part of the ongoing battle for Haifa and Palestine, thus specifying the intended readership of this novel: ‘our children and grandchildren’ (awlādina wa-aḥfādina); that is, future Palestinian generations. After elaborating on the title, designating the subject matter of the novel, and stressing the importance of its topic, the third sentence in the opening paragraph aims to emphasize the factuality or truthfulness of the story that is being told.21 This issue constitutes a central theme in this preface, and it is evident in a number of formulations. The first indication is apparent in situating the story in the events of the 1948 War, as already mentioned above. The author then indicates that the story is inspired by his life and struggle (min ṣamīm ḥayātinā wa-kifāḥinā). Note that the author already referred to the Arab struggle (al-kifāḥ al-ʿarabī) in the preceding sentence. Later in the preface he explicitly brands this novel as a factual story (qiṣṣa haqīqiyya). Emphasizing the factuality and truthfulness of the story is evident in another paratextual function of the preface. The preface tells why and how you should read this book22: ‘to put the reader on the right track, as it were, in respect to how to read the text.’23 To do so, Muʿammar addresses the reader twice. In the first occurrence, he indicates that he ‘should direct the attention of the esteemed reader’ (wa-yajdur bī an uwajjih intibāh al-qāriʾ al-karīm) to the fact that the emotional expressions of the protagonist regarding the ‘portrayal of the flight’ (waṣf al-raḥīl), and the ‘conspiracies and betrayals’ (muʾāmarāt 19 Genette, Paratexts (footnote 17), p. 199. 20 Genette, Paratexts (footnote 17), p. 210. 21 Genette, Paratexts (footnote 17), p. 206. 22 Genette, Paratexts (footnote 17), p. 197. 23 Suleiman, Arabic in the Fray (footnote 4), p. 101.

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wa-khiyānāt) that surrounded the Palestinian War, are true (qawl ḥaqq), and are the least that can be said in these circumstances. The second occurrence of the author addressing the reader is in the third paragraph, where he aims to highlight the fact that he embedded an historic document in the body of the novel, and wants to clarify that is genuine. ‘The way to get a proper reading is also – and perhaps initially – to put the (definitely assumed) reader in possession of information the author considers necessary for this proper reading’.24 Muʿammar emphasizes his credibility in this paragraph through bringing and highlighting a number of details, starting with a reference to a historical document, indicating precise times and locations, and mentioning names of individuals who took part in the actual events. It is noteworthy that these details are consistent with the historical and archival data.25 First, the Jewish terms or conditions for reconciliation (shurūṭ al-ṣulḥ al-yahūdiyya) refer to the surrender terms that were imposed on the Palestinian leadership that remained in Haifa. Second, indicating the exact date of the meeting (April 22, 1948) as well as the fact that the meetings took place in the Haifa municipality. Third, not only the author has a copy of the document, but also reports on the attendees in the meeting. He mentions Major General Hugh C. Stockwell, who was the British commander in Haifa during the 1948 War, and who supervised the ‘discussions’ (dār al-baḥthu ḥawlahā). Muʿammar also mentions Mr Elias Kusa, who attended the meeting and participated in the discussions, further solidifying the credibility of his testimony. Moreover, Muʿammar indicates that Mr Elias Kusa is a lawyer. In the same way, he indicates on the title page and in his signature at the bottom of the preface that he himself, Muʿammar, was a lawyer. Kusa was a prominent lawyer in Haifa and an activist for Palestinian rights after the founding of Israel in 1948. Lawyers have a special prestige in Palestinian society. Signing a supposedly literary work by indicating that he was a lawyer indicates that he found it important to establish his credibility among readers who did not know him personally. By the end of the preface the reader has encountered ‘The Lawyer’ (al-muḥāmī) three times, two of which refer to the author’s, framing the preface from both ends.

24 Genette, Paratexts (footnote 17), p. 209. 25 Khalidi, The fall of Haifa revisited (footnote 13); Walid Khalidi: Selected documents on the 1948 Palestine war. In: Journal of Palestine Studies 27.3 (1998), pp. 60–105.

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5. Caution and Attenuation In the first three paragraphs, Muʿammar established himself as a Palestinian nationalist, speaking for present and future Palestinian generations (‘our’) about the disaster that befell Palestine, aiming to continue the struggle in the future. Speaking from a Palestinian point of view, Muʿammar is adamant that the story that he tells of Palestine is true and authentic. However, the last paragraph conveys a tentative attitude to the publication of the novel: ً‫شخيص أعتنقه وأجهر به بقوة عمال‬ ‫تعب عنه فيام يتعلق باألسباب التي دفعت العرب إىل الرحيل فإنه رأي‬ ّ ‫وأ ّما بشأن موضوع‬ ّ ‫القصة والرأي الذي‬ ّ ‫ وبرحابة الصدر وطول األناة‬،‫السلطات اإلرسائيلية هذه القصة مبا يتّفق وهذه الحرية‬ ُ ‫ وأرجو أن تتقبل‬.‫بحرية القول والفكر التي ننعم بها يف إرسائيل‬ ‫التي تع ّودنا أن نلمسها يف سلوكها حيال ما يُقال ويُكتب بشأن مطالبنا وقضايانا مستشهدا ً بالكلمة الخالدة التي بعث بها فولتري العظيم إىل جان جاك‬ ‫مم تقول غري أنني سأُدافع حتّى املوت عن حقّك يف قول ما تريد أن‬ ّ :‫روسو قبل مائتي سنة يقول له فيها‬ ّ ‫„إن وإن كنت ال أوافق عىل كلمة واحدة‬ .“‫تقول‬ Wa-ammā bi-shaʾn mawḍūʿ al-qiṣṣa wa-l-raʾy alladhī tuʿabbir ʿanhu fīmā yataʿallaq bi-l-asbāb allatī dafaʿat al-ʿarab ilā al-raḥīl fa-innahu raʾy shakhṣiyy aʿtaniqhu wa-ujhar bihi bi-quwwa ʿamalan bi-ḥurriyat al-qawl wa-l-fikr allatī nanʿamu bihā fī isrāʾīl. Wa-arjū an tataqabbal al-suluṭāt al-isrāʾīliyya hādhihi al-qiṣṣa bi-mā yattafiq wa-hādhihī al-ḥurriyya, wa-bi-raḥābat al-ṣadr wa-ṭūl al-anāt allatī taʿawwadnā an nalmasahā fī sulūkihā ḥiyāl mā yuqāl wa-yuktab bi-shaʾn maṭālibnā wa-qaḍāyānā mustashhidan bi-l-kalima al-khālida allatī baʿath bihā fūltīr al-ʿaẓīm ilā jān jāk rūsū qabl maʾatay sana yaqūl lahu fīhā: ‘innī wa-inn kuntu lā uwāfiq ʿalā kalima wāḥida mimmā taqūl ghayr annanī sa-udāfiʿ ḥattā al-mawt ʿan ḥaqqik fī qawl mā turīd an taqūl’.

The author’s use of ‘as for’ (wa-ammā bi-shaʾn) to open the final paragraph of the preface revisits the subject of the story (mawḍūʿ al-qiṣṣa), with which he opened preface, in order to address a new audience; namely, the Israeli authorities (al-suluṭāt al-isrāʾilyya), indicated explicitly. Appealing directly to the Israeli authorities here, contrasts with addressing the Palestinians in the first three paragraphs, and consequently affects the language and tone of this paragraph. The first apparent manifestation of this is adulating the Israeli authorities, through listing the freedoms that the Palestinians enjoy (nanʿam) in Israel, telling of Israel’s generosity (raḥābat al-ṣadr; which translates literally as ‘big heart’) and patience (ṭūl al-anāt). Moreover, this language relates to Palestinian life in Israel (in the present tense) and contrasts with the ‘chaos, corruption and betrayal’ (fawḍā wa-fasād wa-khiyāna) in the preceding paragraphs, conveying, on the face of it, a bless and betterment in the life of Palestinians under Israeli rule. Nevertheless, a deeper examination reveals a cautious, attenuated attitude towards Israel and implicit criticism. This is evident in several places. First, in his hope (arjū) that Israel accept this critical novel. The word arjū can either mean ‘I expect’ or ‘I exhort’. Each meaning represents a different attitude: if we take arjū to mean ‘I expect’, this suggests a strong stance on the part of the author. If we take it to mean ‘I exhort’, it conveys a more submissive attitude. In order to enable acceptance of the novel and its criticism, the author ‘invites’ Israel to follow the example of civil rights proponents such as Voltaire. This

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invitation implies that Israel violates civil rights principles. In other words, if Muʿammar was confident about the existence of freedom of expression and thought in Israel, he would not have referred to it in the first place. A second example of the cautious attitude of this novel is evidenced in the seeming contradiction between, on the one hand, praising the patience of Israel (ṭūl anāt) towards ‘all that is said and written’ about Palestinian ‘demands and issues’ (maṭālibunā wa-qaḍāyānā), alongside, on the other hand, the implicit suggestion that Israel is the target of criticism, due to its practices against the Palestinians. Attenuation as a result of the author taking into consideration the Israeli authorities as a ‘reader’ is evident in several places in the preface. First, Muʿammar is careful not to draw a causal relationship between the war and the flight of the Palestinians from Haifa until 1948, which took place before the outbreak of the war with the Arab countries in May 15, 1948. This makes Israel the only responsible and accountable party for the flight of the Palestinians, or their ethnic cleansing.26 For example, the disaster that befell the Arabs (al-kāritha allatī nazalat bi-l-arab) is an attenuated way of referring to the Nakba, and gives the impression that the Palestinians fled the country as a result of a natural disaster, not as the result of an intentional plan of the Zionist forces; referring to the ‘bloody events’ (al-ḥawādith al-dāmiya) that preceded (allatī sabaqat) the departure of the Arabs (raḥīl al-ʿarab) is an attenuated way of saying ‘the war that led to the displacement of the Palestinians’ as is the use of the word raḥīl (departure) to refer to the Palestinian flight, or, indeed, forcible displacement, during the 1948 War. This formulation scales down the political, or, indeed, military, causes for the flight of Palestinians. In this regard, note that the author does not explicitly specify who the ‘Palestinian war’ (al-ḥarb al-falasṭīniyya) and the ‘Arab struggle’ were against, and what they were for. Furthermore, the surrender document that was imposed by the victorious Jewish side on the defeated Palestinian party contained no articles that relate to any reconciliation (ṣulḥ), and the depiction of the meeting between the two parties in the Haifa municipality as a ‘discussion’ (dār al-baḥth ḥawlahā) is also attenuated, because there was very little to discuss. According to Kahlidi, ‘The Arabs were merely supposed to say “Yes”. It was a question of unconditional surrender. The Arab delegates found it impossible to accept this’.27 In the novel, Muʿammar quoted the Palestinian representatives voicing their refusal, or inability, to sign the surrender agreement (p. 106): ‘We refuse to be responsible for accepting such humiliating and severe terms’ (Innanā narfuḍ an nataḥammal masʾūliyyat qubūl shurūṭ muhīna ṣārima kahāthihi).

26 Pappé, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (footnote 7). 27 Khalidi, The fall of Haifa revisited (footnote 13), p. 53.

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6. Discussion The Nakba and the reasons that brought the Arabs to flee (al-asbāb allatī dafaʿat al-ʿarab ilā al-raḥīl), a displacement affecting an entire nation (shaʿb bi-asrihi) is the subject of the first Palestinian novel published after 1948 inside Israel. The explanation of the ‘flight of the Arabs’ is explicitly addressed on page 113 of the novel: ‫[…] كان نزوح العرب الجامعي عن فلسطني خدعة سياسية وخطّة استعامرية محكمة متفقًّا عليها سلفًا وعملية جراحية دامية ال مناص منها اقتضتها‬ .‫أوضاع سياسية شاذّة ومصالح استعامرية مشرتكة الستكامل خلق هذا املولود “الدميقراطي„ الجديد ومدّه بأسباب الحياة‬ […] kāna nuzūḥ al-ʿarab al-jamāʿī ʿan falasṭīn khidʿa siyāsiyya wa-khiṭṭa istiʿmāriyya muḥkama muttafaqan ʿalayha salafan wa-ʿamaliyya jirāḥiyya dāmiya lā manāṣa minhā iqtaḍathā awḍāʿ siyāsiyya shādhdha wa-maṣāliḥ istiʿmāriyya mushtaraka li-istikmāl khalq hādhā al-mawlūd ‘al-dīmuqrāṭī’ al-jadīd wa-maddahu bi-asbāb al-ḥayāt.

The language in this excerpt contrasts with the attenuated language of the preface in two places. The first is in using exodus (nuzūḥ) in the body of the novel, instead of the use of the ‘lighter’ departure (raḥīl), and the second in putting the word democratic in double brackets, indicating that Muʿammar does not believe that Israel is a democratic country, contrary to what he states in the preface. Moreover, the conspiracies and betrayals (muʾāmarāt wa-khiyānāt) mentioned in the second paragraph of the preface are clarified in this excerpt, and refer to the joint British-Zionist colonial plan (khiṭṭa) and interests (maṣāliḥ). This explanation matches the account presented earlier, of the ‘comprehensive looting’ of the city of Haifa and the many catastrophes that struck the country throughout history, which do not compare to the Zionist crimes in the 1948 War. The starting point of Muʿammar is, in the words of Suleiman, ‘a purposeful activity: it responds to the Orwellian formulation in 1984: “Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past”’.28 In other words, an understanding of the importance of memory and documentation arises in the event of realizing that memory and history are starting to diminish. Thus, it appears, Muʿammar himself takes on the task of documenting the events of the 1948 War. However, he is also limited by the ‘political forces at work on the dissemination of texts’. The attenuated and cautious attitude in Mudhakkarāt lājiʾ aw Ḥayfā fī al-maʿraka indicates two things: firstly, that Muʿammar, the narrative he promotes, and Israel stand in complete opposition to one another, manifesting their conflictual relations. Secondly, it recognizes that the balance of power between Israel and its Palestinian citizens, is in favour of Israel: Palestinians in Israel can demand rights from the state, but they cannot impose their will on it, since Israel with its commanding power, can either accept or reject their 28 Yasir Suleiman: The nation speaks. On the poetics of nationalist literature. In: Yasir Suleiman and Ibrahim Muhawi (eds): Literature and Nation in the Middle East. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 2006, p. 211.

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demands. The subordinate Palestinian citizens of Israel enjoy freedoms that Israel grants; they also have demands from superior Israel. Muʿammar’s attempt to strike a balance between these is evident in his resorting to stating that the narrative in the novel is his ‘personal opinion’ (raʾy shakhṣiyy). Firstly, this declaration contradicts the collective Palestinian tone that characterized the first three paragraphs. Even though in the first paragraph he also indicates that the story is based on ‘personal experiences and impressions’ (ikhtibārāt shakhṣiyya wa-inṭibāʿāt), the goal of that statement comes to stress the factuality of the narrative in this story and to solidify a collective Palestinian responsibility. Moreover, the collective tone in the final paragraph itself, talking about the freedoms the Palestinians became accustomed to (nanʿam; taʿawwadnā an nalmasahā) comes to stress collective Palestinian ‘problems and demands’ (maṭālibnā wa-qaḍāyānā). In other words, secondly, the sole purpose of the ‘disclaimer’ for the novel being the author’s personal opinion is that Israel should allow the publication of this novel, based on his basic legal, civil, and human rights.

• The first years under Israeli rule were years of adaptation for the Palestinian citizens. Mudhakkarāt lājiʾ aw Ḥayfā fī al-maʿraka documents some aspects of the initial transformation in Palestinian discourse, as well as the considerations that underlie them. The relationship between text and the context is evident on a few levels in this novel. Firstly, this is explicitly indicated by the author in the preface, where he states that the novel is factual and that the statements of the fictional protagonist are true. In addition to this, and more related to the motivation and inhibitions of writing and publishing, is a manifestation of the political relationship between Israel and the Palestinian citizens in it, as seen by Muʿammar. In other words, Muʿammar’s reading of the political context and the balance of power (namely, the Palestinian subordination to Israeli rule) is projected onto the political act of writing and publishing: the tension between writing and publishing a Palestinian political manifesto for future generations about the continuous struggle for Palestine versus the uncertainty regarding the reaction of the Israeli authorities is evident in the preface to the novel. Publishing this novel reflects both remnants of the Palestinian national discourse prior to 1948 and a cautious attitude toward the new reality in which Palestinians in Israel live. Moreover, there is the intention to write to continue the battle after the Nakba. Muʿammar wrote to continue the battle. A book, then, is part of the battlefield. The analysis presented in this article has addressed the physical presentation as well as the content, the language, and even what is omitted and only implicitly implied. Moreover, paratexts reflect that dynamic of preserving the Palestinian national narrative and discourse publicly and collectively, in a context that is at odds with this collective identity,

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and probably allows a margin for individual freedom of expression. The title in its two parts, and the distinctions made by using different-sized typeface, portray the orientation and the focus of the author on the subject matter. The title and the preface also reflect the balance the author wanted to keep between the factuality and credibility of his politicalnational narrative vis-à-vis Israel’s military censorship, at least as perceived by the author.

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Islambezogene Identitätskonstruktionen in deutschen Schulbüchern

1.

Konstantin Wagner Der Artikel untersucht islambezogene Identitätskonstruktionen in deutschen Schulbüchern. Im ersten Teil wird dafür die seit Jahrzehnten etablierte Meistererzählung deutscher Geschichtsbücher dargestellt, die den Islam als das „Andere“ Europas positioniert. Obwohl in den letzten Jahren Veränderungen in dem etablierten Narrativ zu beobachten sind, bleiben die Effekte von Entzeitlichung, Homogenisierung und Essentialisierung bei der Darstellung von Islam und Muslimen zentral. Im zweiten Teil des Artikels wird untersucht, wie die neuen Schulbücher für den Islamischen Religionsunterricht auf die etablierte Meistererzählung reagieren. Hier zeigen sich zwei unterschiedliche muslimische Islamverständnisse mit je eigenen identitären Positionierungen.

1. Einleitung: Dieser Artikel widmet sich „islambezogenen“ Identitätskonstruktionen in deutschen Schulbüchern – und damit sowohl solchen, die muslimische Schülerschaften explizit adressieren als auch jenen, in denen Islam und Muslime (lediglich) als „Andere“ vorkommen, zu denen man sich in Abgrenzung definiert. Weil für die Konstruktion (kollektiver) Identitäten die Darstellung von Geschichte zentral ist,1 interessieren mich zunächst primär Schulbücher, die im Geschichtsunterricht verwendet werden und zusätzlich solche, die im Islamischen Religionsunterricht eingesetzt werden. An letztere adressiere ich die Frage, mit welcher (alternativen?) Geschichtsdarstellung sie sich zu der „etablierten“ Meistererzählung und Darstellung verhalten. „Religionen scheinen geradezu auf die Beantwortung der Identitätsfrage spezialisiert zu sein“2, denn sie geben Antwort auf die Frage nach der Vergangenheit mit dem Verweis auf eine Ursprungsidentität, ebenso wie auf die Frage der Zukunft mit dem Verweis auf eine Jenseitsvorstellung. Das Zusprechen von kultureller Identität ist dabei nicht nur eine Deskription von „vorhandener“ Identität, sondern immer auch eine Askription und damit

1 Conermann setzt kollektive Identität und Geschichtsbewusstsein sogar gleich, denn die für eine Gruppe entscheidende Kohärenzfiktion werde auf diese Weise hergestellt. Stephan Conermann: Mythen, Geschichte(n), Identitäten – eine Einführung. In: Stephan Conermann (Hg.): Mythen, Geschichte(n), Identitäten. Der Kampf um die Vergangenheit. Hamburg: E.B.-Verlag 1999, S. 1–32. 2 Werner Gephart: Zur Bedeutung der Religionen für die Identitätsbildung. In: Werner Gephart/Hans Waldenfels (Hg.): Religion und Identität. Im Horizont des Pluralismus. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 1999, S. 261.

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eine konstitutive und performative Zuschreibung.3 Insbesondere der Islam hat in der Migrationssituation – und der post-Migrationssituation – ein starkes identifikatorisches Potenzial erhalten. Während bei der Gastarbeiter/-innengeneration – so das Ergebnis einer ganzen Reihe von Untersuchungen – sowohl Fremd- als auch Selbstidentifikation vor allem über die Kategorie „Ethnizität“ hergestellt wurde,4 wird Religion in den letzten Jahren eine immer bedeutendere soziale Identifikationskategorie. Dieser Prozess wirkt dabei auf die Religion selbst zurück und verändert dieselbe.5 Die Analyse „nichtmuslimischer“ Geschichtsbücher zeigt, dass diese mehrheitlich den Eindruck evozieren, als existierten „der Islam“ und „ein modernes Europa“ als sich gegenseitig ausschließende Einheiten mit konfrontativen Berührungen, jedoch weitgehend ohne Überlappungen, Ähnlichkeiten und Gemeinsamkeiten. Zwar finden sich – bemerkenswerterweise und in Kontrast zu den Büchern vergangener Dekaden – in den neueren Büchern explizit positive Darstellungen des islamischen Mittelalters, allerdings brechen diese Kapitel nicht mit der Meistererzählung der europäischen Moderne als Entwicklung aus sich selbst. Dies lässt sich einerseits an der Struktur der Erzählung herausarbeiten – Islam und Muslime werden nach dem Mittelalter erst wieder im Rahmen politischer und sozialer Krisen und Konflikte im 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts erwähnt und haben mit Renaissance, Aufklärung, Reformation und anderen Grundlagen der (europäischen) Moderne nichts zu tun – und andererseits an der konkreten Darstellung des „Kollektiv-Wir“ auf textlicher Basis. Nachdem dies im ersten Teil des Artikels problematisiert wurde, adressiere ich die Frage, wie Schulbücher für den Islamischen Religionsunterricht auf diese Herausforderung reagieren und ferner, ob sie differenzsensibler sind und Pluralität sowie entanglement stärker berücksichtigen.

3 Martin Saar: Wem gehört das kollektive Gedächtnis? Ein sozialphilosophischer Ausblick auf Kultur, Multikulturalismus und Erinnerung. In: Martin Saar/Gerald Echterhoff (Hg.): Kontexte und Kulturen des Erinnerns. Maurice Halbwachs und das Paradigma des kollektiven Gedächtnisses. Konstanz: UVK 2002, S. 274. 4 Siehe bspw. Lars Heinemann: Die Gemeinschaft der Gesellschaft: Bausteine einer Theorie ethnischer kollektiver Identitäten in nationalen und transnationalen Räumen. Dissertation, Universität Bremen (2001), S. 130. 5 „Historiker und Sozialwissenschaftler sind sich darüber einig, daß kollektive Identitäten eingehenden und manchmal radikalen Neudefinierungsprozessen unterworfen sind. Solche Veränderungen in der Bestimmung des Selbst sind am deutlichsten bei Bevölkerungen beobachtet worden, die sich durch internationale Migration und Ansiedlung in der Diaspora neue historische Kontexte geschaffen haben. Diese Neubestimmungen ziehen oft auch Neuinterpretationen kollektiver Geschichte und Neuverhandlungen geschichtlicher Erinnerungen nach sich.“ Gerd Baumann: Ethnische Identität als duale diskursive Konstruktion. Dominante und demotische Identitätsdiskurse in einer multiethnischen Vorstadt von London. In: Aleida Assmann/Heidrun Friese (Hg.): Identitäten. Erinnerung, Geschichte, Identität. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 1998, S. 288.

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2. Kollektive Identitäten und Schulbücher 2.1 Kollektive Identitäten (und Geschichtsdarstellung) Mit Heinemann kann kollektive Identität als Symbolsystem verstanden werden, das dadurch, dass sich Individuen auf es beziehen, Gemeinsamkeiten im Selbst- und Weltverhältnis einer Gruppe impliziert. Während sich der Begriff der personalen Identität auf ein nämliches, realiter als biophysische Einheit existierendes Subjekt bezieht, ist die Frage nach einer beliebigen kollektiven Identität zuallererst eine Frage nach der Konstitution des betreffenden Kollektivs selbst: Welche Personen werden von wem und auf welche Weise ‚aneinandergerückt‘ und ‚zusammengebunden‘, unter bestimmten Gesichtspunkten als eine Einheit aufgefaßt, in dem ihnen bestimmte gemeinsame Merkmale und Bindungen zugeschrieben werden?67

Kollektive Identitäten sind also nicht „natürlich“ vorhanden, sondern beruhen auf gesellschaftlicher Konstruktionsarbeit. Kollektive Identitäten sind somit nicht als Substanz, als organische Produkte des sozialen Lebens zu verstehen, sondern als symbolische Konstruktionen, die einen Gemeinschaftsglauben erst hervorbringen (Distelrath et al. 2007: 10). Der Gedanke, dass die Gemeinsamkeitsvorstellungen von kollektiven Akteuren auf keinerlei primordialen Tatsachen beruht, ist mit dem Konzept der imagined communities prominent geworden: Heute ist man mit Benedict Anderson dazu übergegangen, Wir-Gruppen als ‚vorgestellte Gemeinschaften‘ (imagined communities) aufzufassen. An die Stelle der älteren Ideologiekritik, die auf einer Grundlage positiver Wahrheit aufruhte und ‚falsches‘ durch ‚richtiges‘ Bewusstsein ersetzte, ist die Diskurskritik getreten, die sich für die Formen der Herstellung kultureller Werte interessiert. Sie beruht auf der Prämisse, daß Identität über kulturelle Symbole und diskursive Formationen befestigt wird und daß die wichtigste Strategie, bestimmte Werte oder Grenzen als unverrückbar erscheinen zu lassen, darin besteht, sie als ‚Natur‘, als objektiv […] darzustellen […]. Poststrukturalistische Theorien fassen Identität als Produkte eines grenzüberschreitenden Austauschs und als Prozesse eines unabschließbaren Aushandelns auf. Die Inszenierungen von Identität werden dann als Teil sozialer und politischer

6 Jürgen Straub: Personale und kollektive Identität. Zur Analyse eines theoretischen Begriffs. In: Aleida Assmann/Heidrun Friese (Hg.): Identitäten. Erinnerung, Geschichte, Identität. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 1998, S. 98. 7 Zur Präzisierung: „Identität, auch Ich-Identität, ist immer ein gesellschaftliches Konstrukt und als solches immer kulturelle Identität. Der Unterschied zwischen Ich-Identität und Wir-Identität ist also auf keinen Fall darin zu erblicken, daß erstere ‚naturwüchsig‘, letztere eine kulturelle Konstruktion wäre. ‚Naturwüchsige‘ Identität gibt es nicht. (…) Den ‚Sozialkörper‘ gibt es nicht im Sinne sichtbarer, greifbarer Wirklichkeit. Er ist eine Metapher, eine imaginäre Größe, ein soziales Konstrukt. Als solches aber gehört er durchaus der Wirklichkeit an.“ Jan Assmann: Das kulturelle Gedächtnis. Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen. München: C.H.Beck 1992, S. 132.

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Praktiken sowie als kultureller Text verstanden, der unterschiedliche Signifikate bezeichnet, historisch unterschiedlich codiert ist und unterschiedliche Bilder hervorbringt und aktiviert.8

Mit dieser Wendung rücken nicht mehr die Ethnie, sondern Ethnisierungen, nicht mehr „Rasse“, sondern Rassismus, nicht mehr Tradition, sondern Traditionalisierung und nicht mehr Identität, sondern Identifizierungsprozesse in das Zentrum wissenschaftlichen Interesses; die Welt wird nicht mehr in Kategorien des statischen Seins, sondern des prozesshaften Werdens – und damit als Konstruktion – verstanden.9 Deshalb schlägt Hall vor, statt von „Identität“ zu sprechen, was den Eindruck eines abgeschlossenen Dings erwecken könnte, den Begriff „Identifikation“ zu benutzen, um die andauernde Prozesshaftigkeit zu erfassen.10 Obwohl also von einem konstruktiven Charakter der Vergemeinschaftungsform ausgegangen werden muss, wird damit nicht behauptet, dass diese voraussetzungsfrei sei. Die Kategorien der Fremd- und Selbstzuschreibung knüpfen an gesellschaftliche und historische Spaltungslinien an.11 Identitätskonstruktionen sind normativ durchsetzt, da mit ihnen verbindliche Erwartungen darüber abgebildet werden, welchen Kollektiven gegenüber in welchem Umfang ein commitment einzubringen ist; diese normativen Systeme lassen sich also auch als Identitätsnormierung verstehen.12 Ferner gibt es Identitätsagenturen, die Identität herstellen – wie zum Beispiel die Institution Schule, denn kollektive Identitäten entstehen nur durch Bewusstwerdung und Bewussthaltung:13 „Kultureller Sinn zirkuliert und reproduziert sich nicht von selbst. Er muß zirkuliert und inszeniert werden.“14      15 Kollektive Identität ist dabei politisch umstritten und hat etwas mit Positionierung zu tun. Sie lässt sich als Ergebnis identifizierender Akte bestimmen, mit denen sich Individuen auf Ausschnitte ihrer Umwelt beziehen.16 17 8 Aleida Assmann/Heidrun Friese: Einleitung. In: Assmann/Friese (Hg.): Identitäten. Erinnerung, Geschichte, Identität. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 1998, S. 12. 9 Hans-Rudolf Wicker: Konstruktivismus und das Ende der Toleranz. In: Catherine Bosshart-Pfluger/ Joseph Jung/Franziska Metzger: Nation und Nationalismus in Europa. Kulturelle Konstruktion von Identitäten. Festschrift für Urs Altermatt. Frauenfeld/Stuttgart/Wien: Verlag Huber 2002, S. 88. 10 Stuart Hall: Rassismus und kulturelle Identität. Ausgewählte Schriften 2. Herausgegeben und übersetzt von Ulrich Mehlem u.a., Hamburg: Argument-Verlag 1994, S. 196. 11 Heinemann: Die Gemeinschaft der Gesellschaft (Fußnote 4), S. 1f. 12 Gephart: Zur Bedeutung der Religionen für die Identitätsbildung. (Fußnote 2), S. 236. 13 Assmann: Das kulturelle Gedächtnis (Fußnote 7), S. 134f. 14 Assmann: Das kulturelle Gedächtnis (Fußnote 7), S. 143. 15 Auf diesen Prozess weist auch das deutsche Wort „Er-innerung“ hin: Es geht um Verinnerlichung, Ins-Innere-Zurückrufen, sich zu Bewusstsein bringen. Assmann: Das kulturelle Gedächtnis (Fußnote 7), S. 158. 16 Heinemann: Die Gemeinschaft der Gesellschaft (Fußnote 4), S. 63. 17 Die Begriffe „kulturelles Gedächtnis“ oder „kollektives Gedächtnis“ lassen sich nicht einfach auf den Bezugsrahmen einer Vergemeinschaftungsgröße wie „der Nation“ (oder auch einer ganzen Religionsgemeinschaft) übertragen – dies stellt im besten Fall eine Verkürzung, im schlechtesten Fall eine ideologische Einheitsvorstellung dar. Tatsächlich zeigt die Empirie partikulare Kollektivgedächtnisse.

