Yemeni Manuscript Cultures in Peril 9781463242039

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Yemeni Manuscript Cultures in Peril

Gorgias Handbooks

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Gorgias Handbooks provides students and scholars with reference books, textbooks and introductions to different topics or fields of study. In this series, Gorgias welcomes books that are able to communicate information, ideas and concepts effectively and concisely, with useful reference bibliographies for further study.

Yemeni Manuscript Cultures in Peril

Edited by

Hassan Ansari Sabine Schmidtke

gp 2022

Gorgias Press LLC, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com 2022 Copyright © by Gorgias Press LLC

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2022

ISBN 978-1-4632-4202-2

ISSN 1935-6838

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A Cataloging-in-Publication Record is available at the Library of Congress. Printed in the United States of America

TABLE OF CONTENTS The Fate of Yemeni Manuscripts, Late Nineteenth to Early Twenty-First Centuries: An Introduction ......................................................................................................... 1 Hassan Ansari and Sabine Schmidtke

PART ONE. MANUSCRIPT LIBRARIES

IN YEMEN ........................................................ 121

‘Touching a Piece of History’: The Life-Cycles and Destinies of Private Yemeni Libraries in an Era of Turmoil ............................................................................................... 123 Gabriele vom Bruck al-Khizāna al-Mutawakkiliyya: The Imam’s New Library .............................................. 149 Brinkley Messick The Historic Journey of Banī al-Wazīr’s Library ............................................................ 171 Zaid bin Ali al-Wazir Yemeni Cultural Patrimony in Manuscript Form: Several Decades of Public Policy ... 189 Anne Regourd Nūr al-Maʿārif: The Late 13th-Century Rasulid Administrative Archive of al-Malik alMuzaffar Yusuf ....................................................................................................... 213 Daniel Martin Varisco

PART TWO. YEMENI MANUSCRIPTS

IN THE WORLD .................................................. 235

Toward a Reconstruction of ʿAbd Allāh b. Zayd al-ʿAnsī’s Oeuvre and Thought .......... 237 Hassan Ansari and Sabine Schmidtke From Iran to Kawkabān: The Transfer of Sunnī Ḥadīth to Zaydī Yemen : A Case Study of Ms. Vienna, Cod. Glaser 30.................................................................................... 347 Stefanie Brinkmann v

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Yemeni Manuscripts of Diverse Provenance at the Berlin State Library ...................... 385 Christoph Rauch Eduard Glaser’s Personal Nachlass in Archives of the Czech Republic ........................ 417 Jan Thiele Opening Yemen Up to Italy: Coffee, Textiles, and Arabic Manuscripts ........................ 439 Valentina Sagaria Rossi From the Eyries of Yemen to the Pastures of Holland: The Acquisition and Preservation of Yemeni Manuscripts at Leiden University Library ............................................ 485 Karin Scheper and Arnoud Vrolijk Al-Sayyid Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-ʿUbaykān (1899–1993): A Saudi Official and His Yemeni Manuscript Collection ........................................................................ 517 Bernard Haykel Contributors ................................................................................................................... 533

THE FATE OF YEMENI MANUSCRIPTS, LATE NINETEENTH TO EARLY TWENTY-FIRST CENTURIES: AN INTRODUCTION1 HASSAN ANSARI AND SABINE SCHMIDTKE THE KHIZĀNA AL-MUTAWAKKILIYYA AS A WINDOW INTO THE HISTORY OF LIBRARIES AND BOOK CULTURE IN Y EMEN In the aftermath of the Ottoman Empire’s collapse at the end of World War I, the northern part of Yemen came under the rule of the Ḥamīd al-Dīn dynasty.2 Imam al-Mutawakkil ʿalā llāh Yaḥyā b. Muḥammad b. Yaḥyā Ḥamīd al-Dīn (r. 1904–1948) devised an idiosyncratic religio-pedagogical program to advance religion and culture in Yemen and strengthen its Zaydi identity, while at the same time attempting to shield its citizens from the advancements of modernity.3 His educational reforms included the foundation in 1926 of a “mosque university” (al-Madrasa al-ʿIlmiyya), where the country’s elite was educated over 1

Thanks are due to the following libraries for providing us with digital copies of the codices referred to in this introduction and for granting us permission to include reproductions of selected images: in Ankara, Milli Kütüphanesi; in Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin-Preussischer Kulturbesitz; in Bombay, Kutubkhāna-yi Madrasa-yi Muḥammadiyya-yi Jāmiʿ Masjid; in Bursa, Haraççioğlu Library; in Cairo, Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣriyya and Maktabat al-Azhar; in Istanbul, Süleymaniye Library; in Hyderabad, al-Maktaba al-Khalīliyya; in Leiden, Leiden University Library; in Leipzig, Leipzig University Library; in Lucknow, the Nāṣiriyya Library; in Mashhad, the Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍawī Library; in Muscat, Dāʾirat Makhṭūṭāt Wizārat al-Turāth wa-lThaqāfa bi-Salṭanat ʿUmān; in New York, Columbia University Library; in Najaf, the library of Muʾassasat Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ alʿĀmma; in Naples, the library of University “L’Orientale”; in Riyadh, Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University Library; in Rome, Biblioteca dell’Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei e Corsiana and Biblioteca IsMEO; in Sanaa, Maktabat al-Awqāf and Muʾassasat al-Imām Zayd b. ʿAlī al-Thaqāfiyya (Imam Zayd bin Ali Cultural Foundation, IZbACF); in Tarim, Maktabat al-Aḥqāf; in Vienna, the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Austrian National Library; in Žatec, Regionální muzeum K.A. Polánka. 2 For Yemen under Ottoman rule, 1849–1919, see Thomas Kuehn, Empire, Islam, and Politics of Difference: Ottoman Rule in Yemen, 1849–1919, Leiden: Brill, 2011. 3 For the history of Yemen during the era of Imam Yaḥyā, see Paul Dresch, History of Modern Yemen, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, chapters 1 and 2.

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the next several decades.4 Moreover, in 1925 Imam Yaḥyā issued a decree announcing the establishment of a public library, al-Khizāna al-Mutawakkiliyya (today Maktabat al-Awqāf) on the premises of the Great Mosque in Sanaa, which in many ways constituted a novelty in Yemen. The principal purpose behind the library, as spelled out in the 1925 decree, was to gather what remained of the many historical libraries dispersed all over the country and thus to prevent further losses. For this purpose, the imam appointed as library officials qualified scholars, who started to build up the collections. The details of this process can be gleaned from the notes that were added to each codex. These record the provenance of the individual codices and the date when each was transferred to the Khizāna, as well as occasional specific regulations for the codex in question (figs. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 65, 82). Gradually, registers of the holdings of the newly founded Khizāna were produced, culminating in a catalog published around 1942/43.5 The catalog, a large folio volume consisting of 344 pages and describing some eight thousand titles of both manuscripts and printed books, is a remarkable piece of work: although the information about each manuscript and printed volume is kept to a minimum, it methodically records the origin of each item.6 Taken together, these data allow for an inquiry into the history of the library’s manuscript holdings (some four thousand items), dating from the tenth century CE up until the first decades of the twentieth, thus opening a representative window into the history of manuscript production and book culture in Yemen over the course of a millennium.7 The oldest layer of manuscripts (constituting 5 percent of the Khizāna’s total holdings), which includes some which were produced in the fourth/tenth and fifth/eleventh centuries, came from the library of Imam al-Manṣūr bi-llāh ʿAbd Allāh b. Ḥamza (r. 593– 614/1197–1217), which was situated in his town of residence, Ẓafār (Dhībīn). 4

See Ismāʿīl b. ʿAlī al-Akwaʿ, al-Madāris al-islāmiyya fī l-Yaman, Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Risāla / Sanaa: Maktabat alJīl al-Jadīd, 1406/1986, pp. 400–434. The Madrasa al-ʿIlmiyya was closed in 1963. 5 Fihrist kutub al-Khizāna al-Mutawakkiliyya al-ʿāmira bi-l-Jāmiʿ al-muqaddas bi-Ṣanʿāʾ al-maḥmiyya, Sanaa: Wizārat almaʿārif, [ca. 1942/43]. Although no author is named in the publication, Ismāʿīl b. ʿAlī al-Akwaʿ mentions Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Ḥajrī (1307–1380/1889 or 1890–1960) as the person responsible for the compilation of the catalog; see alAkwaʿ’s preface to Aḥmad Muḥammad ʿĪsawī and Muḥammad Saʿīd al-Malīḥ, Fihris makhṭūṭāt al-Maktaba al-Gharbiyya bi-l-Jāmiʿ al-kabīr bi-Ṣanʿāʾ, Alexandria: Manshaʾat Dār al-Maʿārif, 1978; see also ʿAbd al-Salām b. ʿAbbās al-Wajīh, Aʿlām almuʾallifīn al-Zaydiyya, 2nd rev. and enl. ed., 2 vols., Sanaa: Muʾassasat Imām Zayd b. ʿAlī al-Thaqāfiyya, 1439/2018, vol. 2, pp. 192–193. Al-Ḥajrī also compiled a catalog of the personal library of Imam Yaḥyā, but this was never published. One of the few non-Yemeni scholars able to consult the catalog was Muhammad Hamidullah (1908-2002) during his visit to Sanaa in 1947; see Muhammad Hamidullah, “Le ‘Livre des Généalogies’ d'al-Balāḏurīy,” Bulletin d'études orientales 14 (19521954), pp. 197-211, here p. 198. For Hamidullah and his journey to Yemen in 1947, see also below, n. 8. For the Khizāna al-Mutawakkiliyya and its 1942/43 catalog, see also Brinkley Messick’s contribution to this volume. When the Egyptians visited Sanaa in the early 1950s (for details see below), the private library of Imam Yaḥyā with some 1,000 codices was still kept separate from the library of the Great Mosque; see Ayman Fuʾād Sayyid, Sources de l’histoire du Yémen à l’époque musulmane = Maṣādir tārīkh al-Yaman fī l-ʿaṣr al-islāmī, Cairo: Institut français d’archéologie orientale, 1974, p. 421. 6 For sample images from the catalog, see figs. 2 through 10 in Brinkley Messick’s contribution to this volume. 7 The figures in the following are based on our own statistical analysis of the data in the 1942/43 catalog, Fihrist kutub al-Khizāna al-Mutawakkiliyya. The only study to touch briefly on the history of the Khizāna al-Mutawakkiliyya and its holdings is Ismāʿīl b. ʿAlī al-Akwaʿ, “al-Turāth al-fikrī fī ghābir al-Yaman wa-ḥāḍirihā,” Majallat Majmaʿ al-lugha al-ʿarabiyya al-urdunnī 4, nos. 11–12 (1401/1981), pp. 77–91.

INTRODUCTION

Figure 1. MS Sanaa, Maktabat al-Awqāf, majāmiʿ 10 (title page with ownership statement by Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn b. al-Qāsim and note of transfer to Sanaa, dated Rajab 1343/January–February 1925).

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Figure 2. MS Sanaa, Maktabat al-Awqāf 543 (title page of mujallad 5 of the K. al-Mughnī by ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Hamadhānī).

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Figure 3. MS Sanaa, Maktabat al-Awqāf 551 (title page of Ibn Mattawayh’s al-Majmūʿ fī l-Muḥīṭ bi-l-taklīf).

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Figure 4. MS Sanaa, Maktabat al-Awqāf 599 (title page of a supercommentary [taʿlīq] of Ismāʿīl b. ʿAlī b. Ismāʿīl al-Farrazādī on the Sharḥ al-Uṣūl al-khamsa by ʿAbd al-Jabbār alHamadhānī, with various ownership statements by members of the Āl al-Wazīr).

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Figure 5. MS Sanaa, Maktabat al-Awqāf 207 (title page of volume 5 of al-Basīṭ fī l-tafsīr by Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. Mattūya [d. 468/1076]).

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Figure 6. MS Sanaa, Maktabat al-Jāmiʿ al-kabīr, 3024 (titlepage of Ṣawārim al-yaqīn by Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn b. al-Manṣūr al-Qāsim, with a note indicating that the codex belonged to Imām Yaḥyā’s personal library).

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Figure 7. MS Muscat, Dāʾirat makhṭūṭāt wizārat al-turāth wa-l-thaqāfa bi-Salṭanat ʿUmān 101 (title page of volume five of al-Ḥākim al-Jishumī's al-Tahdhīb fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān).

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Figure 8. MS Rome, Biblioteca dell’Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei e Corsiana, Or. 364 (title page of volume 8 of al-Basīṭ fī l-tafsīr by Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. Mattūya [d. 468/1076]).

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Figure 9. MS Cairo, Dār al-Kutub, Taymūr ʿaqāʾid 357 (title page of volume 1 of Ibn Mattawayh’s al-Majmūʿ fī l-Muḥīṭ bi-l-taklīf, dated Ramaḍān 683/August–September 1284 and copied by ʿAlī b. ʿAbd Allāh al-ʿAtiyya al-Najrānī).

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Figure 10. MS Cairo, Dār al-Kutub, Taymūr ʿaqāʾid 357 (end and final colophon of volume 1 of Ibn Mattawayh’s al-Majmūʿ fī l-Muḥīṭ bi-l-taklīf, dated Ramaḍān 683/August–September 1284 and copied by ʿAlī b. ʿAbd Allāh al-ʿAtiyya al-Najrānī).

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Figure 11. MS Cairo, Maktabat al-Azhar 10633 (title page of al-Kāfiya fī l-jadal, attributed to al-Juwaynī).

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Figure 12. MS Cairo, Maktabat al-Azhar 10633 (end of text and final colophon of al-Kāfiya fī l-jadal, attributed to al-Juwaynī).

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Figure 13. MS Bursa, Haraççioğlu Library, no. 1309 (title page of Kitāb al-Uṣūl by Jaʿfar b. Ḥarb).

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Figure 14. MS Leiden, Leiden University Library, Or. 811 (title page of an exegesis attributed to al-Qushayrī).

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Figure 15. MS Leiden, Leiden University Library, Or. 811, fol. 295r (final page in the codex).

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Figure 16. MS Istanbul, Süleymaniye, Şehit Ali Paşa 1575 (title page of Tathbīt dalāʾil al-nubuwwa, attributed to ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Hamadhānī).

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Figure 17. MS Ankara, Milli Kütüphanesi Yz A 295 (first leaf of ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Hamadhānī’s K. al-Tanzīh).

Figure 18. MS Ankara, Milli Kütüphanesi Yz A 295 (final leaf of ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Hamadhānī’s K. al-Tanzīh).

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This layer includes well-known works of Muʿtazilī literature, such as several volumes of the K. al-Mughnī fī abwāb al-tawḥīd wa-l-ʿadl by the chief judge and head of the Baṣran Muʿtazila ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Hamadhānī (d. 415/1025) (figs. 2, 65), as well as writings by some of the latter’s students and companions, including Abū Rashīd al-Nīsābūrī and Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan b. Aḥmad Ibn Mattawayh (fig. 3).8 Another set of particularly precious and old manuscripts in the Khizāna originated in the library of the Āl al-Wazīr, a

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It should be noted that a few Muʿtazilī works have come down to us that originated in Sunni circles. This is the case with the Kitāb al-Uṣūl, a heresiography written, according to Wilferd Madelung, by Jaʿfar b. Ḥarb (d. 236/850), which is preserved in a unique manscript in Bursa, Haraççioğlu Library, no. 1309 (fig. 13); for the work, see Wilferd Madelung, “Frühe muʿtazilitische Häresiographie: Das Kitāb al-Uṣūl des Ǧaʿfar b. Ḥarb?,” Der Islam 57 (1980), pp. 220–236; Josef van Ess, Der Eine und das Andere: Beobachtungen an islamischen häresiographischen Texten, 2 vols., Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011, vol. 1, pp. 140–148. An editio princeps was published in Josef van Ess, Frühe muʿtazilitische Häresiographie: Zwei Werke des Nāšiʾ al-akbar (gest. 293 H.), Beirut: Orient-Institut, 1971, which identifies the text as a work by Nāshiʾ al-Akbar (d. 293/906) on the basis of the manuscript’s title page. A new edition was published in 2007 by Seyit Bahcıvan as Mezhepler tarihi yazmalarında aidiyet problemi: “Usulu’n-Nihal ve elfıraku’l-İslamiyye”; Örneği ve Eserlerin Edisyon Kritiği, Konya: Adal Ofset, 2007. Hassan Ansari rather proposes Aḥmad b. al-Ḥasan b. Sahl al-Mismaʿī (d. ca. 270/883-84) as the most probable author of the Kitāb al-Uṣūl; see Hassan Ansari, "Kitāb-i Uṣūl al-niḥal az kīst? Naqdī bar Āqāyān fān Ess wa Mādilūng," Barrasī-hā-yi tārīkhī, https://ansari.kateban.com/post/4927 (accessed 21 February 2022). Another example is the single extant copy of al-Khayyāṭ’s (d. ca. 300/913) K. al-Intiṣār, which was copied in 347/958–59 and purchased by the Dār al-Kutub in July 1910. For the history of the codex, see Nyberg’s introduction to his edition of the book: Abū l-Ḥusayn ʿAbd al-Raḥīm b. Muḥammad b. ʿUthmān al-Khayyāṭ, K. al-Intiṣār wal-radd ʿalā Ibn al-Rawandī al-mulḥid, ed. H. S. Nyberg, Cairo: n.p., 1344/1925. MS Leiden, Leiden University Library, Or. 811 (dated 535/1140; see colophon on fol. 200v) is a partial exegesis, covering verses Q 57:21 through 66:12 (fig. 15), that is attributed on the title page to Abū l-Qāsim al-Qushayrī (d. 465/1072) (fig. 14). This is evidently a misattribution—the work was clearly composed by a Muʿtazilī author, and the dates of the individual majālis, which constitute the basic structural organization of the material, indicate the time of the work’s composition: the first majlis is dated 2 Dhū l-Ḥijja 413/25 February 1023 and the last one 19 Rabīʿ I 414/10 June 1023. Hassan Ansari, in “Kashf-i nuskha-yi yik tafsīr-i tāza yāb-i muʿtazilī: Taʾlīf Abū Muslim Ibn Mihrīzad Iṣfahānī wa yā tafsīrī az Abū l-ʿAbbās-i Sammān?,” Barrasī-hā-yi tārīkhī, http://ansari.kateban.com/post/4899 (accessed 21 January 2022), has suggested that the author could be either Abū Muslim Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn b. Mihrīzad al-Naḥwī al-Muʿallim al-Adīb alIṣbahānī (b. 366/976–77, d. 459/1066–67), a Muʿtazilī who was renowned for his comprehensive tafsīr of twenty volumes, or, more likely, Abū l-ʿAbbās al-Sammān, who belonged to the circle of ʿAbd al-Jabbār; see Fuʾād Sayyid (ed.), Faḍl al-iʿtizāl wa-ṭabaqāt al-Muʿtazila, ed. Ayman Fuʾād Sayyid, Beirut: al-Maʿhad al-Almānī li-lAbḥāth al-Sharqiyya, 1439/2017, pp. 398, 406. Al-Sammān is also renowned for his tafsīr. See Hassan Ansari and Sabine Schmidtke, Al-Šarīf al-Murtaḍā’s Oeuvre and Thought in Context: An Archaeological Inquiry into Texts and Their Transmission, Cordoba: UCOPress, 2022, p. 134 n. 205. An overview of earlier scholarship on the Leiden codex is given in Martin Nguyen, “Al-Tafsīr al-kabīr: An Investigation of al-Qushayrī’s Major Qurʾan Commentary,” Journal of Sufi Studies 2 (2013), pp. 17–45, here pp. 20–22. Nguyen tentatively defends alQushayrī’s authorship, but his argumentation is not convincing. Nguyen tries to show that the work’s frequent references to Abū ʿAlī, Abū l-Qāsim, qāḍī l-quḍāt, and Abū Muslim do not refer to Abū ʿAlī al-Jubbāʾī (d. 303/915), Abū l-Qāsim al-Kaʿbī al-Balkhī (d. 319/931), ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Hamadhānī, and Abū Muslim al-Iṣfahānī (d. 322/934), as they appear to do, and he appeals to the division of the work into majālis as evidence of alQushayrī’s authorship but ignores the fact that this was a common structural arrangement in this period (and

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beyond) that was not restricted to Sufi circles. For a digital surrogate of MS Leiden, Or. 811, see http://hdl.handle.net/1887.1/item:1934500 (accessed 8 December 2021). The exegetical work, al-Jāmiʿ fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān of the Muʿtazili ʿAlī b. ʿĪsā al-Rummānī (d. 384/994) apparently circulated only among Sunnis; for the extant manuscripts, see Alena Kulinich, “Representing ʻa Blameworthy Tafsīrʼ: Muʿtazilite Exegetical Tradition in al-Jāmiʿ fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān of ʿAlī ibn ʿĪsā al-Rummānī (d. 384/994),” PhD thesis, University of London, 2021, pp. 62–63; see also the introduction by Khaḍir Muḥammad Nabhā to his edition of Tafsīr Abī l-Ḥasan al-Rummānī (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2009, esp. p. 8). Mention should also be made of Abū l-Qāsim al-Kaʿbī al-Balkhī’s Qabūl al-akhbār wa-maʿrifat al-rijāl; the single extant copy of the work, dated Dhū l-Qaʿda 572/May–June 1177, is held by the Dār al-Kutub in Cairo. For a description of the copy, see Abū ʿAmr al-Ḥusaynī b. ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-Raḥīm’s introduction to his edition of the work (Abū l-Qāsim al-Kaʿbī al-Balkhī, Qabūl al-akhbār wa-maʿrifat al-rijāl, ed. Abū ʿAmr al-Ḥusaynī b. ʿUmar b. ʿAbd alRaḥīm, 2 vols., Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2000), vol. 1, pp. 23–24), and Hüseyin Hansu’s introduction to his edition (Abū l-Qāsim al-Kaʿbī al-Balkhī, Qabūl al-akhbār wa-maʿrifat al-rijāl, ed. Ḥusayn Khānṣū [Hüseyin Hansu], Amman: Dār al-Fatḥ / Istanbul: KURAMER Center for Quranic Studies, 1439/2018, pp. 23–25). A further example is Tathbīt dalāʾil al-nubuwwa, attributed on the title page of the single extant copy, MS Istanbul, Süleymaniye, Şehit Ali Paşa 1575, to “Qāḍī l-Quḍāt ʿAbd al-Jabbār b. Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Hamadhānī” (fig. 16); see ʿAbd al-Karīm ʿUthmān’s introduction to his edition of the text (Beirut: Dār al-ʿArabiyya, 1386/1966), p. kāf. Hassan Ansari has questioned ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s authorship of the text; see Hassan Ansari, “Yik pursish-i muhimm dar bāra-yi yik kitāb-i mashhūr: Tathbīt dalāʾil-i nubuwwa,” Barrasī-hā-yi tārīkhī, http://ansari.kateban.com/post/2226 (accessed 21 January 2022); Hassan Ansari, “Nawīsanda-yi Tathbīt-i dalāʾil al-nubuwwa (2),” Barrasī-hā-yi tārīkhī, http://ansari.kateban.com/post/2236 (accessed 21 January 2022). ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s Tanzīh al-Qurʾān ʿan al-maṭāʿin is also preserved in at least one manuscript in Cairo and it was first published in Cairo: al-Maṭbaʿa al-Jamāliyya in 1329/1911 (frequently reprinted), decades before the Egyptians visited the libraries of Yemen, and again in 2006 (ed. Aḥmad ʿAbd al-Raḥīm al-Sāyiḥ, Cairo: Maktabat alNāfidha, 2006; the editor remains silent about the manuscript[s] he consulted for the edition). See ʿAdnān Muḥammad Zarzūr’s introduction to his edition of ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s Mutashābih al-Qurʾān, 2 vols., Cairo: Dār alTurāth, 1969, vol. 1, p. 25 n. 4, where Zarzūr specifies the manuscript consulted for the 1329/1911 print (MS Cairo, Dār al-Kutub, tafsīr 330) and anounces that he has discovered a second copy of Tanzīh al-Qurʾān (but provides no further information). Another witness of the Tanzīh that has never been consulted so far is preserved as MS Ankara, Milli Kütüphanesi Yz A 295 (figs. 17, 18). The first leaf containing the book’s title page and its beginning is missing, and some folios are missing throughout the codex. Otherwise, the codex, which is evidently not of Yemen origin, can be tentatively dated to the seventh/thirteenth century, if not before. For a future new edition of the work, this manuscript would have to be consulted. It is noteworthy that the book's title according to al-Ḥākim alJishumī's (d. 494/1101) Sharḥ ʿUyūn al-masāʾil is just al-Tanzīh; see Fuʾād Sayyid (ed.), Faḍl al-iʿtizāl wa-ṭabaqāt al-Muʿtazila, Beirut: Orient-Institut, 2017, p. 376. Moreover, the work not only circulated among the Sunnis but also among the Imamis. It is mentioned, for example, by Raḍī al-Dīn ʿAlī b. Mūsā Ibn Ṭāwūs (d. 664/1266). See Etan Kohlberg, A Medieval Muslim Scholar at Work: Ibn Ṭāwūs and His Library, Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1992, p. 355 no. 593. For the case of ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s Mutashābih al-Qurʾān, see below n. 74. Abū Yūsuf al-Qazwīnī (d. 488/1095), a former student of ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Hamadhānī, wrote K. al-Wāḍiḥ, a work on legal theory, which is preserved in a unique manuscript in Istanbul, viz. MS Istanbul, Beyazıt Devlet Kütüphanesi 18944; for the work, see Ansari and Schmidtke, Al-Šarīf al-Murtaḍā’s Oeuvre and Thought, chapter 1.6. A critical edition of K. al-Wāḍiḥ by Hassan Ansari, Ehsan Mousavi Khalkhali, and Sabine Schmidtke is forthcoming. Our work on the edition began some two years ago, after Hassan Ansari had identified MS Istanbul, Beyazıt 18944 as the K. al-Wāḍiḥ (the manuscript’s title page has merely a descriptive title, Mukhtaṣar fī uṣūl al-fiqh) and written about it on social media. Subsequently, Muḥammad al-Ḥusaynī (i.e., Muḥammad b. Sharaf al-Dīn b. ʿAbd Allāh al-

22

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Ḥusaynī, on whom see below) and ʿAbd Allāh al-Ghizzī published the book (Kuwait: Dār al-Fāris, 2021). We have not seen the publication and cannot judge its quality. The Kitāb al-Tajrīd fī uṣūl al-fiqh by Rukn al-Dīn Maḥmūd Ibn al-Malāḥīmī (d. 536/1179) is preserved in a single witness, copied in 575/1179 by one Abū l-ʿIzz Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. ʿAlī. The copy, which is nowadays preserved as MS Oxford, Bodleian, Arab. E. 103, was apparently produced in Khwārazm. For a detailed description and study, see Ansari and Schmidtke, Studies in Medieval Islamic Intellectual Traditions, pp. 76–79. Another copy of the book was kept until 1947 in a private library in Ahdal in southern Yemen when it was presented as a gift to Muhammad Hamidullah (on whom see also above, n. 7), the editor of Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī's K. al-Muʿtamad (Damascus, 1964-65), by the qāḍī of the Bayt al-Faqīh of Ahdal. Its current whereabouts are unknown. For details, see Ansari and Schmidtke, Studies in Medieval Islamic Intellectual Traditions, p. 78. For Hamidullah's trip to Yemen during the spring of 1947 (and not 1946 as is erroneously mentioned in the French introduction to his edition of the Muʿtamad, p. 29), see his correspondence with Paul E. Kahle (Università degli studi di Torino, Biblioteca di Orientalistica, Fondo Paul Kahle, COR_925). Abū l-Maʿālī Ṣāʿid b. Aḥmad al-ʿUjālī al-Uṣūlī, who hailed most likely from Khurāsān and may have been a member of the famous Āl Ṣāʿid, a Ḥanafī family in Nishapur, was probably a student of Ibn al-Malāḥimī. He is the author of a K. al-Kāmil fī uṣūl al-dīn, in which the doctrines of Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī are systematically compared with those of the Bahshamiyya. A precious copy of the work is preserved in Yemen (MS Sanaa, Maktabat al-Awqāf 711; figs. 81, 82), and another one is preserved as MS Leiden, Leiden University Library, Or. 487 (figs. 84, 85); see https://catalogue.leidenuniv.nl/permalink/f/q6ue0j/UBL_ALMA21323469060002711 (accessed 13 December 2021). It seems that the two witnesses represent different versions of the K. al-Kāmil. MS Leiden, Or. 487 was possibly produced in Khurāsān and is part of the Levinus Warner (d. 1665) collection, indicating that it was purchased in Istanbul. For a description of the Leiden codex, see al-Sayyid Muḥammad al-Shāhid’s introduction to his edition of the work (which was based on the Leiden manuscript only), al-Kāmil fī l-istiqṣāʾ fīmā balaghanā min kalām al-qudamāʾ, li-l-Shaykh al-ʿAllāma Taqī alAʿimma wa-l-Dīn Mukhtār b. Maḥmūd al-ʿUjālī al-Muʿtazilī al-shahīr bi-Taqī al-Dīn al-Najrānī, ed. al-Sayyid Muḥammad al-Shāhid, Cairo: Wizārat al-Awqāf, 1420/1999. Al-Shāhid misidentified the work’s author by conflating the names of two different scholars; see Hassan Ansari, “Kitāb al-Kāmil-i Ṣāʿid b. Aḥmad al-Uṣūlī, kitābī dar dānish-i kalām-i muʿtazilī,” Barrasī-hā-yi tārīkhī, http://ansari.kateban.com/post/1829 (accessed 21 January 2022). MS London, British Library 8613 contains a fragment of a work that can possibly be identified as the Sharḥ al-Uṣūl al-kabīr by the Iranian Zaydi author ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn b. Muḥammad Siyāh [Shāh] Sarījān [Sarbījān] (fl. fifth/twelfth century), a supercommentary on the Kitāb al-Uṣūl by Abū ʿAlī Muḥammad b. Khallād al-Baṣrī, the distinguished disciple of Abū Hāshim al-Jubbāʾī (d. 321/933). The fragment’s editor, Richard C. Martin, writes about the manuscript: “Little is known of the provenance of the text; it was purchased in 1926 by the British Museum from the collection of Majid Belshah who, I am told, was a dealer who sold several MSS to the British Museum in that period.” See Richard C. Martin, “A Muʿtazilite Treatise on Prophethood and Miracles: Being Probably the Bāb ʿalā lNubuwwah from the Ziyadat al-Sharḥ by Abū Rashīd al-Nīsābūrī,” PhD dissertation, New York University, 1975, p. 16. This suggests that the fragment did not originate in Yemen. For the fragment’s tentative identification, see Ansari and Schmidtke, Studies in Medieval Islamic Intellectual Traditions, pp. 123–124. It is also noteworthy that certain Muʿtazilī works were transmitted exclusively among the Imamiyya. This applies to some dogmatic tracts by al-Ṣāḥib b. ʿAbbād (d. 385/995), notably the Ibāna and the Tadhkira, which are preserved among the Imamis and never reached Yemen; for details, see Ansari and Schmidtke, Al-Šarīf al-Murtaḍā’s Oeuvre and Thought, passim. In 1374/1955, Ḥusayn ʿAlī Maḥfūẓ published an edition of al-Sāḥib b. ʿAbbād’s Risāla fī l-hidāya wal-ḍalāla (Tehran: Maṭbūʿāt al-Ḥaydarī) on the basis of an allegedly very old copy of the text that appeared to go back to the time of the author (MS Tehran, Dānishgāh 1437; figs. 72, 73). However, the manuscript has since turned out to be a twentieth-century fabrication; see Hassan Ansari, “Risāla fī l-hidāya wa-l-ḍalāla mansūb bih Ṣāḥib b. ʿAbbād,” Barrasī-hā-yi tārīkhī, http://ansari.kateban.com/post/4841 (accessed 21 January 2022). Although the antigraph of the fabricated copy is unknown (the text itself appears to be authentic), the possibility that this manuscript is of

INTRODUCTION

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powerful Zaydi family in Yemen, whose members had been engaged in scholarship and politics since the sixth/twelfth century (fig. 4); some rose to power while others failed. During the reign of Imam al-Mutawakkil Ismāʿīl (r. 1054–1087/1644–1676), when the holdings of the Āl al-Wazīr family library were about to be dispersed, the imam ordered the books to be gathered and placed in a designated area on the premises of the Great Mosque of Sanaa (fī khizāna fi gharbī muʾakhkhar Jāmiʿ Ṣanʿāʾ).9 The codices that are described in the 1942/43 catalog as originating in the library of the Āl al-Wazīr also match an inventory of titles, dated 1101/1690, that lists the books of this family that were transferred to the Great Mosque during the Qāsimī era, indicating that they were subsequently incorporated into the Khizāna al-Mutawakkiliyya.10 The fate of other parts of the Āl al-Wazīr library remains unknown; a significant portion of the family’s books is said to have ended up in Istanbul.11 Most of the books that had remained in the possession of one of the branches of the family were confiscated and transferred to the Great Mosque after the failed 1948 coup d’état in which members of the Āl al-Wazīr played a leading role.12 Another portion, which belongs to another branch of the family, is still held by the family in Hijrat al-Sirr.13 The descriptions of the codices in Hijrat al-Sirr, the Fihrist kutub al-Khizāna al-Mutawakkiliyya, the 1101/1690 inventory, and other related historical documents indicate that the library of the Āl al-Wazīr constituted one of the most important Yemeni Zaydi libraries, with particularly valuable, old manuscripts.14 Among the largest collections that were incorporated into the Khizāna are the libraries of members of the Qāsimī dynasty, which ruled the country for most of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These members include two grandsons of the dynasty’s eponymous Yemeni provenance can safely be excluded. ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s Masʾala min kalām qāḍī l-quḍāt ʿAbd al-Jabbār b. Aḥmad fī anna l-mujbira wa-l-mushabbiha lā yumkinuhum al-istidlāl ʿalā l-nubuwwa circulated exclusively among the Twelver Shiʿis as a regular component of miscellanies of writings by al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā (d. 436/1044); see Ansari and Schmidtke, Al-Šarīf al-Murtaḍā’s Oeuvre and Thought, chapter 2.1 and passim. Likewise, ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s alMukhtaṣar fī uṣūl al-dīn also never reached Yemen; see Hassan Ansari and Sabine Schmidtke, Studies in Medieval Islamic Intellectual Traditions, Atlanta: Lockwood Press, 2017, p. 121 n. 52. 9 The relevant passage from Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn b. al-Qāsim al-Yamanī al-Ṣanʿānī’s (d. after 1099/1688) Mustaṭāb is quoted in al-Akwaʿ, “al-Turāth al-fikrī,” pp. 82–83; a portion of it is also quoted in ʿAbd al-Salām b. ʿAbbās al-Wajīh, Maṣādir al-turāth fī l-maktabāt al-khāṣṣa fī l-Yaman, 2 vols., McLean, VA: Muʾassasat al-Imām Zayd b. ʿAlī al-Thaqāfiyya, 1422/2002, vol. 2, pp. 356–357. 10 For an edition and analysis of this inventory, see Hassan Ansari and Sabine Schmidtke, “A Family Library in the Hands of the Qāsimīs at theTurn of the Twelfth/Eighteenth Century” [in preparation]. 11 See Zayd al-Wazir’s contribution to this volume. For a codex from the family’s library that is now part of the Imam Muhammad ibn Saud University in Riyadh, see below. 12 For the fate of the Āl al-Wazīr in the twentieth century, see Gabriele vom Bruck, Mirrored Loss: A Yemeni Woman’s Life Story, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. The books that were confiscated in 1948 were transferred to alMaktaba al-Gharbiyya (on which see below); see al-Akwaʿ, “al-Turāth al-fikrī,” pp. 86ff. 13 For catalogs of the holdings of the Hijrat al-Sirr library (which are not accessible), see ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad alḤibshī, Fihris makhṭūṭāt baʿḍa l-maktabāt al-khāṣṣa fī l-Yaman, London: Muʾassasat al-Furqān li-l-Turāth al-Islāmī, 1994, pp. 33–68 (listing 125 titles); al-Wajīh, Maṣādir, vol. 2, pp. 355–402 (listing 111 codices). 14 For the history of the library of the Āl al-Wazīr and the family‘s different branches, see also Zayd al-Wazir’s contribution to this volume. See also ʿImād al-Dīn Yaḥyā b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Miqrāʾī, Maknūn al-sirr fī taḥrīr naḥārīr al-sirr, ed. Zayd b. ʿAlī al-Wazīr, McLean, VA: Markaz al-Turāth wa-l-Buḥūth al-Yamanī, 1423/2002, pp. 150–151.

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founder, Imam al-Manṣūr al-Qāsim b. Muḥammad (r. 1006–1029/1597–1620), namely, alMahdī li-Dīn Allāh Aḥmad b. al-Ḥasan b. al-Qāsim (1029–1092/1620–1681), whose collection represents 10 percent of the Khizāna’s holdings, and Aḥmad’s older brother, Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan b. al-Qāsim (1010–1079/1601–1668), whose private library stands out for its size (31 percent) (fig. 5). Some of the leading bureaucrats during the first century of the Qāsimī period also had substantial personal libraries, and the remains of these were likewise transferred to the Khizāna; an example is the personal library of Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. Qays (d. 1096/1685) (21 percent). Imam Yaḥyā also contributed a significant number of manuscripts from his personal library to the newly founded Khizāna (17 percent) (fig. 6). Over the course of the twentieth century, the Khizāna also received endowments of the partial or complete holdings of the libraries of some prominent contemporary scholars of Yemen, including ʿAbd al-Wāsiʿ b. Yaḥyā al-Wāsiʿī (1295–1379/1878–1960), ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. ʿAbd alRaḥmān b. Ibrāhīm (1302–1396/1885–1976),15 ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAlī Kubās (1325–1402/1907–1981 or 1982), Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Ḥaymī (1350/1932–?),16 and others.17 Imam Yaḥyā’s concern to salvage what remained of the historical libraries to prevent further losses was certainly justified. Prior to the 1925 decree, numerous codices that had originally belonged to the libraries of Imam al-Manṣūr ʿAbd Allāh b. Ḥamza and members of the Qāsimī dynasty, for example, had been sold and are nowadays found in the libraries of Riyadh, Oman,17a Cairo,18

15

On him, see Ismāʿīl b. ʿAlī al-Akwaʿ, Hijar al-ʿilm wa-maʿāqiluhu fī l-Yaman, 6 vols., Beirut: Dār al-Fikr al-Muʿāṣir, 1424/2003, vol. 2, pp. 961–962 no. 15; Muḥammad b. Muḥammad Zabāra, Nuzhat al-naẓar fī rijāl al-qarn al-rābiʿ ʿashar, 2 vols., Sanaa: Maktabat al-Irshād, 1431/2010, p. 489. 16 On him, see al-Akwaʿ, Hijar al-ʿilm, vol. 1, p. 304 no. 7. 17 Their donations are regularly recorded in Aḥmad ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ruqayḥī, ʿAbd al-Allāh al-Ḥibshī, and ʿAlī Wahhāb al-Ānisī, Fihrist makhṭūṭāt Maktabat al-Jāmiʿ al-kabīr Ṣanʿā, 4 vols., [Sanaa:] Wizārat al-Awqāf wa-lIrshād, 1404/1984. 17a This is the case, for example, with a copy of volume five of al-Ḥākim al-Jishumī's al-Tahdhīb fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān. As is indicated on the titlepage (fig. 7), the copy was produced as the behest of Imam al-Manṣūr ʿAbd Allāh b. Ḥamza. The titlepage also has an ijāza, issued by al-Manṣūr for his sons Aḥmad and Muḥammad (dated Dhū lḤijja 603/July 1207). For a description of this manuscript, see the introduction of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sālimī to his edition of the work (10 vols., Cairo/Beirut: Dār al-Kitab al-Miṣrī/Dār al-Kitāb al-Lubnānī, 2018/2019), vol. 1, p. 154. Al-Sālimī does not mention the ijāza. Another example are some copies of al-Mutashābih fī l-Qurʾān by the Muʿtazilī author Abū Ṭāhir al-Ṭuraythīthī in the libraries of Oman; see ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sālimī, “al-Mutashābih fī l-Qurʾān li-l-Ṭuraythīthī: Dirāsa li-l-kitāb wa-nusakhihi al-khaṭṭiyya,” Majallat Maʿhad al-Makhṭūṭāt al-ʿArabiyya 52 (1429/2008). pp. 7-42, here pp. 26-28. 18 An example is volume 1 of Ibn Mattawayh’s al-Majmūʿ fī l-Muḥīṭ bi-l-taklīf, dated Ramaḍān 683/August–September 1284 and copied by ʿAlī b. ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAtiyya al-Najrānī (fig. 10), who belonged to a renowned family of Zaydi scholars in Yemen (for a later member of the ʿAṭiyya family, see al-Wajīh, Aʿlām, vol. 2, p. 84 no. 905; for the Āl ʿAṭiyya, see also al-Maqḥafī, Mawsūʿa, vol. 4, p. 478). The manuscript is part of the Taymūr collection, which is nowadays kept in the Dār al-Kutub in Cairo; see Fihris al-Khizāna al-Taymūriyya, vol. 4: al-ʿAqāʾid wal-uṣūl, Cairo: Maṭbaʿat Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣriyya, 1369/1950, p. 117 (shelf mark: ʿaqāʾid 357). The title page (fig. 9) has several ownership statements from Yemen, as well as Aḥmad Taymūr’s (1288-1348/1871-1930) stamp. The copy was consulted for the edition of the text (see Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan b. Aḥmad Ibn Mattawayh, alMajmūʿ fī l-Muḥīṭ bi-l-taklīf, vol. 1, ed. J. J. Houben, Beirut: Dār al-Mashriq, 1965, p. jīm). For the copy the editor refers to Hellmut Ritter, “Philologika. III. Muhammedanische Häresiographen,” Der Islam 18 (1929), pp. 34–59,

INTRODUCTION

25

here p. 42; Ritter, in turn, had learned about the copy through H. S. Nyberg (“Liegt auch vor in einer Handschrift von Teimur Pasha [Briefliche Mitteilung von H. S. Nyberg]”). According to Sāmī Naṣr Luṭf and Fayṣal Budayr ʿAwn’s introduction to their edition of volume 1 of Ibn Mattawayh’s Tadhkira (Cairo: Dār al-Thaqāfa, 1975, p. 17), the Taymūr collection also contains a copy of volume 1 of the Tadhkira. The editors note that the copy is incomplete in the beginning but provide no further details about it. The Taymūr collection also has copies of other Zaydi works, including Qāḍī Shams al-Dīn Jaʿfar b. Aḥmad b. ʿAbd al-Salām al-Buhlūlī al-Abnāwī’s (d. 573/1177–78) Sharḥ Qaṣīdat al-Ṣāḥib b. ʿAbbād (see below, n. 100). A study of the holdings of the Taymūr collection might bring additional copies of Zaydi/Yemeni books to light. For the Taymūr collection, see Ayman Fuʾād Sayyid, Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣriyya: Tārīkhuhā wa-taṭawwuruhā, Beirut: Awrāq Sharqiyya, 1417/1996, pp. 74–86. Another example is MS Cairo, Maktabat al-Azhar 10633, the single extant copy of al-Kāfiya fī l-jadal, a work attributed to Imām al-Ḥaramayn al-Juwaynī (d. 478/1085) (fig. 11). Although there are reasons to doubt alJuwaynī’s authorship of the work, it is evident that the author was an Ashʿarī. The manuscript was completed on 8 Rajab 650/14 September 1252 on the basis of a copy owned by the prominent Zaydi scholar Abū ʿAbd Allāh Ḥumayd b. Aḥmad al-Muḥallī (d. 652/1254). The latter added a note to his copy stating that he had collated it with a manuscript of the text from ʿIrāq, i.e., Rayy and Jibāl in Iran, and that he completed his collation in Dhū l-Qaʿda 640/April–May 1243. The scribe of MS Maktabat al-Azhar 10633, in turn, collated his copy with that of al-Muḥallī in Jumādā I 651/July 1253 (fig. 12). The codex demonstrates that already in the sixth/twelfth century the Zaydis of Yemen were interested in Ashʿarī literature. It is possible that the text was one of those brought by Qāḍī Shams al-Dīn Jaʿfar b. Aḥmad b. ʿAbd al-Salām al-Buhlūlī al-Abnāwī from Iran to Yemen. It is unclear when the manuscript reached Cairo, but the numerous statements added to the codex by Sunni readers suggest that it left Yemen fairly early. The work has been published, but the editor was unable to identify Ḥumayd al-Muḥallī, whom he calls “Ḥamd” b. Aḥmad al-Muḥallī; see Imām alḤaramayn al-Juwaynī, al-Kāfiya fī l-jadal, ed. Fawqiyya Ḥusayn Maḥmūd, Cairo: ʿĪsā al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī, 1399/1979, p. 566. On the work, the identity of its author, and the manuscript, see Hassan Ansari, “Mawridi ʿajīb-i Kitāb al-Kāfiya fī l-jadal mansūb bih Juwaynī,” Barrasī-hā-yi tārīkhī, http://ansari.kateban.com/post/3507 (accessed 21 January 2022). Another manuscript attesting to the familiarity of the Zaydis in Yemen with Ashʿarite literature is preserved as MS Vatican, Vatican Apostolic Library 1147, containing a copy of Nuzhat al-abṣār wa-maḥāsin al-āthār. While the book's author is not mentioned in this unique copy, Hassan Ansari identified him as Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Mahdī al-Ṭabarī al-Māmaṭīrī, the wellknown student of Abū l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī (d. 324/936), who was still alive during the mid-fourth/tenth century. See Hassan Ansari, “Nahj al-balāgha pīsh az Nahj al-balāgha,” Nashr-i Dānish 103 (1381sh/2002), pp. 64-66. The reason for the interest among the Zaydis in this book, which is not mentioned in any Sunni source, were evidently the praises for and sermons by Imam ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib that are included in it. Moreover, the author hailed from Ṭabaristān, where Imam al-Nāṭiq bi-l-Ḥaqq Abū Ṭālib al-Hārunī (d. 424/1033) studied with him. This explains why the work was brought to Yemen. For the manuscript, see Giorgio Levi Della Vida, Elenco dei manoscritti arabi islamici della Biblioteca Vaticana: Vaticani, Barberiniani, Borgiani, Rossiani, Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vatibana, 1935, p. 170; and Ṣādiq al-Ḥusaynī al-Ishkawarī, alMakhṭūṭāt al-ʿarabiyya fī Maktabat al-Fātīkān (Rūmā—al-Fātikān), Qum: Manshūrāt Dār al-Hudā, 2001, p. 166. The book's author is indicated as anonymous in both catalogues.

26

YEMENI MANUSCRIPT CULTURES IN PERIL

Istanbul, Berlin, Leiden,19 Milan, Rome (fig. 8), Vienna, Munich, London, and even Benghazi.20 Others are today in the possession of private owners in Yemen.21 Some manuscripts of Yemeni provenance left the country and subsequently served as antigraphs for new copies; although the antigraphs themselves often have not come down to us, the apographs remain as testimonies of the Yemeni copies of the relevant books. For example, the Nāṣiriyya Library in Lucknow (India) held a copy of Tuḥfat al-mutakallimīn fī l-radd ʿalā lfalāsifa, by Rukn al-Dīn Maḥmūd b. Muḥammad al-Malāḥimī al-Khwārazmī (d. 536/1141). This copy, dated Dhū l-Ḥijja 1104/August 1693, was produced on the basis of an antigraph dated Rajab 693/June 1244 and copied by a Zaydi.22 The library also possesses a copy of the K. al-Marātib fī faḍāʾil Amīr al-Muʾminīn wa-Sayyid al-Waṣiyyīn ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, by Abū lQāsim Ismāʿīl b. Aḥmad al-Bustī, who was a student of ʿAbd al-Jabbār. This copy, dated 12 Jumādā II 1357/9 August 1938 (figs. 19, 20), is based on a 1188/1774–75 copy that is nowadays kept in the Āṣafiyya Library in Hyderabad; the latter’s antigraph, in turn, was a copy produced by the Zaydi scholar Ḥanẓala b. al-Ḥasan b. Shabʿān (or Shaʿbān), one of the teachers of Imam al-Mahdī Aḥmad b. al-Ḥusayn (d. 656/1258), in Muḥarram 618/February– March 1221 in al-Qāhira al-Manṣūra (located north of Ẓafār Dhībīn).23 Yemeni manuscripts

19

For examples from Leiden, see Karin Scheper and Arnoud Vrolijk’s contribution to this volume. See, e.g., Anne Regourd, “Note sur Akhbār al-Zaydiyya bi-al-Yaman et autres oeuvres du muṭarrifite al-Laḥǧī,” Nouvelles chroniques du manuscrit au Yémen 11 (2020), pp. 131–146. According to the editor's introduction to Musallam b. Muḥammad al-Laḥjī, al-Juzʾ al-rābiʿ min K. Akhbār al-Zaydiyya min ahl al-bayt ʿalayhim al-salām washīʿatihim bi-l-Yaman, ed. Muqbil al-Tāmm ʿĀmir al-Aḥmadī, [Sanaa:] Majmaʿ al-ʿArabiyya al-Saʿīda, 1437/2015, a unique copy of al-Laḥjī's K. al-Mithlayn is preserved in the library of the University of Benghazi. It was on the basis of this copy that Fayṣal Miftāḥ al-Ḥaddād prepared his edition of al-Laḥjī’s K. al-Mithlayn (Benghazi: Manshūrāt Jāmiʿat Qāryūnis, 1988; for a description of the manuscript, see pp. 63-65 of the editor's introduction) (for al-Laḥjī and his preserved works, see below, n. 63). 21 See Sabine Schmidtke, Traditional Yemeni Scholarship amidst Political Turmoil and War: Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl b. al-Muṭahhar al-Manṣūr (1915–2016) and His Personal Library, Cordoba: UCOPress, 2018, p. 105 for a copy produced in 611/1214 for the library of Imam al-Manṣūr bi-llāh ʿAbd Allāh b. Ḥamza that nowadays belongs to the library of Muḥammad b. Muḥammad al-Manṣūr and his descendants. The book drain to Europe and other parts of the worlds is by no means limited to Yemen; similar phenomena can be encountered elsewhere in the Islamic world. For the case of Cairo, see, e.g., Mercedes Volait, Antique Dealing and Creative Reuse in Cairo and Damascus 1850–1890, Leiden: Brill, 2021, pp. 107ff. We owe this reference to Gabriele vom Bruck. 22 See Hassan Ansari and Wilferd Madelung’s introduction to their edition of the book (Tehran: Iranian Institute of Philosophy, 1387sh/2008). For the manuscript of the Tuḥfa, see Riḍā Ustādī, “Fihrist-i diwīst wa sī nuskha-yi khaṭṭī,” Nūr-i ʿilm 54 (1373sh/1994), pp. 84–106, here p. 88; for more details, see Hassan Ansari and Sabine Schmidtke, “Sixth/Twelfth-Century Zaydī Theologians of Yemen Debating Avicennan Philosophy,” Shii Studies Review 5 (2021), pp. 217–269. 23 For the location, see Robert T. O. Wilson, Gazetteer of Historical North-West Yemen in the Islamic Period to 1650, Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1989, p. 267. On the two Indian copies of the work, see also ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz alṬabāṭabāʾī, Ahl al-Bayt fī l-Maktaba al-ʿarabiyya, Qum: Muʾassasat Āl al-Bayt li-Iḥyāʾ al-Turāth, 1417/1996, p. 462. For Ḥanẓala b. al-Ḥasan b. Shabʿān (or Shaʿbān), see Ansari, and Schmidtke, Studies in Medieval Islamic Intellectual Traditions, p. 183 no. 29. The Nāṣiriyya copy was not consulted by Muḥammad Riḍā al-Anṣārī alQummī for his edition of the Marātib (Abū l-Qāsim Ismāʿīl b. Aḥmad al-Bustī al-Muʿtazilī, Kitāb al-Marātib fī fadāʾil Amīr al-Muʾminīn wa-Sayyid al-Waṣiyyīn ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, ed. Muḥammad Riḍā al-Anṣārī al-Qummī, Qum: 20

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got even as far as Tashkent, possibly through the ḥajj.23a The Maktaba al-Khalīliyya in Hyderabad owns a multitext volume comprising several texts pertaining to the history of Sanaa, which is of Yemeni origin (figs. 21, 22).23b

Figures 19 and 20. MS Lucknow, Nāṣiriyya Library (end of K. al-Marātib fī fadāʾil Amīr al-Muʾminīn by Abū l-Qāsim Ismāʿīl b. Aḥmad al-Bustī). al-Dalīl, 1421/2000–1). It is noteworthy that the Nāṣiriyya Library has a number of Muʿtazilī works among its holdings, including volume 4 of Ibn Mattawayh’s al-Majmūʿ min al-Muḥīṭ bi-l-taklīf, which is clearly of Yemeni provenance; see Ustādī, “Fihrist-i diwīst wa sī nuskha-yi khaṭṭī,” p. 103. The manuscript was completed on 4 or 5 Jumādā II 666/20 or 21 February 1268 (fig. 44). Additionally, there is a copy of a work identified as Masālik al-abrār al-manẓūm min Jalāʾ al-abṣār by al-Ḥākim al-Jishumī (d. 494/1101); see Fihrist-i nusakh-i khaṭṭī-yi Kitābkhāna-yi Nāṣiriyya Laknu, ed. Markaz-i Taḥqīqāt-i Fārsī, New Delhi: n.p., n.d., p. 165 entry no. 190; Ustādī, “Fihrist-i diwīst wa sī nuskha-yi khaṭṭī,” p. 107. As is evident from the titlepage (fig. 45), this work is a tartīb prepared by the renowned seventh/thirteenth-century Zaydi Yemeni scholar Muḥyī l-Dīn Muḥammad b. Aḥmad Ibn al-Walīd al-Qurashī of al-Jishumī’s Jalāʾ al-abṣār. This text is not preserved elsewhere and its existence was in fact so far entirely unknown, as it is not mentioned in the biobibliographical literature. A selection of excerpts from the Jalāʾ al-abṣār was prepared by Aḥmad b. Saʿd al-Dīn al-Maswarī (d. 1079/1668) under the title Tuḥfat al-abrār min akhbār al-ʿitra al-aṭhār; for this work, see Wilferd Madelung, Arabic Texts concerning the History of the Zaydī Imāms of Tabāristān, Daylamān and Gīlān, Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1987, p. 18 (English introduction). For the Nāṣiriyya Library, its history, and its holdings, see Ṣaḥīfat al-Maktaba, vol. 2, Najaf: Maktabat al-Imām Amīr al-Muʾminīn ʿalayhi l-salām al-ʿĀmma, 1373/1953–54, pp. 14ff. 23a This is the case, for example, with volume 2 of ʿAlī b. al-Ḥasan al-Khazrajī’s (d. 812/1410) al-ʿAqd al-fākhir alḥasan fī ṭabaqāt akābir ahl al-Yaman wa-huwa Ṭirāz aʿlām al-zaman fī ṭabaqāt aʿyān al-Yaman; see ed. ʿAbd Allāh Qāʾid al-ʿAbbādī et al., Sanaa: Maktabat al-Jīl al-Jadīd, 2009, p. 161. A systematic search among the manuscripts of Tashkent may bring to light additional codices of Yemeni origin. 23b Access to the codex is provided through https://www.alukah.net/spotlight/8011/147345/ (accessed 11 January 2022).

Figure 21. Ms. Hyderabad, al-Maktaba al-Khalīliyya, tārīkh 540, fols. 1v–2r.

28 YEMENI MANUSCRIPT CULTURES IN PERIL

INTRODUCTION

Figure 22. Ms. Hyderabad, al-Maktaba al-Khalīliyya, tārīkh 540, final page.

29

30

YEMENI MANUSCRIPT CULTURES IN PERIL

Figure 23. MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Glaser 22 (one of the rare instances in which Glaser gives information on the provenance of a codex).

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Figure 24. MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Ms. or. oct. 382 (another of the rare instances in which Glaser gives information on the provenance of a codex; the details he provides are for the most part wiped out).

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Figure 25. From Glaser’s list of manuscripts purchased during his first trip to Yemen (Academy of Sciences in Vienna, Sammlung Glaser-K3-A1002).

THE HISTORY OF ZAYDI MANUSCRIPT COLLECTIONS OUTSIDE YEMEN For Yemen’s book culture, it is both a curse and a blessing that some of Yemen’s most precious collections were purchased by European, Ottoman Turkish, and Saudi scholars, diplomats, merchants, and travelers during the second half of the nineteenth century and in the early decades of the twentieth (and beyond). These manuscripts, numbering between ten and twenty thousand, are nowadays housed in libraries outside of the country. The earliest European collections of Yemeni manuscripts were inaugurated at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. They were assembled by European explorers and merchants who, while sojourning in Yemen, accumulated considerable collections and later sold them to libraries in Europe. Among these sellers was the Austrian Eduard Glaser (1855–1908), who visited Yemen on four occasions between 1882 and 1894, taking some 858 manuscripts out of the country.24 Glaser sold the manuscripts he acquired during his first and second journeys to the Königliche Bibliothek zu Berlin (now Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin). His third collection was purchased by the British Museum in London (and later transferred to the British Library), and his fourth collection was bought by the

24

For a study of (primarily) European travelers to Yemen before Glaser, see David Malkiel, Strangers in Yemen: Travel and Cultural Encounter among Jews, Christians and Muslims in the Colonial Era, Oldenburg: de Gruyter, 2021.

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Kaiserlich-Königliche Hofbibliothek (now Österreichische Nationalbibliothek) in Vienna.25 An even larger collection was brought together by the Italian merchant Giuseppe Caprotti (1862–1919), who arrived in Yemen in 1885 together with his brother Luigi (who died soon after, in 1889) and spent the next 34 years, until 1919, in the country.26 During his stay in South Arabia, Caprotti collected 1,790 manuscripts. A small portion of these, 157 manuscripts, was offered to the Königliche Hof- und Staatsbibliothek zu München (now Bayerische Staatsbibliothek) in 1901 through Glaser’s mediation, and the purchase was concluded in 1902.27 Caprotti shipped the bulk of his collection, 1,610 manuscripts in total, to Italy between 1903 through 1906 with the goal of selling the codices in Europe. The suggestion that the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan acquire the collection was first made by the young Italian Arabist Eugenio Griffini (1878–1925), who had been introduced to Caprotti in 1897 and was intimately familiar with the latter’s manuscript collection. But it was Achille Ratti, the Ambrosiana’s director at the time (and later Pope Pius XI), and Luca Beltrami (1854–1933) who successfully promoted a subscription to amass the required funding in 1909. A few years later, in 1914, Beltrami donated another 180 manuscripts of the Caprotti collection to the Ambrosiana, and in April 1922, he gave the remaining Caprotti manuscripts (about 280 in number)

25

See Christoph Rauch’s and Jan Thiele’s contributions to this volume. For the acquisition of the Berlin Glaser collection, see also Christoph Rauch, “‘Im Wettkampfe mit den Bibliotheken anderer Nationen’: Die Erwerbung arabischer Handschriften an der Königlichen Bibliothek zu Berlin zwischen 1850 und 1900,” Sammler – Bibliothekare – Forscher: Zur Geschichte der Orientalischen Sammlungen an der Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 2022, pp. 87– 150, esp. pp. 130–135. For the Glaser collection in Vienna, see Stefanie Brinkmann’s contribution to this volume, and the digital project The Glaser Collection, curated by Petra Aigner under the auspices of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna; see http://glaser.acdh.oeaw.ac.at/gl/about (accessed 8 December 2021). The project, which is still in the early stages, will eventually provide open access to the Glaser collection acquired in 1910 by the Austrian Academy of Sciences. We thank Marieke Brandt for having alerted us to this project. It is mostly not known through whose mediation Glaser gained access to the codices he eventually acquired. In rare cases, such as in MS Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Glaser 22 (fig. 23), Glaser commented on the provenance of an individual codex; in MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Ms. or. oct. 382 his statement has been partly erased (fig. 24). In one of his diaries, which are kept in the Academy of Sciences in Vienna (Sammlung Glaser-K3-A1002), he records the contents of his first collection of manuscripts and parts of the second collection. The diary also appears to contain some information on the amounts he paid for each codex (fig. 25). Glaser also prepared a concise handlist of the first and second collections (possibly also the third and the fourth), which was later reproduced in Wilhelm Ahlwardt, Kurzes Verzeichniss der Glaser’schen Sammlung arabischer Handschriften, Berlin: Gebr. Unger (T. Grimm), 1887. Glaser’s handwritten handlist (fig. 26) is preserved in the Regionální Muzeum K. A. Polánka, Žatec, Fond Glaser, Krabice č 6, Av 11/6–383. We thank Jan Thiele for having shared with us his photographs of Glaser’s handlist. Another recent Vienna-based research project, Wiener Bestände südarabischer Manuskripte gesammelt von Eduard Glaser, funded by the City of Vienna Fund, was discontinued, and its results remain unpublished. For this project, see Odile Kommer, “Yemeni Manuscripts in Viennese Archives,” Historical Identity Research Blog (Austrian Academy of Sciences), 1 October 2020, https://www.oeaw.ac.at/en/imafo/read/yemeni-manuscripts-in-viennesearchives (accessed 21 January 2022). 26 See Valentina Sagaria Rossi’s contribution to this volume. 27 See Emil Gratzl, “Die arabischen Handschriften der Sammlung Glaser in der königl. Hof- und Staatsbibliothek zu München,” Orientalistische Studien: Fritz Hommel zum sechzigsten Geburtstag am 31. Juli 1914 gewidmet von Freunden, Kollegen und Schülern, Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs’sche Buchhandlung, 1916, vol. 2, pp. 194–200; Florian Sobieroj, “Arabic Manuscripts on the Periphery: Northwest Africa, Yemen and China,” Manuscript Cultures: Mapping the Field, ed. Jörg Quenzer, Dmitry Bondarev, and Jan-Ulrich Sobisch, Berlin: de Gruyter, 2014, pp. 79–112, here pp. 92–96.

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to the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana.28 With close to 1,800 codices, the “Collezione Caprotti” is the largest collection of South Arabian manuscripts outside Yemen. In 1883, the Medinan scholar and book dealer Amīn b. Ḥasan al-Ḥulwānī al-Madanī (d. 1898) visited the International Colonial and Export Exhibition in Amsterdam, bringing with him a sizeable collection of 664 manuscripts, which contained a fair number of manuscripts from Yemen. Through the mediation of Carlo Landberg (later Count de Landberg; 1848–1924), the collection was purchased by E. J. Brill and subsequently sold to the library of the Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden.29 Around the turn of the twentieth century, additional collections of manuscripts supplied by al-Madanī were offered on the market; al-Madanī continued to collaborate closely with Landberg, and the collections thus came to be known as “Landberg collections.” The Königliche Bibliothek zu Berlin purchased a significant Landberg collection (1,052 manuscripts) in 1884,30 and in 1900 Morris K. Jesup (1830–1908) bought another Landberg collection (774 manuscripts), which he then donated to Yale University Library.31 In the same year, Princeton University was given yet another Landberg collection (1,194 manuscripts), acquired for its library by Robert Garrett (1875–1961) and henceforth known as the “Garrett Collection.”32 Like the Leiden Landberg collection, all these collections contain numerous codices of Yemeni provenance. Through C. Snouck Hurgronje (1857–1936), Leiden University Library also obtained a number of Zaydi manuscripts that originated in Aceh. Snouck Hurgronje related that he also came across Zaydi manuscripts in 1885 during his sojourn in Arabia, but he

28

Classified under the shelf marks MSS Vat. ar. 946–1206, 1357–1375. See Giorgio Levi Della Vida, Elenco dei manoscritti arabic islamici della Biblioteca Vaticana: Vaticani, Barberiniani, Borgiani, Rossiani, Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1935, p. viii and passim. 29 See Karin Scheper and Arnoud Vrolijk’s contribution to this volume. 30 Wilhelm Ahlwardt, Kurzes Verzeichniss der Landberg’schen Sammlung arabischer Handschriften, Berlin: A. W. Schade’s Buchdruckerei (L. Schade), 1885. See also Christoph Rauch’s contribution to this volume. 31 The collection was first described in Harrassowitz’s sales catalog, Sammlung arabischer Handschriften des Dr. C. Grafen von Landberg: Zum Verkauf angeboten von Otto Harrassowitz Buchhändler, Leipzig: Harrassowitz, 1900. The Landberg collection at Yale constitutes in fact the majority of Landberg's personal library. For the Yemeni manuscripts in it, see Roberta L. Dougherty, “Yemeni Manuscripts at the Yale University Library.docx,” http://works.bepress.com/bintalbalad/40/ (accessed 21 February 2022). The remainder of Landberg's personal manuscript collection (83 codices) was given to Uppsala University after his demise in 1924; descriptions of the Uppsala Landberg collection are included in Karl Vilhelm Zetterstéen, Die arabischen, persischen und türkischen Handschriften der Universitätsbibliothek zu Uppsala verzeichnet und beschrieben, 2 vols, Uppsala: [s.n.], 1930–35. 32 The manuscripts were again sold to E. J. Brill by al-Madanī, and they were first partly described in Martijn Theodoor Houtsma’s (1851–1943) Catalogue d’une collection de manuscrits arabes et turcs appartenant à la maison E. J. Brill à Leide, Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1886 (containing descriptions of only 791 items), which was followed by an enlarged edition (published in Leiden by E. J. Brill in 1889) with descriptions of all 1,194 items. See also Enno Littmann, “Special Collections in American Libraries: The Garrett Collections of Arabic Manuscripts at Princeton University Library,” Library Journal, May 1904, pp. 238–243; Enno Littmann, A List of Arabic Manuscripts in Princeton University Library, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Library / Leipzig: Harrassowitz, 1904; Philip K. Hitti, Nabih Amin Faris, and Butrus ʿAbd al-Malik, Descriptive Catalog of the Garrett Collection of Arabic Manuscripts in the Princeton University Library, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1938; Philip K. Hitti, “The Arabic and Islamic Manuscripts,” Princeton University Library Chronicle 3, no. 4 (1942), pp. 116–122.

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was unable to inspect them more closely at the time or to take any of them with him when he returned to the Netherlands.33

Figure 26. First page of Glaser’s handwritten catalog of his first and second collections of manuscripts from Yemen (Žatec, Regionální muzeum K.A. Polánka, Fond Glaser, Krabice č 6, Av 11/6-383).

33

See letter Snouck Hurgronje to Griffini (26 June 1911), Biblioteca comunale centrale, Palazzo Sormani, Milan, Archivio Eugenio Griffini, MSS Codazzi-Griffini 60/77: “[L]es Zaidites ont été un objet de ma curiosité depuis que je me suis occupé de l’histoire de la Mecque, où leur secte ou plutôt maḏhab a eu si longtemps une certaine prépondérance; enfin, moimême j’ai rapporté d’Arabie en 1885 quelques manuscrits Zaidites, peu nombreux mais d’une certaine valeur. Faute de temps pour dépouiller moi-même ces sources littéraires et pour faire une étude approfondie de la littérature de ce genre qui est venue enrichir les bibliothèques d’Europe dans le cours du 19ème siècle, j’ai conseillé à un de mes élèves [Snouck here refers to Cornelis van Arendonk] de s’enforcer dans cette branche de la littérature islamique. Il se trouve à présent à Londres et sa thèse inaugurale aura probablement pour sujet la biographie d’un ou deux des premiers imâms Zaidites.” See also Karin Scheper and Arnoud Vrolijk’s contribution to this volume.

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Yemeni manuscripts are also found within the collection brought together by Abraham Shalom Yahuda (1877–1951). Portions of the Yahuda collection are nowadays housed in the British Library, the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin, the US National Library of Medicine, the Jewish National and University Library,34 the University of Michigan Library,35 and Princeton University Library.36 Other libraries in Europe, including the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris and Cambridge University Library, also own manuscripts of Yemeni origin.37 During the 1950s and 1960s, some European collections with significant holdings of South Arabian manuscripts were microfilmed and made available to scholars outside of Europe. Saint Louis University in Missouri holds surrogates of nearly the entire manuscript collection of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, including the Vatican’s Islamic Arabic manuscripts, in its Knights of Columbus Vatican Film Library,38 as does the library of the State University of New York at Binghamton.39 Shortly after 1960, the University of Notre Dame reached an agreement with the Biblioteca Ambrosiana to film the latter’s entire manuscript and archival collections, including the Collezione Caprotti, and to make them available to reseachers at Notre Dame and elsewhere in the United States.40 In the same period, the Hill Monastic Manuscript Library (now the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library,

34

See Raquel Ukeles, “Abraham Shalom Yahuda: The Scholar, the Collector and the Collections,” Efraim Wust, Catalogue of the Arabic, Persian, and Turkish Manuscripts of the Yahuda Collection of the National Library of Israel, vol. 1, ed. Raquel Ukeles with Sagit Bulbul, Khader Salameh, and Yusuf al-Uzbeki, trans. into English Leigh Chipman, trans. of introductory material into Arabic Nabih Bashir, Leiden: Brill, 2016, pp. 1–12. 35 Evyn Kropf, “The Yemeni Manuscripts of the Yahuda Collection at the University of Michigan: Provenance and Acquisition,” Chroniques du manuscrit au Yémen 13 (2012), https://cmy.revues.org/1974 (accessed 21 January 2022). See also Catalogue of the Yemeni Manuscripts in the University of Michigan Library, n.d., https://cefas.cnrs.fr/IMG/pdf/4_michigan_catalogue_mss_michigan_cp.pdf (accessed 12 December 2021). 36 Rudolf Mach, Catalogue of Arabic Manuscripts (Yahuda Section) in the Garrett Collection, Princeton University Library, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977. For the various Yahuda collections, see also https://yahuda.princeton.edu/, “a guide to the collecting practices, history and current locations for the vast manuscript collection of 20th century collector Abraham Shalom Yahuda” (accessed 8 December 2021). 37 See Ayman Fuʾād Sayyid, Maṣādir tārīkh al-Yaman fī l-ʿaṣr al-islāmī = Sources de l’histoire du Yémen à l’époque musulmane, Cairo: al-Maʿhad al-ʿIlmī al-Faransī li-l-Āthār al-Sharqiyya, 1974, p. 44. See also Marie-Geneviève Guesdon, “Dixsept manuscrits arabes rassemblés au Yémen et donnés à la Bibliothèque nationale de France par Pierre Bardey,” Chroniques du manuscrit au Yémen 1 (2006), http://cmy.revues.org/183 (accessed 21 January 2022); Marie-Geneviève Guesdon, “Georges S. Colin au Yémen en 1929,” Chroniques du manuscrit au Yémen 15 (2013), http://cmy.revues.org/2004 (accessed 21 January 2022); H. Loucel, “À propos du manuscrit arabe no 1747 du laboratoire de phanérogamie du Muséum d’histoire naturelle de Paris (don de M. Deflers, auteur de Voyage au Yémen, Paris, Klincksieck, 1889),” Arabica 23 (1976), pp. 212–213. 38 See https://www.slu.edu/library/special-collections/vatican-film-library/index.php (accessed 12 December 2021). 39 Thomas J. Martin, North American Collections of Islamic Manuscripts, New York: American Council of Learned Societies, 1977, pp. 51–52. 40 Martin, North American Collections, pp. 22–23; Astrik L. Gabriel, “The Ambrosiana Microfilming Project,” Folia Ambrosiana I, ed. Astrik L. Gabriel and Joseph N. Garvin, C.S.C., Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, Mediaeval Institute, 1965, pp. 7–16; Astrik L. Gabriel, A Summary Catalogue of Microfilms of One Thousand Scientific Manuscripts in the Ambrosiana Library, Milan, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, Mediaeval Institute, 1968; Olevnik, “Selected Medieval and Renaissance Manuscript Collections,” pp. 13–15.

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HMML) in Minnesota set out to film the manuscript holdings of numerous libraries in Europe. By 1973, HMML had produced microfilms of the holdings of seventy-six Austrian libraries, including the Austrian National Library with its Arabic manuscript collection, of which the Glaser collection forms an important part.41 In 1957 the board of the Maʿhad al-Makhṭūṭāt al-ʿArabiyya in Cairo dispatched an expedition to Milan under the direction of the Syrian scholar Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Munajjid (1334–1431/1920–2010), the institute’s director at the time. The goal of the expedition was to film and catalog the until then uncataloged manuscripts of the Ambrosiana collection. The delegation stayed in Milan for two months (July–August 1957); for lack of time, the filming and cataloging enterprise had to be restricted to series D of the Nuovo Fondo.42 The resulting microfilms have been housed since 1960 at the Maʿhad al-Makhṭūṭāt al-ʿArabiyya. In Iran, the Marʿashī Library and the Markazi Iḥyāʾ-i Mīrāth-i Islāmī (both in Qum) also possess large microfilm archives of manuscripts, among them numerous Yemeni ones, that are held in European libraries, including the Vatican Library,43 the British Library, the Ambrosiana, and the Berlin State Library.44 Today, many of the European libraries with major holdings of Yemeni manuscripts, such as Leiden University Library,45 the Berlin State Library, and the Bavarian State Library in Munich, provide open access to these materials.46

41

Martin, North American Collections, pp. 43–44; Peter P. Olevnik, “Selected Medieval and Renaissance Manuscript Collections in Microform,” University of Illinois Graduate School of Library Science, Occasional Papers, June 1978, no. 133, pp. 15–17. 42 See the introduction to Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Munajjid, Fihrist al-makhṭūṭāt al-ʿarabiyya fī l-Ambrūziyānā bi-Mīlānū: Aljuzʾ al-thānī = Catalogue des manuscrits arabes de l’Ambrosiènne de Milan: 2ème Partie, D No. 220–420, Cairo: Maʿhad al-Makhṭūṭāt al-ʿArabiyya, 1960. 43 See also al-Ishkawarī, al-Makhṭūṭāt al-ʿarabiyya fī Maktabat al-Fātīkān (Rūmā—al-Fātikān), which includes descriptions of all Arabic manuscripts from the Vatican Library microfilms of which are in Qum. 44 Aḥmad al-Ḥusaynī al-Ishkawarī, Fihrist-i nuskha-hā-yi ʿaksī-yi Markaz-i Iḥyāʾ-i Mīrāth-i Islāmī Qum, 7 vols., Qum: Markaz-i Iḥyāʾ-i Mīrāth-i Islāmī, 1377–1387/1998–2008; Muḥammad ʿAlī Ḥāʾirī, Fihrist-i nuskha-hā-yi ʿaksī-yi Kitābkhāna-yi ʿumūmī-yi Ḥaḍrat Āyat Allāh al-ʿUẓmā Marʿashī Najafī, 2 vols., Qum: Kitābkhāna-yi ʿUmūmī-i Ḥaḍrat Āyat Allāh al-ʿUẓmā Marʿashī Najafī, 1369–1370 [1990–1991]; Abū l-Faḍl Ḥāfiẓiyān Bābulī, Fihrist-i nuskha-hā-yi ʿaksī-yi Kitābkhāna-yi ʿumūmī-i Ḥaḍrat Āyat Allāh al-ʿUẓmā Marʿashī Najafī: Ganjīna-yi jahānī-yi makhṭūṭāt-i islāmī, 3 vols., Qum: Kitābkhāna-yi ʿUmūmī-i Ḥaḍrat Āyat Allāh al-ʿUẓmā Marʿashī Najafī, 1387–1388/2008–2009. 45 Arnoud Vrolijk, “Digitisation Project of Yemeni Manuscripts at Leiden University Libraries,” Leiden Special Collections Blog, 15 November 2018, https://leidenspecialcollectionsblog.nl/articles/digitisation-project-of-yemenimanuscripts-at-leiden-university-libraries (accessed 21 January 2022); Karin Scheper, “A Silk Binding from Yemen,” Leiden Special Collections Blog, 7 June 2019, https://leidenspecialcollectionsblog.nl/articles/a-silk-binding-from-yemen (accessed 21 January 2022). 46 Christoph Rauch, “Handschriften aus dem Jemen digitalisiert,” Blog-Netzwerk für Forschung und Kultur, 25 November 2019, https://blog.sbb.berlin/handschriften-aus-dem-jemen-digitalisiert/ (accessed 21 January 2022); Christoph Rauch, “Alte arabische Texte aus entlegenen Bergdörfern: Die Welt der jemenitischen Handschriften wird digital,” Bibliotheksmagazin: Mitteilungen aus den Staatsbibliotheken in Berlin und München vol. 20, no. 2 (May 2020), pp. 42– 47 (discussing Berlin and Munich). A significant part of the digitization efforts has been paid by the European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Research Grant “Rediscovering Theological Rationalism in the Medieval World of Islam” (on which see also below).

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Over the course of the twentieth century, some European libraries continued to purchase manuscripts from Yemen. The Biblioteca dell’Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei e Corsiniana (BANLC) in Rome owns a number of South Arabian manuscripts, which were obtained by various Italian travelers to Yemen during the first decades of the twentieth century, notably Griffini’s former student Ettore Rossi (1894–1955), who traveled to Yemen twice, in 1936 and 1937,47 and the physician Cesare Ansaldi, who was a member of the Italian health mission to Yemen from 1929 to 1932 (fig. 27).48 In 1990, a collection comprising 223 Yemeni codices was donated to the former Istituto Italiano per l’Africa e l’Oriente (IsIAO, Rome) by the family of Dr. Emilio Dubbiosi, medical officer in Yemen from 1926 to 1938, who was an avid collector of manuscripts (fig. 28).49 The Istituto per l’Oriente Carlo Alfonso Nallino (IPOCAN, Rome) holds fourteen Yemeni manuscripts collected by the Italian Arabist Carlo Alfonso Nallino. The Istituto Centrale per il Restauro e la Conservazione del Patrimonio Archivistico e Librario (ICRCPAL, Rome) owns two Yemeni Arabic manuscripts donated by the Arabist and physician Tommaso Sarnelli, who was in Yemen in the years 1930–1932, while the Biblioteca di Storia della Medicina of the University “La Sapienza” (BSM, Rome) has two additional manuscripts donated by Sarnelli. The library of the University “L’Orientale” in Naples (UNIOR) holds another forty-two Yemeni manuscripts that were collected by Sarnelli (fig. 29).50 The Department of Oriental Studies of the University of Turin also owns a Yemeni codex that is part of the Paul Kahle collection.50a

47

On Rossi’s travels, see Ettore Rossi, “Appunti di un viaggio nel Yemen,” Bollettino della R. Società geografica italiana, 7th ser., 2 (1937), pp. 117–139, and Ettore Rossi, “Itinerari yemeniti,” Bollettino della R. Società geografica italiana, 7th ser., 3 (1938), pp. 281–297. We thank Valentina Sagaria Rossi for bringing these two publications to our attention and providing us with copies of both. 48 Renato Traini, I manoscritti arabi di recente accessione della fondazione Caetani, Rome: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 1967. Microfilms of most of the manuscripts in this collection are kept in the Markaz-i Iḥyāʾ-i Mīrāth-i Islāmī in Qum; see Ṣādiq Ḥusaynī Ishkawarī, Fihrist-i nuskha-hā-yi khaṭṭī-yi Kitābkhāna-yi Akādimī-yi Linchī (Rum– Itāliyā), Qum: Majmaʿ-i Dhakhāʾir-i Islāmī, 1381/2002. 49 See http://www.bncrm.beniculturali.it/it/1259/fondo-emilio-dubbiosi (accessed 21 January 2022). 50 For a detailed account of Sarnelli’s sojourn in Yemen and his observations, see Tommaso Sarnelli, “Notizie preliminari sui risultati della mia missione sanitaria nell’ alto Yemen: Con particolare riguardo alla medicina indigena,” Archivio italiano di scienze mediche coloniali 15, no. 1 (January 1934), pp. 1–44. We thank Valentina Sagaria Rossi for bringing this publication to our attention. For the collections of Yemeni manuscripts in Italian libraries, most of which have now been digitized within the framework of the Zaydi Manuscript Tradition Project, see Valentina Sagaria Rossi and Sabine Schmidtke, “The Zaydi Manuscript Tradition (ZMT) Project: Digitizing the Collections of Yemeni Manuscripts in Italian Libraries,” Comparative Oriental Manuscript Studies (COMSt) Bulletin 5, no. 1 (2019), pp. 43–60. For the political background of the Italian presence in Yemen during the first decades of the twentieth century, see John Baldry, “Anglo-Italian Rivalry in Yemen and ʿAsīr, 1900–1934,” Die Welt des Islams, n.s., 17 (1976–1977), pp. 155–193. For Italian scholarship on Yemen during the pre-Islamic and Islamic periods, see Renato Traini, “Il contributo italiano alla conoscenza geografica dello Yemen,” Storia e cultura dello Yemen in età islamica con particolare riferimento al periodo rasūlide (Roma, 30–31 ottobre 2003), Rome: Bardi Editore, 2006, pp. 9–31; Sabina Antonini de Maigret, Paola D'Amore, and Michael Jung (eds.), Il trono della Regina di Saba: Cultura e diplomazia tra Italia e Yemen; La collezione sudarabica del Museo Nazionale d’Arte Orientale, Rome: Editoriale Artemide, 2012. 50a See Roberto Tottoli, Maria Luisa Russo, and Michele Bernardini, Catalogue of the Islamic Manuscripts from the Kahle Collection in the Department of Oriental Studies of the University of Turin, Rome: Istituto per l'Oriente C. A. Nallino, 2011, pp. 322-323.

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Figure 27. MS Rome, Biblioteca dell’Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei e Corsiniana, Or. 364 (title page of K. al-Laṭāʾif al-saniyya fī l-akhbār al-yamaniyya by Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl al-Kibsī, suggesting that the copy was commissioned for an Italian collector).

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Figure 28. MS Rome, Biblioteca IsMEO, Fondo E. Dubbiosi 186, pp. 17–18.

Figure 29. MS Naples, University “L’Orientale,” ARA 5 (ex libris stamp of Tommaso Sarnelli).

INTRODUCTION

Figure 30. Al-Īmān, no. 42 (Shawwāl 1348/March 1930), p. 35 (“Ḥaḍrat al-Hirr Strūtmān al-muḥtaram”).

41

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YEMENI MANUSCRIPT CULTURES IN PERIL

Figure 31. MS Leipzig, Leipzig University Library, Ms. or. 354 (title page of ʿImād al-Dīn Yaḥyā b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Miqrāʾī’s autocommentary on his Miṣbāḥ al-rāʾiḍ).

INTRODUCTION

Figure 32. MS Leipzig, Leipzig University Library, Ms. or. 354 (final colophon of ʿImād al-Dīn Yaḥyā b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Miqrāʾī’s autocommentary on his Miṣbāḥ al-rāʾiḍ).

43

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YEMENI MANUSCRIPT CULTURES IN PERIL

Figure 33. MS Leipzig, Leipzig University Library, Ms. or. 377 (title page of K. al-Zīna by Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī).

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Figure 34. MS Riyadh, Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University 2612 (title page of K. al-Muntakhab fī l-ḥalāl wa-l-ḥarām, containing the fatāwī of Imām alHādī ilā l-Ḥaqq Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn).

Figure 35. MS Riyadh, Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University 2612 (K. al-Muntakhab fī l-ḥalāl wa-lḥarām, fols. 138v–139r).

46 YEMENI MANUSCRIPT CULTURES IN PERIL

Figure 36. MS Riyadh, Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University 2612 (K. al-Muntakhab fī l-ḥalāl wa-l-ḥarām, fols. 290v–291r).

INTRODUCTION 47

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YEMENI MANUSCRIPT CULTURES IN PERIL

Figure 37. MS Riyadh, Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University 2449 (title page of final portion of Musallam b. Muḥammad al-Laḥjī’s [alive in 530/1135– 36] Akhbār al-Zaydiyya bi-l-Yaman, dated 30 Dhū l-Qaʿda 566/4 August 1171).

INTRODUCTION

Figure 38. MS Riyadh, Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University 8737 (title page of Ibn Mattawayh’s al-Majmūʿ fī l-Muḥīṭ bi-l-taklīf).

49

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Figure 39. MS Riyadh, Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University 8737 (final page of Ibn Mattawayh’s al-Majmūʿ fī l-Muḥīṭ bi-l-taklīf).

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Figure 40. MS Riyadh, Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University 8737 (title page of Qāḍī Shams al-Dīn Jaʿfar’s al-Naqḍ ʿalā ṣāḥib al-Majmūʿ al-Muḥīṭ bi-ltaklīf fīmā khālafa fīhi al-Zaydiyya min bāb al-imāma).

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Figure 41. MS Riyadh, Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University 8737 (dated colophon of Qāḍī Shams al-Dīn Jaʿfar’s al-Naqḍ ʿalā ṣāḥib al-Majmūʿ al-Muḥīṭ bi-l-taklīf fīmā khālafa fīhi al-Zaydiyya min bāb al-imāma).

Figures 42-43. Ms. Yemen, private library, opening page (left), end of text (right).