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Während in der in Schulbüchern verdichteten Geschichtserzählung die Gegenwart jeweils scheinbar zwangsläufig aus der Vergangenheit folgt, soll in der Analyse der (sehr selektive) Prozess der Konstruktion einer historischen Meistererzählung nachvollzogen werden. Sich an diese Meistererzählung anschließende kollektive Identitäten werden hierbei nicht als naturwüchsige oder metaphysische Gegebenheiten verstanden, sondern als nur unter spezifischen kulturellen Konstitutionsbedingungen überhaupt bestehend. An was und wie wir uns als Individuen und Kollektive erinnern und an was wir uns nicht erinnern, mit was wir uns identifizieren und mit was wir uns nicht identifizieren, hängt dabei zentral davon ab, wie wir uns die Zukunft wünschen.18 2.2. Schulbücher als Untersuchungsort Durch die Schulpflicht ist die Schule bis heute der zentrale Ort gesellschaftlicher Wissensvermittlung. Einen großen Einfluss darauf, welches Wissen in dieser Institution weitergegeben wird, haben die im deutschen Bildungssystem nach staatlichen Vorgaben lehrplankonform erstellten und in allen Schulen eingesetzten Schulbücher. Das in Schulbüchern dargestellte „Wissen“ repräsentiert individuelle und kollektive Einstellungen maßgeblich– und prägt diese gleichzeitig. Ausgerichtet auf ein breites Publikum wirken Schulbücher ihrer Intention zufolge nachhaltig, wenn man berücksichtigt, dass sie (scheinbar) „objektiviertes Weltwissen“ an eine ganze Schülergeneration altersgerecht Saar: Wem gehört das kollektive Gedächtnis? (Fußnote 3), S. 274f. „Eine kulturwissenschaftliche Analyse hat sich die Mehrdeutigkeit von Gedächtnissen vor Augen zu halten. Sie darf nicht in den Fehler verfallen, nur eine Deutungsart oder Erinnerungsweise zu rekonstruieren und diese für die ultimativ gültige zu halten.“ Moritz Csáky: Gedächtnis, Erinnerung und die Konstruktion von Identität. Das Beispiel Zentraleuropas. In: Catherine Bosshart-Pfluger/Joseph Jung/Franziska Metzger: Nation und Nationalismus in Europa. Kulturelle Konstruktion von Identitäten. Festschrift für Urs Altermatt. Frauenfeld/Stuttgart/Wien: Verlag Huber 2002, S. 38. Kulturen sind nicht einheitlich, sondern vielstimmig, nicht harmonisch, sondern antagonistisch und politisch. Man muss von Rissen, Differenzen und Verwerfungen ausgehen. Saar: Wem gehört das kollektive Gedächtnis? Repräsentationen von nach Hegemonie strebenden Gruppen können also von Beobachter/-innen zweiter Ordnung nicht einfach übernommen werden. Häufig erklärt eine Teilgruppe ihr Verständnis zum offiziellen oder setzt voraus, dass ihr Gedächtnis das „eigentliche“ ist – das offizielle Gedächtnis versucht zu vereinheitlichen und Identität zu schmieden, wo Differenzen sind. Saar: Wem gehört das kollektive Gedächtnis? (Fußnote 3), S. 269, 273. Mit Bezug auf Hall lässt sich sagen, dass jede Identität über Differenz hinweg konstruiert wird. Homi K. Bhabha: Die Frage der Identität. In: Elisabeth Bronfen/Benjamin Marius/ Therese Steffen (Hg.): Hybride Kulturen. Beiträge zur anglo-amerikanischen Multikulturalismusdebatte. Tübingen: Stauffenberg Verlag 1997, S. 105. 18 So werden Bruchstellen und die Konstruiertheit der jeweiligen Erzählung deutlich, wenn sich das Verständnis vom „Jetzt“ und der erhofften Zukunft ändert. Bei gesellschaftlichen Umbrüchen wie der deutschen Wiedervereinigung wird dies besonders deutlich, aber auch bei weniger disruptivem sozialen Wandel lässt sich beobachten, wie sich die Darstellung von Geschichte mit der Zeit verändert. Fatima El-Tayeb: Undeutsch. Die Konstruktion des Anderen in der postmigrantischen Gesellschaft. Bielefeld: Transcript-Verlag 2016, S. 31f.

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zugeschnitten vermitteln wollen. Schulbücher sind ferner Medien, die – zumindest theoretisch – alle Mitglieder einer Gesellschaft erreichen können.19 Das Schulbuch ist damit ein bedeutendes Medium im öffentlichen Diskurs und der politischen Diskussion, in dem die Pluralität der Meinungen zu einem vorläufigen Konsens gebündelt wird. Im Schulbuch, sind die Grundbestände nationalen Denkens zu besichtigen.20 Es handelt sich ausdrücklich um politisch-administratives und wissenschaftlich legitimiertes Wissen.21 Schulbuchwissen ist „Dogma“ (normative Ausrichtung durch idealtypische Selbstbeschreibung) und „Kanon“ (selektive Auswahl der Inhalte).22 In das Schulbuchwissen gehen zahlreiche Vorstellungen darüber ein, wie eine bestimmte (nationalstaatlich verfasste) Gesellschaft sich selbst gerne beschrieben sehen würde. Das gilt auch unter Bedingungen des politischen Föderalismus. Um das nationale Selbstverständnis einer Gesellschaft und dessen Wandel zu erfassen, ist deshalb eine Untersuchung von Schulbüchern besonders ergiebig.23 Schulbücher verfügen über eine eigene (medienspezifische) Funktionslogik.24 25 Dass eine selektive Auswahl der Inhalte getroffen werden muss, damit das Medium für die Zielgruppe auch verständlich ist – Schulbuchtexte also zwangsläufig eine Komplexitätsreduzierung darstellen – lässt die Frage, welche Auswahl getroffen und wie die Komplexitätsreduktion vorgenommen wird, nicht uninteressanter erscheinen. Die Frage, welcher Stellenwert dem Schulbuch als Diskursmedium hinsichtlich der Frage der genauen Wirkungsmächtigkeit und der gesellschaftlichen Verankerung bestimmter Wissensbestände

19 Ruth Hürthe: Rechts das Schwert – links der Koran? Eine textlinguistische Untersuchung über sprachlich evozierte Blenden und Bilder in den Islamdarstellungen baden-württembergischer Schulgeschichtsbücher. Magisterarbeit, Universität Hannover 2004, S. 104. 20 Frank-Olaf Radtke: Der postnationale Staat, seine Schule und seine Schulbücher. In: Thomas Höhne/ Thomas Kunz/Frank-Olaf Radtke: Bilder vom Fremden. Was unsere Kinder aus Schulbüchern über Migranten lernen sollen. Frankfurt am Main: Books on Demand 2005, S. 11 ff. 21 Thomas Höhne: Fragestellung und Gegenstand der Untersuchung. In: Höhne/Kunz/Radtke: Bilder vom Fremden (Fußnote 20), S. 27. 22 Thomas Höhne: Migranten in den Massenmedien. In: Höhne/Kunz/Radtke: Bilder vom Fremden (Fußnote 20), S. 557. 23 Frank-Olaf Radtke/Thomas Höhne/Thomas Kunz: ‘Wir’ und ‘sie’. Bilder von Fremden im Schulbuch. In: Islamrat für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Hg.): Islam im Schulbuch. Kandern im Schwarzwald: Spohr Verlag 2001, S. 24. 24 Höhne: Migranten in den Massenmedien (Fußnote 22), S. 558. 25 Zu der Funktionslogik von Schulbüchern zählen eine ganze Reihe von Besonderheiten, auf die hier nicht näher eingegangen werden kann, wie die performativ-handlungspraktische Direktadressierung oder die zeitliche Verzögerung der Übertragung von Wissen aus Politik, Medien und Wissenschaft ins Schulbuch. Höhne: Endresümee. In: Höhne/Kunz/Radtke: Bilder vom Fremden (Fußnote 20), S. 593.

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zukommt, ist zwar umstritten,26 27 vor dem Hintergrund der Sozialisationsfunktion von Schule und der spezifischen didaktischen Konzeptionierung von Schulbüchern lassen sich allerdings naheliegende Wirkungsmöglichkeiten von Schulbuchtexten annehmen.28

3. Nicht-muslimische deutsche Schulbücher Dem folgenden Abschnitt liegt eine diskursanalytische Untersuchung von in der BRD zugelassenen Schulbüchern für die Sekundarstufe aus dem Erscheinungszeitraum 2005 bis 2010 zugrunde,29 ebenso wie Ergebnisse der Studien von Falaturi et al., Ihtiyar, Jalil, Zumbrink sowie Jonker.30

26 Thomas Höhne/Thomas Kunz/Frank-Olaf Radtke: Formen der Migrantendarstellung als der “anderen Kultur“ in deutschen Schulbüchern von 1981–1997. Frankfurt am Main: Frankfurter Beiträge zur Erziehungswissenschaft 1999, S. 27f. 27 So kann keine Aussage darüber getroffen werden, wie die in Schulbüchern zu findenden „Wissensbestände“ didaktisch umgesetzt werden. Statt von eindeutigen Wirkungen muss dementsprechend von möglichen Effekten gesprochen werden; Höhne: Migranten in den Massenmedien (Fußnote 22), S. 560. Texte sind mit Leerstellen durchsetzt, was auch Potentiale „positiver Dysfunktionalität“; bzw. Freiräume beim Umgang mit denselben eröffnet; Thomas Kunz: Von Modell-Schülern und Ko-Lesern. In: Höhne/Kunz/Radtke: Bilder vom Fremden (Fußnote 20), S. 61. Dem sind jedoch enge Grenzen gesetzt, da vom common sense abweichende Lesarten in besonderem Maße begründungspflichtig sind und dieser Begründungsaufwand der Routine von Wissensvermittlungen entgegensteht, die „gesichertes Wissen“ begünstigt. Außerdem macht das gesellschaftlich dominante Wissen und die allgemeine Verstrickung in den Diskurs bestimmte Lesarten wahrscheinlich; Kunz: Von Modell-Schülern und Ko-Lesern. S. 62f. 28 Höhne/Kunz/Radtke: Formen der Migrantendarstellung als der „anderen Kultur“ in deutschen Schulbüchern von 1981–1997 (Fußnote 26), S. 33ff. 29 Siehe hierzu ausführlicher Susanne Kröhnert-Othman/Melanie Kamp/Constantin Wagner: Keine Chance auf Zugehörigkeit? Schulbücher europäischer Länder halten Islam und modernes Europa getrennt. Braunschweig: Georg-Eckert-Institut 2011. 30 Abdoljavad Falaturi (Hg.): Der Islam in den Schulbüchern der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Braunschweig: Georg-Eckert-Institut 1986–1990; Neşe Ihtiyar/Safiye Jalil/Pia Zumbrik: Der Islam in deutschen Schulbüchern (1995–2002). Internationale Schulbuchforschung 26/3 (2004), S. 223–88; Gerdien Jonker: Zum Stand der Schulbuchforschung am Beispiel „Islam” in den deutschen Geschichts- und Geografiebüchern. In: Herbert-Quandt-Stiftung (Hg.): Religionen in der Schule. Bildung in Deutschland und Europa vor neuen Herausforderungen. Bad Homburg v.d. Höhe: Herbert-Quandt-Stiftung 2007, S. 34–47; Gerdien Jonker: Europäische Erzählmuster über den Islam. In: Thorsten Gerald Schneiders (Hg.) Islamfeindlichkeit. Wenn die Grenzen der Kritik verschwimmen. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften 2009, S. 71–85.

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3.1 Die Meistererzählung Islamische Geschichte und Kultur wird vor allem im Kontext des Mittelalters thematisiert. Mit dem Ende des 15. Jahrhunderts endet dann die Darstellung der Geschichte der arabisch-islamischen Zivilisation zunächst – ihre historische Entwicklung bis ins 19. Jahrhundert wird somit nicht behandelt. Erst im Zuge von Krisen und Konflikten ab dem ausgehenden 19. und vor allem im 20./21. Jahrhundert kommen Islam und Muslime dann wieder vor. In den Darstellungen des Mittelalters erscheint „der Islam“ dabei durch Begriffs- und Bildauswahl häufig als verhältnismäßig fortschrittlich, überlegen, aber auch als einheitliches Kollektiv. Vor allem im Kontext der Geschichte der Kreuzzüge oder von Al-Andalus wird ein homogener Islam in Abgrenzung zum Christentum konstruiert. Dabei fällt auf, dass auf christlicher Seite teils zwischen verschiedenen Gruppen unterschieden wird, bei der Beschreibung von Muslimen jedoch kaum. Meist geht die Differenzierung nicht über die Nennung der Unterschiede zwischen Sunniten und Schiiten hinaus und „die Muslime“ treten als ein Akteur auf. Notabene, die Verallgemeinerungen in Bezug auf den mittelalterlichen Islam haben kaum negative Konnotationen. Stattdessen betonen die historischen Erzählungen vielfach explizit die wissenschaftlichen und kulturellen Errungenschaften der arabisch-islamisch geprägten Welt im Mittelalter. Besonders „Al-Andalus“ wird als überlegene und fortschrittliche Zivilisation dargestellt. Die positive Hervorhebung des Islams als mittelalterliche urbane Hochkultur korrespondiert mit der (teils impliziten) Darstellung des Islams in der Gegenwart als politisch, bedrohlich und anders. Anknüpfend an die Mittelalterdarstellung ist das Thema „(Kultur-) Konflikt“ sehr präsent. Die Darstellungen des 20. Jahrhunderts und der Gegenwart erwähnen Islam und Muslime fast ausschließlich im Zusammenhang mit politischen und sozialen Konflikten, Kriegen, Fundamentalismus und Terrorismus. Das Spektrum der Verweise reicht von Einzelnennungen bestimmter Begriffe – „islamistische Fundamentalisten“, „die islamische Welt“ – über Infokästen, die religiöse Begriffe definieren bis zur ausführlichen Erörterung der Frage, welche Rolle die Religion im Terrorismus spielt. Unabhängig davon, ob die Schulbuchtexte explizit einen kausalen Zusammenhang zwischen dem jeweiligen Konflikt und dem Islam formulieren, werden Islam und Muslime allein durch die thematische Rahmung immer wieder mit dem Thema gewalttätiger Bedrohung verknüpft.31 Die Assoziation von Islam und Problemen beziehungsweise Konflikten findet sich auch prominent in der Thematisierung von Migration. Während in den Mittelalterdarstellungen „der Islam“ als solches thematisiert und dabei als Zivilisation, Religion oder politisches Reich gezeigt wird, geht es in den Gegenwartsdarstellungen eher um Muslime als bestimmte Gruppe. Islam erscheint hier als ethnisch-religiöse Identität. Allerdings wird „der Islam“ auch häufig als Umschreibung für eine bestimmte Region gebraucht. Dies 31 Dies geschieht im Zweifelsfall auch bei Darstellungen, die explizit versuchen, die Religion des Islam von der politischen Ideologie des Islamismus zu trennen, denn es gibt keine Beispiele für Säkularisierung oder kritische Positionen im Spektrum muslimisch geprägter Gesellschaften.

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geschieht vor allem im Zusammenhang mit der Beschreibung von Konflikten, wobei die Begriffe islamische und arabische Welt teils synonym verwendet werden. Die Struktur des Islamnarrativs erscheint somit in gewisser Hinsicht ahistorisch und bewegt sich zwischen Gegenwart und einer konfrontativen Vergangenheit. Dabei fokussiert das Narrativ bestimmte geographische Regionen und ignoriert die historische Koexistenz etwa auf dem Balkan. Muslime werden nicht als ein genuiner Teil Europas dargestellt, stattdessen wird ihnen ein Ort außerhalb Europas zugewiesen. Der Islam erscheint dabei als Gegenpart in der Konstruktion einer europäischen Identität.32 Die mangelnde Wahrnehmung der historischen Dynamik in Bezug auf muslimische Phänomene korrespondiert mit öffentlichen Debatten um die Rückständigkeit des Islams und seine mangelnde Passfähigkeit mit modernen europäischen Gesellschaften. Zum einen entsteht diese „Entzeitlichung“ durch die dargestellte Lücke in der Erzählung einer Entwicklungsgeschichte vom Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart. Zum anderen wird „der Islam“ in vielen Schulbüchern über seine Ursprungsgeschichte – d.h. Religionsgründung und Expansion – definiert. Damit eng zusammen hängt die Konstruktion eines vorgestellten Kollektivs der Muslime, die sich in „der muslimischen Welt“ bis heute nach den genannten Regeln richten. Die Reduktion lebt insgesamt von der mangelnden Trennschärfe zwischen Religion, Kultur und Politik, die sich als roter Faden durch die Darstellungen zieht. Schülerinnen und Schüler lernen unter dieser Voraussetzung folglich nicht, unterschiedliche kulturelle und politische Vergangenheiten als „(auch) islamisch“ zu sehen. Die europäische Entwicklung wird dabei als eine Entwicklung sui generis begriffen, die gänzlich innerhalb der Traditionen und der Geschichte Europas erklärt werden kann. Damit wird das Bild konstruiert, die heutige Moderne sei exklusiv westlich.33 In diesem Sinne zählt zum Phänomen Eurozentrismus nicht nur, die „Weltgeschichte“ aus einer europäischen Perspektive zu erzählen, sondern auch, eine normative Perspektive zu vermitteln, in der das Projekt der europäischen Moderne die Erfolgsgeschichte einer autonomen Entwicklung ist.34 Da das Mittelalter per definitionem nicht konstitutiv zur (europäischen) Moderne gehört, stellt die Aufwertung der „islamischen Zivilisation“ im Kontext des Mittelalters das europäische Selbstverständnis auch nicht in Frage. Anders sieht es bei der Erzählung der Moderne aus: In allen untersuchten Schulbüchern, die chronologisch vorgehen, beginnt nach der Beschäftigung mit der „islamischen Zivilisation“ im Mittelalter 32 Jonker: Zum Stand der Schulbuchforschung am Beispiel „Islam” in den deutschen Geschichts- und Geografiebuchern (Fußnote 30); Jonker: Europäische Erzählmuster über den Islam (Fußnote 30). 33 Sebastian Conrad/Shalini Randeria: Einleitung. Geteilte Geschichten – Europa in einer postkolonialen Welt. In: Sebastian Conrad/Shalini Randeria (Hg.): Jenseits des Eurozentrismus. Postkoloniale Perspektiven in den Geschichts- und Kulturwissenschaften. New York/Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag 2002, S. 9–49. 34 Allenfalls am Rande wird im Kontext der Darstellung von „Al-Andalus“ auf die Bedeutung der islamischen Prägung für die kulturelle Entwicklung Europas hingewiesen. Lediglich die Übertragung von antikem Wissen wird in vielen Büchern erwähnt.

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die Beschäftigung mit der Neuzeit – hier haben Islam und Muslime zunächst keinen Platz mehr. Erst im Zuge von Terrorismus oder Migration wird wieder von ihnen berichtet.35 3.2 Grenzen des „Wir“ in der textlichen und bildlichen Darstellung In mehreren Darstellungen werden aktuelle Fotos wie zum Beispiel Bilder aus Mekka oder Fotos von Kamelreitern in der Wüste im Zusammenhang mit geschichtlichen Themen gezeigt. Diese Montage suggeriert eine Unveränderlichkeit des Islams und die Verknüpfung mit beduinischer Lebensweise. Zusätzlich findet sich eine textliche Verknüpfung der Vergangenheit mit Gegenwartsproblemen. Dies geschieht etwa, wenn Selbstmordattentate der Gegenwart mit der historischen Ausbreitung des Islam im Mittelalter in Verbindung gebracht werden oder wenn die Schüler/-innen dazu aufgefordert werden, im Zusammenhang mit den „Türkenkriegen“ über einen Moscheeneubau mit Minarett an ihrem Schulort zu diskutieren. Durch eine häufige Bezugnahme auf das Konzept des „Djihad“ und die Expansion des islamischen Reiches im Mittelalter, werden Muslime implizit als intrinsisch gewalttätig dargestellt. Weitere Essentialisierungen finden sich häufig in der Beschreibung des „muslimischen Lebens“. Häufig wird suggeriert, dass jedes Alltagsverhalten aller Muslime auf die Religion zurückzuführen ist und von bestimmten Vorgaben bestimmt ist, indem der Koran als Glaubens- und Gesetzbuch dargestellt wird. Die Assoziation von Islam und Problemen beziehungsweise Konflikten ist in der Thematisierung von Migration auch auf textlicher und bildlicher Ebene präsent. Dies wird beispielsweise in dem Buch Politik entdecken. Band 2 NRW deutlich.36 Hier wird im Kapitel „Deutschland – ein Einwanderungsland“ der Islam als Merkmal der Immigranten und ausschließlich als Moment des Konfliktes gezeigt. Fragen danach, wie viele Moscheen es gibt, wie viele junge Türkinnen Kopftuch tragen oder wie viele Türkinnen in Zwangsehen leben, vermitteln, dass der islamischen Religion ein zentraler Platz in der Auseinandersetzung mit dem Thema Migration-Integration zukommt. Typisch für die Verknüpfung von Einwanderung und Islam, der so als von „außen“ kommend gezeigt wird, sind auch die Illustrationen von „Ausländern“ mit dem Bild kopftuchtragender Frauen wie in den Grafiken „Lebensumstände der Ausländer“ und „Schlechte Chancen für 35 Phänomene im Zusammenhang mit Muslimen oder Islam werden mangelhaft kontextualisiert, wenn nur auf sie Bezug genommen wird, wenn sie relevant für die Metropolen werden – und dabei Auswirkungen des Kolonialismus ignoriert werden. So gelingt es den Schulbüchern nicht, das Phänomen „Islamismus“ treffend zu erklären: Dies liegt vor allem daran, dass die kulturellen Aspekte der Kolonialherrschaft, die massive kulturelle Transformation, unbeachtet bleibt und Kolonialismus – wenn überhaupt – als formal-politische Herrschaft gezeigt wird. Die Veränderung von Religion und religiösen Repräsentationen in globalen Machtverhältnissen kann so nicht thematisiert werden. Eine Analyse des Eurozentrismus fordert ein, die (europäische) Geschichte neu zu erzählen, die Beiträge der „Anderen“ zur europäischen Moderne sichtbar zu machen und heutige Phänomene mit globaler Spannweite als Kontinuitäten der Verflechtungsgeschichte zu deuten. 36 Dr. Thomas Berger-v.d. Heide: Politik entdecken – Gymnasium Nordrhein-Westfalen. Band 2 – Schülerbuch. Berlin: Cornelsen 2009.

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Migranten“. Gleiches gilt für eine Fotografie zweier Frauen, von denen eine ein Kopftuch trägt – sie trägt die Bildunterschrift „Fremd in Deutschland“. Durch Verwendung des „Kopftuchmotivs“ und dessen Zuordnung zum Thema „Ausländer“ und „Fremdheit“ werden die Themen Islam, Fremdheit und Ausländerstatus miteinander verbunden. Als Beispiele für Konflikte, die durch Immigration entstehen, sind drei von vier Beispielen in diesem Buch eindeutig „Islamthemen“. „Ausländer“, unter die Muslime kollektiv (als Türken) subsumiert werden, erscheinen als Problemgruppe; bisweilen findet sich ein paralleler Opferdiskurs. Über Komposita wie „Ausländische Mitbürger“ oder „Türkische Mitbürger“, sowie Formulierungen wie „Was wir über ‚sie’ wissen“ werden sprachlich wie inhaltlich keine Differenzierungen vorgenommen und zwei einheitliche Kollektive konstruiert: „Mehrheitsgesellschaft“ und „Ausländer“. Eine neue Generation deutscher oder europäischer Muslime kommt nicht in den Blick. Die Begriffswahl konstruiert zudem ein homogenes islamisches Kollektiv. Begriffe wie „islamische Welt“ oder „islamische Konflikte“ tauchen in fast allen Darstellungen auf. In vielen Büchern werden sie teilweise mit der „arabischen Welt“ gleichgesetzt. Auf diese Weise vermischen sich religiöse und politische Zuschreibungen, was ein undifferenziertes Bild einer teils bedrohlichen Einheit schafft. Zwar ist im Gegensatz zu den Mittelalterdarstellungen nicht mehr von „den Muslimen“ die Rede, aber eine Vereinheitlichung zeigt sich unter anderem in der Abgrenzung zum „Westen“, welcher als Gegenpol zur „islamischen Welt“ erscheint. Unterschiede zwischen verschiedenen Staaten oder Glaubensrichtungen werden dabei größtenteils ausgeblendet. Der Islam wird damit außerhalb der westlichen Welt positioniert und als vormodern und unaufgeklärt bewertet. Diese Darstellung enthält eine Bedrohungsdimension, da die Einheit von Politik und Religion nicht allein als Wesenszug des Fundamentalismus beschrieben wird, sondern auf alle Muslime bezogen wird. Die Darstellungen haben drei Effekte bezüglich der vermittelten Bilder vom Islam und Muslimen. Diese lassen sich mit den Begriffen Entzeitlichung, Homogenisierung und Essentialisierung zusammenfassen. Sie stehen einer differenzierten Betrachtung des Islams und der Muslime entgegen. Von Entzeitlichung kann gesprochen werden, wenn sich die Repräsentation von Islam hauptsächlich auf das Mittelalter und die Darstellung des Glaubenssystems bezieht. Durch das Ausblenden der nachfolgenden Entwicklungen kann hier der Eindruck entstehen, islamische Kultur und islamisches Denken habe keine Entwicklung durchlaufen und sei nicht dynamisch. Die Bildauswahl verstärkt häufig den Eindruck der Atemporalität, indem aktuelle Fotos zur Bebilderung der Anfänge und Ausbreitung des Islam eingesetzt werden oder umgekehrt Fotos, die die Gegenwartswelt bebildern, bekannte Motive aus mittelalterlichen Miniaturen in Szene setzen. Von Homogenisierung kann gesprochen werden, wenn in den Schulbüchern das Bild einer mehr oder minder homogenen islamischen Zivilisation bzw. Kultur gezeichnet wird. Durch den regionalen Fokus auf den Nahen Osten und den Maghreb sowie dadurch, dass religiöse Symbole wie die Farbe Grün oder eine Moschee benutzt werden, um die arabischen Länder zu identifizieren, verschmelzen „islamisch“ und „arabisch“ oftmals zu

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einer Einheit. Innerislamische Differenzen werden nicht gezeigt und falls doch, dann beschränkt sich dies in aller Regel auf die Unterscheidung zwischen Sunniten und Schiiten. Von Essentialisierung kann gesprochen werden, weil der Islam vor allem in seinen ritualistischen Elementen dargestellt und das Bild einer Gesetzesreligion hervorgerufen wird, der gehorsam zu leisten ist. Dabei spielen Begriffe wie Djihad, „Heiliger Krieg“ oder Scharia eine prominente Rolle: „Sie suggerieren Authentizität, indem sie den Eindruck erwecken, es handele sich um eine eindeutige Wiedergabe der islamischen Quellen. Hingegen transportieren sie durch tendenziöse Übersetzungen und einseitige Themenwahl immer wieder die gleichen westlichen Pauschalurteile“.37 Vor allem die Bewertung „des Islam“ als antiquiertes und dennoch bis heute alle Lebensbereiche von Menschen muslimischer Religionszugehörigkeit beherrschendes Regelsystem oder als alle kulturellen Manifestationen bestimmender Kern ist häufig anzutreffen. Damit erscheint der Islam als „das Andere“ Europas (d.h. als rückständig, vormodern und stagnierend), als sich gegenseitig ausschließende Einheiten mit konfrontativen Berührungen, jedoch weitgehend ohne Überlappungen, Ähnlichkeiten und Gemeinsamkeiten.38 Bezieht man diese Ergebnisse auf die Debatte um Bildungsinklusion, so […] lässt sich mit großer Wahrscheinlichkeit vermuten, dass Pauschalisierungen über ‚den Islam‘ negativ auf die Chancen von Schülerinnen und Schülern muslimischer Zugehörigkeit wirken, sich europäisch zu identifizieren und von anderen als europäisch identifiziert zu werden. Ist dies aber so, dann birgt die pauschale symbolische Ausgrenzung insgesamt das Risiko, dass Bildungsinklusion und soziale Kohäsion in heterogenen Lerngemeinschaften an heutigen Schulen beeinträchtigt werden. Schülerinnen und Schülern mit muslimischem Hintergrund werden demotiviert, sich über Bildung gesellschaftlich zu beteiligen. Umgekehrt werden auch für die heutige Schülergeneration ohne muslimischen Hintergrund durch die existierenden Simplifizierungen keine Chancen vorgehalten, Ähnlichkeiten oder Gemeinsamkeiten mit Mitschülerinnen und Mitschülern muslimischer und weiterer ethnisch-religiöser Zugehörigkeiten wahrzunehmen. Die Darstellungen hindern daran, Toleranz religiöser Pluralität einzuüben oder das Unterscheidungsvermögen zwischen religiösen Modellen und

37 Susanne Heine/Marianne Pratl: Auf holprigen Wegen. Die Darstellung des Islams in österreichischen Schulbüchern, Fach Geschichte, 5.-8. Schulstufe. In: John Bunzl/Farid Hafez (Hg.) Islamophobie in Österreich. Innsbruck: Studien-Verlag 2009, S. 57–87. 38 Diesem Eindruck der stark vereinfachenden Darstellung müssen allerdings auch vereinzelt zu beobachtende deutliche Versuche der Differenzierung gegenübergestellt werden. Auch wenn Islam und Muslime im Kontext des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts fast ausschließlich mit (gewalttätigen) Konflikten und sozialen Problemen in Zusammenhang gebracht werden, enthalten viele neuere Schulbücher durchaus Schilderungen, die ein Bemühen um eine differenzierte Sicht- und Darstellungsweise erkennen lassen. Dazu gehören insbesondere Versuche, Islam und Islamismus zu unterscheiden und zu vermeiden, dass Terrorismus ursächlich dem Islam zugeschrieben wird. Außerdem ist bisweilen von „islamischen Reichen“ im Plural die Rede. Zudem wird die Heterogenität „der islamischen Welt“ in einigen Fällen benannt und die Uneinheitlichkeit unter Christen (und Muslimen) im Kreuzzugskontext dargestellt. Vereinzelt arbeiten Bücher heraus, dass es unterschiedliche Blickwinkel auf die Geschichte gibt und dass „der Islam“ als Konstrukt zu verstehen ist.

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unterschiedlichen gesellschaftlichen und individuellen Praxen von Islam und Säkularität zu entwickeln, wie dies für das Christentum ganz selbstverständlich scheint. 39

4. Schulbücher für den Islamischen Religionsunterricht Wie verhalten sich nun Schulbücher für den Islamischen Religionsunterricht zu diesen Darstellungen? Hierfür wurden die zwischen 2005 und 2012 erschienenen und in der BRD für den Islamischen Religionsunterricht in der Sekundarstufe zugelassenen Schulbücher ‚EinBlick in den Islam‘ sowie ‚Saphir‘ diskursanalytisch ausgewertet. Außerdem wurden die Ergebnisse der Untersuchungen von Ahrens, Spenlen, Kiefer, Gemein und KröhnertOthman berücksichtigt.40 41 Das Schulbuch ‚Saphir 5/6‘ positioniert den Islam und die Muslime gleich zu Beginn als eine der deutschen Gesellschaft und ihrer Verfassung zugehörige Religion. Im Vorwort heißt es über das Buch: „Hier könnt ihr viel über Gott und seinen Gesandten und auch über das Leben in Deutschland erfahren.“42 Dies realisiert sich etwa auf Seite 167, auf der der Artikel 4 GG zitiert wird; anschließend sollen die Auswirkungen der Glaubens- und Bekenntnisfreiheit diskutiert werden. Im Lehrerkommentar43 heißt es, andere Glaubensgemeinschaften dürften nicht abgewertet werden und es solle gefragt werden, was jeder einzelne tun könne, um die Freiheit der Religion zu gewährleisten. Dazu gehöre es auch, andere religiöse Traditionen zu achten. Diese finden in dem Schulbuch folglich breiten Raum und werden als ähnlich dargestellt.44 Auf Seite 37 werden Grundrechte (GG Artikel 39 Kröhnert-Othman/Kamp/Wagner: Keine Chance auf Zugehörigkeit? (Fußnote 29), S. 22. 40 Klaus Spenlen/Susanne Kröhnert-Othman (Hg.): Integrationsmedium Schulbuch. Anforderungen an Islamischen Religionsunterricht und seine Bildungsmaterialien. Göttingen: V&R Unipress 2012. 41 Rebecca Ahrens: Islamischer Religionsunterricht an öffentlichen Schulen als multifaktorielle Problematik und Chance. Münster: MV Wissenschaft 2012; Klaus Spenlen: Kritische Anmerkungen aus pädagogischer Perspektive. In: Spenlen/Kröhnert-Othman (Fußnote 40), S. 128f; Gisbert Gemein: Genehmigung von Schulbüchern als Instrument der Qualitätssicherung. In: Spenlen/Kröhnert-Othman (Fußnote 40), S. 61–74; Michael Kiefer: ‚Saphir 5/6‘ und ‚EinBlick in den Islam 5/6‘ – kritische Anmerkungen aus islamwissenschaftlicher Perspektive. In: Spenlen/Kröhnert-Othman (Fußnote 40), S. 99–112; Susanne Kröhnert-Othman. Der zugewanderte Islam in Deutschland – Identitäten, Zugehörigkeiten und Lebensweltorientierung in Schulbüchern für den islamischen Religionsunterricht. In: Spenlen/ Kröhnert-Othman (Fußnote 40), S. 139–58. 42 Lamya Kaddor, u.a. (Hg.): Saphir 5/6. Religionsbuch für junge Musliminnen und Muslime. München: Kösel-Verlag 2008, S. 3. 43 Lamya Kaddor u.a. (Hg.): Saphir 5/6 - Lehrerkommentar: zum Religionsbuch für junge Musliminnen und Muslime. München: Kösel-Verlag 2009, S. 216. 44 So werden auf Seite 117 neben Quransuren die Zehn Gebote präsentiert. Im zugehörigen Lehrerkommentar wird ausgewiesen, die Schüler/-innen sollten dadurch gemeinsame ethische Grundlagen erkennen. Noch deutlicher wird der Ansatz von ‚Saphir‘ auf Seite 114. In der Rubrik „Gottes Wort

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1–3) zitiert; sie werden als geteilte Grundwerte, die auch religiös begründet werden können, dargestellt (die Artikel werden gemeinsam mit Hadithmaterial mit ähnlicher Bedeutung gezeigt).45 Der Islam, so die implizit in ‚Saphir‘ vertretene Perspektive, soll im Rahmen der deutschen Gesellschaft gleichberechtigt neben anderen religiöse Traditionen stehen und dabei integraler Teil der Gesellschaft sein. ‚Saphir 5/6‘ behandelt im Kapitel „In Deutschland leben“ muslimische Lebenswelten in Deutschland. Das Kapitel wird von der Doppelseite „Muslimisches Leben in Deutschland… nicht erst seit gestern!“46 eröffnet. Hier finden sich u.a. historische Fotos aus dem so genannten „Halbmondlager“, einem Kriegsgefangenenlager für muslimische Soldaten der britischen und französischen Armee im Ersten Weltkrieg bei Berlin. Im Lehrerkommentar47 wird auf Kontakte zwischen abendländischen und muslimischen Kulturkreis seit dem späten Mittelalter hingewiesen; als Kontakte werden Handelsbeziehungen, aber auch Konflikte mit wechselnden Bündnispartnern beschrieben. Es findet sich der Hinweis darauf, dass Anfang des 20. Jh. muslimische Vereinigungen in Deutschland gegründet wurden. Im Lehrerkommentar48 heißt es: Historische Verweise können für Schüler eine Entlastung bedeuten, wenn sie erkennen, dass es Zuwanderung und Migration schon immer gab und deshalb auch die eigene Familiengeschichte etwas ‚Normales‘ ist. Die Fotos vermitteln den Schülern etwas von der Bandbreite muslimischen Lebens in Deutschland. […] Bekannte Muslime […] können als Vorbilder eine positive und natürliche Vereinbarkeit ihrer Herkunft und ihrer deutschen Heimat vermitteln und den Schülern die Möglichkeit geben, sich mit verschiedenen Vorbildern ihrer Wahl zu identifizieren. Alle Poträtierten haben einen muslimischen Hintergrund, sie zeigen, dass sie ich mit ihrer Identität und ihrem Glauben an der Mehrheitsgesellschaft beteiligen und kein Außenseiterdasein fristen müssen.

Auffällig ist hierbei, dass ein „muslimischer Hintergrund“ nicht über eine religiöse Praxis definiert, sondern qua Herkunft angenommen wird. Dies bedingt auch, dass in der ersten Auflage des Schulbuchs versehentlich ein Bild von Dunja Hayali, die einen arabischchristlichen Hintergrund hat, abgedruckt war. Gleichzeitig verdeutlicht dieser Zugang, dass Saphir sehr unterschiedliche muslimische Lebensentwürfe repräsentieren will.49 Neben dem Zeigen einer historischen Präsenz außerhalb der bekannten Geschichte der

nachgehen“ wird (ohne textlichen Bezug) nicht nur eine Moschee, sondern auch eine Kirche und eine Synagoge abgebildet. 45 Im Lehrerkommentar (Fußnote 43, S. 53f.) wird in diesem Zusammenhang auf einen Konsens unter Muslimen hingewiesen, dass Verfassungen nicht-islamischer Länder von Muslimen anerkannt werden müssen. 46 Kaddor et al.: Saphir 5/6 –Lehrerkommentar (Fußnote 43), S. 160 f. 47 Kaddor et al.: Saphir 5/6 –Lehrerkommentar (Fußnote 43), S. 211. 48 Kaddor et al.: Saphir 5/6 –Lehrerkommentar (Fußnote 43), S. 212. 49 Dazu passt auch, dass beispielsweise auf Seite 149 aufgefordert wird „Formuliere, was ‚Islam‘ für dich bedeutet“, womit wohl unterschiedliche muslimische Positionierungen zugelassen und gezeigt werden sollen.

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Gastarbeiter/-innenmigration,50 versucht Saphir auch andere gängige Vorstellungen zu irritieren. Dies wird auch explizit als didaktisches Ziel genannt; im Lehrerkommentar51 heißt es, kollektive Bilder sollten aufgebrochen und die Individualität der einzelnen Schüler/-innen zutage gefördert werden. Islamische Pluralität wird auf der Doppelseite 180f. gezeigt: Unter der Rubrik „In Rhythmen feiern“ finden sich Fotos von islamischen Festen an verschiedenen Orten (Bosnien, USA, Mekka, Ruhrgebiet, Syrien, Marokko, Oman). Im Lehrerkommentar wird erklärt: „Die Fotos können den Blick dafür weiten, dass MuslimInnen ihre Feste weltweit aus gleichen Gründen, aber in unterschiedlicher – eben national geprägter – Gestaltung feiern.“52 Auf Seite 149 wird ferner auf unterschiedliche Interpretationen heiliger Texte eingegangen; auch ein Generationen-Bruch im religiösen Verständnis wird konstatiert. So wird der Architekt einer bosnischen Moschee in Deutschland zitiert, die „Rezepte“ der Elterngeneration würden für die heutige Jugend nicht mehr funktionieren und es brauche neue Wege (147). Während in Saphir Konflikte mit den Eltern Thema sind, wird in dem anderen untersuchten Medium, ‚EinBlick in den Islam‘ (hier Band 7/8), ein Hadith zitiert, in dem es heißt: „Das Wohlgefallen des Herrn liegt im Wohlgefallen der Eltern und das Missfallen des Herrn liegt im Missfallen der Eltern.“ Während in Saphir vor allem eine allgemeine Ethik vermittelt werden soll, gesellschaftspolitische Themen zentral sind und die Schüler/-innen zum Nachdenken aufgefordert werden, setzt ‚EinBlick in den Islam‘ den Schwerpunkt auf Merkwissen über die Religion sowie das Kennenlernen des Religionsvollzugs und religiös angemessener Verhaltensweisen, etwa in Bezug auf Sauberkeit und Gebetszeiten. Während in ‚Saphir‘ die Religionsfreiheit als Wert betont wird, wird in ‚EinBlick in den Islam‘ der

50 ‚Saphir 7/8‘ geht in Bezug auf die Darstellung der Geschichte nach der Nachfolge Muhammads auf die Umayyaden und Abbasiden ein und beschreibt anschließend knapp die Entwicklung bis zum osmanischen Sultanat. Lamya Kaddor u.a. (Hg.): Saphir 7/8: Religionsbuch für junge Musliminnen und Muslime. München: Kösel-Verlag 2011, S. 134ff. Auf den Seiten 140f. (ibid.) werden unter der Überschrift „West trifft Ost“ die Kreuzzüge auf der einen, der Kulturtransfer auf der anderen Seite thematisiert (150f.). Im Rahmen von „Al-Andalus“ wird über arabische Erfindungen berichtet; es findet sich aber auch der Hinweis, dass das „goldene Zeitalter“ helle und dunkle Seiten hatte. Bosnien wird auf den Seiten 152f. (ibid.) erwähnt. ‚EinBlick in den Islam 7/8‘ geht im Rahmen der Geschichtsdarstellung knapp auf Umayyaden, Abbasiden, Fatimiden, Seldschuken, Muren, Mameluken, Safawiden, Moguln und Osmanen ein; Marjam Ulfat/Gülden Uzunöner/Selvi Can: EinBlick in den Islam: 7./8. Schuljahr. Hückelhoven: Schulbuchverlag Anadolu 2011, S. 62. Nach der Thematisierung der Nachfolge des Propheten (ibid. 64f.), werden Umayyaden- (ibid. 66ff.) und Abbasidenkalifat (ibid. 72ff.) beschrieben, ebenso wie die Ausbreitung des Islams von 622–750 n Chr. Dann bricht die Geschichtserzählung ab (es geht mit dem Kapitel „Sunna“ weiter). 51 Kaddor et al.: Saphir 5/6 –Lehrerkommentar (Fußnote 43), S. 213. 52 Kaddor et al.: Saphir 5/6 –Lehrerkommentar (Fußnote 43) S: 232.

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mehrmalige Abfall vom Glauben bzw. das Versinken im Unglauben als unverzeihliche Sünde dargestellt.53 Kiefer hält in seiner Untersuchung zu ‚EinBlick in den Islam‘ fest: „Auffällig ist, dass das Lehrwerk den Islam durchgehend als eine einheitliche Religion präsentiert. Eine differenzierte Binnensicht, die die Vielfalt des Islam in Deutschland zur Darstellung bringt, haben die Autorinnen und Autoren offenbar bewusst vermieden.“54 Spenlen kommt zu dem Ergebnis, in ‚EinBlick in den Islam‘ fänden sich „keine Angebote zum Aufbau eigener Sach-, Urteils-, Entscheidungs- und Handlungskompetenzen.“55; Merkwissen ersetze eine eigene Auseinandersetzung. ‚Saphir‘ vermittelt eher abstrakte Werte und Orientierungen und legt Wert auf Interreligiosität und die Gemeinsamkeiten mit anderen Gemeinschaften. Im Kontrast dazu betont ‚EinBlick in den Islam‘ die theologischen Unterschiede zum christlichen Verständnis (Ulfat et al. 2011b: 161f., 166f.).56 Den Unterschied zwischen den Lehrwerken fasst Kiefer wie folgt zusammen (2012: 110): „Die Autorinnen und Autoren von ‚Ein Blick in den Islam‘ betrachten den Islamischen Religionsunterricht offenbar primär als einen Ort der Glaubensunterweisung. Folglich steht die Katechese, bzw. die Einübung der ‚Orthopraxie‘ – des richtigen Handelns – im Vordergrund. Das Autorenteam von ‚Saphir‘ hingegen sieht den Religionsunterricht primär als einen Ort der Wissensvermittlung und Reflektion. Auf Katechese und die Einübung ritueller Handlungen wird vollständig verzichtet.“ Beide Bücher, so Kiefer, mieden problematische und spannungsgeladene Themen.57 53 Ein weiterer deutlicher Kontrast zu ‚Saphir‘ ist die Thematisierung des Geschlechterverhältnisses. Auf Seite 133 heißt es unter der Überschrift „Mann und Frau – in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart“, dass menschheitsgeschichtlich von der Steinzeit bis ins 18. Jahrhundert Männer Ernährer und Beschützer und Frauen Mütter und Hausfrauen gewesen seien. Durch das moderne Bildungswesen seien Frauen qualifiziert worden und für leichte Bürotätigkeiten und im Einzelhandel einsetzbar gewesen; in den Weltkriegen hätten Frauen dann viele Männeraufgaben übernommen und nach dem Krieg berufstätig bleiben wollen. ‚Saphir 7/8‘ (Kaddor u.a. (Fußnote 50), S. 56f.) gehen hingegen auf die Machtdimension ein, indem eine Statistik gezeigt wird, welche die Verteilung von Arbeitnehmer/-innen nach Geschlecht auf unterschiedlichen Hierarchieebenen verdeutlicht. Frauenfeindliche Ansichten und Lohndiskriminierung werden als solche benannt und ebenfalls thematisiert (ibid. 58f.). Frauenbilder und Rollenverständnisse sollen in der Klasse diskutiert werden. Es findet sich außerdem eine (fiktive) Diskussion über unterschiedliche muslimische Rollenverständnisse junger Frauen. Ferner wird auf islamische Frauengestalten, die in der Religionsgeschichte öffentlich wirkten, hingewiesen (ibid. 63). Auf Seite 61 (ibid.) findet sich der Quranvers 4:34 in Übersetzung von Rudi Paret einerseits und dem Zentrum für Islamische Frauenforschung und Frauenförderung ZIF andererseits. 54 Kiefer: ‚Saphir 5/6‘ und ‚EinBlick in den Islam 5/6‘ (Fußnote 41), S. 104f. 55 Spenlen: Kritische Anmerkungen aus pädagogischer Perspektive (Fußnote 41), S. 130. 56 Das Judentum ist fast gänzlich abwesend. In ‚Saphir 7/8‘ sollen das Juden- und das Christentum hingegen in je eigenen Kapiteln gemäß ihrem eigenen Verständnis dargestellt werden. Ulfat/Uzunöner/ Can: EinBlick in den Islam (Fußnote 50), S. 161 f., 166f. 57 Dies macht er beispielsweise fest an den verzerrend wirkenden Auslassungen in der Darstellung des Zusammenlebens mit den medinensischen Juden; Kiefer: ‚Saphir 5/6‘ und ‚EinBlick in den Islam

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Die in der Literatur vorgebrachte Forderung, die Vielfältigkeit des Islams solle in Schulbüchern abgebildet werden – nicht nur in Bezug auf regionale Ausformungen, sondern auch in Bezug auf die Auslegung heiliger Texte58 – ist in ‚Saphir‘ zumindest ansatzweise, in ‚EinBlick in den Islam‘ jedoch (vermutlich bewusst) nicht realisiert. Es gelte, so fordert Kröhnert-Othman, multiple Mitgliedschaften sowie die Mobilität zwischen unterschiedlichen Welten darzustellen.59 ‚EinBlick in den Islam‘ versuche zur Bildung einer muslimischen Identität und eines Gemeinschaftsgefühls beizutragen – durch Homogenisierung und Selbstverständigung in einem herzustellenden „Inneren“.60 Das Buch zielt primär auf Orthopraxie und die Entwicklung einer eigenständigen islamischen Identität, Gemeinschaft wird implizit durch die Betonung der konkreten Glaubenspraxis hergestellt.61 Zusammenfassend lässt sich sagen, dass im Unterschied zu vielen „nichtmuslimischen“ Schulbüchern in beiden untersuchten Lehrwerken keine Konfliktperspektive eingenommen wird – während ‚Saphir‘ den Islam und die Muslime aktiv in deutsche Gesellschaft einordnet, unterlässt ‚EinBlick in den Islam‘ eine solche Verortung (der Islam wird aber auch nicht als Gegenpart europäischer Geschichte, Identität und Praxis dargestellt). Während keines der beiden Lehrwerke der Dimension „Entzeitlichung“ entschieden entgegen tritt; weil es in den Büchern wenig (Saphir) bzw. keine (EinBlick in den Islam) Aufmerksamkeit für historische Dynamik gibt,62 unterscheiden sie sich deutlich im Hinblick auf den Umgang mit den Dimensionen Essentialisierung und Homogenisierung. Während Muslime in ‚EinBlick in den Islam‘ durchaus als kollektiv durch ihre Religion bestimmt verstanden werden können, tritt ‚Saphir‘ dieser Perspektive entgegen. Die beiden Lehrwerke repräsentieren damit zwei unterschiedliche muslimische Islamverständnisse und unterschiedliche Positionierungen gegenüber der nichtmuslimischen Islamdarstellung. Während in der Literatur gefordert wird, den identitätspolitischen 5/6‘ (Fußnote 41), S. 109 f. Tatsächlich gibt es in beiden Lehrwerken die Tendenz, problematische Aspekte auszuklammern. 58 Gemein: Genehmigung von Schulbüchern als Instrument der Qualitätssicherung (Fußnote 41), S. 66. 59 Auch ‚Saphir‘ werde diesem Anspruch nicht gerecht. So erscheine die deutsche Gesellschaft häufig als aus Christen, Juden und Muslimen bestehend. Die Gesellschaft sei allerdings vielschichtiger; außerdem begegneten sich im Alltagsleben Personen in der Regel eben nicht als Angehörige von Religionsgemeinschaften; Kröhnert-Othman: Der zugewanderte Islam in Deutschland (Fußnote 41), S. 153. Auf Seite 163 sollen die Schüler/-innen mit „Zugehörigkeits-Kreisen“ arbeiten, die vom „Ich“ ausgehend die Überschriften „Familie“, „Glaubensgemeinschaft“, „Gesellschaft“ umfassen. Mit diesem Modell kann Handeln nicht als in unterschiedlichen sozialen Welten divers beschrieben werden; ferner werden die Zugehörigkeits-Kategorien vorausgesetzt und positioniert; Kröhnert-Othman: Der zugewanderte Islam in Deutschland (Fußnote 41), S. 150. 60 Kröhnert-Othman: Der zugewanderte Islam in Deutschland (Fußnote 41), S. 142. 61 Vgl. auch Ahrens: Islamischer Religionsunterricht an öffentlichen Schulen als multifaktorielle Problematik und Chance (Fußnote 41), S. 86ff. 62 So werden in Kaddor u.a..: Saphir 5/6 –Lehrerkommentar (Fußnote 43) auf Seite 98 die Namen der vier „rechtgeleiteten“ Kalifen (die als Vorbilder portraitiert werden) gemeinsam mit einer Karte gezeigt, die die Ausbreitung des Islams heute darstellt.

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Ballast der Integrationsdebatte hinter sich zu lassen,63 ist dies für die Autor/-innen der Bücher tatsächlich gar nicht möglich – und entspricht auch nicht den Erwartungen und Ansprüchen. Schulbücher für den Islamischen Religionsunterricht werden vor dem Hintergrund der identitären Positionierung gelesen und müssen sich zwangsläufig gegenüber der „nichtmuslimischen“ Darstellung positionieren. Genau wie unterschiedliche „nichtmuslimische“ Schulbücher aus dem Fach Geschichte unterschiedliche Gesellschaftsbilder – inklusivere und exklusivere – vermitteln, so stehen die Schulbücher für unterschiedliche (nämlich inklusivere und exklusivere) Positionen und Positionierungen in der muslimischen Community. ‚Saphir‘ steht, überspitzt ausgedrückt, für das Islamverständnis einer neuen, gebildeten muslimischen Mittelschicht, die an der Gesellschaft partizipieren und in ihr erfolgreich sein will, während ‚EinBlick in den Islam‘ für das Verständnis eines traditionsgebundeneren Milieus steht.

5. Fazit/Ausblick Wenn Schulbuchdarstellungen heutigen Ansprüchen interkultureller Bildung gerecht werden wollen, müssen sie dazu beitragen, bei der heutigen Schülergeneration ein differenziertes Verständnis von Religion und Kultur in Geschichte und Gesellschaft auszuprägen, das nicht zum Ausschluss religiös markierter Gruppen führt. Dazu zählt die Betonung des Kulturtransfers und des Beitrags muslimischer Zivilisationen zur europäischen Entwicklung und zur Weltkultur sowie die Relativierung der Gewaltperspektive bei Erzählungen über kriegerische Konfrontationen durch Perspektivenwechsel in den Geschichtserzählungen. Vor dem Hintergrund wissenschaftlicher Debatten um Geschichtsunterricht und der Darstellungen der Geschichte des Islams kann die Präsentation der Errungenschaften mittelalterlicher „muslimischer“ Gesellschaften als ein erster Schritt einer neuen Darstellung von Islam und Muslimen in Geschichtsbüchern verstanden werden, die die These der kontinuierlichen gewaltsamen Konfrontation zwischen Europa und „der muslimischen Welt“ in Frage stellt. Allerdings reicht diese Verschiebung für eine angemessene Wahrnehmung geteilter Geschichte und geteilter Gegenwart nicht aus, weil die Lücke der Erzählung bis zur Gegenwart nicht gefüllt wird. Die Dichotomie zwischen (relativ) homogenen Kollektiven bleibt bestehen, wenn nicht gleichzeitig differenzierte Bilder von Heterogenität innerhalb der Kollektive und Überschneidungen sowie historische Dynamik vermittelt werden. Die Darstellung der europäischen Dimension des Islams, eine differenzierte Betrachtung der muslimischen Vielfalt und Thematisierung von Säkularisierung in muslimisch geprägten Gesellschaften wären Möglichkeiten, ein differenzierteres Bild zu zeichnen.64 63 Kröhnert-Othman: Der zugewanderte Islam in Deutschland (Fußnote 41), S. 154. 64 „Islam“ als Vielfalt zu zeigen, wäre ferner beispielsweise dadurch möglich, die Kreuzzüge unter Verweis auf die unterschiedlichen muslimischen und christlichen Parteien in ihren jeweiligen Koalitionen

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Die Erwähnung von Beiträgen „anderer“ Kulturen zum modernen Europa würde eine grenzdurchlässige Identifikation ermöglichen.65 Gleiches gilt für die Bücher des Islamischen Religionsunterrichts. Zuletzt wäre es wichtig, dass Schulbücher unterschiedlicher Fächer Methoden zum hinterfragenden Umgang mit Quellen und Narrativen vermitteln – schließlich gehört es zur Buchkultur im besten Sinne, kritisch mit Literatur umzugehen.

darzustellen; unterschiedliche „Islame“, die in unterschiedliche politische Regime eingebunden sind und an unterschiedliche vorislamische Gesellschaftsordnungen anknüpfen zu portraitieren oder politische und religiöser Praxen zu zeigen, die bekannten Auslegungen des Islams nicht entsprechen (wie die Vorstellung weiblicher Gelehrter in der Geschichte und von muslimischen Politikerinnen in der Gegenwart). 65 In diesem Kontext wäre auch eine Darstellung der Beteiligung von Juden, Christen und weiteren Gruppen an der Entwicklung muslimischer Zivilisationen in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart bedeutsam.

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© 2018, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11127-0 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19803-5

Der Koran: Das Buch der Muslime?

1.

Ein Gespräch mit Ömer Özsoy1 Sprich: „Wenn sich auch die Menschen und die Ginn vereinigten, um dieser Lesung (Qurʾān) etwas Gleiches hervorzubringen, brächten sie doch nichts Gleiches hervor, selbst wenn sie einander beistünden.“ (Sure 17, 88) C.W.: Der SPIEGEL titelte 2007 „Der Koran. Das mächtigste Buch der Welt.“ Das Cover wurde kritisiert, weil es in der Tradition anderer SPIEGEL-Cover steht, die vor dunklem Hintergrund einen bedrohlichen Eindruck vom Islam vermitteln. Unabhängig von dieser Kritik würde ich gerne eine noch viel grundlegendere Frage stellen: Inwiefern ist der Koran überhaupt ein „Buch“? Oder, anders gefragt: Inwiefern lässt sich der Koran überhaupt verstehen, wenn wir ihn heute als Buch lesen? Ö.Ö.: Der Koran ist in seiner jetzigen Form natürlich ein Buch zwischen zwei Deckeln. Er wurde aber nicht zu einem Zeitpunkt von einem Autor geschrieben, sondern in einem längeren Zeitraum von etwa 23 Jahren mündlich Stück für Stück von dem Propheten Muhammad verkündet, nach muslimischer Auffassung als Offenbarungen Gottes an ihn. Die Mündlichkeit ist also zunächst ein zentrales Charakteristikum des Korans. Er besteht aus jeweils aktuellen Anreden, die von den Empfängern auch schriftlich fixiert und nachträglich zusammengeführt wurden. Der Aufbau des heute vorliegenden Textes spiegelt dabei nicht immer die chronologische Reihenfolge der einzelnen Passagen, er ist vielmehr literarisch-ästhetisch konzipiert, weil als Liturgietext gedacht. Deshalb lässt sich im Korantext auch eine gewisse reimprosaische Struktur erkennen. Die Suren des Korans sind also nicht als thematische Einheiten bzw. Kapitel konzipiert. Die kurzen Suren sind oft einzelne zusammengehörende Offenbarungseinheiten, die längeren aber bestehen aus Passagen aus unterschiedlichen Zeiten, die daher auch unterschiedliche Themen behandeln. Schließlich kann man sagen, dass der Textaufbau des Korans für die Rezitation geeignet ist, während eine intellektuelle bzw. wissenschaftliche Lektüre eine über diesen Aufbau hinausgehende Reflexion erfordert. Das heißt, der Koran enthält, wenn man so will, eigentlich zwei Korane: Wortkoran und Textkoran. Durch die Rezitation des ersteren erlebt man ästhetisch die Gegenwart Gottes und durch die Rezeption des letzteren beteiligt man sich existenziell an der Urgemeinde. Und eine gute Koranexegese sollte an beiden Naturen des Korans interessiert sein. 1 Dieses Interview mit Ömer Özsoy (im Folgenden: Ö.Ö.) wurde von Constantin Wagner (C.W.) geführt.

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C.W.: Wenn der Koran kein Buch im klassischen Sinn ist, inwiefern macht es dann Sinn, ihn mit literaturwissenschaftlichen Methoden verstehen zu wollen? Einige Wissenschaftler haben dies ja versucht, wie beispielsweise Nasr Hamid Abu Zaid aus Ägypten, sind dafür aber von vielen anderen muslimischen Wissenschaftlern kritisiert worden. Ö.Ö.: Die Literaturwissenschaft kennt ja unterschiedliche Textgenres. Vor dem angesprochenen Hintergrund ist der Koran als ein besonderes sprachliches Phänomen zu betrachten, das von seiner Genese her einer Rede, von seinem Aufbau her einem Text ähnelt. Dieses Zusammenspiel von Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit bewirkte, dass bereits im Frühislam zwei entsprechende Wahrnehmungen und Rezeptionsarten vom Koran als Wort und Text entstanden, die nachvollziehbarerweise manchmal für Spannungen und Konflikte sorgen. Insofern bietet die Literaturwissenschaft einen Zugang nicht nur zum Koran als kompliziertem Verständnisgegenstand, sondern auch zur Koranrezeption der Muslime als hermeneutischem Vorgang. Nasr Hamid Abu Zaids Plädoyer ist in diesem Sinne zu verstehen. Die Widersacher argumentieren, dass der Koran als Wort Gottes nicht wie ein menschliches Produkt behandelt werden dürfe. Das ist aber eine klare Ignoranz der eigenen Tradition, die keine Sonderhermeneutik für den Koran etablierte, sondern jeweils gängige Methoden und Zugänge auf den Korantext anwandte. Man erkannte sehr früh an, dass die Sprache des Korans literarische Elemente wie Metaphern, Fremdwörter, Ambiguitäten, Synonyme, Wiederholungen etc. enthält und sein Sprachgebrauch eine einsehbare systematische und semantische Entwicklung nachvollziehen lässt. Auf der Grundlage dieser Erkenntnis und aus theologischen Interessen her war man immer daran interessiert, den Koran sprachwissenschaftlich zu analysieren, um seinen eigenen Anspruch auf Wirkungskraft und Schönheit zu erschließen – der Koran gilt ja für die Muslime als unnachahmlich. Auch die Normderivation aus dem Koran wäre ohne sprachliche Analyse, die sich bayān nennt, nicht möglich gewesen. C.W.: Lassen sich denn auch in der Bibelforschung entwickelte Methoden und Zugänge (Stichwort: historische Kritik) auf den Korantext anwenden? Die nicht-muslimische westliche Öffentlichkeit tendiert ja dazu, die muslimische mit der christlichen Textforschung zu vergleichen. Ö.Ö.: Genauso machen es auch die Muslime, wenn sie über die Bibel reden. Sie neigen dazu, das, was sie aus der Entstehung des Korans kennen, auf die Bibel zu übertragen. Dem ist mit einer gewissen Sympathie zu begegnen, aber ein Problembewusstsein bzw. Bewusstsein über die Differenzen ist erforderlich, wenn man interreligiösen Dialog auf akademischem Niveau betreiben will. Das gilt auch für die Erwartungshaltung der westlichen Betrachter, dass die Muslime ihre heilige Schrift historisch-kritisch lesen sollen. Dies ist einerseits selbstverständlich, setzt aber andererseits die Unvoreingenommenheit voraus, dass dieselben Methoden

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angewandt auf den Koran nicht automatisch zu denselben Ergebnissen wie in der Bibelforschung führen müssen. Denn der Bibel- und der Korantext haben sehr unterschiedliche Entstehungsgeschichten und weisen unterschiedliche sprachliche Qualitäten auf. Deshalb etablierten sich in der muslimischen Tradition andere Fragestellungen und Zugänge zum Text als in der Bibelforschung. Die zeitgenössische islamische Theologie ist bestrebt, die traditionellen Konzepte und Methoden für heute zu aktualisieren, das heißt, sie weiterzudenken und in der heutigen Wissenschaftssprache neu zu formulieren. Die westliche Koranforschung untersucht den Koran quasi nach den in der Bibelwissenschaft üblich gewordenen Standards. Die Forschungsergebnisse bestätigen aber im Wesentlichen die muslimische Geschichtsschreibung zum Koran: Der heutige Korantext geht auf Muḥammad – und somit auf das 7. Jahrhundert – zurück, und es gibt keinen Anlass, an der Authentizität dieses Textes zu zweifeln oder hinter ihm etwa mehrere Autoren zu vermuten. C.W.: Heißt das, es gibt aus der Perspektive eines muslimischen Wissenschaftlers – anders als im Falle der Bibel – nur eine Version des Korantextes? Ö.Ö.: Nein. Auch im Falle des Korans kann man von Varianten sprechen, die teilweise auf Abweichungen in den präkanonischen Koranexemplaren von manchen Gefährten und teils auf die Unterschiede zwischen den ersten Abschriften des kanonischen Textes zurückgehen. Die Differenzen gehen hier aber nicht so weit, dass wir von alternativen Koranen reden könnten, die eigene Verse oder Suren beinhalten würden oder beachtliche Bedeutungsänderungen generierten. Sie betreffen eher die Schreibweise mancher Wörter, die syntaktische Struktur einiger Verse, die Anordnung der Suren untereinander etc. Diese privaten Koranexemplare beinhalteten teilweise auch Notizen bzw. Erklärungen zum eigenen Gebrauch, die nicht zu dem eigentlichen Text gehören. Traditionell war man bereit mit dieser Vielfalt zu leben, weil man diese mit einer prophetischen Erlaubnis, den Koran unterschiedlich zu lesen, gar Fremd- oder schwierige Wörter durch Synonyme zu ersetzen, legitimierte. Erstmals entschied der dritte Kalif ʿUthmān ca. 20 Jahre nach dem Ableben des Gesandten, einen Standardtext anfertigen zu lassen und abweichende Privatexemplare zu vernichten. Aufgrund der Flexibilität der damaligen Schrift, der Vokalzeichen und diakritische Punkte noch fehlten, ist es ihm allerdings nur begrenzt gelungen, die Ambiguität zu reduzieren. Auch sein Standardtext war unterschiedlichen Lesemöglichkeiten offen, die sich als Lesarten etablieren konnten. Außerdem wurden die Eigenheiten der vernichteten präkanonischen Exemplare weiter tradiert. Diese offene und ambiguitätsfreundliche Haltung hat man aber nicht immer aufrechterhalten; es gibt sogar Korangelehrte, die verfolgt, gar hingerichtet wurden, weil sie auf ihre eigene, der kanonischen Textgestalt abweichende Lesart, beharrten. Schließlich gehört es zur alten Auslegungstradition, wie wir in frühsten Kommentarwerken sehen, zunächst textkritisch zu spekulieren, um die ursprüngliche Form bzw. mögliche Formen der jeweiligen Passage zu rekonstruieren. Diese

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Tradition wird in der Moderne nur von Wenigen und nur dann gepflegt, wenn der Standardtext für problematische Bedeutungen sorgt, die abweichende Lesarten nicht verursachen. Die alte Tradition der textkritischen Herangehensweise muss in der Tat wiederbelebt werden. C.W.: Macht es denn einen Unterschied, ob muslimische oder nicht-muslimische Forscher zum Koran arbeiten? Ö.Ö.: Es kommt darauf an. Im Bereich der Textgenese kann man durchaus eine gemeinsame Geschichtsschreibung anstreben. Wie bereits angesprochen, ist dies sogar – jenseits der revisionistischen Geschichtsschreibung zur Koran- und Islamentstehung – bereits der Fall. Was aber die Deutung und Bedeutung des Korans angeht, bleibt die Frage der Autorenschaft, sowie ich bisher beobachten konnte, nicht nebensächlich. Ich meine die Frage danach, wem der Koran „gehört“, Gott oder Muḥammad. Es ist nicht nur existenziell bedingt, d.h. der muslimische Forscher hört in ihm die göttliche Stimme, während er für den nicht-muslimischen Forscher nichts mehr als ein historisches Dokument aus dem Munde Muḥammads ist. In Abhängigkeit davon bedeuten dieselben Aussagen auch historisch etwas Anderes. Die berühmte Aussage „Es gibt keinen Zwang im Glauben“ ist beispielsweise für viele Muslime eine normative Aussage und bedeutet „Man darf niemanden im Glauben zwingen“, aber Rudi Paret etwa sieht darin eine Resignation Muḥammads, der feststellen musste, dass man niemanden zum Glauben zwingen kann. So wird auch ersichtlich, warum diese zwei unterschiedlichen Rezeptionsarten für konkurrierende Darstellungen der Muḥammad-Biographie sorgen. Allerdings gibt es Annäherungsansätze, die den Koran jenseits der Frage, wem der Koran „gehört“, zu erschließen suchen. Etwa die Arbeiten von Angelika Neuwirth und Hans Zirker lassen sich hier verorten. C.W.: Wenn es um das Verständnis des Korans geht, wird häufig von der Urgemeinde bzw. der ersten Prophetengeneration gesprochen – und von heute. Was aber ist mit der Zwischenzeit? Welche Herangehensweisen finden wir in der muslimischen Tradition/Geschichte? Seit wann wird der Koran (auch) als Buch gelesen? Ö.W.: Natürlich ist die muslimische Rezeptionsgeschichte vom Koran voll von Umbrüchen, Wandlungen, Paradigmenwechseln und anderen Entwicklungslinien, die bisher nur ansatzmäßig erschlossen und diskutiert worden sind. Dieser Wandel lässt sich in seinen Grundzügen aber wie folgt skizzieren: Die koranische Offenbarung begleitete die wandelnden Lebenswirklichkeiten der Urgemeinde in fast allen Facetten ihres Lebens, indem er ihre Fragen, Probleme, Gefühlseinstellungen, Erwartungen, viele Ereignisse, Entwicklungen und Konflikte der Offenbarungszeit behandelte. Das heißt, die Erstadressaten haben den Koran als eine aktuelle Rede an sie betrachtet, besser gesagt, sie haben den Koran nicht als Text rezipiert, sondern die koranische Offenbarung miterlebt. Als Augenzeugen waren sie mit seinen Entstehungsvoraussetzungen und sprachlichen Feinheiten vertraut. Die typischen