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Figure 44. MS Lucknow, Nāṣiriyya (final page of Ibn Mattawayh's Majmūʿ min alMuḥīṭ bi-l-taklīf, and title page of Qāḍī Shams al-Dīn Jaʿfar’s al-Naqḍ ʿalā ṣāḥib alMajmūʿ al-Muḥīṭ bi-l-taklīf fīmā khālafa fīhi al-Zaydiyya min bāb al-imāma). Between 14 March and 20 April 1930, the German orientalist and pioneer of Shiʿi studies Rudolf Strothmann (1877–1960) sojourned in Sanaa (fig. 30), seeking access to Zaydi sources he had been unable to locate in any of the European libraries. Strothmann held numerous conversations with local scholars, book dealers, and the faculty of the Madrasa al-ʿIlmiyya, as well as with Imam Yaḥyā and some of his sons. Strothmann approached his interlocutors, mostly in vain, with specific questions about manuscripts of works by Yemeni and Zaydi authors that he hoped to find. He asked repeatedly for an opportunity to visit the library of the Madrasa al-ʿIlmiyya and even the imam’s private library, but such requests were regularly refused. In his diary Strothmann mentions several times that local book dealers frequently brought him codices for inspection and that he purchased some of them.51 It is unknown how many codices Strothmann brought back from Sanaa, but it is

51

Rudolf Strothmann, Mein schönstes orientalisches Semester: Von Sarajewo nach Ṣanʿāʾ, 18.9.1929–10.5.1930, ed. Sabine Schmidtke and Gaby Strothmann [in preparation]; see also Sabine Schmidtke, “Rudolf Strothmann in Yemen, 24 February through 28 April 1930,” Religious and Intellectual Diversity in the Islamicate World and Beyond, ed. Omer Michaelis and Sabine Schmidtke, Leiden: Brill [forthcoming]. The Lebanese American writer Amīn Fāris al-Rayḥānī (1876–1940), who visited Sanaa around 1922, relates similar experiences with the local book dealers; see Ameen Rihani, Arabian Peak and Desert: Travels in al-Yaman, Boston/New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1930, pp. 206ff. Rihani makes the following comment on Imam Yaḥyā’s personal library (Arabian Peak and Desert, p. 130): “. . . His Eminence is a

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possible that some were destroyed in the 1943 bombing that wrecked Hamburg University, as Hamburg University Library holds only a few codices of Yemeni provenance from Strothmann’s Nachlass.52 Strothmann’s erstwhile student Wilferd Madelung was one of the first European scholars able to consult some of the manuscripts held in the Maktabat al-Awqāf in Sanaa during the summer of 1968.53 He returned to Yemen with Sabine Schmidtke and Jan Thiele in 2008 and 2009, at which time he visited several private libraries and consulted codices in the Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt. During these visits, Schmidtke and Thiele also photographed several codices in the Maktabat al-Awqāf. Leiden University Library also continually expanded its holdings of manuscripts from Yemen. In the 1930s, additional purchases were made through Cornelis Adriaanse (1896– 1964), the acting Dutch chargé d’affaires and consul in Jeddah from 1931 through 1939, and between 1993 and 2000 numerous manuscripts were purchased from Paul Spijker (b. 1957), a freelance tourist guide who had obtained them during his repeated trips to Yemen.54 The Berlin State Library purchased Yemeni manuscripts on various occasions over the course of the twentieth century, notably acquiring in 1939 the collection of Hermann Burchardt, who was murdered in Yemen in 1909, and twenty-six further codices in the 1980s and 1990s. Most recently, the Berlin State Library bought a small collection of fourteen Yemeni codices containing various Zaydi works from Bernard Quaritch Ltd. in London.55 Leipzig University Library acquired in 1996 a codex containing an autograph by the Zaydi Yemeni scholar ʿImād al-Dīn Yaḥyā b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Miqrāʾī (d. 990/1582–

book lover . . . a collector rather of ancient manuscripts. His library, all in MS., is the biggest, I was told, in all Arabia. But he is most jealous of it; no outside eye or hand has ever seen or touched a single volume of the precious collection. I am also told—and I set it down as I have the story of the treasures—that the famous book Al-Iklil is only found, complete in its ten volumes, in the library of the Imam, and that some day, inshallah, when the printing press, in its slow Arab journey, reaches Sanʿa, it will be given in book form to the world.” 52 For details, see Sabine Schmidtke, The Beginnings of Shīʿī Studies in Germany: Rudolf Strothmann and His Correspondence with Carl Heinrich Becker, Ignaz Goldziher, and Eugenio Griffini, 1910 through 1923, Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, [in press]. 53 For a vivid description of his sojourn in Sanaa, see Wilferd Madelung, Streitschrift des Zaiditenimams Aḥmad an-Nāṣir wider die ibaditische Prädestinationslehre, Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1985, p. 2: “Die Edition der mir zunächst einzig bekannten, Münchener Handschrift des Kitāb an-naǧāt [by Imam al-Nāṣir Aḥmad] wurde im Frühjahr 1964 mit Unterstützung eines Forschungsstipendiums der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft begonnen. Die Bayerische Staatsbibliothek erleichterte die Arbeit an der Handschrift durch ihre Übersendung nach Hamburg. Nach Abschluß der Abschrift erfuhr ich durch eine freundliche Mitteilung Stefan Wilds nach seiner Rückkehr von einer Jemenreise von der Existenz einer zweiten Handschriften des Werks in der Bibliothek der großen Moschee von Ṣanʿāʾ. Ein Vergleich meines Texts mit dieser Handschrift schien umso dringlicher, als sich während der Abschrift der Münchener Handschrift herausgestellt hatte, daß ein oder mehrere Blätter in ihr ausgefallen waren. Das Oriental Institute der University of Chicago ermöglichte durch finanzielle Unterstützung eine Forschungsreise nach Ṣanʿāʾ im Sommer 1968. Gütige Vermittlung von Qāḍī Ismāʿīl alAkwaʿ, der ein persönliches Interesse an meinem Vorhaben nahm, eröffnete die Einreise nach dem Jemen und Zugang zur Moscheebibliothek. Es stellte sich nun heraus, daß die Textlücke in der Münchener Handschrift fast ein Viertel des Buches ausmachen. Da keine Möglichkeit zum Photokopieren der Handschrift bestand, mußte der fehlende Text an Ort und Stelle abgeschrieben werden. Das Ministerium für religiöse Angelegenheiten erleichterte diese Arbeit wesentlich durch die Erlaubnis, die Handschrift ausnahmsweise in mein Hotelzimmer zu bringen.” 54 See Karin Scheper and Arnoud Vrolijk’s contribution to this volume. 55 See Christoph Rauch’s contribution to this volume.

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83) of his autocommentary on the Miṣbāḥ al-rāʾiḍ (MS or. 354) (figs. 31, 32),56 and another codex containing the K. al-Zīna by the prominent Ismāʿīlī author Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī (d. 322/934) that had been completed on 14 Rabīʿ I 544/22 July 1149 in Jayyān, the administrative district (rustāq) of Rayy in northern Iran (MS or. 377). That the latter codex spent considerable time, possibly centuries, in Yemen is suggested by the characteristic Yemeni hand of some of the statements on the book’s title page (fig. 33). Moreover, one of the names mentioned on the title page is “al-ʿAnsī,” a nisba for members of the Yemeni tribe of ʿAns.57 Important collections of manuscripts from Yemen were also brought together by Ottoman officials serving in Yemen during Ottoman rule over the country (1839–1914), and these are today held in libraries in Istanbul, notably the ʿAlī Amīrī Efendi (1857–1924) collection in the Millet Kütüphanesi.58 Moreover, the number of Yemeni manuscripts in the libraries of Saudi Arabia has grown exponentially over the past decades. Significant holdings of Yemeni manuscripts as well as surrogates are attested in the libraries of al-Jāmiʿa al-Islāmiyya in Medina, Umm al-Qurāʾ University in Mecca,59 and in Riyadh the King Faisal University,60 the King

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For a description of the manuscript and a digital surrogate, see https://www.islamic-manuscripts.net/receive/IslamHSBook_islamhs_00000217 (accessed 8 December 2021). For the author, see al-Wajīh, Aʿlām, vol. 2, pp. 471–473 no. 1432. See also Zayd al-Wazir’s introduction to his edition of al-Miqrāʾī’s Maknūn al-sirr. 57 See Ibrāhīm Aḥmad al-Maqḥafī, Mawsūʿat al-alqāb al-yamaniyya, 7 vols., Beirut: al-Muʾassasa al-Jāmiʿiyya li-l-Dirāsāt wa-l-Nashr wa-l-Tawzīʿ, 1431/2010, vol. 4, pp. 728–732. For a description of the manuscript and a digital surrogate, as well as references to some studies on the codex, see https://www.islamic-manuscripts.net/receive/IslamHSBook_islamhs_00000311 (accessed 8 December 2021). That the manuscript was in Yemen remains unmentioned in the otherwise detailed description. Among the studies on the codex that are not listed on the website are Ismail K. Poonawala, “Note on Kitāb al-Zīna of Abū Ḥātim Aḥmad b. Ḥamdān al-Rāzī (d. 322/934),” Chroniques du Manuscrit au Yémen 21 (2016), pp. 126–156, and Hassan Ansari, “Nuskha-yi kuhna az Ismāʿīliyyān-i Rayy dar Yaman,” Barrasī-hā-yi tārīkhī, http://ansari.kateban.com/post/1860 (accessed 21 January 2022). Ansari shows in detail that the codex was transferred from Rayy to Yemen. 58 Renato Traini, “Les manuscrits yéménites dans les bibliothèques d’Istanbul,” Revue d’histoire des textes 3 (1973) pp. 203–230; Muḥammad ʿĪsā Ṣāliḥiyya, al-Makhṭūṭāt al-yamaniyya fī Maktabat ʿAlī Āmirī Millat bi-Istānbūl, Beirut: Dār al-Ḥadātha/ Sanaa: Markaz al-Dirāsāt wa-l-Buḥūth al-Yamanī, 1984. Other libraries of Istanbul and beyond also hold codices of Yemeni provenance; a systematic study of the Yemeni Zaydi manuscripts in the libraries of Turkey remains a desideratum. In 2008, an agreement was signed between Turkey and Yemen to provide Yemen with digital images of all manuscripts of Yemeni provenance that are kept in the libraries of Turkey; see https://www.saba.ye/en/news147557.htm (accessed 20 January 2019). Whether this ever materialized is unclear. The Yemeni Ministry of Culture approached during the same time the Ambrosiana Library in Milan hoping to reach a similar agreement, but the negotiations came to naught; see Sabine Schmidtke, “The Zaydi Manuscript Tradition: Virtual Repatriation of Cultural Heritage,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 50 (2018), pp. 124–128, here p. 126. 59 Fihris makhṭūṭāt Jāmiʿat Umm al-Qurāʾ, 6 vols., Mecca: Jāmiʿat Umm al-Qurāʾ, ʿImādat Shuʾūn al-Maktabāt, alMaktaba al-Markaziyya, Qism al-Makhṭūṭāt, 1403/1983. 60 See https://www.kfu.edu.sa/ar/deans/library/pages/manuscripts.aspx (accessed 9 December 2021). See also Fuʾād Sayyid, “Makhṭūṭāt al-Yaman,” Majallat Maʿhad al-makhṭūṭāt al-ʿarabiyya 1, no. 2 (1375/1955), pp. 195–209; Fihris al-muṣawwarāt al-mīkrūfīlmiyya bi-Qism al-makhṭūṭāt, Riyadh: Markaz al-Malik Fayṣal li-l-Buḥūth wa-lDirāsāt al-Islāmiyya, 1988–.

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Saud University,61 and the Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University, which is renowned for its particularly precious manuscripts. Examples include a copy of the K. al-Muntakhab fī lḥalāl wa-l-ḥarām, containing the fatāwī of Imam al-Hādī ilā l-Ḥaqq Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn (d. 298/910) gathered by Muḥammad b. Sulaymān al-Kūfī (d. early fourth/tenth century) (fig. 34). The codex features a number of birth statements added by earlier owners and dated between 628/1230–31 and 685/1286–87 (fols. 43v, 89r, 138v, 139r, 187r, 234r, 234v, 235r; fig. 35). These provide a terminus ante quem for the production of the codex. Most importantly, the codex includes a waqf statement (fol. 290v; fig. 36) for the three sons of al-Mufaḍḍal b. Manṣūr b. al-ʿAfīf (d. 682/1283), called al-Murtaḍā, Aḥmad, and Ibrāhīm, which is dated Shaʿbān 706/February–March 1307. Al-Mufaḍḍal was one of the forefathers of the Banū lWazīr,62 and it is likely that most of the codices that were or are part of the library of the Āl alMufaḍḍal contain similar statements.63 A large collection of Yemeni manuscripts was also amassed during the 1950s by the former ambassador of Saudi Arabia to Yemen, al-Sayyid Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-ʿUbaykān (1899–1993) whose private library is located in Riyadh.64

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See http://makhtota.ksu.edu.sa/ (accessed 9 December 2021). For comments on the library’s digital manuscript repository, see van L.W. Cornelis Lit, Among Digitized Manuscripts: Philology, Codicology, Paleography in a Digital World, Leiden: Brill, 2020, pp. 80–81 and passim. 62 See the contributions by Zayd al-Wazir and by Hassan Ansari and Sabine Schmidtke to this volume. 63 The codex was not consulted for the edition of the Muntakhab (Kitāb al-Muntakhab: Wa-yalīhi ayḍan Kitāb al-Funūn mimmā saʾala ʿanhumā Muḥammad b. Sulaymān al-Kūfī al-Hādī ilā l-Ḥaqq Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn b. al-Qāsim b. Ibrāhīm b. Ismāʿīl b. Ibrāhīm b. al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, Sanaa: Dār al-Ḥikma al-Yamaniyya, 1414/1993). The partial catalog of the collection also testifies to the enormous significance of the holdings of this library; see Maḥmūd Muḥammad al-Ṭanāḥī, al-Fihris al-waṣfī li-baʿḍ nawādir al-makhṭūṭāt bi-l-Maktaba al-Markaziyya bi-Jāmiʿat al-Imām Muḥammad b. Saʿūd alIslāmiyya fī l-Riyāḍ, Riyadh: Wizārat al-Taʿlīm al-ʿĀlī, Jāmiʿat al-Imām Muḥammad b. Saʿūd al-Islāmiyya, ʿImādat Shuʿūn al-Maktabāt, Qism al-Makhṭūṭāt, 1413/1993. The library holds, for example, a copy of a supercommentary (taʿlīq) by Ismāʿīl b. ʿAlī b. Ismāʿīl al-Farrazādī on the commentary (taʿlīq) by Abū l-Ḥusayn Aḥmad b. Abī Hāshim al-Ḥusaynī al-Qazwīnī (“Mānkdīm Shashdīw,” d. ca. 425/1034) on the Sharḥ al-Uṣūl al-khamsa of ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Hamadhānī; see ibid., p. 42 no. 31 (the author of the taʿlīq is here misidentified as Abū Saʿd Ismāʿīl b. ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn al-Sammān al-Rāzī [d. 445/1053]). The codex is dated 8 Shawwāl 610/20 February 1214. The only other extant copy of the work is preserved as MS Sanaa, Maktabat al-Awqāf 599, copied by Aḥmad b. al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī b. Isḥāq al-Farrazādī and dated 3 Muḥarram 543/24 May 1148 (fig. 4). Another precious manuscript that is described by al-Ṭanāḥī is a unique copy of the final portion of Musallam b. Muḥammad al-Laḥjī’s (alive in 530/1135–36) Akhbār al-Zaydiyya bi-l-Yaman, dated 30 Dhū l-Qaʿda 566/4 August 1171 and also originating with the library of the Āl al-Wazīr (fig. 37); see ibid., p. 19 no. 4; this portion has been published on the basis of this copy (Musallam b. Muḥammad al-Laḥjī, al-Juzʾ al-rābiʿ min K. Akhbār al-Zaydiyya min ahl al-bayt ʿalayhim al-salām wa-shīʿatihim bi-l-Yaman, ed. Muqbil al-Tāmm ʿĀmir al-Aḥmadī, [Sanaa:] Majmaʿ al-ʿArabiyya alSaʿīda, 1437/2015). For al-Laḥjī, see also Fayṣal Miftāḥ al-Ḥaddād’s introduction to his edition of al-Laḥjī’s K. al-Mithlayn (Benghazi: Manshūrāt Jāmiʿat Qāryūnis, 1988) that was prepared on the basis of a copy transcribed for the khizāna of alManṣūr bi-llāh ʿAbd Allāh b. Ḥamza and kept in the Maktabat al-Awqāf; for this work, see Hassan Ansari, “Kitābī tāza az Musallam-i Laḥjī, nawīsanda-yi muṭarrifī wa Ḥākim-i Jishumī,” Barrasī-hā-yi tārīkhī, http://ansari.kateban.com/post/831 (accessed 21 January 2022). Finally, al-Ṭanāḥī describes in his Fihris a codex containing volume four of Ibn Mattawayh’s recension of ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s Muḥīṭ, al-Majmūʿ fī l-Muḥīṭ bi-l-taklīf (figs. 38, 39), as well as Qāḍī Shams al-Dīn Jaʿfar b. Aḥmad b. ʿAbd al-Salām al-Buhlūlī al-Abnāwī’s al-Naqḍ ʿalā ṣāḥib al-Majmūʿ al-Muḥīṭ bi-l-taklīf fīmā khālafa fīhi al-Zaydiyya min bāb al-imāma, dated 725/1325 (figs. 40, 41); see ibid., pp. 63–64 no. 64, 76 no. 80. 64 See Bernard Haykel’s contribution to this volume.

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EFFORTS TO ACCOUNT FOR AND SALVAGE THE YEMENI MANUSCRIPT TREASURES Following the coup d’état of 1962, the former palace (Dār al-Saʿāda) library and the personal book collections of the members of the royal family as well as the collections of former ministers and other government officials were confiscated and eventually transferred to al-Maktaba al-Gharbiyya, which was founded shortly after the coup in 196865 and became the Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt on 25 September 1982 (it is today housed in a new building outside the premises of the Great Mosque). This institution falls under the aegis of the General Organization for Antiquities and Libraries, which was established in 1969 and was directed until 1990 by al-Qāḍī Ismāʿīl al-Akwaʿ (1338–1429/1920–2008).66 The unpacking and arranging of the thousands of codices and the assignment of shelf marks have been a slow and gradual process—over the decades, the shelf mark system of the Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt has changed repeatedly. The changes are reflected in the two catalogs of the holdings of the Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt, issued in 197867 and 2005, respectively (see also below). The collection seems to be growing still: a large number of codices (3,380 volumes) were handed over to the Hayʾa al-ʿĀmma li-l-Kitāb (Dār al-Kutub al-Yamaniyya) as recently as 2014.68 Following the publication of the 1942/43 catalog of the holdings of the Khizāna al-Mutawakkiliyya (“a bibliographic rarity outside the Yemen,” in that predigital age),69 a group of Yemeni scholars consisting of Aḥmad ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ruqayḥī (b. 1929), ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad al-Ḥibshī (b. 1949), and ʿAlī Wahhāb al-Ānisī, began work on a new catalog of the holdings of the Maktabat al-Awqāf; this was published in 1984 in four volumes. In the process, they also replaced the shelf marks of the former Khizāna al-Mutawakkiliyya with a new system. In 1951–1952, in 1964, and again in 1974, scholarly expeditions from Egypt were dispatched to Yemen. They explored the holdings of the Khizāna al-Mutawakkiliyya and the Maktaba al-Gharbiyya in Sanaa as well as those of some of the smaller libraries in Sanaa and other cities, and they produced microfilms of a select number of manuscripts (ca. 555 codices in total), which they brought back to Cairo.70 As a result of the relocation of the Maʿhad al-Makhṭūṭāt al-ʿArabiyya to Kuwait City (1981–1990), Kuwait also contributed to the estab-

65

See al-Akwaʿ’s preface to ʿĪsawī and al-Malīḥ, Fihris makhṭūṭāt al-Maktaba al-Gharbiyya bi-l-Jāmiʿ al-kabīr biṢanʿāʾ; al-Akwaʿ, “al-Turāth al-fikrī,” p. 86. 66 For al-Akwaʿ and the General Organization for Antiquities and Libraries, see Anne Regourd’s contribution to this volume. 67 ʿĪsawī and al-Malīḥ, Fihris makhṭūṭāt al-Maktaba al-Gharbiyya bi-l-Jāmiʿ al-kabīr bi-Ṣanʿāʾ. 68 “Al-Amn al-siyāsī yuʿīdu kutub fikriyya ṣādarahā al-niẓām al-sābiq ilā al-Hayʾa al-ʿāmma li-l-kitāb,” Yemen Press, 27 July 2014, https://yemen-press.com/news33493.html (accessed 21 January 2022). See also Chroniques du manuscrit au Yémen 19 (January 2015), “Actualités,” “Décembre 2014,” p. 13. 69 Madelung, Arabic Texts, 1987, p. 14 (English introduction). Today, a scan of the catalog is available at, for example, https://archive.org/details/1963_20200421/page/n3/mode/2up (accessed 9 December 2021). 70 Khalīl Yaḥyā Nāmī, al-Baʿtha al-miṣriyya li-taṣwīr al-makhṭūṭāt al-ʿarabiyya fī bilād al-Yaman, Cairo: Maṭbaʿat al-Wizāra al-ʿUmūmiyya, 1952; Sayyid, “Makhṭūṭāt al-Yaman”; Qāʾima bi-l-makhṭūṭāt al-ʿarabiyya al-muṣawwara bi-l-mīkrūfīlm min al-Jumhūriyya al-ʿarabiyya al-yamaniyya, Cairo: Maṭbaʿat Dār al-Kutub, 1967; “al-Makhṭūṭāt allatī ṣawwarathā baʿthat alMaʿhad ilā l-Jumhūriyya al-ʿarabiyya al-yamaniyya,” Majallat Maʿhad al-makhṭūṭāt al-ʿarabiyya 22, no. 1 (1976), pp. 3–81; Sayyid, Maṣādir, pp. 419–433; “Taqrīr al-makhṭūṭāt al-ʿarabiyya fī l-Jumhūriyya al-ʿarabiyya al-yamaniyya,” al-Mawrid: Majalla turāthiyya faṣliyya 5, no. 1 (1976), pp. 100–105, here p. 102. Unfortunately, in our experience it is very difficult to obtain digital surrogates of any of the microfilmed manuscripts in the Maʿhad al-Makhṭūṭāt al-ʿArabiyya, and the same applies to the original Yemeni manuscripts that are kept in the Dār al-Kutub in Cairo.

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lishment of infrastructure in Yemen for the preservation of the country’s manuscript holdings. Between October and December 1982, a delegation from Kuwait assessed and partly microfilmed the primarily Sunni Shāfiʿī holdings of the Maktabat al-Aḥqāf (founded in 1972) in Tarim, Hadhramaut,71 and in February and March 1985 a Kuwaiti team engaged in filming and cataloging some 308 manuscripts held by the Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt in Sanaa.72 The various handlists prepared by the Egyptian and Kuwaiti delegations provide essential information on the public and private libraries of Yemen at that time; since then, many have ceased to exist. Some of the physical codices that were microfilmed by the Egyptians or the Kuwaitis have since left Yemen. Examples include Abū l-Qāsim al-Kaʿbī al-Balkhī’s (d. 319/931) important doxographical work, the K. al-Maqālāt,73 a codex containing ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s

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“Al-Makhṭūṭāt allatī ṣawwarahā al-Maʿhad min Maktabat al-Aḥqāf li-l-makhṭūṭāt bi-Tarīm,” Majallat Maʿhad almakhṭūṭāt al-ʿarabiyya 27, no. 2 (1983), pp. 681–748. On the library, see also Nico van den Boogert, “The Manuscript Library of Tarīm in Wādī Ḥaḍramawt,” Manuscripts of the Middle East 6 (1994), pp. 155–157. For a catalog of the holdings of some other nonprivate and private libraries in Tarim and other locations in Haḍramawt, see ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad al-Ḥibshī, Fihrist al-makhṭūṭāt al-yamaniyya fī Ḥadramūt: al-Muḥāfaẓa al-khāmisa, [Aden:] alMarkaz al-Yamanī li-l-Abḥāth al-Thaqāfiyya, 1975. 72 ʿIṣām Muḥammad al-Shanṭī, al-Makhṭūṭāt al-ʿarabiyya allatī ṣawwarahā al-Maʿhad min Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt fī Ṣanʿāʾ (al-Jumhūriyya al-ʿarabiyya al-yamaniyya) fī l-faṭra min 1/25–3/4/1985 = The Arabic Manuscripts Microfilmed by the Institute from the Manuscripts House in Sanaa (Yemen Arab Republic) from 28/1–4/3/1985, al-Ṣafāt, Kuwait: Maʿhad al-Makhṭūṭāt al-ʿArabiyya, al-Munaẓẓama al-ʿArabiyya li-l-Tarbiya wa-l-Thaqāfa wa-l-ʿUlūm, 1988. 73 The book was discovered by Fuʾād Sayyid (1335–1387/1916–1967) in 1952 during his first visit to Yemen, and he brought the original copy back to Cairo. This is evident from the comment of his son, Ayman Fuʾād Sayyid, in the latter’s edition of Ibn al-Nadīm’s Fihrist, in his annotation on Ibn al-Nadīm’s entry on Abū l-Qāsim al-Kaʿbī alBalkhī and his writings; see Muḥammad b. Isḥāq Ibn al-Nadīm, K. al-Fihrist, ed. Ayman Fuʾād Sayyid, 3 vols., London: Muʿassasat al-Furqān li-l-Turāth al-Islāmī, 1435/2014, vol. 1, p. 615 n. 2. That the physical codex is today located in the library of Ayman Fuʾād Sayyid is also mentioned by van Ess, Der Eine und das Andere, vol. 1, p. 339 n. 103. Fuʾād Sayyid included a partial edition of the text in his posthumously published Faḍl al-iʿtizāl (Tunis: alDār al-Tūnisiyya li-l-Nashr, 1974). Ayman Fuʾād Sayyid, in his 2017 republication of his father’s Faḍl al-iʿtizāl, relates that a surrogate of the original codex (or perhaps even the original codex) was no longer in his possession. It evidently came into the hands of Ḥusayn Khānṣū, who, together with ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd Kurdī and Rājiḥ Kurdī, published an edition of the text (Abū l-Qāsim al-Kaʿbī al-Balkhī, K. al-Maqālāt wa-maʿahu ʿUyūn al-masāʾil wa-ljawābāt, ed. Ḥusayn Khānṣū, Rājiḥ Kurdī, and ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd Kurdī, Amman: Dār al-Fatḥ / Istanbul: KURAMER Center for Quranic Studies, 2018). For the history of the manuscript since its discovery by Sayyid, see also Ayman Fuʾād Sayyid’s introduction to the 2017 edition of Faḍl al-iʿtizāl, pp. 34*, 37*; see also ibid., p. 37*, for his ambiguous reference to the codex or its surrogate: Nashara l-kitāb ʿan ṣūra li-l-aṣl al-maḥfūẓ fī khizānat wālidī raḥimahu llāh wa-lā adrī kayfa waṣala ilayhim! He further states that he considers the edition by the three scholars untrustworthy. To add to the confusion, Fuat Sezgin, in the entry on Abū l-Qāsim al-Kaʿbī al-Balkhī in his Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums, vol. 1: Qurʾanwissenschaften, Ḥadīṯ, Geschichte, Fiqh, Dogmatik, Mystik bis ca. 430 H., Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1967, pp. 622–623, says about the Maqālāt that “ein Exemplar davon soll im Yaman gefunden worden und jetzt im Besitz von Kuentz sein.” Sezgin does not disclose his source, but he is apparently referring to Charles Kuentz (1895–1978), who served as director of the Institut français d'archéologie orientale in Cairo between 1940 and 1953. It should be noted that Ḥusayn Khānṣū, ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd Kurdī, and Rājiḥ Kurdī state in the introduction to their edition (p. 34) that they relied on the single extant witness of the work, preserved in a private library in Yemen, and that it was Dr. Rājiḥ Kurdī who provided access to a surrogate of the codex (iʿtamadnā fī taḥqīq hādhā l-kitāb ʿalā l-nuskha al-waḥīda al-maḥfūẓa fī aḥad al-maktabāt al-khāṣṣa bi-l-Yaman wa-qad zaw-

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Mutashābih al-Qurʾān74 and his Faḍl al-iʿtizāl,75 and some volumes of ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s theological summa, K. al-Mughnī.76

wadnā bi-muṣawwara ʿanhā al-Duktūr Rājiḥ Kurdī). Similar misleading information is provided in their earlier edition, which contained only Abū l-Qāsim al-Kaʿbī’s ʿUyūn al-masāʾil wa-l-jawābāt and was based on the same codex (Ammān: Dār al-Ḥāmid, 1435/2014, pp. 11–12). In view of Ayman Fuʾād Sayyid’s account of the history of the codex since its discovery by his father, this statement cannot be true. That Khānṣū, Kurdī, and Kurdī relied on the very same manuscript that Fuʾād Sayyid has discovered in 1952 is evident from the description they provide of the witness, which matches precisely Ayman Fuʾād Sayyid’s depiction of the copy. According to Ayman Fuʾād Sayyid (Faḍl al-iʿtizāl, p. 34*), Khayr al-Dīn al-Ziriklī’s (1310–1396/1893–1976) entry on Fuʾād Sayyid in al-Aʿlām: Qāmūs tarājim li-ashhar al-rijāl wa-l-nisāʾ min al-ʿArab wa-l-mustaʿribīn wa-l-mustashriqīn, 8 vols., Beirut: Dār al-ʿIlm li-lMalāyyīn, 2002, vol. 5, pp. 160–161, shows Fuʾād Sayyid’s handwriting on the physical codex containing al-Balkhī’s Maqālāt (p. 160). For Fuʾād Sayyid’s trips to Yemen, see Ayman Fuʾād Sayyid, Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣriyya, p. 69. 74 See Zarzūr’s introduction to his edition of the work, vol. 1, pp. 59–62, where he relates that he consulted two witnesses of the Mutashābih al-Qurʾān. One copy, completed Ṣafar 618/March–April 1221 in Ẓafār (Dhībīn), was produced for the library of al-Manṣūr bi-llāh ʿAbd Allāh b. Ḥamza. This copy is particularly valuable since it was collated with a copy of the work, dated 6 Rabīʿ I 478/2 July 1085, that was in the possession of Qāḍī Shams al-Dīn Jaʿfar b. Aḥmad b. ʿAbd al-Salām al-Buhlūlī al-Abnāwī. Fuʾād Sayyid obtained the codex when he visited Yemen in 1952. The copy’s location in Yemen until 1952 is unknown—it is not listed in the Fihrist kutub al-Khizāna al-Mutawakkiliyya of 1942/43. For the codex, see also Ayman Fuʾād Sayyid’s introduction to his father’s Faḍl al-iʿtizāl, as well as Zarzūr’s introduction to his edition of the Mutashābih al-Qurʾān, vol. 1, p. 26 n. 3. The second copy of Mutashābih al-Qurʾān consulted by Zarzūr also dates to the early seventh/thirteenth century, but unlike the first copy it has some lacunae. This copy was transferred in 1348/1929 from Ẓafār (Dhībīn) to the Khizāna al-Mutawakkiliyya in Sanaa, and it is accordingly included in the Fihrist kutub al-Khizāna al-Mutawakkiliyya, pp. 31–32. It was one of the codices that were microfilmed by the Egyptians in 1952. 75 The copy included in this codex constitutes the single extant witness of the K. Faḍl al-iʿtizāl of ʿAbd al-Jabbār alHamadhānī. Fuʾād Sayyid included a partial edition of it in his Faḍl al-iʿtizāl. 76 According to the 1942/43 catalog of the Khizāna al-Mutawakkiliyya (pp. 103–104), the following parts (ajzāʾ, sg. juzʾ) of the work are preserved in the Khizāna: 4 (ruʾyat al-bāriʾ), 5 (al-firaq ghayr al-islāmiyya), 6 (al-taʿdīl wa-ltajwīr; al-irāda), 7 (khalq al-Qurʾān), 8 (al-makhlūq), 9 (al-tawlīd; only eleven and a half out of twenty-one chapters are preserved), 11 (al-taklīf), 12 (al-naẓar wa-l-maʿārif), 13 (al-luṭf; the end of this part is missing), 14 (al-aṣlaḥ; istiḥqāq al-dhamm; al-tawba), 16 (iʿǧāz al-Qurʾān), and 20 (fī l-imāma). Meanwhile, the Dār al-Kutub in Cairo holds copies of parts 5, 6, 15, 16, and 17. See the editors’ introduction to Omar Hamdan and Sabine Schmidtke (eds.), Nukat al-Kitāb al-Mughnī: A Recension of ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Hamadhānī’s (d. 415/1025) “al-Mughnī fī Abwāb alTawḥīd wa-l-ʿAdl,” Beirut: Orient-Institut, 2012, pp. xiii–xiv. The parts mentioned in the Khizāna catalog are also listed in al-Ruqayḥī et al., Fihrist, vol. 2, pp. 759–762 (MSS Maktabat al-Awqāf 542 through 550). Their presence in the Khizāna is confirmed by al-Akwaʿ, “al-Turāth al-fikrī,” p. 85, as well as by G. C. Anawati and Maḥmūd El-Khodeiri, in “Une somme inédite de théologie moʿtazilite: Le Moghni du Qadi ʿAbd al-Jabbar,” Mélanges de l’Institut dominicain d’études orientales 4 (1957), pp. 281–316, here p. 284, who state: “De ces vingt jozʾ, la mission envoyée au Yémen n’a pu trouver que douze, soit les trois cinquièmes d’ouvrage total. Les parties existantes sont les suivantes: 4e, 5e, 6e, 7e, 8e, 9e, 11e, 12e, 13e, 16e et 20e.” Part 14 was mistakenly not included in this list, but Anawati and El-Khodeiri give a description of it in their article (ibid., pp. 308–310). Anawati and El-Khodeiri confirm that all twelve parts were copied for the library of al-Manṣūr bi-llāh ʿAbd Allāh b. Ḥamza; see ibid., p. 284: “Seule la section seizième a été copiée par Jaʿfar b. Aḥmad al-Ṭāmī. Les onze autres sections sont de la main du copiste Moḥammad b. Aḥmad b. ʿAlī b. al-Walīd, moḥyī l-dīn wa-zayn al-mowaḥiddīn. L’ensemble du livre a été copié pour la Bibliothèque de ʿAbdallāh b. Ḥamza b. Solaymān b. Rasūl, al-Manṣūr billāh, imām solaymanite alide, mort en 612 [sic] de l’H. L’écriture est en naskhī ancien, la plupart du temps sans points diacritiques et le plus souvent

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At the request of the Arab Republic of Yemen, a UNESCO delegation visited Yemen on 14–30 September 1971 to assess “the situation regarding ancient books and manuscripts in the country.” In their final report, the delegation’s leaders, American University of Beirut professors Yūsuf Ībish (1926–2003) and Maḥmūd al-Ghūl (1923–1983), not only elaborated on the unique value of the Yemeni manuscript collections but also gave recommendations on how best to preserve this treasure. The UNESCO report led to additional international initiatives to preserve the manuscripts of Yemen. Following exploratory visits to the country by the German orientalist Albrecht Noth (1937–1999) in 1977, 1978, and 1979, the Cultural Preservation Programme of the Federal Foreign Office of Germany funded a long-term project focusing on the organization, conservation, and microfilming of the old Qurʾān fragments discovered in the Great Mosque of Sanaa. In its first decade, 1979 through 1987, the project was directed by Albrecht Noth. It was concluded in 1997, when the microfilmed materials arrived in Germany. The technical infrastructure remained in Yemen.77 In addition to the various governmental initiatives, there have also been private endeavors to film some of the Yemeni manuscripts. In 1973, Robert W. Stookey (1917–1998), a former US Foreign Service officer who joined the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Texas at Austin as a research associate in the 1980s, was able to film significant portions of the private library of al-Sayyid Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl alManṣūr (1333–1437/1915–2016). That microfilm collection is nowadays housed at the University of Texas, and duplicates of the collection were deposited in the Markaz al-Dirāsāt

joignant entre elles certaines lettres qui ne comportent pas de liaison avec les lettres qui suivent, ce qui contribue à créer une certaine confusion dans la lecture de certains mots, ou même de certaines phrases.” El-Khodeiri describes some additional copies of the Mughnī (parts 15 and 17) in an article published in 1958 as “nouvelles acquisitions de la Bibliothèque Nationale du Caire (Dār al-Kotob)”; see Mahmoud El-Khodeiri, “Deux nouvelles sections du Moghni du Qadi ʿAbd al-Jabbar,” Mélanges de l’Institut dominicain d’études orientales 5 (1958), pp. 417–424, here p. 417. This suggests that the latter parts were discovered by the Egyptian expedition outside the Maktabat al-Awqāf and that the physical codices were taken to Cairo. Further examination of the physical codices is needed to determine their provenance. The codicological division of the Mughnī as preserved in the Khizāna al-Mutawakkiliyya/Maktabat al-Awqāf can be reconstructed as follows (whether the additional copies in Cairo follow the same division is unknown): Parts (ajzāʾ) 1 through 3 (lost) were grouped together in two codicological units (mujallad), volumes 1 and 2; parts 4 and 5 are contained in volume 3; parts 6 and 7 in volume 4; parts 8 and 9 (incomplete) in volume 5; part 10 (lost) in volume 6; part 11 in volume 7; part 12 in volume 8; part 13 in volume 9; part 14 in volume 10; part 15 (lost) in volume 11; part 16 in volume 12; parts 17 through 19 (lost) in volumes 13–15; and part 20 in volume 16. The editors’ introductions to the individual edited parts of the Mughnī (ʿAbd al-Jabbār alHamadhānī, al-Mughnī fī abwāb al-tawḥīd wa-l-ʿadl, general editor Ṭāhā Ḥusayn, 16 vols., Cairo: al-Dār al-Miṣriyya li-l-Taʾlīf wa-l-Tarjama, [1960–]) are often vague regarding the manuscripts they consulted. See also Sayyid, Sources de l’histoire du Yémen à l’époque musulmane, pp. 422-423, where it is related that the Egyptians bought eleven codices, including the K. al-Mughnī, during their sojourn in Sanaa. The codices described by El-Khodeiri may well have been among those codices. 77 For a detailed account, see Thomas Eich, “Die Wissenschaft, eine Revolution—und der Alltag: Das Jemen-Projekt an der Hamburger Orientalistik in den 1980er Jahren,” 100 Jahre Universität Hamburg: Studien zur Hamburger Universitäts- und Wissenschaftsgeschichte in vier Bänden, vol. 2: Geisteswissenschaften, Theologie, Psychologie, ed. Rainer Nicolaysen, Eckart Krause, and Gunnar B. Zimmermann, Göttingen: Wallstein, 2021, pp. 489–508.

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wa-l-Buḥūth al-Yamaniyya in Sanaa.78 The Lebanese scholar Riḍwān al-Sayyid (b. 1949) taught at Sanaa University from 1989 to 1991, and during this time, he assembled a collection of photocopies of some 400 texts in the Maktabat al-Awqāf and some private libraries in Yemen.79 Using the manuscripts he had collected as his basis, al-Sayyid also devoted some studies to the history of Zaydi Yemen, including, most importantly, an edition of a sīra of the two sons of Jaʿfar b. al-Qāsim al-ʿIyānī (d. 450/1059), al-Sharīf al-Fāḍil al-Qāsim (d. 468/1075) and Dhū l-Sharafayn Muḥammad (d. 477/1084), composed by the amīrs’ secretary, Mufarriḥ b. Aḥmad al-Rabaʿī.80 This was a collaborative editorial project, carried out with the Egyptian scholar ʿAbd al-Ghanī Maḥmūd ʿAbd al-ʿĀṭī, who also devoted a study to the Muṭarrifiyya.81 Mention should also be made of Daniel Gimaret (b. 1933), one of the pioneers of the modern study of the Muʿtazila: although he never traveled to Yemen, he brought together a sizeable collection of microfilm surrogates of Muʿtazilī texts held in Yemeni libraries. The microfilms are today preserved as the Fonds Gimaret at the Institute de récherche et d’histoire des textes, section arabe, in Paris.82 Wilferd Madelung collected

78

See Dale J. Correa, “Recovering Yemen’s Cultural Heritage: The Stookey Microfilms,” Shii Studies Review 2 (2018), pp. 308–318. 79 For an unpublished list of these surrogates, see “al-Makhṭūṭāt al-Yamaniyya: Hiya majmūʿa min al-rasāʾil alkhaṭṭiyya allatī qāma bi-taṣwīrihā al-Duktūr Riḍwān al-Sayyid athnāʾa tadrīsihi fī Jāmiʿat Ṣanʿāʾ fī tisʿīniyyāt al-qarn al-māḍī min maktabāt khāṣṣa,” https://baroudipublishing.files.wordpress.com/2019/01/d985d8b5d988d8b1d8a7d8aad8a7d984d985d8aed8b7d988d8b7d8a7d8aad8a7d984d98ad985d98ad986d8a921-10-2015.pdf (accessed 9 December 2021). The list does not provide any information on the whereabouts of the physical originals. During his sojourn in Beirut in 1997, Hassan Ansari had access to Riḍwān al-Sayyid’s collection of surrogates. 80 Mufarriḥ b. Aḥmad al-Rabaʿī, Sīrat al-amīrayn al-jalīlayn al-sharīfayn al-fāḍilayn al-Qāsim wa-Muḥammad ibnay Jaʿfar b. al-Imām al-Qāsim b. ʿAlī al-ʿIyānī: Naṣṣ tārīkhī yamanī min al-qarn al-khāmis al-hijrī, ed. Riḍwān al-Sayyid and ʿAbd al-Ghanī Maḥmūd ʿAbd al-ʿĀṭī, Beirut: Dār al-Muntakhab al-ʿArabī, 1413/1993. 81 ʿAbd al-Ghanī Maḥmūd ʿAbd al-ʿĀṭī, al-Ṣirāʿ al-fikrī fī l-Yaman bayna l-Zaydiyya wa-l-Muṭarrifiyya: Dirāsa wanuṣūṣ, al-Haram [Giza]: ʿAyn li-l-Dirāsāt wa-l-Buḥūth al-Insāniyya wa-l-Ijtimāʿiyya, 2002. During his sojourn in Yemen, al-Sayyid also consulted the relevant Zaydi sources for his study al-Nafs al-zakiyya Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Ḥasan b. al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib: Kitāb al-Siyar, wa-mā baqiya min rasāʾil al-daʿwa wa-l-thawra, Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-Jadīd al-Muttaḥad, 1444/2021. In ibid., p. v, he mentions that he began teaching in Sanaa in the fall of 1988, but his curriculum vitae on his professorial website mentions the years 1989 through 1991 instead; see https://www.aub.edu.lb/fas/arabic/Documents/Ridwan%20Al-Sayyid.pdf (accessed 9 December 2021). It should be noted that al-Sayyid’s 2021 publication does not reflect the current state of Zaydi studies— since al-Sayyid's sojourn in Yemen, many additional materials have been discovered (and were partly published), but for the most part he did not consulted them. Another Lebanese scholar who has contributed to the scholarly study of Zaydism is Maher Jarrar, most importantly through his edition of Akhbār Fakhkh wa-khabar Yaḥyā b. ʿAbd Allāh wa-akhīhi Idrīs b. ʿAbd Allāh. Intishār al-ḥaraka al-Zaydiyya fī l-Yaman wa-l-Maghrib wa-l-Daylam, ed. Maher Jarrar, Tūnis: Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī, 2011. The authenticity of the work has been disputed and the alleged origin of the text from Rayy seems fabricated—it was rather composed in Yemen. See Hassan Ansari, “Akhbār Fakhkh wa khabar Yaḥyā b. ʿAbd Allāh taʾlīf-i Aḥmad b. Sahl al-Rāzī: kitābī majhūl (1),” Barrasī-hā-yi tārīkhī, http://ansari.kateban.com/post/1836; Hassan Ansari, “Dar bāra-yi Kitāb-i Akhbār Fakhkh (2),” Barrasī-hā-yi tārīkhī, http://ansari.kateban.com/post/3862; Hassan Ansari, “Bāz dar bāra-yi Kitāb-i Akhbār Fakhkh wa afsāna-hā-yi ān,” Barrasī-hā-yi tārīkhī, http://ansari.kateban.com/post/3895 (all accessed 21 January 2022). 82 Gimaret’s first major publication on the Muʿtazila—“Les Uṣūl al-Ḫamsa du Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Ǧabbār et leurs commentaires,” Annales Islamologiques 15 (1979), pp. 47–96—was published only in 1979, but it was around 1970 that

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over the years numerous copies (all of Yemeni origin) of the doctrinal writings of Rukn alDīn Maḥmūd b. Muḥammad al-Malāḥimī (d. 536/1141), a follower of Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī (d. 436/1044), a former student of ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Hamadhānī and the founder of what became to be known as the last innovative school of the Muʿtazila.82a Iranian libraries hold a significant number of Zaydi manuscripts, some of which testify to the persistence of Zaydism in the various centers of Zaydi scholarship in Ṭabaristān, Daylamān, and Gīlān in the Caspian region up until the tenth/sixteenth century.83 Further, the

he began to delve into the history of this movement, initially focusing on the K. al-Mughnī of ʿAbd al-Jabbār alHamadhānī; see “Entretien avec D. Gimaret,” Autour du regard: Mélanges Gimaret, ed. Eric Chaumont with Denis Aigle, Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, and Pierre Lory, Leuven: Peeters, 2003, pp. ix–xxii, here pp. xvff. and passim. Gimaret’s last major contribution to this field of research was his edition of Ibn Mattawayh’s al-Tadhkira fī aḥkām al-jawāhir wa-l-aʿrāḍ, which was again based on several witnesses of Yemeni provenance: Ibn Mattawayh, Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan b. Aḥmad, al-Tadhkira fī aḥkām al-jawāhir wa-l-aʿrāḍ li-Abī Muḥammad al-Ḥasan b. Aḥmad b. Mattawayh, ed. Daniel Gimaret, 2 vols., Cairo: Institut français d’archéologie orientale, 2009. 82a Together with Martin McDermott, Madelung published a critical edition of Ibn al-Malāḥimī’s K. al-Muʿtamad fī uṣūl al-dīn (London: Al-Hoda, 1991; revised and enlarged edition Tehran: Iranian Institute of Philosophy, 2012, on the basis of MS Jāmiʿ al-Imām al-Hādī in Ṣaʿda, which was first discovered and digitized by the Iranian delegation [on which see below]) and of his K. al-Fāʾiq fī uṣūl al-dīn (Tehran: Iranian Institute of Philosophy, 2007). 83 Prominent examples are discussed in Ansari and Schmidtke, Studies in Medieval Islamic Intellectual Traditions, chapters 5 and 6. Iranian libraries also hold a significant number of Zaydi works from Yemen. An example is the K. alʿIqd al-naḍīd al-mustakhraj min Sharḥ Ibn Abī l-Ḥadīd by Fakhr al-Dīn ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Hādī b. Yaḥyā b. Ḥamza (d. late eighth/fourteenth century). In addition to copies in Yemeni libraries (al-Wajīh, Aʿlām, vol. 1, p. 603), a witness of the work is preserved in the Majlis Library in Tehran, and Muḥammad Riḍā Anṣārī Qummī prepared an edition of the work on its basis. Another example is a copy of al-Ḥulal fī sharḥ abyāt al-jumal by the Andalusī scholar Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad al-Baṭalyawsī (d. 521/1127), now held in the library of the Dānishgāh-i Tihrān. The manuscript was transcribed for the library of the Zaydi Imam al-Muʾayyad bi-llāh Yaḥyā b. Ḥamza (d. 749/1348– 49) and at some stage traveled to Iran (MS Tehran, Dānishgāh, Mishkāt 204); see Hassan Ansari, “Nuskha-yi khaṭṭī-yi mutaʿalliq bih kitābkhāna-yi imāmī zaydī dar Kitābkhāna-yi Markazī-yi Dānishgāh-i Tihrān,” Barrasī-hā-yi tārīkhī, http://ansari.kateban.com/post/2181 (accessed 21 January 2022). Of related relevance are three copies of Yemeni origin (MSS Qum, Marʿashī 4557, 12397, as well as another copy in the private library of Muḥammad ʿAlī Rawḍātī in Isfahan) of the K. al-Miʿyār wa-l-muwāzana by the Muʿtazili theologian Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Iskāfī (d. 240/854). The work was published in the edition prepared by the Iranian scholar Muḥammad Bāqir Maḥmūdī (Beirut 1402/1981) on the basis of MS Qum, Marʿashī 4557). While the editor does not specify the manuscript he consulted, this is mentioned by al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī, Ahl al-bayt fī l-maktaba al-ʿarabiyya, pp. 502-504 no. 679. Additional witnesses of the work are preserved in some of the private libraries of Yemen (figs 42, 43). While some scholars have doubted the authenticity of the work as a book by al-Iskāfī, Hassan Ansari has proven its authenticity (“Kitāb al-Miʿyār wa-l-muwāzana az kīst?,” Barrasī-hā-yi tārīkhī, https://ansari.kateban.com/post/1224, accessed 21 January 2022). For the manuscripts of the work in the Marʿashī Library, see Maḥmūd Marʿashī et al., Fihrist-i nuskha-hā-yi khaṭṭī-yi Kitābkhāna-yi ʿUmūmī-yi Haḍrat-i Āyat Allāh al-ʿUẓmā Najafī-yi Marʿashī, Qum: Kitābkhāna-yi ʿUmūmī-yi Haḍrat-i Āyat Allāh al-ʿUẓmā Najafī-yi Marʿashī, n.d., vol. 12, p. 131; vol. 31, p. 341. Moreover, according to the thirteenth/nineteenth-century Iranian scholar Muḥammad Jawād al-Shīrāzī, one of his acquaintances brought in the year 1251/1835-36 about 120 Zaydi Yemeni books to Shiraz. These were Muḥammad Jawād al-Shīrāzī's primary sources when he wrote al-Kawākib al-muḍiʿa li-l-shīʿa al-marḍiyya fī qiyām al-ḥujaj al-Imāmiyya ʿalā firaq al-Zaydiyya, a refutation of Zaydism from an Imami perspective. For this work, see Hassan Ansari, “Muʿarrifī-yi nuskha-yi shumāra-yi 91 majmūʿa-yi Glāzir-i kitābkhāna-yi dawlatī-yi Birlīn,” Barrasī-hā-yi tārīkhī, http://ansari.kateban.com/post/1641 (accessed 21 January 2022). For some Yemeni manuscripts, which were given as waqf to the Madrasa-yi Chahār Bāgh in

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ijāzas issued and received by Yemeni Zaydi scholars to and from Iranian scholars over the course of the twentieth century testify to a continuous scholarly dialog between the two communities in the modern period, which no doubt also featured the circulation of manuscripts between Yemen and Iran. For example, Āyat Allāh al-ʿUẓmā al-Sayyid Shihāb al-Dīn alNajafī al-Marʿashī (1315–1411/1897–1990), the founder of the Marʿashī Library in Qum, received a number of ijāzas from well-known Yemeni scholars and personalities, the most prominent mujīz being Imam Yaḥyā Ḥamīd al-Dīn, who issued an ijāza for Shihāb al-Dīn on 16 Muḥarram 1355/8 April 1936.84 Shihāb al-Dīn also received ijāzas from Aḥmad b. Muḥammad Zabāra (1325–1421/1908–2000), the muftī of the Republic of Yemen (dated Jumādā I 1395/May–June 1975);85 from the latter’s father, the historian Muḥammad b. Muḥammad Zabāra (1301–1380/1883–1961) (dated 20 Jumādā II 1355/7 September 1936);86 from the prominent Yemeni scholar ʿAbd al-Wāsiʿ b. Yaḥyā al-Wāsiʿī (1295–1960/1878–1960) (dated Shawwāl 1355/December–January 1936);87 and from many other Yemeni Zaydi scholars.88 This was a reciprocal process—Shihāb al-Dīn, in turn, granted numerous ijāzas to scholars from Yemen.89 Another example testifying to the scholarly relations between contemporary Zaydi and Imami scholars is an ijāza issued by al-Shaykh Ḥamūd b. ʿAbbās b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Muʾayyad al-Yamanī al-Zaydī (1336–1439/1917 or 1918–2018)90 to the prominent Imami scholar and founding director of the Open School in Chicago al-Sayyid Muḥammad Ḥusayn

Isfahan, see Rasūl Jaʿfariyān and Rasūl Jazīnī, Waqf-nāma-hā-yi kitāb-i ṣafawī, Qum: Nashr-i Muwarriḥ, 1397sh/2018. For the introduction to this volume, see https://historylib.com/articles/1831/%DA%AF%D8%B2%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%B4+324+%D9%88%D9%82%D9%81+%D9%86%D8%-A7%D9%85%D9%87+%DA%A9%D8%AA%D8%A7%D8%A8+%D8%A7%D8%B2+%D8%AF%D9%88%D8%B1%D9%87+%D8%B5%D9%81%D9%88 %DB%8C (accessed 21 January 2022). 84 Maḥmūd al-Marʿashī (ed.), al-Musalsalāt fī l-ijāzāt: Muḥtawiya ʿalā ijāzāt ʿulamāʾ al-islām fī ḥaqq wālidī al-ʿAllāma Āyat Allāh al-ʿUẓmā al-Sayyid Abī l-Maʿālī Shihāb al-Dīn al-Ḥusaynī al-Marʿashī al-Najafī, 2 vols., Qum: Maktabat Āyat Allāh al-ʿUẓmā al-Marʿashī al-Najafī al-ʿĀmma, 1416 [1995 or 1996], vol. 1, pp. 430–432. The ijāza is reprinted in Aḥmad al-Ḥusaynī al-Ishkawarī, Muʾallafāt al-Zaydiyya, 3 vols., Qum: Maktabat Āyat Allāh al-ʿUzmā al-Marʿashī al-Najafī, 1413/1992–1993, vol. 1, pp. 15–17. 85 Al-Marʿashī, Musalsalāt, vol. 1, pp. 435–436. 86 Al-Marʿashī, Musalsalāt, vol. 1, pp. 433–434. 87 Al-Marʿashī, Musalsalāt, vol. 1, pp. 403–404. 88 See al-Marʿashī, Musalsalāt, vol. 1, pp. 429–628 (al-juzʾ al-thālith fī ijāzāt ikhwāninā ʿulamāʾ al-Zaydiyya). 89 See al-Ḥusaynī al-Ishkawarī, Muʾallafāt al-Zaydiyya, vol. 1, p. 21. 90 On him, see Schmidtke, Traditional Yemeni Scholarship, pp. 118–120, 124. Karrām ʿAlwān Ḥusayn al-Kaʿbī alBaghdādī gathered seven ijāzas received by al-Shaykh Ḥamūd between Muḥarram 1380/1960 and Jumādā II 1398/1978 in Karrām ʿAlwān Ḥusayn al-Kaʿbī al-Baghdādī (ed.), al-Durr al-manḍūd min ijāzāt al-Sayyid Ḥamūd: alImām al-Muʿammar al-Ḥujja al-Sayyid Ḥamūd b. ʿAbbās al-Muʾayyad (1336–1439h), private publication, 2019, https://archive.org/details/20191127_20191127_2052 (accessed 21 January 2022).

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b. al-Sayyid Muḥsin al-Jalālī al-Ḥāʾirī (1362–1442/1943–2020)91 on 14 Dhū l-Ḥijja 1396/6 December 1976 when the two scholars met in Mecca.92 Some of the libraries in the ʿAtabāt cities in southern Iraq, such as the library of the Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ family, also hold manuscripts that contain Zaydi works or are of Yemeni provenance.93 This explains why Āghā Buzurg al-Ṭihrānī’s (1293–1389/1876–1970) alDharīʿa ilā taṣānīf al-Shīʿa contains several titles by Zaydi authors. The sources at his disposal included a partial copy comprising two volumes (from the letter tāʾ to the end) of Aḥmad b. Ṣāliḥ b. Abī l-Rijāl’s (d. 1092/1690) biobibliography, Maṭlaʿ al-budūr wa-majmaʿ al-buḥūr, which he consulted in the library of the Iraqi Twelver Shiʿi scholar Muḥammad ʿAlī Hibat al-Dīn al-Shahrastānī (1301–1386/1884–1967) (figs. 46, 47, 48).94 Al-Shahrastānī had returned in 1332/1913 from a three-year trip that had taken him to various destinations in the Middle East, including Yemen. In Yemen he had inspected a number of manuscripts,

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Al-Jalālī was also in contact with the renowned Yemeni Zaydi scholar Majd al-Dīn b. Muḥammad b. Manṣūr alMuʾayyadī (d. 1428/2007); see Muḥammad Ḥusayn al-Ḥusaynī al-Jalālī, Ijāzat al-ḥadīth, ed. Saʿīd Ayyūb, Cairo: Dār al-Manār, 1409/1989, p. 189. Among the many obituaries for him, see, e.g., “Condolences on the Passing of His Eminence, Sayyid Mohammad Hussein al-Husseini al-Jalali,” Council of Shia Muslim Scholars of North America website, 22 November 2020, https://www.imams.us/condolences-on-the-passing-of-his-eminence-sayyid-mohammad-hussein-al-husseini-al-jalali/ (accessed 21 January 2022). See also Muḥammad Ḥusayn al-Ḥusaynī alJalālī, Fihris al-turāth, Qum: Dalīl-i Mā, 1422/2001–2, which concludes with an autobiographical account. AlJalālī’s younger brother, Muḥammad Riḍā (b. 1365/1946), also received an ijāza from al-Muʾayyadī, which was published in facsimile as Majd al-Dīn b. Muḥammad al-Muʾayyadī al-Ḥasanī, al-Jāmiʿa al-muhimma li-asānīd kutub al-aʾimma, Tehran: Kitābfurūshī-yi Muṣṭafawī, 1396sh/1976. See also Thabat al-asānīd al-ʿawālī ilā marwiyyāt alSayyid Muḥammad Riḍā al-Ḥusaynī al-Jalālī, Qum: Majmaʿ-i Dhakhāʾir-i Islāmī, 1420/1378sh/1999, pp. 8, 107-108 (where he mentions again Majd al-Dīn al-Muʾayyadī among his transmitters); Muḥammad Riḍā al-Jalālī mentions two other Zaydi scholars of Yemen from whom he transmits, namely Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn al-Jalāl al-Ḥasanī al-Ṣanʿānī (ibid., p. 9) and Badr al-Dīn al-Ḥasanī al-Ḥūthī (d. 1431/2010), who had spent more than a year in Qum, during which al-Jalālī met him and also received an ijāza from him (ibid., p. 102). Both Muḥammad Ḥusayn alJalālī and Muḥammad Riḍā made scholarly contributions to the study of Zaydism. Among Muḥammad Ḥusayn al-Jalālī’s publications, mention should be made of his Musnad Nahj al-balāgha, Qum: Maktabat al-ʿAllāma alMajlisī, 1431/2010, and al-Dirāsa ḥawla Nahj al-balāgha, Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Aʿlamī li-l-Maṭbūʿāt, 2001; in both studies he pays special attention to the Zaydi transmission of Nahj al-balāgha. Their brother Muḥammad Jawād al-Ḥusaynī al-Jalālī also published an edition of the K. Irshād al-muʾminīn li-maʿrifat Nahj al-balāgha al-mubīn, a work by the Yemeni Zaydi scholar Yaḥyā b. Ibrāhīm al-Jaḥḥāf (d. 1102/1690–91), with an introduction by Muḥammad Ḥusayn al-Ḥusaynī al-Jalālī (3 vols., Qum: Dalīl-i Mā, 1422/1380sh/2002). 92 The text of the ijāza is published in Ḥusayn al-Wāthiqī, al-Turāth al-Makkī: al-Ijāzāt, al-mustansakhāt, al-muʾallafāt, al-taṣḥīḥāt, al-tamallukāt wa . . . , Qum: Dānish-i Hawza, 1431/1389 [2010], pp. 47–48. Al-Jalālī also published through the Open School in Chicago a copy of the Qurʾān that was produced by Ḥamūd al-Muʾayyad in 1396/1976, which combined the readings of Nāfiʿ (d. 117/735, 118/736, 119/737 or 120/738) and ʿĀṣim (d. 127 or early 128/745); al-Qurʾān al-karīm bi-khaṭṭ al-ʿAllāma al-Sayyid Ḥamūd ʿAbbās al-Muʾayyad ayyadahu llāh jamʿan bayna qirāʾatay Nāfiʿ wa-ʿĀṣim ʿan nuskha farīda bi-l-Jāmiʿ al-Abhar fī Ṣanʿāʾ– al-Yaman, Chicago: The Open School, n.d. The volume concludes with Ḥamūd al-Muʾayyad's ijāza for al-Jalālī. 93 The Muʾassasat Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ (which is to be distinguished from the Maktabat Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ) also holds numerous surrogates of Zaydi manuscripts from Yemen. For those two libraries, see Ansari and Schmidtke, Al-Šarīf al-Murtaḍā’s Oeuvre and Thought, passim. 94 See also Muḥsin al-Amīn, Aʿyān al-Shīʿa, 6 vols., Beirut: Dār al-Taʿāruf li-l-Maṭbūʿāt, n.d., vol. 8, p. 300.

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and copies of these were later made available to him.95 Āghā Buzurg prepared an abbreviated version of the second half of the work, which he entitled Maḥṣūl Maṭlaʿ al-budūr and completed in Ramaḍān 1335/June–July 1917.96 Another important source that was accessible to Āghā Buzurg and other Imami scholars was Nasmat al-saḥar bi-dhikr man tashayyaʿa wa-shaʿar by Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn Yūsuf b. Yaḥyā al-Ḥasanī al-Yamanī al-Ṣanʿānī (1078– 1121/1667 or 1668–1709), a close relative of Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn b. al-Qāsim al-Yamanī alṢanʿānī (1035/1625–after 1099/1688), who had converted from Zaydism to Imamism. The book covers Shiʿi poets, including Zaydis and Imamis, which explains why it circulated in both communities. Āghā Buzurg relates that he consulted a complete copy of the work in the library of al-Shaykh ʿAlī Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ (1267–1350/1850–1931) in Najaf (figs. 49, 50, 51) and that volume 2 of the book was also found in the library of al-Sayyid Ḥasan al-Ṣadr (1272–1354/1856–1935), likewise in Najaf. Moreover, Āghā Buzurg prepared an epitome/fihrist of the book, which he entitled Nuzhat al-baṣar fī fihris Nasmat al-saḥar.97

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For his trip, see ʿAbd al-Sattār al-Ḥasanī, al-Sayyid Hibat al-Dīn al-Ḥusaynī al-Shahrastānī: Ḥayātuhu wanashāṭuhu al-ʿilmī wa-l-ijtimāʿī, Qum: Muʾassasat Turāth al-Shīʿa, 2008, pp. 37–44, esp. p. 41, where his sojourn in Yemen in 1331/1913 is mentioned. Later Hibat al-Dīn prepared an edition of a work by Zayd b. ʿAlī (d. 122/740), Minhāj al-ḥājj, aw, manāsik Āl Muḥammad, wa-huwa al-maʿrūf bi-Mansak Zayd al-Shahīd b. al-Imām al-Sajjād ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn, which was published by Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ b. Ibrāhīm al-Ḥusaynī, Baghdad: ʿAlā nafaqat Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Zanjānī, 1342 [1923–24] (fig. 79); see also al-Ḥasanī, al-Sayyid Hibat al-Dīn al-Ḥusaynī al-Shahrastānī, p. 41. As he explains in the introduction to his edition of Minhāj al-ḥājj, Hibat al-Dīn had seen a copy of the text in Yemen, but it was only in 1334/1915–16 that he himself obtained a copy of this work (as well as other works from Yemen) (fig. 80). His interest in Zayd b. ʿAlī was possibly prompted by his being a descendant of the latter. 96 See Muḥammad Muḥsin Āghā Buzurg al-Ṭihrānī, al-Dharīʿa ilā taṣānīf al-Shīʿa, 25 vols., Beirut: Dār Iḥyāʾ al-Turāth alʿArabī, 1403–1406/1983–1986, vol. 21, p. 152 no. 4382 (Maṭlaʿ al-budūr), vol. 20, p. 151 no. 2351 (Maḥṣūl Maṭlaʿ al-budūr). A copy of volumes 3 and 4 of Maṭlaʿ al-budūr (dated 1180 AH) in the library of Hibat al-Dīn al-Shahrastānī is also recorded in Ḥusayn ʿAlī Maḥfūẓ, “al-Makhṭūṭāt al-ʿarabiyya fī l-ʿIrāq,” Majallat Maʿhad al-Makhṭūṭāt al-ʿArabiyya = Revue de l’Institut des manuscrits arabes 4, no. 1 (1377/1958), pp. 195–258, here p. 252. 97 See Āghā Buzurg, Dharīʿa, vol. 24, pp. 154–155 no. 794 (Nasmat al-saḥar bi-dhikr man tashayyaʿa wa-shaʿar), 115 no. 594 (Nuzhat al-baṣar fī fihris Nasmat al-saḥar). The work was published twice, by Kāmil Salmān al-Jabūrī (3 vols., Beirut: Dār al-Muʾarrikh al-ʿArabī, 1420/1999) and by Aḥmad Mahdawī Dāmghānī (2 vols., Tehran: Wizārat al-Khārijiyya, 1380sh/2001). Al-Jabūrī relates in his introduction that the autograph of the work is kept in Istanbul in Millet Kütüphanesi under the shelf mark 2393 (vol. 1, p. 37), that a copy of volume 2 of the work is found in Karbalāʾ (p. 33), and (contra Āghā Buzurg and the images that are available to us; see fig. 49) that the copy kept in the library of al-Shaykh ʿAlī Kāshif alGhiṭāʾ contains only volume 2 of the work (p. 34); moreover, he states that Muḥsin al-Amīn commissioned a copy of volume 2 of the work for his own use (that al-Amīn had a copy of the work is confirmed in al-Amīn, Aʿyān al-Shīʿa, vol. 1, p. 152), and that Muḥammd b. Ṭāhir al-Samāwī (d. 1370/1950) produced a copy of the complete text, which was later added to the library of Muḥammad Riḍā Faraj Allāh (d. 1386/1966) in Najaf (p. 35; for the library, see Ansari and Schmidtke, AlŠarīf al-Murtaḍā’s Oeuvre and Thought, p. 146 n. 233; for al-Samāwī, see ibid., pp. 373ff. and passim). See also al-Jabūrī’s introduction on Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn Yūsuf b. Yaḥyā (pp. 9–23). Āghā Buzurg also mentions a copy of the siyar work al-Ḥadāʾiq alwardiyya by Ḥumayd b. Aḥmad al-Muḥallī (killed in 652/1254) in the Maktabat Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ; see Āghā Buzurg, Dharīʿa, vol. 6, pp. 291-292. The same copy, as well as a copy of the text prepared by al-Samāwī, is also mentioned in Sayyid, Sources de l’histoire du Yémen à l’époque musulmane, p. 128; see also Ḥusayn ʿAlī Maḥfūẓ, "al-Makhṭūṭāt al-ʿarabiyya fī lʿIrāq," Majallat maʿhad al-makhṭūṭāt al-ʿarabiyya 4, no. 1 (1377/1958), pp. 195–258, here p. 225 no. 199. Moreover, according to Muḥammad Taqī Dānishpazhūh, “Kitābkhāna-hā-yi ʿIrāq wa ʿArabistān-i Suʿūdī,” Nashriyya-yi Kitābkhāna-yi Markazī-yi Dānishgāh-i Tihrān 5 (1345 [1946]), pp. 405–583, here p. 421, the Maktabat al-Imām al-Ḥakīm in Najaf owns a

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Figure 45. MS Lucknow, Nāṣiriyya Library (Masālik al-abrār al-manẓūm min Jalāʾ al-abṣār).

copy of the Qurʾān with the ownership note of al-Mahdī li-Dīn Allāh ʿAbbās b. al-Manṣūr bi-llāh al-Ḥusayn b. al-Mutawakkil ʿalā llāh, i.e., a member of the Qāsimī dynasty.

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Figure 46. MS Najaf, Maktabat Muḥammad ʿAlī Hibat al-Dīn al-Shahrastānī (title page of Ibn Abī l-Rijāl’s Maṭlaʿ al-budūr).

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Figure 47. MS Najaf, Maktabat Muḥammad ʿAlī Hibat al-Dīn al-Shahrastānī (page from Ibn Abī l-Rijāl’s Maṭlaʿ al-budūr).

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Figure 48. MS Najaf, Maktabat Muḥammad ʿAlī Hibat al-Dīn al-Shahrastānī (page from Ibn Abī l-Rijāl’s Maṭlaʿ al-budūr).

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Figure 49. MS Najaf, Maktabat Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ (title page of volume 1 of Nasmat alsaḥar by Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn Yūsuf b. Yaḥyā al-Ḥasanī al-Yamanī al-Ṣanʿānī).

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Figure 50. MS Najaf, Maktabat Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ (title page of volume 2 of Nasmat alsaḥar by Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn Yūsuf b. Yaḥyā al-Ḥasanī al-Yamanī al-Ṣanʿānī).

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Figure 51. MS Najaf, Maktabat Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ (beginning of volume 2 of Nasmat alsaḥar by Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn Yūsuf b. Yaḥyā al-Ḥasanī al-Yamanī al-Ṣanʿānī).

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Figure 52. MS Najaf, Maktabat Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ (title page of Aʿlām Nahj al-balāgha by Ṣadr al-Dīn ʿAlī b. Nāṣir al-Ḥusaynī al-Sarakhsī, copied in Ẓafār and dated Ramaḍān 701/April–May 1302).

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Figure 53. MS Najaf, Maktabat Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ (end of Aʿlām Nahj al-balāgha by Ṣadr al-Dīn ʿAlī b. Nāṣir al-Ḥusaynī al-Sarakhsī, copied in Ẓafār and dated Ramaḍān 701/April–May 1302).

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Figure 54. MS Najaf, Maktabat Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ (end of Aʿlām Nahj al-balāgha, by Ṣadr al-Dīn ʿAlī b. Nāṣir al-Ḥusaynī al-Sarakhsī, copied in Ẓafār and dated Ramaḍān 701/April–May 1302, with final colophon).

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Figure 55. MS Bombay, Kutubkhāna-yi Madrasa-yi Muḥammadiyya-yi Jāmiʿ Masjid (title page of Shawāhid al-tanzīl by al-Ḥāfiẓ ʿUbayd Allāh b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥākim alḤaskānī al-Nīsābūrī).

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Another example of a work that was accessible to Zaydi scholars in Yemen as well as to Imami scholars is Aʿlām Nahj al-balāgha, a commentary on the Nahj al-balāgha written by al-Sayyid Ṣadr al-Dīn ʿAlī b. Nāṣir al-Ḥusaynī al-Sarakhsī (fl. late sixth/twelfth and early seventh/thirteenth centuries). Al-Sarakhsī’s students included a number of Zaydis, and one of them, Tāj al-Dīn Zayd (or Aḥmad) b. Aḥmad b. al-Ḥasan al-Bayhaqī al-Barawqānī alḤājjī, brought both the Nahj al-balāgha and the Aʿlām Nahj al-balāgha to Yemen.98 The Maktabat Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ in Najaf holds a copy of the Aʿlām Nahj al-balāgha dated Ramaḍān 701/April–May 1302 that was produced fī l-mashhad al-manṣūrī, that is, Ẓafār (Dhībīn), where al-Manṣūr bi-llāh ʿAbd Allāh b. Ḥamza lived and was buried (figs. 52, 53, 54). The copy, which was brought to Iraq at some stage, is now available in a facsimile edition prepared and introduced by al-Sayyid Ḥasan al-Mūsawī al-Burūjirdī.99 One of the earliest publications of a text of a Zaydi author by an Iraqi Twelver Shiʿi scholar was Muḥammad Ḥasan Āl Yāsīn al-Kāẓimī’s (1350–1427/1931–2006) edition of Qāḍī Shams alDīn Jaʿfar b. Aḥmad b. ʿAbd al-Salām al-Buhlūlī al-Abnāwī’s (d. 573/1177–78) Sharḥ Qaṣīdat al-Ṣāḥib b. ʿAbbād, which is based on two witnesses, one held in the Ambrosiana Library in Milan and the other in the Taymūr collection in Cairo.100 Numerous Yemeni manuscripts are also found among the holdings of the Nāṣiriyya Library in Lucknow (India), in which Imami books are otherwise strongly represented. Besides some copies of works by Muʿtazilī authors that are, directly or indirectly, of Yemeni origin,101 the library holds codices with writings by Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm al-Wazīr (d. 840/1436)102 and al-Manṣūr bi-llāh al-Qāsim b. Muḥammad (d. 1029/1620).103 The Kutubkhāna-yi Madrasa-yi Muḥammadiyya-yi Jāmiʿ Masjid in Bombay owns a copy of Shawāhid al-tanzīl li-qawāʿid al-tafḍīl fī l-āyāt al-nāzila fī Ahl al-Bayt by the Ḥanafī scholar al-Ḥāfiẓ ʿUbayd Allāh b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥākim al-Ḥaskānī al-Nīsābūrī (d. after 470/1077–78) (fig. 55), which circulated among the Zaydis of Yemen.104 The copy was transcribed by Aḥmad b. Yūsuf b. al-Ḥusayn b. al-Ḥasan b. al-Manṣūr bi-llāh al-Qāsim b. Muḥammad b. ʿAlī, a member of the Qāsimī dynasty of Yemen, for his own use and is dated 12 Rabīʿ I 1169/16 December 1755. In the final colophon, the scribe identifies his antigraph as a copy dated Jumādā II 1063/April–May 1653, which, he explains, was in the possession of Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan b. al-Manṣūr al-Qāsim (whose private library is discussed in the

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See Ansari and Schmidtke, Studies in Medieval Islamic Intellectual Traditions, chapter 9 and passim. Najaf: Dār al-Turāth / Qum: Maktabat al-ʿAllāma al-Majlisī, 1434/2013. An edition of the work was prepared by ʿAzīz Allāh al-ʿAṭāridī and published in Tehran by Muʾassasat al-Ṭibāʿa wa-l-Nashr al-Tābiʿa li-Wizārat al-Thaqāfa wa-l-Irshād al-Islāmī in 1415/1994–95. Al-ʿAṭāridī consulted two manuscripts of the work in India, but he did not have access to copies in Yemen or Iraq. The two Indian copies are apographs of Yemeni manuscripts. 100 Qāḍī Jaʿfar b. Aḥmad al-Buhlūlī al-Yamānī al-Muʿtazilī, Sharḥ Qaṣīdat al-Ṣāḥib b. ʿAbbād fī uṣūl al-dīn, ed. Muḥammad Ḥasan Āl Yāsīn, Baghdad: al-Maktaba al-Ahliyya, 1965. For the copy of the work in the Taymūr collection, see Fihris al-Khizāna al-Taymūriyya, vol. 4, p. 85 (shelf mark: majāmiʿ 380); here the hand is described as khaṭṭ yamanī ḥadīth. 101 See above, n. 18. 102 Ustādī, “Fihrist-i diwīst wa sī nuskha-yi khaṭṭī,” p. 93 (al-Rawḍ al-bāsim). 103 Ustādī, “Fihrist-i diwīst wa sī nuskha-yi khaṭṭī,” pp. 93 (al-Risālāt wa-l-masāʾil), 105 (Tuḥfat al-walad limā ʿalayhi al-muʿtamad fī imāmat amīr al-muʾminīn). For another case, see ibid., p. 106. 104 See Ansari and Schmidtke, Studies in Medieval Islamic Intellectual Traditions, passim. 99

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beginning of this introduction) (fig. 56). The copy contains no information that would explain how it got to Bombay. It is possible that Ṭayyibis leaving Yemen for Bombay took with them some manuscripts produced among the Zaydis.104a It is noteworthy that works by Imami scholars also reached Yemen. Partial copies of alSharīf al-Murtaḍā’s (d. 436/1044) Ghurar al-fawāʾid, or Amālī, were available in Zaydi circles.105 The Maktabat al-Aḥqāf in Tarim holds a sixth/twelfth-century copy of volume 5 of alTibyān fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān by al-Shaykh al-Ṭūsī (d. 460/1067) (figs. 57, 58).106 One of the private libraries of Yemen holds a unique copy of the K. Iqrār al-ṣaḥāba bi-faḍl imām al-hudā wa-lqarāba by the Imami author Muḥammad b. Jaʿfar al-Mashhadī (alive in 580/1184–85).106a The Maktabat al-Awqāf possesses a copy of Talkhīṣ al-marām fī maʿrifat al-aḥkām by al-Ḥasan b. Yūsuf b. al-Muṭahhar “al-ʿAllāma al-Ḥillī” (d. 726/1325), transcribed by one Ḥasan b. Ḥamdān (?) and dated 10 Rajab 726/12 June 1326 (MS Sanaa, Maktabat al-Awqāf 1350) (figs. 59, 60).107 Columbia University Library owns a copy of Ibrāhīm b. ʿAlī b. al-Ḥasan al-Kafʿamī's (alive in 898/1492-93) Junnat al-amān al-wāqiya wa-jannat al-īmān al-bāqiya, known as al-Miṣbāḥ (MS Or. 122), copied by Muḥammad Hādī b. Mīrzā ʿArab al-Shīrāzī five years after his return from the ḥajj to Iran (fig. 62). The codex came at some stage to Yemen as it was kept in the library of Ismāʿīl b. Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. al-Manṣūr bi-llāh al-Qāsim b. Muḥammad, i.e., a descendant of the founder of the Qāsimī dynasty, al-Manṣūr al-Qāsim (d. 1029/1620) (fig. 61). The book's transfer from Iran to Yemen may have occurred in the context of the political and scholarly contacts between Safavid Iran and Qāsimī Yemen. The titlepage also has a stamp in Persian, suggesting that the codex was returned at some stage to Iran where it was kept in a public library or one of the major private libraries. When and why it became part of the collection of David Eugene Smith (1860-1944) who later donated it to Columbia University Library is unknown.107a MS Vienna, Austrian National Library, Cod. Glaser 113 is a copy of a

104a

For copies of Yemeni manuscripts in Indian libraries, see also Sayyid, Sources de l’histoire du Yémen, passim. See Ansari and Schmidtke, Al-Šarīf al-Murtaḍā’s Oeuvre and Thought, pp. 114–115. 106 For a detailed description of the codex and its history (until the early twentieth century it was still in Iran), see Hassan Ansari, “Atharī māndagār az yik dānishmand-i nāshinākhta-yi imāmī madhhab,” Kitāb-i māh-i dīn 47–48 (1380sh/2001), pp. 3–6. 106a An edition of the work was published on the basis of this manuscript in Iran (ed. Lajnat al-Taḥqīq fī Maktabat al-ʿAllāma al-Majlisī, Markaz al-Taḥqīqāt wa-l-Dirāsāt al-Turāthiyya, Qum: Maktabat al-ʿAllāma al-Majlisī, 1439/1396/2016). The work was first identified by Hassan Ansari, “Kitābī tāza yāb az Ibn al-Mashhadī,” Kitāb-i māh-i dīn 83–84 (1383/2004), pp. 89–93. 107 See al-Ruqayḥī et al., Fihrist, vol. 2, p. 1003. 107a For a description of the manuscript, see https://openn.library.upenn.edu/Data/0032/html/ms_or_122.html (accessed 11 January 2022). The copyist of the codex, Muḥammad Hādī b. Mīrzā ʿArab al-Shīrāzī, sojourned for some time in Mecca. On him, see Ḥusayn al-Wāthiqī, Aʿlām al-mujāwirīn bi-Makka al-muʿaẓẓama, 2 vols, Qum: Bustān-i Kitāb, 1395sh/1437/2016, vol. 2, pp. 731-732. For al-Kafʿamī and his Junnat al-amān, see Kohlberg, A Medieval Muslim Scholar at Work, pp. 90-91 and passim. For David Eugene Smith and his collections, see Kaoukab Chebaro and Jane Rodgers Siegel, “A History of the Muslim World Manuscript Collection at the Columbia University Libraries,” Philological Encounters 5 (2020), pp. 258-281. On the relations between the Qāsimīs and the Safavids, see Hassan Ansari, “Dū sanad mutaʿalliq bih dawra-yi Shāh ʿAbbās-i duwwum-i Ṣafawī,” Barrasī-hā-yi tārīkhī, http://ansari.kateban.com/post/1118 (accessed 21 January 2022); Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn, Yawmiyyāt Ṣanʿāʾ fī l-qarn al-ḥādī ʿashar, ed. ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥibshī, Abu Dhabi: al-Mujammaʿ al-Thaqāfī, 1996, passim. We thank Rasul Jazini for having brought the 105

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commentary (ḥāshiya) on Jamāl al-Dīn al-Ḥasan b. al-Shahīd al-Thānī's (d. 1011/1602–3) Maʿālim al-dīn wa-malādhdh al-mujtahidīn by the prominent seventeenth-century Iranian scholar Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ Māzandarānī (d. 1081/1671). The manuscript, which is dated 1086/1675-75 (and thus one of the earliest extant copies of the text; fig. 64), was evidently not produced in Yemen, but some of the ownership statements on the opening page (fig. 63) confirm that it got to Yemen at some point.107b An interesting case is that of al-Ṭarāʾif fī maʿrifat madhāhib al-ṭawāʾif by ʿAlī b. Mūsā Ibn Ṭāwūs (d. 664/1266), a polemical anti-Sunni book that Ibn Ṭāwūs published under a pseudonym, ʿAbd al-Maḥmūd b. Dāwūd. Unaware of Ibn Ṭāwūs’s authorship, the book circulated among the Zaydis in Yemen under the title Nuṣrat al-Shīʿa ʿalā ahl al-madhāhib al-shanīʿa.108 Moreover, the Ṣaḥīfa al-sajjādiyya by Imam Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn al-Sajjād (d. 95/713–14) is also preserved in Yemen, with the same chain of transmission as that found in the copies that circulated among the Imamis (figs. 75, 76).109 And a collection of aḥādīth of Imam ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib that was transmitted by the renowned Imami muḥaddith and imām zāda ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥasanī (d. 252/866) has been preserved in the transmission of the Yemeni Zaydi Qāḍī Shams al-Dīn Jaʿfar b. Aḥmad b. ʿAbd al-Salām al-Buhlūlī al-Abnāwī. The Iranian scholar Muḥammad al-ʿĀfī al-Khurāsānī recently published a critical edition and study of the text on the basis of a manuscript held in a private library in Yemen (fig. 83).110

existence of this manuscript to our attention. That the transmission of Imami books from Iran to Yemen continued beyond the Safavid period is suggested by a Yemeni copy of al-Ṣaḥīfa al-sajjādiyya al-thāniya, an addendum to alṢaḥīfa al-sajjādiyya compiled by Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī al-Ḥurr al-ʿĀmilī (d. 1104/1693) that is kept in one of the private libraries of Yemen (figs. 70, 71). The work was edited on the basis of witnesses from Iranian libraries only (ed. Fāris Ḥassūn Karīm, Qum: Muʾassasat al-Maʿārif al-Islāmiyya, 1421/2000-1). 107b For the manuscript (without identification), see https://search.onb.ac.at/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=ONB_alma21295730220003338&context=L&vid=ONB (accessed 11 January 2022). Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ Māzandarānī's commentary on the Maʿālim was published repeatedly; for a future critical edition, MS Vienna, Cod. Glaser 113 would have to be consulted. 108 For a copy of the work under the title Nuṣrat al-Shīʿa ʿalā ahl al-madhāhib al-shanīʿa in the Maktabat Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-ʿIjrī in Dahyan (fig. 74), see al-Wajīh, Aʿlām, vol. 1, p. 307. A photocopy surrogate of the codex is kept in the Maktabat al-Sayyid Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm al-Hādī in Dahyan; see al-Wajīh, Aʿlām, vol. 1, p. 475. For the Ṭarāʾif, see Hassan Ansari, “Ṭarāʾif-i Ibn Ṭāwūs wa raddiyya-yi bar ān,” Barrasī-hā-yi tārīkhī, http://ansari.kateban.com/post/1234 (accessed 21 January 2022); Kohlberg, A Medieval Muslim Scholar at Work, pp. 57–59 no. 51. 109 See Muḥammad Ḥusayn Ḥakīm’s introduction to al-Ṣaḥīfa al-sajjādiyya al-kāmila li-l-Imām Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn, facsimile edition of a manuscript transcribed by Ibrāhīm b. ʿAlī al-Kafʿamī, dated 867 AH, from the private collection of Sayyid Jalāl al-Dīn Yūnisī in Qum, introd. Muḥammad Ḥusayn Ḥakīm, Qum: Kitābkhāna-yi Millī/Bunyād-i Muḥaqqiq-i Ṭabāṭabāʾī, 1394sh [2015], pp. 27, 39–40. Moreover, the Maktabat al-Awqāf holds a copy of al-Ṣaḥīfa al-sajjādiyya, dated 1145/1733 and transcribed by a Yemeni, Ismāʿīl b. al-Ḥasan al-Ḥamzī almaʿrūf bi-l-Ḥarra, for his own use (li-nafsihi), on the basis of an antigraph copied by the aforementioned al-Mahdī li-Dīn Allāh Aḥmad b. al-Ḥasan al-Qāsim (d. 1092/1620). The latter’s copy reflects the copy of the prominent Imami scholar al-Shahīd al-Awwal (d. 786/1384) (figs. 66, 67, 68, 69). 110 Aḥādīth Amīr al-Muʾminīn ʿAlī ʿalayhi l-salām bi-riwāyat ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm al-Ḥasanī wa-bi-imlāʾ al-Qāḍī Jaʿfar b. Aḥmad al-Yamānī (t. 573h): Min makhṭūṭat al-zaydiyya, ed. Muḥammad al-ʿĀfī al-Khurāsānī, Qum: Dār al-Ḥadīth, 1399sh/1442 [2021]. For additional examples, see Bernard Haykel's contribution to this volume.

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Figure 56. MS Bombay, Kutubkhāna-yi Madrasa-yi Muḥammadiyya-yi Jāmiʿ Masjid (final colophon of Shawāhid al-tanzīl by al-Ḥāfiẓ ʿUbayd Allāh b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥākim al-Ḥaskānī al-Nīsābūrī).

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Figure 57. MS Tarīm, Maktabat al-Aḥqāf 23 (title page of K. al-Tibyān by al-Shaykh al-Ṭūsī).

INTRODUCTION

Figure 58. MS Tarīm, Maktabat al-Aḥqāf 23 (end and final colophon of K. al-Tibyān by al-Shaykh al-Ṭūsī).

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Figure 59. MS Sanaa, Maktabat al-Awqāf 1350 (title page of Talkhīṣ al-marām fī maʿrifat al-aḥkām by al-Ḥasan b. Yūsuf b. al-Muṭahhar al-Ḥillī).

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Figure 60. MS Sanaa, Maktabat al-Awqāf 1350 (end and final colophon of Talkhīṣ almarām fī maʿrifat al-aḥkām by al-Ḥasan b. Yūsuf b. al-Muṭahhar al-Ḥillī).

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Figure 61. Ms. New York, Columbia University Library, Or. 122, title page.

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Figure 62. Ms. New York, Columbia University Library, Or. 122, colophon.

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Figure 63. Ms. Vienna, Austian National Library, Cod. Glaser 113, opening page.

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Figure 64. Ms. Vienna, Austrian National Library, Cod. Glaser 113, colophon.

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Figure 65. MS Sanaa, Maktabat al-Awqāf 547 (title page of volume 13 of ʿAbd al-Jabbār's Mughnī).

INTRODUCTION

Figure 66. MS Sanaa, Maktabat al-Jāmiʿ al-kabīr, 2090 (al-Ṣaḥīfa al-sajjādiyya, titlepage).

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Figure 67. MS Sanaa, Maktabat al-Jāmiʿ al-kabīr, 2090 (al-Ṣaḥīfa al-sajjādiyya, beginning of text).

INTRODUCTION

Figure 68. MS Sanaa, Maktabat al-Jāmiʿ al-kabīr, 2090 (al-Ṣaḥīfa al-sajjādiyya, end of text).

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Figure 69. MS Sanaa, Maktabat al-Jāmiʿ al-kabīr, 2090 (al-Ṣaḥīfa al-sajjādiyya, colophon).

INTRODUCTION

Figure 70. MS kept in a private library in Yemen (al-Ṣaḥīfa al-sajjādiyya al-thāniya, by al-Ḥurr al-ʿĀmilī)

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Figure 71. MS kept in a private library in Yemen (al-Ṣaḥīfa al-sajjādiyya al-thāniya, by al-Ḥurr al-ʿĀmilī).

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Figure 72. MS Tehran, Dānishgāh 1437 (title page of al-Ṣāḥib b. ʿAbbād’s Risāla fī lhidāya wa-l-ḍalāla, allegedly written during the author’s lifetime).

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Figure 73. MS Tehran, Dānishgāh 1437 (end of al-Ṣāḥib b. ʿAbbād’s Risāla fī l-hidāya wa-l-ḍalāla, allegedly with al-Ṣāḥib’s own handwriting).

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Figure 74. MS Ḍaḥyān, Maktabat Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-ʿIjrī [no shelfmark] (title page of Nuṣrat al-Shīʿa ʿalā ahl al-madhāhib al-shanīʿa by ʿAbd al-Maḥmūd b. Dāwūd, i.e., al-Ṭarāʾif fī maʿrifat madhāhib al-ṭawāʾif by ʿAlī b. Mūsā Ibn Ṭāwūs).

Figure 75. MS private library in Yemen (IZbACF) (al-Ṣaḥīfa al-sajjādiyya, title page).