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exegetischen Fragen stellten sich erstmal den Muslimen zweiter Generation, die keine Augenzeugen der Offenbarung waren; sie waren die ersten Leser des Korans, denen der Koran als Text vorlag, dessen Kontext ihnen nicht immer vertraut war. Durch diesen Generationswechsel hat sich die Rezeptionsweise vom Zuhören einer Rede zum Lesen eines Textes umgewandelt, der bei der Lektüre viele Lücken ließ. Um diese Lücken zu schließen, besser gesagt, die entstandene hermeneutische Distanz zu überwinden, versuchten die Gelehrten zweiter Generation auf die Zeugenschaft der Augenzeugen der Offenbarung zurückzugreifen. Durch diesen intellektuellen Austausch verfügen wir heute noch über Informationen um Offenbarungsort, und -zeit einzelner Verse sowie Identifizierung der Anspielungen und nicht zuletzt Hinweise auf Offenbarungsgründe. Vor diesem Hintergrund kann man schon sagen, dass die kontextualisierende Lektüre des Korans die ursprünglich islamische ist. Ein zweiter wichtiger Wandel in der Koranwahrnehmung der Muslime verdankt sich dem langen Konstituierungsprozess der einzelnen Wissenschaften, wo u.a. die Wissens- und Normderivationsquellen definiert werden mussten: Koran, Sunna, Konsens, Analogieschluss etc. So wurde nun aus dem Offenbarungsdokument ein Referenztext, auf den sich die islamischen Disziplinen und verschiedenen Richtungen als erste Hauptquelle beziehen können. Dadurch verlor der Kontext des Korans immer mehr an Bedeutung, so dass das bei den ersten Generationen zu erkennende Streben nach dem ursprünglichen, von Gott gemeinten Sinn, der sich erst im eigentlichen Kontext ergibt, ständig abnahm – bis es durch eine dogmatische Annahme quasi ersetzt wurde, der Koran habe als Wort Gottes unendliche Bedeutungen zugleich. Heute ist es so, dass verschiedene Zugänge und Koranwahrnehmungen, die den angesprochenen Wandlungen geschuldet sind, sehr unsystematisch in- und nebeneinander leben. Die primäre Aufgabe einer zeitgenössischen Koranauslegung ist weiterhin die Rekonstruktion des ursprünglichen Sinnes, um dem historischen Koran gerecht zu werden und die Zwecke der Offenbarung herausarbeiten zu können, die sich im Zusammenspiel von Text und Kontext ergeben. Erst dann kann man den Koran jetzt und hier wieder – in Richtung dieser Zwecke – zum Sprechen bringen. C.W.: Aus Ihren Sätze höre ich auch Kritik an der heute dominierenden (muslimischen) Koranwahrnehmung. Ö.Ö.: Die neuere Forschung zeigt eben, dass die Zentralisierung des Korans in der Theologie eine relativ späte Entwicklung ist. Bei den frühen Generationen war nicht der Koran, sondern die Tradition der Urgemeinde zentral. Ich meine, man hat früher als Orientierung nicht unbedingt danach gefragt, was im Koran steht, sondern danach, was die Früheren (salaf ), insbesondere die Urgemeinde, einschließlich der Prophet selber, schon immer machten und sagten, sich also nach der Tradition (sunna) gerichtet. Die Tradition bildete so den großen Rahmen, innerhalb derer der

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Koran seine zentrale Stellung innehatte. Neben den oben angesprochenen Umbrüchen sorgten auch große Krisen wie die ersten Bürgerkriege, der Mongolensturm und die Kreuzzüge für Abkapselungen, die die Zentralisierung des Korans als die Einheit und Zusammenhalt sichernde Autorität zementiert haben. In der vormodernen und modernen Periode gingen Reformer grundsätzlich von einem gewissen Rückständigkeitsproblem des Islams aus – und machten die Tradition dafür verantwortlich. Ihr Lösungsansatz war protestantisch: Zurück zum Koran bzw. „sola scriptura“. Diese koranzentrierte Traditionskritik der Reformer brachte nicht nur Fundamentalismen hervor, sondern sie verschärfte auch den Traditionalismus als Gegenbewegung. Die gegenwärtige intellektuelle Atmosphäre muss man vor diesem Hintergrund verstehen. Der Koran hat aber seine andere Rolle als Liturgietext ständig aufbewahrt. Koransuren werden im Gebet rezitiert, aber auch bei fast allen Feierlichkeiten wie Geburt, Hochzeit, Trauerfeier und eigentlich überall, wo Gläubige sich zusammenfinden. Im Ramadan wird in großen Moscheen der ganze Koran von meisterhaften Koranlesern vorgetragen und die Gemeinde folgt dieser Lesung. Auch außerhalb des Ramadans und individuell pflegt man die Koranlesung. Die Rezitationstradition hat sich auch auf die Buchgestalt des Korans ausgewirkt, so dass er in dreißig Teilen (juzʾ, Pl. ajzāʾ) geteilt ist, die jeweils aus zwanzig Seiten bestehen. So liest man den ganzen Koran in einem Monat durch, wenn man jeden Tag einen Teil liest. Dank neueren Medien wird die Koranrezitation intensiver denn je genossen. Rezitatoren aus Ägypten wie Mustafa Ismael, Abdessamed und El-Minshawi haben bewirkt, dass eine neue Rezeptionsart vom Koran entstanden ist. Nicht nur in Häusern, sondern auch in Autos, Büros und sonst wo wird jetzt international bekannten Rezitatoren zugehört, sogar nicht selten als Hintergrundmusik. Schließlich ist die spirituelle Bedeutung der Koranrezitation, sei es aus Leser- oder Zuhörerperspektive, zu erwähnen: Während der Rezitation fühlt ein Gläubiger die Gegenwart Gottes, er hört in den vorgetragenen Worten die göttliche Stimme und sieht den göttlichen Blick auf die Welt und auf sich selber. Deshalb hört man der Rezitation still und ruhig zu. Da spielt es keine Rolle, ob man Arabisch kennt und das Vorgetragene versteht. C.W.: Zum Abschluss – und gleichsam als Ausblick auf die folgenden Beiträge in diesem Band – würde ich Ihnen gerne folgende Frage stellen: Inwiefern hat der Koran (ähnlich wie die Lutherbibel) sprachbildend gewirkt? Inwiefern beeinflusst er also Literatur und Sprache muslimisch geprägter Kulturen? Ö.W.: Der Koran galt und gilt als der bedeutendste Text des Arabischen, der natürlich auch sprachbildend wirkte. Offenbar hat der Koran seine Adressaten mit seiner Sprache, vor allem aber mit seinem Stil fasziniert und bisweilen auch verwirrt. Er war und ist immer noch sprachbildend wirksam. Manche Sprachwissenschaftler machen ihn sogar verantwortlich dafür, dass die Arabische Sprache nach dem 7. Jahrhundert

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seine natürliche Entwicklung nicht fortführte. Die sprach- und literaturbildende Wirkung des Korans betrifft natürlich in erster Linie das Arabische, aber auch in anderen islamisch geprägten Sprachen sieht man seine Wirkungskraft von der Dichtung bis zur Alltagssprache. Die islamische Begrüßung, salām ʿalaykum, oder von Mündern der Muslime oft zu hörende Ausdrücke wie in shāʾ Allāh (so Gott will) gehen beispielsweise auf den Koran zurück. Nicht selten zitieren Sprichwörter und Ausdrucke den Koran, beinhalten idiomatische Redewendungen aus dem Koran, machen Anspielungen auf koranische Formulierungen etc. Hierzu empfehle ich den Interessierten die Schriften von Navid Kermani.

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Über neue Möglichkeiten zur Datierungen von Koranhandschriften durch die 14C-Methode

1.

Ein Gespräch mit Michael Josef Marx und Tobias J. Jocham C.W.: Ihr Vorhaben „Corpus Coranicum“ erstellt den ersten online-Katalog früher Koranhandschriften. Worin genau besteht diese Arbeit? M.M: Unser Vorhaben widmet sich auf verschiedenen Ebenen der Geschichte des Korans: Wir interessieren uns für die Textgeschichte – die Geschichte der Verschriftlichung –, die Kontextgeschichte sowie für die literaturwissenschaftliche Analyse, die der Chronologie der 114 Suren (die zeitliche Abfolge der Offenbarungen, von den frühen mekkanischen, ca. 610 n.Chr., bis zu den letzten medinensischen Suren, ca. 632) innerhalb des Kodex Rechnung trägt. Für den Bereich der Textgeschichte ist die Sammlung und Auswertung der materiellen Zeugnisse unumgänglich. D.h. wir sondieren Bibliotheken in der ganzen Welt und versuchen Bilder und Angaben zu den frühen Handschriften zu erhalten. Im günstigen Fall erhalten wir Bilder und Katalogdaten zusammen mit der Erlaubnis, die Bilder online in unserer Datenbank „Manuscripta Coranica“, abrufbar unter corpuscoranicum.de, bereitzustellen. C.W.: Wurde eine solche Erschließung der Handschriften bislang nie unternommen? Warum beginnen Sie bzw. die Forschung erst jetzt damit? M.M.: Dem systematischen Studium des Korantextes im Spiegel der ältesten Handschriften wird in der Tat erst in der Moderne wissenschaftliches Interesse zugewendet. Einem deutschen Gelehrten, Christian Adler (1756–1834), der in Kopenhagen arbeitete, verdanken wir die erste Abhandlung zur Geschichte der arabischen Schrift und zu frühen Koranhandschriften.1 Adler waren vor allem die Fragmente zugänglich, die an der Königlichen Bibliothek in Kopenhagen aufbewahrt wurden. Der Impuls, der von Adlers kleiner Untersuchung (Descriptio Codicum Quorundam Cuficorum Partes Corani Exhibentium in Bibliotheca Regia Hafniensi) ausging, brachte Gelehrte in Frankreich, z.B. Antoine-Isaak Sylvestre de Sacy (1758–1838) dazu, sich mit der Frage zu beschäftigen. In Deutschland war es Theodor Nöldeke (1836–1930), der in seiner Geschichte des Qorāns Handschriften aus Berlin und Gotha untersuchte. Die Weiterführung von Nöldekes Studien führte dazu, dass Gotthelf Bergsträßer (1886–1933), Professor an der Universität München, ein Akademievorhaben in München, die „Korankommission“ der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, ins Leben rief.

1 Jakob Georg Christian Adler: Descriptio codicum quorundam cuficorum partes corani exhibentium in bibliotheca regia hafniensi et ex iisdem de scriptura cufica arabum, Altona (1780).

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C.W.: Haben sich denn muslimische Gelehrte mit dem Thema nie auseinandergesetzt? Was ist mit den exegetischen und koranwissenschaftlichen Texten, die von muslimischen Gelehrten seit dem 8. Jahrhundert bis heute verfasst werden. Entwerfen sie keine Textgeschichte des Korans? M.M.: In unserem Sinne gibt es dort strenggenommen keine Textgeschichte, da die islamische Gelehrsamkeit den Koran nicht nach historischen Kriterien beschreibt und erklärt. Dies ist nicht verwunderlich, sondern eher die Regel in einer Gelehrsamkeit, die eher theologischen oder, modern gesagt, „konfessionellen“ Charakter hat. Die arabische Philologie hat dennoch wichtige Beiträge zur Textgeschichte des Korans geliefert, in dem sie Quellen erschlossen hat. Die erste arabische Grammatik, verfasst von dem Gelehrten Sibawaihi (gest. ca. 796) und das erste arabische Lexikon, das Kitāb al-ʿayn des al-Khalil b. Ahmad („Buch des Buchstabens ʿayn“, mit dem in der Buchstabenreihenfolge des al-Khalil das Lexikon beginnt), aber auch die frühen exegetischen und koranwissenschaftlichen Schriften wie z.B. das Werk Faḍāʾil al-qurʾān („Die Vorzüge des Korans“) des Abū ʿUbayd al-Qāsim al-Salām (gest. 838) oder der Korankommentar des Muqātil ibn Sulaymān (gest. 767) enthalten Angaben, – manchmal eher versteckt – zu verschiedenen Lesarten des Korans und sind ganz bedeutende Quellenwerke für die historische Entwicklung des Korantextes. Unter den islamischen Gelehrten gab es nur wenige, die sich für die Handschriften des Korans interessierten, z.B. Ibn Abī Dāwūd al-Sijistānī (gest. 888) oder der andalusische Gelehrte al-Dānī (gest. 1053/54), die allerdings nicht mit einer historischen Fragestellung arbeiteten, sondern eher daran interessiert waren, in den ihnen vorliegenden Handschriften Vorbilder für richtige Schreibungen zu finden. Diese Gelehrten hatten, wie auch die europäischen Wissenschaftler bis ins 20. Jahrhundert, allerdings nur vage Vorstellungen, aus welchem Zeitraum die ihnen zugänglichen Koranpergamente stammen. Die islamische Tradition versteht die Überlieferung des Textes als ein Prozess der Weitergabe von Lehrer an Schüler. Der Text des Korans wird als mündlich überlieferter Text verstanden, dessen Überlieferungskette bis auf den Propheten zurückreicht. Wir wissen aber aus den ältesten Schriften der Exegese, dass es viele unterschiedliche Lesarten des Textes gab, z.B. regionale Varianten. Die Grammatik spielte ebenfalls eine große Rolle dabei, unterschiedliche Lesarten zu begründen. Viele Lesarten sind dabei als unterschiedliche Deutungen des oft mehrdeutigen Schriftbildes zu verstehen, was gegen eine rein mündliche Tradition spricht. Die Sache ist also komplex, und der Anteil der handschriftlichen Überlieferung ist möglicherweise größer, als innerhalb der Tradition gesehen. Dies alles ist noch nicht sehr gut erforscht. Eines steht fest: Die Textgestalt, die heute maßgeblich ist, wurde erst im 10. Jh. durch den Bagdader Gelehrten Ibn Mujāhid (gest. 936) mit Unterstützung durch die Politik festgelegt und umgesetzt, durch die Kanonisierung von sieben unterschiedlichen Rezitationsweisen.

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C.W.: Wie gehen Sie bei der historischen Auswertung der Koran-Handschriften vor? Gibt es Vorarbeiten, auf die Sie zurückgreifen können? M.M.: Ja. In den letzten drei Jahrzehnten hat sich viel auf dem Gebiet der Erforschung der Textgeschichte des Korans getan. Es gibt seit 1983 eine paläographische Typologie zu den Schriftstilen in den frühen Handschriften, entwickelt von François Déroche, der heute den Lehrstuhl Koran am Collège de France innehat. Déroche entwickelte seine Typologie an den Handschriften der Bibliothèque nationale de France.2 Inzwischen hat Déroche das System nach Einbeziehung weiterer Handschriften erweitert und angepasst.3 Diese paläographische Typologie kennt einen frühen Schriftstil, ḥijāzī („hidschasenisch, aus dem Hidschas stammend“), und einen Schriftstil, der oft kūfī (wörtlich: „aus der irakischen Stadt Kufa stammend“) genannt wird. Wie unsere naturwissenschaftlichen Datierungen gezeigt haben, ist der ḥijāzī-Schriftstil tatsächlich älter als der, den man bislang kūfī nennt. Bei den kufischen Schrifttypen wissen wir allerdings nicht, ob eine Handschrift ins 8., 9. oder 10. Jh. gehört. Um die Textgeschichte zu schreiben, benötigen wir zuverlässige Datierungen. Déroches Paläographie spielt dafür eine große Rolle, sie bildet den Ausgangspunkt. Adolf Grohmann hat 1958 einen kleinen Artikel vorgelegt zur Datierung von Koranhandschriften durch den Vergleich mit den Schriftstilen, die in datierten Papyri belegt sind.4 Dieser Ansatz könnte auch in Zukunft eine Rolle spielen, denn in Grohmanns Arbeit ist er bislang nur exemplarisch ausgeführt worden. Zurzeit führt unser Vorhaben Sondierung in diese Richtung durch, auch um die in den letzten 60 Jahren bekanntgewordenen und / oder editierten Papyri einzubeziehen. Bei der Suche nach Datierungsmöglichkeiten, hatte ich seit Gründung des Akademievorhabens den Gedanken, auch naturwissenschaftliche Methoden zu verwenden. Da dieses Verfahren für uns neu war und man sich in diese Methode hineindenken muss, hat es einige Zeit gebraucht, um eine Messkampagne durchzuführen. Da eine 14C-Datierung zwischen 300 und 600 EUR kosten kann, spielt auch die Finanzierung eine große Rolle. So schien es für uns ein günstiger Zeitpunkt, sie im Vorhaben Coranica, das ich mit Christian Robin konzipiert habe, aufzunehmen. Die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) und ihr französischer Zwilling, die Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR), hatten unseren Antrag für förderungswürdig befunden, was uns die Möglichkeit gab, erstmalig die 14 C -Methode in unsere philologische Forschungsarbeit einzubeziehen.

2 François Déroche: Catalogue des manuscrits arabes. Paris 1983. 3 Vgl. François Déroche: Qurʾans of the Umayyads. Leiden: Brill 2014. 4 Adolf Grohmann: The Problem of Dating Early Qur’ans. In: Der Islam 33 (1958), S. 213–31.

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C.W.: Im Rahmen des deutsch-französischen Vorhabens Coranica5 wurden in den vergangenen Jahren Koranhandschriften und andere spätantike Texte durch die Radiokarbonmethode datiert. Wie genau funktioniert diese so genannte 14C-Methode? T.J.: Da das Verfahren eine physische Entnahme des zu testenden Materials bedingt, ist es aus konservatorischer Sicht nicht unbedenklich. Im Gegensatz zu den ersten Messungen seit Entdeckung der Methode6 ist durch technische Weiterentwicklung wie z.B. die Verwendung eines Massenspektrometers (AMS = accelerated mass spectrometry) die benötigte Probenmenge inzwischen auf 1–2 mg reinen Kohlenstoff verringert und dennoch eine größere Präzision der Messungen erreicht worden. Um aber diese Menge reinen Kohlenstoffs zu erhalten, ist — abhängig von der Ausgangssubstanz — die Entnahme von ca. 20mg Material vonnöten, was bei den Materialien Pergament und Papyrus ungefähr einer Fläche von 1cm² entspricht. C.W.: Das heißt, Sie müssen aus einer Handschrift circa einen Quadratzentimeter Pergament ausschneiden, der dann für die Messung unwiderruflich zerstört wird? T.J.: Genau. Anschließend wird diese Probe einer aufwendigen, mehrstufigen chemischen Reinigung unterzogen, bevor sie durch Verbrennung in Graphit umgewandelt wird. Dieses Material wird dann zusammen mit weiteren Proben (darunter auch Blindproben zur Kontrolle der Messgenauigkeit) auf einem Metallträger aufgebracht. Mit Hilfe einer AMS-Anlage kann anschließend der Anteil des radioaktiven Kohlenstoffisotopes 14C an der Probe bestimmt werden. C.W.: … und daraus lässt sich auf das historische Alter der Probe schließen? T.J.: Ja, anhand des Verhältnisses von dem radioaktiven Kohlenstoffisotop 14C und dem nicht-radioaktiven Isotop 12C. Aufgrund seines radioaktiven Zerfalles nimmt der Anteil von 14C am Kohlenstoffgehalt in einem organischen Material kontinuierlich ab, je länger der Stoffwechsel zum Erliegen gekommen ist. Nach der Aufbereitung einer organischen Probe wird im Massenspektrometer das prozentuale Verhältnis der Anteile an 12C und 14C festgestellt und das Ergebnis dann in das sogenannte Radiokarbonalter umgerechnet. Zusammen mit der Messgenauigkeit in Form der Standardabweichung wird dieses Radiokarbonalter in “Jahren BP (= before present)” ausgedrückt, wobei als “present” das Jahr 1950 festgelegt worden ist.7 5 Von den Forschungsgruppen “Corpus Coranicum” der BBAW (Berlin/Potsdam), UMR 8167 “Orient et Méditerranée - Mondes sémitiques” des CNRS (Paris) und der Académie des Inscriptions et BellesLettres (Paris) von 2011 bis 2014 durchgeführtes deutsch-französisches Vorhaben, das von François Déroche, Michael Marx, Angelika Neuwirth und Christian Julien Robin geleitet wurde, vgl. Kurzbeschreibung unter coranica.de. 6 James Richard Arnold/Williard Frank Libby: Age determinations by radiocarbon content. Checks with samples of known age. In: Science 110 (1949), S. 678ff. 7 Die Einheit “Radiokarbonalter” wäre auch als Prozentzahl des noch vorhandenen Anteils an 14C in der Probe auszudrücken, jedoch wurde diese leicht missverständliche Bezeichnung historisch festgelegt und beibehalten.

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C.W.: Es wird also sozusagen der „Todeszeitpunkt“ des Organismus gemessen. Und dieser muss vor 1950 liegen? T.J.: Das Jahr 1950 wurde festgelegt, da die anschließenden Atombombentests erhebliche Schwankungen des 14C-Gehaltes der Atmosphäre verursacht haben. Als terminus ante quem non gilt in etwa die 10-fache Halbwertszeit (= 10mal der Zeitraum von etwa 5600 Jahren), da dann der verbleibende 14C-Anteil unterhalb der Nachweisgrenze liegt – damit ist die Datierung organischer Materialien bis ca. 55.000 v. Chr. möglich. Insgesamt gesehen hat die 14C-Methode die Erforschung der Ur- und Frühgeschichte, die ohne schriftliche Quellen auskommen muss, erheblich unterstützt – sie gilt als zuverlässige Datierungstechnik, die von zahlreichen spezialisierten Laboren weltweit angewandt wird.8 Zur Datierung schriftlicher Quellen hingegen wird diese Methode bisher kaum genutzt, was sicherlich auch auf bereits bewährte Datierungsmöglichkeiten durch Paläographie und Glossierungen etwa bei den Texten des europäischen Mittelalters zurückzuführen ist. C.W.: Können Sie ein Beispiel für eine Messung geben? Sie sind damals nach Tübingen gereist und haben die Koran-Handschrift „Ma VI 165“ untersucht … T.J.: Dank der freundlichen Unterstützung seitens der Universitätsbibliothek Tübingen, konnte ich von der genannten Handschrift Proben entnehmen.9 Um die Messergebnisse einzuengen und um Fehler auszuschließen, ist eine Mehrfachbeprobung äußert hilfreich, weshalb ich in diesem Fall von drei unterschiedlichen Blättern Material entnommen habe. Die zugrundeliegende Annahme ist, dass zur Herstellung eines Kodex (also einer Handschrift in Form eines gebundenen Buches) Pergament gleichen bzw. nur unwesentlich divergierenden Alters verwandt wurde. Aus statistischer Sicht ist deshalb die Zusammenführung der drei Einzelergebnisse erlaubt und ergibt ein Radiokarbonalter von 1355 Jahren „before present“ mit einer Messgenauigkeit von ±14 Jahren. Dieses Messergebnis muss nun in Daten des gregorianischen Kalenders übersetzt werden, was die Datierungsgenauigkeit einschränkt, da die Nichtlinearität der 14C-Konzentration in der Atmosphäre berücksichtigt werden muss. Diese sogenannte Kalibrierungskurve wird als hellblaues Band von links oben nach rechts unten in den Diagrammen dargestellt und basiert auf dendrochronologischen Daten.10 Die y-Achse zeigt das Radiokarbonalter 8 Vgl. Arnold/Libby: Age determinations by radiocarbon content (Fußnote 6), S. 77–123. 9 An dieser Stelle möchten wir unseren Dank der Direktorin der Universitätsbibliothek Frau Dr. Marianne Dörr, der Leiterin der Orientabteilung Frau Kerstin Strotmann und dem ehemaligen Leiter Herrn Dr. Walter Werkmeister für die Genehmigung und Durchführung der Probenentnahme aussprechen. 10 Dabei sind in durchgängigen Jahresringkalendern, die mittels überlappender Baumscheibenvergleiche bis 12.000 v. Chr. reichen, mit der 14C-Methode Vergleichsdaten ermittelt worden, die für den Zeitraum unseres Forschungsprojektes stabil und nicht durch Abweichungen gekennzeichnet sind. Erst für die vorchristlichen Zeiträume ist die Datenlage noch nicht abschließend geklärt, vgl. Pearce Paul Creasman: Tree rings and the chronology of ancient Egypt. In: Radiocarbon 56.4 (2014), S. 85–92.

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Figure 12. Ma VI 165, fol. 23r.

als rote Sinuskurve, welche durch Faltung über die Kalibrierungskurve auf der x-Achse als kalendarische Daten abgetragen wird. Dort ist dann in einer grauen Kurve die Verteilungswahrscheinlichkeit der kalendarischen Datierung abgebildet, während im Textteil der Diagramme die Spanne der möglichen Werte aus dem σ2-Konfidenzintervall (95,4% Wahrscheinlichkeit) angegeben ist.11 Im Falle der Tübinger Handschrift Ma VI 165 bedeutet das, dass sich durch die Mehrfachproben für das Zeitfenster zur Herstellung des Pergaments substanzielle 11 Teilweise auftretende „Lücken“ in den Zeitspannen (siehe die Datierungen von We II 1913 und Cod. or. 14.545 b/c) sind dem Wiederanstieg des 14C-Gehaltes in der Atmosphäre zwischen 735 und 760 n. Chr. geschuldet.

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Präzisionsverbesserungen ergeben haben.12 Mit 95,4% Wahrscheinlichkeit lässt sich das verwendete Material auf den Zeitraum zwischen 649–675 n.Chr. datieren. C.W.: Das heißt, Sie konnten nachweisen, dass die Tübinger Handschrift Ma VI 165 zu den ältesten Koranhandschriften überhaupt gehört? M.M.: Vorsicht. Wir wissen immer noch nicht genau, was uns die gemessenen Werte über die Datierung des handschriftlichen Textes sagt. Wir haben bislang keinen Grund, an den gemessenen Ergebnissen für den Beschreibstoff zu zweifeln, die ja keinen Zeitpunkt, sondern einen Zeitraum angeben. Wir haben in unserer Messkampagne mehr als 60 Objekte gemessen, darunter dreizehn Korantexte, aber auch arabische Papyri und andere nahöstliche Texte, die uns als Vergleichsmesswerte dienen sollten, damit wir die Datierungstechnik selbst besser verstehen können. C.W.: Was bleibt dann problematisch bei Ihren Forschungen, die ja eine vielversprechende Schnittstelle zwischen Philologie und Naturwissenschaft darstellen, wenn ich richtig sehe? M.M./ Auch wenn die durchgeführten Datierungen von Papyri der UniversitätsbibliotheT.J.: ken Heidelberg und Leiden sowie von drei syrischen Handschriften (Pergament) der Berliner Staatsbibliothek gezeigt haben, dass die 14C-Methode zuverlässige Ergebnisse liefert, gibt es Messungen wie die des Koranpergaments DAM 01.27-1 (Sanaa, Jemen) mit seltsamen Ergebnissen. Ferner muss beachtet werden, dass die naturwissenschaftliche Methode nur den Beschreibstoff (Pergament, Papyri, Palmrispen) datiert, nicht aber den Zeitpunkt des Beschreibens. Es ist durchaus denkbar, dass die Pergamente für die Handschriften Ma VI 165, ms.or.fol. 4313, We II 1913 und Cod.or. 14.454 b/c von einer Schreibwerkstatt gekauft wurden und dass eine gewisse Zeit bis zu ihrer Verwendung als Schreibmaterial vergangen war. Nicht zuletzt aus ökonomischen Gründen – die Herstellung des Pergaments verursacht Kosten, die durch den Verkauf amortisiert wurden — erscheint es jedoch unwahrscheinlich, dass Jahrzehnte zwischen Ankauf und Beschreibung liegen. Die von uns untersuchten Handschriften weisen keinerlei Spuren einer systematischen Wiederbeschreibung auf, es handelt sich also nicht um Palimpseste.13 Der heute 12 Dieses statistische Verfahren wurde von Tobias J. Jocham in Abstimmung mit Irka Hajdas (Zürich) und Oliver Hahn (Berlin/Hamburg) entwickelt, es findet allerdings seine Grenze bei einer Messgenauigkeit von etwa ±10 Jahren BP, weil damit die Grenze der Genauigkeit der Kalibrierungskurve (ersichtlich an der “Dicke” des hellblauen Bandes in den angezeigten Diagrammen) erreicht ist. 13 Die Datierung der Handschrift DAM 01.27-1 aus Sanaa ist nach wie vor problematisch. Zu den im Rahmen des ANR-Projekts “De l’Antiquité tardive à l‘Islam” (Christian J. Robin) durchgeführten und teils sehr frühen Datierungen wurden durch das Coranica-Projekt (coranica.de/computatioradiocarbonica-de) ergänzende Untersuchungen vorgenommen, vgl. Christian J. Robin: L’Arabie dans le Coran. Réexamen de quelques termes à la lumière des inscriptions préislamiques – Appendice. In: François Déroche/Christian J. Robin Michel Zink (Hg.): Les origines du Coran, le Coran des origines. Paris: Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 2015. Weitere Datierungen von Handschriften aus Sanaa sind zurzeit noch in Bearbeitung.

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sichtbare Text der vier Handschriften Ma VI 165, ms.or.fol. 4313, We II 1913 und Cod.or. 14.454 b/c stellt — allem Anschein nach — die erste Textschicht dar. Bei den Handschriften Ma VI 165 und We II 1913 wurden mit einer anderen Tinte Veränderungen, Zusätze und Korrekturen hinzugefügt, die noch einer ausführlichen Studie bedürfen, wie auch die Vokalzeichen, die später mit roter Tinte in beide Handschriften eingetragen wurden. Da Koranhandschriften weder anhand der Paläographie noch durch die 14C-Analyse aufs Jahr genau datiert werden können, müssen weitere Merkmale wie beispielsweise die Orthographie betrachtet werden; kodikologische Merkmale und kunstgeschichtliche Indizien (Formen von Verstrennern, Surenübergängen, Ornamenten u. ä.) können hier zusätzliche Indizien liefern.14 C.W.: Trotzdem: Die Messung der Tübinger Handschrift hat ja sogar in den Medien Echo gefunden. Wie lässt sich das erklären? M.M.: In der Tat, viel mehr als wir erwartet hatten. Die Pressemitteilung der Universität Tübingen zur Datierung von Ma VI 165 gelangte über die SWR-Regionalnachrichten bis in die Tagesschau15 und andere überregionale Medien. Arabische, persische, russische und türkische Medienberichte belegen das weltweite Interesse an den durchgeführten Datierungen und in sozialen Netzwerken zirkulieren gelegentlich Mutmaßungen über mögliche Schreiber der Handschrift, z. B. ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib. Auch die Messergebnisse der Handschriften Cod.or. 14.545 (Universitätsbibliothek Leiden16) und ms.or.fol. 4313 (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin17) provozierten ein großes Medienecho. Zum einen ist das Interesse an Religion, insbesondere am Islam, sehr groß, auf der anderen Seite sind die Menschen fasziniert von einem „direkten Kontakt“ zur frühislamischen Epoche. Die Geschichte einer Religion wird uns in der Regel ja von Autoritäten vermittelt, die uns die Vergangenheit erklären und über sie berichten. Mir schien auch, dass es gerade bei den Medien aus der islamischen Welt ein starkes historisches Interesse gab, dass man fasziniert davon war, mit einer 14 Vgl. die Studie der Handschrift DAM 20-33.1 durch Hans Caspar Graf von Bothmer, der aufgrund der Ornamente und des Vergleichs zu umayyadischen Bauwerken eine überzeugende Datierung vorschlägt. Hans Caspar Graf von Bothmer: Architekturbilder im Koran. Eine Prachthandschrift der Umayyadenzeit aus dem Yemen. In: Bruckmanns Pantheon 45 (1989), S. 4–20. 15 Tagesschau vom 10. November 2014, 20:00 Uhr, abzurufen unter tagesschau.de/multimedia/sendung/ ts-5347.html (letzter Zugriff: 7. Juni 2017), der Beitrag geht von Minute 11:42 bis 12:10. 16 Besonderer Dank gilt dem Leiter der Universitätsbibliothek Dr. Arnoud Vrolijk, der durch seine rasche Zusage zur Beprobung die Anlaufphase des Datierungsprojektes entscheidend beschleunigt hatte, sowie der Restauratorin Dr. Karin Scheper, die bei den Probenentnahmen für eine erfolgreiche Zusammenarbeit sorgte. 17 Für seinen Einsatz bei den recht aufwendigen Beprobungen an den Handschriften der Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, die z. B. die Ausglasung der Handschrift ms.or.fol. 4313 erforderten, gilt unser herzlicher Dank dem Leiter der Orientabteilung Christoph Rauch.