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Figure 76. MS private library in Yemen (IZbACF) (al-Ṣaḥīfa al-sajjādiyya, beginning of text).

Figure 77. MS Shahāra, Maktabat al-Jāmiʿ [no shelfmark] (title page of K. al-Taḥrīsh by Ḍirār b. ʿAmr).

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Figure 78. MS Shahāra, Maktabat al-Jāmiʿ [no shelfmark] (end of K. al-Taḥrīsh by Ḍirār b. ʿAmr).

Figure 79. Title page of Zayd b. ʿAlī, Minhāj al-ḥājj, ed. Muḥammad ʿAlī Hibat al-Dīn alShahrastānī, Baghdad: ʿAlā nafaqat Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Zanjānī, 1342 [1923–24].

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Figure 80. Editor’s introduction (pp. 2–3) of Zayd b. ʿAlī, Minhāj al-ḥājj, ed. Muḥammad ʿAlī Hibat al-Dīn al-Shahrastānī, Baghdad: ʿAlā nafaqat Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Zanjānī, 1342 [1923–24].

Figure 81. MS Sanaa, Maktabat al-Awqāf 711 (title page of K. al-Kāmil fī uṣūl al-dīn, by Ṣāʿid b. Aḥmad al-ʿUjālī al-Uṣūlī).

Figure 82. MS Sanaa, Maktabat al-Awqāf 711 (beginning of text of K. al-Kāmil fī uṣūl al-dīn, by Ṣāʿid b. Aḥmad al-ʿUjālī al-Uṣūlī).

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Figure 83. MS Yemen, private library (surrogate provided by the IZbACF) (beginning of a ḥadīth collection, Aḥādīth Amīr al-Muʿminīn ʿAlī b. Abī Tālib).

INTRODUCTION

Figure 84. MS Leiden, Leiden University Library OR 487 (title page of K. al-Kāmil fī uṣūl al-dīn, by Ṣāʿid b. Aḥmad al-ʿUjālī al-Uṣūlī).

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Figure 85. MS Leiden, Leiden University Library OR 487 (beginning of the K. al-Kāmil fī uṣūl al-dīn, by Ṣāʿid b. Aḥmad al-ʿUjālī al-Uṣūlī).

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Since the final decades of the twentieth century, Iranian scholars and institutions have been engaged in methodological study of Yemeni manuscript culture. Prompted by the occasional entries on works by Zaydi authors in Āghā Buzurg’s al-Dharīʿa ilā taṣānīf alShīʿa, Aḥmad al-Ḥusaynī al-Ishkawarī developed a plan to compile an inventory of the entirety of Zaydi literature, and in 1977 he traveled to Yemen for an initial short visit for this purpose. Upon returning to Qum, he began compiling the inventory on the basis of all the reference works that were available to him. Sometime before 1992, he paid another, more extended visit to Yemen, where he explored libraries in Sanaa, Sa‘da, Dahyan, Baqim, and Hijrat al-Sirr. He returned to Qum with numerous photocopied manuscripts from those places, and these are nowadays kept in the Marʿashī Library in Qum. Al-Ḥusaynī al-Ishkawarī’s efforts resulted in a three-volume publication, Muʾallafāt al-Zaydiyya, which came out in 1413/1992.111 The publication lists 3,346 individual titles, each entry consisting of a brief description, information about printed editions and, occasionally, a record of manuscript copies. Although Muʾallafāt al-Zaydiyya is largely outdated by now, its publication constituted a major advance in the study of Zaydism at the time. In 1992, the Iranian scholar Muḥammad Bāqir Ḥujjatī spend the month of July in Sanaa, where he visited both the Maktabat al-Awqāf and the Maktaba al-Gharbiyya (i.e., Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt). On the basis of the catalogues and the codices he consulted here, he prepared a list of manuscripts that were most important in his view and should be microfilmed. However, he never managed to return to Yemen to have the microfilms prepared.111a During the early 1990s, various Zaydi scholars from Yemen, including ʿAbd al-Karīm Jadbān (1965–2013),112 visited Iran and brought along surrogates of some 200 Yemeni codices, which they gave to Hassan Ansari. The corpus consisted primarily of works on kalām and fiqh. Ansari, in turn, donated the material to the library of the Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif-i Buzurg-i Islāmī in Tehran, where it remains today. Before 1999, a delegation of scholars from Mashhad, including Kāẓim Mudīr

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See al-Ḥusaynī al-Ishkawarī, Muʾallafāt al-Zaydiyya, vol. 1, pp. 19–23 for an account of the author’s engagement with the Zaydi literary tradition, his various trips to Yemen, and the genesis of the work. During his time in Yemen, al-Ḥusaynī al-Ishkawarī established close relations with some of the scholars and notables of the country. In Dahyan, he specifically mentions Muḥammad ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm al-Hādī, in whose house he lodged when visiting the city. He also compiled a catalog of the holdings of the latter’s library, which was published separately as Aḥmad al-Ḥusaynī al-Ishkawarī, Makhṭūṭāt Maktabat ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm al-Hādī (Ḍaḥyān–Yaman), Qum: Majmaʿ alDhakhāʾir al-Islāmiyya, 1424/2003. Muʾallafāt al-Zaydiyya opens with a preface signed by Aḥmad b. Muḥammad Zabāra, the muftī of the Republic of Yemen at the time, and by Muḥammad b. Muḥammad al-Manṣūr, who signs as tilmīdh al-muftī—his official position was that of representative (nāʾib) of the muftī of the Republic; see Schmidtke, Traditional Yemeni Scholarship, pp. 45–46. 111a See his two reports, with a list of manuscripts he had earmarked for microfilming, Muḥammd Bāqir Ḥujjatī, “Ashnāʾī bā du kitābkhāna az Yaman,” Āyina-yi pazhūhish 4, no. 20 (1372sh/1993), pp. 49-55; Muḥammd Bāqir Ḥujjatī, “Guzārishī az Yaman,” Āyina-yi pazhūhish 4, no. 20 (1372sh/1993), pp. 86-93. Ḥujjatī also mentions that he visited Rome in 1989, where he inspected some of the manuscripts held at the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, and that he procured microfilms of some of them. These microfilms, he continues to explain, were later given to the Wizārat-i Farhang wa Irshād-i Islāmī in Tehran. 112 On him, see Jan Thiele, “In Memoriam: ʿAbd al-Karīm Ǧadbān (1965–2013),” Chroniques du manuscrit au Yémen 21 (January 2016), pp. 2–3.

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Shāna-chī, who was a professor at Mashhad University, went to Sanaa twice. The delegation visited the Maktabat al-Awqāf and selected codices they wished to have scanned. In 1999, Muḥammad Wafādār Murādī traveled to Sanaa on behalf of the Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍawī Library. He spent several months in the city and prepared microfilms of around 200 codices in the Maktabat al-Awqāf, chosen on the basis of the list prepared by Kāẓim Mudīr Shāna-chī and his colleagues, as well as of selected codices held by private libraries in Yemen. The microfilm collection he brought back to Mashhad is nowadays housed in the Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍawī Library.113 In 2001 and 2002, the Markaz-i Asnād wa Tārīkh-i Dīplumāsī, which belongs to the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, sponsored three extended scholarly expeditions of Iranian scholars, including Hassan Ansari, to Yemen (to Sanaa, Sa‘da, and Tarim in Haḍramawt). The Iranian delegation brought back duplicates of all the microfilms that had been prepared by the various earlier Egyptian and Kuwaiti expeditions, as well as those that had been produced by the Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt in Sanaa over time. The members of the delegation were also granted permission to go through the holdings of the Maktabat al-Awqāf and the Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt and microfilm any codex they deemed worthwhile, and their selections amounted to several hundred codices. Moreover, they visited a number of private libraries and made paper photocopies of selected codices, and they made arrangements to have some 2,000 privately held manuscripts scanned, a task that was completed over several years.114 Copies of these were also given to the Muʾassasat al-Imām Zayd b. ʿAlī al-Thaqāfiyya (Imam Zayd bin Ali Cultural Foundation, IZbACF). During one of these trips, Hassan Ansari discovered a precious codex in the library of the Shahāra mosque that had been copied around 540/1145 and contained several texts including Ḍirār b. ʿAmr’s (d. ca. 200/815) K. al-Taḥrīsh (figs. 77, 78) and Abū ʿAlī al-Jubbāʾī’s (d. 303/915) K. al-Maqālāt. It was Ansari who identified the two works, and he subsequently published on them on various occasions.115 Upon returning to Tehran, Ansari also prepared

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Muḥammad Wafādār Murādī, “Fihrist-i alifbāʾī-yi mīkrūfīlm-hā-yi tahiyya shuda az Kitābkhāna-yi Jāmiʿ-i Ṣanʿāʾ,” Maʿrifat al-āthār: Majmūʿa-yi maqālāt-i nuskha-yi shināsī wa majmūʿa-hā-yi khaṭṭī, Tehran: n.p., 1381sh [2001], pp. 178–213. 114 Hassan Ansari published a report of his trips to Yemen as well as a handlist of the manuscripts he had inspected in Yemen in “Guzārishī az nuskha-hā-yi khaṭṭī-yi Yaman,” Āyina-yi mīrāth 12, no. 7 (1380sh/2001), pp. 105–111, and “Majmūʿa-yi Ṭāwūs-i Yamānī namād ḥuḍūr-i Īrān dar Yaman,” Kitāb-i māh-i dīn 51–52 (1380sh/2001), pp. 18–31. 115 Hassan Ansari, “Kitābī kalāmī az Ḍirār b. ʿAmr,” Kitāb-i māh-i dīn 89–90 (1383–84sh [2004–05]), pp. 4–13; Hassan Ansari, “Kitāb al-Taḥrīsh li-Ḍirār b. ʿAmr,” trans. ʿAlī ʿAbbās al-Wardī, Nuṣūṣ muʿāṣara 13 no. 50 (1439/2018), pp. 299–318; Hassan Ansari, “Abū ʿAlī Jubbāʾī wa Kitāb al-Maqālāt,” Kitāb-i māh-i dīn 91/92 (1384sh/2005), pp. 4–11; Hassan Ansari, “Abū ʿAlī Jubbāʾī wa-Kitāb al-Maqālāt,” Barrasī-hā-yi tārīkhī, http://ansari.kateban.com/post/2789 (accessed 21 January 2022); Hassan Ansari, “Abū ʿAlī Jubbāʾī et son livre al-Maqālāt,” A Common Rationality: Muʿtazilism in Islam and Judaism, ed. Camilla Adang, Sabine Schmidtke, and David Sklare, Würzburg: Ergon, 2007, pp. 21–37 (see ibid. pp. 23–24 for a description of the codex). Ansari’s discovery predates the publication of ʿAbd al-Salām al-Wajīh’s catalog of the library (Maṣādir, vol. 2, pp. 593–623). Al-Wajīh describes the codex in Maṣādir, vol. 2, p. 616 no. 69, but without identifying either of the two works. He names the author of the Taḥrīsh as “Ḍirār al-Kūfī,” simply reproducing the name on the title page (fig. 77) and thus indicating that he did not know who the author is. As for Abū ʿAlī’s Maqālāt, al-Wajīh describes the text as kitāb ḥawla l-firaq but remains unaware of the true identity of the work and its author. Ansari’s discovery and identification of the two works are acknowledged in van Ess, Der Eine und das Andere, vol. 1, pp. 132–133, 158 and in Josef van Ess, review of Bar-rasīhā-yi

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a detailed description of every codex in the Wafādār Murādī collection as well as of all of the photocopied manuscripts that were brought back from Yemen. The majority of those photocopied codices were printed out and bound individually, accompanied by Ansari’s description at the beginning of each codex.116 By the end of 2002, several sets of the entire collection of close to 500 codices had been produced and made accessible in all major Iranian libraries, including the Majlis Library and the library of the Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif-i Buzurgi Islāmī in Tehran, the Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍawī Library in Mashhad, and the Marʿashī Library in Qum. At the time, this collection, also known as the “Ṭāwūs-i Yamānī Series,” constituted one of the largest consolidated collections of Yemeni manuscript surrogates worldwide.117 The 2001/2 expedition also led to the publication (in 2001) of a catalog, Ṭāwūs-i yamānī: Fihrist-i mīkrūfīlm-hā-yi majmūʿa-yi Dār al-makhṭūṭāt-i Ṣanʿāʾ.118 While this volume is unrelated to the aforementioned “Ṭāwūs-i Yamānī Series,” it includes entries on all manuscripts in Yemeni libraries that had been microfilmed by the Egyptian and Kuwaiti expeditions as well as the Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt. It was prepared on the basis of duplicates of the microfilms that the Yemeni authorities had provided to the Iranian delegation. Finally, the

tārīḫī dar ḥauza-yi Islām ve tašaiyuʿ / Historical Studies in the Field of Islam and Shiism, by Hassan Ansari, Der Islam 91 (2014), pp. 161–242, here p. 163. In 2014, Hüseyin Hansu and Mehmet Kaskin published an edition of the K. alTaḥrīsh without remarking on the history of the codex. In their respective reviews of the publication, both Sean Anthony and Josef van Ess criticize the poor quality of the edition and lament the editors’ failure to mention Ansari’s role in the discovery and identification of the text; see Sean Anthony, review of Kitāb al-Taḥrīsh, by Ḍirār ibn ʿAmr al-Ghaṭafānī, ed. Hüseyin Hansu and Mehmet Kaskin, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 76 (2017), pp. 199– 203; Josef van Ess, “Das K. at-Taḥrīš des Ḍirār b. ʿAmr: Einige Bemerkungen zu Ort und Zeit seiner Abfassung,” Josef van Ess, Kleine Schriften, ed. Hinrich Biesterfeldt, Leiden: Brill, 2018, pp. 2461–2500. Although a critical edition of Abū ʿAlī al-Jubbāʿī’s Maqālāt had been announced by Ansari, three other scholars, Özkan Şimşek, A. İskender Sarıca, and Yusuf Arıkaner went ahead and published the text (Abū ʿAlī al-Jubbāʾī, K. al-Maqālāt = Kıtabü’l-Makalat: İtikadi Mezheplere Yönelik Klasik Bir Eleştiri, ed. Ūzkān Shimshak, ʿAbd al-Karīm Iskandar Ṣarīḥā, and Yūsuf Ārikānar, Istanbul: Muʿtezıle Kitaplıǧı, 2019), and although they refer to Ansari’s publications on the work, they fail to mention his role in the text’s discovery and identification. 116 Some of Ansari’s detailed descriptions have been published; see Hassan Ansari, “Az nuskha-hā-yi Ṣanʿāʾ (1),” Barrasī-hā-yi tārīkhī, http://ansari.kateban.com/post/2823 and 2502; Hassan Ansari, “Az nuskha-hā-yi Ṣanʿāʾ (2),” Barrasī-hā-yi tārīkhī, http://ansari.kateban.com/post/2824; Hassan Ansari, “Nuskha-hā-yi khaṭṭī-yi dīgar az Ṣanʿāʾ (3),” Barrasī-hā-yi tārīkhī, http://ansari.kateban.com/post/3130 (all accessed 21 January 2022); Hassan Ansari, Az ganjīna-hā-yi nusakh-i khaṭtī: Muʿarrifī-i dast niwisht-hā-yi arzishmand az kitābkhāna-hā-yi buzurg-i jahān dar ḥawza-yi ʿulūm-i islāmī, Isfahan: Daftar-i tablīghāt-i islāmī ḥawza-yi ʿilmiyya-yi Qum, 2015, pp. 339–344. 117 That the collection was also accessible for non-Iranian scholars was experienced by Sabine Schmidtke, who consulted the “Ṭāwūs-i Yamānī Series” in 2002 during a visit to the Majlis library. She was also provided with digital images of some of the microfilms held by the Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍawī Library as a result of Wafādār Murādī‘s expedition to Sanaa. 118 Ṭāwūs-i yamānī: Fihrist-i mīkrūfīlm-hā-yi majmūʿa-yi Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt-i Ṣanʿāʾ, ed. ʿAbd al-Tawwāb Aḥmad ʿAlī al-Mashriqī and Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ Yaḥyā al-Qāḍī, Qum: Kitābkhāna-yi Buzurg-i Ḥaḍrat-i Āyat Allāh al-ʿUẓmā Marʿashī Najafī / Tehran: Markaz-i Asnād wa Tārīkh-i Dīplumāsī: Idāra-yi ʿUmūmī-yi Makhṭūṭāt-i Sāzmān-i Mūzihhā, Āthār wa Makhṭūṭāt, 1421/2001. For an index to the volume, see ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Kirmānī, Kashshāf makhṭūṭāt Kitāb al-Ṭāwūs al-Yamānī: Fihris majmūʿat al-mīkrūfīlm li-Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt fī Ṣanʿāʾ, [Baghdad:] Muʾassasat alRāfid li-l-Maṭbūʿāt, 2018.

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Iranian delegation brought back to Tehran the raw material for a new catalog of the holdings of the Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt/al-Maktaba al-Gharbiyya in Sanaa and of the Maktabat alAḥqāf in Tarim, and these catalogs were prepared for publication in collaboration with the Marʿashī Library in Qum.119 In 2004, UNESCO launched a project aimed at supporting documentation and conservation of the manuscript holdings of the Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt.120 The various digitization efforts supported by the German Foreign Office (“Preserving Yemen’s Cultural Heritage: The Yemen Manuscript Digitization Project” [YMDP], 2010)121 and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft in conjunction with the National Endowment for the Humanities and the IZbACF (“The Yemen Manuscript Digitization Initiative” [YMDI], 2010 through 2013)122 were also aimed at digitizing selected private collections. The manuscripts filmed within the framework of the YMDP are now accessible through HMML’s virtual reading room.123 The manuscripts filmed under the aegis of the YMDI are accessible through Princeton University Library.124 The most recent initiative to provide open access to the Zaydi manuscript tradition for scholars worldwide is “The Zaydi Manuscript Tradition (ZMT): A Digital Portal” (curated by Hassan Ansari and Sabine Schmidtke), a joint project initiated

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Aḥmad Muḥammad ʿĪsawī et al., Fihris al-makhṭūṭāt al-yamaniyya li-Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt wa-l-Maktaba al-Gharbiyya bi-l-Jāmiʿ al-kabīr, Ṣanʿāʾ, 2 vols., Qum: Kitābkhāna-yi ʿUmūmī-yi Ḥaḍrat Āyat Allāh al-ʿUẓmā Marʿashī Najafī, 1426/2005. An index to the catalog was published separately as Farīd Qāsimlū, Namāya-yi Fihris al-makhṭūṭāt alYamaniyya, Tehran: Markaz-i Chāp wa Intishārāt-i Wizārat-i Umūr-i Khārija, Markaz-i Asnād wa Tārīkh-i Dīplumāsī, 1386 [2007]. The catalog of the Maktabat al-Aḥqāf was published in 2004 as ʿAbd Allāh b. Ḥusayn b. Muḥammad al-ʿAydarūs and ʿAbd al-Qādir b. Ṣāliḥ b. Shihāb, Fihris makhṭūṭāt Maktabat al-Aḥqāf bi-Muḥāfaẓat Ḥaḍramawt, alJumhūriyya al-Yamaniyya, Qum: Kitābkhāna-yi Buzurg-i Ḥaḍrat Āyat Allāh al-ʿUẓmā Marʿashī Najafī, 1383 [2004], followed by a revised and enlarged version, ʿAbd Allāh b. Ḥusayn b. Muḥammad al-ʿAydarūs, ʿAbd al-Qādir b. Ṣāliḥ b. Shihāb, and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Saqqāf, Fihris al-makhṭūṭāt al-yamaniyya li-Maktabat al-Aḥqāf bi-Muḥāfaẓat Ḥaḍramawt, al-Jumhūriyya al-Yamaniyya, 3 vols., Qum: Kitābkhāna-yi Buzurg-i Ḥaḍrat Āyat Allāh al-ʿUẓmā Marʿashī Najafī, 1430/1388/2009. The following catalog of a smaller library in Sa‘da was published within the same framework: ʿAbd Allāh Ḥamūd Dirham al-ʿIzzī, Fihrist makhṭūṭāt Maktabat Mazār al-Imām Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn alHādī ilā al-ḥaqq, Ṣaʿda, al-Jumhūriyya al-yamaniyya, Qum: Kitābkhāna-yi ʿUmūmī-yi Ḥaḍrat Āyat Allāh al-ʿUẓmā Marʿashī Najafī, 1425/2004. For the catalog and the library, see also Sabine Schmidtke, “The Intricacies of Capturing the Holdings of a Mosque Library in Yemen: The Library of the Shrine of Imām al-Hādī, Ṣaʿda,” Manuscript Studies: A Journal of the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies 3 (2018), pp. 220–237. For the continued scholarly collaboration between Iran and Yemen, see also Anne Regourd’s contribution to this volume. 120 Antonio Mirabile, “UNESCO Project for San‘a–Yemen Dar al-Makhtutat (House of Manuscripts) Collections,” 2014; see also Chroniques du manuscrit au Yémen 1 (2006), “Actualités,” “Catalogage, codicologie, numérisation, préservation/conservation: Actualité yéménite.” 121 Sabine Schmidtke and Jan Thiele, Preserving Yemen’s Cultural Heritage: The Yemen Manuscript Digitization Project, Sanaa: Botschaft der Bundesrepublik Deutschland and Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Orient-Abteilung, Außenstelle Sanaa, 2011. Another outcome of this project is an online exhibition sponsored by Google Arts & Culture, “Yemeni Manuscripts: The Digital Bab al-Yemen, Freie Universität Berlin,” https://artsandculture.google.com/partner/the-digital-bab-al-yemen (accessed 9 December 2021). 122 Nancy Um, “Yemeni Manuscripts Online: Digitization in an Age of War and Loss,” Manuscript Studies 5 (2020), pp. 2–48. 123 See https://www.vhmml.org/ (accessed 9 December 2021). 124 See http://pudl.princeton.edu/collections/pudl0079 (accessed 9 December 2021).

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in 2017 by the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ, in partnership with the HMML and funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Charles & Lisa Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences, the Gerard B. Lambert Foundation, the Middle East Center at the University of Pennsylvania, the Ruth Stanton Foundation, and Sherwin Seligsohn. The initiative consists of two components: a digital portal, which is hosted on the website of the Institute for Advanced Study,125 and HMML’s virtual reading room, vHMML, which serves as a repository of digital surrogates of manuscript codices.126 The purpose of the ZMT is threefold. Through its digital portal, it serves as a comprehensive research guide to relevant collections of Zaydi manuscripts, providing precise information on the location of each collection with a full list of its holdings and the relevant bibliography for every single codex. Each entry in the portal is linked to a corresponding entry in the vHMML. Each manuscript thus has a permanent link and a stable HMML Project Number—a unique identifier that is particularly important for the holdings of private libraries, which as a rule do not have shelf marks. In the second phase of the project, full metadata are being produced for the manuscripts included in the project using the vHMML’s cataloging tools. These measures will also effectively democratize access to the Zaydi manuscript tradition, which is expected to result in an upsurge in this important field of study. For the first time, scholars in Yemen will have unlimited access to their own intellectual, cultural, and religious heritage as reflected in the Zaydi manuscripts preserved in Europe, North America, and other Middle Eastern countries through a single consolidated platform.127 Of the various nongovernmental organizations currently digitizing holdings of private libraries within Yemen, the IZbACF has been the most active since around 2000.128 In November 2021, the Gerda Henkel Foundation, within its Funding Initiative Patrimonies, awarded IZbACF another grant to capture the holdings of some of the private libraries in Kawkabān.129 Most of the digital surrogates that have been produced by the IZbACF over the past two decades are today available, through open access, on a website sponsored by the Omani Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs.130 However, although the open

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See www.ias.edu/digital-scholarship/zaydi_manuscript_tradition (accessed 9 December 2021). See https://hmml.org/stories/hmml-partners-with-the-institute-for-advanced-study-to-share-threatenedmanuscript-heritage-from-yemen-and-neighboring-countries/ (accessed 13 December 2021). 127 For the continuously growing list of collections included in the project, see https://projects.ias.edu/zmt/ (accessed 10 December 2021). The digital divide between Yemen and the rest of the world will hopefully shrink over the coming years to allow uninhibited access to the digitized material. For the current situation and possibilities to improve it, see A. N. Nosary and G. M. Al-Asadi, “Bridging the Digital Divide in Yemen,” 2021 1st International Conference on Emerging Smart Technologies and Applications (eSmarTA), 2021, pp. 1–8, doi: 10.1109/eSmarTA52612.2021.9515744. 128 Over the past two decades, the IZbACF, as well as other nongovernmental institutions in Yemen such as Markaz Badr al-ʿIlmī, which was founded by al-Murtaḍā b. Zayd al-Maḥaṭwarī (1373–1436/1954–2015), have also been actively engaged in preparing editions of works by Zaydi authors. For the Markaz Badr and its founder, see also Gabriele vom Bruck’s contribution to this volume. 129 Email communication Gerda Henkel Foundation to Sabine Schmidtke, 21 November 2021. For the funding line, see https://www.gerda-henkel-stiftung.de/en/patrimonies (accessed 10 December 2021). 130 See https://elibrary.mara.gov.om/ (accessed 10 December 2021). 126

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access it provides is commendable, the website offers no useful search functions and allows only online viewing. The inbuilt viewer is very basic and permits only limited magnification, and browsing can only be done page by page. The viewer offers the option of having a table of contents as a sidebar when viewing a manuscript, but this function did not work in practice—when we consulted the site, the sidebar remained blank. The site does not comply with current technical standards, such as the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) standard, and it is thus a stand-alone product that is not interoperable with any other digital repository containing related material. The metadata for the thousands of codices are rudimentary at best, especially in the case of multitext volumes, which represent the majority of the material. Moreover, there is no record for any of the surrogates about the whereabouts of the physical codices, which makes it hard to refer to the individual codices properly or to get a sense of the holdings of the many individual private libraries in Yemen. The shelf mark system (ZA 001 through 695, as of 26 November 2021) does not correspond to the numbering of the CDs containing digital surrogates of Yemeni manuscripts that have been produced and disseminated by the IZbACF since the 2000s. The history and holdings of the many private libraries throughout Yemen therefore remain largely undocumented, and their current situation is in most cases uncertain. The Qāʾima bi-l-makhṭūṭāt al-ʿarabiyya al-muṣawwara bi-mīkrūfīlm min al-Jumhūriyya alʿarabiyya al-yamaniyya, prepared by members of the second Egyptian expedition to Yemen in 1964, remains vague about the ownership of some of the microfilmed manuscripts, with statements such as “fī milk aḥad ʿulamāʾ Ṣanʿāʾ,”131 “muṣawwar ʿan nuskha fī milk aḥad ʿulamāʾ Ṣanʿāʾ,”132 and “al-kutub al-muṣādara bi-madīnat Taʿizz.”133 Similar observations can be made of the many Yemeni manuscript surrogates that are held by the Marʿashī Library in Qum and other Iranian libraries.134 Only a fraction of the smaller libraries of Yemen have been cataloged systematically thus far, and the few available catalogs seem to cover only portions of these libraries’ holdings. Important contributions in this regard have been made by two Yemeni scholars. ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad al-Ḥibshī published handlists of the holdings of various private libraries during the 1970s and brought these

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Qāʾima, pp. 9–10 no. 86. Qāʾima, p. 18 no. 163. 133 Qāʾima, pp. 1 no. 2, 7 no. 59, 12 no. 107, 14 no. 133, 17 nos. 154–155, 18 no. 159, 19 no. 169, 22 nos. 194 and 196, 24 no. 217, 28 no. 252, 32 nos. 283 and 286, 33 no. 296, 38 no. 326, 39 no. 338, 46 no. 388, 51 no. 429, 52 no. 439, 53 nos. 444 and 452, 54 no. 461. 134 Ḥāʾirī, Fihrist, vol. 2, pp. 290, 332, 333 (“az nuskha-yi kitābkhāna-yi shakhṣī dar Ṣanʿāʾ”), 314, 337 (“az nuskha-yi kitābkhāna-yi shakhṣī dar Yaman”), 339 (“az nuskha-yi kitābkhāna-ī dar Ṣanʿāʾ”); Ḥāfiẓiyān Bābulī, Fihrist, vol. 3, p. 276; vol. 4, pp. 255, 363, 402, 447, 500, 516, 542, 544, 551; vol. 5, pp. 286, 393 (“nuskha-yi aṣl dar yikī az kitābkhānahā-yi Yaman”); vol. 3, p. 537 (“nuskha-yi aṣl dar yikī az kitābkhāna-hā-yi Ṣanʿāʾ dar Yaman?”); vol. 4, p. 324 (“nuskha-yi aṣl dar yikī az kitābkhāna-hā-yi shahr Ṣanʿāʾ dar Yaman maḥfūẓ ast”); al-Ishkawārī, Fihrist-i nuskha-hā-yi ʿaksī, vol. 1, pp. 32 no. 20, 33 no. 21, 54–55 nos. 40–41, 79–80 no. 66, 84–92 no. 71, 113 no. 90, 133–135 no. 113, 198–199 no. 177, 400–403 no. 341; vol. 3, p. 68 no. 876; vol. 7, pp. 333–334 no. 2735 (“kitābkhāna-ī dar Yaman”). 132

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handlists together in a volume published in 1994.135 ʿAbd al-Salām al-Wajīh (b. 1957) published a two-volume catalog describing the holdings of thirty-nine private libraries in Yemen in 2002.136 Al-Wajīh has announced additional volumes, but these have not yet materialized. Additional materials are included, however, in the second revised and enlarged edition of al-Wajīh’s Aʿlām al-muʾallifīn al-Zaydiyya.137 Moreover, as mentioned earlier, handlists for individual private collections have also been produced by Aḥmad al-Ḥusaynī al-Ishkawarī, ʿAbd Allāh Ḥamūd Dirham al-ʿIzzī, and others.138 Additional factors complicate efforts to obtain precise information on the holdings of private libraries. Family libraries change ownership from generation to generation and are often divided among the heirs. It is frequently unclear whether a library mentioned in earlier literature still exists, and if it does, under whose ownership.139 Moreover, for centuries manuscripts have been a commodity in Yemen. Analyzing the ownership statements in the codices of the Munich Caprotti collection, Florian Sobieroj has remarked on the frequency with which the manuscripts changed hands,140 and the quantity and quality of Yemeni manuscripts that have been traded between the end of the nineteenth century and today show that manuscripts continue to be goods in high demand. In the meantime, reports of incidents of severe damage, systematic destruction, looting of libraries, and illicit trade in manuscripts abound.141 This is all the more deplorable since the Zaydis of Yemen have preserved for centuries not only their own Zaydi-Shiʿi tradition but also the heritage of nonZaydi strands, especially the intellectual heritage of Muʿtazilism. It cannot be denied that an anti-Shiʿi and anti-rational bias plays an important role in making Yemen’s cultural heritage a target. According to a Qatari scholar, who prefers to remain anonymous, “Yemen is

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Al-Ḥibshī, Fihris makhṭūṭāt baʿḍ al-maktabāt al-khāṣṣa fī l-Yaman. See also above, n. 71. See also ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad al-Ḥibshī, Maṣādir al-fikr al-islāmī fī l-Yaman, Abu Dhabi: al-Majmaʿ al-Thaqāfī, 2004, and ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad al-Ḥibshī, Muʾallafāt ḥukkām al-Yaman, ed. Elke Niewöhner, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1979. 136 Al-Wajīh, Maṣādir. 137 See also ʿAbd al-Salām b. ʿAbbās al-Wajīh, “Makhṭūṭāt madīnat Shahāra wa-usaruhā al-ʿilmiyya,” Journal of Islamic Manuscripts 5 (2014), pp. 357–380. 138 E.g., Anne Regourd (ed.), Catalogue partiel de la bibliothèque des Waqfs de la Grande mosquée Dhamar, Sanaa: Centre français d’archéologie et de sciences sociales, 2008. 139 See al-Wajīh, Maṣādir, vol. 1, p. 42; al-Wajīh, “Makhṭūṭāt madīnat Shahāra”; also Anne Regourd, “Introduction: Sur la trace de l’histoire des collections et des bibliothèques du Yemen,” Journal of Islamic Manuscripts 5 (2014), pp. 111–124, here p. 123. 140 Florian Sobieroj, Arabische Handschriften der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek zu München unter Einschluss einiger türkischer und persischer Handschriften, vol. 1, Stuttgart: Steiner, 2007, p. xxiii. 141 See, e.g., Christian C. Sahner, “Yemen’s Threatened Cultural Heritage,” Wall Street Journal, 25 December 2018, https://www.wsj.com/articles/yemens-threatened-cultural-heritage-11545739200?reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink (accessed 21 January 2022); Najm aldain Qasem and Rose Chacko, “Stolen Heritage: The Illegal and Rising Trade in Yemen’s Rare Manuscripts,” New Arab, 10 June 2021, https://english.alaraby.co.uk/features/stolen-heritage-illicit-trade-yemens-rare-manuscripts (accessed 21 January 2022); see also the contributions by Gabriele vom Bruck and Anne Regourd to this volume. For examples of Wahhābī attacks on libraries in Haḍramawt during the nineteenth century, see ʿAlī Ṣāliḥ al-Khalāqī, Ḥamla bin Qamlā al-wahhābiyya ʿalā Ḥaḍramawt: al-Qarn al-thālith ʿashar al-hijrī/al-tāsiʿ ʿashar al-mīlādī, al-Mukallā: n.p., 1442/2021, pp. 53–54, 61– 62.

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now one of the main sources for looting of artifacts, including ancient manuscripts, in the region” as a result of the ongoing war in the country.142 The many advances in the study of the Yemeni Zaydi manuscript tradition over the course of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries143 have given rise to a vibrant international community of scholars who are engaged in various aspects of Zaydi studies, a trend that promises continued growth. What is still needed for the manuscripts themselves are detailed and reliable catalogs of the holdings of all private libraries in Yemen as well as of the various pertinent collections outside of Yemen. Important collections that have so far not been cataloged include the Glaser collection in the Austrian National Library, the Dubbiosi collection in Rome, and the Sarnelli collection in Rome and Naples, as well as some collections of Yemeni manuscripts in the libraries of Saudi Arabia. In addition, the collections of Yemeni manuscripts in Europe, the Middle East, and Turkey that have been cataloged in the past need to be reinvestigated carefully with the aim of producing new and better catalogs—the earlier catalogs (some of which date back to the nineteenth century) contain numerous errors and misidentifications,143a and no attention has been paid to the rich historical paratextual materials found in the individual codices.143b In the years 2008–2013, within the framework of the European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Research Grant “Rediscovering Theological Rationalism in the Medieval World of Islam” (directed by Schmidtke), Ansari visited the relevant libraries in Istanbul, Leiden, London, Milan, Munich, Paris, Vienna, and, of course, Berlin (where the project was based) repeatedly and for extended periods of time in order to pre-

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Email communication to Sabine Schmidtke, 21 November 2021. See also the 2019 report of the Antiquities Trafficking and Heritage Anthropology Research (ATHAR) Project: Amr al-Azm and Katie A. Paul, Facebook’s Black Market in Antiquities: Trafficking, Terrorism, and War Crimes, ATHAR Project: Antiquities Trafficking and Heritage Anthropology Research Project, June 2019, http://atharproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/ATHAR-FB-Report-June-2019-final.pdf, pp. 39–40, as well as the project’s website, https://atharproject.org/ (both accessed 10 December 2021). This also includes fragments of early Qurʾān copies of Yemeni provenance; see, e.g., Aḥmad Shākir, “Waraqa qurʾāniyya mubakkira bi-l-khaṭṭ al-māʾil min Mutḥaf Ṭāriq Rajab bi-l-Kuwayt,” tafsir.net/article/5218 (accessed 21 January 2022). 143 See Sabine Schmidtke, “The History of Zaydī Studies: An Introduction,” Arabica 59 (2012), pp. 185–199, and the editors’ introduction to David Hollenberg, Christoph Rauch, and Sabine Schmidtke (eds.), The Yemeni Manuscript Tradition, Leiden: Brill, 2015. Over the past decade, a considerable amount of new scholarship in this field has been produced. 143a In Berlin, Milan, and Vienna, for example, six manuscripts are identified either on the titlepages or in the respective catalogs and handlists as the K. al-Tibyān by Nashwān al-Ḥimyarī (d. 573/1178), namely MSS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Glaser 182, 229, 232, 236, MS Vienna, Austrian National Library, Cod. Glaser 108, and MS Milan, Ambrosiana, arab. C 18. Hassan Ansari has inspected all six manuscripts—none of them is in fact by Nashwān al-Ḥimyarī; see Hassan Ansari, “Nashwān Ḥimyarī wa nuskha-hā-yi tafsīr-i Qurʾān-i u,” Barrasī-hā-yi tārīkhī, http://ansari.kateban.com/post/1910 (accessed 21 January 2022). The electronic catalog entry for MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Glaser 232 has in the meantime been corrected; see https://stabikat.de/DB=1/XMLPRS=N/PPN?PPN=1046459163 (accessed 14 January 2022). 143b See, for example, Christoph Rauch, “Place Names in Colophons and Notes of Yemeni Manuscripts,” Journal of Islamic Manuscripts 13 (2022), pp. 81-166, who shows that Wilhelm Ahlwardt, for example, mentioned the place of transcription for only a fraction of the Yemeni codices of the Berlin Glaser collection.

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pare full descriptions of the material. Some of his findings have already been published; others have not, for the time being.144 Moreover, the catalogs of the two major public libraries in Sanaa, Maktabat al-Awqāf and Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt, need to be replaced by more detailed, reliable, and comprehensive catalogs of their respective holdings. The continuing efforts to digitize manuscript collections in Yemen and beyond are commendable and will certainly help generate even more scholarly interest in Zaydism, which, in turn, will facilitate the task of producing new catalogs. Furthermore, comprehensive and detailed catalogs, especially of libraries within Yemen, would serve as an indispensable and effective tool in combating illicit trafficking of manuscripts. A further important step will be the production of reliable critical editions of the literary products of Zaydi authors, as well as of works by non-Zaydi scholars that are preserved primarily or even exclusively in Yemeni manuscripts. The task at hand is enormous. Its challenges are compounded by the unprofessional practices that can occasionally be observed in the use of manuscripts; some of these have been discussed in the course of this study.145 Moreover, the growing tendency to re-“edit” works that have already been published in reli-

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Before the ERC project, in 2007, Ansari investigated the collections of Yemeni manuscripts held by the Vatican and the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei e Corsiniana in Rome. For Berlin, see Ansari, Az ganjīna-hā-yi nusakh-i khaṭtī, pp. 413–423, as well as the following posts on Ansari’s blog Barrasī-hā-yi tārīkhī: “Nuskha-hā-yi dīgar az Birlīn (3),” http://ansari.kateban.com/post/3114; “Nuskha-hā-yi dīgar az Birlīn (4),” http://ansari.kateban.com/post/3115; “Nuskha-hā-yi Birlīn (5),” http://ansari.kateban.com/post/3116; “Nuskha-hā-yi Birlīn (6),” http://ansari.kateban.com/post/3117.” For Leiden, see Hassan Ansari, “Muʿarrifī-yi nuskha-hā-yi Lāydin (1),” Barrasī-hā-yi tārīkhī, http://ansari.kateban.com/post/3495. For Milan, see Ansari, Az ganjīna-hā-yi nusakh-i khaṭtī, pp. 434–452, and the following blog posts: “Nuskha-hā-yi Ambrūziānā (3),” http://ansari.kateban.com/post/3122; “Nuskha-hā-yi Ambrūziānā (4),” http://ansari.kateban.com/post/3124; “Nuskha-hā-yi Ambrūziānā (5),” http://ansari.kateban.com/post/3127; “Majmūʿa-yi dīgar az nuskha-hā-yi khaṭṭī dar Khitābkhāna-yi Ambrūziānā (6),” http://ansari.kateban.com/post/3219; “Majmūʿa-yi dīgar az nuskha-hā-yi khaṭṭī dar Khitābkhāna-yi Ambrūziānā (7),” http://ansari.kateban.com/post/3494. For Munich, see Ansari, Az ganjīna-hā-yi nusakh-i khaṭtī, pp. 392–412. For Paris, see Ansari, Az ganjīna-hā-yi nusakh-i khaṭtī, pp. 388–391. For Rome, see Hassan Ansari, “Muʿarrifī-yi chand nuskha,” Barrasī-hā-yi tārīkhī, http://ansari.kateban.com/post/3006. For Vienna, see Hassan Ansari, “Nuskha-hā-yi dīgari az Kitābkhāna-yi Wīan (Majmūʿa-yi Gilāzir),” Barrasī-hā-yi tārīkhī, http://ansari.kateban.com/post/3113 (all accessed 21 January 2022); Ansari, Az ganjīna-hā-yi nusakh-i khaṭtī, pp. 424–433. 145 See above, nn. 8, 73, 115. Another example is the case of the K. al-Muktafī fī l-naqḍ ʿalā man yaqūlu bi-l-imām al-mukhtafī, by the Zaydi Muʿtazilī author Abū l-Qāsim Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. al-Mahdī al-Ḥasanī (d. 465/1073). The refutation is preserved in a single manuscript, copied in 605/1208–9 in Rayy and brought to Yemen by the Zaydi scholar al-Murtaḍā b. Sarāhang b. Muḥammad al-Ḥusaynī al-ʿAlawī al-Marʿashī (Ms. Sanaa, Dār al-makhṭūṭāt, majmūʿa 3189/1). The copy was identified by Hassan Ansari, who published about it on two occasions; see Hassan Ansari, “Nuskha-yi khaṭṭī-yi yik raddiyya-yi kuhansāl-i zaydī az Nīshābūr-i sada-yi panjum dar rābiṭa bāh andīsha-yi ghaybat-i imām,” Barrasī-hā-yi tārīkhī, https://ansari.kateban.com/post/1929, and “Yik raddiyyayi kuhansāl-i zaydī az Nīshābūr sada-yi panjum bar Kitāb al-Muqniʿ-i Sharīf-i Murtaḍā dar-bāra-yi masʾalat ghaybat-i imām (2),” Barrasī-hā-yi tārīkhī, https://ansari.kateban.com/post/1984 (both accessed 23 February 2022). The K. al-Muktafī has been published in an edition prepared by Kāẓim al-Zaydī and published in 1442/2021 (n.p.: s.n.) under the title al-Naqḍ al-muktafī ʿalā man yaqūlu bi-l-imām al-mukhtafī. The editor’s introduction, which should be used with caution, is essentially based on the abovementioned two publications by Ansari, though the editor refrains from citing them.

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able critical editions without any valid scientific justification—such as the discovery of additional witnesses or the uncritical approach taken by earlier scholars to the material—should be curtailed and the focus should rather be on the countless as yet unpublished works. Such re-“editions” include, for example, Ḥusām Khaḍūr’s 2019 publication of the Ismāʿīlī commentary Mizāj al-tasnīm by Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn Ismāʿīl b. Hibat Allāh al-Ismāʿīlī al-Sulaymānī (d. 1173/1760),146 which is essentially a reproduction of Rudolf Strothmann’s edition of the work, which Strothmann prepared on the basis of a unique copy preserved in the Caprotti collection in Milan (MS Milan, Ambrosiana, Nuovo Fondo, ar. H 7) and published in four instalments between 1944 and 1955;147 the announced publication of al-Ḥasan b. Muḥammad al-Raṣṣāṣ's al-Muʾaththirāt wa-miftāḥ al-mushkilāt by the aforementioned (see above, n. 8) Muḥammad b. Sharaf al-Dīn b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥusaynī,148 an editio princeps of which was published by Jan Thiele in 2011;149 and the recent publication of Ibn Sharwīn’s Ḥaqāʾiq al-ashyāʾ by A. İskender Sarica and Serkan Çetin,150 following a 2012 editio princeps of the text by the present writers included as an appendix to a study on Ibn Sharwīn and prepared on the basis of a unique problematic witness of the text that is preserved in the Maktabat al-Awqāf in Sanaa (MS Sanaa, Maktabat al-Awqāf 589, fols. 1v-4r).151 Although Sarica and Çetin’s edition improves

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Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn Ismāʿīl b. Hibat Allāh al-Ismāʿīlī al-Sulaymānī, K. Mizāj al-tasnīm, ed. Ḥusām Khaḍūr, 2 vols, Salamiyya: Dār al-Ghadīr li-l-Ṭibāʿa wa-l-Nashr wa-l-Tawzīʿ, 2019. 147 Rudolf Strothmann (ed.), Ismailitischer Kommentar zum Koran, Abschnitt 11–20: Arabische Handschrift Ambrosiana H 76, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1944 (Lieferung 1 und 2), 1948 (Lieferung 3), 1955 (Lieferung 4). According to the title page, the two-volume 2019 publication by Khaḍūr, a Syrian physician and editor of primarily Ismāʿīlī works, contains an “edition and introduction” (taḥqīq wa-taqdīm). However, a comparison with Strothmann’s edition shows that the 2019 publication is a simplified reprint of Strothmann’s edition (which remains unmentioned in the brief introduction in vol. 1, pp. 3–6), with occasional omissions and without Strothmann’s critical apparatus. Moreover, the secret script, which was faithfully reproduced in Strothmann’s edition, has been replaced by Arabic characters in Khaḍūr’s. Strothmann’s Lieferung 1 (pp. 3–58) corresponds to 2019 ed., vol. 1, pp. 7–136; Lieferung 2 (pp. 59–114) = 2019 ed., vol. 1, 137–272; Lieferung 3 (pp. 115–184) = 2019 ed., vol. 1, pp. 273–450; Lieferung 4 (pp. 185–371) = 2019 ed., vol. 2, pp. 455–859. Relying on the work of earlier scholars seems to be a pattern of Khaḍūr’s publications. For a critical review of another one of Khaḍūr’s “critical editions,” see Hassan Ansari, “Tarjama-yi ʿarabī-yi Jāmiʿ al-ḥikmatayn-i Nāṣir Khusrūw,” Barrasī-hā-yi tārīkhī, https://ansari.kateban.com/post/2068 (accessed 21 January 2022). 148 Al-Muʾaththirāt wa-miftāḥ al-mushkilāt taʾlīf Abī ʿAlī al-Ḥasan b. Muḥammad al-Raṣṣāṣ wa-sharḥuhu Miṣbāḥ alẓulumāt fī kashf maʿānī al-Muʾaththirāt, wa-yalīhimā nuṣūṣ muḥaqqaqa, ed. Muḥammad b. Sharaf al-Dīn b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥusaynī, Kuwait: Dār Fāris; see https://twitter.com/thmarat/status/1370784001712123904 (accessed 11 January 2022). For Muḥammad al-Ḥusaynī, see also above, n. 8. 149 Jan Thiele, Kausalität in der muʿtazilitischen Kosmologie: Das Kitāb al-Muʾaththirāt wa-miftāḥ al-mushkilāt des Zayditen al-Ḥasan al-Raṣṣāṣ, Leiden: Brill, 2011. 150 A. İskender Sarica and Serkan Çetin, “Zeydî-Muʿtezilî Düşüncede Terimler: İbn Şervîn'in Ḥaḳāʾiḳu'l-eşyâʾ Risâlesi'nin Tahkik ve Tercümesi,” Kader 19 (2021), pp. 813–854. 151 Hassan Ansari and Sabine Schmidtke, “Muʿtazilism in Rayy and Astarābād: Abu l-Faḍl al-ʿAbbās b. Sharwīn (Studies on the Transmission of Knowledge from Iran to Yemen in the 6th/12th and 7th/13th c. II),” Studia Iranica 41 (2012), pp. 57–100; republished as chapter 2 in Hassan Ansari and Sabine Schmidtke, Studies in Medieval Islamic Intellectual Traditions. Atlanta, GA: Lockwood Press, 2017. In the following, we cite our edition on the basis of the 2017 publication.

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our earlier edition in a few instances,152 their work is problematic in other respects.153 Fayṣal Budayr ʿAwn’s publication of Ibn al-Malāḥimī’s K. al-Fāʾiq fī uṣūl al-dīn, which appeared in

E.g., ed. Sarica and Çetin, p. 824 line 23 (‫ )بالعدم‬rather than (��‫ )بالقد‬in ed. Ansari and Schmidtke, p. 57 line 15. Ed. Sarica and Çetin, p. 825 line 4 (‫ )لغو ية لقو��م‬rather than (‫ )تقو ية ً بقو��م‬in ed. Ansari and Schmidtke, p. 57 line 21. Ed. Sarica and Çetin, p. 829 line 22 (‫ )��جت��ب‬rather than (‫ )��كتساب‬in ed. Ansari and Schmidtke, p. 61 line 8. Occasionally Sarica and Çetin also corrected small typos, as in ed. Sarica and Çetin, p. 831 line 15 (����‫ )ا‬rather than ed. Ansari and Schmidtke, p. 62 line 17 (����‫ ;)ا‬however, Sarica and Çetin fail to mention that the manuscript also has (����‫)ا‬, apparently with a correction above the line. Another typo on our part which they point out (ed. Sarica and Çetin, p. 829 line 9), is ed. Ansari and Schmidtke, p. 60 line 28 (‫ )قتلته‬which should be (‫)فتلته‬, as we correctly have on p. 60 line 29 (����‫)مفتول ا‬. Since Sarica and Çetin add a Turkish translation to their publication of the text, the more elegant and efficient solution for the few emendations they propose would have been to mention them in the annotation to their translation. 153 Besides technical aspects such as the lack of numbering of the lemmata, which would have facilitated citation, and the lack of references for the poetry in the text (they are provided in ed. Ansari and Schmidtke, nn. 77, 78, 101), the frequent absence of references to corrections in the manuscript itself is deplorable. The copyist had evidently collated his copy of the text either with his antigraph or, perhaps more likely, with another witness, as is attested in the regular marginal and interlinear corrections. Whereas these are regularly adduced in ed. Ansari and Schmidtke, only some are included in ed. Sarica and Çetin; not mentioned in ed. Sarica and Çetin are the cases indicated in ed. Ansari and Schmidtke in nn. 82, 83, 85, 86, 88, 103, 106, 107, 108, 110, 111, 114, 115. A number of emendations proposed by Sarica and Çetin to ed. Ansari and Schmidtke are wrong or superfluous. This includes their regular correction of our (‫البغداذي�ن‬/‫ )البغداذيون‬into (‫البغدادي�ن‬/‫)البغداديون‬. Since Baghdādh is the more ancient form of Baghdād that is regularly used in early Muʿtazili and Zaydi manuscripts, our reading is correct. A further example is ed. Sarica and Çetin, p. 829 line 7 (‫ )ا�� ب�ن‬rather than ed. Ansari and Schmidtke, p. 60 line 25 (‫)ا��ثن�ن‬, where our reading is again correct. Another example is ed. Sarica and Çetin, p. 832 line 5-6 (��‫)شيخنا أ�ي ��� وأ�ي ها‬, where their reading agrees with the manuscript but evidently needs to be emended, as has been done in ed. Ansari and Schmidtke, p. 62 line 32-33 ( ‫شيخينا أ�ي ��� وأ�ي‬ ��‫)ها‬. Elsewhere Sarica and Çetin emend our reading, creating new mistakes; an example is ed. Sarica and Çetin, p. 824 line 18 (‫)وحقيقة و� ّد ا���دث‬, whereas ed. Ansari and Schmidtke, p. 57 line 11 reads (‫)و� ّد ا���دث و��قيقه‬. The manuscript, which is hardly legible here, has either (‫ )وحقيقة‬or (‫)و��قيقه‬, with a correction above the line (‫)و� ّد ا���دث‬, which is ambiguous. Whereas ed. Ansari and Schmidtke describes the manuscript evidence fairly acurately in n. 73, ed. Sarica and Çetin only mention, inaccurately, the reading of ed. Ansari and Schmidtke, without specification what the manuscript actually contains. Similarly unhelpful are Sarica and Çetin’s emendations of cases such as bi-ḥuṣūlihi (ed. Sarica and Çetin, n. 57), since our reading li-ḥuṣūlihā is correct. Ed. Sarica and Çetin, p. 827 line 14 has ( ‫وحقيقة الظن ما‬ ‫ ;)يوجب هذا ا���� هو ا��عقول‬Sarica and Çetin fail to mention that ed. Ansari and Schmidtke does not have huwa in this passage—indeed, in the manuscript al-ḥukm is followed by (‫)ا��و‬, which is crossed out. The copyist clearly made a mistake when he wanted to write al-maʿqūl, so he crossed out his error and followed it by the correct term. In numerous other cases, their and our suggested readings are equally plausible. Perhaps the most striking examples of Sarica and Çetin’s misunderstanding of ed. Ansari and Schmidtke are ed. Sarica and Çetin, n. 51 (‫ ��ا‬+ ‫)ب‬, referring to an editorial comment by Ansari and Schmidtke, p. 58 line 16 at the end of a sentence that is evidently incomplete ([‫ ;)فعلت هذا ا��ات وا�� ّٰ� تعا�ى ]��ا‬and ed. Sarica and Çetin, p. 833 line 21 (‫)مع ��ا مثل‬, which reflects not the manuscript but rather a misunderstanding of ed. Ansari and Schmidtke, p. 64 line 2 [(‫ مثل‬:‫]مع )��ا‬, where we attempt to make sense of another unclear passage in the text. The manuscript here has an illegible word that has been crossed out and replaced above the line by maʿa. Since maʿa makes no sense but is clearly visible, we included the word maʿa in our edition, signaling within brackets that we doubted the correctness of the word, and suggesting instead mithl. There are numerous other examples of inacuraries and misunderstandings in Sarica and Çetin’s edition, but the examples given should be enough to alert future readers that their edition by no means constitutes an improvement over ours. 152

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YEMENI MANUSCRIPT CULTURES IN PERIL

2010,154 three years after the publication of Wilferd Madelung’s and Martin McDermott’s editio princeps of the book on the basis of all three witnesses of the work that are held by the Maktabat al-Awqāf in Sanaa, is a different case, since each edition was apparently prepared without the editors’ knowledge of the ongoing parallel project. Moreover, ʿAwn, who sojourned in Yemen during the years 1986 and 1988, when he taught at the Department of Philosophy at Sanaa University, had access to only two of the three copies consulted by Madelung and McDermott.155 Imām Ḥanafī Sayyid ʿAbd Allāh, who published an edition of the K. alBaḥth ʿan adillat al-takfīr wa-l-tafsīq by the Zaydi scholar Abū l-Qāsim al-Bustī (fl. late fourth/tenth and early fifth/eleventh centuries) in 2006,156 two years after the publication of an editio princeps of the book prepared by Wilferd Madelung and Sabine Schmidtke, was apparently also unaware of the latter editorial project. Whereas Madelung and Schmidtke consulted the two extant witnesses of the text: the Landberg manuscript that is split between Berlin and Leiden, and another copy of the work in the Maktabat al-Awqāf in Sanaa, ʿAbd Allāh used only the Sanaa copy, which he considered the only extant witness of al-Bustī’s work.157 Such practices of re-“editing” with no scholarly need or justification (or worse, such as in the case of Khaḍūr),158 the lack of coordination among scholars, and the overall limited prestige of critical editions in Western academic institutions, are detrimental to the progress of scholarship, as scholars are increasingly hesitant to embark on the laborious work of preparing critical editions of hitherto unpublished materials. But this is precisely what is needed.159 The contributions brought together in this volume address a wide spectrum of aspects of Yemeni manuscript cultures, with special emphasis on the Zaydi tradition.160 Part

154

Cairo: Maṭbaʿat Dār al-Kutub wa-l-Wathāʾiq al-Qawmiyya bi-l-Qāhira. Tehran: Institute for Islamic Philosophy, 2007. Madelung and McDermott consulted MSS Sanaa, Maktabat alAwqāf 557, 558, and 559, which they cited according to the old shelfmark system as MSS Sanaa, al-Khizāna alMutawakkiliyya ʿilm al-kalām 53, 189, and 55. ʿAwn consulted only MSS Maktabat al-Awqāf 558 (= ʿilm al-kalām 189) and 559 (= ʿilm al-kalām 55). This can be deduced from his description of the two copies in the introduction to his edition, although he refrains from mentioning their shelfmarks. 156 Cairo: Dār al-Āfāq al-ʿArabiyya. 157 Tehran: Markaz-i Nashr-i Dānishgāhī, 1382sh/2003-4. See the respective introductions by the editors. An unauthorized reprint of the edition by Madelung and Schmidtke was published in Baghdad and Cologne by Manshūrāt al-Jamal in 2009, without the editors’ introduction. 158 Another deplorable example is the regular exact reprints of H.S. Nyberg’s edition of al-Khayyāṭ‘s K. al-Intiṣār that omit the name of the editor. 159 Occasional cases of censorship constitutes another thorny problem that hampers scholarship. A case in point is Muḥammad b. Muḥammad Zabāra’s (1333–1537/1915–2016) biographical dictionary of twentieth-century Yemeni scholars, Nuzhat al-naẓar fī rijāl al-qarn al-rābiʿ ʿashar, which was first published in 1979 (2 vols., Sanaa: Markaz alDirāsāt wa-l-Abḥāth al-Yamaniyya) and again in 1431/2010 (2 vols., Sanaa: Maktabat al-Irshād), with different pagination but essentially the same contents. The twice published version is, however, a heavily censored version of the original work. The complete original version (consisting of four volumes) was restored by the author’s son, Aḥmad Zabāra (1325–1421/1908–2000), in manuscript form only around 1993. See Brinkley Messick, Sharīʿa Scripts: A Historical Anthropology, New York: Columbia University Press, 2018, pp. 95–96, 478. 160 Yemen is also important for the Ismāʿīlī Ṭayyibī manuscript tradition, which is not discussed in this volume. See Ismail K. Poonawala, “Ismāʿīlī Manuscripts from Yemen,” Journal of Islamic Manuscripts 5 (2014), pp. 1–25; 155

INTRODUCTION

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1 focuses on manuscripts and libraries within Yemen. It opens with Gabriele vom Bruck’s anthropological study of the significance of private book collections for Yemenis during the recent periods of turmoil and war, drawing primarily on interviews with owners of private libraries and their descendants. Brinkley Messick analyses the foundation of the Khizāna al-Mutawakkiliyya in 1925 as a point of convergence of traditional scholarship, on the one hand, and Ottoman institutional patterns, on the other. Zayd al-Wazir unravels the history of the Āl al-Wazīr since the sixth/twelfth century with special attention to the fate of the family’s important library. Anne Regourd offers a detailed account of the history of patrimonial institutions in Yemen from the foundation of the General Organization for Antiquities and Libraries in 1969 until 2020. Part 1 concludes with a case study by Daniel Varisco of Nūr al-maʿārif fī nuẓum wa-qawānīn wa-aʿrāf al-Yaman fī l-ʿahd al-Muẓaffarī al-wārif, a unique register of court archives from the reign of al-Malik al-Muẓaffar Yūsuf that is a valuable source on the history of Yemen and the Red Sea/Indian Ocean trading network at the close of the seventh/thirteenth century. Part 2 includes studies on selected collections of Yemeni manuscripts in Europe and Saudi Arabia. In their study of ʿAbd Allāh b. Zayd al-ʿAnsī al-Madhḥijī (d. 667/1269), a towering Zaydi scholar of seventh/thirteenth-century Yemen, Hassan Ansari and Sabine Schmidtke illustrate the importance of Yemeni manuscript collections in European libraries and the significance of the digital repatriation of this heritage, as well as the at times precarious situation of private manuscript collections in Yemen during the second half of the twentieth century and beyond. Stefanie Brinkmann analyzes the fate of MS Glaser. Cod. Glaser 30, which is part of the Vienna Glaser collection. The codex contains a copy of al-Bukhārī’s al-Jāmiʿ alṣaḥīḥ that was produced in Timurid Iran and was held for several centuries in the possession of descendants of Imam al-Mutawakkil Sharaf al-Dīn Yaḥyā (d. 965/1558). Christoph Rauch discusses manuscripts of Yemeni provenance in the Berlin State Library acquired both before and after the purchase of the two Glaser collections (until the early twenty-first century); some of these manuscripts are dispersed in collections other than Glaser, such as the Landberg and Burchardt collections, and are thus less well known. Valentina Sagaria Rossi tracks the presence of Italian travelers, traders, and physicians in Yemen since the mid-nineteenth century and uncovers their motives and methods in collecting Islamic manuscripts. She pays particular attention to Giuseppe Caprotti’s relations with Eugenio Griffini and the latter’s role in the fate of the Caprotti collection. Karin Scheper and Arnoud Vrolijk trace the origins of Zaydi manuscripts in the Leiden collections to the Tihāma and the highlands of Yemen and explore the notion of a “Yemeni manuscript” by considering the physical characteristics that define a manuscript as “Yemeni.” Finally, Bernard Haykel discusses Yemeni manuscripts in the libraries of Saudi Arabia, focusing on the collection of manuscripts assembled by the late Saudi merchant, civil servant, and diplomat Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-ʿUbaykān.

Sayyid, Maṣādir, passim; and Ayman Fuʾād Sayyid, Tārīkh al-madhāhib al-dīniyya fī bilād al-Yaman ḥattā nihāyat al-qarn al-sādis al-hijrī, Cairo: al-Dār al-Miṣriyya al-Lubnāniyya, 1408/1988, pp. 91–208.

‘TOUCHING A PIECE OF HISTORY’ THE LIFE-CYCLES AND DESTINIES OF PRIVATE YEMENI LIBRARIES IN AN ERA OF TURMOIL GABRIELE VOM BRUCK As a child I was fascinated by the cloth wrappings of the huge amounts of silver cutlery— some of it by then outsized—at my grandmother’s house. Much of it had been buried in gardens and nearby forests during World War II to safeguard it from foreign invaders, and the inner wrappings had not been discarded after the war had ended.

Figure 1. Salvaged cutlery. © The author. 123

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It was decades later, during the third Yemeni-Saudi war, to be precise, that I learnt that some of my Yemeni friends’ libraries had been similarly evacuated, and that this was by no means the first time that it had happened. In some cases, both people and libraries moved underground. A consideration of the life cycles of libraries reveals that the biographies of particular persons and particular objects may be intertwined.1 Because of the paucity of available ethnographic data at the time of writing, what follows is a tentative attempt to reconstruct some aspects of those life cycles.2 During the Zaydī-Shiʿi imamate, which lasted until 1962, the status and reputation of leading families were based on descent, knowledge, piety, and wealth. Biographical data on learned men and women alike refer to their teachers and the books they studied (and wrote) at certain stages of their educational and professional pathways. Establishing a superb library received mention in biographies.3 Large libraries were the pride of important families, who regarded their book collections as precious belongings that were kept in separate rooms to which visitors were given access only with permission. They were objectifications of social and political relations and hierarchies.4 Libraries embodied much of what the elites were and represented, often documenting elaborate life histories of learned houses (buyūt al-ʿilm) over many centuries.5 In previous centuries, scholars had been at pains to avoid the division of their libraries after their passing. Before their deaths, some had declared their libraries private endowments (waqf khāṣṣ) that were to benefit only

1

Christopher Tilley, “Objectification,” Handbook of Material Culture, ed. Christopher Tilley et al., London: Sage, 2006, pp. 60–73, here: p. 63. 2 I thank Sabine Schmidtke for inspiring me to think of the social and political lives of Yemeni libraries and for enabling me to research the subject at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University during the summer of 2019. In light of the ongoing war in Yemen, which since March 2015 has rendered field research beyond the bounds of possibility, the data on which this chapter is based are rather sketchy. I am grateful to ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad Ḥamīd al-Dīn for helpful discussions on the subject and for encouraging Fuʾād al-Shāmī to gather some related data. I am much obliged to Ḥamīd al-Iryānī, Luʾay al-Wazīr, and ʿAbbās Muḥammad Zayd, who are currently based in Germany and the United States, for talking to me either in person or via electronic channels. All are scions of learned families who, during the imamate, were linked to governance in the domain of either political rule or jurisprudence (or both). They self-identify as either Zaydī or Sunni. Direct speech of transcribed conversations has been maintained wherever possible. Throughout this paper, the names of imams and premodern historical figures are transliterated; the names of contemporary individuals are not. 3 For example, the eighteenth-century Zaydī imam al-Nāṣir Muḥammad b. Isḥāq was described as a noteworthy scholar and master of the science of fiqh (jurisprudence) and an excellent poet and the collector of a fine library; see Robert B. Serjeant, “The Post-Medieval and Modern History of Sanʿā’ and the Yemen, ca. 953–1382/1515– 1962,” Sanʿā’: An Arabian Islamic City, ed. Robert B. Serjeant and Ronald Lewcock, London: World of Islam Festival Trust, 1983, pp. 68–107, here: p. 84. 4 Here I adopt a perspective on objectification that has to do with what things are and what they do in the social world. Citing Daniel Miller (Material Culture and Mass Consumption, Oxford: Blackwell, 1987), Tilley points out that things are objectifications not just at the point of their production but throughout their life cycles. His key notion is that objectification seeks to overcome the dualism that characterizes subjects and objects as fundamentally different and opposed, and that through making, interacting with, and living with things people make themselves in the process (Tilley, “Objectification,” pp. 60–61). 5 Bayt (pl. buyūt) refers variously to a house, a household, or a patronymic descent category.

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their learned sons and daughters.6 Before the introduction of printing, people devoted much time to copying works by hand.7 Somewhat reminiscent of the monogrammed family silver of the European middle classes that denoted “old money” and often landed property, books and manuscripts (most of them hand-written) were key items of material culture that were handed down through generations and served to corroborate claims to status. Like the silver, they had both practical and aesthetic functions, but unlike it they were instrumental in the exercise of knowledge-related professional domains, such as the judiciary and governance. The libraries were repositories of authoritative knowledge through which rulers and their officials as well as independent scholars legitimized themselves.8 The value given to libraries and people’s attachments to them ought to be understood in the context of the rule of scholar-jurists (imams) that was sanctioned through a literate tradition based partly on that knowledge.9 Key works had to be memorized by the male scions of the learned families, such that the body became the repository of this knowledge and, in a way, an extension of the library.10 Rote learning was one of the means by which control over the body was exercised. Part of professional ethics was to issue fatwas or judgments without recourse to books.11 Historicizing the libraries of the old elites validates Daniel Miller’s point that power is a “property of materiality”: “So the study of material culture often becomes an effective way to understand power, not as some abstraction, but as the mode by which certain forms or people become realized, often at the expense of others.”12 When libraries are studied as repositories of knowledge, they demonstrate a phenomenon that was central to Michel

6

ʿAbbās Muḥammad Zayd, personal communication, 24 July 2019. On this issue, see Eirik Hovden, Waqf in Zaydī Yemen: Legal Theory, Codification, and Local Practice. Leiden: Brill, 2019, chapt. 5. 7 This job was mostly but by no means exclusively carried out by men; see Gabriele vom Bruck, Mirrored Loss: A Yemeni Woman’s Life Story, London: Hurst, 2018, p. 208. 8 Among the few big merchants of Sanaa, Ismāʿīl b. ʿAlī Ghamḍān cultivated friendships with the ʿulamāʾ and established a formidable library (Gabriele vom Bruck, Islam, Memory, and Morality in Yemen: Ruling Families in Transition, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, p. 165). According to Marieke Brandt, “tribal” notables (mashāyikh) keep archives rather than libraries containing genealogies, intertribal agreements, letters from the imams, and such (personal communication, 24 August 2019). I acknowledge the somewhat problematic connotations of “tribe” (see Lisa Wedeen, Peripheral Visions: Publics, Power, and Performance in Yemen, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008, chap. 4). I use it here as a gloss on the term qabīla, represented by Yemenis as being made up of arms-bearing settled agriculturalists (see vom Bruck, Mirrored Loss, p. 223). 9 In ideal-typical fashion, European writings on the imams often characterize them as “properly men of the sword as well as of the book and righteousness” (Paul Dresch, A History of Modern Yemen, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, p. 15). 10 Reluctance to do so was interpreted as failure to respect the authority of “tradition” and of the elders. When, for example, the son of Imam Aḥmad’s deputy in Sanaa found the daily effort and discipline required by rote learning unpalatable and told his father somewhat defiantly that it was for the blind, his father reacted angrily (ʿAbbās b. ʿAlī Zabāra, personal communication, April 2017). 11 In his recent study of the textual deployments of sharīʿa-based knowledge, focusing on a local order within whose framework learned men studied, taught, copied, memorized, and interpreted works of fiqh (jurisprudence), Brinkley Messick has explored the vibrancy of “interpretive traditions” during the imamate; see Messick, Sharīʿa Scripts: A Historical Anthropology, New York: Columbia University Press, 2018. 12 Daniel Miller (ed.), Materiality, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005, pp. 18–19 (emphasis mine).

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Foucault’s writings—namely, that the production, display, accumulation, management, and application of knowledge never existed separately from power.13 These processes were enmeshed in networks of power, which is why the fates of libraries were often tied to the fates of people. The libraries of great men (and sometimes women) were fought over by their heirs, appropriated by their foes and local and foreign powers, hidden in times of war, and smuggled and stolen like other precious objects. A number of themes have emerged from my limited research into libraries. These themes, beginning in the twentieth century and bearing testimony to the library owners’ social locations, professional trajectories and predicaments over the past decades, touch upon issues such as the frailty, preciousness, vulnerability, affect, dislocation, intangibility, and fear of loss of the libraries. Libraries are clearly seen as objects in need of care. Certain sites such as monuments and ancient cities, which likewise have been objects of (national) pride and are understood to be under threat or have already been adversely affected by the current war, which began in 2015, are referred to in similar terms. They are equally conceived of as being exposed to great danger, and the libraries have often been discussed in conjunction with these sites. I have therefore included reference to such sites. The descendants of scholarly lineages featured in this chapter were born in the midtwentieth century. They display an ambivalent attachment to a material culture that was central to the lives of their forebears. Such relationships, as Rodney Harrison notes, “are formed as a result of the relationships between people and other human and non-human actors. . . . [They are] formed in the present,” and they mediate inherited and current concerns about the past.14 However, these men are painfully aware that many of the libraries at the center of this relationship have been depleted and fragmented, and few are inclined to devote themselves to studying their contents. Those actively engaged in manuscript conservation are apprehensive about a future deprived of a sense of its past—that is, a past that resounds in the future. When the grandfathers of these men were in their prime, policy changes reflected changing attitudes toward knowledge and toward the dissemination of written texts that were considered to be of value. Drawing on the work of Bruno Latour, who described the history of the sciences as the history of the mobilization of anything that can be made to move and classified,15 Harrison, in his study on “heritage,” conceives of classifying, ordering, and cataloging as an integral part of what it means to be “modern.”16 In the context of the gradual formation of a Yemeni nation-state in the aftermath of the second Ottoman occupa-

13

Hubert Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow, Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics, New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1982, p. 114. 14 Rodney Harrison, Heritage: Critical Approaches, London: Routledge, 2013, p. 14 (emphasis his). 15 Bruno Latour, Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987. 16 Harrison, Heritage, p. 28–29. He argues that the way the term “heritage” is understood is always ambiguous. It is “generally invoked as a positive quality, that it assumes some relationship with the past, and that it relates to ways of categorizing and classifying ‘things’ and traditions in the world. . . . [I]t often implies a sense of threat, or at least some vulnerability, and various other qualities that set it apart from the everyday” (ibid., pp. 6, 7).

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tion (1849–1918), Imam Yaḥyā Ḥamīd al-Dīn (r. 1918–1948) authorized the printing of a number of books both in Yemen and overseas.17 He also appointed a history committee and oversaw the production of a “unified” Yemeni history, which signaled a break with previous historiography.18 In 1936–1937 some extensive rebuilding was undertaken at the Great Mosque of Sanaa at the behest of the imam. A library was constructed over the mosque’s southern hall, necessitating a new row of columns on the southern side of the courtyard.19 The new library inaugurated by the imam at the Great Mosque demonstrated the measures he took to preserve books and manuscripts, as well as his policy toward increasing state control and regulation of valuable heirlooms and commodities such as those artifacts. Contrary to tradition, this library was no longer an integral part of the mosque. It contained older collections and the imam’s own large, newly created endowment.20 This policy was continued by his son Aḥmad who took power in 1948. He stipulated that unless his son Muḥammad al-Badr (the heir apparent) wished to use them, on his demise his books in Ḥajja and Taʿizz were to be made a waqf to the library of the Great Mosque of Sanaa.21 During his reign Imam Yaḥyā overhauled all of the library’s operations from cataloging to lending. Security deposits, greater in value than the books themselves, were taken for books that were loaned out, and the collections were indexed and documented. The librarian was expected to possess “comprehensive knowledge of religion and jurisprudence” in order to appreciate the importance and value of the stock.22 Placing emphasis on such new administrative measures, the imam cultivated a concept of the ‘public’ with the right to access what became defined as a kind of national heritage.23 As described below, during this period and in later years the “mobilization” of books and manuscripts occurred largely within Yemen through enforced (though temporary) appropriation of large 17

In 1877 the Ottomans introduced the printing press to their sanjak Yemen. However, Imam Yaḥyā’s ambivalence regarding the use of printed texts in advanced education may have been based on a policy at al-Azhar University in Cairo, which banned printed texts from the curriculum. It would seem that al-Azhar scholars conceived of printed books as a vulgarization of religious texts. According to the Italian Orientalist Ettore Rossi, at one point Imam Yaḥyā ordered the students at the madrasa ʿilmiyya (an academy designed to train scholars of Islam who had completed their mosque education) to study texts that were mostly manuscripts and handwritten anthologies they bought or copied for themselves (cited in Brinkley Messick, The Calligraphic State, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993, p. 116). The late mujtahid Majd al-Dīn al-Muʾayyadī of Dhahyan had reservations about the printing of books because mistakes could be made during the printing process (ʿAbd Allāh Ḥamīd al-Dīn, personal communication, April 2019). 18 Messick, Calligraphic State, pp. 119, 124. 19 Ronald Lewcock at al., “The Architectural History and Description of Ṣanʿāʾ Mosques: The Great Mosque,” Ṣanʿāʾ: An Arabian Islamic City, ed. Robert B. Serjeant and Ronald Lewcock, London: World of Islam Festival Trust, 1983, pp. 323–350, here: p. 325. The imam is said to have been appalled by the spiders that had spun their webs on the books in the old library collections (Messick, Calligraphic State, p. 119). 20 A further benefit of the imam’s placing his own library and those of some other well-known families into the Great Mosque was the avoidance of their break-up upon their owners’ passing. 21 Robert B. Serjeant, “The Yemeni Poet Al-Zubayrī and his Polemic against the Zaydi Imᾱms,” Arabian Studies 5 (1979), pp. 87-130, here: p. 129. 22 Messick, Calligraphic State, p. 120. See also Lewcock et al., “Architectural History,” p. 338. 23 The library can be regarded as a precursor to the Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt (Manuscript House) that was established several decades later.

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libraries, but books were also obtained from abroad. For example, according to contemporaries, Qāḍī ʿAbd Allāh al-ʿAmrī, Imam Yaḥyā’s prime minister, was sent to Iraq to acquire Muʿtazilī books.24 Having identified both private and public libraries of the late imamate elites as “always inscribed in a play of power,”25 below I present three men’s accounts of the destinies of their families’ books and manuscripts during troubled times. I begin with a brief overview of the republican leadership’s attitude toward heritage preservation after the revolution of 1962. Following the revolution of 1962, the institutional framework of Zaydī-Shiʿi doctrine that had sanctioned the Yemeni imamate for about a millennium was dismantled. Because of its close association with imamate rule, Zaydī Shiʿism has since struggled to define its place in the Yemeni republic. The successor state to the imamate was envisioned by its leaders as one in which Islam would transcend all schools of law (madhāhib), thus submerging the Zaydiyya without eliminating it (vom Bruck 2010).26 For example, a few years after the 1970 reconciliation agreement between the republicans and the royalists, parts of the Sharḥ al-Azhār, a fifteenth-century Zaydī legal compendium, were incorporated into the codified law (al-taqnīn al-sharīʿa al-islāmiyya) espoused by the republicans.27 Ismāʿīl b. Aḥmad al-Wazīr, minister of justice during the mid-1970s, ordered the reprinting of the Sharḥ al-Azhār and established a college for the training of judges, maʿhad al-qāḍa. Civil and personal law was based on Zaydī legal codes, but central institutions of higher learning such as the madrasa ʿilmiyya (see note 17), founded by Imam Yaḥyā in 1924, were closed.28 The leaders of the revolution did not pursue an Inquisition-style destruction of material culture identified as “Zaydī.” According to a member of a scholarly family from the northern town of Huth, It was President ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Iryānī’s intention to safeguard the heritage of all Yemeni madhāhib.29 After eight years of war, he sought reconciliation between the Zaydīs and

24

Ismāʿīl b. Aḥmad al-Wazīr, personal communication, 15 April 2019. Muʿtazilī writings provided one of the cornerstones of Zaydī teachings. They were incorporated into the teachings of al-Ḥasan b. Zayd (d. 884), the founder of the Zaydī imamate in Tabaristan, as well as of Imam al-Qāsim b. Ibrāhīm (d. 860) and Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn al-Hādī ilā lḤaqq (d. 911), who established the first Zaydī imamate in northern Yemen. The writings of key Muʿtazilīs such as Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār were recovered and preserved in Yemen; see “Muʿtazila,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed. (D. Gimaret). 25 Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977, ed. and trans. Colin Gordon, New York: Pantheon Books, 1980, p. 196. 26 Gabriele vom Bruck, “Regimes of Piety Revisited: Zaydi Political Moralities in Republican Yemen,” Die Welt des Islams 50 (2010), pp. 185–223. The Zaydiyya provided the religious rationale for the imamate, which lasted for about a millennium. The Zaydī-Shiʿi doctrine insists on just rule exercized by a supreme ruler (imam). The rulers were formally obliged to make a recognized claim to descent from the Prophet Muḥammad via ʿAlī and Fāṭima and were supposed to be the most erudite men of their time (women were excluded from the supreme leadership). The imams had to be willing and able to oppose tyranny and injustice. 27 On the composition of the Sharḥ al-Azhār (Book of flowers) by Imam al-Mahdī Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā al-Murtaḍā (d. 840/1437), which served as an introductory manual for generations of students, see Messick, Sharīʿa Scripts, pp. 62–70; see also Martha Mundy, Domestic Government: Kinship, Community and Polity in North Yemen, London: I. B. Tauris, 1995, p. 50. 28 Ismāʿīl b. Aḥmad al-Wazīr, personal communication, 15 April 2019. 29 Qadi ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Yaḥyā al-Iryānī was president of the Yemen Arab Republic from 1967 to 1974.

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the Shāfiʿīs. During the revolution no Zaydī books were burnt. In Huth the libraries of the imam’s representatives were removed from their houses, but they were not destroyed. It is unclear what happened to them. Some manuscripts were smuggled outside. They have probably found their way to Saudi Arabia and the Emirates.30

People who were born before the revolution hold the view that one of the reasons the revolutionaries did not demolish the physical manifestations associated with the Zaydī polity was that the revolution was directed against the sāda rather than against the Zaydīs. The revolutionaries never talked badly about the Zaydīs collectively, but they used pejorative language when referring to Imam Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn [the first Zaydī imam in Yemen] and those of his successors who claimed that the ruler must be ʿAlawī-Fāṭimī.31 After my father [a senior official] was arrested, his books were taken to the Great Mosque. The libraries that were owned by quḍāt families who had worked with the government were not confiscated.32 After the reconciliation agreement [of 1970] some of the books were returned to us after we made a request.33

30

This interlocutor wished to remain anonymous. Once the imamate had been dismantled and religious knowledge was no longer pivotal, some residents of Sanaa who found themselves impoverished were ready to sell their books. According to a Sanʿani judge, “boxes full of books were offered to me at the price of $2,000 each. The Saudis have no history. They acquire books and manuscripts in order to show that they have history. In fact, they do not attach any value to the Zaydī madhhab. No one reads those books. If they were to read them, their leadership would burn them” (Anonymous personal communication, 5 May 2019). In fact, numerous books and manuscripts from Yemen have been sold to Saudi Arabians since the 1950s. Before the mid-twentieth century, the purchase and smuggling of Yemeni manuscripts did occur but was less ubiquitous than in later years. According to Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Wazīr, a member of Bayt al-ʿUbaykān, whose father was a member of the delegation dispatched by King Saʿūd that visited Imam Aḥmad Ḥamīd al-Dīn in the 1950s, bought Zaydī manuscripts from Yemeni ʿulamāʾ (Aḥmad al-Wazīr, personal communication, 5 April 2019). Apparently, the ʿulamāʾ were offered large sums of money. It is unclear whether the financial incentive motivated them to part with their manuscripts. Most of the Zaydī manuscripts that have been taken to Saudi Arabia are now held at King Saʿūd University in Riyadh, founded in 1957. Both Ismāʿīlī and Zaydī manuscripts were also bought by Pakistani pilgrims who traveled to Mecca via Aden and Sanaa (ʿAbbās b. Muḥammad Zayd, personal communication, 24 July 2019). 31 Those who represent themselves as sāda (sg. sayyid) trace their descent from the Prophet Muḥammad (they are also referred to as hāshimiyyūn). The rulers of the imamate were recruited from sayyid learned houses (buyūt al-ʿilm; see n. 26). 32 Quḍāt (sg. qāḍī) are judges, in Yemen also individuals belonging to known families of judges. During the imamate, social mobility occurred above all via religious learning. There was a continuous upward flow of people into the ranks of the nobility through the appointment of judges (quḍāt), whose descendants continued to carry their titles. Initially constituting a professional category, the position of a qāḍī became, in the later period of the imamate, more clearly a hereditary one. Many of the descendants of such judges have taken up professions unrelated to jurisprudence (vom Bruck, Islam, Memory, and Morality, pp. 46, 283 n. 9). Under Imam Aḥmad, several held prestigious positions as governors (Dresch, History of Modern Yemen, p. 68). 33 ʿAbbās b. ʿAlī Zabāra, personal communication, 14 May 2019. Zabāra, a writer and the former director of the Humanitarian Forum in Yemen, comes from a family that has significantly shaped Yemen’s intellectual landscape during the nineteenth- and twentieth-century imamate. Among the family’s prominent members are the historian Muḥammad b. Muḥammad (d. 1961) and Aḥmad b. Muḥammad, mufti of the republic until his death in 2000. The Center for Yemeni Studies censored one of Muḥammad b. Muḥammad Zabāra’s biographical dictionaries, removing entries on prominent pre-republican figures. However, his son Aḥmad remained in possession of the

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In some exceptional cases, hardliners such as Qāsim Ghālib, the education minister of the first republican government, sought to stigmatize the Zaydī madhhab. He sent a request to the Egyptian President Nasser, asking him to send a number of ʿulamāʾ from al-Azhar to Yemen to denounce the Zaydiyya in mosques and schools. According to contemporaries, however, once these scholars had read several Zaydī books, they approved of Zaydī teachings.34 Fu’ād b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Shāmī,35 a historian who currently works at the Markaz alWaṭanī li-l-Wathāʾiq (National Documentation Center), elaborated on the policies taken toward libraries by successive republican governments: From the revolution until President Aḥmad al-Ghashmī’s assassination in 1978,36 the Zaydiyya and the Zaydī heritage were mostly “invisible” [i.e., of little concern], especially among some of the youth. Religious rituals were practiced only by the elderly and a few young people, particularly in urban areas. It was the heyday of communism, socialism, and nationalism in some Arab countries, and the Zaydī madhhab was regarded as a symbol of an anachronistic and reactionary state. In this climate, little attention was given to Zaydī books and manuscripts, and most of the centers of Zaydī learning were abandoned. After the reconciliation, “nominal” Zaydism was the religious façade of the state. As for Zaydī libraries and manuscripts, after the revolution the government did not give them the necessary attention. However, since the 1970s it was more mindful of this issue as part of the public interest in Yemeni culture. Its interest in the preservation of manuscripts and libraries gained momentum especially after the establishment of the Dār alMakhṭūṭāt in Sanaa in the 1980s. As for the libraries of the Great Mosque, the main library was al-Maktaba al-Gharbiyya [the western wing of the library], which was transferred to the eastern side of the mosque and renamed al-Maktaba al-Sharqiyya [the eastern wing of the library], containing manuscripts that have been stored there during various periods with the approval of their owners. They now fall under the authority of the ministry of endowments. Access to Ismāʿīlī manuscripts has been restricted from the days of the imamate until today. The Zaydī manuscripts that used to be stored in the eastern and western wings of the library have been maintained and indexed and made available to researchers. The core stock of what is now called al-Maktaba al-Gharbiyya consists of books that belonged to Imam Yaḥyā, Imam Aḥmad (r. 1948–1962), and some other princes, in addition to books that were confiscated from members of the ruling elite after the revolution of 1962.37

original handwritten notes. Turning the book from print to manuscript, he wrote it again in his lucid script and added a few more biographies (Messick, Sharīʿa Scripts, p. 96). 34 Qāsim b. ʿAlī al-Wazīr, personal communication, 15 April 2019. 35 Fuʾād b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Shāmī, personal communication, 9 July 2019. Al-Shāmī holds a professorship in history at Sanaa University and also works at the Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt. 36 Aḥmad al-Ghashmī governed 1977–1978. Like his predecessor, Ibrāhīm al-Ḥamdī, he was assassinated. 37 Fuʾād al-Shāmī complained that the negligence of some heirs of important libraries resulted in their loss through either sale or inadequate storage. In his view, the most important libraries that did not receive appropriate attention from their heirs were those of Sayyid Muḥammad al-Manṣūr and the Mufti Aḥmad Zabāra. The contents of the latter’s library were distributed to his brothers, sisters, uncles, and aunts (Muṭahhar b. Aḥmad Zabāra, personal communication, 29 August 2019).

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After the establishment of the Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt, which is supervised by the ministry of culture, al-Maktaba al-Gharbiyya was placed under its control. Manuscripts purchased by the state or confiscated from smugglers at border crossings have been added to the library. The problem of smuggling is serious: the Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt received more than three thousand manuscripts that had been confiscated at border crossings during smuggling operations.38 We do not have any figures regarding the number of manuscripts that have been smuggled out of Yemen. Most of the Zaydī manuscripts that arrive in neighboring countries have been smuggled or bought. Some owners of private libraries have given in to the material temptations from the neighboring countries [Gulf states] and agreed to sell their manuscript collections in part or in whole. The trade in manuscripts constitutes one of the most important dangers to the Zaydī manuscript collections in Yemen. The existence of manuscript libraries in the neighboring countries, housed in universities and study centers in Saudi Arabia, for example, provide evidence of this. Most of their contents are of Yemeni origin, obtained through purchase and smuggling from a number of Yemeni governorates, especially Saʿda, Hajja, and al-Hudayda. Because of the difference in doctrine, they tend not to be displayed.39 In the following decades, successive governments have tried to create divisions between sayyid and non-sayyid houses (buyūt) in order to weaken the role of Zaydī Islam in society. All this has contributed to reducing people’s interest in maintaining the Zaydī heritage as far as the preservation of manuscripts, the printing of books, and teaching are concerned. The government of ʿAlī ʿAbd Allāh Ṣāliḥ, who took power in 1978, was committed to the conservation of manuscripts of all kinds. They were viewed as part of the national heritage, and the government sought funding from donor countries for this purpose.40 However, the president’s policy of co-opting the Muslim Brotherhood had consequences for all activities related to the Zaydiyya. Under the direction of Saudi Arabia, he used the Brotherhood to fight the socialists who were affiliated with the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY).41 The Brotherhood gained influence and indirectly participated

38

Al-Shāmī did not provide a time frame. Here al-Shāmī refers to the Zaydī origin of the manuscripts. Even though the Zaydī madhhab is considered closest to Sunni theology among the Shiʿi madhāhib, in Saudi Arabia it is not recognized as a valid Muslim school of thought. After King ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz’s conquest of al-Ahsaʾ in 1913, both the Shiʿis and the non-Wahhabi Sunnis were treated like dhimma, who had to pay a tribute (Nabil Mouline, The Clerics of Islam: Religious Authority and Political Power in Saudi Arabia, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014, p. 113). On the illicit trade in precious books, ritual artifacts and manuscripts during the current war (2015- ), see https://english.alaraby.co.uk/features/stolen-heritage-illicit-trade-yemens-rare-manuscripts. Posts on social media suggest that many of the artifacts are looted on demand from buyers. The current scale of looting and the transfer of Yemeni artifacts to countries in the region and beyond may yet turn out to be the largest ever and, in conjunction with the wide-ranging destruction of heritage sites, leave Yemen bereft of its tangible history. 40 See, for example, the German-Yemeni project “The Preservation and Cataloging of Arabic Manuscripts” (1982– 1989). It focused on the restoration of Qurʾānic fragments and other manuscripts, some of which were later displayed at the Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt; see Ursula Dreibholz, Early Quran Fragments from the Great Mosque in Sanaa: Notes on the Cultural History of the Yemen, Sanaa: German Archaeological Institute/German Embassy, 2003, vol. 2. 41 Relationships between the Egyptian Muslim Brothers and Yemenis, notably reformers associated with the constitutional movement, go back to the 1940s (Dresch, History of Modern Yemen, pp. 56, 141). As Dresch points out 39

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GABRIELE VOM BRUCK in power, and it began targeting the Zaydiyya. It regarded the latter as a religious rival whose influence in society had to be scaled down or even eliminated. The Brotherhood tried to win over Zaydīs and took over several Zaydī mosques. Some Zaydīs disavowed their Zaydī affiliation and took advantage of what the Brotherhood offered.42 Particularly in this period, Zaydī manuscripts, books, schools, centers of learning, and rituals were largely neglected and abandoned, and Zaydī scholars were sidelined. There was a decline in research activity in relation to Zaydī manuscripts, and this impacted the overall scholarly attention given to them and to the printing of books. Since there was very little awareness of the importance of these manuscripts and their value in terms of national heritage, the traffic in manuscripts began to intensify during this period. As for the viability of the Zaydiyya, arguably this period was the worst since the revolution of 1962. After the unification of Yemen in 1990, the subsequent political and cultural openness resulted in the establishment of a number of political parties such as the Zaydī-inspired Ḥizb al-Ḥaqq (Party of Truth)43 and institutions dedicated to maintaining the Zaydī cultural heritage, such as the Muʾassasat Imām Zayd (Imam Zayd Foundation) and the Heritage Foundation in Saʿda (Muʾassasat al-Turāth).44 Zaydī educational activities were revived and expanded, seminars were again held at some mosques inside and outside the capital, and educational centers such as the Markaz Badr (Badr Center) were established by al-Murtaḍā al-Maḥaṭwarī in Sanaa.45 Since then there has also been renewed interest in Zaydī manuscripts, manifesting itself in the fields of research, documentation, digitization, and printing. During the so called Saʿda wars (2004–2010),46 those engaged in Zaydī-related activities faced repression and were charged with being affiliated with the Ḥūthī movement. As a result, the numbers of students enrolled in Zaydī-related centers of learning declined. In line with government directives, public institutions such as Sanaa University withdrew Zaydī books from their libraries. Since the Youth Revolution of 2011, much more attention has been given to the preservation of Zaydī heritage by various social and political actors.

PERSONAL ACCOUNT 1 Luʾay al-Wazīr worked as an architect in Yemen until the outbreak of the war in 2015. When I stayed as a guest at his family’s home in Virginia in June 2019, he shared some reflections on

(ibid., 142), “in the 1970s . . . they [the Brothers] were seized on as a counterweight to the NDF by Sanaa’s government.” (The National Democratic Front [NDF], founded in the “Lower Yemen” of the Yemen Arab Republic, became a factor in Yemeni North-South politics as early as the late 1970s.) Later, the Brotherhood became the main component of the Sunni-oriented United Yemeni Reform Party (Iṣlāḥ), founded in 1990. As noted by Stacey Philbrick Yadav, forces within Iṣlāḥ have sought to invoke the legitimacy of alternative sites of authority (i.e., against Zaydī leadership), notably transnational reformist Islam linked with the ideology of the Brotherhood, the “tribal” system, and discourses of human rights and democratization; see Philbrick Yadav, Islamists and the State: Legitimacy and Institutions in Yemen and Lebanon, London: I. B. Tauris, 2013, p. 20. 42 At that time, the Muslim Brotherhood was generously funded by Saudi Arabia, later also by Qatar. Initially the Saudis supported the Brotherhood because it opposed President Nasser. 43 See vom Bruck, “Regimes of Piety,” pp. 200–203. 44 The Muʾassasat Imām Zayd was established in 1994 with the intention of making public catalogs of private libraries and publishing and copying books considered worthwhile. 45 Al-Maḥaṭwarī died on 20 March 2015 in one of the quadruple suicide attacks on two mosques in Sanaa. 46 See Marieke Brandt, Tribes and Politics in Yemen: A History of the Houthi Conflict, London: Hurst, 2017, chaps. 5 and 6.

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preparing a slide show centered on Yemeni heritage sites, which he presented at Georgetown University in 2018.47 While still living in Yemen, he had visited ancient sites and Sanaa’s old town, collecting historical and geographical images and establishing what he refers to as a “library of pictures,” part of which he used for his presentation. Early in our conversation he noted that the presentation took place “right in the middle of a war with no end in sight.” Because Luʾay contextualized his family’s manuscripts and books with the inherent vulnerability of other features of material culture such as old Sanʿani architecture, the analytic and affective copresence of those tangible forms of materiality has been maintained. The destruction [during the war] was not just about buildings but also about lives, most importantly of children. The destruction of their lives and that of buildings were both crimes against humanity—whether you destroy the life of a child or history that belongs to all mankind. I’ve tried to connect the images [chosen for the talk] to each other. In the presentation I began by talking about the beauty of Yemen. I showed pictures of smiling children, then suddenly turned [the audience’s attention] to the air strikes and showed them running, afraid of the sound of fighter jets, and [I also showed] how their lives were destroyed. They were losing family members and their friends were becoming child soldiers. And I said that the destruction of heritage is nowhere near the devastation resulting from the killing of children, but it is still a crime against humanity. This is heritage that belongs not just to Yemen but to the whole world. It’s old, it’s beautiful and remarkable— something to be learnt from. When looking at my slides I came across the destruction in Saʿda—the oldest Zaydī establishment [in Yemen]. It was so sad to see how parts of the city were completely decimated. Parts of the famous Imam al-Hādī mosque were also completely obliterated.48 Being from the northern part of Yemen and a Zaydī myself, I thought this was the destruction of my own heritage, my personal history. Who is going to rebuild this? It’s gone forever. The other sites [that were struck by Saudi air strikes] were ancient sites; that affected me just as much because that was the heritage of Yemen, of all of Yemen. When I put these pictures together, I was extremely saddened. It really had to do with my home, with my family; I felt I was dealing with an extended family, and all this destruction was affecting this extended family of mine. [However], at the same time I had this strange feeling of strength because I was putting something together that may lead people to understand what is going on in Yemen regardless of the politics of it all. Many elements of Yemen’s history [were affected], the Sufi tombs,49 Zaydī institutions and historic sites, mosques . . . ancient sites like Maʾrib and Baraqish. The ancient temple in Baraqish had been meticulously renovated [by Italian archae-

47

Luʾay al-Wazīr, “Children of a Unique Heritage, the Hope of a Nation,” presentation at Georgetown University, 12 May 2018, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QeZzE0BndebLldkCunvUrq2Rjk28Ol8F/view. 48 The town of Saʿda, erected in pre-Islamic times, has been known for its unique architectural style: caked-mud high-rise dwellings and high, tapered mud walls. After the ninth century CE Saʿda assumed major historical significance as a spiritual and occasionally political capital of the imamate; “Ṣaʿda,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed. (G. R. Smith). During its latest war in Yemen, Saudi Arabia has attempted to create invisibilities in the visual field of monuments to Zaydī-Shiʿi history and erstwhile power (see below). 49 During the battle for al-Hudayda in October 2018, Salafi militants in the service of UAE forces blew up a medieval mausoleum west of the town of Zabid; “Muqātilūn fī quwwāt al-ʿamāliqa yufajjirūna masjid tārīkhī junūbī alHudayda,” al-Masdar, 23 October 2018, https://almasdaronline.com/articles/159993.

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GABRIELE VOM BRUCK ologists] for years, and [coalition airplanes] destroyed what they had accomplished. Baraqish may have represented pre-Islamic eras,50 but those were heritage sites that belonged to both mankind and the Yemeni people. I believe the Saudis were trying to hurt Yemeni culture on multiple levels and from different eras. They hit the old city of Sanaa, destroying the Qasimi structures,51 the townhouses that are the most serene and beautiful elevations of old Sanaa. And to claim that ammunitions had been placed there . . . the ceilings of those structures are so frail; they are made of wood beams, mud, and plaster. They are hundreds of years old. There is no way you can have anti-aircraft machinery on the roof, as some have claimed.52 This destruction was so devastating for me because I had seen that site, I passed by that site every time I went to old Sanaa, and it was one of the most beautiful sites. And I thought to myself: What could you do today? It cannot be rebuilt, and if it were it won’t look the same. . . [speaking quickly] It affected me so much that I kept thinking I wanted to bring garment thread and rebuild those townhouses out of thread so I would have the image of what used to be there. That’s the architect in me . . . [laughing]. Now there is a gap. There used to be this long line of townhouses and there is a gap now where houses got destroyed. I was drawing in my mind all these beautiful lines, because Sanʿani architecture is all about fine lines and textures. [I said to myself:] If you cannot rebuild it as beautiful as it was, perhaps you should recreate it with actual threads of lines and rebuild it so when people walk by they see a façade that is just fine thread. The Saudis may have destroyed our [heritage] sites, but our hearts are still here. For me [the preparation for the talk] was more than to write and talk about the destruction. It was about personal destruction. After all, I am a Yemeni, a Zaydī, and an architect, and a lover of the ancient world, arts, and culture.

GvB: How about manuscripts? I do not have images of destroyed manuscripts. However, the museum of Dhamar is noteworthy. It contained some of the most important manuscripts from the highlands. Those were decimated as a result of the bombing campaign. One of my pictures shows that it was a modern museum. The next shows complete . . . there’s basically nothing left. All the artifacts and manuscripts that were there basically perished.

50

With regard to Baraqish and some other ancient sites, it would seem that in their current war in Yemen the Saudis consider themselves to be fighting shirk (idolatry, polytheism) as they have done in Medina in the early twentieth century. The Saudi air force flattened two temples in Baraqish, capital of the Minaean kingdom (around 400 BCE), and destroyed the museum of Dhamar, which contained many pre-Islamic figurines (see below). Recognizing its weakness on the battlefield, Saudi Arabia has focused its warfare specifically on material culture treasured by Yemenis. A senior EU diplomat who wished to remain anonymous explained the demolition of heritage sites in Yemen by Saudi-led coalition aircraft in terms of the Saudis’ “historical envy.” 51 Here Luʾay is talking about the houses in Sanaa’s al-Qasimi quarter that were built before the eleventh century CE. UNESCO expressed its concerns about the destruction of townhouses in old Sanaa: “Yemen’s Old City of Sana’a and Old Walled City of Shibam adde d to List of World He ritage in Dange r,” UNESCO we bsite , 2 July 2015, https://en.unesco.org/news/yemen-s-old-city-sana-and-old-walled-city-shibam-added-list-world-heritage-danger; see also “The Religious and Cultural Heritage Being Ruined by Yemen’s War,” The Economist, 9 September 2015, https://www.economist.com/erasmus/2015/09/09/the-religious-and-cultural-heritage-being-ruined-by-yemens-war. 52 Luʾay is referring to claims by the Saudi-led coalition that ammunition or arms were hidden in the houses and schools they bombed.

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Figures 2 & 3. Houses in the quarter of al-Qasimi before and after the bombardment of old Sanaa in August 2018 © Lu’ay al-Wazīr. GvB: Do you occasionally read books on Zaydī Islam or have any connection . . . ? No, except in relation to what I hear from my father [the historian Zayd al-Wazῑr] and what I know about the Zaydī manuscripts that belong to various Zaydī families and are stored in the Great Mosque, and how much pride all these families have and the difficulties that arise from dealing with these books in the library, which is state-controlled. My father always

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GABRIELE VOM BRUCK talks about manuscripts, and I remember when I was in Yemen about twenty years ago there were some manuscripts that we have at home [in Sanaa] that he needed for his writing [while staying in the United States]. I spent my summer copying manuscripts for my father so I could ship them and not lose them so he could conduct his research. That’s how important manuscripts are to my father and to myself. They [my father and his brothers] could not take them out because they were worried that they would be lost or might not be allowed through the airport. I was given the task to pass by this huge photocopying machine because those manuscripts were very big and I had to copy page by page and create photocopies of those manuscripts. Some of them were huge and it cost a lot of money, too. Sometimes I was able to copy only half rather than the full page. Some were atypical in size—about 40 × 60 cm—and leather-bound, and some were deteriorating on the edges. Some books were hard-bound, and I could not open them completely [in order to copy the pages]. It was a challenge, but that shows how important they were to me, too. There was a certain fragrance to the leather that suffused more as I continued to handle the manuscripts. From the outside, they felt like a treasure; on the inside, the pages were frail yet serene with letters, words, numbers, and shapes in black ink or in color that seemed to resemble hieroglyphics or an ancient language. The writing wasn’t always easily decipherable, but I did get carried away many a time reading or making sense of some of the passages. Careful handling was necessary because some of the manuscripts were frail, and I was aware that I was touching a piece of history that needed to be preserved not only through photo reproduction. Larger pieces were more difficult to deal with while using a modern machine. They were a challenge, as I had to position my body in such a way as to copy the required segment. I was intrigued by the world of difference between these delicate manuscripts and the very boxy modern machine that was required to preserve them, and the paper copies that it produced. It was a very different experience from handling other books. And I remember dealing with the delicacy of the manuscripts themselves. Some of the writing was not actually legible to me because it was old handwriting. However, I did manage to copy them all. I made sure that we had a copy. The idea was to copy them just in case they got lost or confiscated. My father really needed those manuscripts. We cannot [afford to] lose them. If we cannot learn what was said some hundred, two hundred, or even six hundred years ago, how can we proceed in the future? We would be back to square one if we were to lose research that goes back hundreds of years.

GvB: Were the manuscripts you copied formerly stored in the Great Mosque? Some of the manuscripts are stored in our house [in Sanaa]. The ones that are in the mosque derive from the library [that belonged to several of Luʾay’s forebears; see Zayd al-Wazīr’s contribution to this volume]. The manuscripts we have [at home] belong to the family, and even though there is a library of Bayt al-Wazīr in the Great Mosque, some were always kept at home, researched, and part of our lives.

The library Luʾay is referring to is one formerly owned by his paternal great-grandfather Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Wazīr, who declared himself Imam al-Manṣūr in 1854. It is noteworthy that the manuscripts and books of prominent members of Bayt al-Wazīr were kept in the Wadi al-Sirr, located in the district of Bani Hushaysh northwest of Sanaa where the family had been given the status of hijra. This formal agreement guaranteed the family’s protection by the

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Bakil and other confederations in the area. Once the hijra was established, several ʿulamāʾ of Bayt al-Wazīr left Sanaa and settled there. Luʾay’s paternal grandfather, a governor, kept most of his books and manuscripts in alSirr. The library he used and enriched with further volumes was once owned by the imam. It was made up of four thousand mostly hand-written volumes, the storage of which required almost a whole floor of his house. Whenever the governor bought new books or was gifted some, he added them to that library. It contained both old and new books, including texts on the French revolution and an Arabic translation of the works of Charles Dickens. One of the governor’s sons arranged them according to themes when pursuing his studies in al-Sirr. While stationed in the southern city of Taʿizz, the governor had with him copies of some of the books he required to carry out his job. Some books were carried on camels when he moved between cities. The manuscripts, which were kept in a separate room at his house in al-Sirr, hardly ever left the hijra and were always returned as soon as they were no longer needed. When he moved from Taʿizz to Sanaa (before taking up a governorship in al-Mahwit in the northern highlands), the governor placed his books in the library of his house in al-Sirr.53 These practices suggest that the governor and other members of his family had a sense of the vulnerability of the books and manuscripts and the risks involved in moving them from place to place. The houses in the hijra must have been considered “safes” for those precious objects, not least because they were protected by armed men belonging to the hijra-granting “tribes.”54 Things changed dramatically after the downfall of the constitutional movement (aldustūriyya) that had advocated political and economic reforms in the 1930s and 1940s. Crown Prince Aḥmad Ḥamīd al-Dīn, who accused several members of the House of al-Wazīr of involvement in the movement and in the assassination of his father in February 1948, confiscated the family’s land and had several of their houses looted and demolished. These included the houses in al-Sirr. Unlike houses, books were not readily identifiable as the property of particular families, and the rulers considered them precious. Crucially, despite their determination to take revenge on the owners of those artifacts, they were concerned to safeguard them. The confiscation of the libraries of the House of al-Wazīr was part of an intentional policy of status diminution and thus indicative of shifts in power. While the leading members of the revolt, such as Luʾay’s grandfathers, were jailed and executed, the material residues of erstwhile wealth and status were preserved in some form, dislocated and possibly reused. Before ownership of the libraries was transferred to a public space, the Great Mosque, they had been temporarily appropriated by Imam Yaḥyā’s son al-ʿAbbās, who took them to his house in Bani Hushaysh. It was only after he supported his half-brother ʿAbd 53

Qāsim b. ʿAlī al-Wazīr, personal communication, 10 July 2019. Referring to one of the al-Wazīrs’ commissioning of book-copying, Brinkley Messick points out that manuscripts were still being manually produced well into the twentieth century. When he was in charge of the annual zakāt collection in Ibb in 1920-1921, ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad al-Wazīr tasked Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Ḥaddād, later to become a court judge, with producing a copy of Muḥummad b. Ismāʿīl al-Kibsī’s famous history of Yemen (Messick, Calligraphic State, p. 117). It is likely that a copy of the book was held by the al-Ḥaddād family (Zayd al-Wazīr, personal communication, 15 February 2020). Messick believes that the young al-Ḥaddād stayed with ʿAbd Allāh al-Wazīr to carry out the copy-making work (personal communication, 14 Februar 2020) and that the rationale for this request was alKibsī’s flattering treatment of an imam in the al-Wazīr line, al-Manṣūr (Messick, Calligraphic State, p. 293 n. 15). According to Zayd al-Wazir (ibid.), al-Kibsī later opposed the imam because he disallowed the institution of iqṭāʿ (‘fief’). 54

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Allāh’s attempted coup against their brother Imam Aḥmad in 1955 that the books he had stored in the basement of his house were taken to the mosque. By that time, they had already been decimated. The stones of demolished houses in al-Sirr were taken to Sanaa and deposited in front of the Dār al-Saʿāda, the maqām (the imam’s “court”), to demonstrate victory over the vanquished conspirators. The heads of the executed men were displayed nearby. Those members of Bayt al-Wazīr who languished in the notorious jail of Hajja were later told that the stones were used as building materials for houses of the ruling dynasty.55 When Qadi ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Iryānī,who had also taken part in the revolt against Imam Yaḥyā and was jailed for seven years, offered the family to return the books once he had become president, they decided to keep them at the mosque, and Ismāʿīl al-Wazīr (mentioned above) produced a document to that effect. It was signed by all members of Bayt al-Wazīr whose books had been confiscated. The document stipulated that a section of the library should be reserved for consultation by members of the family, but the plan was never realized. Although the author of the document considered it important to study Zaydī books in order to be in touch with Yemen’s history, he noted that his sons showed little interest in them.56 Speaking to Luʾay on that hot summer evening in Virginia, I inquired whether the manuscripts he had photocopied in Sanaa a few decades earlier were among those confiscated by Imam Aḥmad in 1948. He answered: Some might have been kept with other family members. Some must have been safeguarded and hidden during the revolution of 1948 and then reclaimed afterwards. They were considered jewels [laughs]. When I wanted to ship the books, I inquired [from a customs official] how much I would have to pay to insure my luggage. “It depends on how much value it has.” I wanted to tell him “priceless,” but I realized that if I were to say that, I would make him aware that there was something valuable or something that shouldn’t be shipped. Then I told him that I would carry the manuscripts with me.

PERSONAL ACCOUNT 2 Ḥamīd al-Iryānī comes from a prominent family that for centuries has been associated with government service.57 Its members were employed by the Zaydī imams as ministers and judges for about seven centuries, and since the mid-1960s they have held important posts in the republican system.58 According to Ḥamīd, the family identifies as Sunni without adhering to a particular school of law (madhhab).59 Depending on where they were stationed 55

Qāsim b. ʿAlī al-Wazīr, personal communication, 10 July 2019. On the demolition of the houses of Bayt al-Wazīr, see vom Bruck, Mirrored Loss, part 2. Spolia of this kind had precedents elsewhere in the Arab world. For example, in the late 12th century Fatimid Palaces of Cairo disappeared due to the Mamluks’ reuse of their stones (Gaston Wiet quoted in Volait, Antique Dealing, p. 170). 56 Ismāʿīl b. Aḥmad al-Wazīr, personal communication, 15 April 2019. 57 Ḥamīd al-Iryānī, personal communication, 29 June 2019. Ḥamīd describes himself as a “macher with many talents.” He studied mechanical engineering in Germany and once made a living owning a printing press and a private school in Sanaa. Currently he works as an advisor on the recognition of foreign certificates in Germany. 58 Dr. ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Iryānī, Qadi ʿAbd al-Raḥman b. Yahyā’s nephew, served as minister of education (1974–1976), foreign secretary (1984–1990), and prime minister (1998–2001). Civil servants in the family include Ramziyya alIryānī, who was the first woman to achieve the rank of ambassador at the ministry of foreign affairs. At the time of writing, Muʿammar al-Iryānī is serving as information minister in President Hādī’s government in exile (2012–). 59 Ḥamīd refers to the Iryānīs as “free interpreters.”

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during the imamate, judges of the family delivered their judgments according to either Zaydī or Shāfiʿī jurisprudence (fiqh). As already noted, in the 1940s Qadi ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Iryānī joined the ranks of those asking for profound political, economic, and social change, and after the failed revolt he was imprisoned with others in the northern town of Hajja. The family of al-Iryānī used to have hostile relations with the Banī ʿUmar, who live in al-Qafr south of the village of Iryan in Ibb Province in Lower Yemen, and according to Ḥamīd, even the imams were unable to bring the Banī ʿUmar under their control. Driven to take revenge after his father’s assassination in 1948, Imam Aḥmad Ḥamīd al-Dīn gave the Banī ʿUmar license to plunder the village of Iryan. On this occasion, he did not try to save his opponents’ substantial libraries. Much of the pillaging took place in al-Husn, home of the Banī Yaḥyā (the branch of the family to which Qadi ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, his brothers, and their descendants belong), the Banī ʿAlī (Ḥamīd’s branch), and the Banī Malik. Every house was plundered, with the exception of that of Ḥamīd’s father ʿAlī and his uncle Muḥammad. After the men had fled in the wake of the Banī ʿUmar’s onslaught, ʿAlī’s and Muḥammad’s aunt Taqiyya, who had become their mother after they were orphaned, remained in her home and threw stones at the marauding men from the roof, shouting that they could not be honorable men if they were to assault a woman. The Banī ʿUmar did not enter her house. A few important books were saved thanks to Taqiyya’s brave defense of the house. However, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān and his brothers possessed much larger libraries, containing hundreds of manuscripts. In exchange for his release from jail in 1955, Qadi ʿAbd al-Raḥmān was expected to rally his extended family behind crown prince Muḥammad al-Badr and offer him the bayʿa (oath of allegiance) after his father’s death. On the request of Qadi ʿAbd al-Raḥmān’s brother ʿAbd Allāh that the plundered libraries be returned to their owners, Imam Aḥmad ordered the Banī ʿUmar to oblige. However, the Banī ʿUmar had not taken care of the looted books. Hundreds of manuscripts were either destroyed or eaten by termites. Only about half of them, among them some fine manuscripts, have survived.60 At Qadi ʿAbd al-Raḥmān’s funeral in 1998, Ḥamīd suggested to the Qadi’s nephew Dr. ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Iryānī , then the prime minister, that they ask President ʿAlī ʿAbd Allāh Șāliḥ to dedicate a special library to Iryān that would contain the remaining books and manuscripts. However, the prime minister, mindful of the president’s poor education and sensitivity regarding the symbols of the old elites, advised that the matter not be pursued. ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Iryānī bequeathed his library to Ibb University, but since he passed away a few months after the start of the war, his wish could not be fulfilled. According to his will, one condition for the library’s transfer to the university was the construction of a special library, named after him, to house his books. The wealthy merchant house of Hayl Saʿid offered to pay for it.61 But Dr. al-Iryānī’s heirs, all of whom fled the war and are living abroad, have decided to keep the library where it is until the political situation has become more

60

It would seem that in the late 1940s and early 1950s there was no active smuggling market for books and manuscripts, or else the Banī ʿUmar might have been tempted to sell them. 61 Muḥammad Ṭaha Muṣṭafā, personal communication, 23 July 2019. However, Qadi Najīb al-Shamīrī (d. 3 August 2019), formerly chief justice during the era of the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY) and later member of the Supreme Court in Sanaa, succeeded in bequeathing his library to the University of Aden.

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stable and predictable. The family’s house, containing the library, is currently locked up and guarded. The heirs almost came to regret their decision to keep the library in its place in the basement because a technical problem led to the seepage of water from sewage pipes and some books were damaged.

Figure 4. Dr. ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Iryānī in front of his library, 2008 © the author. The books that survived the onslaught of the Banī ʿUmar are now held by various members of the al-Iryānī family, among them the descendants of Qadi ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, the poet Qadi Muhammad b. ʿAqīl b. Yaḥyā (the former chief judge of Taʿizz), and the sons of Qadi ʿAlī b. Yaḥyā b. Muḥammad (the brother of the former President Qadi ʿAbd al-Raḥmān). These individuals had held the most important books and manuscript collections. Some of the last well-preserved manuscripts were kept in Sanaa at the house of Taqiyya’s nephew and Ḥamīd’s father, ʿAlī b. Yaḥyā, who died in 2018.62 According to Ḥamīd, after the death of his grandfather Yaḥyā b. ʿAlī in the 1940s, life was very tough for his father and uncle. His father was less scholarly minded than his grandfather had been:

62

A member of the Supreme Court in Taʿizz during Imam Aḥmad’s reign, ʿAlī b. Yaḥyā al-Iryānī held the same position in Sanaa after the revolution.

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He did not take care of the books. He and his brother were most interested in earning money. They were not interested in literature. [Scholarly] values clearly deteriorated at that point. Some of the women used the old books to light the fire.63

Born in the dying years of the imamate and having received what he refers to as a modern education in Taʿizz and Cairo, Ḥamīd attributes value to the books that were central to his forebears’ lives but admits that they do “not necessarily” have any significance for him.

PERSONAL ACCOUNT 3 Until he went into exile in 2017, ʿAbbās Muḥammad Zayd was responsible for the manuscript department of Sanaa University (al-Maktab al-markazī).64 ʿAbbās’s grandfather, Zayd al-Mufraḥ, who died a year before Imam Yaḥyā’s death in 1947, lived off his agricultural estate in Ibb Province, and for some time served as governor of Makhadir, one of its districts. During the time of Imam Aḥmad, ʿAbbās’s father worked as a supervisor of the zakāt from agricultural land in the province, while Qadi Aḥmad al-Sayāghī served as the governor (nāʾib al-imām) of Ibb. Both ʿAbbās’s father and his grandfather were the only sons in the family. For this reason, Imam Yaḥyā ordered that their library be kept at the Great Mosque so that the public could benefit from it. According to ʿAbbās, some books belonging to Bayt Sharaf al-Dīn and other families were also taken there. As noted above and reiterated by ʿAbbās, al-Maktaba al-Gharbiyya at the Great Mosque was the place where books obtained from private libraries (al-kutub al-khāṣṣa) were stored. According to him, after 1962 Qadi Ismāʿīl al-Akwaʿ sold books and manuscripts that had been stored in alMaktaba al-Gharbiyya, among them books belonging to Bayt Zayd.65 He wanted to make money and was also resentful of the sāda.

ʿAbbās indicated that since the books constituted these families’ symbolic (and to an extent material) capital, the Qadi wanted to deprive them of it. Al-Akwa sold the books to libraries and museums in the Netherlands, Italy, and the Louvre in Paris, as well as to Italian travelers. When in 1978 Sayyid Muḥammad al-Manṣūr became minister of endowments under President al-Ghashmī and briefly under ʿAlī ʿAbd Allāh Șāliḥ, he requested photocopies of the manuscripts held in the Louvre. However, the sum that was quoted as a fee for the copies—$150,000—was beyond the means of an impoverished republic.

ʿAbbās’s family is no stranger to dispossession. In 1948, after the overthrow of the constitutional government which was accompanied by widespread looting (see personal account 1), his mother hid some of the manuscripts in one of the bathrooms of her house. 63

This is by no means exceptional. Because 19th century Coptic Church law in Egypt stipulated that ritual paraphernalia that were no longer used in sacred spaces be burnt, icons and fragments of manuscripts were stored for use as fuel for baking bread used for Communion (Mercedes Volait, Antique Dealing and Creative Reuse in Cairo and Damascus 1850-1890. Leiden: Brill 2021, p. 124). 64 ʿAbbās Muḥammad Zayd, personal communication, 2 July 2019. 65 Qadi Ismāʿīl al-Akwaʿ was the head of the Office of Antiquities and Libraries (al-Hayʾa al-ʿĀmma li-l-Āthār wa-Dār al-Kutub), founded in 1977 (Dreibholz, Early Quran Fragments, p. 19).

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Terrified by the presence of looters in her house, she ran into the street uncovered, but encountered unexpected courtesy when one of the looters offered her his headgear to cover her hair and face. The looters stripped the house of all movable objects, and even scraped stucco off the walls. In 1962, when many sayyid houses had their prized possessions confiscated, the family left theirs with their neighbour Qāḍῑ ʿAbd al-Karῑm al-ʿArashῑ (vice-president 1978-90) who safeguarded their manuscripts, jewellery and copper containers. None of the books that had been stored at the Great Mosque were returned to ʿAbbās’s family after 1962 in spite of the fact that the family now had multiple male offspring. ʿAbbās’s father rebuilt his own library with a considerable number of books and manuscripts. During the Saʿda wars the library was evacuated lest government officials confiscate it. After the father’s death, the manuscripts were not divided; instead, they remained with the eldest daughter, who had looked after her father in their house in the old town. Several of the books were also kept by her as well as by her three brothers. A year after ʿAbbās had left Yemen for Germany and a couple of years after Saudi Arabia had begun its bombing campaign in Yemen, some thugs forced the guard of the family’s house to hand over the keys and stripped the house of everything, including most of the books and manuscripts and ʿAbbās’s wife’s dresses. Among the manuscripts was one that had been copied in 1494. The books that did not catch the thieves’ attention seem to have been more recent ones of little value. In 2015, over two-thousand manuscripts that had been hidden under a mattress were stolen from the house of his brother Ḥasan, assassinated in 2020.

Figure 5. Ruination: torn and absent books as evidence of damage. © ʿAbbās Muhammad Zayd.

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FINAL REFLECTIONS: WHAT VALUE FOR WHOM? Books and manuscripts were held by elites to buttress their sense of entitlement and to shape the moral outlook of the youth. They contributed to people’s sense of themselves as subjects and provided channels for historical imaginaries. The numbers and quality of books and manuscripts were indicators of families’ standing. Because libraries were important markers of status and adorned the houses of the ruling elites in particular, they were also central to the making of politics. They were vital to the exercise of the twin modes of law and politics that were characteristic of imamate rule. Their enforced “evacuation,” as in the case of the Zayd family’s library, had no implications for their status, because the measure was taken in the interest of the ‘public.’ However, the punishments meted out by the scholar-jurists who ruled important parts of Yemen included the removal of people’s libraries and the granting of permission to others to take possession of them in the course of pillaging the houses of those accused of treason. The forceful seizure of libraries was a violation aimed at stripping the victims of some of the physical manifestations of their high status and reputation—of what had made them the people they were. The case of the al-Wazῑr library demonstrates the reconfiguration of Yemeni libraries in various settings, which has been a rather familiar phenomenon often linked to periods of invasions, uprisings and other crises. Thus, libraries like these have been ‘on the move’ for centuries—a feature they share with others elsewhere in the region that had not been privately owned. For example, Konrad Hirschler traced the trajectory of the Ashrafῑyya library of Damascus starting in places such as Artuqid northern Mesopotamia and Fatimid Cairo during the medieval period. By the time the Ottomans conquered Syria in 1516, it was no longer a teaching institution and thus in disuse. A substantial number of manuscript fragments was transferred to Istanbul over several centuries. A few found a home in the Topkapi Palace in the 16th century. Others were traded or sent to Istanbul at the behest of the Suplime Porte after Allied and Hashemite forces had advanced into Greater Syria in 1916, and an assault on Damascus was anticipated. However, Erbay and Hirschler interpret this translocation of manuscript fragments as an attempt by the Ottomans to keep them safe during a period of precarity rather than to misappropriate them. Systematic looting was a rare phenomenon.66 Whereas this example analyses the intra-regional re-location of precious manuscripts, I have focused predominantly on the destinies of personal libraries within Yemen. The three accounts in this chapter open a small window into the historical dynamics of material things and processes of socio-political transformation. The life cycles of these libraries demonstrate that during periods of upheaval libraries are subject to fragmentation, dislocation, and ruin, while also being objects of affect and memory that cannot be conceived of as separate from

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Konrad Hirschler, Medieval Damascus: Plurality and Diversity in an Arabic Library. Edinburgh University Press 2016, p. 46, 49-50, 53; personal communication, 23 November 2021; Cüneyd Erbay and Konrad Hirschler, “Writing Middle Eastern Agency into the History of the Qubbat al-khazna: The Late Ottoman State and Manuscripts as Historical Artefacts,” The Damascus Fragments: Towards a History of the Qubbat al-khazna Corpus of Manuscripts and Documents, eds. Arianna D’Ottone Rambach et al., Beirut: Orient-Institut Beirut, 2020, pp. 151-178, here pp. 154, 170; Volait, Antique Dealing, p. 108-9. Some of the books belonging to Bayt al-Wazῑr that had been stored in the Great Mosque of Sanaa also ended up in Istanbul. They were sent there by the Ottoman governor of the city in the late 19th/ early 20th century after he had been taken to see the “treasures” of that mosque (see Zaid alWazir's contribution to this volume).

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personhood. Their fate has been tied to fluctuating value schemes over time. From being greatly treasured as sources of authoritative knowledge and the history of particular houses (notably the buyūt al-ʿilm), they could end up depreciated and stripped of their previous meanings, used merely as a source of heat or as filling for gaps in window frames to prevent draughts.67 During the imamate and the early revolutionary years, libraries were fairly reliable indicators of their owners’ rise and fall of political fortune. The three accounts show that in turbulent times, they were at the center of the political ebb and flow. While Bruno Latour’s critique of the attribution of agency solely to human actors is laudable,68 this study underscores the validity of Yael Navaro-Yashin’s complaint that Latour fails to qualify objects and their politics.69 I agree with Navaro-Yashin that the relationship people establish with artifacts “must be studied in historical contingency and political specificity.”70 According to Webb Keane, artifacts “mediate our historicity.”71 Those who cherish their own or other families’ old libraries—or mourn their loss—are acutely aware of this fact. For Luʾay al-Wazīr, for example, preservation and reproduction have become memorializing practices in their own right, as well as acts of refashioning futures. He was performing history—“touching a piece of [it].” For him, copying the manuscripts required appropriate bodily positions dictated by the instruments of mechanical reproduction, thus revealing the visceral and affective dimension of his relationship with them. They exemplify the sensuous qualities of objects that used to hold a privileged position in the overall value scheme of knowledge-related artifacts. Luʾay’s intimate relationship with the manuscripts includes an appreciation of their olfactory properties. The personal accounts reveal the inherent vulnerability of books and manuscripts, which they share with humans, though in wartime their chances of survival may be better than those of people. For centuries, libraries have been moved during times of crisis. Dealing with the inherent precariousness of war in Yemen necessitated special forms of organization, transport, wrapping, and consideration of the temperatures to which the books and manuscripts would be exposed. In such circumstances, the storing and labeling of libraries were themselves part of the process of creating value and taking care of what one’s ancestors had painstakingly produced over the centuries. Books and manuscripts that survived the Ottoman occupations between the 16th and 20th centuries and the 1962 revolution, during which parts of northern Yemen were heavily bombed by the Egyptian air force, have suffered an uncertain fate in the war that started in 2015. The inhabitants of the ancient northern city of Kawkaban, dating from the pre-Islamic Ḥimyar period, have been taking their libraries to safety for centuries and did so again when the Saudi-led coalition launched its military intervention. In anticipation of air strikes, the 67

When ʿAbd al-Salām al-Wajīh, general secretary of the Association of Yemeni ʿUlamāʾ (amīn ʿāmm Rābiṭat ʿulamāʾ al-Yaman), pursued a project of cataloging private libraries, he found that a 400-year-old manuscript had been rolled up and used to fill a hole in a window (ʿAbd Allāh Ḥamīd al-Dīn, personal communication, 5 April 2019). 68 Bruno Latour, We Have Never Been Modern, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993. 69 Yael Navaro-Yashin, “Affective Spaces, Melancholic Objects: Ruination and the Production of Anthropological Knowledge,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 15 (2009), pp. 1–18, here: p. 8. 70 Navaro-Yashin, “Affective Spaces,” p. 9. 71 Webb Keane, “Signs Are Not the Garb of Meaning: On the Social Analysis of Material Things,” Materiality, ed. Daniel Miller, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005, pp. 182–205, here: p. 193.

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residents removed their books and manuscripts from their homes and took them to more secure places. Like Saʿda in May 2015, Kawkaban was subjected to Guernica-style bombardment by the Saudi air force in February 2017 and was completely destroyed.72 During the first series of strikes houses were hit; a second wave struck the city’s famous gate, trapping the injured inside.73 Whereas the city’s remarkable houses, built on a hillside, and many of its residents perished in the blaze, the books and manuscripts survived. As simultaneous eradication did not occur, the life cycles of people and the life cycles of their libraries diverged. The “‘tangible’ effects of ruination,”74 notably the city’s obliteration, are inseparable from the intangible ones: the hidden libraries, symbolizing what is absent, are monuments to a war crime and to a city where scholarship once flourished. Whereas people such as Luʾay al-Wazīr do not question the importance of the old books and manuscripts and conceive of them as artifacts that objectify their forebears’ past presence, others, who resent their loss during the recent war, nonetheless hold ambivalent attitudes about the value they have for the contemporary generation. Books and manuscripts have largely lost their status-enhancing capacity and have been replaced by other kinds of knowledge considered to be vital for careers in a variety of fields. Moreover, in light of decades of warfare, they are given less attention. Thus, ʿAbbās Zabāra, the writer mentioned in an earlier note, explained: My brothers and I divided them [the family’s books and manuscripts] among ourselves [after they had been returned to the family following the reconciliation agreement of 1970]. I studied them only if they were required for a particular kind of research. I do not know what happened to them when an air strike [in 2017] on a house nearby also destroyed substantial parts of my and my brothers’ houses. The walls where the bookshelves were placed collapsed, and the contents were spread across the floor. I was outside the country. I asked my nephews who dealt with the partial restoration of the house to place all my remaining books and private papers in one room and lock it. No one would be interested in those books anyway. I now believe that the Great Mosque was a good place for them to be kept.75

In similar vein, a Saʿda resident in his late fifties noted: During the war, the library attached to the al-Hādī mosque in Saʿda, which was used by students, was partially destroyed. However, the library inside the mosque was preserved. Some people think it would be safer to store them [its holdings] outside Yemen, where they are at less risk of being destroyed in warfare or being looted and smuggled abroad.

72

The city served as the capital and residence of the imams of the principality of the same name. In the mid-sixteenth century, the Ottomans were unable to conquer Kawkaban. The old dynasty succeeded in maintaining its imamate during the period of Ottoman rule and remained independent from the imams of Sanaa even after the Ottomans were driven out of Yemen in 1630. See “Kawkabān,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed. (A. Grohmann). 73 Later one of the relatives of those maimed and killed in the bombing noted cynically: “From your northern neighbor with love on Valentine’s Day” [i.e., 14 February] (Hayfāʾ bt. Yaḥyā Sharaf al-Dīn, personal communication, 3 July 2019). Hayfaʾ is Sayyid ʿAlī b. Ḥamūd Sharaf al-Dīn’s great granddaughter (see fig. 7). 74 Ann Stoler, “‘The Rot Remains’: From Ruins to Ruination,” Imperial Debris: On Ruins and Ruination, ed. Ann Stoler, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2013, pp. 1–35, here: p. 5. 75 ʿAbbās Zabāra, personal communication, 14 May 2019 (emphasis mine).

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GABRIELE VOM BRUCK These books are important for research; they contain a wealth of history. Without those books our history will disappear. However, the young generation thinks there is little benefit in those books. After the deaths of their fathers and grandfathers, few people take care of their libraries. Those who are now in their twenties know nothing but guns. For more than a decade, there has been fighting in Saʿda and their education has suffered. The sons of the ʿulamāʾ are also fighting.76

As this man points out, even the sons of the ʿulamāʾ are committed to “defending the homeland” (difāʿat al-waṭan), as he put it on another day, and disinclined to look after their families’ libraries. The new generation’s life trajectories tend to be out of tune with the knowledge embodied by the old libraries. Threats to these libraries’ integrity thus range from termites and aerial bombardment to human neglect.

Figure 6. Kawkaban, 1985 © the author.

76

Anonymous communication, 11 April 2019.

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Figure 7. House of the former governor of Zabid, ʿAlī b. Ḥamūd Sharaf al-Dīn (1893–1952), named ‘Ghīl ʿAlī’ (ʿAlī’s thicket). During the war, its substantial library was taken to his son’s house in Sanaa, 1985 © the author.

Figure 8. ‘Collateral damage’ I: destruction of houses owned by ʿAbbās Zabāra in the Sanʿani quarter of al-Hadda after an air strike in the neighborhood (June 2017) © ʿAbbās Zabāra.

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Figure 9. ‘Collateral damage’ II: the only remaining part of the library. © ʿAbbās Zabāra.

AL-KHIZĀNA AL-MUTAWAKKILIYYA THE IMAM’S NEW LIBRARY BRINKLEY MESSICK Book culture is instructive about societal relations and also about changes in those relations. Books written in Arabic may be considered for their detailed material features, which index their use and the prevailing practices of composition, readership, and circulation. They may also be approached in terms of their varied genres or, in academic and instructional settings, their disciplines or “arts.” Collections of books in libraries point to cultural and intellectual intensification, whether on the part of individuals or on that of societal institutions. In terms of the twentieth-century advent of libraries and related modern institutions, highland (later North) Yemen has a distinctive history, which is tied to three basic features of its governance in this period: the absence of Western colonial rule; the comparatively late and brief period of Ottoman administration at the end of the empire; and a relatively early independence, circa 1918. The latter period—that of the independent state—divides into the decades of the patriarchal rule of the Zaydī imams, Yaḥyā and Aḥmad Ḥamīd alDīn (1918–1962), and, following the revolution of 1962, the era of nation-state administrations. Falling between the changes brought by the Ottomans and the transformations associated with the nation-state, the imamic interval is the focus here. The reign of the twentieth-century imams was a time of selective adoption of administrative and other changes introduced by the Turks, many of which impacted book culture. At the same time, this late imamic regime also must be understood in terms of its millennium-old roots in the highlands—as a mode of governance and a related literate culture that dated to the end of the ninth century CE. The founding of a new library by Imam Yaḥyā should thus be placed in a historical context that consists both of hybridized postOttoman institutions and of the continuing vitality of Zaydī governance and its lettered tradition.1

1

See also the more detailed studies, Brinkley Messick, The Calligraphic State, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992; and Brinkley Messick, Sharīʿa Scripts: A Historical Anthropology, New York: Columbia University Press, 2018.

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ORDER IN THE LIBRARY Library reform was a subfield of activity in Imam Yaḥyā’s larger education (maʿārif) oeuvre, one that contributed to changes in the identities of texts and the practices of reading. Manuscript collections designated as pious endowments were an old institution in Yemen. Like the imam’s principal new school, to be discussed later, the library (khizāna) that opened in the Great Mosque of Sanaa represented both a rejuvenated continuation of an established tradition and a quietly innovative break with the past. The imam’s 1925 library decree expressed a need to bring order to existing collections. He pointed to the lack of the expected benefit from disorganized books: “Their term [of usefulness] has expired as most are either in torn condition or have been sold or pawned.” The first organizational step was the creation of a specially designated space: a new story was constructed over arcades along the southern side of the Great Mosque courtyard. There the imam had what remained of the old collections gathered together with his own large, newly created endowment of books. The properly qualified librarian, described in the decree, was to have “comprehensive knowledge of religion and jurisprudence (fiqh) so as to know the relative importance of the books and the disciplines.” This librarian is required to “take a security deposit from each borrower in an amount greater than the value of the book borrowed.” “Tens of thousands of endowed books have been lost,” the imam wrote, “because of the non-taking of security deposits.” With a proper deposit a book could be borrowed for a period of six months. The contractual language of “loan” and “deposit” and the notion that a book or a collection of books may be constituted as an “endowment” comes directly from the manuals of jurisprudence. In subsequent years, there were developments indicative of a nascent library science. An original type of accounting technology, the simple register used for general pious endowment property records, referred to in the original imamic decree, gave way two decades later to a more specialized form of library index or catalog (Fihrist) published by the Ministry of Maʿārif Press.2 This catalog embodies a detailed system of ordering or classification (tartīb) that includes categorization according to twenty-six disciplinary and other subject headings and then alphabetical listings by title within each subject. This general classification is supplemented in the index by the specification of authors and their dates, indications of a text’s handwritten or printed character with the relevant dates, details concerning volume measurements, given in centimeters, and, finally, the name of the individual who established the book as an endowment with an associated volume number. It is not only such things as the holdings of printed books and the use of metric system measures that are indicative of an emergent new order in Imam Yaḥyā’s library. Complementing the specially developed classificatory system is an elaboration of detailed rules of “library” conduct, which are set forth in a supplementary imamic order of 1938. In a manner familiar to Western library users, these rules define a library negatively, in terms of inappropriate behaviors: it is forbidden “for someone to enter the library with a book, small or large, in his hand”; “for a reader or borrower to write anything [in a book], even as a correction, except with permission from the librarian”; “for a reader to directly take a

2

Fihrist kutub al-khizāna al-mutawakkiliyya, Ṣanʿāʾ: Ministry of Maʿārif Press. (circa 1943). For sample pages from the catalog, see figures 2 though 10.

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book—instead it should be requested from the librarian”; “to take a book [out of the library and] into the mosque itself for reading (muṭālaʿa) or recitation (qirāʾa) except by [providing] a material security deposit whose value is greater than that of the book.” It is also forbidden to “engage the librarian or anyone else in the library with talk on unnecessary matters, because the library is only for reading, not for talk.” Borrowing privileges are denied to individuals who are known not to return books or who are “unqualified” with respect to a book requested, while several types of books and a list of specific titles (including a very early Qurʾān and autograph manuscripts by Muhammad ʿAlī al-Shawkānī, d. 1834) are categorized as non-circulating by a decree of 1942. Imam Yaḥyā’s library was a place for the activities of silent reading or textual consultation, and copying or transcription. Classification systems, rules of conduct, and spatial bounding— the characteristic techniques of introduced order—had made the library a more specialized institution for the activity of relating to texts. Over the longer term, fundamental shifts in the types of book holdings and in related circulation patterns would mirror broader changes in the nature of knowledge and the social organization of its transmission. Simply stated, a genealogically modeled and status-sensitive circulation system would be largely replaced, especially in legislative theory, by a free-market type designed for a democratically conceived citizenry. Once the mainstays of library collections, manuscripts have now been removed from circulation. Legislation later envisioned encouraging private individuals to “make gifts [of their manuscripts] to the office, it being understood that their names will be associated with these gifts upon display in the museum.”

OTTOMAN MODERNITY Both Western colonial regimes and the Ottomans introduced new notions and systems of order across the Middle East and North Africa. For the better part of the nineteenth century, the empire had been in the throes of an internal reform movement known as the Tanzimat, a term derived from the word niẓām, or “order.” As with the imam’s justification for creating his new library, such projects started with the identification of a problem. A key target of reform for the nineteenth-century Ottomans was the sharīʿa (Islamic law). With “order” as their leitmotif, for Ottoman reformers the sharīʿa had come to represent precisely the opposite, disorder. The drafting committee charged with sharīʿa reform negatively characterized the old corpus of jurisprudence as “an ocean without shores.” Represented in this instance by the standard manuals and commentaries of Ḥanafī jurisprudence, which was officially endorsed in the empire, the sharīʿa was viewed by reformers as problematically vast, difficult of access, and generally inappropriate for the times. A fundamental criterion of Western law, one that suddenly appeared to be unsatisfied in the sharīʿa, was that it be readily “known.” The newly perceived obscurity of the sharīʿa was such that the essential task of “finding” the law was considered cumbersome if not altogether impossible. Drafters of the earlier Ottoman Commercial Code (1850), which was based on French law, had stated flatly that the relevant sections in the sharīʿa “were not recorded and organized; consequently, they do not meet the needs of present conditions.” New understandings of the nature and role of the sharīʿa would be central to the emer-

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gence of new political orders across the region. To the extent that it survived such transitions, the sharīʿa would be contained in a new type of authoritative textual form, the legislated code. A principal Tanzimat achievement was the production of a sharīʿa-derived civil code, known as the Majalla. Drafting committee work began in 1869, and the full code was finally promulgated in 1876. Its innovative yet contradictory character centered on the fact that it was “Islamic in content, but . . . European in form.” Distilled in a new, eclectic manner from leading Ḥanafī works, the Majalla covered most of the sections on transactions and related matters found in the old juridical manuals, but it left out the chapters on the Islamic rituals (prayer, fasting, pilgrimage, etc.). The code was intended for use in the recently created civil courts, the nizamiye courts, which would have a very brief existence in Ottoman Yemen, and for consultation in the now parallel sharīʿa court system. Equated by the drafters with the “civil law” of the “civilized nations,” the Majalla format of numbered articles represented a rendering of the sharīʿa into something resembling the familiar modern Western form of “law.”

SHARĪ ʿA IN YEMEN The situation regarding the sharīʿa in highland Yemen in the twentieth-century imamic period was quite different. In the first place, the region’s particular type of polity, known as an imāma, was a form of governance characterized by full implementation of the sharīʿa. In the second, in contrast to what happened in the final years of the Ottoman Empire and the similar changes in the spectrum of Muslim societies that fell under colonial administrations, in the highlands the sharīʿa had not been radically narrowed in its jurisdiction to the sphere of personal status or family law. Instead, the sharīʿa administered by the highland imams of the twentieth century retained its complete classical applicability, encompassing property and criminal matters. Related conceptions and offices of a “public” domain had yet to be instituted, so that, in a highland sharīʿa court of the era, private individuals with the status of the victim’s heirs, not a public prosecutor, entered the claim in a homicide case. An imam governed as a jurist-leader, a role distinguished from that of the ordinary imam, the prayer leader at a mosque. The imam represents the fundamental Islamic institution of sovereignty and legitimate rule, and conceptions of the imamate are an integral part of the jurisprudence of the sharīʿa and figure as such in the authoritative law books of all the juridical schools, Sunni and Shiʿi alike. In The Book of Flowers (Kitāb al-Azhār), a basic work of Zaydī jurisprudence, the relevant chapter opens by stating, “The Muslims are required, according to the sharīʿa, to designate an imam.”3 As one of the branches of the Shiʿa, the Zaydīs are generally distinguished from the Sunnis by their view of the special legitimacy and authority of the descendants of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib (d. 661), the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muḥammad. Where the Sunnis respect ʿAlī as the fourth of the four “rightly guided” leaders who immediately succeeded the Prophet, the Shiʿis honor him as the first imam. As a consequence, the Shiʿis stood apart

3

Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā Ibn al-Murtaḍā, Kitāb al-Azhār fī fiqh al-aʾimma al-aṭhār, 4th printing, n.p.: s.n., 1972.

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from the Sunnis in that they held narrower views of the eligibility for this position, focusing on lines of descent from Imam ʿAlī. Concerning this pivotal historical personage, there is a relevant passage on the introductory page of the new catalog of Imam Yaḥyā’s library. This pertains to the very early Qurʾān in the collection, said to be one of those originally sent out to the several Muslim regions. The catalog names twentieth-century Yemeni scholars who attest to a concluding line in the manuscript that identifies the handwriting as that of this central figure: “and it was written by ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib.” Zaydī governance may also be distinguished from that of the other Shiʿis. Whereas conceptions of infallibility were axiomatic for other types of Shiʿi imams, the Zaydīs conceived of a highly accomplished but still quite worldly leader, to the extent of explicitly anticipating the possibility of an “error by the imam” or of an action leading to “censuring the justness of the imam.” In fact, beyond the requirement of descent from Imam ʿAlī, the conceptual form of the Zaydī institution has been understood to approach that of the Sunni schools. In addition, and in contrast to the better-known Twelver Shiʿis, whose last recognized imam is thought to be in an “occultation” or “absence” lasting many centuries, the history of the Zaydī imamate in Yemen is one of the presence of a roughly continuous, sometimes contentious, but always squarely feet-on-the-ground series of approximately one hundred imams, beginning with Imam al-Hādī (d. 911), who was the first to come to the highlands and who ruled in the late ninth century, and continuing down to Imams Yaḥyā and Aḥmad in the early to mid-twentieth century. This ideally exemplary but also potentially fallible Zaydī leader was to be both a fully qualified jurist and a capable commander, a this-worldly master of both the pen and the sword. In the realm of the pen, the central condition was his capacity for ijtihād, a demonstrated aptitude for independent sharīʿa reasoning and interpretation on the basis of an acute intellect, an upright moral character, and acquired knowledge. With respect to the textual order of the sharīʿa, in this type of polity an actively ruling and qualified imam represented the final reader, the apical interpreter. The circumstances of the twentieth-century leaders of Yemen were in many respects unlike those of the imams from prior centuries, however. Among other technologies, Imam Yaḥyā adopted the telegraph, which had been put in place in the Province of Yemen under the turn-of-the-century Ottomans. An appellate court, a significant new institution not known to the sharīʿa, was also introduced by the Ottomans and retained, in modified form, under the twentieth-century imams. Both imams reviewed appeal rulings and selected regular court decisions, notably in capital cases. In issuing his official directives (taʿlīmāt) concerning the details of administrative practices, including those of the sharīʿa court, Imam Yaḥyā utilized an established nineteenth-century Ottoman genre. Among his several “ordering” initiatives, Imam Yaḥyā took a step toward sharīʿa codification. In 1937, he assigned regular study of the Ottoman Majalla to the justices serving on the Appeals Court, with the envisioned result a published code. The imam required his appointed justices to “undertake the study of two pages every day from the printed text of the Majalla, and to correct, revise, and refine it according to what is set forth in the principles of our madhhab [school of jurisprudence], and to arrange it according to this order and these rubrics so as to print it and publish it and communicate it to the judges.” Later,

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under Imam Aḥmad, a codification project was completed, but the resulting text circulated only in manuscript form until the 1980s. Like the nineteenth-century Ottoman Majalla, this mid-twentieth-century Yemeni project rendered the fiqh, in this case the Zaydī doctrine of the official madhhab, into the form of a text consisting of numbered articles.

SHARĪʿA TRADITIONS A number of the early Zaydī imams were highly reputed for their scholarly production, and a learned Yemeni imam of a later period was the author of The Book of Flowers, mentioned above, a work that became a standard of Zaydī jurisprudence. Although his tenure in office turned out to be brief, as he was not suitably qualified for the martial aspect of the position, Imam al-Mahdī Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā al-Murtaḍā (r. 1391–1392, d. 1437) was a consummate jurist. His law book appeared centuries after the beginning of doctrinal inquiry in the school, but its synthesis of Zaydī juridical thought became authoritative. From the fifteenth century onward, this new work set many of the terms of debate in the school’s applied jurisprudence, and reference to it became a hallmark of Zaydī rulings. A concise and therefore memorizable text, the Flowers came to serve as the introductory manual for generations of students, and it also launched the school’s most extensive and celebrated commentary literature. In the schools of the independent imamic state, students continued to hear, write, read, and memorize this basic book at the outset of their higher studies. The Flowers is commonly identified with the Zaydī juridical tradition’s older mainstream branch, known as Hādawī, after Imam al-Hādī. In these more specific terms, the Flowers represents the Zaydī-Hādawī literary tradition, which would be brought into the twentieth century on printed pages, including those of a new work of commentary, the first in this important genre to be written for print publication: the four-volume Gilded Crown (al-Tāj al-mudhhab) by Aḥmad b. Qāsim al-ʿAnsī (d. 1970), which appeared between 1938 and 1947.4 On the catalog list of the “arts,” or disciplines, included in the holdings of the new library, there is an entry for “Hādawī jurisprudence” (fiqh al-hādawī) and another for the related works of the higher-level theoretical and methodological discipline known as uṣūl al-fiqh. One also finds the works of a vigorous “neo-Sunni” school that, from the fifteenth century, contested the authority of the Hādawī tradition, culminating with the formidable al-Shawkānī. An outgrowth of the Zaydī madhhab, these “Sunnis,” as they were known in Yemen, are not to be confused with the adherents of the four Sunni madhhabs, including the Shāfiʿī school, which had a majority following among jurists in the southern part of the highlands. Together with the mainstream Zaydī works, those of these highland “Sunnis” also figured on the curriculum of Imam Yaḥyā’s new school (discussed below). Juridical traditions also existed in larger interpretive worlds constituted by other such communities of interpretation. Rather than cross-referencing their intellectual counterparts in the other Shiʿi traditions, however, the Zaydī jurists built their most active juridical connections with the several Sunni schools. To further locate their own doctrinal positions, Flowers-tradition authors routinely cited the jurists of these four madhhabs. This

4

Aḥmad b. Qāsim al-ʿAnsī. al-Tāj al-mudhhab li-aḥkām al-madhhab sharḥ matn al-Azhār fī fiqh al-aʾimmat al-aṭhār, Ṣanʿāʾ: Dār al-Ḥikma al-Yamāniyya, 1993.

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important and distinctive feature of the Zaydī school also found expression in the catalog of the new library. Following the two levels of Hādawī jurisprudence is an entry for works on “the jurisprudence of the four schools” (fiqh madhāhib al-arbaʿa), which refers to the surviving legal schools of Sunni Islam.

SHARĪʿA SCIENCES A broader conception, going beyond jurisprudence proper but referring to the essential tools of the jurist’s interpretive work, is that of the “sharīʿa sciences,” a set of fields of academic inquiry. Identified by their named academic disciplines, the presence of these sciences was directly reflected in the institutional structures of both the imam’s new library and his new school, in the catalog classifications of the library’s holdings of books and in the school’s curriculum. A version of this wider academic conception is found in a short preface that commonly appeared before the basic text of the Book of Flowers, where the “five sciences” that must be mastered by the mujtahid, the sharīʿa interpreter, are detailed. The first of these comprises the several academic subfields concerned with the Arabic language, a requirement taken to be obvious, inasmuch as the foundational indications (adilla, sing. dalīl) for the law derive from the Qurʾān, on the one hand, and the Sunna, or traditions of the Prophet, on the other, both of which are in Arabic. To carry out the derivation of sharīʿa rules the qualified interpreter must sufficiently understand the “language of the Arabs in vocabulary and structure.” In this connection, the always exacting alShawkānī enumerated a full list of the Arabic language sciences, including grammar, morphology, rhetoric, (aspects of) logic, semiology, and the figures of speech. Like the new library’s catalog, the language curriculum at the imam’s new school was subdivided into separate lists of titles that covered grammar (naḥw), morphology (ṣarf), rhetoric (balāgha), and logic (manṭiq). The second academic field concerns knowledge of the Qurʾān itself, as the first of the two primary textual “sources” (uṣūl) for deriving the law. Whereas al-Shawkānī held the interpreter responsible for the whole of the Qurʾān, for mainstream jurists complete mastery of the Book was not a condition for interpretation. Instead, the required knowledge was limited and specific, namely, the set of verses that contain sharīʿa rules, the accepted number of which was five hundred. Expertise in these five hundred rule-bearing verses was a subspecialization of the wider discipline of Qurʾān exegesis. At the imam’s school, under the subject heading “Exegesis and Rules,” students studied three Yemeni-authored works. The third academic field concerns the Sunna, the practice or custom of the Prophet, the other authoritative textual “source” of the law, which took the form of collected “reports,” or ḥadīths. In a requirement similar to that for the Qurʾān, the jurist was to master the specialized literature in the ḥadīth discipline devoted to the subset of rule-bearing ḥadīths, indicating a set of works held at the library and studied at the school. The fourth academic field, although not a discipline like the others, required the interpreter to know those few masāʾil—issues, problems, or cases—that were subject to a widely held juristic “consensus” (ijmāʿ), specifically among the Prophet’s “Companions and Successors, and others”—that is, in the early Muslim community.

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The fifth and final field for the interpreter to master was the meta-discipline of uṣūl al-fiqh, mentioned earlier, the focus of which was ijtihād, interpretation itself, and its sources and methods, including the notion of consensus, and the interpreter’s status and role. As in the library catalog, at the imam’s new school uṣūl al-fiqh figured as a separately categorized and studied academic subject, with the school curriculum listing seven titles in order of advancing difficulty.

SCHOOLING A basic motive in the attention of the twentieth-century imams to the administration of sharīʿa-based justice involved changes in instruction and the opening of new schools that would ensure the necessary manpower for the courts. In this domain, as well, it is important to review briefly the institutional changes brought by the Ottomans—that is, to have a sense of the immediately preceding context for the subsequent imamic actions. Legislated into existence by the Ottoman Public School Law of 1869 and instituted thereafter throughout the empire, including in the Province of Yemen, the maktab (madrasa) rushdiyya (from rushd, adolescence) was a type of advanced primary school. A new Ministry of Public Instruction, utilizing the public and secular concept of maʿārif later taken up by the Ḥamīd al-Dīn imams, was an integral part of the ordering policies of Ottoman modernizers. The maʿārif type of knowledge, knowledge of “unfamiliar things” or “useful knowledge,” imparted through “public instruction,” stood in opposition to the old knowledge (ʿilm), with its substantive focus on sharīʿa jurisprudence and its mode of transmission in mosque-school lesson circles. In addition to the rushdiyya schools, this new educational formula was built into secondary schools, military colleges, technical schools, schools for girls, and schools for orphans opened in the three larger Yemeni towns of Sanaa, al-Hudayda, and Taʿizz. According to the Ottoman legislative models, education was to be given a systematic form. Overall, five levels were envisioned, each comprising a set number of years. The fouryear program of the rushdiyya included, in legislative theory, “elementary religious instruction, Turkish grammar, writing and prose style, Arabic and Persian grammar following the new method, bookkeeping, drawing, elementary geometry, universal history, Ottoman history, geography, physical exercise, and the language of a non-Muslim community in the locality.” New institutional efficiencies, enabled by new forms of supervision and control, rested upon the differentiation of space and the precise regulation and coordination of time and human activities. As such disciplinary procedures took hold across a spectrum of institutional settings, they became integral to the definition and production of a new type of individual. Standardization involved rationalized seating arrangements and the development of classrooms as separate, walled spaces for the instruction of different levels of students. This ordering procedure helped define a student, categorized by sex, age, and academic level. In contrast to the Qurʾānic schools and the mosque lesson circles, where students of widely different ages and levels of study intermingled, the new classes were to be composed of groups of children and youths with uniform characteristics. Replacing the pyramidical pattern of restricted attendance and rapid attrition that appeared from the outset in the mosque-school system, the philosophy (at least) behind the Ottoman schools was one of universal access to primary education.

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The jurisprudential or madhhab approach to knowledge was thus confronted by the existence of this new curricular approach to maʿārif. The pursuit of ʿilm would persist in Yemen, but its once exclusive field of action was irrevocably altered. Although they initially appeared inYemen in only embryonic form, such new conceptions and modes of instruction would eventually displace the old style altogether. Over the longer term, a shift occurred in elementary instruction whereby the writing board of the individual student would give way to the collective blackboard of the contemporary classroom. The individual board was not merely a highly personalized and intimate instrument, each being a bit different in surface and cut; it also concretely exemplified the fact that students in the same lesson circle worked at diverse paces and levels. By contrast, the blackboard, which eventually would become standard equipment in Yemeni schools, entails a comparatively depersonalized and uniform pattern of instruction, given its distance from the student and in its control by the teacher. This change also went to the heart of the old theory of knowledge transmission, which was based on individual teacher-student links and on a student’s being formed “in the hands,” in the undivided presence, of the teacher. A new sort of teacher, salaried and standardized through professional formation in teacher-training institutes, would thus relate to a new sort of student. Testing, and the passing and failing associated with it, figures prominently in a system that is based on collective activity and is at the same time crosscut by the necessity of ranking and marking individual movement through grades. The old ijāza, the granting of transmission authority by a particular teacher to a particular student for a particular text, would give way to the diploma (shahāda), a standardized, state-issued document of fulfillment, through testing, of abstractly defined educational goals. But with the demise of the Ottoman Empire at the close of World War I, Imam Yaḥyā unceremoniously closed the entire Turkish school system. In 1924, the Lebanese visitor Amīn al-Rihānī recorded a schoolboy’s lament: “We had organized schools under the Turks,” he said, “where geography and arithmetic were taught. They gave us books, slates, paper, ink, pens, exercise books, and chalk—everything, and all free. Sir, I am sad. Today we have no schools and no teachers except the faqīh . . . and he charges eight riyals per month.” The imamic historian al-Wāsiʿī, however, tells a different story. “In the days of the Turks,” he writes, the educational system was in “total disarray,” and it was the imam who “opened the schools and disseminated knowledge (ʿilm).”

THE IMAM’S NEW SCHOOL Although the abrupt closure of the Ottoman schools might have seemed to imply the elimination of all innovations and a simple return to a unitary “traditional” system of instruction, this was not the case. Imam Yaḥyā was an astute observer of all aspects of the Ottoman system, and his own educational program, despite its outwardly traditional appearance, was actually very much a hybrid, quietly incorporating elements of Ottoman-introduced instructional “order.” The centerpiece of the imam’s instructional efforts was the foundation of an important new school, al-madrasa al-ʿilmiyya, opened in Sanaa in 1926. The new madrasa had a jurisprudence-centered curriculum that covered the sharīʿa sciences. Over a fortyyear period it would graduate many of the country’s leading jurists, who assumed judgeships and other posts in the middle and late imamic eras and later in the republican period.

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In its heyday the school had more than five hundred boarding students and about one hundred and fifty day students from Sanaa. In structure, the madrasa ʿilmiyya was quite new: never before in Yemen had ʿilm been conveyed in a “school” that began to approximate the Western organizational sense of the term. Its funding, like that of the imam’s new library, was predicated upon a reorganized system of endowments administration. Among the features that distinguished the madrasa ʿilmiyya from the earlier ʿilm-transmitting institutions was the division of both the student body and the curriculum into distinct classes. In the twelve-year program there were three levels with four grades to a level. The final year was known as the “ijtihād class.” Venerable madhhab texts were converted into a curriculum: subjects of study were identified, and specific books were set up as a formal program, especially for the higher levels. Progression from class to class required passing annual examinations. A committee of scholar-examiners, chosen by the Minister of Maʿārif, posed questions to the students individually, and rankings by test results on a scale of one to ten were issued in an annual report. Finally, a director supervised the school’s overall operation.

PRINT CULTURE Although principally concerned with the administration of schools, Imam Yaḥyā’s Maʿārif administration also provided the umbrella for small-scale but significant early departures in state-initiated publishing, as it also did for library reform. The printing equipment in question had been left behind by the departing Turks, and the early imamic usage of it was partly inspired by that of the previous Ottoman administration, which brought the first press to the then Province of Yemen in 1877. At the Ottoman rushdiyya and other higher-level schools in Yemen, textbooks were routinely used. But Imam Yaḥyā at one point explicitly disallowed the use of printed texts in his advanced school. According to the visiting Italian Orientalist Ettore Rossi, “the students of the madrasa ʿilmiyya . . . study texts [that are] nearly all manuscripts and [handwritten] anthologies which they buy or copy for themselves.”5 Although Yemeni instructional texts had earlier been written exclusively by hand, under the Maʿārif system handwriting was decisively supplemented by print technology. Over the course of about a century, from Ottoman openings through to the contemporary republican school system, instruction in a manuscript culture was completely replaced by schooling based on print culture. The old diversity of handwritten texts, including the drafts and autographs of famous scholars, calligraphic exercises, copies made as a pious pastime, artifacts of formal study, products of professional copyists, and so forth, would eventually be reduced, from the point of view of a print-oriented society, to a single basic and increasingly archaic type, the “manuscript,” to be collected, curated, and kept in library sections that would begin to resemble museums. At the same time as printed works were kept at a distance from advanced schools in twentieth-century imamic Yemen, steps were taken to promote the new technology in other domains. The first among these was the official Yemeni newspaper al-Īmān (The faith), which first appeared in 1926 as a monthly and later became a daily. Using the same

5

Ettore Rossi, “La Stampa nel Yemen,” Oriente Moderno 18 (1938), pp. 568–80.

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printing machine, the Ottomans had published a similar official newspaper in both Arabic and Ottoman Turkish. Al-Īmān provides a chronicle of Yemeni political events, major and minor, internal and in some instances external, from 1926 to 1948. In addition to his official newspaper and a monthly magazine that appeared briefly, Imam Yaḥyā also authorized the printing of a number of books, both at the government press and overseas, especially in Cairo and the Levant. Rossi categorizes the government press output as of 1938 into three groups: editions of venerable old works by Yemeni scholars (six books published and one in press), nine varied contemporary works, and two short military manuals. Four printed books appear on al-Akwaʿ’s 1980 list of the madrasa ilmiyya curriculum.6 There is also a recognizable emphasis on pedagogical materials of various types. Works of a theoretical nature include a classic treatise on adab in instruction; a little book entitled Risāla fī al-tarbiya, which Rossi describes as a “collection of pedagogical recommendations inspired by modern concepts,” authored by the former inspector of elementary schools in Sanaa; and, finally, the two military manuals, one containing rules of army discipline inherited from the Turks with “few modifications,” the other a military pedagogy work by a Syrian officer in the employ of the imam. Many of the remaining publications are short works, including what Rossi describes as a sort of “catechism,” and brief treatises on Qurʾān recitation, grammar, and history that appear suitable for use in the lower schools. Rossi states, however, that at the time of his visit in 1937 “neither a textbook nor a syllabary for elementary students has yet been printed in Yemen.” The transition to the new technology elicited interesting reflections both on the technology itself and on the shift from manuscripts to printed books. In 1928, the press at the imam’s palace produced an introductory Zaydī uṣūl al-fiqh work by Muḥammad b. Yaḥyā Bahrān (d. 1550), embedded in a well-known commentary by Ibn Luqmān (d. 1622).7 Two notices at the end of the publication provide information about the circumstances of the printing. The first, located before the fihrist, or table of contents, explains how the text came to be printed: “Since this book is an introduction to the art of uṣūl [al-fiqh] and is among the works people are interested in because of its reputation for quality, the generality of its benefit, and the perfect asceticism of its author, the Commander of the Faithful [Imam Yaḥyā] . . . ordered its publication.” However, the notice goes on to mention some problems in the process. Focusing in a novel fashion on the language of the manuscript, the comment underscores how print technology immediately began to alter the ways in which manuscripts would be read. When the print edition was prepared, some weaknesses in the available manuscripts became apparent. The notice thus anticipates a reader comparing the manuscript and print versions of the same book. The imam had ordered

6

Ismāʿīl b. ʿAlī al-Akwaʿ, al-Madāris al-islāmiyya fī l-Yaman, Damascus: Dār al-Fikr, 1980. Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Luqmān, al-Kāshif, Ṣanʿāʾ: Maṭbaʿat al-Ḥukūma al-Mutawakkiliyya, bi-Dār al-Saʿāda, 1346 AH (1927). 7

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A second notice, which appears as the last lines of the printed edition, further addresses newly understood weaknesses in the source manuscripts and also the deficiencies of the available printing machine (after nearly a half century of use). Of the source text in question, this notice states, “There are to be found an expression (lafẓ) or two that are ungrammatical (malḥūna), not following the rule of Arabic.” Turning to the equipment and the printed text, the notice continues, There will also be found a letter without a dot or with part [of it] not appearing, and this is due to [the fact that] the ink did not reach the letter, as occurs in many publications. Or [there is] a letter without a hamza when it should have a hamza, and this is due to the nonavailability of this letter. Or the absence of some dots or parts of letters is to be excused in view of the age of the type.

At this early moment in Yemeni printing history, as in the historical introductions of the typographic format elsewhere in the Middle East, a human mechanism was engaged to guarantee authenticity and textual authority in the technological transition. Thus the notice concludes by identifying two well-known Yemeni scholars who were responsible for the final “correction” (taṣḥīḥ) of the proofs prior to printing.

Figure 1. Bookshelves inside the Maktabat al-Awqāf (photograph: Sabine Schmidtke, 2009).

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Figure 2. Fihrist kutub al-Khizāna al-Mutawakkiliyya al-ʿāmira bi-l-Jāmiʿ al-muqaddas bi-Ṣanʿāʾ al-maḥmiyya, Sanaa: Wizārat al-maʿārif, [ca. 1942/43].

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Figure 3. Fihrist kutub al-Khizāna al-Mutawakkiliyya (introduction).

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Figure 4. Fihrist kutub al-Khizāna al-Mutawakkiliyya (from the section on tajwīd and qirāʾāt).

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Figure 5. Fihrist kutub al-Khizāna al-Mutawakkiliyya (from the section on ḥadīth).

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Figure 6. Fihrist kutub al-Khizāna al-Mutawakkiliyya (index of copyists).

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Figure 7. Fihrist kutub al-Khizāna al-Mutawakkiliyya (index of copyists, cont.).

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Figure 8. Fihrist kutub al-Khizāna al-Mutawakkiliyya (index of copyists, cont.).

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Figure 9. Fihrist kutub al-Khizāna al-Mutawakkiliyya (beginning of list of books that should not be removed from the library).

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Figure 10. Fihrist kutub al-Khizāna al-Mutawakkiliyya (concluding remarks).

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Figure 11. Entrance to Maktabat al-Awqāf (photograph: Sabine Schmidtke, 2009).

Figure 12. Entrance to Maktabat al-Awqāf (photograph: Sabine Schmidtke, 2009).

THE HISTORIC JOURNEY OF BANĪ AL-WAZĪR’S LIBRARY ZAID BIN ALI AL-WAZIR ABOUT THE LIBRARY Most scholarly houses are keen to acquire books, and they safeguard them in a library typically called a “treasury” (khizāna), reflecting the high value placed on books as “jewels.” In fact, the two books Thabat Banī l-Wazīr and Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr make no reference to the word “library” (maktaba), consistently using “treasury” instead.1 The history of the al-Wazīr “treasury” is a legacy passed through the progeny of al-ʿAfīf from father to son. The first text I have found about the beginnings of the library is al-Hādī b. Ibrāhīm al-Wazīr’s biography of Mufaḍḍal b. Manṣūr al-ʿAfīf (d. 682/1283), in which the author references “a great treasury that contains the best and most comprehensive books, most of which are written by al-Sayyid . . . al-ʿAfīf Muḥammad b. Mufaḍḍal, and [it also] includes some worthy books by his sons and grandsons.” The al-Wazīr library was thus founded by Amir alʿAfīf Muḥammad b. Mufaḍḍal, the patriarch of Banī l-Wazīr, in Hijrat Waqash (a village southwest of Sanaa in the Bani Matar District) in the second half of the twelfth century.2 There is no reference to any library before him, even though many of his predecessors attained the highest levels of ijtihād and spent their lives teaching. According to Hassan Ansari,2b after al-ʿAfīf’s death, the library apparently held the books of two branches of the family—al-ʿAfīf’s brothers Muḥammad b. Mufaḍḍal, the forefather of Banī l-Wazīr, and his brother Manṣūr b. Mufaḍḍal, the forefather of Banī Sharaf al-Dīn. Therefore, the library remained shared for thirty-two years or more after al-ʿAfīf’s passing, until it was divided among different Hijar: Waqash, al-Hulayla, Samar in Bani Matar, Shudhab in al-Ahnum, Bani l-Dhakhaf, and al-Kawhab in Anas. When Mufaḍḍal b. Manṣūr al-ʿAfīf assumed the rule of Waqash, he chose to endow the library

1

A critical edition of al-Hādī b. Ibrāhīm b. ʿAlī al-Wazīr al-Ṣanʿānī’s (d. 822/1419) Thabat Banī l-Wazīr was recently published by the present writer (Ṣanʿāʾ: Markaz al-Turāth wa-l-Buḥūth al-Yamanī, 1441/2022). For the Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr by Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Wazīr (d. 985/1577), the references in this paper refer to a manuscript in private possession. 2 According to ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad al-Ḥibshī, “it was established in the seventh Hijri century” (fourteenth century CE); see al-Ḥibshī, Fihris makhṭūṭāt baʿḍ al-maktabāt al-khāṣṣa fī l-Yaman, ed. Julian Johansen, London: alFurqan Islamic Heritage Foundation, 2011, p. 33). However, al-ʿAfīf died in Ṣafar 600/October 1223, i.e., at the end of the sixth Hijri century. It is to be supposed that the library was established some time before that. 2b Oral communication.

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to the descendants of al-ʿAfīf as the most righteous of the sons,3 and consequently the library’s contents began to disperse.

Figure 1. Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr, from the author’s private library in Vienna, Virginia.

3

Al-Hādī b. Ibrāhīm al-Wazīr, Thabat Banī l-Wazīr, private manuscript, p. 14.

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Figure 2. Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr, from the author’s private library in Vienna, Virginia.

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It should be noted that al-Hādī b. Ibrāhīm al-Wazīr, the author of Thabat Banī l-Wazīr, did not include in his work biographies for his contemporaneous relatives unless he had met and came to know them well,4 and as a result the Thabat, the primary reference for the al-Wazīr family, is not inclusive of all the scholars in the family.

BOOKS BY MEMBERS OF BANĪ L-WAZĪR IN THE FAMILY’S LIBRARY The library contains Dīwān al-ahl, a collection of the family’s poetry and literary letters. It also holds most of the family members’ compositions, deeds of sale (property deeds),5 and political letters. These manuscripts are known to be in the library in Waqash.6 It is worth noting, however, that the library does not contain all the books of the family’s scholars. Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Wazīr, the author of Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr, mentions that he found a book by ʿAlī b. Muḥammad al-ʿAfīf (d. 658/1260), titled al-Sirāj al-wahhāj fī faḍāʾil al-jihād, which had not been seen previously by any member of the family.7 This indicates that some of the family’s books were not deposited in the library, though such omissions were rare.

BOOKS BY OTHER SCHOLARS IN THE FAMILY’S LIBRARY In addition to the compilations of members of the al-Wazīr family, the library contains books by other scholars representing various sects. Al-Hādī describes the library as “a comprehensive treasury that contained books on every single discipline.”8 The library’s holdings grew over time to comprise about nine hundred volumes, according to the historian Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn b. al-Qāsim (d. after 1099/1688), the author of al-Mustaṭāb.9 The library contained the books of Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī (d. 436/1044) and his followers, adherents of the Basran school, as well as books by al-Bahāshima including Ibn Mattawayh’s Tadhkira.10 Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn gives further details of the library’s holdings in his biography of Ṣalāḥ b. Aḥmad al-Wazīr (d. 1024/1615-16): Some of its prominent books are al-Dibāj by Judge ʿAbd Allāh al-Dawwārī, al-Maḥajja albayḍā of ʿAbd Allāh b. Zayd, Jamīʿat Āl Muḥammad in six volumes, Jamīʿat al-masanīd on ḥadīth by Ibn al-Jawzī, al-Minhāj al-jallī fī madhhab Zayd b. ʿAlī in three volumes, Ḍiyāʾ alḥalūm on language in two volumes, Tahdhīb al-ḥākim in eight volumes, . . . al-ʿAwāṣim wa-l-qawāṣim fī l-dhanb ʿan sunnat Abī l-Qāsim by Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm in four volumes, the tafsīr of al-Hādī, and many other books.11

THE MIGRATION OF SOME OF THE LIBRARY’S BOOKS Naturally, when a family grows in number, it expands and moves to different places along with its books. Hence, Waqash is no longer the only site of Banī l-Wazīr. Yaḥyā b. Manṣūr,

4

Al-Hādī, Thabat, pp. 127–128. Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Wazīr, Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr, pp. 189–190 (private manuscript A). 6 Al-Hādī, Thabat, p. 15. 7 Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh, Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr, p. 162. 8 Al-Hādī, Thabat, p. 14. 9 Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn b. al-Qāsim, Mustaṭāb, private manuscript, vol. 2, p. 392. 10 Al-Hādī, Thabat, p. 17. 11 Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn, Mustaṭāb, vol. 2, p. 392. 5

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who died in the eighth/fourteenth century, moved to Hijrat al-Hulayla and to Hijrat Samar, while Mufaḍḍal b. Manṣūr and al-ʿAfīf b. Manṣūr moved to Hijrat Shaʾdhab.12 There was continuous visiting among the men of the three Hijras, and they always exchanged books. AlHādī writes that “some of these books came to us in Shaʾdhab and some of them are now with me and with Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Mufaḍḍal.”13 The granting of exclusive guardianship over the library to “the righteous among the sons of Mufaḍḍal b. Manṣūr”14 protected the collection from loss after the family’s men moved to separate Hijar. Once an endowment of succession was established, books could be borrowed from the library of the particular Hijra in which their guardian resided.