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anderen Technik als über das traditionelle Narrativ einen neuartigen Zugang zur Entstehung des Islams zu bekommen. C.W.: In der populären Berichterstattung geht der wissenschaftliche Hintergrund aber oft verloren, oder? M.M.: Medienecho bewirkt eine ganz eigene Dynamik. Ich hatte den Eindruck, dass es nach der Datierung der Tübinger, Leidener und der Berliner Handschriften eine Art Wettrennen gab. Im Sommer 2015 hatte dann auch die Cadbury Research Library der Universität Birmingham die Datierung eines Koranfragments bekanntgegeben. Von außen betrachtet hatte ich das Gefühl, dass das Medienecho zu den 14 C-Ergebissen die Universität dazu bewogen hat, 14C-Messungen ihres Koranfragments durchzuführen. Für ca. 500 EUR, die eine Messung kostet, hatte die Universität plötzlich ein breites Echo in den Medien. Die Universität ging dann mit der Stellungnahme eines ihrer Professoren ins Rennen, der sagte, dass man nicht ausschließen könne, dass es sich um die Handschrift eines Schreibers handeln könne, der den Propheten noch persönlich gesehen hatte.18 Diese Aussage ist richtig, aber zugleich auch sehr vage. Was auch immer die Motivation der Universität gewesen sein mag, es ist gut, dass sich die Bibliothek 2015 dazu entschieden hat, ein Koranfragment seiner bedeutenden Sammlung zu datieren. Unsere Anfrage 2013 hatte die Universität Birmingham nämlich noch skeptisch gesehen und insofern freut es uns, dass sie sich später doch noch zu dem Schritt entschieden hat. Die Berichterstattung zum Tübinger Fragment hatte uns gezeigt, dass in den Medien die Superlative zählen und wissenschaftliche Fragen schwer zu vermitteln sind. Warum wir die Handschriften – und eben genau diese – datieren wollten, mit welchem Ziel und welche Probleme sich aus den Datierungen ergeben, war in der Berichterstattung nicht zu erkennen – die bloße Existenz alter Textfragmente des Korans genügte offenbar als Nachricht. Bei einer Konferenz des Frankfurter Instituts für Kultur und Religion des Islam im September 2014 sprachen wir über die Bedeutung der Erforschung materieller Zeugnisse für die Textgeschichte des Korans.19 In der Diskussion schien von besonderer Bedeutung zu sein, dass Gegenentwürfe zur Entstehung des Korans wie der von John Wansbrough (1928–2002)20 durch die frühen Datierungen endgültig widerlegt seien. Begeisterung, Emotion und Faszination dürfen aber nicht darüber hinwegtäuschen, dass die durchgeführten Datierungen die Debatten zur koranischen Textgeschichte mitnichten beenden, 18 Vgl. Sean Coughlan: ‘Oldest’ Koran fragments found in Birmingham University. In: BBC News (22. Juli 2015), online abrufbar unter http://www.bbc.com/news/business-33436021 (letzter Zugriff: 7. Juni 2017). 19 Horizonte der Islamischen Theologie, vgl. Universität Frankfurt Website, online abrufbar unter http:// www.uni-frankfurt.de/48320986/kongress?legacy_request=1 (letzter Zugriff: 7. Juni 2017). 20 Vgl. John Wansbrough: Quranic Studies. Sources and Methods of Scriptural Interpretation. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1977.

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auch wenn sie die revisionistische Hypothese einer Islamentstehung erst im 8. Jh. unwahrscheinlich machen. Viel bedeutsamer ist wahrscheinlich, dass die Datierungen neue Erkenntnisse zur Erforschung der Textgeschichte beisteuern, wobei bei der 14C-Methode immer auch deren Grenzen beachtet werden müssen.21 Bislang wurde die 14C-Methode zur Datierung schriftlicher Zeugnisse generell und orientalischer Handschriften im Speziellen nur vereinzelt angewendet; wahrscheinlich, da in der späteren Handschriftenforschung vielen andere, teils präzisere Methoden (Glossierungen, Kolophone, etc.) existieren. Im Bereich der frühen Koranphilologie entfallen aber viele dieser Datierungsmöglichkeiten. Sicherlich sind die von uns und anderen erzielten Ergebnisse vor diesem Hintergrund interessant, allerdings müssen sie auch in einen Kontext gestellt werden; einige Datierungen liegen bereits etliche Jahre zurück und in den letzten Jahren hat die 14C-Technik große Fortschritte gemacht, was sich beispielsweise in den verbesserten Kalibrierungskurven ausdrückt. So haben wir neben den frühen Koranfragmenten zu Vergleichszwecken auch andere Texte des 1. Jahrtausends datiert,22 darunter z. B. arabische Papyri in Zusammenarbeit mit Eva-Mira Yousef-Grob (Zürich) und Andreas Kaplony (München). In Zusammenarbeit mit Peter Stein (Jena) wurden zudem etliche Holzstäbchen mit altsüdarabischen Texten, in Kooperation mit Hugo Lundhaug (Oslo) koptische Texte datiert, wie auch einige georgische Handschriften (und teilweise auch Palimpseste) aus dem 7. bis 11. Jahrhundert. Wir müssen andere nahöstliche Texte datieren, um die Technik noch besser zu verstehen, auch wenn im Zentrum des Vorhabens der Koran steht. Um die Geschichte des Korantextes systematisch erforschen zu können, haben wir auch die Online-Datenbank („Manuscripta Coranica“23) angelegt, die einen Überblick über verfügbare älteste Textzeugen gibt, in vielen Fällen mit Bildern der jeweiligen Handschrift und wissenschaftlichen Transliterationen des Handschriftentextes. Das Potsdamer Akademievorhaben sieht sich hier als Weiterführung des „Apparatus Criticus“ zum Korantext, den die genannte Korankommission der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften aufbauen wollte.24

21 Vgl. den Einspruch von François Déroche: “The contribution of C14 dating to the overall history of the handwritten transmission of the Qur’an in Umayyad times should not be neglected, but the results of such analysis need (…) to be taken cautiously.” Déroche: Qurʾans of the Umayyads (Fußnote 3), S. 11. 22 Siehe Michael Marx/Eva-Maria Youssef-Grob/Tobias J. Jocham/Irka Hajdas: The chronology of holy scriptures. In: ETH Yearbook (2014), Online abrufbar unter: ams.ethz.ch/publications/annual_ reports/2014/037 (letzter Zugriff: 30. April 2015). 23 Vgl. online-Publikation des Corpus Coranicum, online abrufbar unter corpuscoranicum.de/handschriften/index (letzter Zugriff: 7. Juni 2017). 24 Siehe Gotthelf Bergsträßer: Plan eines Apparatus Criticus zum Koran. München: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften 1930 und Otto Pretzl: Die Fortführung des Apparatus Criticus zum Koran. München: Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 1934. Zur Konzeption und bisherigen Umsetzung

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C.W.: Gibt es noch andere naturwissenschaftliche Ansätze, die Ihnen dabei helfen könnten? T.J.: Insbesondere eine Untersuchung der erwähnten Korrekturen und Überarbeitung in den Handschriften scheint interessant. Eine direkte Datierung von Tinten, die nicht auf Ruß basieren, ist durch naturwissenschaftliche Verfahren bislang nicht möglich, doch auch eine Messung von Rußtinten dürfte an den zu entnehmenden Mengen scheitern. Aber auch wenn die naturwissenschaftliche Untersuchung der Tintenzusammensetzung zur Datierung direkt nichts beitragen kann, ist sie für indirekte Vergleiche vielversprechend, da sich in der großen Zahl von frühen Koranhandschriften insgesamt aus der verwendeten Tinte Rückschlüsse auf das Alter bzw. die Abfolge der in verschiedenen in einer Handschrift verwendeten Tinten gezogen werden können. Der Text der vier untersuchten Handschriften ist, wie der der meisten ḥijāzī-Handschriften, in der ersten Schicht mit einer dunkelbraun erscheinenden Tinte geschrieben, die vor 1400 Jahren noch dunkler war. Diese braune Tinte unterscheidet sich deutlich von der tiefschwarzen Tinte vieler kufischer Handschriften (z. B. We II 1919, Or. 6814). Auch Ma VI 165 enthält eine solche schwarze Tinte und zwar in den Korrekturen und den Vokalzeichen, ebenso der Berliner Korankodex We II 1913, bei dem auf den meisten Blättern der ursprüngliche Text mit schwarzer Tinte überschrieben wurde. Diese Korrekturen reflektieren teilweise auch Entwicklungen in den Schreibkonventionen des Arabischen und lassen sich so mit der historischen Entwicklung der Koranorthographie verschränken. Eventuell könnten naturwissenschaftliche Tintenanalysen eines Tages aber auch noch Anhaltspunkte zur geographischen Herkunft liefern, wenn einmal eine größere Zahl von Analysen vorliegt, aus denen sich Rückschlüsse auf verschiedenen Tintenrezepturen in verschiedenen Regionen ziehen lassen. C.W.: … und auf der Seite der Philologie? Bestätigt der Einbezug der neuen Technologie die bisherige, philologische Textforschung? T.J.: Auch ohne Tintenanalyse gibt die Orthographie bereits wichtige Anhaltspunkte zum Alter der Handschriften: Archaische Schreibformen in den Handschriften Ma VI 165, ms.or.fol. 4313, We II 1913 wie dwʾd (‫ )دواد‬für Dāwūd, shʾy (‫ )شاي‬für shayʾ („Ding, Angelegenheit“) u. a. oder die Lesarten in Ma VI 165 können dabei als Anhaltspunkte für ein hohes Alter angesetzt werden. Auch die Häufigkeit der Schreibung von qāla („er hat gesagt“) durch die Buchstaben qāf-alif-lām (‫)قال‬, mit alif für den Langvokal /ā/, verglichen mit der Schreibung qāf-lām (‫ )قل‬kann als Anhaltspunkt für die Datierung dienen, auch wenn sich nicht ausschließen lässt, dass eine archaische Schreibung schlichtweg vom Schreiber kopiert wurde. Insgesamt bestätigen die 14C-Datierungen das hohe Alter der bislang aufgrund des Potsdamer Akademievorhabens siehe Michael J Marx: Der Korantext als Herausforderung. In: Gesa Dane/Jörg Jungmayr/Marcus Schotte (Hg.): Wege zur Weltliteratur. Komparatistische Perspektiven der Editionswissenschaft. Berliner Beiträge zur Editionswissenschaft 15. Berlin: Weidler 2015, S. 253–78.

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paläographischer Zuordnung datierten Koranhandschriften, auch wenn sie im Einzelfall abweichende Ergebnisse liefern. Die Beobachtungen zu den vier Handschriften können unter Einbeziehung einiger orthographischer Merkmale vorläufig folgendermaßen zusammengefasst werden: (1) Ma VI 165 (Tübingen), paläographisch eher ins 8. Jh. einzuordnen, gehört nach 14 C-Datierung und Orthographie ins 7. Jh. Die mit dem bloßen Auge erkennbaren Ergänzungen der ersten Textschicht durch eine ähnlich aussehende Tinte (das

Figure 13. Schreibformen als Anhaltspunkte für die Datierung: paläographischer Vergleich von den Handschriften ms.or.fol. 4313 (Berlin), Ma VI 165 (Tübingen), ms.or.fol. 4313 (Berlin), Cod.or. 14.454 b/c (Leiden), Arabe 331 (Paris) und We II 1913 (Berlin).

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Wort qurʾān – ursprünglich nur qāf-rāʾ-nūn mit ergänztem alif) sollten durch naturwissenschaftliche Tintenanalysen unterstützt werden. Die Handschrift enthält archaische Schreibungen und Lesarten, die in der späteren exegetischen Literatur nicht erwähnt sind; (2) ms.or.fol. 4313 (Berlin), paläographisch schwierig klassifizierbar, bei großen Ähnlichkeiten zum ḥijāzī-Schriftstil, gehört nach Orthographie und 14C-Datierung zu den ältesten Textzeugen. Die schlichte Schrift der Handschrift ohne Vokalpunkte und Ornamentierung wirkt sehr alt. (3) Die Leidener Fragmente Cod.or. 14.454 b/c, zu der die Pariser Handschrift Arabe 331 (56 fol.) gehört, wird paläographisch als kufischer Schriftstil B 1a betrachtet, datiert nach 14 C ins 7. Jh., obwohl die Orthographie nur wenige archaische Schreibungen zeigt. Hier liefert die 14C-Messung eine Datierung, die für einen kufischen Schriftstil ein ungewöhnlich hohes Alter zeigt; die frühe Datierung passt jedoch ganz gut zu einem ḥijāzī-ähnlichen, hochformatigen, recht unkalligraphischen Erscheinungsbild dieses bedeutenden Fragments. (4) Das 14C-Messergebnis des großen Berliner Kodex We II 1913 (210 fol., die etwa 85% des koranischen Textes beinhalten) erstreckt sich aufgrund der Kalibrationskurve über einen breiten Zeitraum. Seine Orthographie zeigt archaische Formen wie Dwʾd für Dāwūd, andererseits Schreibungen des Buchstaben alif zur Notierung des langen /ā/ in mittlerer Position, einem Kennzeichen späterer Handschriften. Insgesamt ist die weitere philologische Auswertung von We II 1913 ohne Analyse der verschiedenen Tintenschichten, u. a. durch den Einsatz von UV-Bildern und naturwissenschaftliche Tintenanalyse, kaum möglich. T.J.: Durch die 14C-Messungen haben sich vier Koranfragmente mit bedeutendem Textumfang als Handschriften des 7. Jh. bzw. Anfang des 8. Jh. herausgestellt. Ohne die Radiokarbonmessung wäre die Tübinger Handschrift und das Leidener Fragment (zusammen mit Paris Arabe 331) wahrscheinlich als Handschrift des 8. Jh. eingeordnet worden. Das Berliner Fragment, die sieben Blätter ms.or.fol. 4313 (zusammen mit den Kairiner Fragmenten der Signatur Qāf 47 ein umfangreiches Textfragment),25 wirkt nach Orthographie und Schrift sehr alt und die Radiokarbondatierung bestätigt, dass es ins 7. Jh. gehört. C.W.: Welche Bedeutung haben diese Ergebnisse – auch für die islamische Gelehrsamkeit? M.M.: Rudi Paret sprach in einem Aufsatz (1954) von der „Lücke in der Überlieferung über den Urislam“26 sicher zu Recht, da in den Bereichen des Rechts oder der Exegese das erste islamische Jahrhundert eine dunkle Epoche bleibt. Aufgrund einer 25 Bilder der Handschrift mit der Signatur qāf 47 aus dem Photoarchiv der Münchener Korankommission (Gotthelf-Bergsträßer-Archiv) sind über die online-Publikation des Corpus Coranicum inzwischen abrufbar, siehe corpuscoranicum.de/handschriften/index?sure=2&vers=269&handschrift=73&anzei gen=Anzeigen (letzter Zugriff: 7. Juni 2017). 26 Rudi Paret: Die Lücke in der Überlieferung über den Urislam. In: FS R. Tschudi. Wiesbaden: o. V. 1954, S. 147–53.

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beeindruckend großen Zahl von Textzeugen vor 750 n. Chr – eine erste Liste, bestehend aus den Fragmenten in europäischen Sammlungen, ohne Berücksichtigung von Auktionsverkäufen und der immer noch unbekannten Handschriftensammlung von Sanaa, beläuft sich auf mehr als 2000 fol. (= 4.000 Seiten) – kann der Koran als historisch ziemlich gut dokumentierter Text gelten.27 Wir gehen davon aus, – so wird es in den späteren Quellen zumindest berichtet – dass die ersten Generationen islamischer Gelehrter Schreibmaterialien verwendeten, ihre Schriften jedoch nicht publizierten oder als schriftliche Texte an ihre Schüler weitergaben. Bis in die Mitte des 8. Jh. war die Wissensvermittlung durch die mündliche Weitergabe von Lehrer zu Schüler geprägt.28 Die frühen Koranhandschriften weisen aber darauf hin, dass die schriftliche Form des Korantextes eine wichtige Rolle besaß und dass – geht man davon aus, dass lediglich ein Teil der Korankodizes des ersten islamischen Jahrhunderts erhalten ist – der schriftliche Text in Form zahlreicher Kodizes vorhanden war. Dies wird bei der frühen Textgeschichte des Korans berücksichtigt werden müssen, insbesondere bei der Bestimmung des Verhältnisses zwischen mündlicher und schriftlicher Überlieferung. Viele Lesarten, die die islamische Tradition aufgezeichnet hat, zeigen, dass ein Schriftzug verschieden gedeutet wurde und dass daraus unterschiedliche Lesarten entstanden. Es sind nicht wenige Verse, bei denen die Lesartendifferenz allein durch die verschiedene Deutung ein und desselben unpunktierten Schriftzugs zustande kommt. Die meisten Lesarten betreffen jedoch Vokalisierungen; für mehr als die Hälfte der Koranverse ist bei aller Mehrdeutigkeit im Schriftbild ein einheitlicher Textbestand überliefert. Es wäre deshalb falsch zu behaupten, dass die schriftliche Überlieferung stärker als die mündliche Tradition war. Die sieben kanonischen Lesarten sind in den uns vorliegenden frühen Handschriften in ihrem exakten Wortlaut kaum nachzuweisen. Die breite materielle Evidenz bietet uns die Möglichkeit, zumindest ausschnittsweise weit in die Textgeschichte zurückzugehen, weiter, als man es bislang für möglich hielt. Ein Teil der Berichterstattung über die 14C-Datierungen war von Seiten der islamischen Gelehrsamkeit von Euphorie geprägt, was insofern verständlich ist, da die islamische Religion und der Text des Korans noch immer als historisch umstritten gelten. Dass der Blick in die ältesten Handschriften viele neue Fragen aufkommen lässt, die die Historizität des heute verwendeten Wortlauts der Koranlesung und die Orthographie der heute verwendeten Druckausgaben in manchen Punkten in Frage stellen, könnte auch ernüchternd sein.

27 Vgl. eine erste Übersicht von Fragmenten, die auf ca. 750 n. Chr. zu datieren sind, in: Marx: Der Korantext als Herausforderung (Fußnote 24), S. 430–35. 28 Vgl. die Untersuchungen von Gregor Schoeler zur Wissensvermittlung im frühen Islam, z. B. Gregor Schoeler: Écrire et transmettre dans les débuts de l’Islam. Paris: Presses universitaires de France 2002.

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Unser Vorhaben „Corpus Coranicum“ beschäftigt sich mit einem historischen Zugang zum Koran auf den Ebenen Text, Kontext und Kommentar. Für alle drei Bereiche ist die Datierung der Quellen unumgänglich. Durch unsere Messkampagne konnten wir zeigen, dass es sich lohnt, neue Wege zu gehen, bzw. mit Vertretern aus unterschiedlichen Disziplinen zusammenarbeiten, die etwas zur Erforschung der Textgeschichte beitragen können. Wir hoffen natürlich, dass die Sammlungen auch in Zukunft 14C-Datierungen genehmigen, um so eine noch größere Materialbasis zur Geschichte des ältesten arabischen Buches zu gewinnen. Der Koran bleibt eine große Herausforderung für die Forschung. Seine Erforschung ist faszinierend für viele Menschen und wir freuen uns darüber, dass dieses Interesse über konfessionelle und politische Grenzen hinweg Wissenschaftler miteinander ins Gespräch bringt.

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„Notwendig ist die Übersetzungsleistung“

1.

Ein Gespräch mit Meltem Kulaçatan1 C.W.: Muslimische Buch(-kulturen) zu besprechen erscheint in diesen Zeiten fast unmöglich, ohne auf die Unkultur des sogenannten Islamischen Staates (IS) einzugehen. Doch inwiefern knüpft die Ideologie des IS an islamische Traditionen an? Wie verläuft die Anwerbung von Unterstützer_innen in Europa und die Radikalisierung derselben? Welche Rolle spielen salafistische Schriften dabei? Welche Rolle spielen Bücher im Vergleich zum Internet und persönlicher Verbreitung? Frau Kulaçatan, Sie beschäftigen sich mit der Propaganda des IS in Europa. In welcher Verbindung stehen Anwerbung und Radikalisierung seitens des IS zur (historischen) Bewegung des Salafismus und seinen Schriften? M.K.: Von den Phänomenen der Gegenwart muss zunächst der Begriff des sogenannten klassischen Salafismus im Sinne der salafiyya – das sind die rechten Altvorderen – unterschieden werden. Vertreter des klassischen Salafismus erlebten ihre Hochphase in verschiedenen islamischen Metropolen, wie bspw. Kairo, Beirut, Amman, Kuala Lumpur und Jakarta. Sie kritisierten imperialistische und kolonialistische Strukturen des 19. und des 20. Jahrhunderts. Diese Kritik wirkt in Form von Globalisierungskritik sowie Kapitalismuskritik bis in die Gegenwart fort und dadurch in politische und religiöse Strömungen des Islams hinein. Vor allem in Ägypten waren Denker und Reformer aktiv, die sich mit dem Verhältnis von Islam und Moderne beschäftigten. Sie richteten ihre Kritik gegen die kulturelle Vereinnahmung durch die hegemonialen, westlichen Staaten, aber auch gegen die Machthaber im Osmanischen Reich. Ihre Reformen umfassten neue Gesellschaftsentwürfe, die sie zum Teil auch institutionalisieren konnten, bspw. im Bildungswesen. Die Gemeinsamkeit der Reformdenker lag in der so genannten Wiederbelebung des Islams: Dieser war durch das Absprechen von Kultur und Geschichte der Kolonisierten kein Bestandteil des „offiziellen“ nationalen Narrativs mehr. Das sollte geändert werden, indem man sich auf die Stärken der Religion berief und hier versuchte, Reformprozesse in Gang zu setzen. Dabei bezog man sich zurück auf den Propheten und die muslimische Urgemeinde – eben die „Altvorderen“. Dies ist auch der gemeinsame Fixpunkt von salafitischen, post-salafitischen und zeitgenössischen salafistischen Strömungen:der Prophet Muḥammad und seine Gefährten. Die Ursprünglichkeit der frühen Lehre und die Gemeinschaft des Islams werden dabei für die Reformulierung der Gesellschaftsordnung verwendet. Nicht 1 Dieses Interview mit Meltem Kulaçatan (im Folgenden: M.K.) wurde von Constantin Wagner (C.W.) geführt.

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nur Ideologien wie die des IS, sondern auch sehr fortschrittliche Ansätze finden dabei ihren ideengeschichtlichen Ausgangspunkt in den Schriften des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts. Bezugspunkte sind hier beispielsweise die Ideen von Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī oder Muḥammad ʿAbduh. Um hier kein Missverständnis zu erzeugen: Der IS ist eine totalitäre und terroristische Gruppierung, die nichts gemeinsam hat mit den politischen Reformen der genannten Denker. Dennoch finden sich gemeinsame Nenner in den Wurzeln. Ferner ist der Prophet Muḥammad für alle Muslime Bezugspunkt. Was neo-salafistische Bewegungen um den IS machen, entspricht also einer Vereinnahmung – sowohl der islamischen Quellen über die Urgemeinde, als auch des Nachdenkens über einen islamischen Weg in die Moderne. Die Bewegungen, die heute in Europa unter dem Begriff Salafismus gefasst werden, stellen sich in die(se) muslimische Tradition, sind aber keineswegs zwingend aus derselben abzuleiten. Die IS-Propaganda knüpft dort an, wo es um gewalttätigen Widerstand und Ablehnung „fremder“ Einflüsse geht. Die religiösgesellschaftlichen Entwürfe der klassisch-salafitischen Reformer sind aber – ebenso wie die islamischen Quellen – vielmehr vor dem Hintergrund ihres Entstehungskontextes zu verstehen. Die Beschäftigung mit der Moderne war in den mehrheitlich muslimischen Gesellschaften eben auch eine Beschäftigung mit Kolonialismus und Unterdrückung – unter anderem eben auch der Religion. Auf die Momente, die dies ablehnen, bezieht sich die IS-Propaganda. C.W.: Wer wird mit dieser Bezugnahme angesprochen – und auf welche Weise geschieht dies? Im Kontext des Kolonialismus konnte ja die gesamte Bevölkerung der jeweiligen Länder angesprochen werden – oder zumindest diejenigen, die nicht von der neuen Gesellschaftsordnung profitierten, was ja die absolute Mehrheit war. Wie ist das in den europäischen Ländern heute? M.K.: Angesprochen werden vor allem junge Menschen in der Adoleszenz, also in einer Phase der emotionalen und spirituellen Vulnerabilität. Die Adoleszenz ist eine Phase der Orientierung, der Herausforderung und der Sensibilität für Ungerechtigkeiten und sozialen Ungleichheiten. Zugegeben, eben auch eine Phase der Anstrengung und Zerrissenheit: Nicht mehr Kind, aber eben auch noch nicht Erwachsener. Natürlich sind die Motivationen sich zu radikalisieren sehr individuell geprägt. Wir wissen mittlerweile jedoch, dass die Phase der Radikalisierung äußerst kurz ist: Zwischen 18 und maximal 24 Monaten. Ein neues und jüngeres Phänomen – zumindest in Deutschland – ist die Selbstradikalisierung. Diese geschieht rein über virtuelle Kommunikationsräume und Welten, sowie über Kontakte in sozialen Netzwerken und kann binnen Wochen in einer Gewalttat enden. Akteurinnen und Akteure aus und in salafistischen Netzwerken sowie Gruppierungen, bieten den jungen Menschen, die sich in der Adoleszenz befinden, ein offenes Ohr. Sie sind zu jeder Tages- und Nachtzeit erreichbar. Im Gegensatz zu diesen Akteurinnen und Akteuren, werden die Erwachsenen im familiären und sozialen

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Umfeld als unerreichbar und absent empfunden. Signifikant ist, dass die Mehrheit der betroffenen jungen Menschen vaterlos groß werden müssen bzw. mit einer Vaterfigur, mit der sie im Konflikt stehen. Vielfach lehnen Väter in diesen Fällen den Kontakt zu ihren eigenen Kindern ab oder er wird im Zuge einer Trennung schlichtweg abgebrochen. Sind die Väter präsent, so sind sie nicht als emotionale Stützen oder Orientierungsgebende Erwachsene präsent. Um hier kein falsches Bild entstehen zu lassen: Mittlerweile weiß man aus unterschiedlichen Forschungsbereichen – aus der Präventionsarbeit, der Gewalt- und Konfliktforschung sowie aus der Pädagogik, der Psychologie und der Sozialpsychologie, dass die meisten jungen Anhängerinnen und Anhänger aus der Mittelschicht stammen. Der Schritt in die radikalisierten Netzwerke verläuft in unterschiedlichen Formen. Religiöses Interesse sowie Neugier können der erste Schritt an die falschen Ansprechpartnerinnen und Partner sein, sind jedoch nicht zwingend. Die langen Erstgespräche kreisen vielfach um den eigenen Alltag des Jugendlichen, der Jugendlichen. Es geht um Sorgen in der Schule, im Elternhaus, aber auch um Konflikte mit Freundinnen und Freunden. Ein wichtiger Grund für die Radikalisierung von Jugendlichen betrifft die Erfahrung mit Mehrfachdiskriminierungen. Die in unserer Studie festgestellten Mehrfachdiskriminierungen betreffen insbesondere den sozialen Raum Schule. Wenn bspw. Schülerinnen, also Mädchen, fasten möchten, sich nicht dem gemischtgeschlechtlichen Sport- bzw. Schwimmunterricht anschließen möchten, wenn das Gebet gesucht wird und kultursensible sowie religionssensible Pädagoginnen und Pädagogen fehlen, können Mechanismen des Ausschlusses und der Stigmatisierung entstehen. Diese Formen der Exklusionen, die auch auf der Suche nach einem Arbeitsplatz bestehen, führen zu permanenten Verletzungen und zur Entfremdung von der Gesellschaft. An dieser Verletzung setzen Akteurinnen und Akteure aus salafistischen Netzwerken an. Sie verstärken die Viktimisierung, indem sie zusätzlich die Selbstviktimisierung auf die betroffenen Jugendlichen anwenden: Weil Du Muslimin bist, wirst Du diskriminiert. Weil Du fastest und an Gott glaubst, wirst Du diskriminiert. Weil Du Muslimin oder Muslim bist, bekommst Du keinen Arbeitsplatz. Zuschreibungen in dieser Form und damit einhergehende Markierungen ließen sich in unterschiedlichen Varianten fortsetzen. Aber wie kommt nun die religiöse Ideologie ins Spiel? In welcher Form wird der Islam missbraucht, um die Selbstviktimisierung zu verstärken und um das Fremdheitsfehfühl der Jugendlichen zu betonen? Im Jahr 622 ad wanderte Muhammad gemeinsam mit seiner ersten Gefolgschaft von Mekka in das damalige Yathrib, dem späteren Medina, der „erleuchteten Stadt“ – al-Madīna al-Munawwara – aus. Der Grund dafür lag in der politischen und sozialen Situation für Muḥammad und seiner Gefolgschaft. Sie wurde zu prekär und die Bedrohung zu groß. Der Begriff

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Hidschra bedeutet „Auswanderung“. Von salafastischen Akteurinnen und Akteuren wird er umgedeutet und zur perfiden Selbstviktimisierung verklärt. Jugendlichen wird dabei weisgemacht, dass sie sich in einer ähnlichen Situation wie der Prophet Muḥammad befänden. Auch sie seien in Gefahr, da sie ihren Glauben nicht wahrhaftig in der feindseligen Umgebung leben könnten. Da sie ihre Identität nicht leben könnten. Bei letzterem greifen salafistische Akteurinnen und Akteure ähnliche Stereotype und Zuschreibungen auf, wie es die Dominanzgesellschaften tun: Hybride Identitäten, welche die eigentliche Lebenswirklichkeit der Kinder und Jugendlichen darstellen, werden abgelehnt. Sprich, deutsch-türkisch, österreichischarabisch, schweizerisch-kurdisch, französisch-bosnisch, englisch-persisch und so fort, finden keinen Raum, keinen positiven Widerhall. Die bisherigen religiösen Praktiken, sofern sie vorhanden sind bei den jungen Menschen, werden abgelehnt und modifiziert. Strengste und wörtliche Auslegungen des Korans werden verfolgt und auf die jungen Menschen übertragen. Das ist deshalb so problematisch, weil die pädagogische Übersetzungsarbeit fehlt. Mit Übersetzungsarbeit meine ich hier nicht, die Übersetzung aus dem Arabischen in die deutsche Sprache. Dafür gibt es wirklich ausgezeichnete Koranübersetzungen; nein, ich meine vielmehr die historische sowie spirituelle Einbettung und Erklärung. C.W.: Wenn es dem IS aber gelingt, Anknüpfungspunkte zwischen Islamischer Tradition und seiner Ideologie herzustellen, wie lässt sich dann argumentieren, dass der moderne Salafismus einen Bruch mit der islamischen Tradition und Gelehrsamkeit darstellt? M.K.: In der Tat gibt es etliche Beispiele aus dem Leben des Propheten Muḥammad, welche affirmativ für die religiöse Sprach- und Sprechfähigkeit von Jugendlichen und Kindern – altersgerecht – verwendet werden können. Ich möchte hierzu einige Beispiele nennen: Dazu gehört seine Krise als 40-jähriger zur Zeit der Offenbarung. Dazu gehört sein Leben als Kind, als Vollwaise. Insbesondere das war ihm ein Anliegen mit der Verbreitung des Islams, Kindern die elterliche Fürsorge und Zuwendung auch in Zeiten partnerschaftlicher Hürden und Spannungen zu ermöglichen. Dazu setzte er bspw. am Erbrecht an und verbat den Angriff auf Frauen und Kinder in Kriegszeiten. Insofern bricht beispielsweis der sog. Islamische Staat mit der Tradition des Islams, indem er Kinder rekrutiert, indoktriniert, zu Puppen des Krieges reduziert und missbraucht; Menschen zur Konversion zwingt und Frauen und Mädchen ächtet sowie sexuell ausbeutet. Salafistische Akteurinnen und Akteure brechen zudem mit diesen Traditionen, indem sie die jungen Menschen, welche sie rekrutieren, von ihren Eltern bzw. von ihrem Elternhaus abschneiden. Allein die elterliche Rolle in der Biographie und in den Übermittlungen des Propheten Muḥammad widersprechen dem in gänzlicher Form.