THE GROWTH OF THE LIBRARY The holdings of the library grew through the writings of the family. It is noteworthy that the sources make no mention of a book written by Amir Muḥammad al-ʿAfīf, the library’s founder. However, the library preserves the letters he exchanged with al-Manṣūr bi-llāh ʿAbd Alāh b. Ḥamza (d. 614/1217) and his correspondence during the period of his leadership. Neither Thabat Banī l-Wazīr nor Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr attribute a book to Manṣūr b. al-Amīr al-ʿAfīf or to his brother Jaʿfar b. Muḥammad al-ʿAfīf. However, the third brother, ʿAlī b. Muḥammad al-ʿAfīf, compiled the abovementioned al-Sirāj al-wahhāj fī faḍāʾil al-jihād, which he finished in Rabīʿ II 658/March–April 1260.15 This work is among the most important books in the library. Subsequently, three of the sons of Manṣūr b. al-ʿAfīf compensated with their writings and poetry for what was otherwise a period of intellectual drought. Al-ʿAfīf b. Manṣūr (d. 681/1283) “used to hold himself accountable daily; he wrote down everything he spent, received, or gave out . . . that is, all that is related to wills and interests, as most of the people’s wills were executed by him. I saw some of the pamphlets he wrote. . . . He meant to document his actions and sign his works.”16 As for Mufaḍḍal b. Manṣūr (d. 682/1283), he became a leader before the call of Imam al-Mahdī Ibrāhīm b. Tāj al-Dīn, and his letters of credentials are reportedly in the library. The library was fortunate to acquire the books of the great scholar Yaḥyā b. Manṣūr b. al-ʿAfīf (d. 682/1283), who was a teacher in Hijrat Waqash. He used to travel with his students between Waqash and al-Hulayla17 and was well versed in ʿilm al-kalām. He authored many writings on the subject, the best and most beneficial of which is Jumal al-islām. He also wrote a great commentary on this book, which was most probably Nihāyat al-ʿuqūl al-kāshifa fī maʿānī l-Jumal wa-l-uṣūl,18 and his explication of the Jumal

12

Al-Hādī, Thabat, pp. 40–41. Al-Hādī, Thabat, p. 40. 14 Al-Hādī, Thabat, p. 14. 15 Al-Hādī, Thabat, p. 162 (manuscript T). Note that several copies of the work were consulted during the preparation of this paper, beyond the copy that was used in most cases. The additional manuscripts are identified as A, T, and K. All witnesses are in private possession. 16 Al-Hādī, Thabat, p. 39. 17 Al-Hādī, Thabat, p. 35. 18 ʿAbd al-Salām al-Wajīh, Aʿlām al-muʾallifīn al-Zaydiyya, Amman: Muʾassasat al-Imām Zayd b. ʿAlī al-Thaqāfiyya, 1999, p. 1159. 13

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ZAID BIN ALI AL-WAZIR of his grandson Muḥammad b. al-Murtaḍā b. Mufaḍḍal (d. 732/1331), which he called “The elucidation (tahdhīb) of Jumal al-Islām”.19

Aḥmad al-Ḥusaynī attributes to him a fifteen-volume book on tawḥīd and other theological principles, which he describes as nihāyat al-ifāda wa-ghāyat al-iḥsān wa-l-ijāda.20 The library did not keep any of Muḥammad b. Mufaḍḍal b. Manṣūr’s (fl. seventh/ thirteenth century) writings except a will handwritten by his father, Mufaḍḍal,21 but his brother Ibrāhīm b. Mufaḍḍal b. Manṣūr22 (d. 726/1326) added to the library a collection of his ijāzas. Aḥmad b. Mufaḍḍal b. Manṣūr (fl. eighth/fourteenth century) contributed only a letter and some copies of other scholars’ books to the library. The letter was seen by al-Hādī b. Ibrāhīm. It was from Amir Ṣalāḥ b. Ibrāhīm b. Tāj al-Dīn (d. 701/1302) and mentions Aḥmad b. Mufaḍḍal by name; according to al-Hādī, “it seems to be a response to questions [Aḥmad] asked of him. There are copies [of the letter] handwritten by him in the library, and he had good knowledge.”23 Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr mentions that Aḥmad b. Mufaḍḍal “copied the Tahdhīb al-Jumal in his own hand.”24 The library also contains books by the supreme scholar al-Murtaḍā b. Mufaḍḍal (d. 732/1331) and copies of books transcribed by him, in addition to jurisprudential comments and annotations that he made on the books he read. He also left in the library his work titled Durar aṣdāf al-qulūb fī ḥathth ʿalā ṭāʿat ʿallām al-ghuyūb.25 In addition, the library preserves al-Murtaḍā’s correspondence with Imam Muḥammad b. al-Muṭahhar (d. 728/1328).26 Beyond his scholarly knowledge, al-Murtaḍā was a poet, but his poetry was contained in the lost collection Dīwān al-ahl. “He was highly eloquent and far-sighted.”27 His son Muḥammad b. al-Murtaḍā (d. 732/1331) did not write books, but a letter he wrote to Imam Muḥammad b. al-Muṭahhar about scholars whispering against the laws of the imam survives. The imam replied thankfully to the letter, saying in his response, “I put myself in front of the scholars for debate and review. These questions are well known, and I saw them in the handwriting of Muḥammad b. al-Murtaḍā . . . and I copied some of them.”28 When Imam al-Muʾayyad bi-llāh Yaḥyā b. Ḥamza (d. 745/1344) entered Sanaa, Muḥammed b. alMurtaḍā joined him, studied under him, copied his book al-Ḥāṣir, wrote down the imam’s lineage,29 and produced for himself a copy of his book al-Kashshāf in 732/1331, including his comments therein. Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Wazīr reports in Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr, “I saw it in his own handwriting in the year his father, al-Murtaḍā, passed away.”30 19

ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥibshī, Maṣādir al-fikr al-islāmī fī l-Yaman, Beirut: al-Maktaba al-ʿAṣriyya, 1998, p. 124. Sayyid Aḥmad al-Ḥusaynī, Muʾallafāt al-Zaydiyya, Qum: Maktabat Āyat Allāh al-ʿUẓmā al-Marʿashī al-Najafī, 1992-93, vol. 3, p. 132. 21 Al-Hādī, Thabat, p. 39. 22 Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh, Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr, p. 176 (manuscript A). 23 Al-Hādī, Thabat, p. 46. 24 Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh, Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr, p. 155 (manuscript A). 25 Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh, Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr, pp. 28–29. 26 Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh, Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr, p. 25. 27 Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh, Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr, p. 35. 28 Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh, Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr, pp. 57–58. 29 Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh, Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr, pp. 60–61. 30 Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh, Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr, pp. 63, 131 (manuscript A). 20

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Figure 3. Surrogate of a codex copied by al-Hādī b. Ibrāhīm b. ʿAlī al-Wazīr (d. 822/1419), nowadays kept in the Maktabat al-Awqāf in Sanaa By contrast, Muḥammad’s brother ʿAlī b. al-Murtaḍā (d. 784/1382) produced articulate poetry and eloquent speeches. He was a chronicler of history, too, “chronicling certain events that were included in our books.”31 The library includes dialogues between him and the scholar Aḥmad b. Ṣalāḥ b. al-Hādī on the Malāḥimiyya (i.e., the adherents of Rukn al-Dīn Ibn al-Malāḥimī, d. 536/1141) and the Bahshamiyya.32 It also contains books and treatises that were written in the wake of two debates between him and the great scholar Ibrāhīm b. ʿAlī al-ʿArārī on the issues contested between the Bahshamites and the Malāḥimites. The last debate prompted Imam al-Mahdī ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. Manṣūr b. Yaḥyā b. Manṣūr b. al-Mufaḍḍal (d. 774/1372) to write al-Namraqa al-wusṭā fī l-radd ʿalā munkir faḍl āl alMuṣṭafā. Meanwhile, al-Sayyid al-Wāthiq (d. 801/1399) composed al-Naṣr al-ʿazīz ʿalā ṣāḥib al-tajwīz, which is written in both prose and poetry. In addition, the mujtahida Ṣafiyya bt. al-Murtaḍā (d. 771/1369) wrote a treatise titled al-Jawāb al-wajīz ʿalā ṣāḥib al-tajwīz. AlHādī describes al-ʿArārī as “a righteous [scholar] with complete knowledge and ample insight.”33 The library contains letters exchanged between al-Hādī and his uncle Aḥmad alMurtaḍā during al-Hādī’s stay in Ḥūth to study ʿilm al-kalām. These letters reveal that early in his studies al-Hādī viewed the Muʿtazilites as “lifeboats”; his uncle responded that the “lifeboats” are the progeny of ʿAlī.34 The library also preserves two eloquent poems by ʿAlī 31

Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh, Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr, pp. 93–94. Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh, Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr, p. 60–61. 33 Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh, Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr, pp. 80–81. 34 Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh, Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr, pp. 85–86. 32

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b. al-Murtaḍā and al-Sayyid al-Wāthiq about the rightful priority of Imam al-Mahdī ʿAlī b. Muḥammad’s claim to the imamate.35 And it houses a handwritten letter sent by al-Sayyid al-Wāthiq to ʿAlī b. al-Murtaḍā, which al-Hādī b. Ibrāhīm reports having seen personally in the library.36 In addition, the condolence message of the great Imam Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn (d. 793/1391) on the death of ʿAlī b. al-Murtaḍā is held in the library.37 Besides ʿAlī al-Murtaḍā, his sister Ṣafiyya bt. al-Murtaḍā has enriched the library with many handwritten copies of books. She reached such a level of knowledge that Imam ʿAlī b. Muḥammad said, “Had Ṣafiyya bt. al-Murtaḍā been a male and claimed the imamate, I would have no doubt about her imamate.”38 Al-Hādī mentions that her brother ʿAlī b. alMurtaḍā often declined to write to Imam ʿAlī b. Muḥammad unless she was present, and if he wanted the letter to be written in superlative handwriting, she would write it. She collaborated with her brother in copying al-Kashshāf in 793/1331. She copied half of the text, and her handwriting is better and more beautiful than that of her brother, although his handwriting, too, is extremely beautiful.39 The library preserves a copy of the Holy Qurʾān transcribed by Ṣafiyya bt. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, a scholar of the Prophet’s progeny.40 Umm al-Faḍl bt. al-Murtaḍā (d. 772/1371) left behind a booklet written in her own hand in which she collected Qurʾānic verses containing the name Allah, from al-Fāṭiha to the end. She asked for the booklet to be buried with her in her grave.41 She took a neutral political stance between the position of her brother ʿAlī and her sister Ṣafiyya, who supported Imam ʿAlī b. Muḥammad, and the position of Ṣafiyya’s husband, the scholar Muḥammad b. Yaḥyā, who supported the imamate of al-Wāthiq. Consequently, “three different sects”42 coexisted peacefully within the house of al-Wazīr. Subsequently, the sons of ʿAlī al-Murtaḍā enriched the library with their valuable writings. According to Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Wazīr, Ibrāhīm b. ʿAlī al-Murtaḍā b. Mufaḍḍal (d. 782/1380) was an eloquent orator with a good standing in poetry. He wrote strong poems on the principles of knowledge, which testify to his deep knowledge of the art of meaning and exposition. Al-Hādī does not mention any of his poetry or debates. Many eulogies were delivered in his honor that I still retain. These and others may come in a separate collection.43

Al-Murtaḍā b. ʿAlī al-Murtaḍā (d. 785/1383) mastered ʿilm al-kalām. “He has a good touch in literature and good artistry in poetry, but he does not have the gift of divination, although his poetry is sweet.”44 His will was written by al-Hādī b. Ibrāhīm,45 and many condolence

35

Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh, Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr, pp. 63–66. Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh, Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr, pp. 103–104. 37 Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh, Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr, p. 108. 38 Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh, Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr, p. 112. 39 Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh, Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr, p. 63. 40 Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh, Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr, p. 61. 41 Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh, Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr, pp. 120–123. 42 Al-Hādī, Thabat, p. 78. 43 Al-Hādī, Thabat, pp. 147, 149. 44 Al-Hādī, Thabat, p. 97 (manuscript T). 45 Al-Hādī, Thabat, p. 153 (manuscript T). 36

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messages in prose and poetry were composed for him.46 All of these are preserved in the library. His brother Aḥmad b. ʿAlī b. al-Murtaḍā composed an articulate and eloquent urjūza poem on kalām that he called Manẓūmat al-adilla fī maʿrifat Allāh. He was also well versed in poetry. Al-Wajīh reports that the author of al-Rawḍ al-aghan fī maʿrifat al-ṣāliḥīn bi-arḍ al-Yaman mentions a book by Aḥmad b. ʿAlī titled Durar aṣdāf al-qulūb fī ḥathth ʿalā ṭāʿat ʿallām al-ghuyūb.47 This must be an error, however, because this book belongs to his grandfather al-Murtaḍā b. Mufaḍḍal, as already mentioned. In the fertile ninth/fifteenth century, we encounter the daughter of Sayyida Ṣafiyya, the dedicated scholar Ḥuriyya bt. Muḥammad b. Yaḥyā al-Qāsimī. She specialized in fiqh, and according to al-Hādī, “her knowledge was unmatched by any of her peers except her mother. In general, her knowledge and excellence were like those of her mother. . . . She was dedicated to good deeds, the superior sciences, the reading of books, and the company of pens and inkpots. She wrote reviews and studies in the various Islamic sciences.” Al-Hādī claims that al-Jawāb al-wajīz ʿalā ṣāḥib al-tajwīz by Ṣafiyya bt. al-Murtaḍā “is in a book by the mother of Ḥūriyya bt. Muḥammad.”48 This century also witnessed the prolific writings of four other scholars, of whom two are particularly well known. The first is al-Hādī b. Ibrāhīm (d. 29 Dhū l-Ḥijja 822/16 January 1420), the author of famous writings in the fields of history, literature, and politics. He was also a great poet and a skilled politician, and his biographers lavish him with praise. He contributed thirty-one books to the library.49 The author of Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr mentions “his long biography with many records and eulogies that he delivered or that were delivered for him.”50 The second prominent mujtahid was Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm (d. 21 Ramaḍān 839/8 April 1436), who surpassed the output of his brother and mentor al-Hādī by nine books. He composed forty books and participated in scholarly discussions with the greatest scholars of his time. Particularly noteworthy are his dialogues with his shaykh, the prominent scholar ʿAlī b. Muḥammad Abī l-Qāsim, and with Imam al-Mahdī Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā al-Murtaḍā (d. 839/1436). There are also dialogic poems featuring him and his brother. These poems are among the best of its kind. Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr describes al-Hādī’s daughter Sayyida Shams al-Ḥūr bt. al-Hādī b. Ibrāhīm (d. 19 Shawwāl 903/10 June 1498) in the following words: [She is] more perfect than the most perfect of men. . . . She has good comments and discussions and is always present in her father’s and brother’s sessions. She also enjoys the company of scholars who are her maternal and paternal uncles and brothers. She has memorized tales, genealogies, and poetry. She is so good at correspondence that she surpasses many knowledgeable people irrespective of their circumstance and status. In

46

Al-Hādī, Thabat, p. 155 (manuscript T). Al-Wajīh, Aʿlām muʾallifīn al-Zaydiyya, p. 150. 48 Al-Wajīh, Aʿlām muʾallifīn al-Zaydiyya, p. 157. 49 Al-Wajīh, Aʿlām muʾallifīn al-Zaydiyya, pp. 1069-1073. 50 Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh, Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr, pp. 148–160 (manuscript K). 47

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The library contains some of “her poetry, correspondence, Prophetic ḥadīths, poems, literary verses, linguistic terms, and grammatical parsing, among others.”51 Her brother ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Hādī (d. 13 Ṣafar 940/3 September 1533), for his part, is described as “one of the most perfect creations [of Allah] in his physical appearance, deportment, and generosity, and his character and manners. He made additions to Kitāb alShifāʾ, and he is a leading scholar of linguistics. . . . He wrote some good poetry, but it does not come close to matching the poetry of his father, uncle, sons, or grandsons.”52 He left behind five books in a variety of disciplines.53 Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm, meanwhile, had only one brilliant son, ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad (d. 24 Muḥarram 840/8 August 1436). According to ʿAbd al-Salām al-Wajīh, ʿAbd Allāh was “a man of wide erudition in all the sciences and one of the shaykhs of Kitāb alLumaʿ. He abridged Sharḥ al-tadhyīl ʿalā l-Tashīl in two bound volumes, which are preserved in our library. He wrote a good, comprehensive book on the branches of jurisprudence. However, death prevented him from finishing his writings.”54 ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad read most books together with his peer and cousin, the scholar, poet, historian, and man of letters Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Hādī (d. 21 Shawwāl 903/12 June 1498). The latter contributed to the library his book on the history of Banī l-Wazīr from the end of al-Hādī b. Ibrāhīm’s book up to his own day. He also left behind an extensive biography of the scholar Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm al-Wazīr in addition to his own poetry and letters. Toward the end of the ninth/fifteenth century, Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad al-Wazīr (also known as Ṣārim al-Dīn) (d. 914/1508-9) enlightened the scholarly community with his twelve books in various fields, including his famous poem al-Bassāma on the deaths of the Ahl al-Bayt, which enjoys wide fame. He also wrote several elucidations, chief among them Maʾāthir al-abrār and al-Laʾālī al-muḍīʾa. Besides these writings, he wrote a letter under his father’s name to Imam al-Hādī (ʿIzz al-Dīn b. al-Ḥasan, d. 796/1394). Ṣārim al-Dīn also composed a eulogy on his wife and the mother of his three children, Shams al-Ḥūr bt. Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. al-Murtaḍā (d. 895/1490). We likewise have his “lamentations” on the martyrdom of his son Muḥammad (d. 908/1502) during the siege of Sanaa,55 sad correspondence between him and his sons when the latter were exiled by Sultan ʿĀmir b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Ṭāhirī (d. 922/1516), as well as melodious poems exchanged between him and his son Aḥmad (d. 23 Rabīʿ I 916/30 June 1510).56 Ṣārim al-Dīn had three scholar sons: al-Hādī, Aḥmad, and Muḥammad. Muḥammad was the youngest and the first one to die. He read all the abovementioned well-known

51

Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh, Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr, p. 57 (manuscript A). Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh, Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr, p. 44 (manuscript K). 53 Al-Wajīh, Aʿlām muʾallifīn al-Zaydiyya, pp. 623–624. 54 Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh, Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr, p. 76 (manuscript K). 55 Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh, Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr, p. 8 (manuscript A). 56 Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh, Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr, pp. 38-39 (manuscript Kh). 52

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books in the various fields. He also wrote and taught, composed eloquent poetry, and possessed good handwriting like his grandfather Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh.57 The eldest son, al-Hādī (d. 15 Rajab 923/3 August 1517), inherited the full oral tradition from his father. Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr mentions only one book by him despite his wide scholarship, his popularity, and the respect of his foe Sultan ʿĀmir b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb. That book is the history of the al-Wazīr family from the days of his grandfather ʿAbd Allāh b. alHādī b. Ibrāhīm to his own time. The library preserves a poem al-Hādī composed for the scholar and poet ʿIzz al-Dīn Muḥammad b. al-Murtaḍā b. Muḥammad ʿAlī b. Abū l-Faḍāʾil, who was exiled to Ta‘izz,58 a poem written for him by Imam Yaḥyā Sharaf al-Dīn (d. 965/1558) when the latter served as a reader (a student) under al-Hādī,59 and a further, melancholic poem in which al-Hādī eulogizes his wife, who arrived in Sanaa and died on the same day. His poem expresses his bereavement, and Shawqī’s verses are appropriate to the occasion: The wedding songs bounce back with a lamenting echo To be buried early at daybreak.

The poem is preserved in the family’s poetry book.60 The library houses copies of two books by the scholar Aḥmad b. Ṣārim al-Dīn (d. 23 Rabīʿ I 916/30 June 1510): Sharḥ al-Jawāmiʿ and ʿAqāʾid al-Nasafī, which he wrote while in exile in Taʿizz with a group of ashrāf (descendants of the Prophet) in accordance with an agreement reached with Sultan ʿĀmir; he remained in Taʿizz until his death. The library also contains “weeping eulogies” for him and his father, Ibrāhīm, who was ill, and his “friend.”61 The great historian Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad b. Ṣārim al-Dīn (d. 985/1577) left behind eight books in various fields.62 Ibn Abī l-Rijāl also mentions a letter that Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh wrote to the scholar ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Imām Sharaf al-Dīn (d. 973/1565), which includes the latter’s response.63 According to Muḥammad b. Muḥammad Zabāra, “the original [letter] and the response contain prose and verse of a quality that testifies to the high status of the two men.”64 Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Wazīr, the author of Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr, collected the writings of al-Hādī b. Ibrāhīm, Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Hādī, and al-Hādī b. Ṣārim al-Dīn and added updated information up to his own time. Among the books available in the library from the days of al-Hādī b. Ṣārim al-Dīn and Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Wazīr are two books written by al-Ḥusayn b. al-Qāsim al-ʿIyānī: Mukhtaṣar al-aḥkām and an exegesis of the Holy Qurʾān as well as other “books of guidance.”65

57

Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh, Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr, p. 37 (manuscript K). Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh, Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr, p. 23 (manuscript K). 59 Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh, Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr, p. 34 (manuscript K). 60 Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh, Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr, p. 26 (manuscript K). 61 Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh, Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr, p. 30 (manuscript K). 62 Al-Wajīh, Aʿlām muʾallifīn al-Zaydiyya, pp. 129–130. 63 Ibn Abī l-Rijāl Aḥmad b. Ṣāliḥ, Maṭlaʿ al-budūr wa-majmaʿ al-buḥūr fī tarājim rijāl al-Zaydiyya, ed. Majd al-Dīn b. Muḥammad b. Manṣūr al-Muʾayyadī, Ṣaʿda: Markaz Ahl al-Bayt li-l-Dirāsāt al-Islāmiyya, 2004, vol. 1, pp. 334–344. 64 Muḥammad b. Muḥammad Zabāra, Aʾimmat al-Yaman bi-l-qarn al-rābiʿ ʿashar, Cairo: s.n., 1956, vol. 1, p. 484. 65 Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh, Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr, p. 9 (manuscript A). 58

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When the scholar ʿAlī b. al-Imām Sharaf al-Dīn Yaḥyā (d. 978/1570) took control of Dhī Marmar Fort between Sanaa and Hijrat Āl al-Wazīr in Banī Ḥashīsh in 948/1541,66 he turned the military position into a prosperous scholarly institution that possessed hundreds of books and became a destination for scholars from all parts of the region. At that time, the library was passed down to Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Wazīr (d. 985/1577), because he was the most qualified, and he moved it to this fort. Imam al-Miqrāʾī mentions it among “other treasuries” in his work: “The books of the honorable and great men of Banī l-Wazīr have been added to this library, in addition to many of my father’s and my grandfather’s books.”67 The library most probably remained in Dhī Marmar for twenty-nine years, the duration of Amir ʿAlī’s rule over the fort, until ʿAlī left it in 974/1567; then the guardianship of the library passed to Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh’s son Ṣalāḥ b. Aḥmad al-Wazīr (d. 1024/1615-16). The historian Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn, whose enumeration of the library’s highlights was mentioned before, describes the library thus in his biography of Ṣalāḥ b. Aḥmad al-Wazīr: This family, as we have described in [its members’] biographies, combines knowledge and action, and it has included scholars among its members since the time of their greatgrandfather Muḥammad al-ʿAfīfī. They have a library of books that they have collected, and each generation has continued to add books to it until a large number of books has accumulated, and then it has been handed from generation to generation until the present time.68

He also mentions that although at one time the library’s holdings reached “nine hundred books, and I saw its catalog, . . . only four hundred volumes remain”.69 According to Yaḥyā b. alḤusayn, Sayyid Ṣalāḥ was “the last of the honorable family of Banī l-ʿAfīf [al-Wazīr], because no family member [after him] was considered a man of great knowledge.” If this is true, then the family did not see a single author in the nearly two-hundred-year period between the death of Ṣalāḥ b. Aḥmad and the birth of his descendant ʿUthmān (on whom see below), although there were great scholars who did not write books and were satisfied with teaching only. It seems probable that after the death of Ṣalāḥ and the return of the library from Haddah (where it had been moved from Sanaa to protect it from the Turks),70 the library was dispersed: Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn, writing in the second half of the twelfth/eighteenth century, reports that “at this time members of the al-Wazīr family demanded to divide the library among them and to deal with its parts separately, and so it was dispersed after having been one collective whole.” However, he adds, when Imam al-Mutawakkil ʿalā llāh Ismāʿīl (r. 1054/1644–1248/1676) learned of the dispersal of the books, he ordered them to be regathered:

66

Yaḥyā b. Muḥammad b. Ḥasan b. Ḥumayd al-Miqrāʾī, Maknūn al-sirr fī taḥrīr naḥrīr al-sirr, ed. Zayd b. ʿAlī al-Wazīr, Sanaa: Yemen Heritage and Research Center, 1423/2002, p. 42. 67 Al-Miqrāʾī, Maknūn al-sirr, p. 151. 68 Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn, Mustaṭāb, vol. 2, p. 392. 69 Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn, Mustaṭāb, vol. 2, p. 392. 70 Ismāʿīl b. ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. Mufaḍḍal b. ʿUthmān al-Wazīr, al-Taysīr mimmā tayassara fī ḥifẓ mā jamaʿtuhu fī nasab āl al-Wazīr, private manuscript, p. 88.

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Figure 4. Yaḥyā b. Muḥammad b. Ḥasan b. Ḥumayd al-Miqrāʾī, Maknūn al-sirr fī taḥrīr naḥrīr al-sirr, surrogate from the author’s private library in Vienna, Virginia, the physical manuscript is kept in the Maktabat al-Awqāf in Sanaa.

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Figure 5. Surrogate of Yaḥyā b. Muḥammad b. Ḥasan b. Ḥumayd al-Miqrāʾī, Maknūn al-sirr fī taḥrīr naḥrīr al-sirr, the physical original is kept in the author’s private library in Vienna, Virginia.

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After they were divided and dispersed, al-Mutawakkil ʿalā llāh Ismāʿīl b. Amīr al-Muʾminīn, may Allah bless him, gave an order to assemble them as they were before; so they gathered whatever books they were able to gather and placed them in a library on the western side of the rear part of the Sanaa Mosque, where they are now. The sayyids do not have any right to handle them, as far as I know.71

The library remained in the mosque until it was transferred to Istanbul. I read somewhere that a sayyid from the al-Mutʿa family went with the Ottoman governor to the “treasury of the Great Mosque” and showed him the books of Banī l-Wazīr; the governor then took them to Istanbul. According to Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn, four hundred out of the library’s nine hundred original volumes were deposited in the library of the Great Mosque. But what happened to the other five hundred books? Most probably, they were dispersed among the heirs and the entire library was divided into many smaller ones, like the library of ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad, which was inherited by his descendant, the great scholar and pious judge ʿUthmān b. ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad (d. 1130/1721), and the library of the latter’s brother, ʿAbd Allāh, who had no children and whose library was also eventually transferred to his brother ʿUthmān b. ʿAlī. Both were authors who enriched the library with their own writings. ʿUthmān b. ʿAlī wrote a book entitled Intihāz al-furaṣ li-sharḥ al-qiṣaṣ and another called Aṭrāf al-silsila al-dhahabiyya allatī hiya bi-aknāf al-nubuwwa wa-l-wilāya munawṭa wa-muttaṣila fī ansāb al-ashrāf bi-l-Yaman. This latter book is an addendum to the Tārīkh Banī l-Wazīr written by his grandfather Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh, bringing it up to his own time. ʿUthmān exerted great efforts in correcting a version of Shifāʾ al-uwām, which was written by the scholar Yaḥyā b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Zayd b. ʿUthmān. He was also knowledgeable in genealogy.72 He wrote many poems, but in quality they do not match the poetry of his brother, the great scholar, historian, and eloquent poet ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. ʿAbd alllāh al-Wazīr (d. 1147/1732), who left behind twelve books of poetry and prose for the treasury, including Dhayl ʿalā l-Bassāma.73 Also added to the library were the books of the mujtahid scholar Yaḥyā b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Zayd al-Wazīr (d. 1250/1834), described by his student (and later imam) Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Wazīr (d. 1307/1889-90) as “the undisputed scholar of Yemen.”74 Ismāʿīl b. ʿAlī b. Muḥammad Mufaḍḍal al-Wazīr (d. 1369/1950) mentions in his book al-Taysīr mimmā tayassara fī ḥifẓ mā jamaʿtuhu fī nasab āl al-Wazīr that Yaḥyā b. ʿAbd Allāh wrote “many tracts and treatises in every field, including a treatise titled Shams al-mashriqayn wa-l-maghribayn fī dalīl al-jamʿ bayna l-ṣalātayn. He is knowledgeable about divination, astrology, and good poetry.” He was one of the shaykhs of Imam al-Manṣūr bi-llāh Muḥammad b. ʿAbd

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Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn, Mustaṭāb, vol. 2, p. 392. Ismāʿīl b. ʿAlī b. Muḥammad Mufaḍḍal al-Wazīr, al-Taysīr, p. 55. 73 Al-Wajīh, Aʿlām muʾallifīn al-Zaydiyya, pp. 602–604. 74 Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Wazīr, Majmūʿ al-rasāʾil wa-l-kutub, ed. Zayd b. ʿAlī al-Wazīr, Sanaa: Yemen Heritage and Research Center, n.d., vol. 1, p. 342. 72

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Allāh al-Wazīr (d. 1307/1889-90) and issued a comprehensive ijāza to the imam.75 The family library, or what was left of it, eventually ended up in the library of the al-Murtaḍā family, and the books were tallied by ʿAbbās al-Wajīh. The scholar Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. al-Wazīr—the grandfather of the constitutional imam ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad al-Wazīr—wrote a historical addendum to al-Silsila aldhahabiyya to cover the period from the point where Yaḥyā b. ʿAbd Allāh left off up to his own time. The task was then taken up by Ismāʿīl b. ʿAlī b. Muḥammad Mufaḍḍal al-Wazīr in his book al-Taysīr mimmā tayassara fī ḥifẓ mā jamaʿtuhu fī nasab āl al-Wazīr, where he combined the material of his predecessors ʿUthmān b. ʿAlī and Yaḥyā b. ʿAbd Allāh with events that he himself experienced. He was followed by the honorable scholar Aḥmad b. ʿAlī Mufaḍḍal al-Wazīr, who completed and updated the book up to 14 Ramaḍān 1408/1 May 1988. Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Wazīr (d. 18 Jumādā I 1307/10 January 1890) inherited the library from his ancestors and added his own writings to it. He was described by the scholar Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Jarāfī (d. 1316/1898) as “the innovative scholar of the latest age.”76 He contributed twenty-one books on politics and intellectual thought, four treatises, and many fatwas to the library. It was then inherited by Muḥammad’s son, the mujtahid ʿAbd Allāh, who does not appear to have composed any books, though we have his notes and annotations on books he read. Next the library passed to his two sons, the scholars Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh (d. 11 Dhū l-Ḥijja 1344/22 June 1926) and ʿAlī b. ʿAbd Allāh (martyred on 14 Shaʿbān 1367/22 June 1948). At this time the library contained many books by the family’s scholars in their own handwriting. It was further enriched with printed books acquired by Amir ʿAlī al-Wazīr, but unfortunately these were confiscated by al-Sayf al-ʿAbbās, the son of Imam Yaḥyā, after the defeat of the constitutional revolution in 1948. Subsequently, the library was neglected and many of its books were destroyed. After al-ʿAbbās was killed for his participation in the coup against his brother, Imam Aḥmad, in 1955, the remainder of the library was transferred to the Great Mosque, where it still is today. The writing of books continues, and so libraries endure. The scholar Aḥmad b. Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh al-Wazīr (d. 7 Ṣafar 1423/20 April 2002) wrote three historical books, and the scholar Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Wazīr (d. 22 Rabīʿ II 1424/23 June 2003) wrote a book on jurisprudence titled al-Muṣṭafā. The scholar Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. ʿUthmān (d. 10 Dhū l-Qaʿda 1439/23 July 2018) authored two books on jurisprudence, while his elder brother ʿAlī b. Muḥammad (d. Jumādā II 1439/March 2018) produced three books on inheritance law. The scholar Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad al-Wazīr (d. 2 Rabīʿ II 1439/21 December 2017) authored three books that were published as well as many essays, and ʿAlī b. ʿAbd alQuddūs ʿUthmān al-Wazīr also wrote several books. As for Amir ʿAlī al-Wazīr, his son alʿAbbās (d. 14 Ṣafar 1400/3 January 1980) wrote two political books that have not been published. The latter’s brother Ibrāhīm b. ʿAlī (d. 29 Shaʿbān 1435/28 June 2014) composed twenty-four books and treatises in a variety of fields. Their brother Qāsim b. ʿAlī has, to

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Ismāʿīl b. ʿAlī b. Muḥammad Mufaḍḍal al-Wazīr, al-Taysīr, p. 54. Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Jarāfī, Ḥawliyyāt al-ʿAllāma al-Jarāfī, 1307–1316H/1889–1990M, ed. Ḥusayn ʿAbd Allāh al-ʿAmrī, Damascus: Dār al-Fikr, 1413/1992, p. 26.

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date, written a number of analytic essays, a political monograph, and a collection of poetry. The writer of the present paper has written fourteen books and edited four. The great scholars ʿAbd al-Ṣamad b. Aḥmad (d. 4 Shaʿbān 1421/2 November 2000) and ʿAbd al-Malik Aḥmad Ḥasan ʿUthmān al-Wazīr (d. 6 Shaʿbān 1440/12 April 2019) have also written many books that have not been published. Today, Hijrat al-Sirr is experiencing a promising scientific and literary renaissance, and I truly hope that someone will write a book on the history of the scholars and authors of Banī l-Wazīr from where Tatimmat al-Taysīr left off, so that this scholarly tree could bloom further with its varied, colorful compositions.

YEMENI CULTURAL PATRIMONY IN MANUSCRIPT FORM SEVERAL DECADES OF PUBLIC POLICY1 ANNE REGOURD Several different approaches to the issue of Yemeni cultural patrimony in manuscript form have been developed in publications. They generally take the point of view of international researchers in politics, curators, and institutions with the mission of maintenance. They are rarely concerned with a chronology of actions initiated by Yemeni public institutions, and this being the case, they have generally not been situated within the logic of the strategies and projects to which they have given rise. Finally, efforts engendered by the Yemeni side have been insufficiently emphasized. The events of the Arab Spring, followed by the conflict still raging in Yemen, have hampered manuscript-related activity within the Ministry of Culture, in a context in which it has been easy to believe that nothing could happen. In a volume devoted to the endangered Yemeni cultural patrimony in manuscript form, it seems to us useful to turn our attention to the history of the country’s patrimonial institutions and to show that they are a site both of pillage and of the development of organized reactions, decisions, policies, and visions. They are the guarantee of future Yemeni partnerships, without which any projects will be difficult.

THE BIRTH OF PATRIMONIAL INSTITUTIONS (1969–1990) When Qāḍī Ismāʿīl al-Akwaʿ (b. Dhamar, 1 March 1920; d. Sanaa, 21 October 2008), then director of the General Organization for Antiquities and Libraries (al-Hayʾa al-ʿĀmma li-lĀthār wa-Dūr al-Kutub), put into place a system of informers, his aim was to attempt to control the flow of privately owned manuscript books abroad, starting with their sale in markets (souks), including that of Taʿizz. The owners of the manuscripts were under surveillance. According to testimony a little more than forty years old, Medina, too, had sites devoted to trade in manuscripts in certain markets: valuable pieces were sold in the alḤarrāj souk, at the end of al-ʿAyniyya Street, and from there they could be taken abroad. In

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I would like to thank Marylène Barret (Cultural Heritage Conservator, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, France – International expert on Conservation), for taking the time to read my text and for her valuable remarks.

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the case of Yemen, one had to deal with a network of shills for clients in the Arabian Peninsula. The most beautiful pieces, illuminated or ancient, left the country by air to Western destinations, a symptom of other, more clandestine networks and well-placed accomplice sympathizers. Qurʾāns were among the most coveted pieces. Qāḍī al-Akwaʿ belonged to a famous family of scholars from Dhamar. He himself owned manuscripts and had written books on the history and culture of his country.2 Appointed minister of information in 1968, that is, after the revolution of 26 September 1962, he proposed the creation of an institution devoted to antiquities. The idea being approved by President Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Yaḥyā al-Iryānī (1917–1998, r. 1968–1974), the Service of Authorities (Maṣlaḥat al-Āthār), was created by decree in spring 1969, and Qāḍī al-Akwaʿ was its director from the beginning. In 1973, the institution became the General Organization for Antiquities and Libraries (GOAL; al-Hayʾa al-ʿĀmma li-l-Āthār wa-Dūr al-Kutub). Both institutions were under the sole authority of the Presidency of the Republic. The jurisdiction of this institution encompassed historic cities and manuscripts in the Yemen Arab Republic (North Yemen) until 22 May 1990, when the country was reunified with the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (South Yemen) and became the Republic of Yemen. The other impediment to a unified policy on manuscript books lay in waqf libraries (endowed manuscripts are inalienable) administered by the Ministry of Awqāf, such as the Eastern Library of the Great Mosque of Sanaa, or simply governed by the waqf deed (waqfiyya), as in the case of the great library of Tarim in Hadramawt.

THE ADEN CENTER (1974–) In the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen, the Yemeni Center for Cultural Studies, Antiquities, and Museums (al-Markaz al-Yamanī li-l-Abḥāth al-Thaqāfiyya wa-l-Āthār wa-lMatāḥif) was created in 1974. Its first director was the political journalist ʿAlī ʿAbd al-Razzāq Bādhīb (1934–1991). The center collected manuscript books from various districts of South Yemen as well as archival documents from the time of Aden’s occupation by the English. Its activities included the cataloging, study, translation, and publication of manuscript texts, alongside exhibitions and awareness-raising about the country’s cultural patrimony.3 ʿAlī ʿAqīl bin Yaḥyā co-director and co-founder of the Center, including the establishment of its statutes, published in March 1977 for the first time the magazine al-Turāth, the first cultural journal in the south.4 In the course of Yemen’s unification, the Aden antiquities and museums center merged with the General Organization for Antiquities, Museums and Manuscripts in Sanaa

2

See the obituary written by Muhammad Jazim in Chroniques du manuscrit au Yémen (CmY) 7 (January 2009), Actualités section, http://cmy.revues.org/1877. Among his major publications, which were centered on history, language and culture of Yemen: al-Amthāl al-yamāniyya, Beirut, Muʾassasat al-risāla, 1984, 2 vols; al-Madāris alislāmiyya fī al-Yaman, Sanaa/Syria, University of Sanaa/Dār al-fikr [1st imp.], Sanaa, Muʾassasat al-risāla wa-Maktabat al-jīl al-jadīd, 1306/1986 [2d imp.]; Hijar al-ʿilm wa-maʿāqiluhu fī al-Yaman, Beirut, Dār al-fikr al-muʿāṣir, 1416/1995, 5 vols, supplemented by a sixth volume. 3 ʿAbd al-Qādir Bārās, “Markaz al-dirāsāt wa-l-buḥūth al-yamanī fī ʿAdan: Siyāsāt al-tahmīsh aḍarrat bi-ṣarḥihi althaqāfī,” ʿAdan al-ghad, 10 March 2015, http://adenalgd.net/printpost/153713/. 4 My gratitude to Azza Ali Aqil for her help.

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(GOAMM; see below). The Aden Center thus split and, becoming a branch of the Center for Yemeni Studies and Research (Markaz al-Dirāsāt wa-l-Buḥūth al-Yamanī) in Sanaa, changed its name and began to share regulations and a budget with the center in the new capital. The Aden Center emerged poorer from this operation—the desired effect, some think, of a political maneuver—and saw its activities and its acquisition of works for the library reduced and its journal’s publication interrupted. Aḥmad Ṣāliḥ Rābiḍa, professor of history and Islamic civilization in the faculty of education at the University of Aden and the director of the center from 1990 to 2000, stressed the need for the South’s center to be independent. The next director, Murshid Shamsān, who served from 2000 to 2014, continued to emphasize the center’s marginalization. Īmān Nājī Saʿīd, the last director, reiterated in March 2015 the urgency of ensuring the center’s financial autonomy.

Figure 1. Yemeni Center for Studies and Research, Aden branch.

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Figure 2. The House of Manuscripts in Sanaa, summer 2019. Photograph by Muhammad Tawaf.

Figure 3. The House of Manuscripts in Sanaa, summer 2019. Photograph by Muhammad Tawaf.

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A HOUSE FOR MANUSCRIPTS (DĀR AL-MAKHṬŪṬĀT) (1980–) During his term in office, Qāḍī al-Akwaʿ attempted to highlight the wealth of manuscripts in Yemen. He established the House of Manuscripts (Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt), built alongside the Great Mosque in the old city of Sanaa. Separate from the National Library (Dār al-Kutub alWaṭaniyya) in Sanaa, founded with Kuwaiti support in 1967 and devoted to printed materials, including journals and newspapers, the House of Manuscripts was housed in a distinct building. Unlike the National Library, it was not given the label “national.” The first aim of the House of Manuscripts was “to accommodate newly acquired manuscripts and to be, at the same time, in close proximity to the Mosque library, facilitating the transfer of manuscripts between the two libraries for microfilming and conservation purposes, UNESCO subsequently provided wooden storage cabinets for the manuscripts.”5 Microfilm readers were also placed at readers’ disposal. The House of Manuscripts project was clearly linked to the 1965 discovery of loose leaves and fragments of manuscripts, almost all from ancient qurʾāns, in a forgotten storeroom with no access door and a single window, followed, in the eighties, by the decision of the Yemeni authorities to keep the manuscripts in the country for the purpose of preservation.6 The hidden cache of manuscripts was located between the ceiling and the roof of the Great Mosque and was revealed when heavy rains caused the west wall of the mosque to collapse. An assessment of the damage was carried out by Qāḍī Aḥmad al-Sayāghī, then director of administration at the Yemeni National Museum. Sacks of Qurʾānic manuscripts were removed and deposited in the Awqāf Library (Maktabat al-Awqāf), a building attached to the Great Mosque of Sanaa. In 1973, to accommodate the project of consolidating the northwest corner of the external wall with the mosque, the remaining manuscripts were permanently removed from the hidden cache. Some seventeen large bags containing precious manuscripts, among them large sheets of qurʾans on parchment, were then stored in the basement of the National Museum.7 The Yemeni authorities realized that these Qurʾānic manuscripts were again becoming objects of trade. Taking preventive action, they decided to return the remaining manuscripts to the Great Mosque until a project funded by the German government (the cultural section of the West German foreign ministry), working in conjunction with the Yemeni department for antiquities, museums, and manuscripts and directed by Albrecht Noth of the University of Hamburg, was finally established in 1980 to preserve, properly store, and catalog this promising discovery.8 The project started on the ground in 1981 and

5

Ursula Dreibholz, “Preserving a Treasure: The Sanaʿa Manuscripts,” Museum International 51, no. 3 (1999), pp. 21–25. 6 Denmark contacted the Yemeni government with an offer to preserve the manuscripts on the condition that they be sent to Denmark, where the restoration work would take place. This proposal was rejected. 7 Qāḍī Ismāʿīl al-Akwaʿ, “The Mosque of Sanʿa: The Most Prominent Landmark of Islamic Culture in Yemen,” Maṣāḥif Ṣanʿāʾ, Kuwait: Dār al-Āthār al-Islāmiyyah, 1985, pp. 20–21 (Arabic section); Paolo M. Costa, “La Moschea Grande di Ṣanʿāʾ,” Annali dell’Istituto Orientale di Napoli 34 (1974), pp. 487–506, pp. 505–506 and plates 30a, 30b; translated into English with slight revisions as “The Great Mosque of Ṣanʿāʾ,” in Studies in Arabian Architecture, ed. Paolo M. Costa, Aldershot: Variorum, 1994, II, pp. 1–16, p. 16 and plates 30a, 30b. 8 Abdelaziz Abid, “‘Memory of the World’: Preserving Our Documentary Heritage,” Museum International 49, no. 1 (1997), pp. 40–45.

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ran until 1989, when the funding came to an end.9 In the wake of the German project the manuscripts ended up in the House of Manuscripts and with this migration reached their final repository. According to Dreibholz, the conservator for the German project, the collection included “approximately 15,000 parchment fragments from nearly 1,000 different volumes of the Koran, which are all incomplete.”10 However, this number pertains to the parchments that underwent the process of basic conservation (relaxation) and of identification of the chapters (sūrāt) and verses (āyāt) they bear in order to be assigned a signature; it does not refer to the total number of manuscripts revealed.11 The historic collection under the jurisdiction of the House of Manuscripts contains the codices of the so-called “Western” Library, sheltered by the Great Mosque of Sanaa. The Qāḍī al-Akwaʿ entrusts the Qāḍī Muḥammad al-Ṭayr with the responsibility of lending manuscript books from the Great Mosque to readers: He will keep this post until his death in 2000. Being the only person to possess a key to the codices kept in the Great Mosque of Sanaa, he would go back and forth between that building and the House of Manuscripts, taking note of requests, including those from readers. To protect the manuscripts, he keeps the keys attached to a belt under his clothes. A budgetary line was created to increase the funds available for the acquisition of Yemeni manuscripts throughout the country. The buying decisions were validated by a high committee of experts. It is likely that there were also gifts, often of small numbers of manuscripts. The donated manuscripts that ended up in the House of Manuscripts probably came mostly from private libraries in the Zaydi highlands. The first Hebrew manuscripts were registered in the House of Manuscripts in 1987, that is, a year after the old town of Sanaa was classified as a UNESCO heritage site. This inventory has even been the subject of a directive from the Ministry of Culture.12 Qāḍī alAkwaʿ undertook to place a value on the collections. The first catalog of the Western Library was started with Kuwait’s support and published in Alexandria around 1978, with a preface by Qāḍī al-Akwaʿ.13 He endowed this major collection of the House of Manuscripts with a

9

Thomas Eich (University of Hamburg) is currently in charge of the chapter devoted to the history of the restoration project of the earliest Qurʾān manuscripts conducted by the Germans for a collective volume in which the most relevant projects carried out by the German University were included. 10 Dreibholz, “Der Fund von Sanaa. Frühislamische Handschriften auf Pergament,” in: Peter Rück (ed.), Pergament. Geschichte. Struktur. Restaurierung. Herstellung, Sigmaringen Jan Thorbecke, 1991, pp. 299a-313, p. 299b, and, in 1999, “Preserving a Treasure,” p. 22. Behnam Sadeghi and Mohsen Goudarzi have proposed a number amounting to 12,000 Qurʾānic parchment fragments in “Ṣanʿāʾ 1 and the Origins of the Qurʾān,” Der Islam 87 (2012), pp. 1–129, here: p. 9. 11 Dreibholz, “Der Fund von Sanaa,” “Die Restaurierung,” pp. 302bsq., esp. p. 304a–b. 12 Personal communication from Jean-François Faü (Senghor University, Alexandria), 18 January 2020. 13 Muḥammad Saʿīd al-Malīḥ and Aḥmad Muḥammad ʿĪsawī, Fihris makhṭūṭāt al-Maktaba al-gharbiyya bi-l-Jāmiʿ al-kabīr bi-Ṣanʿāʾ, Alexandria: Munshaʾat al-Maʿārif, ca. 1978. This catalog was preceded by M. A. Sabāḥ and M. Y. Farāj, al-Qāʾima al-bibliyūghrāfiyya li-l-makhṭūṭāt al-ʿarabiyya fī l-Jumhūriyya al-ʿarabiyya al-yamaniyya: Maktabat al-Jāmiʿ al-gharbiyya bi-l-Jāmiʿ al-kabīr, Sanaa, 1975, whose name invokes a project of inventorying the manuscripts of the Yemen Arab Republic.

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modicum of fame outside Yemen’s borders. But it was the exceptional discovery of the ancient broken or fragmentary qurʾāns in the cache of the Great Mosque that brought international attention to Sanaa.

SMUGGLING AND RESEARCH / RESEARCH AND SMUGGLING An exhibition of these qurʾāns was organized in Kuwait City in 1985, together with a catalog. Qāḍī al-Akwaʿ and Shaykha Ḥūsā Ṣabāḥ al-Sālim al-Ṣabāḥ, general director and cofounder of Dār al-Āthār al-Islāmiyya, were its promoters.14 The Kuwait exhibition gave impetus both to the sale in London auction houses of pages of Yemeni qurʾāns removed from the territory with impunity, and to the incremental progress of research on these manuscripts and on others, which gradually revealed their central significance for historical Qurʾānic studies. Both of these trends, in turn, interacted with the German project of study and conservation/restoration of artifacts brought to light, which led Hans-Caspar Graf von Bothmer of the University of Saarland, the last local director of the German project, to conduct a campaign of microfilming “all of the parchment fragments that have been assigned to distinct Qurʾānic manuscripts,” of which there were 280, in the winter of 1996–1997.15 Indeed, a page of the manuscript on parchment, MS DAM 01-27.1, since named codex Ṣanʿāʾ I, was introduced to the general public for the first time at the exhibition in Kuwait. It was followed by the publication of a second folio in an article by Carl von Bothmer.16 In 1988, Touch Editions published a folio of MS DAM 01-27.1 at the instigation of and with financial help from Qatar.17 However, the dissemination of the two Qatari volumes was much reduced. Then some separated folios sold by Sotheby’s of London in 1992 (which were subsequently resold by Christie’s of London in 2001 and are now in the David Collection, Copenhagen, under the shelfmark 86/2003), in 1993 (now at Stanford since 2007), and by Bonhams of London in 200018 were finally identified in 2003 as belonging to this same codex, with a few more folios identified in 2004 for a total of eighty-one folios.19 More recently, in 2008, another specific folio identified as belonging to this codex was again sold in London at Christie’s, raising the inverse issue of research documenting smugglers. Another public collection outside Yemen that preserves folios of Ṣanʿāʾ I, apart from Stanford

14

Maṣāḥif Ṣanʿāʾ, Kuwait: Dār al-Āthār al-Islāmiyya, 1985; see also https://www.islamic-awareness.org/ quran/text/mss/soth.html. 15 Sadeghi and Goudarzi, “Ṣanʿāʾ 1,” p. 10. 16 H. C. G. von Bothmer, “Masterworks of Islamic Book Art: Koranic Calligraphy and Illumination in the Manuscripts Found in the Great Mosque in Sanaa,” Yemen: 3000 Years of Art and Civilization in Arabia Felix, ed. W. Daum, Innsbruck: Pinguin-Verlag and Frankfurt am Main: Umschau-Verlag, 1987, pp. 178–181 (text) and plate 1 on p. 186 (image). 17 David James, Manuscripts of the Holy Qurʾan: From the Beginning to the Fall of Baghdad H656 ADI258, ed. Edward Gibbs and David Radzinowicz-Howell, St. Helier: Touch Editions, 1988, plate 4, corresponds to p. 16. 18 Behnam Sadeghi and Uwe Bergmann, “The Codex of a Companion of the Prophet and the Qurʾān of the Prophet,” Arabica 57, no. 4 (2010), pp. 343–436, here: pp. 353–355, 360. 19 See the table of correspondence in S. Noja Noseda, “La mia visita a Sanaa e il Corano palinsesto,” Rendiconti: Classe di lettere e scienze morali storiche 137, no. 1 (2003 [published 2004]), pp. 43–60.

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and the David Collection, is Louvre Abu Dhabi, which holds one folio. The lack of information concerning the folio sold by Bonhams and that sold by Christie’s in 2008 points logically, though not necessarily, to private collectors as their new owners. As for folios of Ṣanʿāʾ I still in the capital of Yemen, the House of Manuscripts preserves a comparatively large collection with thirty-six folios as expected. But the presence of forty folios of an ancient Qurʾān in al-Maktaba al-Sharqiyya, the Great Mosque’s Eastern Library, revealed in 2004 and subsequently determined to belong to Ṣanʿāʾ I,20 is a different case of diversion—one of pages that may have been removed between 1965 and 1972, when the bags containing the manuscripts found in the Great Mosque were warehoused in the Awqāf Library.

INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE, RESEARCH, AND CONFIDENTIALITY The significance of the manuscript pages assembled gradually under the name of Ṣanʿāʾ I is indeed considerable. Their antiquity—they are estimated to date from the first century of the Hijra—is already remarkable in itself from the perspective of various disciplines, but it amounts to a fundamental contribution to Qurʾānic exegesis: we are dealing with a palimpsest, that is, a second, more recent text written over a previous “lower text,” which has been erased by scraping or washing.21 Whereas the Roman Catholic Church decided to establish a Vulgate of the Bible in Latin—or Sixto-Clementine Bible—belatedly (at the end of the sixteenth century), in the Islamic context this decision was taken already by Caliph ʿUthmān (d. 47/656) in the first century of the Hijra.22 The first articles remarking on the non-ʿUthmānic character of the Qurʾānic pages sold in London appeared in 2003. The ancient manuscripts of the Qurʾān thus placed Sanaa in the intersection of the interests of research, the media, and conservation imperatives, which increased with the concern to avoid vague attempts at the destruction of these witnesses to the constitution of the Qurʾānic Vulgate. A media controversy raged in the columns of the New York Times between 2002 and 2009, followed by reactions in the Arab press. “The outcome was a media discourse in Yemen borne of three stages of misrepresentation. This embarrassed the Yemeni authorities responsible for the House of Manuscripts, and the Head of the Antiquities Department had to defend before Parliament the decision to bring in the foreigners” (before 30 July 2011).23 The Sanaa qurʾāns were part of the pilot project of the program

20

R. G. Hamdoun, “al-Makhṭūṭāt al-Qurʾāniyya fī Ṣanʿāʾ mundhu l-qarn al-awwal al-hijrī wa-ḥifẓ al-Qurʾān al-karīm bi-l-suṭūr,” unpublished Master’s thesis, Al-Yemenia University, 2004. 21 See Noja Noseda, “La mia visita.” 22 The date on which the Qurʾānic Vulgate was definitely fixed was however debated. For an account of the debate during the 2000s and 2010s, see for instance Claude Gilliot, “Mohammed’s Exegetical Activity in the Meccan Arabic Lectionary,” in: Carlos A. Segovia & Basil Lourié (eds), The Coming of the Comforter: When, Where, and to Whom? Studies on the Rise of Islam and Various Other Topics in Memory of John Wansbrough, Piscataway, Gorgias Press, 2012, pp. 371–98, or part of the contributions of: Mehdi Azaiez, Le Coran, nouvelles approches, Paris, CNRS éd., 2013. 23 See the version of the controversy given by Sadeghi and Goudarzi, “Ṣanʿāʾ 1,” in the section “The Media and Manuscripts,” pp. 31 ff., especially p. 36, which refers to two interviews with Ursula Dreibholz in the summer of 2011.

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“Memory of the World” (« Mémoire du monde ») launched by UNESCO in 1992, which involves preservation as well as digitization. UNESCO subsequently released a CD-ROM presentation called Memory of the World: The Ṣanʿāʾ Manuscripts; Keith Small and Elizabeth Puin then provided a detailed index for the presentation in 2007 with additional information as an aid for users.24 But interest in the Yemeni manuscripts took another turn with the realisation that there was a very large number of completely unexplored manuscripts.25

MANUSCRIPTS COME UNDER THE ANTIQUITIES (1990–2008) Although the initial mission of the House of Manuscripts focused on the conservation and restoration of all of the manuscript books under its administration, including new acquisitions, the site gradually became the most important library in the country and the only one both owned by and accessible to the public. The largest private library open to the public is al-Aḥqāf Library in Tarim, founded in 1972 and administered by waqfiyyas. In 2013 its collections were estimated to hold more than three thousand manuscripts and six thousand titles altogether.26 Qāḍī al-Akwaʿ occupied his position at the head of the Service of Antiquities, then of the GOAL until 1990, that is, for twenty-one years. As the country’s great manuscript institutions were created, he carried out his task impelled by a clearly patrimonial vision. When he stepped down, the GOAL, created at the end of the 1960s, split into three separate institutions: the General Organization for Antiquities, Museums and Manuscripts (GOAMM; al-Hayʾa al-ʿĀmma li-l-Āthār wa-l-Matāḥif wa-l-Makhṭūṭāt), the General Organization for the Preservation of Historic Cities in Yemen (GOPHCY), and the general organization for the country’s books and libraries. In the same reform process, GOAMM passed from the authority of the Presidency of the Republic to that of the Ministry of Culture. The manuscript section thus became part of the same institution that was responsible for antiquities. The directorship of the GOAMM was first entrusted to an archeologist, Yūsuf ʿAbd Allāh, a specialist on Himyarite antiquities who had received his training in Germany.27 Aḥmad al-Ghumārī, with a PhD in Archaeology from the University of Aix-en-Provence (France), was made responsible for the country’s manuscripts and placed second in command within the institution. The patrimony-protecting actions undertaken by Qāḍī al-Akwaʿ were continued by a project of inventorying the manuscripts in Yemen. Thus was born the index of the Madrasa

24

Keith Small and Elisabeth Puin, “UNESCO CD of Sanʿāʾ MSS: Part 3: Qurʾān Palimpsests, and Unique Qurʾān Illustrations,” Manuscripta Orientalia 13, no. 2 (2007), pp. 59–71. 25 Reinhart, A. Kevin, “Manuscript research in the Yemen [Arab Republic],” Middle East Studies Association Bulletin 14 (1980), pp. 22–30; Geoffrey Roper (ed.), World Survey of Islamic Manuscripts, London, al-Furqān Islamic heritage foundation, 4 vols, 1992–1994. For Yemen, see vol. 3. 26 Social Fund for Development (SFD) Annual Report 2013, p. 71, where a final report is provided. 27 See his biography in Amida Sholan et al. (eds), Sabaean Studies: Archaeological, Epigraphical and Historical Studies in Honour of Yusuf M. ʿAbdallah, Alessandro de Maigret, Christian J. Robin on the Occasion of their 60th Birthdays, Naples: Orientale and Sanaa: University of Sanaa, 2005, pp. ix–xviii.

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al-Shamsiyya Library in Dhamar, a sign of good collaboration with the Ministry of Awqāf.28 However, this initiative soon hit an obstacle in private libraries, several of which had closed their doors more than once to representatives of the official organization for antiquities and manuscripts. Indeed, in Yemen, private libraries harbor more than 80% of the country’s manuscripts (our rough estimate). They supply the other libraries in the country and feed the illegal traffic in manuscripts. The Charter of Yemeni Antiquities, then existing, defines what is legal and what is illegal in matters of patrimony. But without a budget sufficient to compete with wealthy foreign buyers or royal influence, and without a legal mandate from the executive branch, the institution’s access to private manuscripts continues to depend largely on negotiations conducted as if between private individuals. Around 2005 (?), the private Hāʾil Saʿīd Foundation, under the auspices of its cultural wing, which was created in 1996, opened within its publicly accessible library a special collection of manuscripts bought in Taʿizz as well as Ibb and Jibla. This initiative raised the interesting prospect of a regional center for manuscripts, which did not however inspire the administration of manuscripts. It was only in March 2008, under different governance and following numerous tensions, that the Center of Manuscripts (Markaz al-Makhṭūṭāt) in Zabid, a public institution under the supervision of the Ministry of Culture, was established. The tenure of al-Ghumārī witnessed collaborations and transfers of knowledge and equipment. In the 1990s and again in the 2000s, Iranian colleagues proposed projects to catalog manuscripts at the Great Mosque of Sanaa. Some of these proposals were accepted; others were rejected.* One of the collaborations resulted in a catalog of the House of Manuscripts’s microfilms, published in 2001,29 and one of its manuscripts, published in 2005.30 Publications under Yemeni names resulted from a collaboration between the library of Samāḥat Āyat Allāh al-ʿUẓmā al-Marʿashī al-Najafī in Qum, a city housing a wealth of manuscripts from Yemen, and the Center for Archives and Diplomatic History (Markaz al-Wathāʾiq wa-l-Tārīkh al-Diblūmāsī) in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Tehran. The same arrangement yielded two other catalogs in 2005 and 2009, this time of al-Aḥqāf Library of Tarim (Hadramawt).31 On the other hand, the Yemeni state rejected a project proposed by the Iranian embassy to digitize Yemeni manuscripts and to create a site at which the manuscripts would

28

Catalogue partiel de la bibliothèque des Waqfs de la Grande mosquée, Dhamar, ed. Anne Regourd, Sanaa: Centre français d’archéologie et de sciences sociales, 2008, http://cefas.cnrs.fr./?article104=&lang,=en. 29 ʿAbd al-Tawwāb Aḥmad ʿAlī al-Mashriqī and Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ Yaḥyā al-Qāḍī, Ṭāwūs-i yamānī: Fihrist-i mīkrūfīlmhā-yi majmūʿay-i Dār al-makhṭūṭāt Ṣanʿāʾ, Qum: Kitābkhāna-i Āyat Allāh Marʿashī Najafī, 1379/1421/2001. 30 Aḥmad Muḥammad ʿĪsawī et al., Fihris al-makhṭūṭāt al-yamaniyya li-Dār al-makhṭūṭāt wa-l-Maktaba al-gharbiyya bi-l-Jāmiʿ al-kabīr, Ṣanʿāʾ, 2 vols, Qum: Maktabat Āyat Allāh al-Marʿashī al-Najafī and Tehran: Wizārat alKhārijiyya, Markaz al-Wathāʾiq wa-l-Tārīkh al-Diblūmāsī, 1384/1425/2005. This last catalog is supposed to replace that of 1978, but it contains omissions and errors. 31 ʿAbd Allāh Ḥusayn al-ʿAydarūs and ʿAbd al-Qādir b. Ṣāliḥ b. Shihāb, Fihris al-makhṭūṭāt Maktabat al-Aḥqāf bimuḥāfaẓat Ḥadramawt, al-Jumhūriyya al-yamaniyya, Qum: Kitābkhāna-yi Buzurg-i Ḥaḍrat-i Āyat Allāh al-ʿUẓmā Marʿashī Najafī, 2005; ʿAbd Allāh b. Ḥusayn al-ʿAydarūs et al., Fihris al-makhṭūṭāt al-yamaniyya li-Maktabat alAḥqāf bi-muḥāfaẓat Ḥadramawt, al-Jumhūriyya al-yamaniyya, 3 vols, Qum: Maktabat Samāḥat Āyat Allāh alʿUẓmā al-Marʿashī al-Najafī al-Kubrā, al-Khizāna al-ʿĀlamiyya li-l-Makhṭūṭāt al-Islāmiyya and Tehran: Wizārat alKhārijiyya, Markaz al-Wathāʾiq wa-l-Tārīkh al-Diblūmāsī, 2009.

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be made available online with the Iranians retaining control of the management of the site and charging fees for access to the manuscripts for a ten-year period. A similar German proposal is also reported to have been rejected.32 The days of training that I myself organized at the House of Manuscripts from 29 June to 3 July 2002 in partnership with the French Center for Archaeology and Social Sciences (Centre français d’archéologie et de sciences sociales, CEFAS) and the cultural departement of the French embassy in Sanaa led to exchanges with French experts in copy history, cataloging, and codicology. In 2005, in order to protect and promote Yemen’s manuscript patrimony, UNESCO set up a project to computerize the cataloging of the House of Manuscripts’s manuscripts (in XML/EAD format,33 Arabic/English, adapted to requirements). The project was entitled “Inventory and Restoration of the Collection of Manuscripts of Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt (DaM) in Sanaa,” and it was led on site by Isabelle Caussé. The catalogers were trained in Sanaa, but it was logical that the information technology tools be disseminated throughout Yemen to allow the establishment of a network of institutions entrusted with manuscripts, first at the national level and then at the international level, and finally to facilitate the exchange of information. The XML/EAD format was later abandoned, probably around 2008–2009. On 15 November 2006, the project concluded with a didactic exhibition presenting the activities carried out at the House of Manuscripts. The second part of the exhibition was devoted to the conservation and restoration of the manuscripts. An illustrated booklet on the protection of cultural patrimony, Care and Handling of Manuscripts, inspired by the project and conceived and produced by UNESCO, was presented at the inauguration.34 This period culminated in the discovery of further early qurʾāns by restorers from Yemen’s Social Fund for Development (SFD, discussed below): in a specific section titled “Early Qurʾan manuscripts discovered in the Great Mosque. The SFD team, involved in restoring the Great Mosque, discovered a number of the Holy Qurʾan parchments, which were unearthed during the process of plaster removal at the west wing of the mosque. Most of these parchments go back to the 1st–4th Hegira century.”35

32

According to Mr. al-Rāzihī, the person in charge of Yemeni manuscripts (see below), in a televised interview in 2019.** 33 Extensible Markup Language/Encoded Archival Description. 34 See CmY 3 (2007), Actualités section. The booklet is available in numerous bilingual versions, which can be downloaded freely from https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000148463. 35 SFD Newsletter 37 (January–March 2007), Cultural Heritage section, p. 3. Marina Bicchieri, Michela Monti, Giovanna Piantanida & Armida Sodo (Istituto Centrale Restauro e Conservazione Patrimonio Archivistico e Librario, Roma), “Non-destructive spectroscopic investigation on historic Yemenite scriptorial fragments: evidence of different degradation and recipes for iron tannic inks,” Anal Bio anal Chem (2013) 405, pp. 2713a–2721b. “In early 2007, during the restoration of the ligneous ceilings in the Great Mosque (al-Jami al-Kabir) of Sana’a performed by Italian staff, a large amount of hidden fragments of ancient parchments and papers was found. The fragments had been concealed in two hollows on the west side of the mosque, adjacent to the minaret’s wall. Archaeologists and historians hypothesized the findings to be fragments and parts of volumes, probably from the seventh and eighth centuries AD, containing mainly historical and religious texts.” (p. 2713b).

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L’Istituto Centrale Restauro e Conservazione Patrimonio Archivistico e Librario, Rome, was invited in 2007 by the Ministry of Culture of Yemen to help the creation of a laboratory that would restore fragments found in various periods (more than 6.000 was announced). When the Italian team returned to Yemen with six fragments, which had undergone lab analysis,36 the Yemeni authorities suddenly stopped the whole project of restoration and the collaboration with the Italians.

GOPHCY AND THE SFD Two new actors appeared during this period: GOPHCY, mentioned earlier, and the SFD, in 1997.37 The first was in charge of the preservation and conservation of architecture and city planning in historic cities, namely, Sanaa, Shibam (Hadramawt), and Zabid. However, the cataloging of a collection of about forty manuscripts in Shibam was eventually also included among the operations of GOPHCY in the city. This organization was severely criticized in the 2000s for its inactivity and for the nepotism in its staffing.38 The SFD contributed most to manuscript-related activities through its Cultural Heritage Unit, thanks to funds from the World Bank. On the whole, the SFD granted priority to urban projects such as the preservation, conservation, and restoration of buildings and cities; as its name indicates, the Fund takes into account the social contribution in developing its projects. Finally, the Fund also supports institutions and entities of various kinds, including governmental bodies, NGOs, and private foreign centers. In principle, it would prefer joint projects supported financially by other parties. The SFD’s initial activities, undertaken between its birth and the early 2000s, focused on the maintenance of buildings and the construction of libraries. According to its first available report, between 1997 and 2002 the Cultural Heritage Unit sponsored thirty-one projects with funds amounting to USD 5,311,829, all dealing with built patrimony. These projects included the House of Manuscripts in Sanaa and the Manuscript Library of Tarim.

36

For more specific information about the six fragments, see Bicchieri, Monti, Piantanida & Sodo, “Non-destructive spectroscopic investigation on historic Yemenite scriptorial fragments: evidence of different degradation and recipes for iron tannic inks.” Although the article does not state the subject of the very fragmentary material the specialists of the institute in Roma had to deal with, it is clear from the images that some fragments are Qurʾānic. The six fragments were given to the Italian team for the purpose of lab analysis without indicating the place where they were found, which would consequently give an idea about the year when they were revealed. Only nondestructive analyses were requested by Yemeni authorities. 37 SFD Annual Report 2002, p. v. 38 Paul Bonnenfant, “Zabid, ville yéménite classée au Patrimoine mondial : Sociologie d’un échec” [Zabid, a Yemeni City Classified as World Heritage: Sociology of a Failure], Regards croisés sur le patrimoine dans le monde à l’aube du XXIe siècle : Actes du colloque international tenu à l’université de Paris IV-Sorbonne du 7 au 9 octobre 1999, ed. Maria Gravari-Barbas and Sylvie Guichard-Anguis, Paris: Presses de l’Université de Paris-Sorbonne, 2003, pp. 743–772.

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In 2008, basic construction work on the Guest House renovation project in Taʿizz was completed, with the plan of using the building to house manuscripts.39 In 2010, the SFD provided support for the Jibla (Ibb) Public Library for Books and Manuscripts40 and for the restoration and equipping of the Guest House building as Center of Manuscripts in Zabid. In the third trimester of 2011, the SFD reported that given the security situation experienced by the country and the fear of robbery on the museums and manuscripts, the General Organization for Antiquities and Museums (GOAM) has submitted an assistance request to SFD to provide them with a number of steel safes to enhance the protection of the most important artifacts and manuscripts in the museums of the country. SFD immediately responded to the request by providing 17 safes (equal to the number of museums of the country) as well as five additional safes to Dar-Al-Makhtootat (House of Manuscripts) in the Old City of Sanaa.41 The year 2012 saw significant maintenance work on the electrical grid of the House of Manuscripts and the installation of surveillance cameras, alarms, and firefighting networks in order to provide greater protection for the manuscripts from fire or theft. In 2013, the SFD provided assistance to al-Aḥqāf Library, which was seeking sufficient space to carry out maintenance and restoration activities, and supplied equipment for the library (a digital camera, materials for the binding and preservation of manuscripts, and other office equipment).42 The restoration of the Great Mosque of Sanaa, which has sheltered and continues to shelter several collections of manuscripts, remains a focus of projects sponsored by the SFD throughout the years. It is how the SFD became involved in the discovery of the ancient qurʾāns mentioned in the first trimester report of 2007 quoted earlier,43 and then in a second discovery in the first trimester 2013 (see below).44 The SFD’s annual report for 2005 illustrates the fund’s projects relating to the cataloging, digitization, and preservation or conservation of manuscripts, including privately held ones: The SFD’s cultural heritage projects in 2005 involved a wide range of areas, including—in addition to protecting and restoring historical and archaeological sites—support for establishing databases in museums and interventions involving old manuscripts and urban preservation.45

The first SFD initiative, undertaken in collaboration with the French Center for Archaeology and Social Sciences under my scientific direction, financed a program to safeguard the

39

SFD Newsletter 47 (July–September 2009), Cultural Heritage section, p. 3. The SFD Newsletter was launched in 1998. 40 SFD Newsletter 51 (July–September 2010), Training & Organizational Support section, p. 4. 41 SFD Newsletter 55 (July–September 2011), Cultural Heritage section, p. 2. 42 SFD Annual Report 2013, p. 71. 43 SFD Newsletter 37 (January–March 2007), Cultural Heritage Section, p. 3. 44 SFD Newsletter 61 (January–March 2013), Cultural Heritage section, p. 3. 45 SFD Annual Report 2005, p. 24.

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manuscripts of private libraries in Zabid.46 Zabid was classified as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1993. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ḥaddād, the GOPHCY director, asked Paul Bonnenfant of the French National Center for Scientific Research (Centre national de la recherche scientifique) to direct the request for classification, and manuscripts were consequently included in the city’s patrimony. The SFD co-financed the Zabid program from 2004 to 2008. The program had a pilot character and rested on a dynamic transfer of abilities. A team from Zabid was trained to catalog, digitize, and archive data and to carry out basic conservation of the manuscripts. Cataloging in accordance with international standards, in contrast to the format known and used in Yemen in the early 2000s, launched a new model that encompassed the listing and study of watermarked papers extant in manuscripts.47 This model was adopted in the documentation of the collections of the House of Manuscripts (see below), placing Yemen at the forefront of progress in the application of international standards. SFD supports projects for limited durations, and applications can only be submitted by heads of institutions. We will therefore detail such projects in the list of initiatives taken by each director of manuscripts. In 2017, with European financing, SFD teams took action against termites in the ceiling of the Center of Manuscripts of Zabid. They also contributed to the documentation and cataloging of manuscripts, scanned all catalogs, and photocopied 620 manuscripts. Some conservation work was done, too.48 However, the chronology below indicates that the fund’s activity in the area of the treatment of manuscripts was concentrated in a period of about ten years, between 2004 and 2013. If one focuses only on the House of Manuscripts, SFD operations took place between 2009 and 2013, that is, at a time when the institution was rapidly improving its facilities and capabilities as discussed below. In two of its reports, the SFD described the House of Manuscripts according to a general view: it “is considered one of Yemen’s most important national repositories for unique and valuable manuscripts” (2011)49 and “the most important Yemeni manuscripts center” (2013).50 It seems that the directors in charge of the manuscripts and libraries of Yemen from 2008 to 2015 started to flesh out the idea of the House of Manuscripts in Sanaa as a kind of national library in the sense of a ‘central’ library. Taking in consideration his contribution to the creation of national museums and a National Library, this may have been

46

SFD Newsletter 43 (July–September 2008), Cultural Heritage section, p. 3: “Indexing manuscripts of some Zabid libraries: Documenting, indexing and photographing of more than 171 manuscripts have been implemented. The works also include documenting water signs of these manuscripts, with their data now being unloaded in specified tables prepared for this particular purpose. A number of Yemeni cadres were trained by manuscripts expert seconded from the Louvre Museum (on the sidelines of the existing cooperation between the SFD and the French Institute of Archaeology and Social and Economic Sciences). A book containing what has been achieved in this regard was printed and issued.” 47 Anne Regourd, with the coll. of Hélène C. David and ʿAbd al-Rahman al-Ahmar, Catalogue cumulé des bibliothèques de manuscrits de Zabid. Vol. 1, Bibliothèque ʿAbd al-Rahman al-Hadhrami. Fasc. 1: Les papiers filigranés, Sanaa, CEFAS & SFD, 2008. 48 SFD Newsletter 77 (January–March 2017), Cultural Heritage section, p. 8. 49 SFD Annual Report 2011, p. 46. Italics are ours. 50 SFD Annual Report 2013, final report, p. 73. Italics are ours.

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Qāḍī al-Akwaʿ’s vision all along, since the creation of the library, but this must remain speculation.

THE MANUSCRIPTS AT THE MINISTRY OF CULTURE (SINCE 2008) In the years before 2008, the idea of distinguishing manuscripts from antiquities in general, and to place the Yemen manuscripts directorate directly under the responsibility of the Minister of Culture began to emerge, and consequently OGAMM lost its ‘M’ for ‘Manuscripts,’ and became OGAM. In June 2008, Sām Yaḥyā Ḥusayn al-Aḥmar, a member of a family that included leaders of the Islah Party, became under-secretary of the Ministry of Culture for the sector of manuscripts and libraries (wakīl Wizārat al-thaqāfa li-qiṭāʿat almakhṭūṭāt wa-dūr al-kutub).51 The sector gained more visibility and latitude. This was a turning point for the House of Manuscripts. A consultation and coordination meeting involving manuscript experts was held between the Ministry of Culture’s manuscripts sector and the SFD on 15 November 2008, “in light of the renewed activities of manuscripts sector, especially in light of renewing manuscripts documenting activities and the administrative improvement that began to emerge recently.”52 In other words, a diagnosis was made regarding the situation of Yemeni manuscripts and a trend was identified for the SFD to continue providing support for manuscript work. As the SFD put it: Like other government institutions the House of Manuscripts has been subjected to the deterioration of administrative and technical capacities, ceasing its activities on documentation and restoration. Manuscripts continue to flow to the Dar, which suffers from a shortage of equipment and trained technical expertise to carry out the documentation, maintenance, and restoration, thus, parchments and manuscripts remained locked in the drawers.53

Not to mention poor conservation conditions and the theft of manuscripts. It is not clear whether all this was the reason for the transfer of the manuscripts to the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Culture. But what is obvious from the above assessment is the common conclusion that the House of Manuscripts had failed to adapt to the digital boom of the 2000s and in some areas, such as storage facilities and building equipment, had even experienced decay, and that corrective action should thus be taken. It should also be noted that the transfer to the Ministry of Culture allowed the manuscripts to potentially benefit from the substantial budget of this ministry. In addition to the issue of the manuscript sector’s solvency, the SFD was reassured by the initial changes it witnessed at the House of Manuscripts. The move resulted in a change in style. The new director assumed a managerial role. He reinvigorated activity within the House of Manuscripts. The first floor of the building was equipped to welcome extensive teams of catalogers and digitization personnel. The cataloging followed a strict protocol: each entry was validated by the person in charge,

51

CmY 6 (June 2008), Actualités section, https://journals.openedition.org/cmy/1864#tocfrom2n8. SFD Newsletter 44 (October–December 2008), p. 9. 53 SFD Annual Report 2013, p. 73. 52

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whose office was in the center of the room, i.e., at the core of the process, before being entered into the database that would then become available to the public. The digitization also included the microfilms on site in Sanaa. Finally, a conservation workshop stabilized and restored manuscripts. The House of Manuscripts became a hive of activity. In 2009 manuscript work received a further boost: The signing of an agreement between SFD and the Manuscripts Sector in the Ministry of Culture, in coordination with the University of Sanaa, created a program in which the university nominates graduates from the Archaeology, History, and Libraries departments, as well as scientific supervisors from these departments to carry out the documentation, maintenance, and restoration. In turn, SFD provided the necessary equipment (including computers, digital cameras, printers, furniture, and restoration materials) and wages for the post-graduates. Training (including maintenance and restoration) was carried out by a team that had been trained by an international restoration expert.54

The upgrade of the electrical network as well as the installation of equipment against fire and theft, described earlier, were part of the project. We will scrutinize these efforts, which were in many cases carried out jointly by staff from different libraries, below. The collections were pooled, which made it possible to evaluate them. Their progressive increase required another site. The activity attracted European financing. The vigilance of airport customs grew,55 and captured materials ended up in the House of Manuscripts. The state’s determination to control manuscripts was affirmed. It was in this context that an agreement signed by the Ministry of Culture before the start of Sām al-Aḥmar’s tenure and authorizing Jumaa al-Majid (Dubai) to digitize all of the country’s manuscripts is denounced. However, legal logic required that a document of inferior status be annulled by an institution promulgating superior laws. The affair ended up in the Yemeni parliament, which in 2008 voted to repeal the agreement. Thus, the sovereignty of the Republic’s manuscripts authority and the notion of Yemeni cultural patrimony were both reaffirmed. Consequently, the complicated relations of official institutions with the owners of private libraries, which the former had to negotiate as parties of equal standing with the owners, and not as agents of the government sometimes made their way into the press. Mujāhid al-Yatīm followed Sām al-Aḥmar briefly at the head of the manuscript department (2010–2012). When the Arab Spring erupted in 2011, followed by the attacks of the Arab Coalition led by Saudi Arabia in March 2015, the notion of a connection between private goods and national cultural patrimony was unlikely to arise, and the owners of private manuscript collections continued to regard themselves as sovereign. The absence of trust in and even defiance of institutions with their poorly paid employees contributed to this situation. They were symptomatic of a lack of governance. The patrimonial fiber of the Yemenis, although quite strong, coexisted with the notion of “the heritage of a country” without connecting with it. Individuals associated themselves first with local patrimony and only then with regional and national patrimony, according to the place in which they found themselves.

54

SFD Annual Report 2013, final report, p. 73. For the SFD’s initial approach, see SFD Newsletter 44 (OctoberDecember 2008), p. 9, and the following section. 55 “Attempted Smuggle of 40 Manuscripts, Foiled,” Almotamar.net, 12 October 2008, http://www.almotamar.net/en/5414.htm.

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NEW DISCOVERIES: MEDIATIZATION (2012–2015) When the next minister in charge of manuscripts and libraries, Muqbil al-Tāmm ʿĀmir alAḥmadī, took up his post on 13 June 2012, he found himself in a difficult position. Originally from a family of the tribal world from the Ridāʿ region, al-Aḥmadī studied in Beirut and then in Damascus, where he received his PhD from the faculty of literature (1 November 2007). He returned to Yemen only a short time before accepting the position. He profited from a series of sensational discoveries, which he adeptly exploited in the press and on social media in novel ways, at a time when the research of his Yemeni colleagues was hampered by the multifarious difficulties of daily life in war-time, and Western researchers found themselves increasingly cut off from their fields of research in Yemen. In 2010 and 2011, the SFD sponsored various training programs and materials for private and public libraries around the country.56 In addition to the training components, the SFD gave money to the House of Manuscripts to document and index about three thousand manuscripts, each accompanied electronically by images and description of its content and importance. Special preservation materials were provided and distributed to the House of Manuscripts in Sanaa and to al-Aḥqāf Library in Tarim,57 and a specialized training course on maintenance and restoration of manuscripts was offered to fifteen specialists from manuscript libraries in Tarim and Zabid.58 The project paid the monthly wages of fiftyfive graduates in archaeology, history, and library sciences who were trained through the project. Around 2012, the National Center for Archives organized a separate training program in the restoration of documents with the cooperation of the House of Manuscripts, which sent fifteen participants to the Center. According to the information on the House of Manuscripts’s collections that was available to the SFD, the library held more than 16,000 manuscripts, of which 8,400 were cataloged manually and 4,600 electronically. In 2012, the SFD’s activities included the completion of a project to index and document these more than 16,000 manuscripts, which required specialized equipment and training in the field of documentation and manuscript restoration.59 Following the past theoretical and practical training of more than fifty technical staff in manuscripts documentation and indexing, training was now provided to a further sixteen employees of the House of Manuscripts, al-Aḥqāf Library, and alAshāʿir Library in Zabid. The training focused on the restoration of old covers and on traditional methods of the paper industry.60 For the staff of the SFD’s cultural unit, the year 2012 marked the completion of the project to document the manuscripts at the House of Manuscripts. In their concluding remarks

56

SFD Newsletter 50 (April–June 2010), Cultural Heritage section, p. 3; SFD Newsletter 51 (July–September 2010), Cultural Heritage section, p. 3. 57 SFD Newsletter 52 (October–December 2010), Cultural Heritage section, p. 3. Materials for both libraries were specially imported from Germany at a total cost of 64,000 euros. 58 SFD Newsletter 53 (January–March 2011), Cultural Heritage section, p. 2 (the heading of the newsletter bears the erroneous date of January–March 2009); SFD Newsletter 55 (July–September 2011), Cultural Heritage section, p. 2. 59 SFD Annual Report 2012, p. 55. 60 SFD Newsletter 58 (April–June 2012), Cultural Heritage section, p. 3.

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on the project, they reported that a total of 16,087 manuscripts had been documented manually and another 14,224 electronically.61 In addition, 10,116 manuscripts had been documented photographically, 5,000 watermarks had been recorded,62 and initial maintenance had been performed on 11,000 documents. Efforts were also underway to rebind and maintain hundreds of manuscripts, an activity that was less encouraging from the point of view of research on bindings. The SFD estimated that its training and certification programs had benefited more than sixty university specialists (including forty-five women), who “acquired outstanding technical skills [that] can be relied upon in the future.”63 On 28 March 2011, al-Aḥmadī created a Facebook site titled “Yemen Manuscripts,” with updated information on his activities on behalf of manuscripts. In 2012, a periodical bulletin, al-Makhṭūṭāt, was launched under his supervision, published by the manuscripts and libraries sector of the Ministry of Culture.64

Figure 4. al-Makhṭūṭāt, no. 4 (2013–2014). Muqbil al-Tāmm ʿĀmir al-Aḥmadī benefited from a comfortable budget thanks to the SFD and especially the Ministry of Culture’s Sandūq al-Turāth (a budget line for Culture), which granted him free rein to purchase private collections and have them cataloged, digitized, and conserved. Consequently, three private libraries were incorporated into the House of Manuscripts between 2012 and July 2013. On the occasion of the International Day of Arab Manuscripts on 4 April 2015, an exhibition of manuscripts from one of these libraries was displayed at the House of Manuscripts.65 Another manuscript discovery of “nearly 650 old parchments and paper documents” was made in the ceiling of the Great Mosque of Sanaa in the first trimester of 2013, again in the course of restoration, and “these copies have been deposited in the library of manuscripts (in the mosque) of the Ministry of Awqaf.”66 In

61

These numbers are not cumulative. In its annual report for the following year, 2013, the SFD again stated that the Manuscript Library “contains more than 16,000 manuscripts” but also that “manuscripts continue to flow” to it; p. 73. 62 In 2011, the SFD reported that “1,270 distinct watermarks were discovered” (SFD Annual Report 2011, p. 46); the effort was subsequently pursued until at least 2012. 63 SFD Annual Report 2013, p. 73. 64 The third issue of the bulletin of manuscripts was published on 12 July 2013. The fourth issue dealt with the manuscripts sector and the role of books. 65 SFD Annual Report 2013, p. 73. 66 SFD Newsletter 61 (January–March 2013), Cultural Heritage section, p. 3. According to a report on Alaraby TV, the find involved 12,000 manuscripts: “Dār al-makhṭūṭāt al-yamaniyya: Kunūz tārīkhiyya tuʿānī al-ihmāl,” 8 December

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December 2014, further manuscripts were revealed at the mausoleum of Imam al-Manṣūr (r. ca. 989–1002 CE) in the Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn mosque in the western part of the old city of Sanaa. The find was reported in the 15 December 2014 issue of the newspaper Saba News under the heading “Hundreds of Rare Manuscripts Discovered in Yemen.”67 A committee from the Ministry of Culture, headed by Muqbil al-Aḥmadī, was entrusted with the transfer of the manuscripts to the House of Manuscripts on the same day, 15 December.

Figure 5. Manuscripts discovered at the mausoleum of Imam al-Manṣūr. The manuscripts were in good shape, but since they were found buried, some had been attacked by termites, according to al-Aḥmadī, who also noted that the manuscripts appeared to be rare, remarkable, and ancient, judging by their size and the decorations and associated codicological elements. A training session in the editing of manuscript texts, also reported in the press, was held at the House of Manuscripts on 14 November 2015, opened by Hudā Ablān, renowned poetess and assistant minister for cultural affairs.68 The session was organized by the sector of manuscripts and libraries in collaboration with the trainers. Muqbil al-Tāmm al-

2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiVulEczMwU&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR31zJB2aH27XJEq1NkcKAsbe 8mjY 3rhJ221wI3x5ocAkcSeyXGRQAgU. 67 See http://www.sabanews.net/ar/print380085.htm. The cache contained 1,250 manuscripts according to an article published in al-Thawra on 1 January 2015 under the heading “Iktishāf 1250 makhṭūṭan nādiran fī ḍarīḥ al-Imām al-Manṣūr bi-Ṣanʿāʾ al-qadīma,” http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:CLDgQYxgPJ0J:althawrah.ye/archives/106732+&cd=12&hl=fr&ct=clnk&gl=fr. 68 Since 2015, in the absence of the Minister of Culture, an assistant minister (nāʾib al-wazīr) is in effect responsible for cultural affairs. See “Nāʾib wazīr al-thaqāfa taftatiḥu al-dawra al-tadrībiyya al-khāṣṣa bi-taḥqīq al-makhṭūṭāt fī Dār al-makhṭūṭāt,” Saba Net, 14 November 2015, http://www.yemeress.com/sabanet/409525.

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Aḥmadī and Waḍḍāḥ ʿAbd al-Bārī Ṭāhir al-Ahdal, director of the division of edition and publication (rayyīs al-hayʾa al-ʿāmma li-l-kitāb) from 2011 to 2016, spoke about the value of the manuscript patrimony, the challenges facing it, and the efforts required by its preservation. The importance of training staff specialized in text editing was emphasized to participants from universities. The year 2014 saw continued collaboration with Iran, which returned to the House of Manuscripts a copy of Ḍiyāʾ al-ḥulūm by Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Nishwān al-Ḥimyarī (d. 614/1217–1218). This copy, possibly the oldest extant copy of the book, likely made its way to Iran in the seventh/thirteenth century, then returned to the Hijaz in the ninth/fifteenth century, and then ended up back in Iran. The work is a summary of Shams al-ʿulūm wa-dawāʾ kalām al-ʿArab min al-kulūm written by Abū ʿAbd Allāh’s father, Nishwān b. Saʿīd al-Ḥimyarī (d. 1764/1178). Together with the copy from al-Thawr Library donated to the House of Manuscripts, this copy brought the number of extant copies of the book in Yemen to two. Another manuscript of the same book identified in Iran is located in the central library of the University of Tehran; this copy consists of three volumes and was made during the author’s lifetime.69 An exhibition on the work, this time in collaboration with Turkey and with Turkish funding, was organized in the same year at the House of Manuscripts. Muqbil al-Tāmm al-Aḥmadī left the capital, Sanaa, for Qatar at the end of 2015.

CULTURAL PATRIMONY IN THE CONTEXT OF CONFLICT: FROM MEDIATIZATION TO MEDIA MANIPULATION (SINCE 2018) In 2016, the chief of the revolutionary committee appointed Ḥamdī al-Rāzihī head of the manuscripts and libraries sector at the Ministry of Culture (Wakīl Wizārat al-Thaqāfa li-Qiṭāʿ al-Thaqāfa wa-Dūr al-Makhṭūṭāt). Early in the same year, Waḍḍāḥ ʿAbd al-Bārī Ṭāhir alAhdal was appointed as his assistant (musāʿid al-wakīl). Starting in August 2016, budgetary restrictions impacted the payment of civil servants’ salaries. The authorities’ margin of action with regard to manuscripts was limited in an environment that was plunged into a war economy. More generally, the conflict disrupted all sectors, raising the question of how to support and reinforce those willing to defend the country’s manuscript patrimony against multiple greedy hands. Shortly before, police checkpoints appear to have prevented the smuggling of manuscripts in spite of the troubled period inaugurated by the Arab Spring. According to the Yemen Observer of December 9, 2014,70 the Taʿizz police department intercepted a codex manuscript that some of the city’s residents had tried to smuggle out through the al-Ḥawbān checkpoint on 6 December 2014. The manuscript was headed in the direction of

69

For the detailed itinerary of the manuscript of the Ḍiyāʾ al-ḥulūm in the central library of the University of Tehran, see H. Ansari, "Sayr-i muhajirat-i yik nuskha: Mu'arrifi-yi nuskhi-yi az Di'a' al-hulum," Kateban, 2010, free access journal on line: https://ansari.kateban.com/post/1807. Transl. into English, "The migration process of a manuscript: Introducing a copy of Ḍiyāʾ al-ḥulūm," Nouvelles Chroniques du manuscrit au Yémen, no. 14, forthcoming, 2022. 70 Aisha Al-Wazan, “Manuscript Smuggling Foiled in Taiz,” Yemen Observer, 9 December 2014, http://www.yemeress.com/sabanet/409525-manuscript-smugglingfoiled-in-taiz.html.