© 2018, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11127-0 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19803-5

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Aus unseren Untersuchungen und auch praktischen Umsetzungen in Frankfurt wissen wir, dass eine religiöse Beheimatung ein wesentliches Element für die Immunisierung gegen die Radikalisierung und gegen Radikalisierungsangebote darstellt. Salafistische Akteurinnen und Akteure vermitteln in einer äußerst erfolgreichen Art und Weise, das Gefühl des „gebraucht Werdens“, das Gefühl der Aufwertung, jemand zu sein, wichtig zu sein, wert geschätzt zu werden – für ein höheres Ziel im Sinne des Dienstes für Gott in der islamischen Gemeinschaft. Die spirituelle Wirksamkeit des religiösen Heilsversprechens darf in diesem Kontext keinesfalls unterschätzt werden. Im Gegenteil: Gläubige Muslim_innen sind sich darüber bewusst und machen sich bewusst, dass das irdische Leben ein Durchgangsstadium ist. Ein Durchgangsstadium zwischen der verlorenen Herkunft – an-nafs al-unsiyya – und der erhofften Heimstatt – an-nafs al-khalfiyya. Das Heilsversprechen wird mit dem Narrativ der Heimstatt vermittelt. In der neuen Gemeinschaft erhalten die jungen Menschen Aufgaben, die sie zum festen Bestandteil der Gemeinschaft machen. Hier erfahren sie Inklusionsmechanismen, im Gegensatz zu Exklusionsmechanismen, die ihnen häufig in verletzenden Formen begegnen. In diesem Zusammenhang darf auch keinesfalls die Signalwirkung unterschätzt werden, an der Erschaffung eines neuen Staatengebildes mitzuwirken, indem mehr politische Partizipation versprochen wird, die unmittelbar erlebt werden kann. Im Rahmen der jugendlichen Sinnsuche werden ferner unterschiedene Genderbezogene Aspekte artikuliert, die entsprechend der formulierten Propaganda an verschiedenen Altersgruppen ansetzt. Hierbei kommen Aspekte bezüglich der Partnersuche zum Tragen. Bedient werden Geschlechterstereotype, wie beispielsweise männliche Idealtypen. Die Stereotype dienen der jeweiligen weiblichen und männlichen Aufwertung, indem abermals auf die Geschlechterbeziehungen der frühislamischen Gemeinschaft rekurriert wird. Herausgepickt werden partikulare Aspekte aus den Geschlechterbeziehungen, die ein unvollständiges Bild und eine rudimentäre Wiedergabe der Auseinandersetzungen und Diskurse über und um Sexualität und Selbstbestimmung zeichnen. Infolgedessen werden reale Projektionsflächen für die intimen und noch vagen Wünsche und Sehnsüchte entworfen. Umso größer sind die Verletzungen und der empfundene Verrat, wenn im Zuge des Wirklichkeitsschocks erlebt wird, dass weder der versprochene Partner noch das Leben existieren und sich die Heilsversprechen sowie die Verheißungen als Täuschung erweisen. C.W.: Wenn die persönliche Ansprache und das „Abholen“ von Jugendlicher in ihrer Lebensrealität wichtiger ist als entsprechende Schriften: Welche Bedeutung haben alternative Narrative? Anders gefragt: Was bedeuten nun dieser Problemaufriss für diejenigen, die sich mit den Quellen des Islams und deren Vermittlung beschäftigen, also für die Islamische Religionspädagogik und Islamische Theologie? Gibt es

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Bildungsmaterialien – Bücher, aber auch andere Medien, die den Versuchen der Radikalisierungsanwerbung entgegen wirken können? Zunächst einmal muss folgendes festgehalten werden: Der IS arbeitet sehr stark mit visualisierten und ästhetisierten Formen von Gewaltszenarien. Dazu nutzt der IS das Musikgenre und die Animationen aus Videospielen, wie wir sie beispielsweise aus World of Warcraft kennen. Zudem werden in Propaganda-Videos quasi Utopien entworfen: Zu sehen sind friedlich lebende Menschen, die sich auf Märkten bewegen, in denen in Hülle und Fülle Lebensmittelstände unter sonnigem und klarem blauem Himmel gezeigt werden. Dazu sprechen dann zumeist attraktiv aussehende junge Männer direkt in die Kamera, die in Europa sozialisiert wurden und sich quasi am Ende eines erfolgreich abgeschlossenen Integrationsprozesses in der Region des IS befinden. Diese Propaganda-Videos erinnern stark an Bibelverfilmungen, in denen Jesus und seine Jünger im Vordergrund stehen. Allein mit Wissen aus Lehr- und Arbeitsbüchern sowie Materialien ist dieser Wirklichkeitsdarstellung und dieser Ästhetisierung nicht beizukommen. Für die islamische Religionspädagogik und die Islamische Theologie bedeutet das, sich deutlich stärker mit der Funktionalität von Religion aus einer religionssoziologischen sowie religionswissenschaftlichen Perspektive auseinander zu setzen, ohne sich „bloß“ auf die Aspekte der Radikalisierung zu kaprizieren und daraus eine Obsession zu machen. In Lehrbüchern für den Islamischen Religionsunterricht in Deutschland wie denen aus der Reihe Saphir werden Fragen zu Radikalisierung und zu Terrorismus bereits in altersgerechten Formen aufbereitet und unterrichtet. Allgemein wird in diesem Zusammenhang sehr oft vergessen, dass im Koran bereits warnende Hinweise vor dem Missbrauch der eigenen Religion durch die eigenen Gläubigen angebracht werden. Bildungsmaterialien aus der Präventionsarbeit werden bereit sowohl an den Schulen als auch im Fortbildungsbereich erfolgreich verwendet und eingesetzt. All das ersetzt jedoch keine Auseinandersetzung und Reflexion mit den unterschiedlichen religiösen Facetten des Islams sowie seinen Quellen. Spannend wird es nämlich dort, wo der IS und Theolog_innen und Religionspädagog_innen gleiche Quellen verwenden; der IS jedoch mit den Traditionen und der gewachsenen Historie des Islams bricht, sie missbraucht, schlichtweg negiert oder als Systemkritik an der neoliberalen Ausrichtung formuliert, wie es beispielsweise die Frauenbrigade des IS in ihrem Manifest tut. Das gilt es zu dechiffrieren und zu dekonstruieren. Ich meine aber auch, dass der Religionsunterricht oder die religiöse Bildung das allein nicht leisten kann: Fächer wie Deutsch, Geschichte, Philosophie und Ethik müssen deutlich stärker an Gewicht im Schulunterricht erhalten, um hier die Lesefähigkeit und das Verständnis für das Genre Text als Lesematerial zu festigen und zu vertiefen. Es kann meines Erachtens nicht angehen, dass junge Menschen eher auf diverse Arbeitsmarkt-Events akribisch und ehrgeizig vorbereitet werden, als auf das, womit sie sich primär auseinandersetzen müssten: Schülerin und Schüler sein zu

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dürfen. Daneben muss die politische Partizipation- und Demokratiebildung viel stärker in den Fokus der Ausbildung an den Schulen gerückt werden. Islamistisch begründete Radikalisierungsangebote bilden schließlich nur einen Teil von vielfältigen Radikalisierungsangeboten ab. Zudem haben wir in unserer Studie festgestellt, dass die jungen Menschen mit ihrem Bedürfnis nach Spiritualität und ihren Alltagsproblemen bzw. Belangen ihrer Alltagswelten innerhalb ihrer Moscheegemeinden zu wenig Gehör finden. Benötigt werden nicht nur Bücher und Bildungsmaterialien, sondern Räume in einem umfassenden Sinn: ein geschultes Personal, Pädagoginnen und Pädagogen, Lehrerinnen und Lehrer, sowie Imame und ja, auch Imaminnen, die akademisch in diesen Fachbereichen vorgebildet sind und entsprechend geschult sind. Denn die Ursachen für die Radikalisierung setzen sich aus verschiedenen Aspekten der strukturellen Beschaffenheit des persönlichen und sozialen Umfeldes zusammen, die über Gruppendynamiken kanalisiert werden. Vermisst wird hier der sichere Raum und auch der integre sowie verschwiegene Raum, in dem sensitive Belange des Heranwachsens als Frau, die körperlichen Veränderungen und die Sehnsüchte und Wünsche, die entsprechend auf dem Weg als Frau oder Mann mit einhergehen, besprochen werden können. Notwendig ist hierbei die Übersetzungsleistung, die den jungen Menschen Aspekte aus der Religionspädagogik und aus der Islamischen Theologie hin zu gesellschaftlich relevanten Fragen und sozialen Phänomenen öffnet. Notwendig ist die Anerkennung und die Respektierung der Skepsis und auch der Zurückhaltung junger Menschen gegenüber religiösen Institutionen – obgleich sie in der Tat nach einer sinnvollen Gemeindetätigkeit suchen, die sie erfüllt, in der sie als Mentorinnen und Mentoren auftreten können, eben raus aus der ihnen zugewiesenen Opferrolle. Der erste Schritt in den präventiven und auch in den therapeutischen Zugang ist aber nicht die Aufklärung, nicht die Gegenrede oder gar die Stigmatisierung, sondern das offene Ohr und das offene Herz. Es geht um Mitgefühl Menschen gegenüber, die wir als Mitglieder der Gesellschaft nicht verlieren wollen. Ein weiterer erster wichtiger Schritt ist, sie als Teil der Gesamtgesellschaft zu verstehen, ohne das zusätzliche Attribut „mit Migrationshintergrund“ und der damit einhergehenden problematischen Markierung als „Andere“. Ein weiterer, ja mittlerweile wirklich zwingender Schritt ist auch, unsere Gesellschaften als echte Einwanderungsgesellschaften zu begreifen. Mit diesem Begreifen muss das Bekenntnis zur Einwanderungsgesellschaft einhergehen – nur so lassen sich die mit den Phänomenen der Radikalisierung verbundenen Prozesse als gesamtgesellschaftliche Entwicklungen verstehen, die nicht separiert stattfinden, wie ich bereits versuchte habe, hervorzuheben. Die Aufgabe richtet sich nicht nur an Islamische Theologie und Religionspädagogik, sondern an die gesamte Gesellschaft. Nur so haben wir die Chance, Jugendliche und Kinder vor Demagogen zu schützen

© 2018, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11127-0 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19803-5

© 2018, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11127-0 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19803-5

Printing Arab Modernity: Book Culture and the American Press in Nineteenth-Century Beirut 1.

A Conversation with Hala Auji1 We have the pleasure of having Hala Auji with us, who is an assistant professor of Islamic art history in the Department of Fine Arts and Art History at the American University of Beirut. She recently published Printing Arab Modernity. Book Culture and the American Press in Nineteenth-Century Beirut (Leiden: Brill 2016), in which she analyzes Arabic publications issued by the American Protestant mission in Ottoman Beirut during the nascent period of the Arab press.

M.D.: Hello Hala, thank you for agreeing to this interview. Can you explain to readers what Ottoman Beirut society and its Arabic readership were like during the nineteenth century? What were the literacy numbers amongst this group? H.A.: Thank you very much for the opportunity to discuss my book and this topic. Ottoman Beirut, throughout the 1800s, was shaping out to be one of the key ports of the Mediterranean provinces. As a maritime town of the early nineteenth century, Beirut boasted a rather cosmopolitan population, with many of its middle-class and elite residents hailing from the empire’s diverse ethnic and religious minority groups, which included Armenian Orthodox, Druze, Jewish, Maronite Christian, Greek Orthodox, and Greek Catholics. Of course, these communities also included Sunni and Shiʿi Muslim Ottoman residents. While most were Arabic-speaking, the official language was Ottoman Turkish, which educated residents would also have been fluent in (among other languages and dialects). Beirut was also home to numerous European and Americans, such as tradesmen and emissaries, but also members of the different missionary orders operating in the region at the time, like the Jesuits and Protestants. Beirut had long set itself as a haven for immigrants who were seeking refuge from turmoil in the eastern Mediterranean, especially those escaping religious persecution. Urbanization of the city accelerated after 1860, as a devastating civil war between Druze and Maronite factions in the nearby Mount Lebanon villages of the Ottoman provinces led to mass migration to Beirut, which was spared these inter-communal conflicts. The city continued to grow, in terms of population numbers and its urban footprint, during the latter part of the nineteenth century, particularly due to the successful commercialization of silk, which originated in Mount Lebanon and was sold to 1 This interview with Hala Auji (hereafter: H.A.) was conducted by Marta Dominguez Diaz (M.D.).

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French textile merchants via local industrialists in Beirut. At this time, Beirut was also becoming an important publishing centre in the region, with a bourgeoning number of private commercial presses. As for literacy rates during the nineteenth-century, there is no clear consensus amongst historians about these numbers. What is agreed upon, however, is that rates were rather low in the early decades of the nineteenth century, and that the question of literacy itself is difficult to gauge in a society where oral traditions remained quite prevalent. In fact, publications like newspapers and journals were frequently read aloud in coffee shops (and other spaces were members of the public gathered). In the early to mid-1800s, education was also limited to the privileged; Muslim Ottoman subjects had the choice of studying in state religious and military schools, but non-Muslim minorities were limited to the schools of their local religious institutions or missionary endeavours. However, when a series of widespread military, educational, administrative, and cultural state modernization reforms, known as the Tanzimat (or ‘re-orderings’), were implemented in the empire and its provinces from 1839 to 1876, public education became more readily available to non-Muslim minorities. That being said, until the end of the nineteenth century printed books and periodicals (which often relied on subscriptions and subsidies) were not affordable to the general populace, and circulation remained limited to a small middle-class and elite readership. M.D.: What were some features of the American mission in Beirut? When and why was it established in Ottoman Syria? Were similar Protestant missions established in other cities in the region? H.A.: The American mission in Syria was initiated by the Presbyterian American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (hereafter ABCFM), which was based in Boston, MA. The ABCFM was established in 1810 with the intention of establishing mission stations across the world and in North American territories with large Native American populations. The ABCFM’s aim was to work in regions where Christian missionaries would be able to proselytize amongst different religious groups. The mission to Syria actually began as a mission to Palestine with the intention of setting up a station in Jerusalem that would serve as the ABCFM’s headquarters for its mission in ‘Western Asia’. Thus, in 1819, American missionaries from Boston arrived in the region hoping to evangelize in Jerusalem amongst local Jewish communities as part of the Protestant millenarist evangelism. However, these missionaries, who were operating under the protection of the British Consul in Constantinople (Istanbul), were not fully aware of, or had underestimated, the sociopolitical dynamics and relations between the local multi-confessional communities and the state, particularly in a city like Jerusalem, which was considered a holy Islamic centre at the time. Eventually, after difficulties in establishing a station in the Ottoman provinces, the American missionaries settled on Beirut as the location

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for their main station in Ottoman Syria. In addition to Beirut, the ABCFM had several other stations in Ottoman Syria at the time, such as Tripoli and Sidon. At the same time, the ABCFM had already established a sizeable mission to Ottoman Armenian and Greek communities in Anatolia and the Balkans, with key stations in Smyrna (Izmir) and Constantinople, among others. M.D.: Can you tell us a little bit about the American Syria mission’s work in the region, their funding sources, and the reasons why this mission established an Arabic printing press in Beirut? H.A.: The ABCFM missions emphasized three main kinds of activities: preaching, education, and publishing. In fact, these missions frequently turned to indirect means of conversions, such as education and printing books and tracts, since direct modes of proselytizing were not always welcome, or even possible, in regions with large Muslim populations or other well-established confessional groups. The historian Ussama Makdisi has studied the ways that these missionaries employed education, scientific inquiry, and technology alongside a promotion of Protestantism as an example of an ‘evangelical modernity’.2 However, the missionary Board in Boston often cautioned these missions (in published circulars, reports, and unpublished correspondence) that preaching should remain the central focus of these missions’ activities (which was frequently not the case, particularly at stations in India, Turkey, and Syria). ABCFM programmes, which included establishing churches, schools, medical practices, and presses, were financed in various ways, with some funding coming from the ABCFM and other missionary-related groups in the US (e.g., the American Tract Society, the American Bible Society, and the Prudential Committee). Fundraising amongst Presbyterian communities and churches, as well as other interested Christian denominations and groups in the US and Britain, was critical for most of the major projects that the ABCFM missions undertook in regions within and outside of the US. For instance, when Beirut-based American missionaries established an institution of higher education in 1866, the Syrian Protestant College (known today as the American University of Beirut), the institution’s then-president and founder Daniel Bliss (1823–1916) spent a good amount of time outside of Beirut on fundraising missions in Britain and the US. Additionally, many local projects were actually subsidized by local communities. For instance, funding to found and maintain local Protestant churches in Syria often came from members of local Syrian communities who were involved in establishing and running these ‘native’ churches.

2 Ussama Makdisi: Reclaiming the land of the Bible. Missionaries, secularism, and evangelical modernity. In: The American Historical Review 102.3 (1997), pp. 680–713.

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The American Mission Press (which I will refer to here as AMP) in Beirut was established in 1834 after it was moved from its earlier location in Malta (where the ABCFM initially had a station in the 1820s). The AMP was first set up with the intention of producing books in Arabic and Syriac, the latter being an important liturgical language for the Maronite (Catholic) Church (to which many members of local Syrian Christian communities belonged). Eventually, it was decided that the press would focus on producing books in Arabic, which the missionaries viewed as a unifying language amongst the Islamic region’s populace. This press was meant to publish Protestant evangelical literature in Arabic, such as hymnals, psalters, the Bible, key sermons, and so on, which were produced for use in the mission’s elementary schools, seminaries, and wider conversion practices. At the same time, AMP publications included works of Arabic literature, poetry, grammar, and arithmetic, which would serve as necessary general education texts for the mission’s schools. Funding for these publications often came from different local and external sources. For example, the American Bible Society subsidized the production of the AMP’s varied editions and formats of its Arabic Bible, which was first printed in 1860; David Grafton and Rana Issa have done important research on the subject of this Bible. M.D.: When the American Mission Press was established during the earlier decades of the nineteenth century, what were the conditions of book production in Beirut and the broader Ottoman region, and how did the products of this press respond to or challenge these local traditions? H.A.: Private commercial publishing did not really become a widespread practice in the region until the 1860s and 1870s. One of the earliest Arabic commercial printing presses was the imperial press of the Egyptian viceroy Muḥammad ʿAlī (r. 1805– 1848), which was established in Būlāq (a district of Cairo) in 1820. Other presses included the Church Mission Society’s establishment in Malta (active from 1815 to 1842), which, incidentally, also printed Arabic books for the ABCFM’s Syria mission before 1834 (when the AMP was established in Beirut). Although earlier Arabic presses were operational in Ottoman cities, these establishments initially printed books to supplement manuscript production. This was particularly the case for monastery workshops in Ottoman Syria and Mount Lebanon, which were the first sites of Arabic printing in the eighteenth century. For instance, the press of the Melkite (Greek Catholic) monastery of Saint John the Baptist in Ḍhūr al-Shuwayr near Khinshāra, a village in Mount Lebanon, began publishing a small number of Arabic books in the 1730s under the direction of ʿAbd Allāh Zākhir (1684–1748). Even when private printing enterprises began to emerge in the region, manuscripts continued to be produced in tandem with the products of presses (this is evidenced in the significant number of Arabic religious and secular manuscripts that date to the first half of the twentieth century). Consequently, when the AMP was officially

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established in Beirut in 1834, print culture was subsidiary to a larger manuscript ecosystem. In fact, although there were a number of printing establishments in Ottoman and Qajar cities (as well as presses in Bombay, Calcutta, Lucknow, and others– which printed Arabic books, too), the economy of Arabic book production was largely associated with scribal practices. Manuscripts were copied and produced in a number of religious contexts, such as mosques, Islamic religious schools, as well as Christian seminaries and monasteries, in addition to other sites, such as imperial/ state workshops. The manuscripts that were produced in these contexts were not all devotional in nature. Rather, they varied widely in their subject matter and visual conventions, from scientific treatises to collections of poetry. However, these works were often not meant for mass consumption and had a relatively a limited audience of clerical, elite, imperial, and bourgeois readers, scholars, and patrons. Nonetheless, non-elite members of society, who may have had some training in scribal traditions, also produced a genre of manuscripts that were more popular or mainstream in nature and existed outside more-established scribal contexts. For instance, in her book The Barber of Damascus. Nouveau Literacy in the EighteenthCentury Ottoman Levant (Stanford: Stanford University Press 2013), historian Dana Sajdi speaks of the manuscripts of popular stories and historical chronicles that were produced by one Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad ibn Budayr, who worked as a barber in Damascus during the 1700s. What is apparent from the early books printed at the AMP is that their organization, visual conventions, and overall layout very clearly emulated those of manuscripts practices. This is something that I explain in my book through an analysis of the materiality of the AMP publications from the 1830s. In these books, you see the consistent use of elaborate headpieces in the books’ introductions; these are the decorative features, often referred to in Islamic manuscript studies as ṣarlawḥs (headpieces), which cap the beginning of an introduction, chapter, and/or dedication of a book and contain a cartouche within which the heading or doxological phrase would appear. These books also used different ornamental types (as well as punctuation) to recreate the intricate decorative motifs found in the illuminations of borders and frames in some manuscripts. The title pages in the AMP’s early publications were also interesting because they did not always contain the same information as their European or American counterparts. For instance, instead of including the title, author, publisher, city and date, these pages in the earliest AMP works usually only contained the book title and author. The additional publishing information would be found in a colophon at the end of the book (which was common to manuscripts at this time, which rarely contained title pages). However, in later publications, as printing became more competitive in the region, you begin to see standardized title pages with all the relevant publishing information listed. Another interesting similarity between early printed books and manuscripts was the

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use of catchwords, which appear in the bottom corner of a page and indicate the first word from the subsequent page. This practice was commonly used to collate manuscript folios, instead of using pagination. In the printed books from the AMP, catchwords appeared in addition to page numbers. It is important to note that many publications from regional presses at this time clearly emulate these scribal conventions; this was not a practice unique to the AMP. Rather, the AMP was participating in the wider trend amongst presses at this time. This was possibly because the AMP wanted to market its books to readers who would have been well versed in, or at least familiar with, scribal conventions and expected any books of importance to look a specific way. Although presses were turning to scribal customs for inspiration, this nascent period of the Arabic press was also a rather experimental and dynamic moment in the development of diverse visual languages of Arabic print culture. This means that you see the entangled use of external and internal impulses and inspirations in the products of regional presses, whether they relied on local book traditions as aesthetic sources or whether they also included different approaches from popular European and/or American printing conventions. M.D.: Are any examples of nineteenth-century manuscripts from Ottoman Syria located in the region today? Is this also the case for the printed products of the AMP? H.A.: Yes, there are several of these nineteenth-century manuscripts and collections of early printed book available in Lebanon today. Many are held at educational institutions, some of which are still affiliated with different local religious denominations. Some of these collections are held at former American mission establishments, such as the American University of Beirut (AUB) and Beirut’s Near East School of Theology (NEST), which was initially established as the mission’s seminary. These two institutions keep the largest number of American Press books in their collections. Many of the devotional (Islamic, Hebrew, and Christian) as well as secular manuscripts housed at these institutions once belonged to the Syrian Mission’s library or the private libraries of the missionaries themselves. Several of the manuscripts and printed books actually date from much earlier than the nineteenth century. For instance, AUB’s Archives and Special Collections department houses as a rare Karamanid Qurʾan from Konya (in Anatolia), which was copied in 1441, as well as a colourful small-format illuminated Qurʾan from Mughal India dating to the seventeenth century. They have also recently acquired a copy of the German Orientalist theologian Abraham Hinckelmann’s printed version of the Qurʾan in Arabic (dated to 1694). There are also many examples of manuscripts and print culture dating to the nineteenth century and earlier that are held at other regional collections, such as those belonging to Beirut’s Saint Joseph University (USJ), originally a Jesuit college, Notre Dame University-Louaize (NDU), a Catholic university, and the Holy

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Spirit University of Kaslik (USEK), which was founded by Lebanon’s Maronite order. The library of the latter has in its collection a copy of what is purported to be the earliest extant book printed in Mount Lebanon at the Maronite Christian monastery of Qozhaya in Qadisha Valley. The book is a psalter that was printed in 1610 in Syriac and karshūnī (the latter is Arabic written with Syriac letter forms). Many of Lebanon’s monasteries also house copies of manuscripts and printed books, some of which are several centuries old. The Hill Museum & Manuscript Library (HMML) has been very good about assisting these collections with preservation by digitizing a large number of their holdings, some of which are available for viewing on the HMML website. Of course, many of the books produced in the region also found their way to collections and institutions in Europe, America, and other global sites over the years. M.D.: You mentioned earlier that the AMP produced both secular and religious literature. Can you tell us more about the reasoning behind the subject matter (both religious and secular) that was chosen for the AMP-sponsored publications? H.A.: Pioneer members of the mission, such as Eli Smith (1801–1857), who was the AMP editor when the press was first set up in Beirut, believed that education, for it to lead to successful conversion, needed to include religious and non-religious subject matter. In a printed missionary circular that was published between 1829 and 1830, Smith contributed an article entitled ‘General Remarks on the Use of the Press in the East’, in which he argued that in order for missions to garner an interest for religious literature (e.g., the Bible and related tracts) amongst readers (and potential converts), their presses needed to publish general elementary works (e.g., books on grammar, arithmetic, history, and science). Smith based this on his assumption that the majority of potential converts in the ‘Near East’ were illiterate and uneducated, and thus would not accept or understand the Protestant religious texts. By producing a large number of general (non-religious) schoolbooks, which he argued were deficient in the region, mission presses could attract readers to both their publications and their missionary message. Smith wrote this article before he began work as a missionary in Beirut. From the genre of works first printed at the AMP, which, from 1834 to 1842, included Arabic grammars, a text on arithmetic, spelling cards, and reading primers, it is clear that Smith was applying this wisdom to his work at the AMP. At the same time, in its early decades, the press produced a number of religious works, such as hymnals, psalters, important sermons, catechisms (for adults and children), an Arabic translation of the Passion of Christ, and tracts on ‘good’ Christian and moral behaviour (e.g., on temperance, self-examination, how to prevent cholera through abstinence, etc.) among other similar works. Other texts included translations of widely distributed examples of evangelical literature, which were frequently

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published by Anglo-American religious tract societies and translated into numerous global languages for Protestant missionary use throughout the nineteenth century. Thus, for a missionary press, the nature of the AMP’s output was not really unusual; it included both religious works (for use by the mission’s catechists, preachers, and educators) and educational (secular) works that would be used in the mission’s schools and seminaries. By the 1860s, the AMP began to print its newly translated Arabic Bible in different formats and editions, as well as other examples of religious works, some of which offered rather controversial criticisms of the Catholic and Orthodox churches. Nonetheless, by the mid- to late 1800s, many of the works that were published and sold at the AMP were secular in nature, such as works on poetry, literature, grammar, math, geography, physics, biology, and the like. It is important to point out here, however, that some educational books (such as grammars, spelling books, and handwriting books produced for schools) often contained excerpts from the Bible and related literature as the central texts. The mission’s brand of religious/secular literature, as well as the mission’s educational programmes, takes us back to Makdisi’s notion of ‘+evangelical modernity’. In particular, as he explains, ‘evangelical modernity’ for the American missionaries meant ‘offering the unevangelized world the fruits of secular modernity […] tempered by spiritual reform and salvation.’3 M.D.: Were these works mainly Arabic translations of European or American publications or did the AMP employ Ottoman Syrian authors to write original material in Arabic for the press? H.A.: It was a combination of both. Since very few members of the mission were fluent in Arabic at this time, the press editors hired translators and correctors to help them with translating British and American texts into Arabic. During the 1830s and early 1840s these publications usually included examples of evangelical literature, such as John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, Mary Martha Sherwood’s Little Henry and His Bearer, and The Dairyman’s Daughter, which were popular amongst AngloAmerican missionaries and religious groups during this period. A number of works that were translated into Arabic were also original material written by members of the Syria mission (and other ABCFM missionaries) specifically for distribution amongst the local populace. These ranged from tracts on Arithmetic to those on the treatment of cholera, and the importance of temperance. Local authors were hired to produce original content for the mission as well. For instance, Nāṣīf al-Yāzijī (1800–1871), a member of the local Greek Orthodox community, was initially brought on as an Arabic instructor for the missionaries before being employed at the AMP as an author and corrector. Al-Yāzijī wrote a range of material for the press, such as an Arabic hymnal, books on Arabic grammar, 3 Makdisi, Reclaiming the land of the Bible (footnote 2), p. 683.

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and compendiums of poetry. Interestingly, a number of these works, specifically the texts on grammar, literature, and poetry, were produced at his expense, but the AMP retained copies for sale at their book depository. Other authors included Buṭrus al-Bustānī (1819–1883), a Maronite Christian who converted to Protestantism in his early twenties while working at the mission as an Arabic instructor. Al-Bustānī, unlike al-Yāzijī, was well versed in English and Arabic (in addition to other languages), so he was more closely involved in the production of tracts for the mission and its proselytizing efforts. Both of these individuals were central to the first phase of the Arabic Bible’s production since they worked with Smith, from about 1848 until latter’s death in 1857, on producing a version of the Bible that was translated into Modern Standard Arabic (or fuṣḥa, the more formal Arabic that was standardized during the nineteenth century) from early Greek and Syriac sources. After Smith’s passing, the missionary and new AMP editor Cornelius Van Dyck (1818–1895) continued work on this Bible and he brought on the Muslim scholar Yūsuf al-Asīr (1815–1890) to assist him with the translation. In later years a larger number of missionaries, who were more fluent in Arabic than those who first worked at the mission in the 1830s, produced several works for the AMP on religious topics, science, medicine, and other secular subject matter. Additionally, local individuals were still tasked with writing Arabic text for the AMP. M.D.: Can you say something about the aspects of the relationship between the AMP (or the mission) and these members of local communities? H.A.: The interesting thing about the relationship between the American mission (or missions in general) and members of the communities amongst whom they hoped to proselytize, is that it was not simply a case of asymmetrical influence. Specifically, some postcolonial scholarship on missionary-local encounters locates missions (such as those of the ABCFM and the French Jesuits, among others) as extensions of their respective empires and/or colonialist nations. Thus, in these sources the missions are seen as the proponents of Western cultural hegemony or are blamed for aiding the political and/or military involvement of American and European entities in these respective regions. Although these studies raise valid points about these encounters, they each fall into the trap of presenting a strict binary, unilateral relationship between missionaries and local populations, which limits what can be said about the nature of these encounters and how local agents utilized these frameworks for their own gain. More recently, scholars of missionary history, informed by the work of Ryan Dunch, who works on the religious history of Qing China, have adopted views that problematize the common wisdom in discourses on ‘cultural

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imperialism’.4 This scholarship, such as writing by Makdisi, Ellen Fleischman, and Barbara Reeves-Ellington, who work on the ABCFM missions in the Ottoman realms, suggests that relations between missionaries and local individuals were more interactive than what traditional postcolonial historians have assumed. What I found in my research, as one would expect, is that the missionaries and the members of local communities who encountered them were driven by personal concerns, desires, and ambitions, and they were often contradictory in their views, which were frequently revised throughout the years. The missionaries themselves were forced to alter their programmes, goals, and views due to the response from local communities. Members of local communities found ways to work within the mission’s schools, presses, and/or other sites to improve their own socio-economic circumstances. Although a few local residents converted to Protestantism, the majority of those employed at the mission and the AMP did not. However, this did not necessarily negatively impact these local individuals’ positions in the mission’s employ. This is not to say that the members of the ABCFM mission in Beirut were readily welcomed by all local communities or in all the region’s villages. It was quite the contrary; missionaries met much resistance from the villages in Mount Lebanon when they first attempted to establish stations in this region during the 1820s. However, over the years, the mission altered the ‘tone’ of its proselytizing practices in response to the reactions it was receiving from local communities. These kinds of interactions paint a much more nuanced picture of encounters between these different social groups than one would originally assume. M.D.: In your book, you argue that the AMP played an important role in the local private publishing industry that was independent of its missionary function. Can you tell the reader more about this and in what ways this missionary enterprise managed to contribute to the local private printing industry? Additionally, how did the AMP’s early printing endeavours contribute to the burgeoning of Arabic print culture by the end of the nineteenth century? H.A.: The AMP’s role as a local secular publisher, in my opinion, was by no means an intentional one. Rather, it came about in an organic, though inadvertent, manner due to a series of policy changes at the Syria mission as a result of the ABCFM’s concerns over low conversion numbers. As I noted earlier, the AMP was initially set up to function as an extension to and in support of the Syria mission’s proselytizing programme. The assumption was that education and literacy would be necessary to any successful conversions amongst local societies, since these were concerns amongst non-Muslim communities that were not adequately being addressed by the Ottoman state when the mission was first established. Basically, if you mean to 4 Ryan Dunch: Beyond cultural imperialism. Cultural theory, Christian missions, and global modernity. In: History and Theory 41.3 (2002), pp. 301–25.

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convert individuals to Protestantism, and establish ‘native’ Protestant communities and churches, these groups must have the ability to read and understand the wider social implications of catechisms, the Bible, and other religious texts on morality and temperance. Thus, the Syria mission, like other contemporaneous ABCFM missions in the region and beyond, placed an emphasis on education, in addition to English instruction, and book production. However, as these missions (most of which were established within the first two decades of the nineteenth century) soon learned, these practices did not necessarily result in larger conversion numbers. In fact, Rufus Anderson (1796–1880), who served as the secretary of the ABCFM from 1832 to 1866, made a point of chastising the foreign missions for not emphasizing preaching above education and the press. Having conducted a tour of various ABCFM missions during the 1840s, including those in India as well as Smyrna and Beirut, Anderson found that members of local communities often sought an education at the local missionary schools in order to acquire English language skills, and not due to an interest in Protestantism. As a result of his visit, Anderson, with the backing of the ABCFM, proposed new policies for foreign missions that called for a focus on preaching directly to community members, emphasizing instruction and proselytization in ‘native’ languages, and curtailing production at some missionary presses. Anderson specifically singled out the AMP as an enterprise that was occupying too much of the missionaries’ time and commitment, arguing that missionaries should not be serving exclusively as press editors and authors. To ensure that members of the Syria mission shifted their emphasis to preaching, the ABCFM set up a centralized approval process for publication requests that required funding from religious societies. This meant that the board would now need to approve any extensive budget requests for major publications, which limited the number of mission-related books and tracts that could be printed at the AMP, thus freeing up missionary time for preaching. However, instead of abandoning the press completely, members of the Syria mission found a way around these restrictions by arguing that competing missions – specifically Catholic ones like the Jesuits, in Beirut, and the Franciscans, in Jerusalem – were setting up their own presses, and using books to attract potential converts. The American missionaries managed to maintain the press by printing books and pamphlets that criticized practices of the Catholic Church and those of local churches. What the missionaries also did was rely more heavily upon external funding to keep the press running and to procure the funds needed to print their religious literature (and their Bible, which was in the process of being translated during the 1840s and 1850s). This was achieved by allowing local authors, editors, and members of the Beirut-based intellectual community (or aspiring writers) to rent the AMP’s labour, site, and equipment to produce their own books, which,

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in mission and AMP records, were referred to as ‘job works’. These books and pamphlets were produced independently of the mission and its proselytizing programmes, with the genre of works ranging from anthologies of Arabic literature and poetry to regional communal histories. Some key secular periodicals, which served as important local sources on the modern sciences, technology, and literature, were first printed at the AMP. One prominent example was the monthly journal al-Muqtaṭaf (The Selections), which was established in Beirut in 1876 by Syrian scholars Yaʿqūb Ṣarrūf (1852–1927) and Fāris Nimr (1856–1951), who, at the time, were both employed as instructors at the Syrian Protestant College (the mission’s college established in 1866). In its role as a site for the production of these locally funded publications, the AMP consequently became an important publisher of secular literature by Syrian authors such as al-Bustānī, al-Yāzijī, and others, whose texts would become central to the nineteenth-century intellectual movement commonly known as al-nahḍa al-ʿarabiyya (the Arab Renaissance), which also interfaced with the previously mentioned Ottoman Tanzimat reforms. The intellectual discourses of the nahḍa moulded local Arab notions of modernity – such as western education, secularism, and national identity – and gained popularity among the region’s middle class and elites, particularly the newly formed class of merchants and intellectuals following the Ottoman Empire’s growing role in the global capitalist market economy. By the late nineteenth century, as seen in the AMP’s catalogues of books and services, this press not only focused on the sale of books produced by its missionary members but also sold books that were printed at other regional and international presses (in Europe and the United States). The AMP also frequently advertised its print-related services (e.g., Arabic and Latin typeface design, typesetting, book binding, lithography, letterpress printing, electrotyping, and engraving). The widespread impact of the AMP’s products and services can be seen in the range of nahḍa related publications that were published on its presses, as well as the prevalence of its Arabic typefaces and varied engraved illustrations, which could be seen in many books, periodicals, and pamphlets printed in Beirut and other regional cities at the time. M.D.: Can you tell us about the distribution and intended readership for the AMP’s early publications? H.A.: For the most part, the AMP publications were produced for Arabic-speaking members of societies under Ottoman rule, including Iraq, Egypt, and the Syrian provinces. However, the mission often shipped books to the US and elsewhere, sometimes for use by other missionary groups. The way that the AMP initially distributed its products was through a small book depot in Beirut, which was supervised by a missionary member. Early sales records from this depository, dating to the 1830s, show that the audience for these books was heterogeneous. A number

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of local agents (indicated as ‘natives’ in these records) purchased AMP publications, but these were mostly the secular works, such as al-Yāzijī’s Arabic grammar, of which approximately 1000 copies were printed with each edition during the 1800s (first in 1836, then 1854, 1886, and 1887). The earliest religious tracts, like copies of excerpts from Thomas à Kempis’s Imitation of Christ, Solomon’s proverbs, Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, and hymnals, among others, cannot be labelled as ‘bestsellers’. However, such texts were often printed at the AMP in Beirut and then transferred to the different ABCFM stations in cities where Arabic-speaking populations lived. By the 1860s and 1870s, with more ‘job works’ and the publication of various editions of the mission’s Arabic Bible, AMP sales increased and works produced at this press gained a wider audience. For instance, although some of the secular books produced at the AMP were funded by local authors or editors, and not by any missionary or religious society’s sources, the AMP served as a point of sale and distribution for copies of these publications. Concurrently, the American mission’s Bible, which was largely subsidized by the Bible Society (headquartered in Constantinople), was one of the AMP’s most lucrative products since it was not only purchased and read by members of the growing, but small, number of Protestant and some Greek Orthodox communities, but also became a central text for Coptic communities in Egypt. In fact, this specific translation remains popular amongst these communities today, and one can make the argument that this Bible was in fact the AMP’s most significant publication (as editions of it continue to be published at other regional presses today, long after the AMP closed its doors around 1960). M.D.: One of the central theses of your book is that the aesthetics of Arabic printing were altered by the mid- to late nineteenth century at the AMP as well as at some regional presses. Can you tell us something about the nature of these changes and whether there was a continuity of scribal practices in the context of typography, design motifs, and overall visual conventions? H.A.: As I mentioned earlier, in the early years of Arabic printing during the nineteenthcentury, it was common for printed books to emulate the visual conventions of their scribal counterparts. One would expect this to be an experimental moment in the aesthetic dimensions of publishing where modes of knowledge production in general, and notions of what books should look like in particular, are steeped in the most common and prevalent bookmaking norms and practices. Your readers, particularly those versed in European and North American print traditions, may recall similar trends that occurred in fifteenth-century Europe with the growing popularity of printing with movable type. As David McKitterick has explained in his Print, Manuscript and the Search for Order, 1450–1830 (Cambridge University Press 2003), there remained an overlap between print culture and manuscript traditions

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for several hundred years, during which there was a gradual shift to ‘modern’ print conventions and aesthetics. A similar, later trend occurs in the context of Arabic printing in the Islamic world. By the late nineteenth century, many printed periodicals, books, and pamphlets came to more closely resemble the visual conventions and logic of organization found in North American and European examples of print culture. Specifically so in the case of the AMP publications, by the 1850s these works no longer closely resembled local manuscripts in their ornamentation or design. The decorative headpieces, catchwords, and ornamental borders were eschewed in favour of a more streamlined, simplified aesthetic that emphasized the textual content over the more decorative conventions seen in earlier works. At the AMP, notions of what books and other publications should look like become rather standardized: title pages contain the title, author, publisher, date, city, and funders, if applicable; page numbers and running headings appear in a systematic fashion; the Arabic typefaces used at the AMP were standardized and followed proportional conventions in their various fonts (e.g., sizes and stroke weight). However, this was not a complete abandonment of scribal traditions. More particularly, in the ‘job works’ printed at the AMP by local scholars, there was a unique synthesis of ‘western’ printing conventions with select scribal motifs, such as the continued use of certain calligraphic elements (like the form of the tughrāʾ, a calligraphic motif that was popular in the Ottoman context), opening doxological phrases, colophons, and other elements. In my book, I argue that the aesthetic conventions developed at the AMP, in addition to its unique set of Arabic typefaces that were design and procured in 1842 then sold by the AMP to local presses in the later decades of that century, came to symbolize a ‘modern’ aesthetic that included ‘western’ conventions alongside a (limited) number of select scribal elements. The AMP’s design programme, typefaces, and illustrated engravings, among other print-related services, became popular amongst a select group of Arab-Syrian intellectuals during the nahḍa period, who utilized this press’s site, equipment, and/or typographic collections for their own publications. There are two additional points that need to be made here, and which, I argue, distinguish Arabic publishing from the development of publishing in Europe and North America. First, Arabic (as a mode of expression) underwent important changes at this time. Local notions of authorship and reading practices were changing, and the method through which these new forms were expressed could be found in the bourgeoning publishing industry. Whereas previous writing traditions emphasized the form and method of delivery, steeped as they were in an emphasis on recitation, orality, and the complexity of the Arabic script, nineteenth-century publications, specifically Arabic periodicals that became popular in the later years of this century, turned to a new mode of journalist writing. Following an ‘objective’

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or ‘scientific’ approach, Arabic writing was standardized at this time (this is the Modern Standard Arabic that I mentioned earlier above). This form of writing favoured content over form in an effort at transparency and the popularization of ‘modern’ knowledge (e.g., the sciences, and literature). For local nahḍa period authors, many of whom belonged to Ottoman non-Muslim religious minority groups, this new mode of writing was a response to their perceptions of the more ‘esoteric’ forms of Arabic that were traditionally associated with, and limited to, the Islamic realms of knowledge production. As such, one can argue that the ‘modern’, streamlined aesthetic seen in publications by local scholars that were printed at the AMP was informed by this new linguistic practice, which called for an emphasis on clear writing over ornamental motifs (in the textual and visual content). The second point to be made about Arabic publishing during this period was that these conventions were rather varied. In fact, based on the research I conducted for my book (as well as more recent examinations I have made of other regional presses), I would even suggest that each press developed its own distinct visual programme. For example, at a time when secular publications printed by local scholars at the AMP took on a simplified, ‘modern’ aesthetic, several books published at Būlāq Press in Cairo continued to clearly emulate manuscript conventions. These tended to be books that were originally in manuscript form, which were printed (or reprinted) for the first time in the nineteenth century, such as classical Arabic literary works like a collection of poems by the famed tenth-century Iraqi poet Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Mutanabbī (915–965). Different regional presses published editions of this particular poet’s collections and each version looks very distinct from the other, which further illustrates that the visual conventions of print culture during this period were diverse and not standardized. My feeling is that regional publishers turned to aesthetics that best suited the works being produced and/or conformed to the intended audience’s notions of what such books should look like. M.D.: A significant number of our readers may be more familiar with the history and evolution of printing and publishing in Europe and North America than with that of the Middle East and the broader Islamic world. Can you share a few general insights into how the development of Arabic print culture in the Middle East differs from that of European languages in the ‘West’? H.A.: There are several distinctions one can discuss, however, I will point out two of the most significant. The first is that manuscript traditions were still central to authorship and printing at Arabic presses in the nineteenth-century Middle Eastern and Islamic worlds. For example, when manuscripts were copied in traditional scribal workshop settings, an author-to-copyist authentication system was in place whereby the ‘author’ (or the scholar who served as the ‘gatekeeper’ of knowledge production) dictated the text to the copyist, who wrote it down and then read it

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back to the ‘author’. This process ensured that the final copy of each work adhered to the ‘original’s’ content or was only altered by a scholar educated in this particular text or subject matter. A similar authentication system was in place at some early Arabic printing presses, such as the AMP. This missionary press employed at least one corrector and a number of copyists, where the copyist served in the place of the author or gatekeeper scholar. The author would write his original text (or produce a translation) in manuscript form. This would be corrected or edited, often in collaboration with the AMP editor and corrector (to whom the press copyists deferred to for the ‘authenticity’ of the copied text). The copyist would then produce a new, corrected manuscript, which would again be sent for approval by the press editor and/or corrector. This back and forth would continue until the editor, corrector, and author (if present) were satisfied with the results before the material was then sent to the compositor for typesetting. For major publications like the American mission’s previously mentioned Arabic Bible, a typesetting manuscript would sometimes be produced to show the compositor what the general layout should look like and where reference notes should be included. What this means is that the printing process involved much of the laborious back and forth between copyists and authors (with the new addition of correctors and editors) that you would typically find in the context of manuscript workshops during this period. The second aspect of Arabic printing that distinguishes it from publishing in European languages is the nature and important history of the Arabic script. Unlike Latin letterforms, Arabic letters (of which there are twenty-eight) are written in a cursive, connected script and each letterform appears in four distinct shapes according to its location in a word. Additionally, Arabic writing has numerous ligatures and commonly employs a number of vocalization marks (in addition to the necessary diacritical marks that distinguish letterforms from each other). Letters can also be extended in a sentence or word according to the calligrapher’s visual preferences or to the emphasis placed on certain words or letters vis-à-vis their location in a sentence. What all of this means is that the sheer number of metal glyphs needed to form a complete set of type made early Arabic printing endeavours technologically difficult and costly, where most efforts could not compete with the refined aesthetics of centuries-old calligraphic conventions. It is important here to note that calligraphy was not simply an aesthetic mode of manuscript production. Rather, it was part of an extensive tradition in regional knowledge production where student calligraphers were trained by masters who could trace the lineage of their craft to the companions of the Muslim Prophet. In fact, in order to practise calligraphy in any official capacity, one underwent a rigorous training programme and series of examinations, which, if successfully completed, culminated in the issuing of an official calligrapher’s certificate that showcased the calligrapher’s skills while providing the necessary authentication

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from the respective master calligrapher. A certified calligrapher could then go on to produce manuscripts at imperial workshops, amongst other similarly lucrative ventures. Calligraphers of distinguished lineage were prized as scholars and masters of their craft within Ottoman society. With this in mind, it is not surprising that early Arabic printing in Islamic societies was not necessarily seen as a lucrative or desirable venture, particularly given the letterpress technology’s aesthetic and technical limitations when compared to manuscript traditions. It was not until the invention of lithography that printing in Arabic and Arabic-scripts became more aesthetically acceptable, which can be seen in the number of presses that produced lithographic books in Egypt, Iran, and India during the 1820s. As letterpress technologies improved, and particularly with the development of steam-operated presses, electrotyping, chromolithography, and the linotype ‘line casting’ machine, it was during the mid- to late nineteenth century that Arabic-script printing really took off and eventually edged out scribal traditions. Nonetheless, manuscripts continued to be produced well into the twentieth century, albeit as marginal practices. M.D.: As an Islamic art historian, what is the significance of conducting research on the early Arabic press? Specifically, is this an expanding area of study and how well developed and established it is so far? What are the most salient research lacunae that, in your view, deserve further attention? H.A.: What sort of topics have been the most widely covered so far? In the context of Islamic art history, the study of print culture is a new and burgeoning field. When I first started working on this topic for doctoral research, there were hardly any studies that dealt with visual aspects of Arabic or Islamic printing practices. Traditionally, the field of Islamic art, when it comes to the art of the book, has focused its efforts on manuscript production. Print culture, particularly that produced by letterpress printing, which is not always as visually enticing as the products of lithographic presses, had rarely been studied for its significance as an artistic endeavour and as an important example of material culture. Today, with the increased attention given to nineteenth-century and contemporary subject matter in Islamic art history, this has slowly changed, since there is now a small (but, hopefully, growing) body of scholarship on illustrated Ottoman journals, early printing in Istanbul, and printing in Qajar Iran, among other topics. Nonetheless, the majority of studies in the field of Arabic print culture still originate in the disciplines of literature, bibliography, and history, which do not necessarily take up a study of the aesthetic dimensions and materiality of print culture. This means that the lacunae are numerous and there are so many possibilities for new studies in the field. M.D.: What are your future research plans in the study of Middle Eastern print culture? H.A.: At the moment, I am working on a new project related to the art of fin-de-siècle Arabic scientific-literary periodicals that were published in Beirut and Cairo. In this

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ongoing study, I have been exploring the different visual conventions employed by regional presses in their production of these newspapers, journals, and broadsheets, which frequently covered a wide range of subject matter, from local reports and translations of scientific articles to new forms of serialized novels and visual representations. This has led me to an examination of early advertising practices in the Arab public sphere, the varying and shifting notions of the arts at the time (which included anything from street theatre and journalism to medicine to painting), the relationship between published images (engravings and photographs) and their accompanying texts, and the different ways in which local Arab perceptions of the ‘modern’ sciences and technology were being visualized in these periodicals. What I am particularly interested in is how the visual dimensions of these publications – such as diagrams, photographs, reproductions of paintings/art, typographic compositions, and decorative motifs – served to produce, disseminate, and mediate early and localized forms of ‘visual literacy’ when it came to nahḍa related views on scientific inquiry, industrialization, and new forms of artistic production. In this project, I endeavour to illustrate how the physical and material dimensions of these Arabic periodicals furthers our understanding of their broader sociopolitical and cultural significance through a material-based, multidisciplinary ‘reading’ of this important historical record of the early modern Middle East. H.A.: It has been an honour speaking with you about your book and we look forward to hearing more about your future work.

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„Das führt letztendlich auch zu einer inneren Aufklärung“

1.

Ein Gespräch mit Abdullah Takim1 C.W.: Herr Takim, uns würde interessieren, was für religiöse Literatur populär ist unter deutschen Muslimen: Was wird von Muslimen in Deutschland gelesen und rezipiert? A.T.: Das ist sehr unterschiedlich. In den 1980er Jahren, als ich selbst aufgewachsen bin – ich frequentierte eine traditionelle Moschee – da hatten wir kleine Katechismen, wo das religiöse Wissen zusammengefasst ist. Man lernte daraus das Grundsätzliche; vieles wurde dabei nicht ins Deutsche übersetzt damals, man hatte nur Schriften in türkischer Sprache. Dazu zählten auch klassisch-islamische Werke, die aus dem Arabischen oder Persischen in die türkische Sprache übersetzt worden waren. Meistens wurden diese Bücher in den Moscheen verkauft und zuvor aus der Türkei importiert. Es gab keine regulären Bücherläden für islamische Literatur in den 1980er Jahren, weil viele Muslime auch zurück in ihre Herkunftsländer gehen wollten. Einige sind tatsächlich auch zurückgekehrt, aber andere sind bekanntlich geblieben. Mit der Zeit hat man immer mehr religiöse Literatur nach Deutschland geholt, weil der Bedarf sich gesteigert hat. Parallel dazu hat man teilweise auch Werke übersetzt, also ich selbst habe zum Beispiel auch etwas übersetzt, aus dem Türkischen ins Deutsche, weil die meiste Literatur, die über den Islam vorhanden war, in Deutschland von Islamwissenschaftlern oder Orientalisten übersetzt worden ist – und die hatten natürlich ein ganz anderes Interesse, eine ganz andere Ebene. Wir Muslime aber hatten sozusagen ein religiöses Bedürfnis, unsere Religion besser kennenzulernen. Mit dem Verkauf der Bücher haben sich meistens die Menschen beschäftigt, die auch schon in der Türkei (z.B. als Imame) Bücherverkäufer waren und sich mit Büchern beschäftigt haben. Sie haben ihren Beruf so weiterhin ausgeübt und versucht, das zu systematisieren. Im deutschen Ruhrgebiet gab es drei, vier Personen, die Bücher verkauft haben. Es gab aber auch eine Person, die mit einem Kleinbus, der voll mit Büchern war, von Moschee zu Moschee gefahren ist und Bücher verkauft hat. Das war vor allem türkischsprachige Literatur, teilweise aber auch deutsche Bücher z.B. ‚Der Islam‘ von Muhammad Hamidullah oder eine ,Koranübersetzung‘ von Max Henning, die der deutsche Muslim Achmed Schmiede überarbeitet hat und die dann im Namen der DITIB (Türkisch-Islamische Union der Anstalt für Religion e.V. – Köln) 1991 in Ankara veröffentlicht wurde. Teilweise 1 Dieses Interview mit Abdullah Takim (im Folgenden: A.T.) wurde von Constantin Wagner (C.W.) geführt.

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waren das auch Bücher, die z.B. von Protagonisten der Re-Islamisierung in arabischen Ländern verfasst wurden und die ins Türkische übersetzt worden waren. In den 1960er, 70er, 80er Jahren hat man viel vom Arabischen ins Türkische übersetzt und das ist auch nach Deutschland gekommen. Weil es in Deutschland nicht so viel Literatur gab, hat man eigentlich den religiösen Diskurs aus der Türkei hier weitergeführt. C.W.: Wann wurde denn begonnen, ins Deutsche zu übersetzen? A.T.: Also ich würde sagen so Ende der 1980er, Anfang der 90er Jahre. Hier entstand jedenfalls ein gesteigerter Bedarf, weil es türkischstämmige Kinder gab, die das Türkische nicht mehr verstehen konnten – und auch das deutsche, nichtmuslimische Publikum musste mehr über den Islam wissen. Um diese Bedarfe zu befriedigen, hat man dann übersetzt. Mittlerweile gibt es eine Tendenz der türkischen Verlage in der Türkei, die gezielt Leute aus Deutschland anwerben, um Werke ins Deutsche zu übersetzen. Es gibt jetzt Buchmessen; seit Anfang der 1990er Jahre gibt es Messen von Verlagen, die aus der Türkei kommen und ihre Bücher vorstellen und diese natürlich auch verkaufen. Das hat sich dann über den Kölner Raum, wo dies begann, verbreitet. Da merkt man, dass immer noch viele Werke aus dem Türkischen ins Deutsche übersetzt werden – und man muss ehrlich sagen, dass die Qualität der Übersetzungen leider häufig nicht sehr gut ist. C.W.: Woran liegt das? Wer hat die Bücher übersetzt? Waren das keine professionellen Übersetzer? A.T.: Genau. Und Übersetzen ist sehr schwierig. Man muss, wenn man islamisch-theologische Bücher ins Deutsche übersetzen will, beide Sprachen wirklich beherrschen. Und nicht nur die beiden – türkisch und deutsch – sondern eigentlich auch das Arabische. C.W.: Sind die deutschsprachigen Texte zum Islam dann immer Übersetzungen oder gibt es hier auch eigenständige Werke? Und: wie ist das inhaltliche Verhältnis von deutscher und fremdsprachiger Literatur? A.T.: Teilweise sind es wie gesagt Übersetzungen, aber es gibt auch immer mehr eigenständige Werke. Zum anderen werden klassisch-islamische Werke, z.B. von muslimischen Verlagen, mittlerweile direkt ins Deutsche übersetzt, auch weil es ein Misstrauen gegenüber der Fassung von Orientalisten gibt oder die übersetzten Werke der Orientalisten den Muslimen, die sich damit beschäftigen, überhaupt nicht bekannt sind, weil sie in den Bibliotheken ein Eigenleben führen. Es gibt auch Versuche, diese Literatur digital zugänglich zu machen. C.W.: Kann man denn sagen was für eine Rolle andere Bildungsmedien spielen? Sie haben das Internet gerade schon indirekt angesprochen. Wie stehen unterschiedliche Informationsquellen miteinander in Verbindung? Persönliche Vermittlung, Familie, Schule und Bücher?

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A.T.: Man muss zunächst feststellen, dass verschiedene muslimische Strömungen in Deutschland jeweils versuchen, ihre Inhalte zu platzieren, um Anhänger zu gewinnen oder die Menschen aufzuklären. So sind zum Beispiel auf der Internetseite des Zentralrats der Muslime (http://www.zentralrat.de oder www.islam.de) bestimmte Koranübersetzungen, Hadithübersetzungen oder auch Positionen zu bestimmten rechtlichen Fragen (z.B. Sterbehilfe oder Organspende im Islam) zu finden. Dann gibt es auch muslimische Zeitungen, Zeitschriften und Newsletter, also z.B. von der deutschen Muslim-Liga, die ebenfalls über einen Verlagsvertrieb verfügt, in dem sie islamische Literatur, die für das praktische Leben der Muslime behilflich sein soll, zusammenstellt – und eben auch über das Internet vertreibt. Im Internet platzieren sehr unterschiedliche Richtungen ihre Inhalte. Man kann das auch nicht kontrollieren, da entsteht ein regelrechter Cyber-Islam. Aber man kann folgendes sagen: die großen Religionsgemeinschaften haben das Internet relativ spät entdeckt; andere haben schon vorher auf Youtube und anderen Internetseiten ihre Inhalte platziert. C.W.: Wir haben jetzt vor allen Dingen über populäre Literatur gesprochen. Wie steht diese religiöse, populäre Literatur in Verbindung zu wissenschaftlicher Literatur? Also das Feld der wissenschaftlichen islamischen Theologie ist ja eigentlich noch am entstehen – kann man sehen, dass das schon irgendwelche Auswirkungen hat auf die populäre religiöse Literatur? A.T.: Auf jeden Fall wird diese neue Literaturproduktion entsprechende Auswirkungen haben. Die populäre Literatur ist ja auch nicht sehr qualitativ. Aber die Frage ist, wie man das allgemeine Volk mit wissenschaftlicher Literatur erreicht. Das muss ja auch verständlich werden für die normalen Gläubigen in der Moschee, das ist ja ein anderes Problem, ob der Bildungsstand das auch zulässt. Meistens werden in Moscheen Bücher verkauft, die für das praktische Leben wichtig sind; ganz theoretische Werke werden da nicht verkauft. Aber es gibt auch Tendenzen, z.B. in der großen Moschee in Köln, da sieht man auch Literatur, die auch sehr theoretisch ist, aus islamischer Sicht in deutscher Sprache, das wird da verkauft. Aber das ist auch etwas Neues vielleicht. Die Arbeit einer meiner Doktoranden, der über die Sünde im Koran geschrieben hat, wurde von der DITIB in ihrer eigenen Reihe publiziert. Das heißt, es gibt auch neuere Entwicklungen, in denen einige Religionsgemeinschaften auch theoretische Schriften publizieren. Es wird natürlich Zeit in Anspruch nehmen, bis das rezipiert wird; aber das ist sicherlich eine begrüßenswerte Entwicklung. Während beispielsweise die DITIB in den 1980er Jahren fast ausschließlich aus der Türkei importiert hat, wird nun auch Deutschsprachiges vertrieben und selber publiziert. Eher theoretisch abstrakte Literatur in deutscher Sprache, das gab es vorher nicht. Und dann gibt es natürlich die verschiedenen universitären Standorte mit ihren eigenen Verlagen. Zusätzlich entstehen wissenschaftliche Zeitschriften, also diese Landschaft wandelt sich ja auch. Früher gab es

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in Deutschland nur einen bekannten islamischen Theologen, Abdoldjavad Falaturi, und in Wien Smail Balić, aber jetzt hat sich das Feld ausgeweitet und jetzt gibt es eine Pluralität an Meinungen und auch Positionen: das ist eigentlich etwas Positives, aber das wird sehr viel Zeit in Anspruch nehmen, bis sich das richtig etabliert und sich das gesamte Feld verwissenschaftlicht. C.W.: Die Pluralität macht es natürlich auch für die normalen oder heranwachsenden Gläubigen ganz schön schwer, oder? Wenn ich jetzt als muslimischer Jugendlicher aufwachse, höre ich irgendetwas in der Schule, aus der Gemeinde, von meinen Eltern, aus der Literatur und möglicherweise widerspricht sich das. A.T.: Ja das stimmt, ist aber ein generelles Problem; nicht nur in Deutschland, sondern auch in der Türkei. Das hat zugenommen mit der Vielfalt der Sendungen und Programme, Zeitschriften und Zeitungen, die verschiedene Positionen dargestellt haben. Das heißt, es geht eigentlich auch darum, Rückhalt im Eigenen zu suchen. Mit anderen Worten: Es gibt verschiedene Interpretationen, die in den Medien dargestellt werden und der Leser oder Rezipient hat dann praktisch die Qual der Wahl. In der Religion ist das natürlich schwierig. Diese gleiche Entwicklung hat man in der Türkei auch gemacht, hier entsteht aber das Problem, das noch etwas Zusätzliches dazu kommt: die westliche Tradition, die religionskritisch ist, die vielleicht auch in den Schulen vermittelt wird, vielleicht auch an der Universität. Und damit muss man sich zurechtfinden und das kann dann auch zu Identitätskrisen führen. Aber letztendlich hat das auch damit zu tun, dass der Leser oder der Zuhörer oder der Rezipient sich bilden muss. Also er sollte sich bilden, um auch die Qualität des Diskurses zu erhöhen – eine andere Alternative sehe ich da nicht. Das heißt, dieser blinde Glaube ‘das ist richtig oder das ist falsch’ – man muss sich damit auseinandersetzen, das führt letztendlich auch zu einer inneren Aufklärung. C.W.: Wenn man das vergleichen wollte, mit der Rolle die Literatur in der islamischen Geschichte gespielt hat: was ist denn das Spezifische heute, was anders ist als das, was wir aus der Geschichte kennen? A.T.: Anders ist, dass wir Muslime wenig lesen (lacht) und sehr unkritisch sind. Es wird sehr wenig gelesen – also das kann man schon so sagen. Man hatte ja früher die klassische islamische Bildung in den Schulen, die klassischen Wissenschaften: Man hat da Arabisch gelernt, man hat dann klassische Werke gelesen und wurde integriert in diese Tradition. Es gibt da in der Türkei nach der Gründung der Republik einen großen Bruch, und viele haben keinen Zugang zu dieser Bildung mehr. Das passiert natürlich auch in Deutschland, also diese klassische Tradition fehlt. Man liest dann so vereinfachende Werke, Katechismen; die Jugendlichen lernen den Islam also aus Katechismen oder von Imamen. Das heißt: es fehlt auch an Aufklärung. Und dann entstehen beispielsweise Probleme, wenn diese Jugendlichen zur Universität kommen und islamische Theologie studieren wollen. Die hören dann bestimmt Dinge zum ersten Mal, weil sie diese Tradition nicht kennen.

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Sufism, Literary Production and Printing in the 19th Century R. Chih, C. Mayeur-Jaouen, and R. Seesemann (eds), Würzburg: Ergon-Verlag 2015

1.

Sufism, Literary Production and Printing in the 19th Century examines the interface between Sufism and printing in the long nineteenth century as a framework for a discussion about networks of religious scholars and the dissemination of ideas in the premodern and modern Islamic world. The volume, which covers Muslim regions and countries in Asia, Africa, and Europe, sheds light on the various ways in which Sufis engaged with printing and analyzes the effects the new technology had on their literary production. The contributions show how Sufism was able to thrive in confrontation with the multiple challenges posed by changing social and political structures, the emergence of Islamic reformism, and the introduction of new technologies.

Definition Sufism is the mystical dimension of Islam. Sufis often belong to various orders formed around a spiritual guide whose teachings were transmitted by a chain of teachers that goes back to the prophet Muḥammad. These orders meet for spiritual sessions aimed to purify the soul in order to attain a direct experience of the divine. As exemplars of the inner dimension of Islam, Sufis were often opposed to the dry casuistry of the specialists of law. Sufis played a major role in the social, political, and cultural history of Islamic societies. Since the beginning of the twentieth century onwards, Sufism has been subject to fierce criticism by Muslim reformists who have sought to recover authentic Islamic teachings and practices, accusing Sufism of embodying superstition and un-Islamic elements adopted from local cultures.