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Mawia. The brigadier general in control denounced the attempt to plunder Yemen’s patrimony. He contacted the highest patrimonial authorities and alerted the security services. The item in question was an Ethiopian manuscript in ge’ez, more specifically a tenth-century psalter, thus, most probably written on parchment. The manuscript’s identification as being a Hebrew manuscript and the estimate of its value made by the police officers were far from exact and betrayed a lack of education, which calls for appropriate training. His case is not at all unusual. Earlier, in June 2014, two news agencies reported that the Yemeni security forces also intercepted a Qurʾān in the region of Hazrān in Taʿizz province. The manuscript was a Qurʾān from the Rasulid period (between 1229 and 1454) that belonged to a private individual in al-Hudayda. According to the reports, an investigation was opened to establish how this individual had obtained the Qurʾān. Consequently, the manuscript was held at the Taʿizz police headquarters as the investigation sought out more information.71 Earlier, on 7 November 2013, the security chief, Brigadier Muḥammad al-Maqāliḥ, announced that the security forces had seized fourteen manuscripts in al-Qanawis in al-Hudayda district. These manuscripts included a work by the scholar Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm al-Murtaḍā, dating back to the year 1414.72 In 2011, many smuggled Yemeni antiquities and manuscripts were captured at Beirut airport.73 The airport of the Lebanese capital thus appears to have served as a hub for Yemeni manuscripts. According to a 2010 report of the antiquities and museums authority, 312 manuscripts were seized thanks to the anti-smuggling measures.74

71

See “Saisie d’un Coran manuscrit de l’époque des Rassoulides au Yémen,” International Quran News Agency, 10 June 2014, https://iqna.ir/fr/news/1415913/saisie-d%E2%80%99un-coran-manuscrit-de-l%E2%80%99%C3%A9poquedes-rassoulides-au-y%C3%A9men, and the identical report from Ahlul Bayt News Agency at http://fr.abna24.com/france/cultural/archive/2014/06/10/614895/story.html. Both agencies attribute the story to the al-Tagheer website, https://www.al-tagheer.com/. 72 “Authorities Thwart Smuggling of 14 Historic Manuscripts,” Yemen Times, 21 November 2013, https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Authorities+thwart+smuggling+of+14+historic+manuscripts-a034983629; Fakhri Al-Arashi, “14 Stolen Manuscripts Returned to the Ministry of Culture,” National Yemen, 17 November 2013, https://nationalyemen.com/2013/11/17/14-stolen-manuscripts-returned-to-the-ministry-of-culture/. 73 Sāmī al-Ṣūfī, “Kamiyyāt hāʾila min al-āthār wa-l-makhṭūṭāt al-yamaniyya tamma tahrībuhā ilā Lubnān tuḍbaṭu fī maṭār Bayrūt,” Akhbār al-Sāʿa, 5 May 2012, https://hournews.net/news-10166.htm. 74 “51 Yemeni Antiquity Pieces, 312 Manuscripts Seized,” Almotamar.net, 6 November 2010, http://www.almotamar.net/en/7886.htm.

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Figure 6. The arrival of the manuscripts seized in Qanawis at the House of Manuscripts on 13 November 2013. Between 2014 and 2019, sections and folios of qurʾāns from the Rasulid period ended up under the gavel at the famous London auction houses, Sotheby’s and Christie’s. This market had opened earlier, as shown by examples in the Khalili collection in London, cataloged in 1992 by David James,75 and in the Agha Khan Museum in Toronto, cataloged twice in 2010. Moreover, according to James, “Several pages from the same manuscript were in the hands of a London dealer in the early 1980s but their current whereabouts are unknown.” The new factor in recent sales is the use of the internet and, for professionals, methods such as fishing and front display, as in the case of one of the qurʾāns listed for sale online in May 2019.76 The use of the internet has become democratized since the conflict: individuals now sell their manuscripts on non-specialized, widely used sites. One should also acknowledge the role of social media. While the channels of communication used for the trade have multiplied, so too, in response to the exigencies of war, have the routes and subterfuges by which the manuscripts are taken out of Yemen.77 But it is mainly in the area of patrimony that a radical change is visible—the instrumentalization of cultural heritage for political or strategic purposes. Until recently considered a

75

David James, The Master Scribes, London: Nour Foundation, 1992, vol. 2, pp. 160–161, no. 40. For a recent comment on the market for Rasulid qurʾāns, see A. Regourd, “Note sur le marché des corans rassoulides : Catalogue,” CmY, New series 8/27 (January 2019), pp. 140–152, http://www.cdmy.org/cmy/cmy27.pdf. 77 CmY 17 (January 2014), Actualités section, “Août 2013. Yémen-Liban. Des manuscrits anciens en arabe et en ge’ez sortis illégalement du Yémen,” https://journals.openedition.org/cmy/2065#tocto2n3, based on Mā’rib Press, http://marebpress.net/news_details.php?sid=59032&lng=arabic. 76

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minor portfolio within the Ministry of Culture, cultural patrimony now finds itself at the forefront. The initial issue was the air raids of the Saudi-led coalition of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members, which affected archaeological sites and museums in parts of Yemen under Houthi control in 2015 and 2016. Whether these attacks constituted collateral damage or intentional destruction was an immediate question. Some archaeologists have leaned toward the second hypothesis, prompting further questions concerning the possible intention of the GCC belligerents to attack the memories and the history of people and its very identity. This is thus not only a case of patrimony in a time of conflict but rather one of a conflict that had spread into the field of patrimony by taking it as a target. In a paradoxical reversal, the fact of its destruction has highlighted the vital importance of cultural patrimony for the psychological, individual, and collective reconstruction of the Yemenis. The issue subsequently became a focus of media attention, leading to further reactions, including from Western politicians. In 2015, UNESCO organized a symposium dedicated to this matter in Paris. From the summer of 2016 onward the conflict between the GCC and the Houthis and the ensuing humanitarian disaster have received increasing coverage in the media, and in 2019, not a day has passed without mention of Yemen.78 Just as in the cases of Afghanistan and Iraq, Westerners were moved, and their opinion has weight. The conflict has gradually shifted to the media, with cultural patrimony becoming a political pawn. The Houthis have been accused of deliberately situating their military forces and hiding weapons in historic monuments. Each party tries to place responsibility for the destruction of cultural patrimony on the other and to burnish its own image. This is a problem that continues to confront Saudi Arabia today, as it tries to improve its image through cultural projects. Therefore, as questions of cultural heritage have gradually ceased to be the competence only of the Antiquities authority and the manuscripts sector, a tension has appeared between the missions of the heritage institutions and the higher level of government policy, and between their two agendas. The Houthis have also acknowledged their lack of a heritage policy. The situation is similar in Aden, South Yemen, where the former president ʿAbd Rabbuh Manṣūr Hādī (b. 1945; president from 27 February 2012 to 22 January 2015), who is supported by the GCC, is based. Information about the situation on the ground and about the destroyed works has never been so unclear. The political instrumentalization of cultural heritage does not lend itself to the successful reconciliation of the notion of the country’s cultural patrimony with the individual vision held by the owners of private libraries. This overview closes at a time when, at the beginning of 2020,79 the rumours of the disappearance of a large number of codices from the House of Manuscripts are beginning to be confirmed, increasing the divergence between the agenda of those in power and that of the heritage institutions, which require personalities as exceptional as Muhannad Aḥmad al-Siyyānī, Head of GOAM since the middle of the 1990s (d. 2020), to respond to such a variety of demands. Individual voices of protest raised on the spot draw our atten-

78

At least up to fall. It seems that European media underwent more pressure since then. The Heritage situation in Yemen is reported in the News section of CmY, New Series, and Nouvelles CmY, particularly in the Review of the Arabic media, from CmY, New Series 6/25 (January 2018) onwards. 79

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tion to it: it is a glimpse of this complex reality that we wanted to offer by presenting, alongside the acts of smuggling and looting, on which the spotlight is most often focused, the actions carried out by Yemeni authorities and the designs of cultural policies, so as to give, if not the whole picture, at least a more complete view of what is happening. These latest outbursts give credence to other rumours, those of the Houthis’ takeover of waqf archives, including provincial ones, whose contents/holdings and assets are no longer secret. According to reports, the organised sale of the Manuscript House’s items by Houthi officials was made possible by the replacement of some employees with more cooperative staff who have no knowledge of the subject. The nature of the transactions has thus changed: where private manuscripts were the source from which organised networks drew, and where, at the Manuscript House, trafficking was by competent individuals, we now have a state trade. The tribalization of the institution reduces Yemen’s public heritage to the concern of only a portion of the population. Finally, were the efforts to separate antiquities, libraries and manuscripts from the Presidency of the Republic by placing them under the authority of Culture in vain? And the question remains: should a country’s manuscripts be concentrated in a single institution and in public institutions alone, or should they be preserved in a different way?

* Editors’ comment: The various catalogs of Yemeni manuscript libraries that were published in Iran during the 2000s were published at the request of the Yemenis. There is no evidence of an Iranian proposal to publish a catalog of the holdings of the Great Mosque Library. ** Editors’ comment: There is no evidence that such a proposal was ever made, either from the Iranian side or from the German.

NŪR AL-MAʿĀRIF THE LATE 13TH-CENTURY RASULID ADMINISTRATIVE ARCHIVE OF AL-MALIK AL-MUZAFFAR YUSUF DANIEL MARTIN VARISCO I first met Muḥammad Jāzim, a Yemeni historian and journalist who was finishing his critical edition of ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAlī al-Wazīr’s (d. ca. 1147/1734) Taʾrīkh ṭabaq al-ḥalwā wa-ṣiḥāf al-mann wa-l-salwā, when I was conducting research in the Western Library of the Great Mosque of Sanaa in 1984.1 At the time I was particularly interested in Rasulid-era agricultural texts and almanacs. One day, Muḥammad showed me a massive Rasulid-era daftar; we immediately thought of joining forces to edit and translate this important archival text. Over the years I have been pleased to encourage Muḥammad in what has obviously been a major scholarly undertaking and labor of love, even though I had only minimal time to devote to his scholarly project. In 1995 Muḥammad was a fellow in the Yemeni Curatorsin-Residence Program of the American Institute for Yemeni Studies (AIYS). The fellowship allowed him to work full-time on the edition of the text and also to travel throughout Yemen to field-check details and dialectal terms in the manuscript. AIYS, with the generous support of Hunt Oil, provided Muḥammad with assistance to attend the 1995 meeting of the Middle East Studies Association in Washington, DC, where he presented a preliminary report on the information in this important text. The sweet result of Muḥammad’s own ṭabaq al-ḥalwā was finally published in two volumes under the title Nūr al-maʿārif fī nuẓum wa-qawānīn wa-aʿrāf al-Yaman fī l-ʿahd al-Muẓaffarī al-wārif by the Centre français d’archéologie et de sciences sociales de Sanaa in 2003–2005.2 This valuable resource on the history of Yemen and the Red Sea/Indian Ocean trading network at the close of the thirteenth century CE is no ordinary text. It is, in fact, a compilation made for the court archives of al-Malik al-Muẓaffar Yūsuf, who ruled over Yemen for almost half a century. It is probably best styled a daftar,3 or register, recording customs

1

ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAlī al-Wazīr, Taʾrīkh ṭabaq al-ḥalwā wa-ṣiḥāf al-mann wa-l-salwā, Beirut: Dār al-Masīra, 1985. A pdf of the text is available online at http://mktba.net/library.php?id=10250. 3 The term al-daftar al-sulṭānī is applied to the manuscript by Nayef Abdullah al-Shamrookh, The Commerce and Trade of the Rasulids in the Yemen, 630–858/1231–1454, Kuwait: s.n., 1996. 2

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duties, state finances, and production data for the areas under Rasulid control, most notably commerce through the port of Aden. In this sense, it is a kind of Rasulid “Doomsday Book,” a record of mundane matters that provides a far better insight on the economics and administration of Yemen at the time than do any of the surviving chronicles or chancery texts. Although there is no evidence this register resulted from a formal census, it does provide fiscal data useful for reconstructing the microeconomics of trade and local production in several crafts. Some limited tax records and production data are provided in later Rasulid texts, but this register is a unique survival from the thirteenth century. Internal dates indicate that most of the information is based on field reports from AH 691–693 (1292–1294 CE). This period falls in the final years of al-Muẓaffar’s reign, well after he had gained control of most of the region known as Yemen. A summary of the context and part of the content of the daftar was provided by Jāzim in a French-language article published in Chroniques yéménites (1996–1997).4 Some of the detailed information on trade was cited in a Manchester University thesis by Nayef Abdullah al-Shamrookh, who visited Yemen briefly in the summer of 1990. The most complete analysis of relevant material in the text has been provided by the French historian Éric Vallet.5 These three sources are recommended reading as background on the text.

THE CONTEXT: RASULID YEMEN AT THE END OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY At the start of the thirteenth century, Yemen was midway through a period of domination by outside forces who had arrived with a large number of horses and a few war galleys and had quickly gained control over most of the coastal region and southern highlands. These usurpers were the Ayyubids, originally led by Tūrānshāh, a restless brother of the sultan Ṣalāh alDīn, who had wrested control of Egypt from the Fatimids. With an open line of support back to Egypt and with the Red Sea/Indian Ocean trade network intact, the Ayyubids brought relative stability to much of Yemen, although they were never able to vanquish the Zaydī imams in the north. In 626/1228 the sixth and last Ayyubid ruler, al-Malik al-Masʿūd Yūsuf, left one of his trusted emirs in control when he was transferred to rule over Damascus. When the ruler died on the way, in Mecca, the emir, Nūr al-Dīn ʿUmar, eventually declared the inauguration of a new ruling house, the Rasulids.6 In 632/1234 his regime was officially recognized as the legitimate polity in Yemen by the Abbasid caliph al-Mustanṣir. Thus began the Rasulid dynasty, which was eventually overcome by local rivals known as the Tahirids in 858/1454. The Rasulid dynasty initiated by Nūr al-Dīn, now known as al-Malik al-Manṣūr ʿUmar, was to last almost four times as long as the brief Ayyubid rule.7 Most commentators, both

4

Muḥammad Jāzim, “Nūr al-Dīn et al-Muẓaffar: La construction de l’état rasoulide au Yémen,” Chroniques yéménites 4–5 (1996–1997), pp. 68–91, https://journals.openedition.org/cy/104?&id=104. 5 Éric Vallet, L’Arabie marchande: État et commerce sous les sultans Rasūlides du Yémen (626–858/1229–1454), Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2010. 6 The term rasūl refers to the nickname given to Muḥammad b. Hārūn, an ancestor of Nūr al-Dīn. 7 The most comprehensive history of the Rasulid dynasty, with a focus on economic details, is that by Éric Vallet, L’Arabie marchande. A short introduction is provided in the Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., vol. 8, pp. 455–457 (G. R. Smith). A short history of the Rasulids in Arabic was written by Ismāʿīl ʿAlī al-Akwaʿ, al-Dawla al-Rasūliyya fī al-Yaman

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215

Yemeni and Western, view the early Rasulid era as a high point in the cultural history of Islamic Yemen. Apart from the political aspects of a strong and efficient administration as well as a competent military force, the Rasulids were very supportive of the arts, the sciences, and architecture. They built mosques and schools, and the court attracted excellent teachers, especially after the fall of Baghdad to the Mongols in 1258 CE. One indication of the multicultural reach of the Rasulids is the so-called Rasulid Hexaglot, a late fourteenthcentury CE word list in Arabic, Persian, Turkic, Mongol, Greek, and Armenian.8 There is also a separate word list from the same manuscript of 475 Arabic words with their matches to 525 Ethiopic terms.9 Al-Malik al-Manṣūr ʿUmar ruled for almost two decades before he was murdered in 647/1249 by a group of rebellious retainers. This unfortunate event paved the way for his son, al-Malik al-Muẓaffar Yūsuf, to build and expand the Rasulid state during a reign of almost half a century.10 Within a year, al-Muẓaffar had regained control over much of the territory previously held by his father, including Aden and Lahj on the southern coast, Zabid along the Red Sea coast, and the southern highland region around Taʿizz. The Rasulid hold over the south was well established by 650/1252, when al-Muẓaffar made the impregnable southern fortress of al-Dumluwa his main treasure city. Like his father, al-Muẓaffar sought control of the Zaydī enclave of Sanaa, which he was at times able to dominate. In 682/1283, despite the Zaydī loyalties of many of the tribes, al-Muẓaffar was able briefly to take hold of the northern Zaydī stronghold of Saʿda, even striking coins there. Among the major new areas brought under the Rasulid aegis by al-Muẓaffar and his forces were al-Shiḥr and Dhofar, two important stopping points for ships sailing along the southern Yemeni coast toward India. Four months before his death in 694/1295, al-Muẓaffar appointed his son ʿUmar as co-regent. Al-Malik al-Ashraf ʿUmar reigned less than two years, perhaps falling victim to court intrigue by his brother, Dāwūd, who succeeded him in power.11 The two major Rasulid chronicles relevant to the end of the thirteenth century CE are al-Simṭ al-ghālī al-thaman fī akhbār al-mulūk min al-Ghuzz bi-l-Yaman of Badr al-Dīn

(626–808/1228–1454), Sanaa: Wizārat al-Thaqāfa wa-l-Siyāḥa, 2004); see also the survey of Rasulid literature by ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥibshī, Ḥayāt al-adab al-Yamanī fī ʿaṣr Banī Rasūl, Sanaa: Wizārat al-Iʿlām wa-l-Thaqāfa, 1980. 8 Peter B. Golden, ed., The King’s Dictionary: The Rasûlid Hexaglot; Fourteenth Century Vocabularies in Arabic, Persian, Turkic, Greek, Armenian and Mongol, Leiden: Brill, 2000. The original text is from a manuscript of the Rasulid sultan al-Malik al-Afḍal al-ʿAbbās (d. 1377); the manuscript was published in facsimile by Daniel Martin Varisco and G. Rex Smith in The Manuscript of al-Malik al-Afḍal al-ʿAbbās b. ʿAlī b. Dāʾūd b. Yūsuf b. ʿUmar b. ʿAlī Ibn Rasūl, Warminster: Aris and Phillips, 1998, pp. 186–205. 9 Maria Bulakh and Leonid Kogan, The Arabic-Ethiopic Glossary by al-Malik al-Afḍal: An Annotated Edition with a Linguistic Introduction and a Lexical Index, Leiden: Brill, 2017. 10 For an analysis of the reign of al-Muẓaffar, see Daniel Martin Varisco, “Texts and Pretexts: The Unity of the Rasulid State in the Reign of al-Malik al-Muẓaffar,” Revue du monde musulman et de la Méditerranée 67, no. 1 (1993), pp. 13–21. 11 For biographical details on al-Malik al-Ashraf ʿUmar, see Daniel Martin Varisco, Medieval Agriculture and Islamic Science: The Almanac of a Yemeni Sultan, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1994, pp. 12–16. Mamluk sources suggest that al-Ashraf was poisoned by two slave girls, without mentioning if this was instigated by his brother; see Ibn al-Furāt, Taʾrīkh al-duwal wa-l-mulūk, ed. Qusṭanṭīn Zurayq, Beirut: al-Maṭbaʿa al-Amīrkāniyya, 1936–1942, vol. 8, p. 233.

216

DANIEL MARTIN VARISCO

Muḥammad, known as Ibn Ḥātim,12 and al-ʿUqūd al-luʾluʾiyya fī taʾrīkh al-dawla al-Rasūliyya of Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. al-Ḥasan al-Khazrajī.13 Ibn Ḥātim’s text was written around 694/1295, within the time span of the reports in Nūr al-maʿārif. Al-Khazrajī was a court-appointed historian who died in 812/1410, more than a century after the compilation of Nūr al-maʿārif. The Redhouse edition of al-Khazrajī’s text is more than a century old and flawed, but it is still the most commonly cited because of its accessibility.14 In addition to these chronicles the travel account of Ibn al-Mujāwir, who visited Yemen just before the start of the Rasulid dynasty, provides comparative details on the trade and administrative structure of the port of Aden.15

THE CONTENTS OF NŪR AL-MAʿĀRIF The text labeled Nūr al-maʿārif by the editor is a compilation of some 224 folios, with between eighteen and twenty-five lines per page. The editor accessed a copy of the manuscript in Yemen, but he does not identify the exact location of the text. The surviving copy appears to be unique and is incomplete, with no title page. It begins in the midst of a section on items made of tanned leather and their costs. This is followed on the succeeding pages by information on all sorts of commodities and products, at times with the names of the relevant craftsmen. There is no predetermined arrangement to the text as it is currently bound. Rather, it reads as a running transcription of receipts and records sent to the court by various officials and transcribed there by clerks. It would almost be easier to list what is not covered or mentioned in the text rather than to attempt a comprehensive index. Although it is nowhere near exhaustive, a list of the information to be found in the text is provided below. This list was compiled by the editor, Jāzim, and the historian Eric Vallet and published in French in the first volume.16 The published edition has indexes for personal names, place-names and geographical areas, specialized official and administrative terminology, and commodities and items, as well as a bibliography and a detailed table of contents. The editor has provided extensive footnotes, especially to dialectal terms, although all of these are from Arabic sources.

12

Ibn Ḥātim’s text was edited and annotated in two volumes by G. Rex Smith as The Ayyubids and Early Rasulids in the Yemen (567–694/1173–1295), London: Luzac, 1978. 13 The standard edition and translation of al-Khazrajī is by James W. Redhouse, al-ʿUqūd al-luʾluʾiyya fī taʾrīkh aldawla al-Rasūliyya / The Pearl-Strings: A History of the Resūliyy Dynasty of Yemen, London: Luzac, 1906–1918, in five volumes. More recent editions by Yemeni authors include that by Muḥammad ʿAlī al-Akwaʿ, published in Sanaa by Markaz al-Dirāsāt wa-l-Buḥūth al-Yamanī in 1983 (available in searchable format online at http://ar.lib.efatwa.ir/40043/1/15 and in pdf at https://al-maktaba.org/book/9233) and later that by ʿAbd Allāh alḤibshī, published in Sanaa by Maktabat al-Irshād in 2009. 14 For details on the problems with the Redhouse text of al-Khazrajī, see the website Twisting the “Strings” and Punishing the “Pearls” at http://ahjur.org/rasulid/khazraji.html. 15 Jamāl al-Dīn Abū l-Fatāḥ Yūsuf, known as Ibn al-Mujāwir (d. 1291). The Arabic text was edited by Oscar Löfgren, Ṣifat bilād al-Yaman wa-Makka wa-baʿḍ al-Ḥijāz al-musammāt taʾrīkh al-Mustabṣir, Leiden: Brill, 1951–1954, and translated into English by G. Rex Smith, A Traveller in Thirteenth-Century Arabia: Ibn al-Mujāwir’s “Tārīkh al-Mustabṣir,”London: Hakluyt Society, 2008. A new Arabic edition is under preparation by Muḥammad Jāzim. 16 Nūr al-maʿārif, vol. 1, pp. ix–xiii.

NŪR AL-MAʿĀRIF 1. Crafts taxes on various products (arranged by city) stoneware pottery glass metals woodcrafts palm tree and wicker products ropes wax textiles leather construction materials and tents gold pearls and coral gems and precious stones 2. Transport and Services items used in transport transport costs compensation for water carriers compensation for camel drivers 3. Weights, Measures, and Money Yemen other regions (Gujarat, Constantinople, Cairo, Baghdad, Mecca, Ethiopia) 4. Agriculture and Livestock prices of various foods animals revenues of the sultan’s agricultural holdings revenues of various regions in Yemen locusts and insect pests provisions for the sultan and his court 5. Maritime Commerce products exchanged with Ethiopia taxes leveled in Aden taxes levied in Dahlak rules and laws for the port of Aden navigational nayrūz calendar procedures for the sale of horses recording practices for the port of Aden 6. Pensions and Gifts Authorized by the Sultan support for the women of the principal families pensions for the nephews of the sultan

217

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DANIEL MARTIN VARISCO support for the mamlūks (slave soldiers) of the sultan slaves pensions for emirs in prison pensions for visitors to the house of the sultan gifts of the sultan

As can be readily seen, the text provides an extensive, though not systematic, survey of economic production, trade, and administrative procedures for the last few years of alMalik al-Muẓaffar’s reign. Taken as a whole, it allows piecing together the fiscal state of the Rasulid sultanate during what was probably its zenith; this is a task that Éric Vallet has accomplished.17 Much can be learned of the administrative and military structure of the Rasulids, including pay scales and travel allowances. The text gives information on inspection by authorized officials of crops damaged by floods, locusts, and other pests. Even the royal provisions sent from various parts of Yemen for the fasting month of Ramaḍān are detailed. A description can be found of the covering (kiswa) sent by the sultan for the Kaʿba in Mecca. Royal holdings mentioned include silk factories in Aden and Zabid, gardens, agricultural land, and stables. Many of the local crafts and industries are covered, with production costs, taxes, and valuable insights on local terminology. Some information is available on Yemeni agriculture, especially for madder, wheat, sorghum, dates, grapes, and cotton. The text lists transport costs between various localities in Yemen, and it discusses horses, an important trade item in the Rasulid era, at length.18 Scholars interested in the trading network through the Red Sea and Indian Ocean will find this text a virtual treasure trove. A major section of the text gives an alphabetical listing of goods being shipped via the port of Aden.19 There are numerous reports on the customs, duties, brokerage fees, and galley tax for almost every trade item mentioned. Instructions to customs officials on, for example, how to receive gifts for the sultan are provided. The sailing seasons in and out of Aden are also indicated.20 The text supplies valuable details on weights and measures, both international and local, as well as on coins. Some scattered information is also available on the coinage and trade situation in India and Ethiopia at the time. Throughout the text, numbers and fractions are indicated by a special accounting system of Arabic letters.21

17

In addition to his main text, L’Arabie marchande, Vallet has published a number of articles utilizing data from the text; see http://ahjur.org/rasulid/biblio3.html for a complete list. 18 For an overview of the Rasulid horse trade, see Daniel Mahoney, “The Role of Horses in the Politics of Late Medieval South Arabia,” Arabian Humanities 8 (2017), online at https://journals.openedition.org/cy/3287. 19 Nūr al-maʿārif, vol. 1, pp. 409–460. A preliminary translation of this material can be found in al-Shamrookh, Commerce and Trade, pp. 315–336. 20 For a summary of sailing times to and from Aden during the latter part of the thirteenth century, see Daniel Martin Varisco, Medieval Agriculture and Islamic Science, pp. 215–231. 21 The numbering system is explained by Jāzim in Nūr al-maʿārif, vol. 2, pp. 222–227. See also the comments on this system by G. Rex Smith in his A Medieval Administrative and Fiscal Treatise from the Yemen: The Rasulid “Mulakhkhaṣ al-Fitan” by al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī al-Ḥusaynī, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006, pp. 11–12.

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THE KĀRIM/KĀRIMĪ MERCHANTS Reports for the port of Aden contain details on the Kārim or Kārimī merchants, the important trade syndicate based in Egypt during the twelfth through fifteenth centuries CE. Yemen was a major stopping point for Kārim ships, which were especially known for pepper but also carried items such as other spices, sugar, wheat, rice, silk, linen, various fabrics, hides, precious stones, and slaves. One passage in Nūr al-maʿārif notes that the Kārim were forbidden from buying ships (marākib) or having ships built for them in Aden.22 Two reasons are cited for this ban. The first is that such business would tie up the ship builders in Aden, where ships for the court were built. A second rationale is that the Kārim might take the ships to the northern Red Sea port of al-Ṭūr, where the ships could be used to transport Egyptian Mamluk soldiers. Small ships (jullāb) coming from India were allowed to continue to ‘Aydhab on the Egyptian coast as long as they did not carry horses or soldiers. Under no circumstances were the Kārim ships allowed to carry soldiers. The court also reserved the right to choose any slaves, male or female, that were being traded in Kārim ships stopping at Aden. The specific customs duties and taxes assessed on the Kārim and other merchants traveling to Egypt are laid out in detail.23

YEMENI MEASURES One of the most valuable aspects of Nūr al-maʿārif is its detailed discussion of the various weights and measures used in Yemen and elsewhere for all kinds of goods. In the port of Aden and elsewhere in Yemen, the basic raṭl was the Baghdadi one, which differed from the Egyptian raṭl. This is described in one report as follows:24 Know that the Egyptian raṭl is greater than the Baghdadi one by a fifth. The Baghdadi raṭl [337] is smaller than the Egyptian raṭl by a sixth. The measure [ʿibra] of the Egyptian raṭl is equal to 144 qafla, and that of the Baghdadi raṭl is equal to 120 qafla. If one wants to make the Egyptian equivalent with the Baghdadi, then one deducts a sixth of the Egyptian raṭl, which would be 24 qafla less than the Egyptian, and 120 qafla would remain, which is equal to the Baghdadi raṭl. If one wants to make the Baghdadi raṭl equivalent with the Egyptian, then one adds a fifth to the Baghdadi, which is 24 [qafla], because a fifth of 100 is 20 and a fifth of 20 is 4, so that there are 24 qafla more than the Baghdadi, making it 144 qafla, which is equal to the Egyptian. Thus anyone wanting to make the Egyptian equivalent to the Baghdadi reduces it by a sixth. Anyone who wants to make the Baghdadi equivalent to the Egyptian adds a fifth, as a regular rule. When the measure of the raṭl has 12 ūqiyya, a single waqiyya25 is half of a sixth of a raṭl, so we see that the Egyptian raṭl is 12 ūqiyya and every waqiyya is 12 qafla and a waqiyya

22

Nūr al-maʿārif, vol. 1, pp. 492–493. Nūr al-maʿārif, vol. 1, pp. 485–491. 24 Nūr al-maʿārif, vol. 1, pp. 337–338. Similar information on Rasulid measures is provided in the fourteenth-century agricultural text, Bughyat al-fallāḥīn fī al-ashjār al-muthmira wa-l-rayāḥīn of al-Malik al-Afḍal al-‘Abbās, ms. Cairo, Dār al-Kutub, zirāʿa 155, ff. 160c-161v. 25 I adopt the voweling of Jāzim, although this term is also found in the lexicons as wuqiyya and in the Egyptian dialect as wiqiyya. 23

220

DANIEL MARTIN VARISCO is half of a sixth of a raṭl, since the entire amount of the qafla is 144, a sixth being 24 qafla and half of a sixth being 12 qafla. The Baghdadi raṭl is 12 waqiyya, and every waqiyya is 10 qafla. Thus a waqiyya is half of a sixth of a raṭl, since the raṭl is 120 qafla, one sixth is 20 qafla, and half of a sixth is 10 qafāl. So understand that. As for something similar, the increase and decrease between the Egyptian and Baghdadi is 24 qafla. If you want to make the Egyptian equivalent to the Baghdadi, deduct 24 qafla, but if you want to make the Baghdadi equivalent to the Egyptian, add 24 qafla, as a regular rule. The 24 qafla is a sixth of an Egyptian raṭl and a fifth of a Baghdadi raṭl, as God knows best. So understand that . . .

The standard weight of the raṭl in Yemen has long been known to be equal to that of a Baghdadi raṭl.26 The latter was fixed at 128–130 dirhams (ca. 406.25 g) during the Ayyubid and Rasulid eras.27 It is important to note that there was widespread variation in the use of raṭl as a measure of weight over time, place, and material weighed. Several of the measures used in Yemen were unique and not found elsewhere. The most important is the zabadī, a term that may have evolved from its use in Zabid.28 This was a volume unit for grains such as wheat, millet and sorghum, lentils, sesame, rice, raisins, and other dry foodstuffs. The exact measure of the zabadī varied from place to place and time to time according to what was being measured, as noted in table 1. It was clearly a basic local measure in the early thirteenth century near the end of the Ayyubid period. One of its longest-lasting forms was the Sunqurī zabadī, established by the atabak Sayf al-Dīn Sunqur (d. 609/1212), who served with the Ayyubid al-Malik al-Muʿizz Ismāʿīl (d. 598/1202). This measure was initially equal to 240 dirhams (ca. 750 g),29 but later it was raised to 320 dirhams and then raised even further to 360 dirhams near the end of the reign of the Rasulid al-Malik al-Mujāhid ʿAlī (d. 764/1363).30 In 786/1384 al-Malik al-Ashraf Ismāʿīl raised the measure to 400 dirhams and then again to 500 dirhams. Changing the size of the zabadī served to increase the amount of crop tax collected, which was usually in kind. This was often a hardship on the farmers.

26

See M. H. Sauvaire, “Matériaux pour servir à l’histoire de la numismatique et de la métrologie musulmanes,” part 2, Journal asiatique, ser. 8, 4 (1884), pp. 207–321, here: p. 211. 27 Walther Hinz, Islamische Masse und Gewichte, umgerechnet ins metrische System, Leiden: Brill, 1970, p. 31. 28 The term literally refers to a cup or small container, as noted in the text. The term zubdī was used at the time in Mamluk texts for a porcelain container for churned milk (zubd) because of its color. There is a reference to the zabadī used for measuring ghee (samn) in the Ayyubid era, according to ʿAbd al-Fattāḥ Qāsim al-Shaʿbī, “al-Ḥayāt al-ijtimāʿiyya wa-l-iqtiṣādiyya fī l-Yaman fī ʿaṣr al-dawla al-Ayyūbiyya (569–626 h./1173–1228 m.,” PhD thesis, University of Sanaa, 2009, p. 293. 29 The metric weight is based on a dirham’s equaling 3.125 g, as noted by Ulrich Rebstock, “Weights and Measures in Islam,” Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures, ed. Helaine Selin, Berlin: Springer, 2008, pp. 2255–2267, here: p. 2261. Hinz, Islamische Masse und Gewichte, p. 67, cites a higher figure of 795 g. These are tentative metric weights, assuming a constant dirham rate. 30 Al-Khazrajī, al-ʿUqūd (Redhouse ed.), vol. 2, p. 159; vol. 5, pp. 180–181.

NŪR AL-MAʿĀRIF

221

Ibn al-Mujāwir mentions the zabadī used in Zabid for grain crops.31 This zabadī was said to be equal to a mann, a term widespread outside of Yemen, or two raṭl, said to be 240 dirhams or 3,120 qīrāṭ.32 It appears that the mann recorded by Ibn al-Mujāwir is based on the Sunqurī of 240 dirhams (ca. 750 g). The larger measure of grain was the mudd, which, Ibn al-Mujāwir notes, was equal to 5 mann or 5 zabadī.33 On the basis of the Sunqurī zabadī, this would yield the weight of the mudd mentioned by Ibn al-Mujāwir as about 3.75 kg. Reporting Mamluk usage in Mecca, Mortel notes that the “canonical” mudd there was 2.3– 2.8 liters, with a weight of 1.8–2.2 kg.34 According to Rebstock, the mudd of Egypt and Iraq was 2.5 liters, but the mudd was larger in Syria (3.67 liters) and in Jerusalem (100 liters).35 As table 1 shows, the size of the zabadī differed widely in different locations. For example, according to Nūr al-maʿārif, at the end of the thirteenth century CE the zabadī of alMahjam in the coastal region was 1.5 Sunqurī (1.125 kg), while the zabadī of the port of Aden was 2.5 Sunqurī (1.875 kg) and the zabadī of highland Ta‘izz was 4.5 Sunqurī (3.375 kg).36 Nūr al-maʿārif also provides measures smaller and larger than the zabadī, and the same term can vary considerably depending on the location. The unit known as the dhahab, for example, was equal to 24 al-Janad zabadī for the court measure called sulṭānī, but as little as 2.5 al-Janad zabadī in another location.37 Table 1: Variable measures of the zabadī unit in Rasulid Yemen38: Zabadī measure

Equivalent

al-zabadī al-ʿ Adanī (Aden)

1/2 al-Janad zabadī (Nūr, vol. 1, p. 341) 2 + 1/2 Sunqurī zabadī (Nūr, vol. 1, p. 341)

31

Ibn al-Mujāwir, in Smith (ed.), A Traveller in Thirteenth-Century Arabia, p. 114. Smith tentatively agreed with Löfgren that this measure was linked to the zabadī of al-Janad in the highlands. However, this connection was based on a misreading of al-jund in reference to the food stipend for soldiers in Zabid, as pointed out to me by Muḥammad Jāzim. 32 This amount assumes a raṭl of 120 rather than 130 dirhams in Zabid. Hinz, Islamische Masse und Gewichte, p. 16, quotes al-Muqaddasī from his Aḥsan al-taqāsīm fī maʿrifat al-aqālīm, Leiden: Brill, 1877, p. 99, that the mann of Mecca was 260 dirhams, but al-Muqaddasī states only that the Meccan mann, which they called a raṭl, was the common one in Islamic countries. The canonical raṭl in Baghdad was smaller by 10 dirhams; see Hinz, Islamische Masse und Gewichte, p. 31. 33 Ibn al-Mujāwir also mentions a unit called a thumn, literally an eighth, which was equal to 32 zabadī. This would make it about 24 kg. By the late thirteenth century CE, however, Nūr al-maʿārif (vol. 1, p. 343) notes that there were 10 Sunqurī zabadī in a thumn, which would yield the value of the thumn as about 7.5 kg. 34 Richard Mortel, “Weights and Measures in Mecca during the Late Ayyûbid and Mamlûk Periods,” Arabian Studies 8 (1990), pp. 177–185, here: p. 180. 35 Ulrich Rebstock, “Weights and Measures in Islam,” p. 2259. 36 Nūr al-maʿārif, vol. 1, pp. 340, 341, 348. These comparisons are based on a Sunqurī zabadī of 792 g. 37 Nūr al-maʿārif, vol. 1, p. 342. The dhahab appears to be a unit unique to Yemen. 38 This list does not contain all of the zabadī’s equivalents in other units. For analysis of Yemeni place-names in the Rasulid era, the best source is the geographical dictionary of Yāqūt; a selection of the Yemeni place-names in Yāqūt’s text was compiled by Ismāʿīl ʿAlī al-Akwaʿ, al-Buldān al-Yamāniyya ʿinda Yāqūt al-Ḥamawī, Sanaa: Maktabat al-Jīl al-Jadīd, 1988.

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DANIEL MARTIN VARISCO

2/3 +1/4 + 1 + 1/2 ḥabba Ta‘izz zabadī (Nūr, vol. 1, p. 341) (1 + 1.2 ḥabba = 1/2 qīrāṭ) zabadī (al-A‘rūs)

1 Sanaa zabadī (Nūr, vol. 1, p. 347)

zabadī (al-Asnād)

2/3 Sanaa zabadī (Nūr, vol. 1, p. 346)

zabadī (al-Asyād)

1 Sanaa zabadī (Nūr, vol. 1, p. 347)

zabadī (Banī Bahlūl)

1 Sanaa zabadī (Nūr, vol. 1, p. 347)

zabadī (Banī Siḥām)

1 Sanaa zabadī (Nūr, vol. 1, p. 347)

zabadī (al-Bawn al-Aʿlā)

2/3 Sanaa zabadī (Nūr, vol. 1, p. 346)

al-zabadī al-Dhamārī (Dhamār)

slightly less than 1/2 Sanaa zabadī; 5 Dhamār zabadī (in time of Rasulid emirs Asad al-Dīn and ʿAlam al-Dīn) (Nūr, vol. 1, p. 348) 7/8 Sanaa zabadī (Nūr, vol. 1, pp. 347–348)

al-zabadī al-Dumluwī (al-Dumluwa)

1 + 1/8 Ta‘izz zabadī 10 Egyptian raṭl; same as zabadī of al-Silw

zabadī al-fiṭra (used for zakāt on ʿīd al-fiṭr)

1/2 + 1/3 + 1/16 Ta‘izz zabadī; 19 of these = 10 Ta‘izz zabadī (Nūr, vol. 1, p. 341)

zabadī (Ḥaḍūr)

1 Sanaa zabadī (Nūr, vol. 1, p. 345)

zabadī (Hamdān)

1 Sanaa zabadī (Nūr, vol. 1, p. 345)

zabadī (Ḥāshid)

2/3 Sanaa zabadī (Nūr, vol. 1, p. 346)

zabadī (Ḥiṣn Kumayn)

1 Sanaa zabadī (Nūr 1:345)

zabadī (Jabal Lawz)

1 Sanaa zabadī (Nūr, vol. 1, p. 347)

al-zabadī al-Janadī (al-Janad)

1 + 1/2 + 1/16 Ta‘izz zabadī; 10 of these = 11 + 1/2 Ta‘izz zabadī (Nūr, vol. 1, p. 341); 100 of these = 15 Ta‘izz zabadī (Nūr, vol. 1, p. 341)

NŪR AL-MAʿĀRIF

al-zabadī al-Jiblī (Jibla)

223

1 + 1/4 + 1/3 +1/16 Ta‘izz zabadī (Nūr, vol. 1, p. 341); 10 of these = 2 + 1/2 + 1/4 Ta‘izz zabadī (Nūr, vol. 1, p. 341); 100 of these = 127 +1/2 Ta‘izz zabadī (Nūr, vol. 1, p. 341) 1 + 1/4 al-Janad zabadī; 10 of these = 12 al-Janad zabadī (Nūr, vol. 1, p. 341) 13 + 1/3 Ta‘izz zabadī (Nūr, vol. 1, p. 341) 6 of these = 1 kayla in rural environs of Jibla (Nūr, vol. 1, p. 341)

zabadī juljulān (sesame)

1 + 1/2 Sunqurī zabadī only for sale of sesame in al-Mahjam (Nūr, vol. 1, p. 348)

zabadī (al-Juwa)

11 raṭl (Nūr, vol. 1, p. 341)

al-zabadī al-kabīr (al-Bādiya near al-Mahjam in Tihāma)

2 + 1/2 Sunqurī zabadī in environs of al-Mahjam; 320 of these = al-mudd al-kabīr in al-Mahjam (Nūr, vol. 1, p. 348)

zabadī (al-Khashab, Upper and Lower, in Hamdān)

2/3 Sanaa zabadī (Nūr, vol. 1, p. 346)

al-zabadī al-Laḥjī (Laḥj)

1 Aden zabadī

zabadī (al-Mahjam)

1 + 1/2 Sunqurī zabadī; called thuluth and used for wheat, flour, and raisins in the town (Nūr, vol. 1, p. 348)

al-zabadī al-Manṣūrī (al-Dumluwa)

1 + 1/2 +1/8 Ta‘izz zabadī = 9 Egyptian raṭl (Nūr, vol. 1, p. 340) 9 + 1/3 Egyptian raṭl (Nūr, vol. 1, p. 340) 9 or 9 + 1/3 Egyptian raṭl (Nūr, vol. 1, p. 340)

zabadī (al-Mikhlāf)

1 Sanaa zabadī (Nūr, vol. 1, p. 345)

al-zabadī al-Rūrū (probably used in Jibla)

1/2 Sunqurī zabadī (Nūr, vol. 1, p. 341)

al-zabadī al-Ṣanʿānī (Sanaa)

used in areas of Ḥaḍūr, Banī Shihāb, Hamdān, al-Mikhlāf, Sanḥān, and Sanaa (Nūr, vol. 1, pp. 345–346); used in al-Mashriq, Bilād al-A‘rūs, Jabal

224

DANIEL MARTIN VARISCO

Lawz, Bilād al-Asyād, Bilād Banī Siḥām, and Bilād Banī Bahlūl (Nūr, vol. 1, p. 347) zabadī (al-Ṣilw and al-Dumluwa)

1 + 1/8 Ta‘izz zabadī or 10 raṭl (Nūr, vol. 1, p. 340)

al-zabadī al-Sunqurī

in Ta‘izz:= 2 + 1/10 + 1/20 Egyptian qafla; = 4 + 1/2 Sunqurī zabadī 1/2 + 1/4 Jibla zabadī; used in town of alMahjam for flour, raisins, rice, sesame, sorghum, and wheat (Nūr, vol. 1, p. 348)

al-zabadī al-Taʿizzī (Ta‘izz)

1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 Aden zabadī (Nūr, vol. 1, p. 341) 4 + 1/2 Sunqurī zabadī (Nūr, vol. 1, p. 340) 8 raṭl (al-Khazrajī, ʿUqūd [Redhouse ed.], vol. 1, p. 148) 7 3/8 Baghdadi raṭl for almond oil 2 + 3/20 Egyptian qadaḥ (Nūr, vol. 1, p. 268) 2 Ta‘izz zabadī or 2 + 1/3 Egyptian qadaḥ (Nūr, vol. 1, p. 269) 1/2 + 1/4 Jibla zabadī (Nūr, vol. 1, p. 341)

al-zabadī al-Zabīdī (Zabid)

mann in Zabid (Ibn al-Mujāwir, Traveller, p. 114) 320 dirhams for clothes, sugar, honey, sweets (Ibn al-Mujāwir, Traveller, p. 40) 400 dirhams for meat, suet, ḥarīsa, cheese cake, and sheep’s rump (Ibn al-Mujāwir, Traveller, p. 40) 800 dirhams (2.5 kg) for ghee, oil, vinegar, and sesame oil (Ibn al-Mujāwir, Traveller, p. 40)

zabadī (Wādī Ẓahr)

1 + 1/4 Sanaa zabadī (Nūr, vol. 1, p. 346)

LOCAL MARKET COSTS For microeconomic details, Nūr al-maʿārif provides a report on retail prices in the local market of the town of al-Mahjam in 691/1292 (see table 2).39 Al-Mahjam was a major coastal town

39

Nūr al-maʿārif, vol. 1, pp. 356–357.

NŪR AL-MAʿĀRIF

225

in the Tihāma with agricultural holdings along Wadi Surdud. Although this is a solitary reference for one point in time, with no indication of market factors, it is instructive for comparing the relative costs of the items. Four different measures are mentioned in the list for alMahjam. The large tamrī raṭl was equal to 24 ūqiyya, twice the size of the Baghdadi raṭl at 12 ūqiyya. For sugar and honey, a large sukkarī mann equal to 4 Baghdadi raṭl was used. The regular mann was equal to 2 Baghdadi raṭl for silk, linen, and soap. Iron was sold by the buhār, a measure often equal to 300 raṭl.40 In a separate listing the text notes that the unique Yemeni measure known as the zabadī was used in al-Mahjam for wheat grain, flour, and raisins, with a slightly smaller zabadī for sesame and the Sunqurī zabadī used for sorghum and rice.41 Table 2: Retail prices in the market of al-Mahjam in 691/1292:

40

Item

Unit

Cost

beef

3 tamrī raṭl

1/4 dirham

goat

2 tamrī raṭl

1/4 dirham

lamb roast meat

1 + 1/2 tamrī raṭl 1 tamrī raṭl

1/4 dirham 1/4 dirham + 6 fils

bread (wheat)

1 tamrī raṭl

1/8 dirham

cane sugar

1 tamrī raṭl

1/4 + 1/8 dirham

white sugar

sukkarī mann

1 + 1/2 +1/4 dinars

caked sugar (qawālib)

1 tamrī raṭl

1/4 dirham + 2 fils

cane sweet (qiṭāra)

1 tamrī raṭl

1/6 dirham

dates

1 tamrī raṭl

1/4 dirham

sweets (ḥalwā)

1 tamrī raṭl

1/2 dirham

yogurt (qanbarīs)

1 tamrī raṭl

2 qīrāṭ

honey

1 sukkarī mann

2/3 dinar

bread pudding (harīs)

1 tamrī raṭl

6 fils

cheese

1 tamrī raṭl

5 qīrāṭ

onion

1 tamrī raṭl

6 fils

garlic

1 tamrī raṭl

1/8 dirham

ginger

1 tamrī raṭl

6 fils

almonds

1 tamrī raṭl

3/4 dirham

pomegranates

1 tamrī raṭl

1/6 dirham

tamarind

1 tamrī raṭl

6 fils

poppy

1 tamrī raṭl

1/4 + 1/8 dirham

starch (nashāʾ)

1 tamrī raṭl

5 qīrāṭ

soap

1 Baghdadi raṭl

1/4 dirham

silk (ordinary)

2 Baghdadi raṭl

1 dinar

This term is sometimes rendered as bahār, but the main lexicons, including Ibn Sīda’s, give it as buhār. The term is derived from India. 41 For details on the zabadī measure, see table 1.

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DANIEL MARTIN VARISCO

al-Muqammam silk (excellent quality)

1 mann

24 dinars

al-Bujāwī silk

1 mann

20 dinars

al-Khaṭāī [sic] silk

1 mann

18 dinars

al-Qumarī silk

1 mann

17 dinars

linen

1 Baghdadi raṭl

1/2 + 1/4 dinar

linen thread (good)

1 Baghdadi raṭl

2 dinars

line thread (medium)

1 Baghdadi raṭl

1 + 1/2 dinars

linen thread (poor)

1 Baghdadi raṭl

1 dinar

iron

buhār

30 dinars

Although this particular list does not mention sorghum (dhura), this grain was the staple in Yemen, along with millet (dukhn) in the coastal region.42 The wheat bread would have been made from wheat imported from the mountains, and most certainly local sorghum and millet bread would have been a better bargain in al-Mahjam. In another account for the same year, the price of wheat in al-Mahjam was a dinar for 3.5 zabadī of the best-quality wheat and a dinar for 3.75 zabadī of low-quality wheat. Both good- and medium-quality flour was a dinar for 3.5 zabadī.43 Lamb cost half as much as the equivalent amount of beef, reflecting the fact that sheep were far more numerous than cattle. If you were a vegetarian, probably not by choice at this time, you could buy a raṭl of dates for slightly less than your neighbor would pay for the same amount of roast meat. Locally grown pomegranates cost about the same as an equal weight of lamb. These would be more dear in Ta‘izz, since a camel load (ca. 120– 150 fruits) would cost 10 dirhams in transport fees (perhaps half this amount for poor-quality pomegranates). Given that ginger and onions cost the same per raṭl, it may be that onions were hard to come by or ginger was locally available in large quantities. There was ample supply of sugar and sweets, as well as honey, for which Yemen was famous.44

TRANSPORT COSTS As an illustration of the implications to be derived from historical reconstruction of Rasulid Yemen’s economy, consider the information provided on transport costs by camel (table 3) and by donkey or mule (table 4) between various points in Yemen in 691/1292. Although the basic trade routes are frequently mentioned in geographical sources, it is rare to find details on transport costs. Since most of these towns are well known, the distances between them can be calculated. The camel was clearly the transport beast of choice between the coastal zone and the southern highlands in the main areas under Rasulid control. Donkeys and mules appear to have been more suitable for the highland trade north from Ta‘izz to Dhamar and Sanaa in the central highlands. The towns mentioned also indicate the main regional distribution points at the time. Transportation costs by commodity are also provided in the manuscript; for example, transportation of a camel load of silk cloth cost 3 dirhams from Aden to the treasure town of al-Dumluwa and 5 dirhams if sent to Ta‘izz. 42

For details on sorghum in Rasulid Yemen, see Varisco, Medieval Agriculture and Islamic Science, pp. 165–174. Nūr al-maʿārif, vol. 2, p. 110. 44 For details on Yemeni honey at this time, see Varisco, Medieval Agriculture and Islamic Science, pp. 148–150. 43

NŪR AL-MAʿĀRIF

227

Table 3: Transport costs (ujar) by camel in ca. 129245: From

To

Cost (dirhams)

Aden

Abyan

1 +1/2

Aden

Laḥj

1/2 + 1/4

Aden

Zabid

8

al-Ḥarba?

al-Mazḥaf

1/2

al-Janad

al-Mafālis for madder (fuwa)

3

al-Kadrāʾ

al-Ḥarba?

1/4 + 1/8

al-Mafālis

Aden for madder

3

al-Mikhlāf

al-Janad per buhār for madder

1

Ta‘izz

Zabid

2

Zabid

Aden

8

Zabid

Baḥr al-Ahwāb

1/2 + 1/4

Zabid

al-Dumluwa

3 + 1/2

Zabid

Ḥaraḍ

5

Zabid

Ḥays

1

Zabid

al-Janad

3

Zabid

al-Juwwa

3 +1/2

Zabid

al-Mahjam

1+ 1/2

Zabid

al-Maḥālib

3

Zabid

al-Mawzaʿ

2

Zabid

al-Mikhlāf

4

Zabid

al-Nakhl

1/2

Zabid

Rimaʿ

1/2

Zabid

al-Qaḥma

1

Zabid

Ta‘izz

2

Table 4: Transport costs (ujar) by Donkey or Mule, (dawābb) in ca. 691/129246: From

45 46

To

Cost (dirhams)

Jibla

Dhamār

2

Jibla

al-Janad

1/2

Jibla

Sanaa

4

Jibla

Ta‘izz

1

Ta‘izz

Jibla

1

Ta‘izz

al-Mafālīs

1 +1/2

Nūr al-maʿārif, vol. 1, pp. 58–61. Nūr al-maʿārif, vol. 1, p. 61.

228

DANIEL MARTIN VARISCO

COMPARATIVE RASULID SOURCES Nūr al-maʿārif is not the only Rasulid resource for taxation and administrative details. The most complete list of tax revenues on agriculture for Rasulid Yemen is found in a text known as Irtifāʿ al-dawla al-Muʾayyadiyya, compiled for al-Malik al-Muʾayyad Dāwūd (d. 721/1321). The manuscript, currently housed in the national library of King Fahd in Riyadh, consists of 207 folios in excellent condition.47 There is no title page or colophon, but it is clearly a document prepared for the sultan. The contents of the text cover the main tax zones of the Rasulids in both the highlands and Tihāma, starting with Zabid, the major region of the most important wadi descending from the highlands to the Red Sea. The revenues from each district are recorded, including details on when grain varieties such as sorghum and dates were planted, when the land was prepared for planting, and when the crop estimate (misāḥa) was made. In addition to economic and administrative data, this text contains seventeen maps, including an amazingly accurate map of the realm.48 A second manuscript of texts compiled for the sultan al-Malik al-Afḍal al-ʿAbbās (d. 778/1377) has been published in facsimile under the title The Manuscript of al-Malik alAfḍal al-ʿAbbās b. ʿAlī b. Dāʾūd b. Yūsuf b. ʿUmar b. ʿAlī Ibn Rasūl.49 This unique manuscript consists of 542 pages, without either a title page or a colophon. Most of the text is in the same hand in professional naskhī; there are also a few marginal notes in the hand of the sultan al-Afḍal. Some Yemeni tax records can be found in the text, including a tax register by town for specific crops for AH 773 (1372 CE).50 In addition, there are several tax tables, including for the years 720 (1320–1321) and 767 (1365–1366).51 The numerous short texts, charts, and excerpts deal with administrative matters, agriculture, Arabic terminology, astrology, astronomy, biography, dream interpretation, genealogy, geography, grammar, Islam, medicine, protocol, time keeping, warfare, and zoology. The most important comparative source for both Nūr al-maʿārif and Irtifāʿ is the Mulakhkhaṣ al-fitan wa-l-albāb wa-miṣbāḥ al-hudā li-l-kuttāb of al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī al-Sharīf alḤusaynī (d. 815/1412).52 This administrative and tax document was compiled in 815/1412 for the sultan al-Malik al-Nāṣir Aḥmad (d. 1424), who gradually lost control of parts of the Rasulid domain to both the Zaydī imams and the rival Tahirids, who would end the Rasulid sultanate in 1449. Although revenues from the trade through the port of Aden continued to be impressive, the Red Sea port of Jeddah was becoming a more important entrepôt 47

For more details on the manuscript, see Muḥammad Jāzim (ed.), Irtifāʿ al-dawla al-Muʾayyadiyya, Sanaa: Centre français d’archeologie et de sciences sociales de Sanaa, 2008, pp. ix–xx, h–ṣ. 48 For details on this map, see Varisco, “Reading Rasulid Maps: An Early 14th Century Geographical Resource,” Der Islam 98/1(2021):100-152. 49 See Varisco and Smith, Manuscript of al-Malik al-Afḍal al-ʿAbbās, pp. 5–23 for details on the manuscript and its contents. 50 An English translation of the tax register for 773/1372 can be found in Daniel Martin Varisco, “A Royal Crop Register from Rasulid Yemen,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 34 (1991), pp. 1–22. 51 Varisco and Smith, Manuscript of al-Malik al-Afḍal al-ʿAbbās, pp. 148–149, 150, 267. 52 This unique manuscript is held in the Ambrosiana Library, Milan (H. 130). A brief description of the text is available in C. Cahen and R. B. Serjeant, “A Fiscal Survey of the Medieval Yemen,” Arabica 4 (1957), pp. 23–33, and a more detailed analysis of the text is provided by Rex Smith in his translation, A Medieval Administrative and Fiscal Treatise. Following earlier commentators, Smith thinks the manuscript is an autograph copy.

NŪR AL-MAʿĀRIF

229

because of Mamluk influence. One of the main contributions of this text is its description of more than fifteen specific departments of the Rasulid government. As Rex Smith notes, however, the treatise “may well represent a wistful looking back at better times, rather than an exact indication of the administrative and fiscal situation of the early ninth-fifteenth century.”53 The large list of commodities traded through Aden and other Rasulid ports adds to the tax details provided more than a century earlier in Nūr al-maʿārif.

CONCLUDING REMARKS The study of Rasulid Yemen began in earnest more than a century ago with the publication of al-ʿUqūd al-luʾluʾiyya (The pearl-strings) by the late fourteenth-century court historian alKhazrajī. The translator, Sir James Redhouse, was a well-known scholar of Ottoman language, who worked from a manuscript copy in the India Office Library and completed the work in 1888. Redhouse ignored much of the poetry and obituary notices in the text. It was not until 1906 that the first volume of the translation appeared in the Gibb Memorial Series, fourteen years after Redhouse’s death. The first volume of the Arabic edition was transcribed by an Egyptian, Shaykh Muhammad ʿAsal, and published in 1913. Neither Redhouse nor ʿAsal had firsthand knowledge of Yemen, so their editions are problematic, although often cited. The Yemeni scholar Muḥammad al-Akwaʿ produced his own Arabic edition in 1983.54 The Yemeni bibliophile ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥibshī published another edition in 2009 on the basis of a copy of the earlier manuscript in the India Office Library and a copy of a manuscript in the Western Library of the Great Mosque in Sanaa.55 Despite more than a century of access to one of the major Rasulid sources, there has been little Western scholarship on this era beyond the work of R. B. Serjeant, G. Rex Smith, and, most recently, Éric Vallet.56 It was not until the publication by Muḥammad Jāzim of both Nūr al-maʿārif and Irtifāʿ that the administrative and fiscal details of the Rasulid system could be properly assessed. There is still much work to be done on the extant range of texts from the Rasulid era, with the potential for more relevant manuscripts to appear in the future from the numerous private libraries in Yemen. Research on manuscripts from the Rasulid era is important beyond what it contributes to understanding the dynamics of this major Yemeni dynasty. The emphasis within this time period in Western scholarship has been on Mamluk studies, for which there are major resources at the University of Chicago57 and in the Mamluk Studies Program of the Annemarie Schimmel Kolleg in Bonn.58 The Mamluk period is of major importance for the

53

Smith, Medieval Administrative and Fiscal Treatise, p. 8. See note 13 above. 55 See note 13 above. Facsimiles of several pages of both manuscripts are given on pp. 26–32. 56 I published a detailed analysis of the almanac of al-Malik al-Ashraf ʿUmar in 1994 and several articles since then on Rasulid agriculture and astronomy. Studies of Rasulid astronomy have also been undertaken by David A. King and Petra Schmidl. A recent PhD thesis at the University of Vienna, by Magdalena Moorthy-Kloss, analyzes slavery during the Rasulid era. 57 http://mamluk.uchicago.edu/index.html. 58 https://www.mamluk.uni-bonn.de/. 54

230

DANIEL MARTIN VARISCO

events that took place in Egypt and Syria after the mid-thirteenth century, but the Mamluks’ relations with the Rasulids in Yemen have received little attention by Mamluk scholars. The Rasulid monarchs established their dynasty by taking over from the Ayyubids in Yemen some two decades before the Mamluks did the same in Egypt. During the early Baḥrī Mamluk period, the Rasulid sultans had considerable influence in Mecca.59 The lucrative trade of the Red Sea/Indian Ocean network was largely in the control of the Rasulids through their major port of Aden and their ships that protected trade in the Red Sea. Not surprisingly, Mamluk sources often portray the Rasulids as a vassal state, but in fact the Rasulid sultans were not subject to Mamluk dictates, especially during the reign of al-Malik al-Muẓaffar Yūsuf. The rule of both al-Muẓaffar and his father was authorized by the caliph in Baghdad. As Vallet argues, “Despite occasional proclamations of Mamluk power, available data leaves no room for doubt: the Rasulid sultanate continuously acted as an independent and sovereign power in its relations with the masters of Egypt and Syria, from the first embassies in the 660s/1260s until the last attested mission of a Mamluk envoy in Yemen in 829/1426.”60 With future research by scholars interested in the broad sweep of history centering on the trade through the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea, it is to be hoped that a more nuanced analysis of relations between the Rasulids and other regions will emerge.

59

See Éric Vallet, “Les sultans du Yémen protecteurs de La Mecque (XIIIe–XIVe siècle),” Comptes rendus de l’Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres, Jan–March 2017, pp. 211–232. 60 Éric Vallet, “Diplomatic Networks of Rasulid Yemen in Egypt (Seventh/Thirteenth to Early Ninth/Fifteenth Centuries),” Mamluk Cairo, a Crossroads for Embassies, ed. Frédéric Bauden and Malika Dekkiche, Leiden: Brill, 2019, pp. 581–604, here: p. 583.

NŪR AL-MAʿĀRIF

Figure 1. Folio 18a. Ship rental costs to various places.

231

232

DANIEL MARTIN VARISCO

Figure 2. Folio 87b. Crop yields for sorghum and wheat.

NŪR AL-MAʿĀRIF

Figure 3. Folio 176b. Numerical key for charts.

233

TOWARD A RECONSTRUCTION OF ʿABD ALLĀH B. ZAYD AL-ʿANSĪ’S OEUVRE AND THOUGHT 1

HASSAN ANSARI AND SABINE SCHMIDTKE The extant works of Ḥusām al-Dīn Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh b. Zayd b. Aḥmad b. Abī lKhayr al-ʿAnsī al-Madhḥijī (593–Shaʿbān 667/1196 or 1197–April 1269), a towering figure in seventh/thirteenth-century Yemen, illustrate the importance of the collections of manuscripts of Yemeni provenance in European libraries and the significance of the digital repatriation of this heritage, as well as the at times precarious situation of private manuscript collections in Yemen during the second half of the twentieth century. Besides alʿAnsī’s popular work on asceticism and morality, the K. al-Irshād ilā najāt al-ʿibād, which is preserved in countless manuscripts in the public and private libraries of Yemen as well as elsewhere (→ inventory, item 4), only a fraction of his oeuvre has come down to us. According to the later biographical tradition, this oeuvre originally comprised 105 titles.2 The Berlin State Library holds three multitext volumes containing several writings attributed to al-ʿAnsī, and for the majority of these works, the Berlin copy constitutes the only witness. All three codices are part of the collection of manuscripts that Eduard Glaser (1862–1919) 1

The present study continues our series of studies devoted to al-ʿAnsī. For previous studies in the series, see Hassan Ansari and Sabine Schmidtke, Studies in Medieval Islamic Intellectual Traditions, Atlanta: Lockwood Press, 2017, chapters 9, 10, 11, 12; Hassan Ansari and Sabine Schmidtke (eds.), Zaydī Theology in 7th/13th Century Yemen: Facsimile Edition of “Kitāb al-Maḥajja al-Bayḍā fī Uṣūl al-Dīn” of ʿAbd Allāh b. Zayd al-ʿAnsī (d. 667/1269) (MS Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod.arab. 1286), Tehran: Mīrāth-i Maktūb, 2016; Sabine Schmidtke, “Biblical Predictions of the Prophet Muḥammad among the Zaydis of Yemen (6th/12th and 7th/13th Centuries),” Orientalia Christiana Analecta 293 (2013), pp. 221–240. Thanks are due to the following libraries for providing us with digital copies of the codices referred to in this study and for granting us permission to include reproductions of selected images: in Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin–Preussischer Kulturbesitz; in Cairo, the Maʿhad al-Makhṭūṭāt al-ʿArabiyya; in Munich, the Bavarian State Library; in Sa‘da, Maktabat Āl al-Antharī; in Sanaa, Maktabat al-Awqāf and Muʾassasat al-Imām Zayd b. ʿAlī al-Thaqāfiyya (Imam Zayd bin Ali Cultural Foundation, IZbACF); in Vienna, the Austrian National Library. 2 Aḥmad b. Ṣāliḥ Ibn Abī l-Rijāl, Maṭlaʿ al-budūr wa-majmaʿ al-buḥūr fī tarājim rijāl al-Zaydiyya, ed. Majd al-Dīn b. Muḥammad b. Manṣūr al-Muʾayyadī, 4 vols., Sa‘da: Markaz Ahl al-Bayt li-l-Dirāsāt al-Islāmiyya, 2004, vol. 3, p. 82; Ibrāhīm b. al-Qāsim al-Shahārī, Ṭabaqāt al-Zaydiyya al-kubrā (al-qism al-thālith) wa-yusammā Bulūgh al-murād ilā maʿrifat al-isnād, ed. ʿAbd al-Salām b. ʿAbbās al-Wajīh, 3 vols., McLean, VA: Muʾassassat al-Imām Zayd b. ʿAlī alThaqāfiyya, 1421/2001, vol. 2, p. 612.

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sold to the State Library in February 1887: MS Glaser 79 (on which see below), MS Glaser 111 (→ inventory, items 1, 3), and MS Glaser 123 (→ inventory, items 6, 8, 10, 17). The Bavarian State Library in Munich holds two precious partial copies of al-ʿAnsī’s magnum opus in theology, al-Maḥajja al-bayḍāʾ (→ inventory, item 9), which were brought to Europe by Giuseppe Caprotti (1862–1926) and purchased by the library in 1902. These are, again, the only extant witnesses of those parts of the book. Another comprehensive work by al-ʿAnsī is his K. al-Tamyīz (→ inventory, item 20), his most detailed refutation of the Muṭarrifiyya,3 which he wrote toward the end of his life. A unique manuscript of the book was kept in the personal library of Muḥammad al-Sārī in Sanaa and at some point came to the attention of ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad al-Ḥibshī.4 At the latter’s initiative, the codex was included among the manuscripts that were microfilmed by one of the Egyptian missions to Yemen, which took place in 1951–1952, 1964, and 1974. Since that time, the physical original has been destroyed, and all that remains is the microfilm surrogate of the book. Over the past two decades, the writings attributed to al-ʿAnsī that are preserved in European collections have increasingly come to the attention of scholars worldwide. Several refutations of the Muṭarrifiyya that are preserved in two of the Berlin codices (MSS Glaser 79, 111) have been published by ʿAbd al-Ghanī Maḥmūd ʿAbd al-ʿĀṭī in his 2002 study on the Muṭarrifiyya (→ inventory, item 3, and the discussion on MS Glaser 79 below). Al-ʿAnsī’s al-Jawāb ʿalā l-faqīh Yūsuf b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Shāfiʿī (→ inventory, item 6) and al-Sirāj al-wahhāj (→ inventory, item 17) were published in 2016 and 2017 (2nd. ed. 2022) by Jamāl al-Shāmī as private publications. The two Munich codices containing significant portions of al-ʿAnsī’s alMaḥajja al-bayḍāʾ have been consulted for a number of publications, and the more complete of the two, Cod. arab. 1286, was published as facsimile with introduction and indices.5 An edition of al-ʿAnsī’s collected epistles, currently under preparation by al-Qāsim b. al-Ḥasan al-Sarrājī, has been announced,6 and it is likely that Muḥammad b. Sharaf al-Dīn b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥusaynī’s recently published Maṣādir ʿilm al-kalām al-zaydī contains further information on al-ʿAnsī’s dogmatic writings.7 A thorough analysis of al-ʿAnsī’s doctrinal thought remains, however, a desideratum, and the identity and authenticity of some of the writings that are attributed to him still need to be established.

3

For the Muṭarrifiyya, see below. ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad al-Ḥibshī, Maṣādir al-fikr al-islāmī fī l-Yaman, Abu Dhabi: al-Majmaʿ al-Thaqāfī, 2004, p. 124. Nothing is known about the holdings of this library, which is known only by name; see Sabine Schmidtke, “Preserving, Studying, and Democratizing Access to the World Heritage of Islamic Manuscripts: The Zaydī Tradition,” Chroniques du manuscrit au Yémen 23 [n.s., 4] (2017), pp. 103–166, here p. 157. 5 See above, n. 1. The first scholar to have consulted al-ʿAnsī’s Maḥajja in the Bavarian State Library was Wilferd Madelung, who briefly mentions the work and its author in his 1965 monograph as an example of a later Zaydi theologian who occasionally preferred the views of Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī (d. 436/1044) over those of the Bahshamiyya; see Wilferd Madelung, Der Imam al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhīm und die Glaubenslehre der Zaiditen, Berlin: de Gruyter, 1965, pp. 222, 254. 6 See ʿAbd al-Salām b. ʿAbbās al-Wajīh, Aʿlām al-muʾallifīn al-Zaydiyya, 2nd enl. and rev. ed., 2 vols., Sanaa: Dār alImām Zayd b. ʿAlī, 1439/2018, vol. 1, p. 572. 7 Sharaf al-Dīn b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥusaynī, Maṣādir ʿilm al-kalām al-zaydī: Bibliyūghrāfiyya li-l-maṭbūʿ wa-l-makhṭūṭ ḥattā q[arn] 9h/15m, Kuwait: Dār Fāris, 2021. We were unable to consult this publication. 4

TOWARDS A RECONSTRUCTION OF ʿABD ALLĀH B. ZAYD AL-ʿANSĪ’S OEUVRE AND THOUGHT

Figure 1. MS Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod. arab. 1273 (title page of volume two of al-ʿAnsī’s al-Maḥajja al-bayḍāʾ).

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Figure 2. MS Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod. arab. 1273, fol. 152v (final page of volume two of al-ʿAnsī’s al-Maḥajja al-bayḍāʾ, with colophon).

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Figure 3. MS Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod. Arab. 1286, fol. 225v (final page of volume two of al-ʿAnsī’s al-Maḥajja al-bayḍāʾ, with colophon).

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SOURCES FOR THE RECONSTRUCTION OF AL-ʿANSĪ’S OEUVRE The earliest attested instances of reception of al-ʿAnsī’s works date back to the generation of his immediate students. Al-ʿAnsī’s nephew, Muḥammad b. Asʿad b. Zayd al-ʿAnsī, transcribed the two Munich copies of al-ʿAnsī’s Maḥajja. Cod. arab. 1273, comprising parts 2, 3, and 4, is dated 20 Rabīʿ II 640/17 October 1242 (figs. 1, 2), the same day given by al-ʿAnsī as the date of the work’s completion. This indicates that al-ʿAnsī dictated the work to his nephew. A year later, on 14 Rabīʿ II 641/1 October 1243, Muḥammad b. Asʿad completed another copy of parts 1 through 4 of the Maḥajja (Cod. arab. 1286; fig. 3). In view of the close relationship between uncle and nephew, it is likely that Muḥammad b. Asʿad studied with al-ʿAnsī.8 Muḥammad b. Jābir al-Rāʿī was another pupil of al-ʿAnsī. He is credited with two works on legal theory, Hidāyat al-mustarshidīn and Taḥrīr al-uṣūl, both of which seem to be lost. In his Hidāya Muḥammad b. Jābir is said to have relied heavily on al-ʿAnsī’s writings (most probably his K. al-Taḥrīr [→ inventory, item 18] and/or his al-Durra al-manẓūma [→ inventory, item 2]) and to have included numerous quotations from them.9 The brothers al-Mufaḍḍal b. Manṣūr b. al-ʿAfīf (d. 682/1283)10 and Yaḥyā b. Manṣūr b. al-ʿAfīf, who were descendants of al-Nāṣir Aḥmad b. al-Hādī ilā l-Ḥaqq (d. 304/916), are also mentioned among the pupils of al-ʿAnsī. Yaḥyā b. Manṣūr is credited with several dogmatic works, most importantly the popular Jumal al-Islām fī uṣūl al-dīn, on which he wrote an autocommentary, Nihāyat al-ʿuqūl al-kāshifa li-maʿānī al-Jumal fī l-uṣūl.11 Like his teacher al-ʿAnsī, 8

Muḥammad b. Asʿad was otherwise mostly known as a scribe. For copies of manuscripts in his hand that have come down to us, see Ansari and Schmidtke, Studies in Medieval Islamic Intellectual Traditions, pp. 234–235 and passim. Al-ʿAnsī’s son, al-Ḥasan b. ʿAbd Allāh (fl. 689/1290), who is said to have been a scholar (ʿālim), also studied with his father; on him, see Ibn Abī l-Rijāl, Maṭlaʿ al-budūr, vol. 2, p. 57 no. 400. See also below. 9 Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn, al-Mustaṭāb fī tarājim rijāl al-Zaydiyya al-aṭyāb, MS Sanaa, Maktabat Muḥammad b. Muḥammad al-Manṣūr, fol. 83v (a digital surrogate is accessible through the Zaydi Manuscript Tradition Project, ZMT [= ZMT 01339] at Hill Museum & Manuscript Library; https://w3id.org/vhmml/readingRoom/view/144249 [accessed 25 January 2022]). See also Ibn Abī l-Rijāl, Maṭlaʿ al-budūr, vol. 4, p. 230 no. 1120; vol. 4, pp. 513–514 no. 1369; al-Shahārī, Ṭabaqāt, vol. 2, p. 942 no. 587; al-Ḥibshī, Maṣādir, p. 179; al-Wajīh, Aʿlām, vol. 2, pp. 227–228 no. 1110. For the Āl al-Rāʿī, see also Ibrāhīm Aḥmad al-Maqḥafī, Mawsūʿat al-alqāb al-yamaniyya, 7 vols., Beirut: alMuʾassasa al-Jāmiʿiyya li-l-Dirāsāt wa-l-Nashr wa-l-Tawzīʿ, 1431/2010, vol. 2, pp. 381–382. 10 On him, see Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn, Mustaṭāb, fols. 84r–v; Ibn Abī l-Rijāl, Maṭlaʿ al-budūr, vol. 4, pp. 425–426 no. 1262. 11 According to Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn (Mustaṭāb, fols. 84v–85r), Yaḥyā b. Manṣūr also composed a comprehensive book entitled al-Ṣirāṭ al-mustaqīm, containing a refutation of the Muʿtazila. See also Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Shāmī, Tārīkh al-Yaman al-fikrī fī l-ʿaṣr al-ʿabbāsī 132–656h/750–1259m, 4 vols., Beirut: Manshūrāt al-ʿAṣr al-Ḥadīth, 1407/1987, vol. 4, p. 126 no. 98; al-Ḥibshī, Maṣādir, p. 125. Al-Murtaḍā’s son, Muḥammad b. al-Murtaḍā (d. 732/1331– 32), is also related to have written a commentary on Yaḥyā b. Manṣūr’s Jumal al-Islām. See Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn, Mustaṭāb, fol. 84v; al-Wajīh, Aʿlām, vol. 2, p. 337; al-Ḥibshī, Maṣādir, p. 127. For Yaḥyā b. Manṣūr b. al-ʿAfīf, see Yaḥyā b. alḤusayn, Mustaṭāb, fols. 84v–85r; Ibn Abī l-Rijāl, Maṭlaʿ al-budūr, vol. 4, pp. 513–515 no. 1369; see also ʿAbd al-Malik b. Aḥmad b. Qāsim Ḥamīd al-Dīn, al-Rawḍ al-aghann fī maʿrifat al-muʾallifīn bi-l-Yaman wa-muṣannafātihim fī kull fann, 3 vols., n.p.: Dār al-Ḥārithī, 1415/1994–95, vol. 3, pp. 173–174 no. 928; al-Wajīh, Aʿlām, vol. 2, p. 482. Jamāl al-Shāmī has published an uncritical edition of the Jumal on the basis of a single witness of the text, copied by Ḥasan b. Mahdī b. Muḥammad al-Muhallā and dated 2 Dhū l-Ḥijja 1063/24 October 1653 (Yaḥyā b. Manṣūr b. al-ʿAfīf, Jumal al-Islām wa-uṣūl dīn Muḥammad ʿalayhi afḍal al-ṣalāt wa-l-salām, ed. Jamāl al-Shāmī, [private publication], 1438/2016); for a surrogate of the manuscript, MS Mecca, Maktabat Jāmiʿat Umm al-Qurāʾ 13613, pp. 77–96, see https://dorar.uqu.edu.sa/uquui/handle/20.500.12248/105653 (accessed 2 January 2022). The physical codex is kept

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in the library of Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl al-Manṣūr in Sanaa; the multitext volume comprises nine texts, eight of which are briefly described in the unpublished list of manuscript surrogates that were prepared for Riḍwān al-Sayyid during his sojourn in Sanaa, 1989 through 1991; see “al-Makhṭūṭāt al-Yamaniyya: Hiya majmūʿa min al-rasāʾil al-khaṭṭiyya allatī qāma bi-taṣwīrihā al-Duktūr Riḍwān al-Sayyid athnāʾa tadrīsihi fī Jāmiʿat Ṣanʿāʾ fī tisʿīniyyāt al-qarn al-māḍī min maktabāt khāṣṣa,” nos. 1, 23, 79, 166, 213 (Jumal), 295, 319, 359. The list is accessible at https://baroudipublishing.files.wordpress.com/2019/01/d985d8b5d988d8b1d8a7d8aad8a7d984d985d8aed8b7d988d8b7d8a7d8aad8a7d984d98ad985d98ad986d8a921-10-2015.pdf (accessed 6 January 2022). Another copy of the Jumal al-Islām is preserved as MS Sanaa, Maktabat al-Awqāf, majāmiʿ 49, fols. 21–24, copied by al-Mahdī b. Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh alMuhallā (d. 1070/1659) and dated Shawwāl 1063/August–September 1653; see Aḥmad ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ruqayḥī, ʿAbd al-Allāh al-Ḥibshī, and ʿAlī Wahhāb al-Ānisī, Fihrist makhṭūṭāt Maktabat al-Jāmiʿ al-kabīr Ṣanʿā, [Sanaa]: Wizārat al-Awqāf wa-l-Irshād, 1404/1984, vol. 2, pp. 738–739. It is possible that the two copyists, al-Mahdī b. Muḥammad and Ḥasan b. al-Mahdī, are father and son and that the two copies are also related to each other. For al-Mahdī b. Muḥammad al-Muhallā, see al-Wajīh, Aʿlām, vol. 2, pp. 388–389 no. 1340. A particularly precious copy that seems to date to 725/1325 is part of a multitext volume that also includes the autocommentary, Nihāyat al-ʿuqūl. The codex, which was not accessible to us, is held in Maktabat al-Murtaḍā b. ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUthmān al-Wazīr in Hijrat al-Sirr; see ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad al-Ḥibshī, Fihris makhṭūṭāt baʿḍa l-maktabāt al-khāṣṣa fī l-Yaman, London: Muʾassasat al-Furqān li-l-Turāth al-Islāmī, 1994, p. 49; ʿAbd al-Salām b. ʿAbbās al-Wajīh, Maṣādir al-turāth fī l-maktabāt al-khāṣṣa fī lYaman, 2 vols., McLean, VA: Muʾassasat al-Imām Zayd b. ʿAlī al-Thaqāfiyya, 1422/2002, vol. 2, p. 382; see also al-Wajīh, Aʿlām, vol. 2, p. 482. Another witness of the Jumal al-Islām is preserved as MS Sanaa, Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt/al-Maktaba al-Gharbiyya 3096, fols. 107–113, transcribed by Ibrāhīm b. Saʿīd b. Fayṣal b. Yaḥyā b. Aḥmad b. ʿAlī al-Ward al-Sūdī al-Ḥimyarī al-Wasīlī (or al-Washilī) and dated 9 Jumādā I 1035/6 February 1626. For a description of the manuscript, see Aḥmad Muḥammad ʿĪsawī et al., Fihris al-makhṭūṭāt al-yamaniyya li-Dār al-makhṭūṭāt wa-l-Maktaba al-gharbiyya bi-l-Jāmiʿ al-kabīr, Ṣanʿāʾ, Qum: Maktabat Samāḥat Āyat Allāh al-ʿUẓmā al-Marʿashī al-Najafī al-Kubrā, 1426/1384/2005, vol. 1, p. 286. The same codex (fols. 115–136) also contains Yaḥyā’s autocommentary, Nihāyat alʿuqūl al-kāshifa li-maʿānī al-Jumal fī l-uṣūl (in contrast to the Jumal, we were unable to consult this copy of the Nihāya); see ʿĪsawī et al., Fihris (2005), vol. 1, p. 412; see also al-Ḥibshī, Maṣādir, p. 125 (citing an older shelf mark, 1328); al-Wajīh, Aʿlām, vol. 2, p. 482 (citing yet another shelf mark, 169 majāmiʿ). MS Sanaa, Maktabat al-Awqāf, majāmiʿ 10, fols. 1r–18v contains some kind of taʿlīq on the Jumal al-Islām. According to the title page, the codex was part of the library of Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn, and it is possible that he was also the copyist of the taʿlīq, which is identified on the title page as Kitāb Mukhtaṣar fī maʿrifat dīn al-Islām jāmiʿ li-l-jumal wa-l-uṣūl min millat Muḥammad ʿalayhi alsalām taʾlīf al-Sayyid al-ʿAllāma al-Fāḍil Yaḥyā b. Manṣūr b. Muḥammad al-ʿAfīf. The text concludes with tamma Kitāb Jumal al-Islām li-l-Sayyid al-ʿAllāma | Yaḥyā b. Manṣūr b. al-ʿAfīf | nuqila ʿalā nuskhat al-Sayyid Yaḥyā b. Manṣūr | almuṣannif. Compared with the text of Jumal al-Islām, the Mukhtaṣar is clearly more detailed. The title page as well as the final words of the text point to Yaḥyā b. Manṣūr as its author. Moreover, paragraphs are regularly introduced by qāla raḥimahu llāh, clearly an addition by a later scribe rather than a commentator, since this formula is never followed by aqūlu. The text is therefore either identical with Yaḥyā b. Manṣūr’s Nihāyat al-ʿuqūl or it represents an expanded version of his Jumal al-Islām. The son of al-ʿAnsī’s own teacher Badr al-Dīn Muḥammad, al-amīr al-Ḥusayn b. Badr al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā (599–663/1202 or 1203–1264 or 1265), was likewise a student of al-ʿAnsī. This renowned jurist and theologian wrote the popular Yanābiʿ al-naṣīḥa fī l-ʿaqāʾid al-ṣaḥīḥa in the field of kalām (ed. al-Murtaḍā b. Zayd alMaḥaṭwarī al-Ḥasanī, Sanaa: Dār al-Ḥikma al-Yamaniyya, 1418/1998; 2nd ed. Sanaa: Maktabat Badr, 1422/2001), and in the area of fiqh, his Shifāʾ al-uwām fī aḥādīth al-aḥkām li-l-tamyīz bayna l-ḥalāl wa-l-ḥarām (Sanaa: Jamʿiyyat ʿUlamāʾ al-Yaman, 1416/1996) was widely read. He specifically states that he received an ijāza from al-ʿAnsī for the transmission of Zawāʾid al-Ibāna, a set of glosses by various scholars from northern Iran on the Ibāna fī l-fiqh, a collection of fatāwā of al-Nāṣir li-l-Ḥaqq al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī al-Uṭrūsh (d. 304/917) compiled by Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad b. Yaʿqūb al-Hawsamī (fl. mid-fifth/eleventh century; see al-Shahārī, Ṭabaqāt, vol. 1, p. 386). Al-ʿAnsī,

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Yaḥyā b. Manṣūr is said to have endorsed the doctrinal views of the ahl al-bayt, which he considered to be largely in agreement with those of Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī, and to have opposed those who followed the teachings of the Bahshamiyya.12 Al-Murtaḍā b. alMufaḍḍal al-Wazīr (d. 732/1331), the son of al-Mufaḍḍal b. Manṣūr,13 and ʿAlī b. Aḥmad b. ʿAlī b. Salāma al-Ṣuraymī, the redactor of the legal fatāwī of Imam al-Mahdī Aḥmad b. alḤusayn (“Abū l-Ṭayr,” d. 656/1258),14 transcribed in 718/1318–19 a copy of volume three of al-ʿAnsī’s most comprehensive theological summa, al-Maḥajja al-bayḍāʾ (→ inventory,

in turn, transmitted al-Hawsamī’s Ibāna and one of his commentaries on the work through the prominent Zaydi scholar and transmitter Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. al-Qāsim al-Akwaʿ (Shuʿla al-Akwaʿ), who in Rajab 644/November 1246 granted him an ijāza that includes “K. al-Ibāna wa-sharḥuhu”; see Ansari and Schmidtke, Studies in Medieval Islamic Intellectual Traditions, chapter 9. Al-Ḥusayn b. Badr al-Dīn Muḥammad was also a supporter of Imam alMahdī Aḥmad b. al-Ḥusayn, as is indicated by a poem he composed in praise of the latter (quoted in Ibn Abī lRijāl, Maṭlaʿ al-budūr, vol. 2, pp. 215–217 no. 490, here p. 216). Moreover, in response to a question posed by alMuṭahhar b. Yaḥyā and Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Abī l-Rijāl (on whom see below), al-Ḥusayn b. Badr al-Dīn wrote a detailed account of the dispute between Aḥmad b. al-Ḥusayn and his opponents, especially Aḥmad al-Raṣṣāṣ. This unique and so far unpublished source (figs. 6, 7) is preserved at the end of a copy of al-Ḥusayn’s Shifāʾ aluwām and is dated 1032/1622–23 (fig. 5). The same copy includes on its title page (fig. 4) a list of al-Ḥusayn’s writings containing some titles that are not mentioned elsewhere, including two refutations of the Muṭarrifiyya, entitled Kitāb al-Barāhīn al-qawiyya fī l-radd ʿalā l-Muṭarrifiyya al-shaqiyya and Kitāb Niẓām durar al-aqwāl alnabawiyya fī bayān kufr al-Muṭarrifiyya al-shaqiyya. This copy of the Shifāʾ (among the numerous extant manuscripts of the text) was not consulted by any of the Zaydi biobibliographers, none of whom lists all the titles mentioned on its title page. Information about al-ʿAnsī’s study with Badr al-Dīn in Rabīʿ II 615/June–July 1218 is provided in a note include in al-Maswarī’s Majmūʿ al-ijāzāt (p. 469) on al-ʿAnsī’s transmission of the ḥadīth al-ṣamṣama: ‫�ديث الصمصمة ذ��ه الفقيه الع��مة ��ر ا���ن ��دة ا��و�د�ن عبد ا�� ّٰ� �ن ز�� �ن أ�ي ا����� �ن أ��د العن�� ر��ة ا�� ّٰ� �ليه �ي ما رواه عن شي�ه السيد‬ ‫ال�� يف ا��م�� العا�� الورع ا��اهد عضد ا����فة النبو ية وشيخ الع��ة الفاطمية ��ر ا���ن ا��ا�ي إ�ى ا��ق ا��ب�ن ���د �ن أ��د �ن ��يى �ن ��يى �ن ��يى �ن‬ ‫ا��س�ن ا��ادي إ�ى ا��ق �ل��م الس��م فيما قرأه �ليه وناو�� ��جرة قطا�� ����ا ا�� ّٰ� تعا�ى من ��ه الطاهرة إ�ى ��ه يوم الثلثاء لسبع ليال ���ن من ��ر ربيع‬ . . . ‫ا���� من ��ور سنة ��س ع��ة و���ائة قال عبد ا�� ّٰ� �ن ز�� ر��ه ا�� ّٰ� وقد �دّد هنا ما لفظه وم��ا ��� ا��سلس��ت قرأة ً �ليه‬ For Badr al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā b. Yaḥyā (d. 624/1227), see also Ibn Abī l-Rijāl, Maṭlaʿ al-budūr, vol. 4, p. 174 no. 1082; al-Shahārī, Ṭabaqāt, vol. 2, pp. 909–912 no. 560. 12 See Ibn Abī l-Rijāl, Maṭlaʿ al-budūr, vol. 4, p. 515. See also below for a discussion of the doctrinal views of al-ʿAnsī and his followers. 13 On al-Murtaḍā b. al-Mufaḍḍal, see Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn, Mustaṭāb, fol. 84r; Ibn Abī l-Rijāl, Maṭlaʿ al-budūr, vol. 4, pp. 407–409 no. 1241; al-Shahārī, Ṭabaqāt, vol. 2, pp. 1118–1120 no. 701; al-Wajīh, Aʿlām, vol. 2, pp. 366–367 no. 1302; al-Ḥibshī, Maṣādir, p. 127. For the members of the Āl al-Wazīr, see al-Hādī b. Ibrāhīm b. ʿAlī al-Wazīr alṢanʿānī, Thabt (or Thabat) Banī l-Wazīr, ed. Zayd b. ʿAlī al-Wazīr, Sanaa: Markaz al-Turāth wa-l-Buḥūth al-Yamanī, 1441/2020. This work is crucial for an in-depth analysis of the development of doctrinal thought among the members of the al-Wazīr family, as well as their biographies. The edition, which is based on a unique copy in the Maktabat al-Awqāf in Sanaa, was not accessible to us during the preparation of this study. 14 Al-Mufīd al-jāmiʿ li-manẓūmāt gharāʾib al-sharāʾiʿ. The work was accessible to us through MS London, British Library, Or. 3811, dated Jumādā II 688/June–July 1289; see Charles Rieu, Supplement to the Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts in the British Museum, London 1894, pp. 221–222 no. 346. For the work, see also al-Ḥibshī, Maṣādir, p. 631. For Imam al-Mahdī Aḥmad b. al-Ḥusayn, see below. ʿAlī b. Salāma al-Ṣuraymī also transcribed in 659/1260– 61 a copy of al-Qamar al-munīr fī ʿuqūd al-Taḥrīr of Jamāl al-Dīn ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn b. Yaḥyā b. Yaḥyā. For a surrogate of the manuscript (held in the Maktabat al-Awqāf) in the Maʿhad al-Makhṭūṭāt al-ʿArabiyya, see http://196.218.25.164/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=116983 (accessed 7 January 2022).

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Figure 4. MS Yemen, private library (al-Ḥusayn b. Badr al-Dīn, Shifāʾ al-uwām; title page).

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Figure 5. MS Yemen, private library (al-Ḥusayn b. Badr al-Dīn, Shifāʾ al-uwām; end of text).

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Figure 6. MS Yemen, private library (al-Ḥusayn b. Badr al-Dīn, Shifāʾ al-uwām; addition at the end of the codex).

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Figure 7. MS Yemen, private library (al-Ḥusayn b. Badr al-Dīn, Shifāʾ al-uwām; addition at the end of the codex [cont.]).

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Figure 8. Microfilm, Cairo, Maʿhad al-Makhṭūṭāt al-ʿArabiyya, 32 (Ishrāq al-iṣbāḥ fī faḍāʾil al-khamsa al-ashbāḥ, by Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. Yaḥyā b. Nizār al-Ṣanʿānī, title page).

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Figure 9. Microfilm, Cairo, Maʿhad al-Makhṭūṭāt al-ʿArabiyya, 32 (Ishrāq al-iṣbāḥ fī faḍāʾil al-khamsa al-ashbāḥ, by Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. Yaḥyā b. Nizār al-Ṣanʿānī, end of text).

Figure 10. Microfilm, Cairo, Maʿhad al-Makhṭūṭāt al-ʿArabiyya, 32 (Ishrāq al-iṣbāḥ fī faḍāʾil al-khamsa al-ashbāḥ, by Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. Yaḥyā b. Nizār al-Ṣanʿānī, end of text [cont.]).

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Figure 11 (left). MS Ṣanʿāʾ, Maktabat al-Awqāf 768, fol. 1r (title page of al-Murtaḍā b. al-Mufaḍḍal’s Bayān alawāmir al-mujmala fī wujūb ṭāʿat ulī l-amr). Figure 12 (right). MS Ṣanʿāʾ, Maktabat al-Awqāf 768, fol. 55v (final page of al-Murtaḍā b. al-Mufaḍḍal’s Bayān al-awāmir al-mujmala fī wujūb ṭāʿat ulī l-amr).

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Figure 13. MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Petermann I 225 (Muḥammad Jawād al-Shīrāzī’s al-Kawākib al-muḍiʿa, title page).

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item 9). Al-Murtaḍā b. al-Mufaḍḍal also consulted al-ʿAnsī’s most comprehensive refutation of the Muṭarrifiyya, the K. al-Tamyīz, when writing his Bayān al-awāmir al-mujmala fī wujūb ṭāʿat ulī l-amr wa-farḍ al-masʾala.15 That some of al-ʿAnsī’s works, including alMaḥajja al-bayḍāʾ, remained in the possession of a branch of the Āl al-Wazīr is indicated by regular references to the Maḥajja and to al-ʿAnsī’s otherwise lost work on legal theory, alDurra al-manẓūma fī uṣūl al-fiqh, in some of the writings of Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm al-Wazīr (775–840/1374–1436).16 Moreover, Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm al-Wazīr’s teacher ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Ḥasan b. ʿAṭiyya al-Dawwārī (715–800/1315–1379)17 added a margin note to one of the two Munich codices of the Maḥajja (Cod. arab. 1286), and there is additional evidence that the codex remained in the possession of the Dawwārī family in Saʿda for several generations. The twelfth/eighteenth-century scholar ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAlī al-Wazīr (d. 1147/1735), who mentions al-ʿAnsī in his Ṭubuq al-ḥalwā wa-ṣaḥāʾif al-mann wa-l-salwā, praises him as ʿallāmat al-Zaydiyya wa-shīʿatihā and labels him ṣāḥib al-Maḥajja al-bayḍāʾ, yet another indication that al-ʿAnsī’s Maḥajja continued to be available to some of the members of the Āl al-Wazīr.18 That al-ʿAnsī’s Maḥajja also circulated beyond the Āl al-Wazīr is indicated by the Ishrāq al-iṣbāḥ fī faḍāʾil al-khamsa al-ashbāḥ by the eighth/fourteenthcentury Zaydi scholar Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. Yaḥyā b. Nizār al-Ṣanʿānī.19 At the end of the work, which is preserved in two manuscripts (including his holograph; figs. 8, 9, 10), the author lists his sources, which include al-ʿAnsī’s Irshād and Maḥajja. Since the Ishrāq al-iṣbāḥ is concerned with the imāma, it is possible that Ibn Nizār had access only to the

15

See al-Wajīh, Aʿlām, vol. 2, p. 367; al-Hibshī, Fihrist, p. 42; and al-Ḥibshī, Maṣādir, p. 127 for copies of the K. alBayān. Extensive quotations from the K. al-Bayān are included in al-Hādī b. Ibrāhīm al-Wazīr’s (758–822/1357 or 1358–1419) Hidāyat al-rāghibīn ilā madhhab al-ʿitra al-ṭayyibīn, ed. Muḥammad Ḥasan Muḥammad Ḥasan Ismāʿīl, Beirut: n.p., 2007, pp. 18–22, 25–26, 28–34, 34–35, 46–48. The quotations include references to al-ʿAnsī (p. 47) and, on one occasion, to his Tamyīz (p. 25). The K. al-Bayān was accessible to us as MS Sanaa, Maktabat al-Awqāf 768 (dated Rabīʿ II 717/June–July 1317), a holograph that was part of al-Murtaḍā b. al-Mufaḍḍal’s library and later passed to his son ʿAlī b. al-Murtaḍā (see colophon and ʿAlī’s ownership statement on fol. 55v; figs. 11, 12). The references to al-ʿAnsī and his Tamyīz in the Bayān as quoted in al-Hādī b. Ibrāhīm al-Wazīr’s Hidāya are found in the margin glosses of this manuscript at fols. 28r, 47v. The relation between the main text and the margin glosses still needs to be investigated in depth. Another manuscript of a work by al-Murtaḍā b. al-Mufaḍḍal that was transcribed during his lifetime and may also constitute a holograph is a copy of his al-Naṣīḥa al-fakhriyya wa-lmawʿiẓa al-durriyya, dated 711/1311–12, which is kept in the library of a branch of the Āl al-Wazīr in Hijrat al-Sirr; see al-Ḥibshī, Fihris, p. 61 no. 111; al-Wajīh, Maṣādir, vol. 2, p. 402. Al-Hādī b. Ibrāhīm al-Wazīr also refers in his Nihāyat al-tanwīh fī izhāq al-tamwīh (p. 81) to al-juzʾ al-thālith of al-ʿAnsī’s Maḥajja, evidently a reference in this context to the book’s section on the imamate. 16 On him, see Damaris Wilmers, Beyond Schools: Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm al-Wazīr’s (d. 840/1436) Epistemology of Ambiguity, Leiden: Brill, 2018. On one occasion, Ibn al-Wazīr (in al-Rawḍ al-bāsim, ed. Muḥammad ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn alMiṣrī, Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1419/1999, p. 41) praises al-ʿAnsī as ʿālim al-Zaydiyya wa-muṣannifuhum waʿābiduhum wa-thiqatuhum ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Zayd al-ʿAnsī. 17 On him, see al-Wajīh, Aʿlām, vol. 1, pp. 549–550 no. 696; Wilmers, Beyond Schools, pp. 21ff. and passim. 18 ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAlī al-Wazīr, Tārīkh ṭubuq al-ḥalwā wa-ṣiḥāf al-mann wa-l-salwā al-maʿrūf bi-Tārīkh al-Yaman khilāl al-qarn al-ḥādī ʿashar al-hijrī (1045h/1090m), ed. Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Raḥīm Jāzim, Sanaa: Markaz al-Dirāsāt wa-lBuḥūth al-Yamanī, 1428–29/2007–2008, p. 295. 19 For this scholar, about whom not much is known, see Ibn Abī l-Rijāl, Maṭlaʿ al-budūr, vol. 1, pp. 187–188 no. 56; al-Wajīh, Aʿlām, vol. 1, p. 80 no. 37.

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part of the Maḥajja that addresses this topic.20 Numerous references to and quotations from the Maḥajja are also included in the K. al-Shams al-munīra al-zahrāʾ fī taḥqīq baḥth mā adkhalahu l-kuffār dārahum qahran wa-mā yattaṣilu min farāʾid al-fawāʾid by al-Ḥusayn b. Nāṣir b. ʿAbd al-Ḥafīẓ b. ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Muhallā al-Sharafī (d. 1111/1699).21 Al-ʿAnsī’s K. al-Irshād (→ inventory, item 4) remained popular until the contemporary period, as indicated by the numerous manuscript copies of the work produced until the twentieth century. Moreover, Muḥammad b. ʿAlī al-Shawkānī (1173/1759–1255/1839) included the book in his Itḥāf al-akābir bi-isnād al-dafātir among the titles that he considered part of the Zaydi curriculum and that he himself transmitted,22 and it is regularly studied in religious seminaries in Yemen until today.23 The thirteenth/nineteenth-century Iranian Imami scholar Muḥammad Jawād al-Shīrāzī, author of a refutation of Zaydism from an Imāmī perspective entitled al-Kawākib al-muḍiʿa li-l-shīʿa al-marḍiyya fī qiyām al-ḥujaj al-Imāmiyya ʿalā firaq al-Zaydiyya consulted al-ʿAnsī’s Irshād, suggesting that a copy of the work was accessible in Iran already in the nineteenth century. In one of the extant witnesses of the K. alKawākib—MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Petermann I 225—the Irshād is mentioned

20

The holograph, which was microfilmed by members of the delegation of the Maʿhad al-Makhṭūṭāt al-ʿArabiyya to Yemen on 3 September 1974, was at the time part of the Maktabat al-Sayyid Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl alMuṭahhar in Sanaa; see the brief handwritten description at the beginning of the microfilm. For the work and its author, see Hassan Ansari, “Yik kitāb wa yik ijāza,” Barrasī-hā-yi tārīkhī, http://ansari.kateban.com/post/3509 (accessed 25 January 2022). It is noteworthy that Ibn Nizār also lists among his sources the K. Nahj al-ḥaqq by the Imāmī scholar al-Ḥasan b. Yūsuf b. al-Muṭahhar al-Ḥillī (d. 726/1325), which he erroneously assumes to be an alternative title for the latter’s K. al-Alfayn. 21 We consulted the work through a surrogate, MS Mecca, Maktabat Jāmiʿat Umm al-Qurāʾ 13613, pp. 36, 46, 51, 52, 58, 60. For the code x, which also contains Yaḥyā b. Mufaḍḍal’s Jumal al-Islām, see https://dorar.uqu.edu.sa/uquui/handle/20.500.12248/105653 (accessed 2 January 2022); here, selected images from the K. al-Shams al-munīra are accessible. For al-Ḥusayn b. Nāṣir al-Muhallā al-Sharafī, see al-Wajīh, Aʿlām, vol. 1, pp. 395–397 no. 465; al-Ḥibshī, Maṣādir, pp. 153–154; see also ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad al-Ḥūthī’s introduction to his edition of al-Ḥusayn b. Nāṣir al-Muhallā’s Maṭmaḥ al-āmāl fī īqāẓ jahalat al-ʿummāl min sinat al-ḍalāl, ed. ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad al-Ḥūthī, Sanaa: Maktabat al-Imām Zayd b. ʿAlī, 1422/2002. For the al-Muhallā family, which hailed from Shijʿa, see also Ismāʿīl b. ʿAlī al-Akwaʿ, Hijar al-ʿilm wa-maʿāqiluhu fī l-Yaman, 6 vols., Beirut: Dār al-Fikr al-Muʿāṣir, 1424/2003, vol. 2, pp. 1028ff. 22 Ed. Khalīl b. ʿUthmān al-Jabūr al-Sabīʿī, Beirut: Dār Ibn Ḥazm, 1420/1999, p. 71 no. 19. Al-Shawkānī provides the following isnād for the book: al-Imām al-Muṭahhar b. Muḥammad b. al-Muṭahhar “al-Wāthiq” (d. 802/1329–30) ← his father, al-Imām Muḥammad b. al-Muṭahhar b. Yaḥyā “al-Mahdī li-Dīn Allāh” (d. 728/1327–28) ← his father, alImām al-Muṭahhar b. Yaḥyā b. al-Murtaḍā “al-Mutawakkil ʿalā llāh” (d. 697/1298) ← al-amīr al-Ḥusayn b. Badr alDīn ← al-ʿAnsī. For the transmission of the book from al-Imām al-Muṭahhar to al-Shawkānī, the latter refers to his earlier isnād (see ibid.). 23 The K. al-Irshād is discussed in detail in Hassan Ansari, “Kitāb-hā-yi ṣūfiyāna-yi Zaydiyān-i īrānī wa yamanī,” Āyina-yi mīrāth 4, no. 3 (1380sh/2001), pp. 24–28, an overview of Zaydi literature on Sufism. It should be noted that the work is not discussed in Wilferd Madelung, “Zaydī Attitudes to Sufism,” Islamic Mysticism Contested, ed. I. J. F. de Jong and Bernd Radtke, Leiden: Brill, 1999, pp. 124–144, beyond a brief reference to the work as one of the sources cited by Imam al-Manṣūr al-Qāsim b. Muḥammad (d. 1029/1620) in his K. Ḥatf anf al-āfik fī jawābihi ʿalā l-Kāmil al-mutadārik (ibid., p. 140).

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on the book’s title page in a list of the author’s sources (fig. 13).24 Traces of al-ʿAnsī’s books can also be encountered in historical library inventories. A historical catalog of the holdings of the library of Imam al-Mutawakkil Sharaf al-Dīn Yaḥyā b. Shams al-Dīn (d. 965/1558) lists two codices containing several unspecified short writings by al-ʿAnsī (Rasāʾil nāfiʿa li-lfaqīh ʿAbd Allāh b. Zayd ṣāḥib al-Irshād [title 176b] and Kitāb rasāʾil li-ʿAbd Allāh b. Zayd alʿAnsī [title 182a]).25 An inventory of books dated Rabīʿ II 1101/January–February 1690 and compiled at the behest of or in the environment of Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn that had belonged to the Āl al-Wazīr also includes al-Maḥajja al-bayḍāʾ.26 Among the Zaydi biographers, Aḥmad b. Saʿd al-Dīn b. al-Ḥusayn al-Maswarī (d. 1079/1668) provided a detailed note on ʿAbd Allāh b. Zayd al-ʿAnsī,27 which partly served as the basis for Aḥmad b. Ṣāliḥ b. Muḥammad Ibn Abī l-Rijāl’s (d. 1092/1690) entry on al-ʿAnsī in his Maṭlaʿ al-budūr.28 The latter’s entry was consulted by Ibrāhīm b. al-Qāsim al-Shahārī (d. 1152/1739) for his entry on al-ʿAnsī in Ṭabaqāt al-Zaydiyya al-kubrā and by Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Jundārī (1279/1863–1337/1919) for the relevant entries in his Tarājim al-rijāl al-madhkūra fī Sharḥ al-Azhār and al-Jāmiʿ al-wajīz.29 Al-Maswarī describes al-ʿAnsī’s alMaḥajja al-bayḍāʾ as a comprehensive work in four volumes (kitāb ḥāfil basīṭ arbaʿa mujallada), and he praises al-ʿAnsī’s al-Taḥrīr fī uṣūl al-fiqh as “precious” (kitāb nafīs). In addition, he mentions al-ʿAnsī’s al-Lāʾiq bi-l-afhām fī maʿrifat ḥudūd al-kalām, of which he had seen

24

For this work, see Hassan Ansari, “Muʿarrifī-yi nuskha-yi shumāra-yi 91 majmūʿa-yi Glāzir-i kitābkhāna-yi dawlatī-yi Birlīn,” Barrasī-hā-yi tārīkhī, http://ansari.kateban.com/post/1641 (accessed 25 January 2022). A critical edition of the work is currently in preparation by Hassan Ansari and Rouhalla Foroughi on the basis of three witnesses that were all transcribed in Yemen: MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Petermann I 225 (see https://stabikat.de/DB=1/XMLPRS=N/PPN?PPN=644674652 [accessed 25 January 2022]); MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Glaser 91 (see https://stabikat.de/DB=1/XMLPRS=N/PPN?PPN=644674318 [accessed 25 January 2022]); and MS Princeton, Princeton University Library, Garrett 374Y (see https://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/9962645753506421 [accessed 25 January 2022]). Another copy of the work was held in Āghā Buzurg’s lifetime in the library of al-Sayyid Muḥammad ʿAlī al-Sabzawārī in al-Kāẓimiyya; see Āghā Buzurg, Dharīʿa, vol. 18, p. 181 no. 1293. 25 See Hassan Ansari and Sabine Schmidtke, “The Library of Imām al-Mutawakkil Sharaf al-Dīn Yaḥyā (d. 995/1558)” [in preparation]. 26 See Hassan Ansari and Sabine Schmidtke, “A Family Library in the Hands of the Qāsimīs at the Turn of the Twelfth/Eighteenth Century” [in preparation]. See also al-Akwaʿ, Hijar al-ʿilm, vol. 1, p. 177b. Today the library of one of the branches of the Āl al-Wazīr holds only part 5 of the work, on the imāma. See below. 27 For an edition of al-Maswarī’s note on al-ʿAnsī, see below, Appendix 2. For al-Maswarī, see Ansari and Schmidtke, Studies in Medieval Islamic Intellectual Traditions, chapter 7. 28 Ibn Abī l-Rijāl may also have consulted another note by al-Maswarī about al-ʿAnsī when he adduces verbatim quotations from his shaykh, i.e., al-Maswarī; see Ibn Abī l-Rijāl, Maṭlaʿ al-budūr, vol. 3, pp. 83 (wa-hādhā mā katabahu shaykhunā min tarjamatihi wa-lafẓuhu . . .), 88 (rajaʿnā ilā kalām shaykhinā qāla . . . ). 29 See Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Jundārī, Tarājim al-rijāl al-madhkūra fī Sharḥ al-Azhār, published in the introduction to ʿAbd Allāh b. Abī l-Qāsim Ibn Miftāḥ, al-Muntazaʿ al-mukhtār min al-Ghayth al-midrār al-maʿrūf bi-Sharḥ al-Azhār, Sanaa, 1341/1922–23, p. 21, and Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Jundārī, al-Jāmiʿ al-wajīz bi-dhikr al-ʿulamāʾ dhawī l-tabrīz min sanat 532–858, ed. Muḥammad Aḥmad Ṭāhir al-Ḥājj, PhD dissertation, Jāmiʿat Ṣanʿāʾ, 1428/2007, pp. 320–321 [our pagination; the entry is under the date 667 AH]. In al-Jāmiʿ al-wajīz (ibid.) it is further reported that al-ʿAnsī was well versed in astrology and able to operate an astrolabe; see also ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAlī al-Wazīr, Tārīkh ṭubuq alḥalwā wa-ṣiḥāf al-mann wa-l-salwā, p. 295.

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a holograph transcribed in 659/1260–61. On the basis of the information provided by alʿAnsī in the preface to the 659 AH holograph, al-Maswarī (or his source) concludes that alʿAnsī was born in 594/1197–98 or 593/1196–97.30 Al-Maswarī mentions three additional works by al-ʿAnsī: al-Risāla al-munqidha min al-ʿaṭab al-sālika bi-l-naṣīḥa ilā ahl Shaẓab, a refutation of the Muṭarrifiyya, of which he had seen a holograph copied in Kuḥlān and dated Rabīʿ II 660/November–December 1261; al-Risāla al-dāʿiya ilā l-īmān, which may also be a refutation of the Muṭarrifiyya; and the K. al-Irshād. Finally, al-Maswarī adds that alʿAnsī addressed some rasāʾil to the Rasulid sultan al-Muẓaffar (r. 647–694/1249–1295), but nothing further is known about these epistles. The note concludes with quotations of some of al-ʿAnsī’s poetry. The most detailed description of some of al-ʿAnsī’s most comprehensive writings is provided by Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn b. al-Qāsim al-Yamanī al-Ṣanʿānī (1035–after 1099/1625– 1688) in his al-Mustaṭāb fī tarājim rijāl al-Zaydiyya al-aṭyāb.31 Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn begins the list of al-ʿAnsī’s writings with al-Maḥajja al-bayḍāʾ, which he describes as al-ʿAnsī’s best work on theology (lahu muʾallafāt fī uṣūl al-dīn min aḥsanihā Kitāb al-Maḥajja al-bayḍāʾ), and he quotes several lines from volume 4 (al-juzʾ al-rābiʿ) of the book, which was evidently available to him. He further lists K. al-Sirāj al-wahhāj and al-Shihāb al-thāqib ʿalā madhāhib al-ʿitra al-aṭāyib32 as well as the K. al-Tamyīz among al-ʿAnsī’s writings. Although it is uncertain whether Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn had access the Sirāj and the Shihāb, since he has nothing to say about them, his comments on the Tamyīz suggest that he had seen this book, or at least a portion of it. He further lists a “Kitāb fī l-radd ʿalā l-Muṭarrifiyya,” which he describes as having consisted of one volume (mujallad) and from which he provides a brief quotation. The wording of the quoted passage is identical with a passage in the introduction to the khātima of al-ʿAnsī’s Tamyīz (MS Maktabat Muḥammad al-Sārī, fol. 149r:1–3). It is not clear why Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn considered the work distinct from the Tamyīz—it is possible that the khātima also circulated independently—but the congruence of the quotation in the Mustaṭāb and the introduction to the khātima shows that the “Kitāb fī l-radd ʿalā lMuṭarrifiyya” is in fact the Tamyīz (or at least its khātima). The introduction to the khātima of the Tamyīz also includes autoreferences to al-ʿAnsī’s Sirāj and his Shihāb (see below), and Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn may have learned the titles of those two works through this introduction. Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn further relates that al-ʿAnsī had written yet another refutation, “Risāla ukhrā qaraʾtu fī l-jawāb ʿalā l-Muṭarrifiyya wa-takfīrihim fī maqālatihim,” from which he again quotes a few lines. As shown below, this risāla can be identified as al-Risāla almunqidha min al-ʿaṭab al-sālika bi-l-naṣīḥa ilā ahl Shaẓab (→ inventory, item 15). Yaḥyā concludes his list with al-ʿAnsī’s K. al-Irshād ilā najāt al-ʿibād, which he describes as “mujallad wa-huwa kitāb jāmiʿ nāfiʿ,” indicating that he had seen the book, and K. al-Durra almanẓūma fī uṣūl al-fiqh, which he may not have seen. He further mentions al-ʿAnsī’s legal work, al-Istibṣār (→ inventory, item 5), saying that it consisted of five volumes and that alʿAnsī wrote a twenty-volume autocommentary on it. Yaḥyā’s wording leaves no doubt that he had seen neither the work nor the autocommentary himself. The information Yaḥyā

30

For an abbreviated version of this account, see Ibn Abī l-Rijāl, Maṭlaʿ al-budūr, vol. 3, pp. 88–89. Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn, Mustaṭāb, fols. 82r–83v. 32 For the variations in the title of this book, see below, inventory, item 16. 31

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shares about the work partly disagrees with a comprehensive list of Zaydi legal literature compiled by the renowned jurist ʿImād al-Dīn Yaḥyā b. Aḥmad b. ʿAlī b. Muẓaffar (d. 875/1470–71), who specifies that the Istibṣār consisted of two volumes and the autocommentary comprised six volumes.33 Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn adds that Imam al-Muʾayyad bi-llāh Yaḥyā b. Ḥamza’s (669–745/1270–1344) K. al-Intiṣār ʿalā ʿulamāʾ al-amṣār was said to be heavily based on al-ʿAnsī’s Istibṣār, though he seems to doubt the claim.34 In addition to the information provided by the Zaydi biobibliographical literature, alʿAnsī made numerous cross-references in his writings to his other books, both lost and still extant. These prove the authenticity of works of uncertain authorship and allow us to establish a relative chronology of at least some of his writings. In parts 2 (ʿadl), 3 (nubuwwāt), and 4 (sharāʾiʿ) of the Maḥajja, which he completed in 640/1242, al-ʿAnsī regularly refers to more detailed discussions in his K. al-Takmīl (→ inventory, item 19), indicating that the latter work, which is lost, must have been fairly comprehensive. The lack of references to the Takmīl in part 1 (tawḥīd) of the Maḥajja suggests that al-ʿAnsī had started the Maḥajja before the Takmīl and that he later continued writing both works in tandem. Of his dogmatic works, al-ʿAnsī refers in the Maḥajja to his K. al-Shihāb al-thāqib (→ inventory, item 16), which has not come down to us. Another title al-ʿAnsī cites throughout his Maḥajja is the K. al-Taḥrīr (→ inventory, item 18), a comprehensive work on legal theory that clearly also antedates the Maḥajja. The K. al-Tamyīz, a comprehensive refutation of the Muṭarrifiyya, was one of al-ʿAnsī’s later works. The precise date of the book’s completion is unknown, since the extant surrogate of the sole witness to the work suggests that the witness is missing the end and thus is undated. In the course of his introduction to the khātima,35 which constitutes a theological summa in its own right, al-ʿAnsī explains that he has already written numerous works (taṣānīf kathīra) on theology (uṣūl al-dīn) before this work, and he specifically mentions the following among them: K. al-Shihāb (al-thāqib) ʿalā madhāhib al-ʿitra al-aṭyāb [al-aṭāyib] (→ inventory, item 16); K. al-Sirāj al-wahhāj (→ inventory, item 17); K. Mudhākarat [sic] al-Sirāj, which is an autocommentary on al-Sirāj al-wahhāj (→ inventory, item 11); and K. al-Maḥajja al-bayḍāʾ (→ inventory, item 9). Of these four, al-Sirāj al-wahhāj, Mudhākarāt al-Sirāj,36 and al-Maḥajja al-bayḍāʾ have come down to us; however, their relative chronology remains unclear. We know that al-ʿAnsī completed part 4 of the Maḥajja (on sharāʾiʿ) in 640/1242, but whether he wrote the Sirāj and the Mudhākarāt before or after

33

The list, which also mentions the legal portions of al-ʿAnsī’s Irshād, is included in MS Vienna, Österreichische Staatsbibliothek, Cod. Glaser 41, fol. 322v. For an editio princeps of the list, see Hassan Ansari, “Yik yād-dāsht-i arzashmand dar muʿarrifī-yi mutūn-i fiqh-i zaydī,” Barrasī-hā-yi tārīkhī, http://ansari.kateban.com/post/4435 (accessed 25 January 2022). The K. al-Istibṣār, as well as al-ʿAnsī’s autocommentary, is also mentioned in one of the documents edited in Muḥammad Taqī Dānishpazhūh, “Du mashīkha-yi Zaydī,” Nāma-yi Mīnuwī: Majmūʿa-yi sī wa hasht guftār dar adab wa farhang-i īrānī bih pās-i panjāh sāl taḥqīqāt wa muṭāliʿāt-i Mujtabā Mīnuwī, ed. Īrāj Afshār, Tehran: Chāpkhāna-yi Kāwiyān, 1350sh/1971, pp. 179–188, here p. 172 no. 21, although the work’s title is here given erroneously as al-Intiṣār. 34 Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn also quotes al-ʿAnsī, without specifying the work, in his Ṣawārim al-yaqīn li-qaṭʿ shukūk alqāḍī Aḥmad b. Saʿd al-Dīn. We consulted the text through MS Sanaa, Maktabat al-Jāmiʿ al-Kabīr 3024; see fol. 30r lines 11ff. for the quotation. See also below, n. 145. 35 For an edition of the introduction, see below, Appendix 3. 36 The work was available to us through MS Sanaa, Maktabat al-Awqāf 758, the single extant witness.

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the Maḥajja is unknown. In his K. al-Sirāj al-ʿAnsī lists al-Manṣūr bi-llāh ʿAbd Allāh b. Ḥamza as the last imam,37 suggesting that he wrote the Sirāj before the ascension of Imam alMahdī li-Dīn Allāh Aḥmad b. al-Ḥusayn (612–656/1216–1258), whom al-ʿAnsī supported (see below), in Ṣafar 646/May–June 1248. Unlike the Maḥajja and the Tamyīz, the Sirāj and the Mudhākarāt contain no cross-references to any of al-ʿAnsī’s other books. However, given the more concise character of those two works the absence of such references does not necessarily mean that they predate the Maḥajja. What is certain is that the Sirāj antedates the Mudhākarāt, which is a commentary on the Sirāj, and that both predate the Tamyīz. According to the Dāʾūdī Bohra scholar Ismāʿīl b. ʿAbd al-Rasūl al-Majdūʿ (d. 1183/1769 or 1184/1770), al-dāʿī al-muṭlaq Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī b. Muḥammad Ibn al-Walīd (d. 667/1268–69) wrote a tract entitled Māḥiyat al-zūr wa-dāmighat al-kufūr, a refutation directed against “al-Muʿtazilī ṣāḥib ḥiṣn Kuḥlān.”38 Ibn al-Walīd, since 627/1230 the leader of the Ismāʿīlī Ṭayyibī community in Yemen, was a contemporary of al-ʿAnsī, and it is known that al-ʿAnsī spent the final years of his life in Kuḥlān.39 It is thus possible that Ibn al-Walīd’s tract was aimed at al-ʿAnsī. Polemical exchanges between Zaydis and Ismāʿīlīs were common during this period in Yemen.40 Moreover, MS Vienna, Austrian National Library, Cod. Glaser 122 (fols. 60r–108v; fig. 14) includes a lengthy text entitled al-Kāshifa li-dhawī l-ʿuqūl ʿan fasād mukhtaṣar al-uṣūl, a refutation by an unidentified Zaydi author that is directed against the dāʿī muṭlaq ʿAlī b. Muḥammad Ibn al-Walīd’s (d. 612/1215) Mukhtaṣar al-uṣūl wa-zubdat almaḥṣūl.41 Hassan Ansari, who has devoted a study to this text, proposes several possible authors, including al-ʿAnsī.42 If it indeed is by al-ʿAnsī, this tract may have prompted Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī Ibn al-Walīd to write a refutation of al-ʿAnsī.

37

MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Glaser 123, fol. 210r. Ismāʿīl b. ʿAbd al-Rasūl al-Majdūʿ, Fahrasat al-kutub wa-l-rasāʾil, ed. ʿAlī Naqī Munzawī, Tehran: Chāpkhāna-yi Dānishgāh-i Tihrān, 1344sh/1966, p. 98. See also al-Ḥibshī, Maṣādir, p. 124. For Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī b. Muḥammad Ibn al-Walīd, see Sulaymānjī Burhānpūrī, Muntazaʿ al-akhbār fī akhbār al-duʿāh al-akhyār: Min al-dāʿī al-Dhuʿayb b. Mūsā al-Wādiʿī ilā l-dāʿī Dāʾūdjī b. Quṭb Shāh, ed. Samer Traboulsi, Beirut: Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī, 1999, pp. 95–106 (here the title is not mentioned). 39 For Kuḥlān Tāj al-Dīn, see Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Ḥajrī, Majmūʿ buldān al-Yaman wa-qabāʾilihā, ed. Ismāʿīl b. ʿAlī al-Akwaʿ, 4 vols., Sanaa: Maktabat al-Irshād, 1430/2009, vol. 4, p. 663; Robert T. O. Wilson, Gazetteer of Historical North-West Yemen, Hildesheim: Olms, 1989, p. 281. 40 For an overview, see Hassan Ansari, “Silsila-i az raddiyya nawīsī-hā miyān-i zaydiyān wa ismāʿīliyān,” Barrasīhā-yi tārīkhī, http://ansari.kateban.com/post/2042 (accessed 25 January 2022). 41 Ibn al-Walīd’s work has been published (ed. ʿAmr b. Maʿdīkarb Ḥusayn al-Hamdānī, Sanaa: al-Dār alMuḥammadiyya al-Hamdāniyya li-l-Dirāsāt wa-l-Abḥāth, n.d.) 42 Hassan Ansari, “Raddiyya-yi nū yāfta bar Ismāʿīliyya,” Barrasī-hā-yi tārīkhī, http://ansari.kateban.com/post/1914 (accessed 25 January 2022). For Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī Ibn al-Walīd, see Burhānpūrī, Muntazaʿ al-akhbār, pp. 83–92. For the Ṭayyibī Ismāʿīlīs in Yemen, see also Samer Traboulsi, “The Formation of an Islamic Sect: The Ṭayyibī Ismāʿīlīs in Medieval Yemen,” PhD diss., Princeton University, 2005. 38

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Figure 14. MS Vienna, Austrian National Library, Cod. Glaser 122 (title page of al-Kāshifa li-dhawī l-ʿuqūl ʿan fasād mukhtaṣar al-uṣūl).

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Figure 15. MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Glaser 111, fol. 135r (beginning of al-ʿAnsī’s al-Fatāwī al-nabawiyya).

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Figure 16. MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Glaser 111, fol. 163v (end of al-ʿAnsī’s al-Fatāwī al-nabawiyya).

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Figure 17. MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Glaser 111, fol. 164v (beginning of “ʿAqāʾid ahl al-bayt wa-l-radd ʿalā l-Muṭarrifiyya”).

263

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Figure 18. MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Glaser 111, fol. 222v (end of “ʿAqāʾid ahl al-bayt wa-l-radd ʿalā l-Muṭarrifiyya”).

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Figure 19. MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Glaser 123, fol. 248r (title page of alʿAnsī’s Jawāb al-faqīh Yūsuf b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Shāfiʿī al-sākin bi-Dhahbān).

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Figure 20. MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Glaser 123, fol. 263v (al-ʿAnsī’s Jawāb al-faqīh Yūsuf b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Shāfiʿī al-sākin bi-Dhahbān).

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Figure 21. MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Glaser 123, fol. 228r (final page of al-ʿAnsī’s al-Sirāj al-wahhāj and title page of al-ʿAnsī’s Māʾ al-yaqīn fī maʿrifat rabb al-ʿālamīn).

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Figure 22. MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Glaser 123, fol. 241v (final page of al-ʿAnsī’s Māʾ al-yaqīn fī maʿrifat rabb al-ʿālamīn).

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Figure 23. MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Glaser 123, fol. 242r (title page of al-ʿAnsī’s Manāhij al-bayān li-rijāl Sanḥān).

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Figure 24. MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Glaser 123, fol. 180r (title page of al-ʿAnsī’s al-Sirāj al-wahhāj).

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Figure 25. MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Glaser 79, fol. 157r (final page of alRisāla al-nāʿiya ʿalā muṣāramat al-kuffār min al-muṭarrifiyya al-kafara al-ashrār and title page of Risālat al-Tawqīf ʿalā tawbat ahl al-taṭrīf).

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Figure 26. MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Glaser 79, fol. 161v (final page of Risālat al-Tawqīf ʿalā tawbat ahl al-taṭrīf).

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Figure 27. MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Glaser 79, fol. 120v (title page of alRisāla al-ḥākima bi-taḥrīm munākaḥat al-firqa al-muṭarrifiyya al-āthima).

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Figure 28. MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Glaser 79, fol. 132r (title page of al-Risāla al-nāṭiqa bi-ḍalāl al-muṭarrifiyya al-zanāqida).

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Figure 29. MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Glaser 79, fol. 148r (first page of alRisāla al-nāʿiya ʿalā muṣāramat al-kuffār min al-muṭarrifiyya al-kafara al-ashrār).

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The first Western scholar to take notice of ʿAbd Allāh b. Zayd al-ʿAnsī was Wilhelm Ahlwardt (1828–1909), who cataloged the manuscripts that had been assembled by Eduard Glaser during his second trip to Yemen in 1885–1886 and subsequently purchased by the Berlin State Library in February 1887. Ahlwardt provided descriptions of works by al-ʿAnsī found in these manuscripts in the addenda (Nachträge) to volume 9 of his Verzeichniss der arabischen Handschriften, published in 1897. These texts invariably represent shorter tracts attributed to al-ʿAnsī, and they are for the most part not explicitly mentioned in the aforementioned Zaydi biobibliographical sources. With the exception of al-ʿAnsī’s Irshād, which is preserved as MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Landberg 179 (purchased by the library a few years earlier, in 188443), Ahlwardt was unaware of al-ʿAnsī’s remaining oeuvre and the comprehensive works it included. The first relevant manuscript described by Ahlwardt is MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Glaser 111, an undated multitext volume consisting of seventeen tracts on a variety of theological topics written by Imam al-Mahdī li-Dīn Allāh al-Ḥusayn b. al-Qāsim b. ʿAlī al-ʿIyānī (d. 404/1013).44 The two final texts in the codex are rebuttals of the Muṭarrifiyya: al-ʿAnsī’s al-Fatāwī al-nabawiyya al-mufṣiḥa ʿan aḥkām al-Muṭarrifiyya (figs. 15, 16) and another, untitled refutation of the Muṭarrifiyya whose unidentified author discusses eighty issues (maʿrifa), contrasting the views of the ahl al-Islām with those of the Muṭarrifiyya (figs. 17, 18). Ahlwardt assumed the latter tract, too, to be by al-ʿAnsī, an assumption that was perhaps caused by the tract’s position in the codex. This final tract, for which Ahlwardt coined the title ʿAqāʾid ahl al-bayt wa-l-radd ʿalā l-Muṭarrifiyya, is incompletely preserved, as it breaks off at the end of the codex (fig. 18); however, not much seems to be missing in the end, since maʿrifa 80 starts on fol. 200v and the text breaks off at the end of fol. 222v. MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Glaser 123, another multitext volume, contains three texts whose respective title pages identify alʿAnsī as the author: Jawāb al-faqīh Yūsuf b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Shāfiʿī al-sākin bi-Dhahbān (figs. 19, 20) (→ inventory, item 314), Māʾ al-yaqīn fī maʿrifat rabb al-ʿālamīn (figs. 21, 22) (→ inventory, item 315), and Manāhij al-bayān li-rijāl Sanḥān (fig. 23) (→ inventory, item 320). The codex also includes al-Sirāj al-wahhāj, which is attributed on the tract’s title page (fig. 24) to “Diyād” (corrected into “Ziyād” [sic], possibly meaning Zayd) b. Aḥmad al-ʿAnsī, the

43

For a brief history of the Landberg collection in the Berlin State Library, see Wilhelm Ahlwardt, Kurzes Verzeichniss der Landberg’schen Sammlung arabischer Handschriften, Berlin: A. W. Schade, 1885. See also Christoph Rauch’s contribution to this volume. 44 His collected writings were published as al-Ḥusayn b. al-Qāsim al-ʿIyānī, Min majmūʿ kutub wa-rasāʾil al-Imām al-ʿIyānī, Sanaa: Markaz al-Turāth wa-l-Buḥūth al-Yamanī, 2006. On him, see also Mufarriḥ b. Aḥmad al-Rabaʿī, Sīrat al-amīrayn al-jalīlayn al-sharīfayn al-fāḍilayn al-Qāsim wa-Muḥammad ibnay Jaʿfar b. al-Imām al-Qāsim b. ʿAlī al-ʿIyānī: Naṣṣ tārīkhī yamanī min al-qarn al-khāmis al-hijrī, ed. Riḍwān al-Sayyid and ʿAbd al-Ghanī Maḥmūd ʿAbd al-ʿĀṭī, Beirut: Dār al-Muntakhab al-ʿArabī, 1413/1993; Wilferd Madelung, “The Sīrat al-Amīrayn al-Ajallayn alSharīfayn al-Fāḍilayn al-Qāsim wa-Muḥammad ibnay Jaʿfar ibn al-Imām al-Qāsim b. ʿAlī al-ʿIyānī as a Historical Source,” Studies in the History of Arabia, I: Sources for the History of Arabia, part 2, Proceedings of the First International Symposium on Studies in the History of Arabia, Riyadh, April 1977, Riyadh: University of Riyadh Press, 1977, pp. 69–87; see further Ansari and Schmidtke, Studies in Medieval Islamic Intellectual Traditions, p. 265 and passim.

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father of al-ʿAnsī.45 In view of al-ʿAnsī’s explicit reference to the work in his Tamyīz (see above), the work’s attribution to al-ʿAnsī’s father must be an error, but Ahlwardt did not know this. MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Glaser 79 includes four refutations of the Muṭarrifiyya: These are al-Risāla al-ḥākima bi-taḥrīm munākaḥat al-firqa al-Muṭarrifiyya alāthima (fols. 120v–131),46 al-Risāla al-nāṭiqa bi-ḍalāl al-Muṭarrifiyya al-zanādiqa (fols. 132r–147v),47 al-Risāla al-nāʿiya ʿalā muṣāramat al-kuffār min al-Muṭarrifiyya al-kafara alashrār (fols. 148r–157r),48 and Risālat al-Tawqīf ʿalā tawbat ahl al-taṭrīf (fols. 157v–161v).49 In all four cases, the author’s name is either fully or partly erased on the respective title page, but Ahlwardt assumed al-ʿAnsī to be the author of all four. The grounds for his assumption are unclear, but there are several reasons to exclude the possibility of al-ʿAnsī’s authorship. At the end of al-Risāla al-nāʿiya (fol. 157r; fig. 25), the final tract in the codex, Risālat al-Tawqīf ʿalā tawbat ahl al-taṭrīf, is announced, and the name of the author is still partly legible: yatlūhu al-risāla al-mawsūma bi-l-tawqīf ʿalā tawbat ahl al-taṭrīf | min taʾlīf al-Faqīh al-Ajall al-ʿAllāma al-Imām | Ḥusām al-Dīn ʿUmdat al-Muwaḥḥidīn Abī ʿAbd Allāh | . . . b. Aḥmad al-Muḥallī tawallā Allāh mukāfatahu.50 Both “Abū ʿAbd Allāh” and “b. Aḥmad al-Muḥallī” are incompatible with Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh b. Zayd al-ʿAnsī as the tract’s author. Instead, what is visible of the author’s name clearly points to Abū ʿAbd Allāh Ḥumayd b. Aḥmad al-Muḥallī (killed in 652/1254).51 Moreover, at the end of Risālat alTawqīf ʿalā tawbat ahl al-taṭrīf (fol. 161v; fig. 26) there is a signature by Qāsim b. Aḥmad b.

45

Ahlwardt does not comment on the reading of the name in the manuscript and simply renders it as Zayd b. Aḥmad al-ʿAnsī; see Wilhelm Ahlwardt, Verzeichniss der arabischen Handschriften der Königlichen Bibliothek zu Berlin, Berlin: A. W. Schade, 1887–1899, vol. 9, p. 591. 46 See Ahlwardt, Verzeichniss, vol. 9, p. 592 no. 10288. For a brief description and a digital surrogate of the tract, see https://stabikat.de/DB=1/XMLPRS=N/PPN?PPN=73539248X (accessed 25 January 2022). 47 See Ahlwardt, Verzeichniss, vol. 9, p. 592 no. 10289. For a brief description and digital surrogate, see https://stabikat.de/DB=1/XMLPRS=N/PPN?PPN=735402922 (accessed 25 January 2022). 48 See Ahlwardt, Verzeichniss, vol. 9, p. 592 no. 10290. For a brief description and digital surrogate, see https://stabikat.de/DB=1/XMLPRS=N/PPN?PPN=735408041 (accessed 25 January 2022). 49 See Ahlwardt, Verzeichniss, vol. 9, p. 593 no. 10291. For a brief description and a digital surrogate, see https://stabikat.de/DB=1/XMLPRS=N/PPN?PPN=735408246 (accessed 25 January 2022). The first two tracts in MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Glaser 79 are al-Jawāb li-l-Sayyid al-Fāḍil Niẓām al-Dīn Idrīs b. Muḥammad b. ʿAlī al-Sulaymānī (fols. 1r–78v) (see Ahlwardt, Verzeichniss, vol. 4, p. 362 no. 5008), which is concerned with the question of aḥkām al-kufr and dār al-Islām versus dār al-ḥarb (the author explicitly supports the position of alManṣūr against that of the Muṭarrifiyya), and Mukhtaṣar fī l-farāʾiḍ by Manṣūr b. ʿAlī b. Muḥammad Ibn Qarīḥ (or Farīj) (fols. 81–118r) (see Ahlwardt, Verzeichniss, vol. 4, p. 218 no. 4747; Ahlwardt reads the name as “ben Foreiḥ”). For the little known Ibn Qarīḥ, see Ibn Abī l-Rijāl, Maṭlaʿ al-budūr, vol. 4, pp. 429–430 no. 1271 (Ibn Abī l-Rijāl has him as Ibn Badīḥ). Idrīs b. Muḥammad b. ʿAlī al-Sulaymānī al-Tihāmī was a scholar and a contemporary of al-ʿAnsī and an opponent of Imam al-Mahdī Aḥmad b. al-Ḥusayn (on whom see below); on him, see Ibn Abī l-Rijāl, Maṭlaʿ al-budūr, vol. 1, pp. 530–533 no. 290; al-Wajīh, Aʿlām, vol. 1, p. 225. That the codex includes a text by Idrīs b. Muḥammad b. ʿAlī al-Sulaymānī also speaks against al-ʿAnsī’s authorship of the four refutations against the Muṭarrifiyya included in the codex. 50 Our reading is based on our consultation of the original codex in 2011. 51 On him, see Ibn Abī l-Rijāl, Maṭlaʿ al-budūr, vol. 2, pp. 245–251 no. 520.

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Ḥumayd, who was a grandson of Ḥumayd al-Muḥallī.52 This indicates that the codex remained in the family of Ḥumayd al-Muḥallī for at least two generations—plausible if it included some of al-Ḥumayd’s tracts, but unlikely if it consisted primarily of works by alʿAnsī. In the remaining three tracts, which are all written by the same hand, the author’s name has been completely erased (figs. 27, 28, 29). But there are also other reasons to doubt al-ʿAnsī’s authorship of the tracts. Unlike the K. al-Tamyīz, al-ʿAnsī’s last major refutation of the Muṭarrifiyya, which was certainly written by him, and in contrast to what we know about al-ʿAnsī’s position regarding the Muṭarrifiyya and Imam al-Manṣūr’s policy in fighting them, the tracts included in MS Glaser 79 show their author to have been a faithful follower and staunch supporter of al-Manṣūr bi-llāh and his harsh persecution of the adherents of the Muṭarrifiyya (discussed further below). Unlike al-ʿAnsī, Ḥumayd al-Muḥallī is known to have supported al-Manṣūr’s policy against the Muṭarrifiyya,53 and this again points to al-Muḥallī rather than al-ʿAnsī as the tracts’ author.54 Ahlwardt’s catalog of the Berlin collection and his descriptions of the three abovementioned codices provided the basis for Carl Brockelmann’s (1868–1956) entries on alʿAnsī, father and son, in volumes 1 and 2 of his Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur, which were published in 1898 and 1902. Following Ahlwardt, Brockelmann names Zayd b. Aḥmad al-ʿAnsī as the author of al-Sirāj al-wahhāj:55

52

For al-Qāsim b. Aḥmad al-Muḥallī, who wrote a commentary on the Taʿlīq Sharḥ al-Uṣūl al-khamsa entitled alGhurar wa-l-ḥujūl fī kashf asrār al-uṣūl, see Ibn Abī l-Rijāl, Maṭlaʿ al-budūr, vol. 4, pp. 64–65 no. 1027; al-Ḥibshī, Maṣādir, p. 131. For his father, Aḥmad b. Ḥumayd b. Aḥmad al-Muḥallī (d. 701/1301), see Ibn Abī l-Rijāl, Maṭlaʿ albudūr, vol. 1, pp. 295–296. Aḥmad b. Ḥumayd is also mentioned among the transmitters of Uṣūl al-aḥkām fī l-ḥalāl wa-l-ḥarām by Imam al-Mutawakkil ʿalā llāh Aḥmad b. Sulaymān (d. 566/1170); see MS Milan, Ambrosiana, H 123 ar, fol. 299r. 53 See al-Muḥallī’s biography of al-Manṣūr in his al-Ḥadāʾiq al-wardiyya, where he discusses favorably the latter’s treatment of the Muṭarrifiyya. See al-Ḥumayd al-Muḥallī, al-Ḥadāʾiq al-wardiyya fī manāqib aʾimmat al-Zaydiyya, ed. al-Murtaḍā b. Zayd al-Maḥaṭwarī al-Ḥasanī, 2 vols., Sanaa: Maktabat Markaz Badr al-ʿIlmī wa-l-Thaqāfī, 2002, vol. 2, pp. 247–354, esp. 309, 324. See also Ḥumayd al-Muḥallī, Maḥāsin al-azhār fī manāqib imām al-abrār wawālid al-aʾimma al-aṭhār al-imām amīr al-muʾminīn ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, ed. Muḥammad Bāqir al-Maḥmūdī, Qum: Majmaʿ Iḥyāʾ al-Thaqāfa al-Islāmiyya, 1422/2001–2, pp. 356–358, where he is also outspoken in his support of alManṣūr’s position toward the Muṭarrifiyya. 54 ʿAbd al-Ghanī Maḥmūd ʿAbd al-ʿĀṭī, who included these four tracts in his al-Ṣirāʿ al-fikrī fī l-Yaman bayna lZaydiyya wa-l-Muṭarrifiyya: Dirāsa wa-nuṣūṣ (al-Haram [Giza], 2002), pp. 274–314, alongside al-Fatāwī al-nabawiyya (included in MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Glaser 111), seemed unconcerned about their authenticity and also does not provide any information on the antigraph he consulted. Following Ahlwardt, the four tracts are regularly listed among the writings of al-ʿAnsī; see, e.g., al-Wajīh, Aʿlām, vol. 1, p. 571; al-Ḥibshī, Maṣādir, p. 124; al-Akwaʿ, Hijar al-ʿilm, vol. 4, p. 1811a; Ḥamīd al-Dīn, al-Rawḍ al-aghann, vol. 2, p. 62; see also below. See further al-Shāmī, Tārīkh al-Yaman al-fikrī, vol. 3, p. 309 no. 3 for al-Risāla al-ḥākima; al-Shāmī includes only one refutation of the Muṭarrifiyya, Ḍalāl al-Muṭarrifiyya, in his list of al-ʿAnsī’s doctrinal writings, but it is unclear which work he has in mind, as the title is not mentioned elsewhere. Besides al-Muḥallī, another possible author of some of the tracts included in MS Glaser 79 might be al-Ḥusayn b. Badr al-Dīn, who also composed several refutations against the Muṭarrifiyya, which seem not to have come down to us. See above, n. 11. 55 Carl Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur, vol. 1, Weimar: Emil Felber, 1898; vol. 2, Berlin: Emil Felber, 1902, vol. 1 (1898), p. 402. See also Madelung, Der Imam al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhīm, p. 258, where al-Sirāj alwahhāj (MS Glaser 123) is likewise attributed to Zayd b. Aḥmad al-ʿAnsī.

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4. Zaid b. A. al-ʿAnsî ca. 600/1203. k. as sirâǧ al wahhâǧ al mumaijiz bain al istiqâma wal iʿwiǧâǧ, über das Wesen Gottes, Berl. 10284.

Brockelmann devotes a separate entry to his son, ʿAbd Allāh b. Zayd al-ʿAnsī, and in it he lists one of the tracts of MS Glaser 111 that names al-ʿAnsī as its author (al-Fatāwī al-nabawiyya al-mufṣiḥa ʿan aḥkām al-Muṭarrifiyya), one out of the three texts by al-ʿAnsī included in MS Glaser 123 (Manāhij al-bayān li-rijāl Sanḥān), and all four tracts of MS Glaser 79 that Ahlwardt attributed to al-ʿAnsī. Brockelmann adds MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Landberg 179, which contains a copy of al-ʿAnsī’s Irshād:56 5. Sein Sohn ʿAbdallâh b. Zaid b. A. al ʿAnsî ca. 630/1233. 1. Al Fatâwî an nabawîje al mufṣiḥa ʿan aḥkâm al muṭarrifîje, Nachweiss, dass die Muṭarrifiten Ketzer seien, Berlin 10286. 2. manâhiǧ al bajân liriǧâl Sinḥân, Warnung vor Ketzereien, mit bes. Rücksicht auf die Muṭarrifiten, an die Bewohner des Distriktes Sinḥân, ib. 10287. 3. ar r. al ḥâkima bitaḥrîm munâkaḥat al firqa al Muṭarrifîje, ib. 10288. 4. ar r. an nâṭiqa biḍalâl al Muṭarrifîje as zanâdiqa ib. ‘9. 5. ar r. an nâʿija ʿalâ muṣâramat al kuffâr min al Muṭarrifîje al kafara al ašrâr ib. 10290. 6. r at taufîq ʿalâ taubat al taṭrîf ib. ‘1. 7. K al iršâd ilâ ṭarîq annaǧât, verf. 632/1234, Berlin. 3134.

While Brockelmann does not mention “ʿAqāʾid ahl al-bayt wa-l-radd ʿalā l-Muṭarrifiyya” (MS Glaser 111) here or anywhere else in his Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur, he has another entry for ʿAbd Allāh b. Zayd al-ʿAnsī in volume 2 of the Geschichte (published 1902), and in that entry he lists the two remaining works by al-ʿAnsī included in MS Glaser 123, Māʾ al-yaqīn fī maʿrifat rabb al-ʿālamīn and Jawāb al-faqīh Yūsuf b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Shāfiʿī al-sākin bi-Dhahbān. That he here dates al-ʿAnsī about a century later than he did in his earlier entry suggests that he overlooked the fact that the two entries relate to the same person:57 1. ʿAbdallâh b. Zaid b. A. al ʿAnsî al Maḏḥiǧî, um 748/1347. 1. K mâ al jaqîn fî maʿrifat rabb al ʿâlamîn Berl. 10323. 2 Antworten auf theologische Fragen, ib. 10325.

Ismāʿīl Bāshā al-Bābānī al-Baghdādī (1839–1920) consulted Ahlwardt for the list of works that he cites in the following entry in his Hadiyyat al-ʿārifīn.58 Unlike Brockelmann, Ismāʿīl al-Baghdādī included all tracts composed by or attributed to ʿAbd Allāh b. Zayd al-ʿAnsī 56

Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur, vol. 1 (1898), p. 402. Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur, vol. 2 (1902), p. 186. The three cited entries are repeated in Carl Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur, 2 vols., Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1943–1949, vol. 1, p. 508 nos. 4 and 5, and vol. 2, p. 237 no. 1. See also Carl Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur: Supplementband 1, Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1937, p. 699 no. 5, where he lists MS London, British Library OR 3926 as an additional copy of al-ʿAnsī’s Irshād, as well as MS London, British Library OR 3835, Ḥadīqat al-ḥikma sharḥ al-Arbaʿīn al-Saylaqiyya. The latter is clearly an error, since Rieu, to whose catalog Brockelmann refers here (Rieu, Supplement, p. 91 no. 156), identified al-Manṣūr bi-llāh ʿAbd Allāh b. Ḥamza (561–614/1166–1217) as the commentary’s author; Brockelmann’s error is also noted in al-Akwaʿ, Hijar al-ʿilm, vol. 4, p. 1812a. Brockelmann’s three entries in Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur, as well as the additional one (including his misattribution) in Supplementband I, are included, in Arabic translation, in Carl Brockelmann, al-Adabiyyāt al-yamaniyya fī l-maktabāt wa-l-marākiz althaqāfiyya al-ʿālamiyya, trans. Ṣāliḥ b. al-Shaykh Abū Bakr, Sanaa: Markaz al-Dirāsāt wa-l-Buḥūth al-Yamaniyya, 1985, pp. 51–52 nos. 9 and 10. 58 Ismāʿīl Bāshā al-Baghdādī, Hadiyyat al-ʿārifīn: Asmāʾ al-muʾallifīn wa-āthār al-muṣannifīn min Kashf al-ẓunūn, ed. Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Qādir ʿAṭāʾ, Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2008, vol. 1, column 460. 57

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HASSAN ANSARI AND SABINE SCHMIDTKE

according to Ahlwardt’s catalog.59 However, he disagreed with Ahlwardt’s identification of the works’ author. On the basis of ʿUmar b. ʿAbd Allāh Bā Makhrama’s (884–952/1479–1546) Qilādat al-naḥr, his principal source for the literary heritage of southern Arabia, he identified ʿAbd Allāh b. Zayd b. Mahdī al-ʿArīqī (d. 640/1242–43)60 rather than ʿAbd Allāh b. Zayd b. Aḥmad al-ʿAnsī as the author: 640 ‫العر ي��—عبد ا�� ّٰ� �ن ز�� �ن ��دي حسام ا���ن العر ي�� )أع�وق قر ية با���ن( من ���اء ا����ية تو�ي سنة‬ ‫ م��ا ا��رشاد إ�ى طر يق‬،"‫ �� تصانيف �ي الفقه وا��صول‬،ً ‫ "ك�ن ��دثا ً فق��ا‬:‫أربع�ن و���ائة قال صاحب ق��دة النحر‬ ‫ ا��سا�� الناطقة بض��ل‬،‫ ا��سا�� ا��ا��ة ���ر�� منا��ة الفرقة ا��طرفية الظا��ة‬،‫ التوقيف ��� توبة أهل التطر يف‬،‫الن�اة‬ ��� ‫ عقا�� أهل البيت وا��د‬،‫ ا��سا�� الناعية ��� مصارمة ال�كفار من ا��طرفية ال�كفرة ا����ار‬،‫ا��طرفية ا��نادقة‬ ‫ منا�ج البيان ���ال‬،‫ ما ]��ا[ اليق�ن �ي معرفة رب العا���ن‬،‫ الفتاوى النبو ية ا��فص�ة عن أ�ك�م ا��طرفية‬،‫ا��طرفية‬ .[‫سن�ان ]��ا‬

Two of the works listed above, namely, Manāhij al-bayān li-rijāl Sanḥān and al-Risāla alnāʿiya ʿalā muṣāramat al-kuffār min al-muṭarrifiyya al-kafara al-ashrār, are also discussed in Ismāʿīl al-Baghdādī’s Īḍāḥ al-maknūn. In the case of al-Risāla al-nāʿiya, it is again evident that his information is based on the relevant entry in Ahlwardt’s Verzeichniss, where the incipit is quoted in the same manner. Unlike the entry in Hadiyyat al-ʿārifīn, the entry in Īḍāḥ al-maknūn correctly identifies the (alleged) author of both texts, although the year given for his death, 640 AH, points again to confusion between al-ʿAnsī and al-ʿArīqī: 61.‫و���ائة‬

59

‫ أربع�ن‬640 ‫منا�ج البيان ���ال سن�ان )��ا(—��سام ا���ن عبد ا�� ّٰ� �ن ز�� �ن أ��د ا��ذحجي ا��تو�ى سنة‬

That Ismāʿīl al-Baghdādī must have consulted Ahlwardt’s catalog directly is corroborated by other entries in his Hadiyyat al-ʿārifīn, in which he explicitly refers to manuscripts of the Berlin State Library; see, e.g., vol. 1, column 787, in his entry “Ibn al-ʿAdīm, ʿUmar b. al-Qāḍī Majd al-Dīn Aḥmad b. Hibat Allāh,” where he remarks at the end of the list of Ibn al-ʿAdīm’s writings, in parentheses, “mawjūd fī Dār al-Kutub Birlīn”; and vol. 2, column 110, in his entry “al-Nuʿmānī, Sharaf al-Dīn Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Manṣūr,” where he mentions, following the work title Ibrīz al-dhahab fī lughat al-ʿArab, “mawjūd fī Birlīn.” 60 See Abū Muḥammad al-Ṭayyib b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad b. ʿAlī Bā Makhrama, Qilādat al-naḥr fī wafayāt aʿyān aldahr, ed. Bū Jumʿa Makrī and Khālid Zawārī, Jedda: Dār al-Minhāj, 1428/2008, vol. 5, p. 164 no. 2957. For Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh b. Zayd b. Mahdī al-ʿArīqī, see also ʿAlī b. al-Ḥasan al-Khazrajī’s (d. 812/1410) al-ʿAqd alfākhir al-ḥasan fī ṭabaqāt akābir ahl al-Yaman wa-huwa Ṭirāz aʿlām al-zaman fī ṭabaqāt aʿyān al-Yaman, ed. ʿAbd Allāh Qāʾid al-ʿAbbādī et al., Sanaa: Maktabat al-Jīl al-Jadīd, 2009, pp. 1212–1213 no. 553, where in turn some earlier sources are quoted; see further ʿAlī b. al-Ḥasan al-Khazrajī, al-ʿUqūd al-luʾluʾiyya fī tārīkh al-dawla alrasūliyya, ed. ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥibshī, 2 vols., Sanaa: Maktabat al-Irshād, 1430/2009, vol. 1, pp. 108–109. For Bā Makhrama and his Qilādat al-naḥr, see Oscar Löfgren, “Über Abū Maḫrama’s Kilādat al-naḥr fī wafayāt ʾaʿyān aldahr,” Le Monde Orientale (Uppsala) 25 (1931), pp. 120–139; idem, “Abū Maḫrama’s Ḳilādat al-naḥr: Ergänzungen zum Aufsatz Mos XXV, 120–139,” Le monde orientale 26–27 (1932–33), pp. 227–228; Ayman Fuʾād Sayyid, Sources de l’histoire du Yémen à l’époque musulmane = Maṣādir tārīkh al-Yaman fī l-ʿaṣr al-islāmī, Cairo: Institut français d’archéologie orientale, 1974, pp. 206-208. The work also served as one of the principal sources for Oscar Löfgren’s Arabische Texte zur Kenntnis der Stadt Aden im Mittelalter, Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksells, 1936. 61 Ismāʿīl Bāshā al-Baghdādī, Kitāb Īḍāḥ al-maknūn fī l-dhayl ʿalā Kashf al-ẓunūn ʿan asāmī al-kutub wa-l-funūn, ed. Muḥammad Sharaf al-Dīn Yāltqāyā and Rifʿat Bīlka al-Kilīsī, Istanbul: Milli Eğitim Basimevi, 1945–1947, column 563.

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281

‫الناعية ��� مصارمة ال�كفار من ا��طرفية ال�كفرة ا����ار—تأليف عبد ا�� ّٰ� �ن ز�� �ن أ��د ا��ذحجي العن�� ا����ي‬ 62.��‫ أو��ا ا���د ��� ��� ما اسدى من فوا�� ا����ء ا‬640 ‫ا��تو�ى سنة‬ ّٰ

Ismāʿīl al-Baghdādī also devotes an entry to al-ʿAnsī’s father, Zayd b. Aḥmad al-ʿAnsī, in his Hadiyyat al-ʿārifīn; the entry parallels that of Ahlwardt (and that of Brockelmann):63 ‫ صنف ال��اج الوهاج ا��م�� ب�ن ا��ستقامة‬.‫ ���ائة‬600 ‫العن��—ز�� �ن أ��د العن�� ا���ا�ي ا��تو�ى �ي �دود سنة‬ .‫وا��عو�اج �ي ا��صول‬

Ismāʿīl al-Baghdādī’s fictitious entry on al-ʿArīqī, an amalgam of Ahlwardt and Bā Makhrama, is regularly cited in Sunni sources, as, for example, in ʿUmar Riḍā Kaḥḥāla’s (1905– 1987) Muʿjam al-muʾallifīn,64 in the metadata for a surrogate of a copy al-ʿAnsī’s K. al-Irshād held in the library of Jāmiʿat Umm al-Qurāʾ in Mecca,65 in Shuʿayb al-Arnāʾūṭ’s (1928–2016) edition of Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm al-Wazīr’s al-ʿAwāṣim wa-l-qawāṣim,66 and in Muḥammad ʿAlāʿ al-Dīn al-Miṣrī’s edition of Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm al-Wazīr’s al-Rawḍ al-bāsim.67 In its electronic catalog of manuscript surrogates, the Jumʿat al-Mājid Center in Dubai lists alʿAnsī as “al-ʿArīqī: ʿAbd Allāh b. Zayd b. Aḥmad al-ʿAnsī al-Midhhajī, Abū Muḥammad, 667H.”68 The next Western scholar to take notice of ʿAbd Allāh b. Zayd al-ʿAnsī and his works as preserved in European collections was Wilferd Madelung in his 1965 monograph Der Imam al-Qāsim b. Ibrāhīm. Madelung consulted the tract Ahlwardt had tentatively titled “ʿAqāʾid ahl al-bayt wa-l-radd ʿalā l-Muṭarrifiyya,” and he remains careful about its identity and author, describing the text as “Bruchstück eine Widerlegung der Muṭarrifiten . . . , in der Ahlwardt, Katalog Nr. 10292, ein Werk des ʿAbd Allah b. Zaid al-ʿAnsī vermutet.”69 Aware of the merely descriptive character of the title coined by Ahlwardt, Madelung avoids it and rather 62

Ismāʿīl al-Baghdādī, Īḍāḥ al-maknūn, column 616. Ismāʿīl al-Baghdādī, Hadiyyat al-ʿārifīn, vol. 1, column 377. 64 ʿUmar Riḍā Kaḥḥāla, Muʿjam al-muʾallifīn: Tarājim muṣannifī l-kutub al-ʿarabiyya, Damascus: Maṭbaʿat al-Taraqqī, 1957–1961, vol. 6, p. 55. 65 https://dorar.uqu.edu.sa/uquui/handle/20.500.12248/112937 (accessed 25 January 2022). The author is correctly identified in the case of two other surrogates of witnesses of the Irshād in the same library; see https://dorar.uqu.edu.sa/uquui/handle/20.500.12248/109562 (accessed 25 January 2022) and https://dorar.uqu.edu.sa/uquui/handle/20.500.12248/103892 (accessed 25 January 2022). 66 Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm al-Wazīr al-Yamānī, al-ʿAwāṣim wa-l-qawāṣim fī l-dhabb ʿan sunnat Abī l-Qāsim, ed. Shuʿayb al-Arnāʾūṭ, Amman: Dār al-Bashīr, 1405–1412/1985–1992, vol. 1, p. 33 n. 1. 67 Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm al-Wazīr, al-Rawḍ al-bāsim, ed. Muḥammad ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn al-Miṣrī, p. 41 n. 2. 68 http://www.almajidcenter.org/ (accessed 25 January 2022). See, by contrast, al-Maqḥafī, Mawsūʿat al-alqāb alyamaniyya, vol. 4, p. 337 (al-ʿUrayqī [sic], no. 1), for a proper identification of al-ʿArīqī; and likewise al-Ḥibshī, Maṣādir, pp. 123 (al-ʿAnsī), 199–200 (al-ʿArīqī). See also Ḥamīd al-Dīn, al-Rawḍ al-aghann, vol. 2, pp. 61–63 nos. 463 (ʿAbd Allāh b. Zayd al-ʿArīqī), 464 (ʿAbd Allāh b. Zayd al-ʿAnsī); although ʿAbd al-Malik Ḥamīd al-Dīn is aware of the confusion between al-ʿArīqī and al-ʿAnsī among some of the earlier biographers, his own entry on al-ʿArīqī also confuses the two, although his entry on al-ʿAnsī is correct throughout. Ismāʿīl al-Baghdādī’s conflation between al-ʿAnsī and al-ʿArīqī is also pointed out in Jaʿfar al-Ṣubḥānī (ed.), Muʿjam ṭabaqāt al-mutakallimīn: Yataḍammanu tarjamat rijālāt al-ʿilm wa-l-fikr ʿabra arbaʿa ʿashar qarnan, Qum: Muʾassasat al-Imām al-Ṣādiq, 1424/2003–4, vol. 2, p. 391 n. 2; and Jaʿfar al-Ṣubḥānī (ed.), Mawsūʿat ṭabaqāt al-fuqahāʾ, 14 vols., Beirut: Dār al-Adwāʿ, 1999, vol. 7, p. 139 nos. 2499 and 2500. 69 Madelung, Der Imam al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhīm, p. 202 n. 315. 63

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lists the tract in his bibliography as “Titelloses Bruchstück einer Widerlegung der Muṭarrifiten.”70 Over the past decades, additional titles attributed to al-Ansī have come to light in some of the private libraries of Yemen. These are regularly added to al-ʿAnsī’s list of writings without scrutiny of their authenticity and precise identity. For example, a multitext volume preserved in the library of a branch of the Āl al-Wazīr in Hijrat al-Sirr contains a text entitled Miṣbāḥ al-maḥajja al-dāll ʿalā anna ijmāʿ āl al-nabī ḥujja, which was copied, according to al-Ḥibshī, in 972/1564–65. In his brief description of the text in his Fihris71 alḤibshī identifies al-Muʾayyad bi-llāh Aḥmad b. al-Ḥusayn (d. 421/1030) as its author. AlWajīh, who saw the same copy (according to al-Wajīh the copy is dated Shaʿbān 772/February–March 1371), disagreed with al-Ḥibshī’s identification and identified al-ʿAnsī as its author. In view of the scant information provided by al-Wajīh, it is unclear how he arrived at this conclusion. However, the individual headings of the two masāʾil included in the text as well as the chapter (faṣl) headings in both masāʾil as recorded by al-Wajīh precisely match those of the following two tracts: Risāla fī anna ijmāʿ ahl al-bayt ḥujja by Abū Ṭālib Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn al-Hārūnī (d. 424/1033) and Masʾala fī anna ijmāʿ ahl al-bayt ḥujja by alMuwaffaq bi-llāh Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥusayn b. Ismāʿīl al-Ḥasanī al-Jurjānī (fl. early fifth/eleventh century). The overlaps indicate that these two tracts are in fact behind “Miṣbāḥ almaḥajja al-dāll ʿalā anna ijmāʿ āl al-nabī ḥujja.”72 Another example is the list of al-ʿAnsī’s writings that the editor of al-ʿAnsī’s al-Risāla al-badīʿa al-muʿlina (→ inventory, item 12) includes in the introduction to his edition (p. 22 no. 24). Here, he lists “Mansak al-ḥajj” as an

70

Madelung, Der Imam al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhīm, p. 254. Madelung also consulted al-ʿAnsī’s al-Fatāwī al-nabawiyya al-mufṣiḥa ʿan aḥkām al-Muṭarrifiyya (MS Glaser 111); see ibid. It is possible that ʿAbd al-ʿĀṭī also had some reservations about the attribution of “ʿAqāʾid ahl al-bayt wa-l-radd ʿalā l-Muṭarrifiyya” to al-ʿAnsī. Whereas he included in his al-Ṣirāʿ al-fikrī all four tracts in MS Glaser 79 that Ahlwardt had attributed to al-ʿAnsī, of the tracts in MS Glaser 111 he included only al-Fatāwī al-nabawiyya, not “ʿAqāʾid ahl al-bayt wa-l-radd ʿalā l-Muṭarrifiyya.” But since he does not explain his rationale, he may have had other reasons not to include the latter text. 71 Al-Ḥibshī, Fihris, p. 49 no. 84. 72 Al-Wajīh, Maṣādir, vol. 2, pp. 364, 391–392. The two tracts were accessible to us through MS Milan, Ambrosiana F 29 ar., fols. 290v–308r. Al-Wajīh’s description of the Miṣbāḥ reads as follows (the parallel locations in the Ambrosiana manuscript are given in parentheses): awwaluhu Masʾala fī anna ijmāʿ ahl al-bayt ḥujja min imlāʾ al-Imām Abī Ṭālib al-Hārūnī (= fol. 290v), thumma faṣl fī dhikr shubah yumkin īrāduhā fī hādhihi l-masʾala wa-bayān ajwibatihā (= fol. 294r), thumma masʾala fī anna ijmāʿ ahl al-bayt ḥujja min imlāʾ al-Sayyid Aḥmad [sic] b. Ismāʿīl al-Jurjānī (= fol. 295v), thumma faṣl fī l-adilla allatī istadalla bihā (= fol. 297v), wa-akhīran faṣl fī l-adilla allatī tudhkar fī hādhā l-bāb (= fol. 305v), wa-akhīran faṣl fī ḥukm ijmāʿihim ʿalayhim al-salām (= fol. 306r, here faṣl fī aḥkām ijmāʿihim). For an edition and study of Abū Ṭālib’s tract, see Hassan Ansari and Sabine Schmidtke, “Abū Ṭālib Yaḥyā b. alḤusayn al-Hārūnī (d. 424/1033) on the Consensus of the Family of the Prophet: An Editio Princeps of His Risāla fī anna Ijmāʿ Ahl al-Bayt Ḥujja (Ms Milan, Ambrosiana, ar. F 29/4, fols. 290v–295v),” Shii Studies Review 3 (2019), pp. 249–269; for an edition and study of al-Muwaffaq’s tract, see Hassan Ansari, ʿAmmār Jumʿa, and Sabine Schmidtke, “Al-Muwaffaq bi-llāh on the Consensus of the Family of the Prophet: An Editio Princeps of His Masʾala fī anna Ijmāʿ Ahl al-Bayt Ḥujja (Ms Milan, Ambrosiana, ar. F 29/5),” Shii Studies Review 6 (2022) [forthcoming]. AlWajīh mentions another copy of the Masʾala fī anna ijmāʿ ahl al-bayt ḥujja by al-Muwaffaq bi-llāh Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥusayn b. Ismāʿīl al-Ḥasanī al-Jurjānī, transcribed by Ṣalāḥ b. Ḥasan Nūr al-Dīn, which, al-Wajīh reports, is kept in the Maktabat al-Sayyid al-ʿAllāma Yaḥyā Rāwiya; see al-Wajīh, Aʿlām, vol. 1, p. 365. It is unclear why al-Wajīh did not recognize that the same text is also included in the manuscript in the Hijrat al-Sirr library.

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independent title among al-ʿAnsī’s works, and he adds that a manuscript of the text is held in Hijrat Suwaydān, in the Maktabat al-Sayyid Majd al-Dīn al-Muʾayyadī. Comparison with al-Wajīh’s Maṣādir, which includes a catalog of this library, shows that this text in fact constitutes an excerpt from al-ʿAnsī’s K. al-Irshād.73 Moreover, in his Hijar al-ʿilm Ismāʿīl b. ʿAlī al-Akwaʿ attributes to al-ʿAnsī a work entitled al-Miṣbāḥ al-lāʾiḥ fī l-radd ʿalā l-Muṭarrifiyya.74 None of the earlier biobibliographical sources record this title, but it is also mentioned by al-Wajīh in his Aʿlām al-muʾallifīn al-Zaydiyya (with reference to Hijar al-ʿilm)75 and in the introduction to al-Wajīh and al-Hāshimī’s edition of al-ʿAnsī’s Irshād.76 In the latter publication, the editors refer to “Ṭabaqāt al-Zaydiyya,” that is, Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn’s Mustaṭāb, as their source; however, Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn’s work does not mention the title. Finally, Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Munajjid misidentifies MS Milan, Ambrosiana, D 352 ar. as “Kitāb fī l-fiqh” by ʿAbd Allāh b. Zayd b. Aḥmad b. Abī l-Khayr al-ʿAnsī.77 This misidentification is corrected by Oscar Löfgren and Renato Traini in volume 2 their catalog of the Arabic manuscripts of the Ambrosiana, where they describe its contents as “Torso of (Šams al-aḫbār al-muntaqā min kalām an-nabī l-muḫtār, by Ibn al-Walīd al-Qurašī).”78 An analysis of al-ʿAnsī’s legal theory, another desideratum in the study of al-ʿAnsī’s thought, will be possible on the basis of what has come down to us from his Taḥrīr adillat al-uṣūl (→ inventory, item 18) in the Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt/al-Maktaba al-Gharbiyya, if and when the manuscript becomes available. In conjunction with the numerous quotations from al-ʿAnsī’s al-Durra al-manẓūma in Ibn al-Wazīr’s books, it may also be possible to establish the relative chronology of the two works.

73

Al-Wajīh, Maṣādir, vol. 2, pp. 261–262 (majmūʿa 86/2). Mansak al-ḥajj is also listed as an independent title by alʿAnsī in al-Ṣubḥānī (ed.), Muʿjam ṭabaqāt al-mutakallimīn, vol. 2, p. 391. 74 Al-Akwaʿ, Hijar al-ʿilm, vol. 4, p. 1811b. 75 Al-Wajīh, Aʿlām, vol. 1, p. 571. By contrast, al-Ḥibshī does not include this title in his Maṣādir. 76 ʿAbd Allāh b. Zayd al-ʿAnsī, K. al-Irshād ilā najāt al-ʿibād, ed. ʿAbd al-Salām al-Wajīh and Muḥammad Qāsim alHāshimī, Sa‘da: Maktabat al-Turāth al-Islāmī, 1421/2000–2001, p. 8. The title is also listed among al-ʿAnsī’s works in al-Ṣubḥānī (ed.), Muʿjam ṭabaqāt al-mutakallimīn, vol. 2, p. 391, and in Ibrāhīm b. Yaḥyā al-Darsī al-Ḥamzī, “alQāḍib li-shubah al-munazzihīn li-l-Muṭarrifiyya,” unpublished book manuscript, http://althaqaleen.com/UploadedBooks/%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%82%D8%A7%D8%B6%D8%A8%20%D9%84%D8%B4%D8%A8%D9%87%20% D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%86%D8%B2%D9%87%D9%8A%D9%86%20%D9%84%D9%84%D9%85%D8%B7 %D8%B1%D9%81%D9%8A%D8%A9%D9%85%D9%86%20%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%86%D9%88%D8%A7%D8% B5%D8%A8%20%D9%84%D9%84%D8%AF%D8%B1%D8%B3%D9%8A.pdf (accessed 25 January 2022), p. 129 no. 10. Neither of the two mention a source for this title. 77 Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Munajjid, Fihrist al-makhṭūṭāt al-ʿarabiyya fī l-Ambrūziyānā bi-Mīlānū: Al-juzʾ al-thānī = Catalogue des manuscrits arabes de l’Ambrosiènne de Milan: 2ème partie, D No. 220–420, Cairo: Maʿhad al-Makhṭūṭāt alʿArabiyya, 1960, p. 74 no. 132. 78 Oscar Löfgren and Renato Traini, Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, vols. 1–3, Vicenza: N. Pozza, 1975–1995; vol. 4, Milan: Silvana Editoriale, 2011, vol. 2, p. 305 no. 608. It should be noted that Shams al-akhbār is not by Ibn al-Walīd but by his son, ʿAli b. Ḥumayd al-Qurashī (d. mid-seventh/thirteenth century); see Ansari and Schmidtke, Studies in Medieval Islamic Intellectual Traditions, p. 216 no. 115. Hassan Ansari also inspected the original codex, confirming that al-Munajjid has misidentified the work.

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MANUSCRIPT CODICES COPIED BY AL-ʿANSĪ In his Majmūʿ al-ijāzāt, al-Maswarī mentions three codices that were transcribed by ʿAbd Allāh b. Zayd al-ʿAnsī. On one occasion,79 al-Maswarī describes a codex that al-ʿAnsī completed at the end of Jumādā I 626/April 1229 and another that he completed one a month later, in Jumādā II 626/April–May 1229. The first codex contained the K. Uṣūl al-aḥkām fī l-ḥalāl wa-l-ḥarām by Aḥmad b. Sulaymān b. Muḥammad b. al-Muṭahhar (500–566/1106–1170), who rose up in Yemen as Imam al-Mutawakkil ʿalā llāh in 531/1137.80 The second codex contained Majmūʿ al-fiqh attributed to Zayd b. ʿAlī (d. 122/740).81 Both codices were in the possession of al-ʿAnsī’s son al-Ḥasan, who appears to have taken them to Imam al-Mutawakkil ʿalā llāh al-Muṭahhar b. Yaḥyā b. al-Murtaḍā (616–697/1219 or 1220–1298),82 asking the latter to issue an ijāza to him for both texts. Although neither of the two codices seems to have come down to us, al-Maswarī’s account includes the text of the two ijāzas.83 Al-Muṭahhar b. Yaḥyā adduces the following two chains of transmission for Aḥmad b. Sulaymān’s Uṣūl al-aḥkām, both through his immediate teacher Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Abī l-Rijāl (d. 730/1329–30):84 (1) al-Muṭahhar b. Yaḥyā ← Taqī l-Dīn Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Abī l-Rijāl ← al-Mahdī Aḥmad b. al-Ḥusayn b. al-Qāsim (d. 656/1258) ← Shuʿla b. Muḥammad al-Ḥiwālī, i.e., Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. al-Qāsim al-Akwaʿ “Shuʿla al-Akwaʿ” (d. ca. 640/1242–43) ← Muḥyī l-Dīn Muḥammad b. Aḥmad Ibn al-Walīd al-Qurashī ← Aḥmad b. Sulaymān85 (2) al-Muṭahhar b. Yaḥyā ← Taqī l-Dīn Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Abī l-Rijāl ← Sharaf al-Dīn al-Ḥasan b. al-Baqāʾ b. Ṣāliḥ al-Tihāmī (d. after 670/1271–72)86 ← Ḥumayd b. Aḥmad al-Muḥallī (killed in 652/1254) ← Muḥyī l-Dīn Muḥammad b. Aḥmad Ibn al-Walīd al-Qurashī ← Aḥmad b. Sulaymān

For the Majmūʿ al-fiqh, which al-Muṭahhar b. Yaḥyā read to both Ṣalāḥ b. Ibrāhīm b. Tāj alDīn (alive in 702/1302–3) and al-Ḥasan b. ʿAbd Allāh al-ʿAnsī, he mentions the following chain of transmission:

79

See below, Appendix 5 for an edition of the relevant account. Al-Maswarī also describes the codex elsewhere in his Majmūʿ al-ijāzāt (margin note on p. 159), quoting its beginning, where al-ʿAnsī mentions the number of Prophetic ḥadīths in each chapter of the book: ‫تفصيل هذه ا��خبار ما ذ��ه الفقيه الع��مة ��ر ا���ن عبد ا�� ّٰ� �ن ز�� العن�� ر��ه ا�� ّٰ� �ي ديبا�ة ��خته ال�ي فرغ م��ا �ي ��ادى ا��و�ى سنة ست‬ . . .‫وع���ن و���ائة‬ 81 For the K. Uṣūl al-aḥkām, see Ansari and Schmidtke, Studies in Medieval Islamic Intellectual Traditions, pp. 191 no. 112, 219 no. 139. For an overview of scholarship on the works attributed to Zayd b. ʿAlī since 1919, including the Majmūʿ al-fiqh, see Harald Motzki (with Nicolet Boekhoff-van der Voort and Sean W. Anthony), Analysing Muslim Traditions: Studies in Legal, Exegetical and Maghāzī Ḥadīth, Leiden: Brill, 2010, pp. 281–285. 82 On him, see al-Wajīh, Aʿlām, vol. 2, pp. 378–379. 83 See also Ibn Abī l-Rijāl, Maṭlaʿ al-budūr, vol. 2, p. 57 no. 400, where the same codices are mentioned. 84 On him, see Ibn Abī l-Rijāl, Maṭlaʿ al-budūr, vol. 4, pp. 191–192 no. 1095; al-Wajīh, Aʿlām, vol. 2, p. 196 no. 196. 85 For Aḥmad b. al-Ḥusayn’s having studied the Uṣūl al-aḥkām with Shuʿla al-Akwaʿ, see Ansari and Schmidtke, Studies in Medieval Islamic Intellectual Traditions, chapter 8. 86 On him, see Ibn Abī l-Rijāl, Maṭlaʿ al-budūr, vol. 2, pp. 29–32 no. 380; al-Shahārī, Ṭabaqāt, vol. 1, pp. 293–295 no. 156. His name is given differently in the two sources (al-Ḥasan b. al-Baqāʾ vs. al-Ḥasan b. Abī l-Baqāʾ). See also Ansari and Schmidtke, Studies in Medieval Islamic Intellectual Traditions, p. 182 no. 15. 80

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al-Muṭahhar b. Yaḥyā ← Ibrāhīm b. ʿAlī b. Aḥmad al-Akwaʿ87 ← Shuʿla, i.e., Shuʿla al-Akwaʿ ← Muḥyī l-Dīn Muḥammad b. Aḥmad Ibn al-Walīd al-Qurashī ← Qāḍī Shams al-Dīn Jaʿfar b. Aḥmad b. ʿAbd al-Salām al-Buhlūlī al-Abnāwī (“Qāḍī Jaʿfar,” d. 573/1177–78).