• As historians of Sufism and sainthood in Islam with a focus on Egypt, Rachida Chih and Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen had previously organized a conference to reflect on the impact that the integration of the Arab lands into the Ottoman Empire had on Sufism, from the conquest of Egypt and Syria in 1516–1517 to the turn of the nineteenth century. The proceedings of this conference were published in a collective volume in 2010 with the title Sufism in the Ottoman Era (Cairo: Institut français d’archéologie orientale 2010). In a long introduction, the editors exposed the aim of the conference, which was to explore Sufism and Islam in light of the new historiographical approach to the history of the Arab

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lands under Ottoman rule following the development of imperial studies in Anglo-Saxon academia, and to offer a new historiographical outlook on the ongoing debates about Sufism and Islam in the premodern and modern era. Let me lay down briefly, and as clearly as possible for the non-specialists of Sufism and Islam, the main points of the above-mentioned debates. Anglo-Saxon academia distinguishes between a premodern period from 1500 to 1800 before the modern period marked by direct contacts between Europe and the Muslim world in the nineteenth century. For Arab historians, the premodern period corresponds to the Ottoman period (al-ʿaṣr al-ʿUthmānī), as almost all of the Arab world was under Ottoman rule; as for the nineteenth century, it is considered by these historians as the century of reforms, modernization, and intellectual and cultural renaissance, a historical narrative put forward by Orientalists. Indeed, the Ottoman period was perceived for most of the twentieth century in Western and Arab scholarship in terms of a continual decline, or of a decline which was presumed to have provoked among Sufi scholars (and non-Sufi religious scholars) a desire for reform and renewal, starting in the eighteenth century. Both theories, that of a decline and that of a renewal, stemmed from colonial theses taken up by the Orientalist literature; theses that spoke of a sclerotic Islamic world that was cut off from progress until European penetration opened it up to enlightenment and modernity. Fazlur Rahman (d. 1988), a Muslim thinker from Pakistan and a professor at Chicago University, had appropriated as his own the theories of the Orientalist French school, which had found fame in the book by H. A. R. Gibb, Modern Trends in Islam (Chicago 1945), postulating a reform of Islam at the end of the nineteenth century as a result of contact with Western ideas, a reform which was supposed to have brought in its wake the end of Sufism and of the cult of saints, which were regarded as remnants of a heterodox paganism soon to be replaced by religion.1 On the basis of this theory of the modernization of Islam, Fazlur Rahman aimed in the 1960s at reconstructing the history of Islam and of Sufism. He invented the term neosufism (which appeared in his book, Islam, published in London in 1966 and re-issued by the University of Chicago in 1979) to describe a puritanical eighteenth-century reform movement that had broken away from a medieval Sufism dominated by the pantheistic mysticism of the Andalusian Sufi Ibn ʿArabī (d. 1240) on the one hand and the cult of saints on the other, and reaffirmed a scrupulous attachment to the sharīʿa and the moral example of the Prophet.2 These ideas were taken up and made famous by various other authors: John S. Trimingham speaks, in The Sufi Orders in Islam, of a decadent ‘ṭāʾifa age’ from the early modern 1 Henri Laoust: Le réformisme musulman des salafiyya et le caractère orthodoxe de son orientation actuelle. In : Revue des études islamiques 6 (1932), pp. 178–324; Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb: Modern Trends in Islam. Chicago: Chicago University Press 1945. 2 Fazlur Rahman: Islam. Chicago: Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1966; 2nd edn, University of Chicago Press 1979, p. 206.

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period onward, and of a movement of Sufi revival in the nineteenth century3; John Voll, in Islam. Continuity and Change in the Modern World, and, later, Voll with Nehemiah Levtzion in their collective book Eighteenth-Century Renewal and Reform in Islam, describe a revival of Islam during the eighteenth century, spreading from the central Muslim world to its periphery in India, Indonesia, and Africa and eventually leading to the militant fundamentalist and reformist movements of the nineteenth century. However, their conclusions, which dominated scholarship on Islam in the modern period for thirty years, were strongly rejected in the early 1990s by Sean O’Fahey and Bernd Radtke, whose main argument was that Rahman did not have sufficient knowledge of the Sufi writings that he presented as reformist: those of Aḥmad Sirhindī (d. 1624) and Shāh Walī Allāh (d. 1762) from India, and the Maghreb’s Aḥmad al- Tijānī (d. 1815), Aḥmad Ibn Idrīs (d. 1837), and his disciples, Muḥammad al-Sanūsī (d. 1859) and Muḥammad al-Mirghānī (d. 1853). Based on a close examination of the writings produced by the Moroccan Sufi Aḥmad Ibn Idrīs, O’Fahey and Radtke present a more complex picture demonstrating substantial continuity with the medieval period; in this reading, traditional Sufism continued to play a major role well into the beginning of the twentieth century.4 This critique of the theses postulating a Sufi reformism in the eighteenth century provoked a complete re-evaluation of Islam and Sufism during the premodern period, but most particularly during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Many important Sufi figures who had been presented as reformers were re-examined in the light of their own writings. They confirmed that, in matters of doctrine, the beginning of the modern period did not coincide with a rupture either with medieval Sufism or with Ibn ʿArabī; on the contrary, the above-mentioned scholars were diffusing Ibn ʿArabī’s ideas.5 Our book on 3 John Spencer Trimingham: The Sufi Orders in Islam. 2nd edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1998, pp. 104–6. 4 Rex S. O’Fahey/Bernd Radtke: Neo-Sufism reconsidered. In: Der Islam 70 (1993), pp. 52–87; Bernd Radtke: Between projection and suppression. Some considerations concerning the study of Sufism. In: Frederick De Jong (ed.): Shī‘a Islam, Sects and Sufism. Utrecht: M. Th. Houtsma Stichting 1992, pp. 70–82. 5 Johan G. J. Haar: Follower and Heir of the Prophet. Shaykh Aḥmad Sirhindī (1564–1624) as Mystic. Leiden: Het Oosters Instituut 1992; Scott Kugle: ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq al-Dihlawī, an accidental revivalist. Knowledge and power in the passage from Delhi to Makka. In: Journal of Islamic Studies 19.2 (2008), pp. 196–246; Ralf Elger: Mustafa al-Bakri. Zur Selbstdarstellung eines syrischen Gelehrten, Sufis und Dichters des 18. Jahrhunderts. Schenefeld: EB-Verlag 2004; Barbara Rosenow von Schlegell: Sufism in the Ottoman Arab world. Shaykh ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī (d. 1143/1731). Diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1997; Samuela Pagani: Il rinnovamento mistico dell’Islam. Un commento di ʿAbd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi a Ahmad Sirhindi. Naples: Istituto Universitario Orientale, Dissertationes III, 2003; Rex S. O’Fahey: Enigmatic Saint. Ahmad Ibn Idris and the Idrisi Tradition. London: Hurst 1990; Bernd Radtke et al.: The Exoteric Ahmad Ibn Idris. A Sufi’s Critique of the Madhāhib and the Wahhābīs. Leiden: Brill 1999; Knut Vikør: Sufi and Scholar on the Desert Edge. Muḥammad b. ‘Alī al-Sanūsī and His Brotherhood. London: Hurst & Company 1995.

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Sufism in the Ottoman Era is in line with this trend of renewed historiography, but with the aim to go beyond a strictly philological approach (which has its limits in the quest to understand the historical evolution of Sufism: the writings of the masters must also be put back into the historical context of their production) and to address the question of the dissemination and the meaning of its doctrine and practices for a society that was going through major political and social changes. This context is better known today thanks to the progress made in the study of the political and economic history of the great Muslim empires, which has opened up new perspectives on research in the history of Sufism. The conquest of the Middle East and part of North Africa by the Ottomans coincided with the building of two other Muslim empires: that of the Mughals in India and of the Safavids in Iran, Iraq, and parts of Central Asia (the so-called ‘gunpowder empires’, dixit Marshall Hodgson). During the premodern period, these Muslim empires were not in continuous decline, as advanced by the colonialist theses taken up by Orientalist literature: on the contrary, we now know, thanks to the numerous works in the fields of political and economic history that followed the pioneering study of the French scholar André Raymond in the 1970s on trade and commerce in eighteenth-century Cairo, that they went through phases of great prosperity due to the development of international commerce, bringing economic growth, in the case of Egypt, from 1600 to at least the middle of the eighteenth century. Nor was there an intellectual decadence within the empires at this time: Arab cities such as Cairo, Damascus, and Aleppo benefitted from renewed prosperity under the Ottomans to become crossroads of commercial and intellectual exchange. In Egypt, the Ottomans carried on the religious policies of the Mamluks and attributed numerous endowments (waqfs) to the University of al-Azhar, confirming its international status and allowing it to continue to attract students from abroad, as well as a growing number of Egyptians from the countryside. In the Ḥijāz, the reception of foreigners in Medina, and their lengthy stays there, were possible because of the increase in religious endowments from the Ottomans for the Holy Places, of which the Sultan presented himself as their servant. This increase in endowments brought a corresponding increase in the number of pilgrims, and also in the number of students (the mujāwirūn) who chose to do their religious training in the Holy Cities. During the sixteenth century, and even more during the seventeenth century, Medina, the Prophet’s resting place, predominated over Mecca as the most important intellectual centre: according to the historian Suraya Faroqhi, author of The Hajj under the Ottomans, in 1579–80 the Ottoman authorities estimated that 8,000 people received state subsidies to live as mujāwir in Medina; in 1641 there were 23,000 people with the title of mujāwir (not including their families) receiving official support.6 There in Medina, Sufi traditions from North Africa, Egypt, Central Asia, and India came into contact and interacted, probably for the first time. This resulted in a renewed dissemination of the 6 Suraiya Faroqhi: Pilgrims and Sultans. The Hajj under the Ottomans. London: Tauris 1984, p. 85.

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ideas of the medieval great Sufi Ibn ʿArabī among Sufi scholars, which had previously been regarded with caution in most Arab-speaking countries, but whose influence in Persianand Turkish-speaking countries was very strong. John Voll and Nehemiah Levtzion (mentioned above) may have been wrong in their affirmation of an organized and unified network of scholars in Mecca with sociopolitical aims diffusing a common ideology that had swept across the Muslim world during the nineteenth century, ineluctably giving rise to Muslim reformism. Nonetheless, these two historians have the merit of attracting attention to the importance of the Holy Places as the religious and intellectual crossroads of the Muslim world in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This idea of a network of scholars was taken up in Germany by a research group centred around Roman Loimeier and Stefan Reichmuth, who introduced network analysis in Islamic studies in Germany to provide explanations for a number of currents of thought and ideas that were in circulation within the Muslim world at the end of the eighteenth century and into the nineteenth.7 Reichmuth and Loimeier argue that, in view of the fact that Islam does not know any centralized religious institutions apart from the pilgrimage, relations between various Islamic groups and their religious authorities play a decisive part. The connections among religious scholars, as well as the relations between them and their students and disciples, can overcome not only the limitations of social stratification and borders between urban, rural, and nomadic societies, but also spatial distances. These connections are ultimately the essential channels by means of which information could be exchanged – even over great distances – and by which cultural capital could be acquired. Educational journeys and pilgrimages in particular play an important part in this exchange. Murtaḍā al-Zabīdī (d. 1791), an Indian scholar who passed through Zabīd in Yemen before settling in Cairo, to whom Reichmuth devoted an extensive study, is part of these networks of scholars.8

• The volume on Sufism in the Age of Printing has shown great continuities with doctrines and practices of the premodern period that adapted well to the transformations of the 7 Roman Loimeier/Stefan Reichmuth: Zur Dynamik religiös-politischer Netzwerke in muslimischen Gesellschaften. In: Die Welt des Islams 36 (1996), pp. 145–85; Stefan Reichmuth: ‘Netzwerk’ und ‘Weltsystem’. Konzepte zur neuzeitlichen ‘Islamischen Welt’ und ihrer Transformation. In: Roman Loimeier (ed.): Die islamische Welt als Netzwerk. Möglichkeiten und Grenzen des Netzwerkansatzes im islamischen Kontext. Würzburg: Ergon 2000, pp. 53–86; Thomas Eich: Islamic Networks. In: European History Online (February 7, 2011), http://ieg-ego.eu/en/threads/european-networks/islamicnetworks (January 17, 2017). 8 Stefan Reichmuth: The World of Murtadā al-Zabīdī (1732–1791). Life, Networks and Writings. Cambridge: Gibb Memorial Trust 2009. 

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nineteenth century. Major intellectual and religious centres of the premodern period, notably Mecca, but also Cairo and Damascus, continued to play an important role in religious transmission well into the nineteenth century. The pilgrimage to Mecca, which has always been important, but experienced a steady increase under the Ottomans for the reasons mentioned above, rose to new heights in the nineteenth century after the advent of steamboats and railways allowed pilgrims from Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa to embark on the Ḥajj on an unprecedented scale. The large-scale adoption of print technology by Sufis has to be seen against the backdrop of the steady increase of the number of manuscripts in the period leading up to the introduction of the printing press. Several articles in our volume examine this book culture that emerged in the Ottoman Empire, India, and Southeast Asia in the eighteenth century. India, benefitting from its relatively early start, emerged as the largest producer of Islamic printed materials in the nineteenth century (Lucknow, Calcutta, Delhi, and Mumbai) printing in Persian, Urdu, and Arabic. As far as Islamic literature in Arabic is concerned, the first milestone was the creation of the Būlāq Press (al-Amīriyya) in 1822 by the Egyptian state. After the pioneering role of European missions and their governments, the next stage in the development of printing in the Islamic world was marked by the proliferation of the private press, which led to an extraordinary booming of books printed from 1860s onwards in Cairo, but also in Istanbul and Fes. Books were exported to areas throughout the Islamic world: Fawzi Abdulrazak, in his PhD thesis on the history of printing in nineteenth-century Morocco, has shown that religious books printed in Fes were above all produced for the purpose of export to metropolitan cities such as Cairo, Istanbul, or the Holy Places of Mecca and Medina.9 Sufi ideas experienced dissemination on a scale that was never felt before. The nineteenth century was indeed a century of such great vitality for Sufism that it was coined the ‘Sufi Century’ (with a question mark) by Michael Laffan, in an article published in a collective volume edited by Nile Green on Global Muslims.10 The impact of new technologies on the dissemination of Sufism was demonstrated by Nile Green for the Indian Ocean and by Michael Laffan for Indonesia. It is indeed thanks to specialists working on the Muslim world outside the Middle East – for example, in India, Central Asia, Indonesia, and subSaharan Africa – that we could develop a different view of the history of Islam and of Sufism in the long nineteenth century.11

9 Fawzi Abdulrazak: The kingdom of the book. The history of printing as an agency of change in Morocco 1865–1912. Diss., Boston University, 1990. 10 Michael Laffan: A Sufi century? The modern spread of the Sufi orders in Southeast Asia. In: James Gelvin/Nile Green (eds): Global Muslims in the Age of Steam and Print. Berkeley: University of California Press 2014, pp. 25–39. 11 For instance, Nile Green’s model of a ‘religious economy’ serves to ‘show how an industrialized colonial port with a diverse Muslim population was transformed into an intensely competitive “production zone” from which new Muslim religious “firms” successfully their membership, products, services as

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The book primarily considers the written works of the Sufis of the nineteenth century, seeking to bring out knowledge of little-known or unknown texts and authors and to correlate historical and doctrinal perspectives, as well as texts and contexts. In this approach, the Sufi orders are considered either because they produced specific bodies of work, as with the writings of the Tijāniyya, or because they are represented by particularly productive authors, such as Abū al-Hudā al-Sayyādī (d. 1909) for the Rifāʿiyya.12 It is possible that the most extensive corpora produced by the Sufis of the nineteenth century are no longer any more than partially conserved today, therefore causing us to omit from our analysis the world of all of the Sufis – an overwhelming majority – who could neither read nor write, but who nonetheless had access to a Sufi culture of which today only traces remain. The espousal of printing by the Sufis cannot be understood if we do not take into account the rapid increase in the number of manuscripts that preceded it from the eighteenth century onwards, as much in India as in the Ottoman Empire. Numerous examples of this book culture are given in our volume: Indonesian ʿulamāʾ, trained in Arabia and Egypt, had, from the 1750s, spread the works of the Egyptian Sufi al-Shaʿrānī (d. 1565) and of Aḥmad al-Qushshāshī, who lived in Medina (d. 1661), or of his disciple, the Kurd Ibrāhīm al-Kurānī (d. 1690). Jiyḥunābādī (1871–1920), a shaykh of the Ahl-i Ḥaqq, left around twenty manuscripts in Persian and Kurdish, while the Mauritian shaykh Māʾ al-ʿAynayn (d. 1910), who set up a considerable manuscript library in Smara, his capital, left perhaps 140 works, of which 43 were lithographed in Fes between 1891 and 1900. Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar al-Kattānī left an important doctrinal work on the knowledge of the Prophet, composed in the midst of the French Protectorate (1912–1956) in manuscript form, doubtless out of doctrinal prudence. The spread of printed matter was clearly unprecedented, aided greatly by the lowering of costs. They were sent to black Africa or to Indonesia: in Fes for example, printed religious books were above all destined for exporting to the rest of the Muslim world, to Cairo, Istanbul, Mecca, and Medina.13 Moreover, the authors themselves did not necessarily publish in their own countries. The Moroccan presses were censored at the time and had small circulation; Maghrebis got themselves printed in Cairo (notably, the Tijānīs criticized by the sultan ʿAbd al-Ḥafīz. in a satirical work).14 Mumbai represented a crossroads for Muslim travellers coming from the Middle East, from Central Asia, and from the Southeast, as from India: it was in Mumbai that the first text in Persian was printed in 1828.15 Of the four far as South Africa and Iran’, see Nile Green: Terrains of Exchange. Religious Economies of Global Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2015, p. 11. 12 Rudiger Seeseman and Thomas Eich in our volume. 13 Abdulrazak, The kingdom of the book (footnote 9), p. 133. 14 Edmund Burke: Prelude to Protectorate in Morocco. Precolonial Protest and Resistance, 1860–1912. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1976, p. 101. 15 Nile Green: Bombay Islam. The Religious Economy of the West Indian Ocean, 1840–1915. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2011, p. 96.

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refutations of Wahhabism composed by Dāwūd ibn Sulaymān al-Naqshbandī al-Khālidī (d. 1882), three were published in Mumbai.16 Authors from the Balkans generally made use of the troubled political situation to publish all over the place: this is the case for the works from Albania presented here by Nathalie Clayer. Networks of Sufi ʿulamāʾ formed around the presses. The quarter for booksellers and printers specializing in religious tracts first centred around al-Azhar in Egypt. The first printing works (in fact lithographies) were set up in Fes in 1864 in the quarter of the ʿulamāʾ, where the printers found copyists, editors, authors, and buyers: until the protectorate in 1912, printing in Fes was completely dominated by the ʿulamāʾ under the control of the Makhzan. Families, Sufi orders, specific networks supported particular printing works: thus, it was that at the end of the nineteenth century the Kattānī, a family of learned Sufis, used the press to print their own works and those of their entourage, such as the Mauritian shaykh Māʾ al-ʿAynayn.17 Around Aḥmad Sharqāwī (d. 1899), a master from Upper Egypt, and his disciples in Cairo (for the most part Azharīs), there developed an important centre of literary activity at the end of the nineteenth and at the beginning of the twentieth centuries.18 Truly multidisciplined printings appeared at the end of the nineteenth century, such as those of al-Nabhānī and Abū al-Hudā al-Sayyādī, whose networks translated works in Ottoman Turkish and in Persian, and published in Cairo as well as Beirut and Istanbul. When we turn to the topics and genres of nineteenth-century Sufi literature, those revolving around the Prophet stand out. Printed works encouraged above all a devotional life centred on the Prophet and the saints in a wide array of forms: litanies, panegyrics, hagiographies, poems celebrating the birth of the Prophet and his ascension to heaven. Then there was a whole range of literature produced by the Sufi orders, whether local or transregional. The nineteenth century witnessed the spread of transregional Sufi orders, either renewed – such as the Naqshbandiyya of the Kurdish Mawlānā Khālid (d. 1827), which spread from Syria to Palestine, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Dagestan, and as far as Southeast Asia, and the Shādhiliyya of the Moroccan master Aḥmad al-ʿArabī al-Darqāwī (d. 1823), who brought about a new wave of expansion for the Shādhiliyya in Morocco and as far as Egypt, Syria, and Palestine) – or new – such as the Tijāniyya, which was often in competition with old Sufi orders. These orders produced biographies or hagiographies (manāqib, tadhkirāt) of masters whose lives and insights may be exemplary for their disciples; many treatises (kutub, rasāʾil) on the Sufi path; collections of malfuzāt . (sayings), a popular genre in the Indo-Persian world consisting of conversations of the masters collected (and sometimes embellished) by their disciples; litanies and prayers (salāwāt, awrād, aḥzāb) to accompany the practice of dhikr within the Sufi orders. These findings are consistently 16 Esther Peskes in our volume. 17 Sahar Bazzaz and Luca Patrizi in our volume. 18 Rachida Chih in our volume.

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confirmed by F. Abdulrazak on Fes, G. Delanoue on Egypt, N. Green on Mumbai, M. Laffan on Indonesia, and M. Boivin on Sindh. Many Sufi works were written for the purpose of edification and conveyed through the accounts of miracles performed by saintly figures. To be sure, the same genres of literature already existed in previous centuries, especially the Sufi works of the seventeenth and eighteenth deeply permeated the store of literary knowledge of nineteenth-century Sufis. Many Sufi books printed in the nineteenth century were written in the Ottoman era, in addition to the works of nineteenth-century authors who were heirs of these Ottoman masters. Everywhere, the role of poetry was considerable: it was first of all poems – well before the hagiographic tradition favoured later by the twentieth century – that the Mevlevis in Turkey chose to publish in the nineteenth century.19 These were poems which easily transmitted memorized teachings for the disciples, which included those who could not read. In the Persian, Turkish, and Indian worlds, and notably at the heart of movements held to be antinomic, poetry allowed for initiatic transmission to the disciples: this was the role of the Ismaʿili ginān, the kalām of the Ahl-i Ḥaqq, the nefes of the Bektashis. Almost everywhere, the oral tradition intended for novices or reserved for disciples, recited and chanted, coexisted with the written tradition of the masters: in order to preserve the history and doctrines of the order, the Bektashis had always written hagiographies and books of rules – erkānnāmes. It is the same for the Qalandars of India or for the Ahl-i-Haqq, for whom the sacred written traditions remained confined to manuscripts reserved for families of khāndān, disclosed only partially, belatedly (between the two world wars) and through the double filter of Russian Imperialism and printing.20 Of the Sufi literary genres which circulated in the nineteenth century, we also find letters (rasāʾil), for example those of Mawlānā Khālid al-Naqshbandī to his disciples.21 Manuals on the Sufi way or epistles (risāla), short and easily accessible, addressed to one person or a particular group as presented in this volume by Rachida Chih or Esther Peskes, made up a good part of the works willingly published. In India, in the first half of the nineteenth century, biographies of Sufi masters were particularly published; for the Kāzimī Qalandars studied here by Alexandre Papas, writing served to legitimize their origin, the filiation for which sources of authority were sought in the works of the great Indian masters. This genealogical preoccupation never disappeared in Sufi publications, in which, from father to son, a literary tradition was perpetuated: it in part supported the publishing activity of Abū al-Hudā al-Sayyādī. It is thus that hagiographies in which the structure of sainthood remained faithful to the medieval model were published, as shown by Nelly Amri, as well as genealogies and histories of Sufi lineages, treatises on the Sufi path, and writings with 19 Fabio Ambrosio in our volume. 20 Mojane Membrado in our volume. 21 Asʿad al-Sahib (ed.): Bughyat al-wajī d fi maktūbāt Mawlānā Khālid. Damascus: Maṭbaʿat al-Taraqqī 1916.

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an autobiographical dimension, such as travelogues: for example the Riḥla of Muḥammad ibn ʿUthmān al-Sanūsī (d. 1900) studied by Anne-Laure Dupont. All these types of writing already existed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a period which deeply permeated the store of literary knowledge of the Sufis of the nineteenth century. In Cairo, authors from the end of medieval times, but especially from the Ottoman era, were printed, then finally contemporary authors, disciples of the masters of the eighteenth century or their own disciples22: Alexandre Papas suggests that they were aware of the fragility of their heritage. In any case, they published the works of their masters rather than anonymous works, as proved by the editorial choices of the Mevlevis of the nineteenth century. Finally, one of the major changes in the nineteenth century was the role, sometimes direct but most often indirect, of Orientalism and Orientalists in the choice of the publication of Sufi texts. British scholars and administrators published Sufi poetry in India, for example, in connection with their idea of a classical Persian culture that corresponded to the Greco-Roman model. The construction of an Orientalist body of knowledge about Sufism and Sufi orders had important feedback effects among Muslims themselves, influencing their vision of the Sufi past. This creates a methodological challenge, as we need to be aware that works by Orientalists were received in different ways by different groups of people: by Sufis themselves, by reform-minded Muslims (who often saw the findings of Orientalists as an affirmation of their criticism of Sufism), and, finally, by later academics, who frequently reproduced old stereotypes in their studies (I mentioned above the example of Fazlur Rahman’s theory of neosufism).

Conclusion The contributions show a new level of literary activity among nineteenth-century Sufis. We can observe a trend towards standardization of Sufi doctrines. This often goes hand and hand with systematization and, occasionally, also popularization of Sufi teachings. In brief, Sufi teachings became available to wider audiences through writing, culminating in the further popularization of Sufism through the introduction of the printing press in the nineteenth century. These three aspects – standardization, systematization, and popularization – are of crucial importance for a thorough understanding of Sufis and their literary production during the period in question. This does not mean that the doctrinal literature of the great masters disappeared; it survived in closed circles, as was shown by the works of al-Kattānī influenced by Ibn ʿArabī.

22 Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen in our volume.

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Contributors

1.

Yasemin Gökpinar is a scientific assistant at the Institute for the Study of Islamic Culture and Religion at Goethe University, Frankfurt (Main). Her research interests are singing slave girls in the Arabic-Islamic Middle Ages, Arabic manuscript culture, Arabic literature of the Middle Ages and the twentieth century until now. She has published on Muḥammad al-Muwayliḥī’s Ḥadīth ʿĪsā ibn Hishām. Al-Riḥla al-thāniya, Islamic music, the songs and beauty of singing slave girls, and the music of Morocco.

Bruno De Nicola (BA Barcelona, MA London, PhD Cantab) is Lecturer in the History of the Middle East at Goldsmiths College (University of London). He combines this position with an affiliation as a visiting research fellow at the Institut für Iranistik (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften). Previously, he has been part of the ERC funded project ‘The Islamisation of Anatolia, c. 1100–1500’ (grant number 284076) based at the University of St. Andrews, and Project Curator of Persian Manuscripts at the British Library (London). His main area of research is the history of the Mongol Empire, the history of the medieval Middle East, and Islamic manuscripts.

Rebecca Sauer received her PhD from Cologne University. Since 2011, she has been a postdoctoral fellow at Heidelberg University, working on a project entitled ‘Profession and Education in the Islamic Chancery System’ under the auspices of the CRC 933, ‘Material Text Cultures’, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). Her main research interests are Islamic intellectual history and material culture studies.

Houssem Eddine Chachia is an assistant professor in history at the University of Sfax (Tunisia), and a visiting postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University (2017–2018). He obtained his PhD in 2014 from the University of Tunis. He mainly works on minorities in the Mediterranean, particularly the expulsion of the Moriscos and Sephardim. He is interested in the processes and complexities of identity formation, religious conversion, and the relations between the West and the Arab-Muslim world (especially the Maghreb) in the early modern period. He teaches undergraduate classes on medieval Islamic history and early modern Tunisia and Iberia.

Necmettin Gökkır is a professor at the Department of Islamic Studies, University of Istanbul. He studied in Istanbul (BA and MA) and received his PhD in Islamic studies from the University of Manchester. As a postdoc, he conducted research in Jordan and Ireland.

© 2018, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11127-0 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19803-5

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Contributors

His main research areas are modern interpretations of the Qurʾan, the print culture of the Ottomans, and the history of muṣḥaf printings. He is the editor of the project ‘Thematic Tafsir’, which is funded by the Presidency of Religious Affairs, Turkey.

Marta Dominguez Diaz (BA Barcelona, MA and PhD SOAS, London) is a senior lecturer in Islamic studies (anthropology) at the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland and Senior Research Fellow, Department of Religious Studies, University of Vienna. She has previously held research and teaching posts at SOAS (London) and the Woolf Institute (Cambridge). Her research interests include cultural identities and minorities in North Africa, North African Sufism, transnational Islam, Islam in Europe, comparative religion, and Muslim-Jewish relations. She has published a number of academic articles, is the author of Women in Sufism. Female Religiosities in a Transnational Order (Routledge 2014), and is concluding the monograph Tunisia’s Andalusians. The Cultural Identity of a North African Minority (Edinburgh University Press).

Manar Makhoul is a postdoctoral fellow at Tel Aviv University and a lecturer at Sapir Academic College. He received his PhD in Asian and Middle Eastern studies from the University of Cambridge (2013). His research interests include cultural studies, literature, identity studies, and the political sociology of Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Constantin Wagner is an international postdoctoral fellow at the University of St. Gallen. He studied comparative religion, cultural anthropology, political science, and sociology in Frankfurt (Main) and Geneva. He received his PhD in ‘Organization and Culture’ from the University of St. Gallen. Previously, he was a scientific assistant at the Institute for the Study of Islamic Culture and Religion at Goethe University, Frankfurt (Main).

Ömer Özsoy is Professor for the Exegesis of the Qurʾan at the University of Frankfurt (Main). His main research interests are the genesis, exegesis, and hermeneutics of the Qurʾan and Qurʾan interpretation, as well as contemporary Muslim thought (with a focus on Islam and modernity). He studied at the University of Ankara and received his PhD in 1991. Subsequently, he researched as a postdoc at the University of Heidelberg. Since 2006 he has been researching and teaching as a professor in Germany.

Michael Josef Marx studied Arabic and Islamic studies, Semitic studies, and general linguistics in Berlin, Paris, Bonn, and Tehran. He was a scientific assistant at the Institute

© 2018, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11127-0 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19803-5

Contributors

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for Semitic and Arabic Studies (Free University Berlin). Since 2007 he has been the head of the project ‘Corpus Coranicum’ at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. He is the editor of the databases ‘Manuscript Coranica’ and ‘Readings of the Qurʾan’.

Tobias J. Jocham studied Arabic and Islamic studies and ancient history at the Free University (Berlin). He is currently a scientific assistant in the German-French collaborative project ‘Paleocoran’. Previously, he was a scientific assistant at the Collège de France. His main research interests are codicology (transliteration) and the development and implementation of 14C analysis of early Qurʾan manuscripts.

Meltem Kulaçatan studied Islamic religious pedagogy and political science, with a focus on the modern Middle East. She received her PhD in 2012 from the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, Department of Political Science. Since 2015 she has been researching and teaching at the University of Frankfurt. In 2016 she taught as a guest professor of Islamic theology and education in Zurich.

Abdullah Takım is Professor for Classical and Modern Exegesis of the Qurʾan (tafsīr) at the University of Vienna. Previously, he was a professor at Frankfurt University from 2007–2016. He studied Oriental studies, Islamic studies, and philosophy at the University of Bochum, and received his PhD in 2005. His main research interests are the exegesis of the Qurʾan, mysticism, philosophy, and ethics, as well as Islamic reform movements and Muslim-Christian dialogue.

Hala Auji is an art historian specializing in the arts of the Islamic world. She holds a PhD in art history from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Binghamton and an MA in criticism and theory from Art Center College of Design, Pasadena. Her research interests include Arabic print culture, the nineteenth-century decorative arts in Europe and the Middle East, the history of Islamic manuscript practices, the politics of exhibiting and collecting Islamic art, global art historiography, and the arts of the book in Asia. She is the author of Printing Arab Modernity. Book Culture and the American Press in Nineteenth-Century Beirut (Brill 2016).

Rachida Chih is a senior researcher at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) and a member of the Center for Turkish, Ottoman, Balkan, and Central Asian

© 2018, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11127-0 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19803-5

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Studies (CETOBAC), École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS), Paris. She is currently completing a book on Sufism in Egypt in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Her published works include: Le soufisme à l’époque ottomane/Sufism in the Ottoman Era, with Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen; Le soufisme au quotidien. Confréries d’Égypte au XXe siècle; Le saint et son milieu, with Denis Gril; and Sufism, Literary Production and Printing in the Nineteenth Century, with Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen and Rüdiger Seesemann.

© 2018, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11127-0 — ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-19803-5

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