Above the latter ijāza, al-Ḥasan b. ʿAbd Allāh al-ʿAnsī added a note stating that he had finished his samāʿ sessions for both books with al-Muṭahhar b. Yaḥyā by the end of Rabīʿ I 689/April 1290. That al-Ḥasan b. ʿAbd Allāh and Ṣalāḥ b. Ibrāhīm studied together under alMuṭahhar b. Yaḥyā is plausible, as both were, directly or indirectly, students of ʿAbd ʿAllāh b. Zayd al-ʿAnsī: whereas it can be taken for granted that al-Ḥasan studied under his father, Ṣalāḥ b. Ibrāhīm studied kalām under al-ʿAnsī’s pupil Yaḥyā b. Manṣūr, and the historical sources stress that Ṣalāḥ endorsed the doctrinal views of Yaḥyā as well as those of the Zaydi imams (wa-kāna ʿalā raʾīhi wa-raʾī aʾimmat ahl al-bayt). Ṣalāḥ also studied under alʿAnsī’s student al-Ḥusayn b. Badr al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā, and he completed the latter’s Shifāʾ al-uwām fī aḥādīth al-aḥkām. With al-Muṭahhar b. Yaḥyā, Ṣalāḥ studied, in addition to the Majmūʿ Zayd b. ʿAlī, ʿUlūm Āl Muḥammad, that is, the Amālī Aḥmad b. ʿĪsā b. Zayd (d. 247/861), and Sharḥ al-Ibāna.88 On another occasion,89 al-Maswarī describes a codex that contained al-ʿAnsī’s transcriptions of Abū Saʿd al-Muḥassin b. Muḥammad al-Bayhaqī al-Barawghanī’s (“al-Ḥākim al-Jishumī,” d. 494/1101) K. Tanbīh al-ghāfilīn ʿan faḍāʾil al-Ṭālibiyyīn, completed on 2 Rabīʿ II 644/17 August 1246, and of the K. al-ʿUmda fī ʿuyūn ṣiḥāḥ al-akhbār fī manāqib imām alabrār of Abū l-Ḥusayn Shams al-Dīn Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥasan b. al-Ḥusayn al-Asadī al-Ḥillī (“Ibn al-Biṭrīq,” d. 600/1203–4 or 601/1204–5), completed on 7 Jumādā II 644/20 October 1246 in Saʿda. Wedged in between these two writings in the codex, according to al-Maswarī, was a copy of the K. Shawāhid al-tanzīl li-qawāʿid al-tafḍīl fī l-āyāt al-nāzila fī ahl al-bayt by the Ḥanafī scholar al-Ḥāfiẓ ʿUbayd Allāh b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad al-Ḥākim al-Ḥaskānī al-Nīsābūrī (d. after 470/1077–78). This had been transcribed by ʿAbd Allāh’s nephew Muḥammad b. Asʿad with the exception of the first part of the work, up to Sūrat al-Ḥajj, which was in the hand of al-ʿAnsī. Al-Maswarī adds that the codex contained an ijāza issued in Rajab 644/November 1246 by Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. al-Qāsim al-Akwaʿ (“Shuʿla al-Akwaʿ”) for al-ʿAnsī

87

On him, see Ibn Abī l-Rijāl, Maṭlaʿ al-budūr, vol. 1, p. 159 no. 37. See Ibn Abī l-Rijāl, Maṭlaʿ al-budūr, vol. 2, pp. 438–440 no. 696; al-Shahārī, Ṭabaqāt, vol. 1, pp. 504–507 no. 301. Ṣalāḥ’s Tatimmat Shifāʾ al-uwām has been published together with the latter work. Another published work of his is Ṣalāḥ b. Ibrāhīm, al-Kawākib al-durriyya fī l-nuṣūṣ ʿalā imāmat khayr al-bariyya wa-dhikr najāt atbāʿ aldhurriyya, ed. ʿAbd Allāh al-Ghufrānī, Mashhad: ʿUrūj Andīsha, 1423/1381sh/2002. For the Amālī Aḥmad b. ʿĪsā, see Ansari and Schmidtke, Studies in Medieval Islamic Intellectual Traditions, p. 184 no. 36. A multitext volume of several writings by Ṣalāḥ b. Ibrāhīm is preserved in the private library of Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl al-Kibsī. For a digital surrogate of the codex at Princeton University Library, see https://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/9978495353506421 (accessed 25 January 2022). For a brief, incomplete description of the codex, see al-Wajīh, Maṣādir, vol. 1, p. 216 no. 42. 89 A copy of the Majmūʿ al-ijāzāt is preserved in the private library of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Shāyim in Hijrat Fallala; the relevant entry is to be found on pp. 470–476. 88

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in Ḥūth, and he quotes it in full in his Majmūʿ al-ijāzāt.90 A collective manuscript that nowadays belongs to the Maktabat Āl al-ʿAntharī in Saʿda can safely be identified as the codex described by al-Maswarī (figs. 30, 31).91

Figure 30. MS Ṣaʿda, Maktabat Āl al-Antharī (al-ʿAnsī codex), fol. 41v. 90

For an annotated edition of the ijāza, with analysis, see Ansari and Schmidtke, Studies in Medieval Islamic Intellectual Traditions, chapter 8. 91 For a study of the codex, see Ansari and Schmidtke, Studies in Medieval Islamic Intellectual Traditions, chapter 10.

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Figure 31. MS Ṣaʿda, Maktabat Āl al-Antharī (al-ʿAnsī codex), fol. 175r.

287

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SOME OBSERVATIONS ON AL-ʿANSĪ’S DOCTRINAL THOUGHT Zaydi Shīʿism initially developed and flourished in two regions, the southern shore of the Caspian Sea in northern Iran and the northern highlands of Yemen. Al-Nāṣir li-l-Ḥaqq alḤasan b. ʿAlī al-Uṭrūsh (d. 304/917) founded a Zaydi imamate in Gīlān, while Yaḥyā b. alḤusayn al-Hādī ilā l-Ḥaqq (d. 298/911), a grandson of Imam al-Qāsim b. Ibrāhīm al-Rassī (d. 246/860), established a Zaydi state in Yemen in 284/897. Although the majority of Yemeni theologians remained faithful to the teachings of the early Zaydi imams, al-Qāsim and al-Hādī, the Caspian Zaydis increasingly adopted the doctrinal teachings of the Bahshamī school of the Muʿtazila.92 Zaydi Bahshamī Muʿtazilism flourished especially with the imams al-Muʾayyad bi-llāh Aḥmad b. al-Ḥusayn al-Hārūnī (d. 411/1020) and al-Nāṭiq bi-l-Ḥaqq Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn b. Hārūn (d. 424/1033). The two brothers had studied kalām in Baghdad with Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Baṣrī (d. 369/980), the leading authority on Bahshamī Muʿtazilism at the time. Later they joined the circle of the Buyid vizier al-Ṣāḥib b. ʿAbbād (d. 385/995) in Rayy. The latter actively promoted Muʿtazilī theology and appointed the then head of the Basran school, ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Hamadhānī (d. 415/1024), chief judge of Rayy. ʿAbd alJabbār, in turn, attracted numerous additional Zaydi students. Bahshamī Muʿtazilism continued to be upheld by the Zaydis of northern Iran, especially those of Rayy, in the following generations. The Zaydis of Yemen seem to have mostly ignored the intellectual developments among their Iranian coreligionists. In the fifth/eleventh century, a pietist movement emerged in Yemen that was later named Muṭarrifiyya, after the eponym Muṭarrif b. Shihāb b. ʿAmr b. ʿAbbād al-Shihābī (d. mid-fifth/eleventh century). Taking the teachings of al-Hādī as their point of departure, the movement’s adherents developed a cosmology and natural philosophy of their own that deviated from the tenets of traditional Muʿtazilism. During most of the fifth/eleventh and sixth/twelfth centuries, this strand dominated the intellectual landscape of Yemeni Zaydism.93

92

At the same time, the Caspian Zaydis continued to adhere partly to the legal doctrines of al-Nāṣir al-Uṭrūsh and partly to those of al-Hādī. 93 On the Muṭarrifiyya, see also Wilferd Madelung, “A Muṭarrifī Manuscript,” Proceedings of the VIth Congress of Arabic and Islamic Studies, Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1975, pp. 75–83; Wilferd Madelung, “Origins of the Yemenite Hijra,” Arabicus Felix: Luminosus Britannicus. Essays in Honour of A. F. L. Beeston on his Eightieth Birthday, ed. Alan Jones, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991, pp. 25–44; David Thomas Gochenour, “The Penetration of Zaydī Islam into Medieval Yemen,” PhD diss., Harvard University, 1984, passim; ʿAbd al-ʿĀṭī, al-Ṣirāʿ al-fikrī; Hassan Ansari, “Yād dāshtī dar bāra-yi Muṭarrifiyya wa raddiyya-yi Qāḍī Jaʿfar b. ʿAbd al-Salām,” Kitāb-i māh-i dīn 49–50 (1380 [2001]), pp. 112–126; Hassan Ansari, “Falsafa-yi ṭabīʿī-yi muʿtaziliyān-i muṭarrifī,” Kitāb-i māh-i dīn 103–104 (1385 [2006]), pp. 4–17. Johann Heiss and Eirik Hovden argue in their “Competing Visions of Community in Mediaeval Zaydī Yemen,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 59 (2016), pp. 366–407, that there existed a “proto-Muṭarrifiyya,” a local network of Zaydis opposing al-Manṣūr bi-llāh al-Qāsim b. ʿAlī al-ʿIyānī (d. 393/1003) that prepared the ground for the Muṭarrifiyya to envisage a decentralized community that “was used to operating without an imam” (ibid., p. 367, and similarly pp. 369, 373), even “leaving no place for an imam as a ‘commander of the faithful’” (ibid., p. 400); by contrast, the doctrinal idiosyncrasies of the Muṭarrifiyya were formulated much later and are not constituent of the movement in its “proto” form. Some of their ideas are also mentioned in Hovden’s entry in Encyclopeadia of Islam. Three, http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-

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3912_ei3_COM_41004 (accessed 25 January 2022). However, Heiss and Hovden’s analysis is problematic in several respects. They critique, for example, “many historians [who] consider it important to understand the beginning of the Muṭarrifiyya as a school of thought (“madhhab”)—as a beginning of a distinct set of ideas” (p. 387). But the few extant primary Muṭarrifī sources do suggest that Muṭarrifiyya endorsed a set of idiosyncratic doctrines that had developed before the arrival of Muʿtazilī Baṣran doctrines in Yemen, although these doctrines are only rudimentarily known. Heiss and Hovden’s argument rests on a highly selective approach to the available sources. They pick three accounts, one from the sīra of al-Manṣūr al-Qāsim al-ʿIyānī, written by the secretary Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥusayn b. Aḥmad b. Yaʿqūb al-Hamdānī, and two other accounts from volume 4 of the Akhbār al-Zaydiyya min ahl al-bayt ʿalayhim al-salām wa-shīʿatihim bi-l-Yaman by the Muṭarrifī author Musallam b. Muḥammad al-Laḥjī (d. ca. 552/1157). The passage from the sīra mentions a shaykh Aḥmad b. al-Rayyān, who declared that he and his community would not pay zakāt to the imam. Another account from al-Laḥjī’s work is concerned with Aḥmad b. al-Rayyān and his brother Ibrāhīm (who became the father-in-law of Muṭarrif b. Shihāb) and describes aspects of communal worship and study in the circle of the two brothers. The final account, also from al-Laḥjī, concerns one Ismāʿīl al-Muzayyin, who like the Banū l-Rayyān lived in Madar, and it describes the community’s habits at harvest time. According to Heiss and Hovden, these three randomly chosen accounts prove that there was a “protoMuṭarrifiyya” before Muṭarrif that was characterized by rejection of the notion of the imamate and that was not primarily concerned with doctrinal questions. This analysis rests on several misinterpretations. For example, Heiss and Hovden argue that in the account of Ismāʿīl al-Muzayyin the term khums refers to the technical legal term, even though the text discusses the division of the harvest of grapes into two parts and the subsequent division of one of them into five parts, and khums is not used in the legal sense here. They further claim that the term awliyāʾ Allāh designates a group of people who are to be distinguished from the ashrāf, although there is nothing in the text to support this interpretation. It is astonishing that in their discussion of the notions of khums and zakāt Heiss and Hovden refer to only one Zaydi legal work, without any analysis of the issue at hand. In “Competing Visions of Community,” p. 400 n. 123 they refer only to a study by Norman Calder on khums in Imāmī fiqh, which is irrelevant for the context at hand, while ignoring all more relevant studies, such as Hossein Modarressi’s Kharāj in Islamic Law (Tiptree: Anchor Press, 1983). Furthermore, it remains unclear how and why the early group of opponents of al-Manṣūr al-Qāsim should have later evolved into the Muṭarrifiyya; the designation of the former as “proto-Muṭarrifiyya” has no justification in the evidence presented or in any of the available sources. The authors also fail to reflect on how a community can define itself as Zaydi without believing in the notion of the imamate—they apparently confuse rejection of the legitimacy of an imam (which was very common) with rejection of the very notion of the imamate. It is noteworthy that they also refer, through ʿAbd al-Ghanī Maḥmūd ʿAbd al-ʿĀṭī, to al-ʿAnsī’s K. al-Tamyīz (pp. 385–386), which they did not consult directly. On the Muṭarrifiyya during the time of al-Manṣūr ʿAbd Allāh b. Ḥamza and their interpretation of a natural disaster that occurred sometime around 601/1205 and 606/1210, see also Johann Heiss and Eirik Hovden, “Zaydī Theology Popularised: A Hailstorm Hitting the Heterodox,” Cultures of Eschatology, vol. 1: Empires and Scriptural Authorities, ed. Veronika Wieser, Vincent Eltschinger, and Johann Heiss, Oldenburg: de Gruyter, 2020, pp. 415–440. Here, too, their approach is selective, and their analysis is based on a single incident. More studies on the Muṭarrifīs are certainly a desideratum. However, the available source material should be considered in its entirety—al-Laḥjī’s Akhbār amounts to several hundred pages and is replete with material, much of which points to the centrality of doctrinal disputes. Moreover, besides the K. al-Burhān al-rāʾiq and some other theological works, we now possess a new comprehensive primary source that informs us about the theological thought of the Muṭarrifiyya. The text was discovered a few years ago by Wilferd Madelung and was identified by Hassan Ansari; see Hassan Ansari, “Yik manbaʿ-i jadīd-i kalāmī-yi zaydiyān-i muṭarrifī,” Barrasī-hā-yi tārīkhī, http://ansari.kateban.com/post/3491 (accessed 25 January 2022). Another text, Sharḥ al-Faṣl by the sixth/twelfth-century Muṭarrifī author Yaḥyā b. alḤusayn al-Yaḥīrī, was discovered by Hassan Ansari (see his “Falsafa-ʿi ṭabīʿī” and “Yik manbaʿ-i jadīd”). An edition

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Around the turn of the sixth/twelfth century, a rapprochement began between the Zaydis of Yemen and those of northern Iran that eventually resulted in the political unification of the two Zaydi states. In 531/1137, Aḥmad b. Sulaymān (500–566/1106–1170) successfully established himself in Yemen as Imam al-Mutawakkil ʿalā llāh and was also acknowledged as the imam by the Zaydis of Iran. He promoted the transfer of Caspian Zaydi religious literature to Yemen, invited numerous Zaydi scholars from Iran to Yemen, and furthered the teaching careers of Yemeni scholars who had studied in Iran and Iraq. Aiming to establish an intellectual counterweight to the Muṭarrifī community, he specifically encouraged the spread of Bahshamī teachings. His successor, al-Manṣūr bi-llāh ʿAbd Allāh b. Ḥamza (d. 614/1217), who led an all-out war against the Muṭarrifiyya, further intensified the import of religious literature, particularly Bahshamī books, to Yemen and encouraged its dissemination. A leading part in promoting Caspian Zaydi and (Bahshamī) Muʿtazilī teaching was played by the prominent Qāḍī Shams al-Dīn Jaʿfar b. Aḥmad b. ʿAbd al-Salām al-Buhlūlī al-Abnāwī. At the latter’s death in 573/1177–78, he was succeeded by his former student Ḥusām al-Dīn Abū Muḥammad (or Abū ʿAlī) al-Ḥasan b. Muḥammad alRaṣṣāṣ (546–584/1151 or 1152–1188). Al-Raṣṣāṣ acted as the teacher of ʿAbd Allāh b. Ḥamza, later Imam al-Manṣūr bi-llāh, and he wrote numerous substantial works on kalām and natural philosophy, thus further establishing the Bahshamī doctrine as the “official” theology of the Zaydis of Yemen. Al-Raṣṣāṣ not only disregarded the earlier Yemeni Zaydi theological tradition but also refrained from referring to any earlier Zaydi authorities in his discussions on laṭīf al-kalām. Prompted by their opponents’ focus on doctrinal issues, the Muṭarrifīs countered the attack: they insisted that they were faithful followers of the teachings of the early imams and argued that it was in fact the adoption of Bahshamī Muʿtazilism that constituted a deviation from the truth and thus an illegitimate innovation. Moreover, faced with the new arrival of Muʿtazilī works, the Muṭarrifīs seem to have increasingly used the doctrines of the Baghdādī Muʿtazilīs to refine their own kalām in their intellectual battles with their opponents.94 Consequently, the conflict took on the dynamics of the old opposition within the Muʿtazila between the Baghdādīs and the Bahshamīs. When al-Ḥasan al-Raṣṣāṣ died in 584/1188, the religious and political leadership of the Zaydi community was still vacant after the death of Imam al-Mutawakkil ʿalā llāh. It

was published by Jamāl al-Shāmī in 1441/2019 (Markaz al-Turāth wa-l-Buḥūth al-Yamanī). The edition was reviewed by Zayd b. ʿAlī al-Wazīr (“Al-Jadīd min turāth al-Muṭarrifiyya,” al-Masār 61 (2020), pp. 15-27), who erroneously assumes (ibid., p. 26) that it was al-Shāmī who first discovered the text. Heiss and Hovden are apparently unaware of this newly discovered material. 94 The doctrines of the Baghdādī Muʿtazila could be gleaned from works such as the Maqālāt of Abū l-Qāsim alBalkhī al-Kaʿbī (d. 319/931) or the K. al-Masāʾil fī l-khilāf bayna l-Baṣriyyīn wa-l-Baghdādiyyīn of Abū Rashīd alNīsābūrī, which was a systematic comparison between the doctrines of the adherents of the two Muʿtazilī schools. Both works were available in Yemen since the late sixth/twelfth or early seventh/thirteenth century. For the Maqālāt, see Ansari and Schmidtke, “The Fate of Yemeni Manuscripts” in this volume; for the Masāʾil al-khilāf, see Ansari and Schmidtke, Studies in Medieval Islamic Intellectual Traditions, chapter 1. The influence of Baghdādī doctrines among the representatives of the Muṭarrifiyya during this period is evident, for example, in the K. alBurhān al-rāʾiq by the Muṭarrifī theologian Sulaymān b. Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Muḥallī, who flourished in the second half of the sixth/twelfth century and who regularly refers to al-Balkhī’s Maqālāt in his work. See Madelung, “Muṭarrifī Manuscript.”

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was only in 593/1197 that al-Raṣṣāṣ’s former student ʿAbd Allāh b. Ḥamza rose as Imam alManṣūr bi-llāh. Under his reign, the Bahshamī strand irrevocably overcame its ideological detractors: the imam, who himself wrote a number of important theological works, declared the adherents of the Muṭarrifiyya to be unbelievers (kuffār) and even legitimized in his treatises the killing and enslaving of their adherents and the use of military force against them. Their persecution and the destruction of their hijras under al-Manṣūr eventually led to the extinction of the sect. Al-Manṣūr’s reckless oppression of the Muṭarrifīs evoked criticism among some of the Zaydi elite of Yemen, and as a result the Zaydi community was divided between those who approved and those who criticized al-Manṣūr’s conduct in the conflict—a situation that also affected the development of doctrinal thought among the Zaydis.95 The theological approach of al-Ḥasan al-Raṣṣāṣ and his adherents continued to set the tone during the seventh/thirteenth century, with al-Raṣṣāṣ’s grandson, Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Raṣṣāṣ (“al-Ḥafīd”) (d. 656/1258), being one of the most prominent representatives of the Zaydi Bahshamiyya. Aḥmad al-Raṣṣāṣ al-Ḥafīd is otherwise particularly known for his Jawharat al-uṣūl wa-tadhkirat al-fuḥūl, which became the most authoritative Zaydi work on legal theory.96 Another representative of the Bahshamī strand during the first half of the seventh/thirteenth century was Ḥumayd b. Aḥmad al-Muḥallī al-shahīd. Ḥumayd had studied, among other teachers, with Imam al-Manṣūr ʿAbd Allāh b. Ḥamza, and he is primarily renowned as the author of the siyar work al-Ḥadāʾiq al-wardiyya. That he was an accomplished theologian is shown by his comprehensive works on kalām; his ʿUmdat al-mustarshidīn fī uṣūl al-dīn, a theological summa in four parts in which he comments on a credal work by al-Manṣūr bi-llāh;97 and his al-Kawākib al-durriyya fī tafṣīl al-nafaḥāt al-miskiyya, 95

Among the opponents of al-Manṣūr’s policy against the Muṭarrifiyya was the latter’s contemporary Muḥammad al-ʿAfīf b. al-Mufaḍḍal, the forefather of the Banū l-Wazīr, and some of his relatives; see al-Shāmī, Tārīkh al-Yaman al-fikrī, vol. 3, pp. 58–60. An example of a work directed against al-Manṣūr and his policy may possibly be the lost tract al-Taṣfiya fī l-radd ʿalā l-Ḥamziyya wa-shīʿatihim al-shatawiyya (or al-shatwiyya) by the seventh/thirteenthcentury Zaydi jurist al-amīr ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn b. Yaḥyā b. Yaḥyā b. al-Nāṣir, author of the renowned K. al-Lumaʿ fī fiqh ahl al-bayt; see Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Yaḥyā al-Siyāghī, al-Manhaj al-munīr tamām al-rawḍ al-naḍīr (we consulted the book through Shamela). For al-amīr ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn b. Yaḥyā, see also Ibn Abī l-Rijāl, Maṭlaʿ albudur, vol. 3, pp. 227–228 no. 876; al-Shahārī, Ṭabaqāt, vol. 2, pp. 725–728 no. 443; al-Wajīh, Aʿlām, vol. 2, pp. 52– 53 no. 848; Ansari and Schmidtke, Studies in Medieval Islamic Intellectual Traditions, p. 182 no. 9 (with further references). Moreover, a short text by Ḥumaydān, Jawāb al-masāʾil al-shatawiyya (or al-shatwiyya) wa-l-shubah al-ḥashawiyya (or al-ḥashwiyya), could be a refutation directed at some Bahshamī Zaydis among the followers of al-Manṣūr bi-llāh. The text is published in Majmūʿ al-Sayyid Ḥumaydān, ed. Aḥmad Ḥasan ʿAlī al-Ḥamzī and Hādī Ḥasan Hādī al-Ḥamzī, Saʿda: Manshūrāt Markaz Ahl al-Bayt li-l-Dirāsāt al-Islāmiyya, 1424/2003, pp. 481–505. 96 For the work, see Ansari and Schmidtke, Studies in Medieval Islamic Intellectual Traditions, p. 75. For Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Raṣṣāṣ, see Ibn Abī l-Rijāl, Maṭlaʿ al-budūr, vol. 1, pp. 420–432 no. 210; al-Shahārī, Ṭabaqāt, vol. 1, pp. 196–198 no. 91. 97 A partial copy of the work, dated 631/1234, is preserved in Princeton University Library; see https://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/9938632163506421 (accessed 25 January 2022). Other partial copies of the ʿUmda are preserved in the Maktabat al-Awqāf in Sanaa and the library of the shrine of Imam al-Hādī in Saʿda; see al-Wajīh, Aʿlām, vol. 1, p. 409. For the Saʿda copy, see also Sabine Schmidtke, “The Intricacies of Capturing the Holdings of a Mosque Library in Yemen: The Library of the Shrine of Imām al-Hādī, Ṣaʿda,” Manuscript Studies 3 (2018), pp. 220–237, here p. 232. Another copy of the work (part 3) is preserved in Istanbul (MS Istanbul, Süleymaniye

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an autocommentary on his al-Nafaḥāt al-miskiyya fī l-masāʾil al-kalāmiyya,98 which encompasses all major aspects of the subtleties of theology. In both works, Ḥumayd al-Muḥallī endorses the teachings of the Bahshamiyya. On the other hand, growing opposition emerged among the Zaydis of Yemen to Muʿtazilism in general and the theological views of the Bahshamiyya in particular, as they were perceived as one of the principal causes for the division between the Muṭarrifīs and their opponents, and attempts were made to overcome the divide within the Zaydi community. The most outspoken opponent of Muʿtazilī kalām, writ large, was Nūr al-Dīn Abū ʿAbd Allāh Ḥumaydān b. Yaḥyā b. Ḥumaydān b. al-Qāsim (d. mid-seventh/thirteenth century), who sought to weaken its influence on Zaydi theology and to emphasize the latter’s independence. In his doctrinal works, al-Sayyid Ḥumaydān strove to systematically replace kalām by relevant statements from the early imams.99 ʿAbd Allāh b. Zayd al-ʿAnsī was a contemporary of Aḥmad al-Raṣṣās al-Ḥafīd, Ḥumayd al-Muḥallī, and Ḥumaydān. Like Ḥumayd al-Muḥallī and Ḥumaydān, al-ʿAnsī devoted several works to the refutation of the Muṭarrifiyya.100 Like Ḥumayḍān, and in contrast to the Banū Raṣṣāṣ and other proponents of Bahshamī theology, al-ʿAnsī sought to strengthen the influence of the doctrines of the early imams, particularly those of al-Qāsim and alHādī, and to reduce the influence of the Bahshamiyya, which, according to al-ʿAnsī, diverged in many areas from the imams’ positions. However, al-ʿAnsī did not share Ḥumayḍān’s critical attitude toward kalām and its methodology in general. For him, the doctrines of ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s former student Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī (d. 436/1044), who disagreed with his teacher on a number of fundamental issues and founded his own school of thought,101 and those of Abū l-Ḥusayn’s principal follower, Rukn al-Dīn Maḥmūd b. Muḥammad Ibn al-Malāḥimī (d. 536/1141), which he considered, by and large, to agree

Kütüphanesi, Ali Paşa Hekimoğlu 375); see Hassan Ansari, Az ganjīna-hā-yi nusakh-i khaṭtī: Muʿarrifī-i dast niwishthā-yi arzishmand az kitābkhāna-hā-yi buzurg-i jahān dar ḥawza-yi ʿulūm-i islāmī, Isfahan: Daftar-i tablīghāt-i islāmī ḥawza-yi ʿilmiyya-yi Qum, 2015, p. 357. 98 A manuscript of the Kawākib is preserved in the Ambrosiana Library (MS Milan, Ambrosiana, F 177 ar., fols. 1– 76, 178–184r). See Löfgren and Traini, Catalogue, vol. 4, pp. 84–85 no. 1472. For al-Ḥumayd al-Muḥallī, see also Ansari and Schmidtke, Studies in Medieval Islamic Intellectual Traditions, pp. 273–274. 99 On him, see Madelung, Imam al-Qāsim b. Ibrāhīm, pp. 218ff. His writings have been published as Majmūʿ alSayyid Ḥumaydān. For an assessment of his theological views, see Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, al-Imām Ḥumaydān b. Ḥumaydān wa-ārāʾuhu al-kalāmiyya wa-l-falsafiyya, Alexandria: Dār al-Wafāʾ li-Dunyā l-Ṭibāʿa wa-lNashr, 2003; Hassan Ansari, Barrasī-hā-yi tārīkhī dar ḥawza-yi islām wa-tashayyuʿ, Tehran: Kitābkhāna, Mūzih wa Markaz-i Asnād-i Majlis-i Shūrā-yi Islāmī, 1390/2011, pp. 179–194 (“Jaryān-i siwwum”). 100 See, e.g., Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn b. al-Qāsim b. Muḥammad, al-Masālik fī dhikr al-nājī min al-firaq wa-l-hālik, ed. Ibrāhīm Yaḥyā Muḥammad Qays, Beirut/Damascus: Muʾassasat al-Risāla, 1433/2012, p. 353. Al-Ḥumayd alMuḥallī wrote K. al-Radd ʿalā l-Muṭarrifiyya (see Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn, Mustaṭāb, fol. 75v); al-Sayyid Ḥumaydān wrote Risāla fī l-Radd ʿalā l-Muṭarrifiyya = Taʿrīf al-taṭrīf (see al-Wajīh, Aʿlām, vol. 1, p. 411). For an edition of what remains of the latter work, see Majmūʿ al-Sayyid Ḥumaydān, pp. 353–411, and ʿAbd al-ʿĀṭī, al-Ṣirāʿ al-fikrī, pp. 256– 274. 101 For Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī and his doctrinal views, see Sabine Schmidtke, “The Muʿtazilite Movement (III): The Scholastic Phase,” Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology, ed. Sabine Schmidtke, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, pp. 159–180, here pp. 169–175 (with further references).

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with the views of the earlier Zaydi imams, particularly al-Qāsim and al-Hādī, presented an alternative to the doctrinal system of the Bahshamiyya.102 In some of his theological works, al-ʿAnsī avoided discussions of the subtleties of kalām and limited himself to the basic tenets maintained by the early imams. He thus launched a new theological trend among the Zaydis of seventh/thirteenth-century Yemen, which had a long-lasting influence on Zaydi doctrinal thought in subsequent generations (see below).103 It is possible that al-ʿAnsī had direct or indirect access to Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī’s theological summa, K. Ghurar aladilla,104 but what is certain is that he consulted Ibn al-Malāḥimī’s K. al-Muʿtamad fī uṣūl aldīn as his principal source for the doctrines of Abū l-Ḥusayn and Ibn al-Malāḥimī. This is shown by a reference to the Muʿtamad in his Maḥajja105 and regular parallels between the wordings in the two works. A future in-depth study of the sources al-ʿAnsī used across his entire oeuvre may yield additional insights into what was available to him. Al-ʿAnsī’s doctrinal outlook and his approach to the views of Abū l-Ḥusayn and Ibn alMalāḥimī can best be probed through his comprehensive Maḥajja. Al-ʿAnsī regularly mentions

102

Al-ʿAnsī’s identification of some of the ideas of Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī and his school with the doctrines of the early imams is the principal difference between him and al-Muʾayyad bi-llāh Yaḥyā b. Ḥamza (669–749/1270–1348 or 1349), who had endorsed the doctrine of Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī, as is evident from his comprehensive summa, the K. al-Shāmil li-ḥaqāʾiq al-adilla al-ʿaqliyya wa-uṣūl al-masāʾil al-dīniyya. Yaḥyā b. Ḥamza was primarily a mutakallim who preferred the thought of Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī over that of the Bahshamiyya but did not share alʿAnsī’s view that the doctrines of the early imams should take center stage. Moreover, unlike al-ʿAnsī, Yaḥyā b. Ḥamza had access to a wide spectrum of Ashʿarī works, notably Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s (d. 606/1209) Nihāyat alʿuqūl, K. al-Arbaʿīn, and K. al-Maḥṣūl, as well as al-Ghazālī’s K. al-Mustaṣfā and K. al-Iqtiṣād. We consulted the K. al-Shāmil through MSS Tehran, Majlis 86223, 86224, and 86225, which contain volumes 2 through 4 of the work, as well as MS Cairo, Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣriyya 88, a surrogate of volume 1 of the Shāmil that was kept in a private library in Yemen. Autographs of volumes 2 and 4 are preserved in a private library in Yemen and at Leiden University Library, respectively. For an overview of the extant manuscripts, see Hassan Ansari, “Nuskha-hā-yi āthār-i zaydiyya dar Īrān (1): al-Shāmil-yi Yaḥyā b. Ḥamza,” Barrasī-hā-yi tārīkhī, http://ansari.kateban.com/post/1894 (accessed 25 January 2022). 103 Nothing is known about the relationship between al-ʿAnsī and Ḥumaydān, nor do we know whether either was familiar with the work of or influenced the other. Al-ʿAnsī’s perception of agreement between the thought of Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī and that of the early Zaydi imams and his endorsement of this doctrine in his writings was paralleled by a similar development in Imami Shīʿism a few decades earlier. Sadīd al-Dīn Maḥmūd b. ʿAlī b. al-Ḥasan al-Ḥimmaṣī al-Rāzī (d. after 600/1204) had likewise endorsed the teachings of Abū l-Ḥusayn and his followers in his al-Munqidh min al-taqlīd in an attempt to replace Bahshamī thought with doctrines that were in agreement with the teachings of the imams. For details, see Ansari and Schmidtke, Studies in Medieval Islamic Intellectual Traditions, chapter 13. 104 See Schmidtke, “Biblical Predictions of the Prophet Muḥammad.” 105 See Ansari and Schmidtke, Zaydī Theology in 7th/13th-Century Yemen, p. 456 (s.v. “al-Muʿtamad fī uṣūl al-dīn”). For the reception of Ibn al-Malāḥimī’s works among the Zaydīs of Yemen, see Wilferd Madelung’s introduction to his revised and enlarged edition of Ibn al-Malāḥimī’s Muʿtamad (Tehran: Mīrāth-i Maktūb, 1390sh/2012), as well as Hassan Ansari’s comprehensive Persian introduction to this edition; Wilferd Madelung and Martin McDermott’s introduction to their edition of Ibn al-Malāḥimī’s Fāʾiq (Tehran: Iranian Institute of Philosophy, 2007); and Hassan Ansari and Wilferd Madelung’s introduction to their edition of Ibn al-Malāḥimī’s Tuḥfat al-mutakallimīn (Tehran: Iranian Institute of Philosophy, 1387sh/2008).

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the views of these two authorities in it,106 and on many issues he endorses their positions. His approach to their thought is nevertheless critical, and he follows their views only insofar as they fit his overall agenda of formulating a theology that is faithful to the teachings of the imams. AlʿAnsī presents in his Maḥajja the proof for the existence of God as it was commonly formulated by kalām theologians prior to Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī when he argues with the temporality of accidents for the temporality of substances and bodies.107 However, he sides explicitly with Abū l-Ḥusayn and Ibn al-Malāḥimī against the Bahshamiyya when he defines positions in space (jihāt), such as being (kawn), movement (ḥaraka), rest (sukūn), contiguity (ijtimāʿ), and separation (iftirāq), as attributes (ṣifāt) that are generated by an agent (bi-l-fāʿil), not as separate entities (dhawāt) in the sense of entitative determinants that necessitate these attributes (al-maʿānī almūjiba li-hādhihi l-ṣifāt).108 Al-ʿAnsī also rejects the Bahshamī notion of states (aḥwāl) in his discussion of existence (wujūd). He explains that Abū Hāshim and his followers hold existence to be an attribute additional to the essence of the existent being, whereas in fact existence is identical with the existent being (al-wujūd huwa nafs al-mawjūd). This, he states, was also the view of Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī and Ibn al-Malāḥimī, as well as of Abū l-Qāsim b. Shabīb al-Tihāmī.109 Accordingly, al-ʿAnsī maintains that the nonexistent is neither a thing (shayʾ) nor an entity (dhāt), again in agreement with these theologians and against the view of the Bahshamiyya.110 Al-ʿAnsī explains his view on the notion of states in detail when discussing the nature of the divine attributes. He rejects the concept of states with respect to God, arguing that the ontological basis for God’s being omnipotent, omniscient, and living is His essence (dhāt). With respect to created beings, however, al-ʿAnsī affirms the notion of states. They are generated by an agent, which are the accidents.111 Al-ʿAnsī explicitly distinguishes between his position and that of Abū l-Ḥusayn and Ibn al-Malāḥimī, who, he claims, negated the notion of states with respect to God as well as created beings and instead spoke of “characteristics” (aḥkām). According to 106

See Ansari and Schmidtke, Zaydī Theology in 7th/13th-Century Yemen, pp. 451 (s.v. “Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī”), 454 (s.v. “Maḥmūd b. al-Malāḥimī”). 107 MS Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod. arab. 1286, fols. 5rff.; see also al-ʿAnsī, Mudhākarāt, MS Sanaa, Maktabat al-Awqāf 758, fols. 5r–v, 7v–9r. 108 MS Cod. arab. 1286, fols. 6vff.; see also al-ʿAnsī, Mudhākarāt, fols. 9v–11r. 109 MS Cod. arab. 1286, fol. 17v; see also al-ʿAnsī, Mudhākarāt, fols. 19r–v. Abū l-Qāsim b. al-Ḥusayn b. Shabīb alḤasanī al-Tihāmī al-Sulaymānī (d. after 600/1203–4) was a student of al-Ḥasan al-Raṣṣāṣ and is reported to have defended some specific views of Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī; see Madelung, Der Imam al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhīm, p. 222. However, since none of his original doctrinal writings have come down to us, al-ʿAnsī’s comment on him is particularly valuable. Ibn Shabīb’s student al-Ḥusayn b. Musallam wrote a commentary on the K. al-Taḥṣīl fī l-tawḥīd wa-l-taʿdīl by al-Ḥasan al-Raṣṣāṣ under the title al-Iklīl sharḥ maʿānī l-Taḥṣīl. Two portions of the commentary have tentatively been identified by Jan Thiele; see Jan Thiele, “Theological Compendia in Late 6th/12th and Early 7th/13th Century Zaydism: al-Ḥasan al-Raṣṣāṣ’s K. al-Taḥṣīl and Its Commentaries,” Theological Rationalism in Medieval Islam: New Sources and Perspectives, ed. Lukas Mühlethaler and Gregor Schwarb, Leuven: Peeters, 2018, pp. 23–57, here pp. 41–48. However, although the Iklīl is said to contain regular references to Ibn Shabīb, these portions have none, suggesting that they are perhaps not part of al-Ḥusayn b. Musallam’s Iklīl; see Hassan Ansari, “Muqaddima,” in Sulaymān b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Khurāshī, Kitāb al-Tafṣīl li-jumal al-Taḥṣīl: Sharḥ kitāb al-Taḥṣīl limuʾallifihi Ḥasan b. Muḥammad al-Raṣṣāṣ, Tehran: Mīrāth-i Maktūb, 1392sh/2013, pp. hāʾ hāʾ–zāʾ zāʾ. Be that as it may, al-ʿAnsī’s references to Ibn Shabīb are clearly important. 110 MS Cod. arab. 1286, fols. 19rff.; see also al-ʿAnsī, Mudhākarāt, fols. 19r–21r. 111 MS Cod. arab. 1286, fols. 28vff.; see also al-ʿAnsī, Mudhākarāt, fols. 24rff.

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al-ʿAnsī, God’s characteristic of being omnipotent, for example, consists in their view in His being able to generate an act, and this is the relation between the omnipotent essence and that which is the object of omnipotence (fa-kawnuhu qādiran huwa tamakkunuhu min al-fiʿl wahuwa l-taʿalluq bayna l-dhāt al-qādira wa-l-maqdūr).112 In agreement with the Baghdādīs, alʿAnsī maintains that God’s being hearing and seeing can be reduced to His being knowing.113 On the issue of God’s being willing al-ʿAnsī endorses the view that with regard to divine acts, God’s will is identical with the acts’ creation, whereas with regard to the acts of others, His will is identical with His command.114 By contrast, al-ʿAnsī sides with the Bahshamiyya when he maintains that God does not have power over the specific acts that are subject to man’s capability (aʿyān al-afʿāl), thus contradicting Abū l-Hudhayl, Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī, and Ibn alMalāḥimī, who had affirmed this power.115 On the subject of man’s free will, al-ʿAnsī holds that it is necessary knowledge (ʿilm ḍarūrī) that man is the author of his actions.116 He defines man’s capability as a characteristic of the parts of the body and not of the body in its entirety (inna lqudra fī l-shāhid min qabīl al-aḥkām wa-annahā rājiʿa ilā l-ajzāʾ dūna l-jumla),117 against the view of the Bahshamiyya, who define it as a state of the entire body118 and against the view of Abū lḤusayn al-Baṣrī and his followers, who define capability as an attribute of the entire body.119 The same doctrinal positions, though without detailed discussions of the relevant questions that pertain to natural philosophy, can be found in the Sirāj and the Tamyīz. To understand al-ʿAnsī’s doctrinal stance in its wider sociopolitical context, we must keep in mind that al-ʿAnsī belonged to the opponents of the Banū l-Raṣṣāṣ in the political rift that split the Zaydis of Yemen in the mid-seventh/thirteenth century. Following the demise of Imam al-Manṣūr ʿAbd Allāh b. Ḥamza in 614/1217, Yemeni Zaydis were divided. On the one hand, al-Imām al-Dāʿī al-Muʿtaḍid bi-llāh Yaḥyā b. al-Muḥassin b. Maḥfūẓ (d. 636/1238–39),120 a descendant of al-Hādī ilā l-Ḥaqq, ascended to the imamate in Saʿda, but on the other, al-Manṣūr’s descendants asserted their right to the imamate further south. In Ṣafar 646/May–June 1248 Aḥmad b. al-Ḥusayn b. Aḥmad b. al-Qāsim (612–656/1216– 1258) proclaimed his imamate as Imam al-Mahdī li-Dīn Allāh in the fortress of Thulā121 in an attempt to heal this rift.122 From the very beginning, however, Imam al-Mahdī’s reign was contested. From a genealogical perspective, al-Mahdī was connected neither to the Banū Ḥamza, nor to the founder of the Zaydi imamate in Yemen, al-Hādī ilā l-Ḥaqq, nor to al-Manṣūr bi-llāh al-Qāsim b. ʿAlī al-ʿIyānī (d. 393/1003), but only to al-Qāsim b. Ibrāhīm,

112

MS Cod. arab. 1286, fol. 28v. MS Cod. arab. 1286, fols. 25vff.; see also al-ʿAnsī, Mudhākarāt, fols. 28rff. 114 MS Cod. arab. 1286, fols. 89rff.; see also al-ʿAnsī, Mudhākarāt, fols. 32rff. 115 MS Cod. arab. 1286, fols. 38rff.; see also al-ʿAnsī, Mudhākarāt, fols. 27rff. 116 MS Cod. arab. 1286, fols. 65v, 71v; see also al-ʿAnsī, Mudhākarāt, fols. 42r–v, 43r. 117 Al-ʿAnsī, Mudhākarāt, fols. 43v–44r; see also MS Cod. arab. 1286, fols. 78r–v. 118 MS Cod. arab. 1286, fol. 80r; see also al-ʿAnsī, Mudhākarāt, fol. 44r. 119 MS Cod. arab. 1286, fol. 81r; see also al-ʿAnsī, Mudhākarāt, fols. 44r–v. 120 On him, see al-Shāmī, Tārīkh al-Yaman al-fikrī, vol. 3, pp. 162–166; al-Wajīh, Aʿlām, vol. 2, pp. 470–471 no. 1431. 121 For Thulā, see Wilson, Gazetteer of Historical North-West Yemen, p. 111. 122 See Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition, http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_COM_0619 (R. Strothmann, G. R. Smith, and J. R. Blackburn) (accessed 25 January 2022). 113

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and he initially set out to heal the long-standing rift within the dynasty. Al-Mahdī’s proclamation was at first supported by the Banū Ḥamza, the descendants of al-Manṣūr bi-llāh, and the Banū l-Hādī. But in 647/1249 conflict erupted between the imam and the Banū Ḥamza, and things got worse in 651/1253, when the Banū Ḥamza openly opposed al-Mahdī with the support of the Rasulids and eventually backed the claim of the amīr al-Ḥasan b. Wahhās al-Ḥamzī (d. 683/1285),123 a former ally of al-Mahdī, to the imamate. While the Banū Ḥamza were joined in their opposition by the imam’s former teacher and initial supporter Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Raṣṣāṣ al-Ḥafīd, al-Mahdī enjoyed the support of Ḥumayd al-Muḥallī (who was killed as a result of the conflict in 652/1254), al-Sayyid Ḥumaydān, and ʿAbd Allāh b. Zayd al-ʿAnsī. Imam al-Mahdī was eventually killed in 656/1258 in a battle with his opponents.124 The principal source for al-ʿAnsī’s involvement in the conflict and for his relation with Imam al-Mahdī is an account provided by al-Maswarī (see below, Appendix 2). The document testifies to al-ʿAnsī’s support of the imam, who appointed him amīr or qāḍī of Saʿda in 654/1256–57. When the imam’s adversaries began to oppose him, al-ʿAnsī left Sa‘da to join him and to write a risāla in defense of Aḥmad’s imamate, addressed to the imam’s opponents. In 656/1258–59, after al-Mahdī was killed, al-ʿAnsī had to flee persecution at the hands of the imam’s victorious opponents, who strove to kill him as well; as a result, al-ʿAnsī spent some time at Fallala.125 During this time, al-ʿAnsī supported the imamate of al-Manṣūr al-Ḥasan b. Badr al-Dīn (r. 657–659/1258–1259), a brother of al-ʿAnsī’s student al-Ḥusayn b. Badr al-Dīn, and he joined the imam in Ḍamad.126 Since al-ʿAnsī was heavily indebted, having spent enormous sums in support of Imam al-Mahdī, and still feared for his life, he escaped in 659/1261–62 to the court of the Rasulid ruler Muẓaffar in Ta‘izz, passing through several cities, including Zabid. In Rabīʿ II 660/November–December 1261 al-ʿAnsī was in Kuḥlān, where he completed his al-Risāla al-munqidha min al-ʿaṭab al-sālika

123

On him, see al-Khazrajī, al-ʿUqūd al-luʾluʾiyya, vol. 2, p. 965 (s.v. “al-Ḥasan b. al-Wahhās al-Ḥamzī”); al-Shāmī, Tārīkh al-Yaman al-fikrī, vol. 3, p. 211. 124 Among the principal sources on the conflict during the reign of Imam al-Mahdī Aḥmad b. al-Ḥusayn is his sīra by Sharaf al-Dīn Yaḥyā b. al-Qāsim al-Ḥamzī (d. 677/1278–79); see also below, n. 139. A detailed account of the conflict before, during, and after Aḥmad b. al-Ḥusayn’s lifetime is provided by ʿAbd al-Karīm Aḥmad Jadbān in the introduction to his edition of Imam al-Mahdī Aḥmad b. al-Ḥusayn, Majmūʿ rasāʾil al-Imām al-Shahīd al-Mahdī Aḥmad b. al-Ḥusayn, ed. ʿAbd al-Karīm Aḥmad Jadbān, Sa‘da: Maktabat al-Turāth al-Islāmī, 1424/2003, which seems to be primarily based on Muḥammad b. Ḥātim al-Yāmī al-Hamdānī’s (d. 705/1305) al-Simṭ al-ghālī althaman fī akhbār al-mulūk min al-Ghuzz bi-l-Yaman, ed. Gerald Rex Smith, 2 vols., London: Luzac, 1974–1978. Jadbān did not include any of the information related by al-Maswarī regarding al-ʿAnsī’s role during the conflict. See also Muḥammad b. Muḥammad Zabāra, Khulāṣat al-mutūn fī abnāʾ wa-nubalāʾ al-Yaman al-maymūn, Richmond: Markaz al-Turāth wa-l-Buḥūth al-Yamanī, 1419/1999, vol. 2, pp. 203–224; Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh Saʿīd Sālim al-Maysarī, “al-Zaydiyya fī l-Yaman: Dirāsa fī aḥwālihim al-siyāsiyya wa-l-ḥaḍāriyya (636–858h/1229– 1454m),” PhD thesis, Aden University, 1428/2007, especially chapter 1, which is concerned with the period of the imamate of Imam al-Mahdī Aḥmad b. al-Ḥusayn. 125 For Fallala, see al-Ḥajrī, Majmūʿ buldān al-Yaman wa-qabāʾilihā, vol. 4, p. 639; al-Akwaʿ, Hijar al-ʿilm, vol. 3, pp. 1618–1638 no. 323. 126 For al-Ḥasan b. Badr al-Dīn, who was also the author of the renowned work Anwār al-yaqīn fī l-ḥujaj wa-lbarāhīn ʿalā imāmat amīr al-muʾminīn, see al-Wajīh, Aʿlām, vol. 1, pp. 313–314. For Ḍamad, see al-Ḥajrī, Majmūʿ buldān al-Yaman wa-qabāʾilihā, vol. 3, pp. 553–554.

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bi-l-naṣīḥa ilā ahl Shaẓab, and it was in this city that he spent the final seven years of his life.127 It is interesting to note that despite their agreement in politics, the three prominent supporters of Imam al-Mahdī—Ḥumayd al-Muḥallī, al-Sayyid Ḥumaydān, and al-ʿAnsī— each represented a different doctrinal predilection. A study of the political conflict of the time and its individual players, as well as of the doctrinal strands represented by these three personalities, remains a desideratum. According to the later biographical tradition, al-ʿAnsī as well as ʿAlī b. Yaḥyā alFuḍaylī,128 who was another supporter of Imam al-Mahdī Aḥmad b. al-Ḥusayn and who endorsed the Muʿtazilī assertation of the intermediary position (al-manzila bayna l-manzilatayn), and the aforementioned Aḥmad al-Raṣṣāṣ controversially discussed whether the grave sinner (fāsiq) holds an intermediary position between the believer and the unbeliever. Al-ʿAnsī, who rejected this notion, discusses the issue at length in his Māʾ al-yaqīn. He states that the grave sinner is an unbeliever through his ingratitude (kāfir al-niʿma).129 Al-ʿAnsī thus endorses the traditional Zaydi doctrinal notion of unbelief by ingratitude that seems to have been favored by al-Qāsim.130 In his Sirāj and his Mudhākarāt, al-ʿAnsī avoids the Muʿtazilī notion of an intermediary position without explicitly referring to it. According to Ibn Abī l-Rijāl, the conflict over this notion escalated gradually. Al-ʿAnsī corresponded on the issue with ʿAlī b. Yaḥyā al-Fuḍaylī and subsequently wrote a tract against the notion. Aḥmad al-Raṣṣāṣ then intervened and composed a refutation of al-ʿAnsī’s tract, entitled Manāhij al-inṣāf al-ʿāṣima ʿan shabb nār al-khilāf, to which he later added a Muqaddimat almanāhij.131 None of these writings has apparently been preserved.

THE RECEPTION AND IMPACT OF AL-ʿANSĪ’S THOUGHT As has previously been mentioned, al-ʿAnsī’s principal concern throughout his extant oeuvre was to heal the rift within the Zaydi community of Yemen by defining common ground between the opposing camps, the Bahshamī mutakallimūn and the Muṭarrifīs. His point of departure was the teachings of the early Zaydi imams, primarily al-Qāsim and al-Hādī. At the same time, al-ʿAnsī was a mutakallim. In order to remain faithful to what he perceived to be the belief of the ahl al-bayt, he adopted a modified approach toward kalām: in his more comprehensive summae (Mudhākarāt, Maḥajja) he identified some of the positions of Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī as largely compatible with those of the early Zaydi imams, while in other works (Sirāj, Tamyīz) he refrained from entering into disputes concerning the subtleties of kalām and instead focused on the doctrines that all Zaydis could agree on.132

127

Al-ʿAnsī’s closeness to Aḥmad b. al-Ḥusayn is corroborated by MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Glaser 123, which contains not only four of al-ʿAnsī’s writings but also the daʿwat al-Imām al-Mahdī Aḥmad b. al-Ḥusayn b. alQāsim (fols. 266r–270v). See https://stabikat.de/DB=1/SET=4/TTL=6/SHW?FRST=2 (accessed 25 January 2022). 128 On him, see al-Shahārī, Ṭabaqāt, vol. 2, pp. 820–821 no. 519. 129 MS Glaser 123, fols. 235r–v. 130 See Madelung, Der Imam al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhīm, pp. 60ff., 121ff., 164ff. 131 Ibn Abī l-Rijāl, Maṭlaʿ al-budūr, vol. 1, p. 421; vol. 3, p. 364 no. 957. 132 See also below, Appendix 1. In one of his works he also explicitly states that taqlīd of the ahl al-bayt is preferable to taqlīd of any other authority. The passage, which is quoted by al-Hādī b. Ibrāhīm al-Wazīr in his Hidāyat al-rāghibīn ilā madhhab al-ʿitra al-ṭayyibīn, p. 47, runs as follows:

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Figure 32. MS Yemen, Maktabat Majd al-Dīn al-Muʾayyadī (Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Ḥasan al-Daylamī’s Qawāʿid ʿaqāʾid Āl Muḥammad, pp. 188–189). Al-ʿAnsī’s emphasis on the doctrines of the early Zaydi imams,133 which was in full agreement with the thought of Ḥumaydān, laid the foundation for a new type of theology among the Zaydis—one focused on the ʿaqīda of the ahl al-bayt, reduced to the general tenets (jumal) on which all Zaydis could agree. One of the earliest manifestations of this trend is the popular Jumal al-Islām fī uṣūl al-dīn by al-ʿAnsī’s student Yaḥyā b. Manṣūr.134 Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Ḥasan al-Daylamī (d. 711/1311–12), who cites al-ʿAnsī’s Tamyīz ‫ أ�دها أن ا�� ّٰ� تعا�ى أ��ى‬،‫وذ�� سيدنا الع��مة ��ر ا���ن ]عبدال�� �ن ز�� العن��[ قدس ا�� ّٰ� رو�ه أن تقليد أهل البيت أو�ى من تقليد ���هم لوجوه‬ ‫ وثال��ا أن ال��جيح ب�ن الع��اء يكون من جهة‬،‫ وثا���ا ما اختصوا به من العصمة عند إ��اعهم وأنه حجة‬،‫�ل��م �ي ���� ��ابه بآية التطه�� وآية القر�ى‬ .‫ وذل� مع��م عند ��ث أحوا��م وأقوا��م‬،‫ و�� ��بقهم سابق‬،‫الع�� وا���ن والورع وهم �ي هذه ا��ال �� يلحق ��م ��حق‬ 133 See al-ʿAnsī’s statement on the ʿaqīda of the ahl al-bayt in the introduction to the khātima of his Tamyīz in Appendix 3 below. 134 For the Jumal, see above, n. 11. Two other works that were composed by later members of the Āl al-Wazīr and that should likewise be seen in the wider context of this focus on the tenets of the ahl al-bayt are Bayān al-awāmir al-mujmala fī wujūb ṭāʿat ulī l-amr wa-farḍ al-masʾala by al-Murtaḍā b. Mufaḍḍal (on which see above) and alNamraqa al-wusṭā fī l-radd ʿalā munkir faḍl Āl al-Muṣṭafā by a descendant of Yaḥyā b. Manṣūr, namely Imam alMahdī ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. Yaḥyā b. Manṣūr b. al-Mufaḍḍal (b. 705/1305–6 or 707/1307–8, d. 773/1371; for the author and the work, see al-Shahārī, Ṭabaqāt, vol. 2, pp. 780–784; al-Wajīh, Aʿlām, vol. 2, pp. 87–88 no. 912). Both works emphasize the religious authority of the ahl al-bayt.

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among his sources in his Qawāʿid ʿaqāʾid Āl Muḥammad,135 also subscribed to the notion of the general tenets (jumal), and he adduces in this context some lines from one of Yaḥyā b. Manṣūr’s qaṣīdas in which the latter stresses this notion (pp. 189–190, figs. 32, 33).136

Figure 33. MS Yemen, Maktabat Majd al-Dīn al-Muʾayyadī (Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Ḥasan al-Daylamī’s Qawāʿid ʿaqāʾid Āl Muḥammad, pp. 190–191). Another prominent example of the focus on the ʿaqidat ahl al-bayt is al-Laʾālī al-durriyya (or al-Kawākib al-muḍiyya) sharḥ al-Abyāt al-fakhriyya by the eighth/fourteenth-century

135

We consulted the work through a manuscript in the private library of Majd al-Dīn al-Muʾayyadī; see MS Hijrat Suwaydān, Maktabat al-Sayyid Majd al-Dīn al-Muʾayyadī, [no shelfmark], p. 187 for the quotation from al-ʿAnsī’s Tamyīz. For the author, see Ibn Abī l-Rijāl, Maṭlaʿ al-budūr, vol. 4, pp. 258–260 no. 1138; al-Wajīh, Aʿlām, vol. 2, pp. 232–233. One section of the book, entitled “Bayān madhhab al-Bāṭiniyya wa-buṭlānihi,” is available in critical edition by Rudolf Strothmann: Die Geheimlehre der Batiniten nach der Apologie “Dogmatik des Hauses Muhammed” von Muhammed ibn al-Hasan ad-Dailami, Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1939. Strothmann had no information about the author beyond the nisba al-Daylamī, which pointed to Daylam (see the editor’s introduction, p. ṭāʾ). The section was republished in 1950 (Cairo: Maṭbaʿat al-Saʿāda) by ʿIzzat al-ʿAṭṭār al-Ḥusaynī, with an introduction by Muḥammad Zāhid b. al-Ḥasan al-Kawtharī (1296–1371/1879–1952). 136 For a more extensive quotation from this qaṣīda, including the lines adduced by al-Daylamī, see Ibn al-Wazīr, ʿAwāṣim, vol. 3, pp. 409–411.

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Muḥammad b. Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥasan al-Qāsimī.137 The work is a commentary on a qaṣīda known as al-Abyāt al-fakhriyya by Imam al-Wāthiq bi-llāh al-Muṭahhar b. al-Imām al-Mahdī Muḥammad b. al-Mutawakkil ʿalā llāh (702–after 780/1303–1378 or 1379).138 Al-ʿAnsī’s works were for the most part transmitted among his followers, who included several members of the Banū l-Wazīr (Āl al-ʿAfīf/Āl al-Mufaḍḍal) who also supported the imamate of Imam al-Mahdī Aḥmad b. al-Ḥusayn.139 Focusing on the ʿaqīda of the ahl al-bayt and a set of jumal all Zaydis can agree on, became a characteristic of the al-Wazīr family’s doctrinal tradition. It is noteworthy that the differences between Ḥumaydān and al-ʿAnsī played little to no role for their contemporaries and later generations alike—what counted most was their shared intention to return to the doctrines of the early imams.140 Al-Shahārī, for example, names among the followers of Ḥumaydān listed in his Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥasan b. Badr alDīn, al-Mutawakkil ʿalā llāh al-Muṭahhar b. Yaḥyā b. al-Murtaḍā,141 and the latter’s son Imam al-Maḥdī Muḥammad b. al-Muṭahhar (665–728/1266 or 1267–1327 or 1328),142 and he relates that al-Maḥdī Aḥmad b. al-Ḥusayn praised Ḥumaydān’s writings as representing the beliefs of the family of the Prophet and that al-ʿAnsī pursued the same goal. Al-Shahārī continues the list of representatives of this trend with the names of other Zaydis who are known to have endorsed some of the doctrines of Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī, notably Yaḥyā b. Ḥamza in his K. al-Shāmil and Ibn al-Shabīb al-Tihāmī, as well as individuals known generally as followers of the doctrines of the early imams, such as Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan alDaylamī in his Qawāʿid ʿaqāʾid Āl Muḥammad and Muḥammad b. Yaḥyā al-Qāsimī in his commentary on the Qaṣīdat al-Imām al-Wāthiq, without distinguishing between the two categories.143 This development opened the door for a new tendency that eventually led to the abolishment of kalām, which was perceived as a source of disagreement and friction

137

On Muḥammad b. Yaḥyā al-Qāsimī and his work, see Ibn Abī l-Rijāl, Maṭlaʿ al-budūr, vol. 4, pp. 396–397 no. 1226; al-Shahārī, Ṭabaqāt, vol. 2, pp. 1110–1112 no. 696; see also al-Wajīh, Aʿlām, vol. 2, pp. 351–352 no. 1283; Aḥmad al-Ḥusaynī al-Ishkawarī, Muʾallafāt al-Zaydiyya, 3 vols., Qum: Maktabat Āyat Allāh al-ʿUẓmā al-Marʿashī alNajafī, 1413/1992, vol. 2, pp. 395–396. The author regularly refers to Ḥumaydān. The work was accessible to us through a manuscript in a private library in Yemen. 138 On al-Wāthiq, see Ibn Abī l-Rijāl, Maṭlaʿ al-budūr, vol. 4, p. 422 no. 1253; al-Shahārī, Ṭabaqāt, vol. 2, pp. 1127– 1130 no. 711. 139 It is noteworthy that the library of a branch of the Banū l-Wazīr in Hijrat al-Sirr holds a copy (dated 900/1494– 95) of al-Risāla al-hādima li-asās al-daʿwā al-ẓālima, a refutation of al-Ḥasan b. Wahhās’s claim to the imamate, by Sharaf al-Dīn Yaḥyā b. al-Qāsim al-Ḥamzī (d. 677/1278–79), who also recorded the sīra of Imam al-Mahdī (see Ansari and Schmidtke, Studies in Medieval Islamic Intellectual Traditions, pp. 153, 164, and passim); see al-Ḥibshī, Fihris, p. 65 no. 116. 140 One branch of the family holds in its library what seems to be the oldest copy of the Majmūʿ Sayyid Ḥumaydān, containing eight of his tracts. The codex, which dates to the seventh/thirteenth century, was first kept in the Khizānat Āl al-Mufaḍḍal (i.e., the descendants of al-Mufaḍḍal b. Manṣūr) and nowadays belongs to the library of a branch of the Banū l-Wazīr in Hijrat al-Sirr. See al-Ḥibshī, Fihris, p. 47 no. 79; al-Wajīh, Maṣādir, vol. 2, p. 384 no. 66. 141 On him, see above. 142 On him, see al-Shahārī, Ṭabaqāt, vol. 2, pp. 1072–1080 no. 678. 143 Al-Shahārī, Ṭabaqāt, vol. 1, pp. 413–416 no. 245. Al-Shahārī also includes Ṣāʿid b. Aḥmad al-ʿUjalī and his K. alKāmil, although the author was not a Zaydi. For the K. al-Kāmil and its author, see our introduction to this volume.

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within the community. At the same time, the emphasis on the teachings of the ahl al-bayt resulted in a turn toward ḥadīth as a privileged source of doctrine. The development culminated in the thought of Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm al-Wazīr (d. 840/1436), who, however, departed from the earlier approach of al-ʿAnsī and the majority of his ancestors in several respects. Unlike Yaḥyā b. Manṣūr and other proponents of the adherence to the general tenets of the ahl al-bayt, Ibn al-Wazīr sought to formulate a doctrine that would be acceptable to all Muslim believers, not only the Zaydis, and to harmonize the doctrines of the rival schools of Muʿtazilism and Ashʿarism.144 Moreover, since kalām no longer played a role in his methodology, Ibn al-Wazīr privileged Prophetic ḥadīth as another element that connected all Muslim believers, and Sunni ḥadīth collections were thus as authoritative for him as were Zaydi collections.145 To the same end, he condemned taqlīd of earlier religious authorities and called instead for ijtihād by the believers, with Prophetic ḥadīth serving as its principal source. Time and again, Ibn al-Wazīr referred to the doctrines of Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī; however, unlike al-ʿAnsī, who deemed some of Abū l-Ḥusayn’s doctrines to agree with those of the early imams, Ibn al-Wazīr employed Abū l-Ḥusayn to show that some of the points of controversy between the Muʿtazilīs and the Ashʿarīs could easily be harmonized. This is the case, for example, with the issue of man’s actions, on which, according to Ibn al-Wazīr, the Muʿtazilīs and the Ashʿarīs essentially agree, even though their explanations may differ.146 Unlike al-ʿAnsī, Ibn al-Wazīr perceived Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī not only through the writings of the latter’s followers but also through the writings of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606/1209), who drew on Abū l-Ḥusayn extensively and adapted many of his doctrines to his own Ashʿarī perspective.147 To legitimize his approach, Ibn al-Wazīr referred to earlier adherents of the ʿaqīdat ahl al-bayt and the notion of jumal among his ancestors and to other Zaydi representatives of this trend, including al-ʿAnsī and Ḥumaydān.148 On

144

See Wilmers, Beyond Schools, pp. 198–220. The acceptability of Sunni ḥadīth collections was already endorsed by Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn b. al-Manṣūr alQāsim in his Ṣawārim al-yaqīn li-qaṭʿ shukūk al-Qāḍī Aḥmad b. Saʿd al-Dīn (for the work, see above, n. 34), a refutation of al-Maswarī’s position that Zaydis should refrain from consulting Sunni collections. For ḥadīth among the Zaydis, see Hassan Ansari and Jan Thiele, “Zaydite Ḥadīth Literature and Thought,” The Oxford Handbook of Hadith Studies, ed. Mustafa Shah, Oxford: Oxford University Press, [forthcoming]. 146 See, e.g., Ibn al-Wazīr, al-Rawḍ al-bāsim, ed. ʿAlī b. Muḥammad al-ʿImrān, Mecca: Dār ʿĀlam al-Fawāʾid, 1419/1998–1999, pp. 354–364; see also Ibn al-Wazīr, ʿAwāṣim, vol. 6, pp. 117–120; vol. 7, pp. 32ff. See also Wilmers, Beyond Schools, pp. 247–249. 147 For Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s interpretation of Abū l-Ḥusayn’s doctrine of man’s actions, see Wilferd Madelung, “The Late Muʿtazila and Determinism: The Philosophers’s Trap,” Yād-nāma in memoria di Alessandro Bausani, vol. 1: Islamistica, ed. Biancamaria Scarcia Amoretti and Lucia Rostagno, Rome: Bardi Editore, 1991, pp. 245–257. For Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s adaptations of Abū l-Ḥusayn’s doctrines, see also Sabine Schmidtke, The Theology of alʿAllāma al-Ḥillī (d. 726/1325), Berlin: Schwarz, 1991, passim. 148 For Ibn al-Wazīr’s reference to al-ʿAnsī, see his Qaṣīda dāliyya, an important text testifying to Ibn al-Wazīr’s doctrinal thought. Ismāʿīl al-Akwaʿ included an edition of the Qaṣīda in his introduction to Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm al-Wazīr’s K. al-ʿAwāṣim, entitled “al-Imām Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm wa-kitābuhu al-ʿAwāṣim wa-l-qawāṣim,” pp. 7– 100, here pp. 32–37. The Maḥajja and its author (“Ibn Zayd”) is referred to in the last line of p. 36; see also ibid., p. 34:14, where “Ibn Zayd” is likewise mentioned. Al-Akwaʿ does not specify on the basis of which manuscript(s) he edited the Qaṣīda. For references to the Maḥajja in other works of Ibn al-Wazīr, see below, inventory, item 9. 145

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the other hand, Ibn al-Wazīr had a more comprehensive understanding of the ahl al-bayt than did al-ʿAnsī or Ḥumaydān. When al-ʿAnsī and Ḥumaydān talk about the early imams, they mean mostly al-Qāsim and al-Hādī, as well as al-Nāṣir al-Uṭrūsh. By contrast, Ibn alWazīr also includes in his definition of ahl al-bayt the early Zaydi authorities of the school of Kufa, who were adherents of the ahl al-ḥadīth and thus represent an entirely different strand than do al-Qāsim and al-Hādī, who subscribed to kalām.149 For the school of Kufa, Ibn al-Wazīr names Muḥammad b. Manṣūr al-Murādī al-Kūfī’s (alive in 252/866) K. al-Jumla wa-l-ulfa as a prominent representative of this tendency to focus on the general tenets of Islam.150 The K. al-Jumla has survived in quotations in al-Jāmiʿ al-kāfī of Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. ʿAlī al-Kūfī (d. 455/1053–54), a collection of the teachings of early Kufan Zaydis.151 This work reached Yemen at a relatively late stage, after the lifetimes of al-ʿAnsī and Ḥumaydān.152 Ibn al-Wazīr’s quest to eradicate divisions between schools and madhhabs and the fact that he felt authorized to consult Sunni ḥadīth compilations more extensively than his forebears had have led scholars to argue that Ibn al-Wazīr should be considered the first prominent representative of a tendency that has often been labeled “sunnization” of the Zaydiyya, which is said to have culminated in the thought of Muḥammad b. ʿAlī al-Shawkānī (d. 1250/1834). However, in her analysis of Ibn al-Wazīr’s thought, Damaris Wilmers has shown that the label “sunnization” is ill suited to apply to the case of Ibn al-Wazīr and that using his views only to determine the school to which he may have belonged fails to do justice to his thought.153 But Wilmers was largely unaware of al-ʿAnsī’s

For Ḥumaydān and other earlier representatives of this trend, see Ibn al-Wazīr, ʿAwāṣim, vol. 3, pp. 409–418; his list of representatives largely overlaps with that provided by al-Shahārī in his entry on Ḥumaydān (see above). 149 For the doctrines of the early Zaydis of the school of Kufa and the differences between them and the Hādawī school, see Wilferd Madelung, Der Imam al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhīm, passim; Wilferd Madelung, “Introduction [to Part VI: Theology],” The Study of Shiʿi Islam: History, Theology and Law, ed. Farhad Daftary and Gurdofarid Miskinzoda, London: I. B. Tauris, 2014, pp. 455–463, here pp. 456–457. 150 See Wilmers, Beyond Schools, pp. 144–145. 151 For a reconstruction of the K. al-Jumla on the basis of the quotations from the book in al-Jāmiʿ al-kāfī, see Hassan Ansari, “Mabānī-yi uṣūlī/kalāmī-yi zaydiyān-i maktab-i qadīm (1): Bāz sāzī-yi Kitāb al-Ulfa wa-l-jumla taʾlīfi Muḥammad b. Manṣūr al-Murādī (d. baʿd az 290q),” Barrasī-hā-yi tārīkhī, http://ansari.kateban.com/post/1850 (accessed 25 January 2022). For other examples of the jumal tendency in general among earlier generations of Muslims, see Hossein Modarressi, “Essential Islam: The Minimum that a Muslim Is Required to Acknowledge,” Accusations of Unbelief in Islam: A Diachronic Perspective on Takfīr, ed. Camilla Adang, Hassan Ansari, Maribel Fierro, and Sabine Schmidtke, Leiden: Brill, 2016, pp. 395–412. 152 For a study of the arrival and reception of al-Jāmiʿ al-kāfī in Yemen, see Ansari, “Mabānī-yi uṣūlī/kalāmī-yi zaydiyān-i maktab-i qadīm”; and Hassan Ansari, “Al-Jāmiʿ al-kāfī wa asānīd-i kūfī-yi riwāyat-i ān,” Barrasī-hā-yi tārīkhī, http://ansari.kateban.com/post/3496 (accessed 27 January 2022). Ansari’s analysis is based on MS Milan, Ambrosiana C 168. For this copy, see also Eugenio Griffini, “Lista dei manoscritti arabi nuovo fondo della Biblioteca Ambrosiana di Milano,” Rivista degli studi orientali 8, no. 1/4 (1919/1920), pp. 241–367, here pp. 249–262. An edition of the Jāmiʿ al-kāfī was published by ʿAbd Allāh Ḥamūd al-ʿIzzī (8 vols., Saʿda: Muʾassasat Muṣṭafā alThaqāfiyya, 2014). Al-ʿIzzī’s edition did not include the portions of the work that address ʿaqīda (“ziyādāt”). These were recently published by Jamāl al-Shāmī as Ziyādāt al-Jāmiʿ al-kāfī (Yemen: [private publication], 2021). 153 Wilmers, Beyond Schools. After the publication of Wilmers’s study, Mufti Ali published an article entitled “The Opposition of the Shiʿites towards Kalām: With Particular Reference to Tarjīḥ Asālib al-Qurʾān and al-Rawḍ al-

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and Ḥumayḍān’s role as the founders of the tendency that would characterize the thought of several members of the Āl al-Wazīr since the seventh/thirteenth century and would culminate with Ibn al-Wazīr.154 Observing Ibn al-Wazīr’s usage of elements of doctrine as formulated by Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī, she proposed, for example, that “[a] comprehensive comparison between the thought of Ibn al-Wazīr and Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī would have to include an investigation of Imam Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥamza’s teaching . . .”.155 However, as already mentioned,156 Yaḥyā b. Ḥamza was a mutakallim who did not share al-ʿAnsī’s goal of emphasizing the early Zaydi imams. Such an investigation should thus take into consideration the doctrinal works of al-ʿAnsī and Ḥumaydān, as well as those of the later representatives of the jumal trend among the Zaydis up to the time of Ibn al-Wazīr.

THE INVENTORY The purpose of the following inventory of al-ʿAnsī’s writings is to serve as a reference for future research on al-ʿAnsī. Included are all works of which he is known to be the author or that are likely to have been composed by him. Each entry includes a brief description of the work’s contents (if known), followed by references to relevant bibliographical sources. The date of composition, as far as it can be established, is also mentioned, and details on available editions and manuscripts of extant works are provided. 1. “ʿAqāʾid ahl al-bayt wa-l-radd ʿalā l-Muṭarrifiyya” The author of this text discusses eighty issues (maʿrifa), contrasting the views of the ahl alIslām with those of the Muṭarrifiyya. In MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Glaser 111 the work is untitled and contains no indication of its author (fig. 17). The title ʿAqāʾid ahl albayt wa-l-radd ʿalā l-Muṭarrifiyya was coined by the cataloger, Wilhelm Ahlwardt. The text is incompletely preserved, as it breaks off at the end of the codex (fig. 18). Ahlwardt assumed the work to have been composed by al-ʿAnsī, perhaps because of the tract’s position in the codex: it is preceded by another tract by al-ʿAnsī, al-Fatāwī al-nabawiyya almufṣiḥa ʿan aḥkām al-Muṭarrifiyya (→ 3). Ahlwardt’s assumption of al-ʿAnsī’s authorship is corroborated by the similarity between this work and al-ʿAnsī’s Tamyīz. The text’s arrangement evokes the second introduction (al-muqaddima al-thāniya) to the otherwise more detailed K. al-Tamyīz (→ 20), which is structured in a similar manner, although only some of the topics discussed in this text have an immediate equivalent in the parallel section of the Tamyīz. The following sections of the text have direct parallels in the second introduction to the Tamyīz:

Bāsim by the Zaydite Muhammad ibn Ibrahim Ibn al-Wazir al-Sanʿānī (d. 840/1436),” Hamdard Islamicus 42 (2019), pp. 181–198. Ali was, however, unaware of Wilmers’s study, and his elaborations are not helpful. 154 Wilmers mentions both occasionally in her study but is evidently unaware of their influence on Ibn al-Wazīr’s thought. 155 Wilmers, Beyond Schools, p. 364 n. 6; see also p. 361. 156 See above, n. 102.

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HASSAN ANSARI AND SABINE SCHMIDTKE “ʿAqāʾid” masʾala 3 masʾala 4 masʾala 6 masʾala 7 masʾala 13 masʾala 17 masʾala 20 masʾala 21 masʾala 22 masʾala 23 masʾala 24 masʾala 26 masʾala 27 masʾala 28 masʾala 30 masʾala 32 masʾala 36 masʾala 37 masʾala 38 masʾala 39 masʾala 41 masʾala 42 masʾala 43 masʾala 47 masʾala 49 masʾala 50 masʾala 51 masʾala 54 masʾala 55 masʾala 56 masʾala 58 masʾala 61 masʾala 62 masʾala 63 masʾala 66 masʾala 68 masʾala 72 masʾala 73 masʾala 76 masʾala 77 masʾala 79 masʾala 81

Tamyīz, al-muqaddima al-thāniya = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

masʾala 2 masʾala 8 masʾala 7 masʾala 28 masʾala 9 masʾala 6 masʾala 57 masʾala 58 masʾala 59 masʾala 60 masʾala 63 masʾala 66 masʾala 49 masʾala 50 masʾala 69 masʾala 70 masʾala 31 masʾala 33 masʾala 34 masʾala 35 masʾala 36 masʾala 37 masʾala 38 masʾala 16 masʾala 40 masʾala 41 masʾala 32 masʾala 42 masʾala 43 masʾala 44 masʾala 45 masʾala 47 masʾala 12 masʾala 68 masʾala 23 masʾala 48 masʾala 52 masʾala 51 masʾala 53 masʾala 54 masʾala 67 masʾala 64

The many parallels between the two texts not only support Ahlwardt’s assumption of alʿAnsī’s authorship of the “ʿAqāʾid” but also suggest that the works need to be studied together; close consultation of both texts will also be helpful in the preparation of a critical

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edition of either. A final verdict on the work’s authenticity will have to await a close analysis of the “ʿAqāʾid” and the Tamyīz. (ʿAbd al-Salām b. ʿAbbās al-Wajīh, Aʿlām al-muʾallifīn al-Zaydiyya, 2nd enl. and rev. ed., 2 vols., Sanaa: Dār al-Imām Zayd b. ʿAlī, 1439/2018, vol. 1, p. 571 [no manuscript listed]; ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad al-Ḥibshī, Maṣādir al-fikr al-islāmī fī l-Yaman, Abu Dhabi: al-Majmaʿ al-Thaqāfī, 2004, p. 124 [no manuscript listed]; ʿAbd al-Malik b. Aḥmad b. Qāsim Ḥamīd alDīn, al-Rawḍ al-aghann fī maʿrifat al-muʾallifīn bi-l-Yaman wa-muṣannafātihim fī kull fann, 3 vols., n.p.: Dār al-Ḥārithī, 1415/1994–95, vol. 2, p. 62; Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Shāmī, Tārīkh al-Yaman al-fikrī fī l-ʿaṣr al-ʿabbāsī 132–656h/750–1259m, 4 vols., Beirut: Manshūrāt al-ʿAṣr al-Ḥadīth, 1407/1987, vol. 3, p. 310 no. 7; Jaʿfar al-Ṣubḥānī [ed.], Muʿjam ṭabaqāt almutakallimīn: Yataḍammanu tarjamat rijālāt al-ʿilm wa-l-fikr ʿabra arbaʿa ʿashar qarnan, Qum: Muʾassasat al-Imām al-Ṣādiq, 1424/2003–4, vol. 2, p. 391) Manuscripts •

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MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Glaser 111, fols. 164v–222v; see Wilhelm Ahlwardt, Verzeichniss der arabischen Handschriften der Königlichen Bibliothek zu Berlin, Berlin: A. W. Schade, 1887–1899, vol. 9, p. 593 no. 10292. A digital surrogate of the manuscript can be accessed through https://stabikat.de/DB=1/XMLPRS=N/PPN?PPN=787955892 (accessed 25 January 2022). A digital surrogate of a microfilm of MS Glaser 111, fols. 164v– 222v, provided by the IZbACF, also includes the final page of al-ʿAnsī’s al-Fatāwī al-nabawiyya, i.e., MS Glaser 111, fol. 163v.157 MS Leiden, Leiden University Library, Or. 8266/3, an unfinished apograph of MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Glaser 111, fols. 164v–222v, transcribed in 1929 by Cornelis van Arendonk, is preserved in al-Radd ʿalā l-Muṭarrifiyya; see https://catalogue.leidenuniv.nl/permalink/f/o03ulj/UBL_ALMA71324051620002711 (accessed 25 January 2022); Jan Just Witkam, Inventory of the Oriental Manuscripts of the Library of the University of Leiden. Volume 9: Manuscripts Or. 8001-Or, 9000, Leiden: Ter Lugt Press, 2019, apud Or. 8266. “Edition”

An uncritical draft transcription, accessible at http://www.anazaidi.com/play.php? catsmktba=565 (accessed 25 January 2022),158 reflects the surrogate of MS Glaser 111 provided by the IZbACF. This is indicated by the final portion of the text, which the scribe gleaned from al-ʿAnsī’s al-Fatāwī al-nabawiyya as found on the last, isolated page from this work included in the surrogate. In the uncritical draft transcription, this final part of the Fatāwī is made an integral part of the “ʿAqāʾid” to make up for the latter’s missing end, without any notification of the transposition. The draft edition is therefore an amalgam of two works rather than an edition of the “ʿAqāʾid ahl al-bayt wa-l-radd ʿalā l-Muṭarrifiyya.”

157

A copy of this surrogate was also produced for Riḍwān al-Sayyid in the 1990s and is now part of his personal library; see “al-Makhṭūṭāt al-Yamaniyya,” no. 211. 158 The same draft transcription is also accessible elsewhere on the internet, e.g., at https://archive.org/details/love_731 (accessed 25 January 2022).

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HASSAN ANSARI AND SABINE SCHMIDTKE 2. al-Durra [al-Durar] al-manẓūma fī uṣūl al-fiqh

This work on legal methodology is lost. The book was consulted by Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm al-Wazīr (d. 840/1436), who refers to it repeatedly and occasionally quotes from it in his alRawḍ al-bāsim (ed. ʿAlī b. Muḥammad al-ʿImrān, Mecca: Dār ʿĀlam al-Fawāʾid, 1419/1998– 99, vol. 1, pp. 56, 71, 161, 207; vol. 2, pp. 482, 483; for references to al-ʿAnsī without mention of a specific title, see also vol. 1, pp. 99, 105, 180, 193, 195) as well as in his al-ʿAwāṣim wal-qawāṣim fī l-dhabb ʿan sunnat Abī l-Qāsim (ed. Shuʿayb al-Arnāʾūṭ, 9 vols., Amman: Dār alBashīr, 1405–1412/1985–1992, vol. 1, pp. 308, 319, 339, 371, 372–373; vol. 2, pp. 326, 374; vol. 3, pp. 95, 96; for references to al-ʿAnsī without mention of a specific title, see also vol. 1, pp. 272, 378, 392; vol. 2, pp. 91, 135, 145, 149, 226, 312, 313, 349, 356, 403, 404; vol. 3, p. 83; vol. 8, pp. 261, 334). (Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Jundārī, Tarājim al-rijāl al-madhkūra fī Sharḥ al-Azhār, published in the introduction to ʿAbd Allāh b. Abī l-Qāsim Ibn Miftāḥ, al-Muntazaʿ al-mukhtār min al-Ghayth al-midrār al-maʿrūf bi-Sharḥ al-Azhār, Sanaa, 1341/1922–23, p. 21; al-Ḥibshī, Maṣādir, p. 179; Ḥamīd al-Dīn, al-Rawḍ al-aghann, vol. 2, p. 63; Ismāʿīl b. ʿAlī al-Akwaʿ, Hijar al-ʿilm wa-maʿāqiluhu fī l-Yaman, 6 vols., Beirut: Dār al-Fikr al-Muʿāṣir, 1424/2003, vol. 4, p. 1811a; al-Wajīh, Aʿlām, vol. 1, p. 571) 3. al-Fatāwī al-nabawiyya al-mufṣiḥa ʿan aḥkām al-Muṭarrifiyya In the single extant copy of the text (see below), the tract is preceded by a title page (fig. 15) indicating the work’s title and author. According to Ahlwardt, this refutation of the Muṭarrifiyya was composed around 630/1233, altough there is nothing in the text to support his tentative dating. (al-Ḥibshī, Maṣādir, p. 124; Ḥamīd al-Dīn, al-Rawḍ al-aghann, vol. 2, p. 62; al-Akwaʿ, Hijar al-ʿilm, vol. 4, p. 1811b) Manuscript •

MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Glaser 111, fols. 135r–163v; see Ahlwardt, Verzeichniss, vol. 9, pp. 591–592 no. 10286. A digital surrogate is accessible through https://stabikat.de/DB=1/XMLPRS=N/PPN?PPN=787955868 (accessed 25 January 2022). Edition

Ed. in ʿAbd al-Ghanī Maḥmūd ʿAbd al-ʿĀṭī, al-Ṣirāʿ al-fikrī fī l-Yaman bayna l-Zaydiyya wa-lMuṭarrifiyya: Dirāsa wa-nuṣūṣ, al-Haram [Giza], 2002, pp. 314–334. 4. al-Irshād ilā najāt al-ʿibād This work with Sufi tendencies on ascetism and morality was completed on the last Friday of Rabīʿ II 632/January 1235 (see the author’s colophon at the end of the work). Throughout the work, al-ʿAnsī regularly refers to and quotes from al-Ghazālī’s Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn (see, e.g., pp. 387, 388, 390, 391), which may have served as a model for him when composing the book. The numerous extant witnesses indicate the book’s lasting popularity. Yaḥyā b.

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Muḥammad b. Luṭf b. Muḥammad Shākir (1295–1370/1878 or 1879–1950 or 1951) compiled a work entitled Subul (or Sabīl) al-rashād ilā maʿrifat maʿānī al-Irshād on the basis of al-ʿAnsī’s Irshād, apparently an extract of all Prophetic traditions cited in the Irshād (see alAkwaʿ, Hijar al-ʿilm, vol. 4, p. 2093; al-Ḥibshī, Maṣādir, p. 92 [citing the work as Ḥāshiya ʿalā Kitāb al-Irshād fī l-taṣawwuf]; al-Wajīh, Aʿlām, vol. 2, pp. 476–477 no. 1440; ʿAbd al-Salām b. ʿAbbās al-Wajīh, Maṣādir al-turāth fī l-maktabāt al-khāṣṣa fī l-Yaman, 2 vols., McLean, VA: Muʾassasat al-Imām Zayd b. ʿAlī al-Thaqāfiyya, 1422/2002, vol. 1, pp. 274–275 [see also below]). (al-Maswarī, Majmūʿ al-ijāzāt [see below, Appendix 2]; Aḥmad b. Ṣāliḥ Ibn Abī l-Rijāl, Maṭlaʿ al-budūr wa-majmaʿ al-buḥūr fī tarājim rijāl al-Zaydiyya, ed. Majd al-Dīn b. Muḥammad b. Manṣūr al-Muʾayyadī, Saʿda: Markaz Ahl al-Bayt li-l-Dirāsāt al-Islāmiyya, 2004, vol. 3, p. 89; al-Ḥibshī, Maṣādir, p. 323; Ḥamīd al-Dīn, al-Rawḍ al-aghann, vol. 2, p. 63; Aḥmad al-Ḥusaynī al-Ishkawarī, Muʾallafāt al-Zaydiyya, Qum: Ismāʿiliyān, 1413 [1992–93], vol. 1, p. 103 no. 248; al-Ṣubḥānī, Muʿjam ṭabaqāt al-mutakallimīn, vol. 2, p. 391) Editions Ed. ʿAbd al-Salām al-Wajīh and Muḥammad Qāsim al-Hāshimī, Saʿda: Maktabat al-Turāth al-Islāmī, 1421/2000–1 [reprinted repeatedly]. Manuscripts •

MS Beirut, Maktabat Riḍwān al-Sayyid, copied by Mahdī b. Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Ṣalāḥ b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad b. Ṣalāḥ, dated 1099/1687–88. For a microfilm surrogate in the Maʿhad al-Makhṭūṭāt al-ʿArabiyya in Cairo, see http://alnadeem-mss.malecso.org/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=120069 (accessed 7 January 2022).

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MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, ms. or. quart. 2039, copied by ʿAlī b. Dāwūd alḤusaynī at the behest of Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Rabīʿī nasaban al-Zaydī madhhaban, completed 9 Shawwāl 915/20 January 1510. The manuscript was part of the Nachlass of the photographer Hermann Burchardt, who was killed in Yemen on 18 December 1909, and it was purchased by the Berlin State Library in 1939. 159 During World War II the manuscript was temporarily transferred to Tübingen.160 For the codex, see Arabische und persische Handschriften: Aus dem Besitz des verstorbenen Reisenden Dr. Burchardt, foreword A. Fischer, Leipzig: Gustav Fock, 1921, p. 47 no. 38. A digital surrogate is accessible through https://stabikat.de/DB=1/XMLPRS=N/PPN?PPN=167881296X (accessed 25 January 2022). See also Muṣṭafā Dirāyatī, Fihristigān: Nuskha-hā-yi khaṭṭīyi Īrān (Fankhā), Tehran: Sāzmān-i Asnād wa Kitābkhāna-yi Millī-yi Jumhūrī-yi Islāmīyi Īrān, 1390/2011, vol. 3, p. 78 no. 1; Muṣṭafā Dirāyatī, Fihristwāra-yi dastniwisht-hā-yi

159

For the history of the Burchardt collection, see Christoph Rauch’s contribution to this volume. Communication from Dr. Walter Werkmeister (29 June 2010), custodian of the Oriental collection at Tübingen University Library: “. . . dass es sich um eine Handschrift aus der Berliner Staatsbibliothek handelt, deren Bestände während des Krieges in einen Stollen im Schwarzwald ausgelagert waren und bis zu ihrer Rückführung Anfang der siebziger Jahre von unserer Bibliothek verwaltet wurden.”

160

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HASSAN ANSARI AND SABINE SCHMIDTKE Īrān (Dinā), 1st ed., Tehran: Kitābkhāna, Mūzih wa Markaz-i Asnād-i Majlis-i Shūrā-yi Islāmī, 1389/2010, vol. 1, p. 675 no. 17711. For a detailed description of the codex, see Hassan Ansari, “Muʿarrafī-yi taʿdādī az nuskha-hā-yi Berlīn,” Barrasī-hā-yi tārīkhī, http://ansari.kateban.com/post/2103 (accessed 25 January 2022).

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MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Landberg 179, copied by ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. ʿAlī Suhayl and dated 1060/1650; see Ahlwardt, Verzeichniss, vol. 3, pp. 139–140 no. 3134. A digital surrogate of the codex is accessible at https://digital.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/werkansicht?PPN=PPN1666184829&PHYSID=PHYS_0005&DMDID=&view=overview-toc (accessed 25 January 2022).

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MS Ḍaḥyān, Maktabat ʿAbd Allāh al-Ṣaʿdī, copied by Aḥmad b. Ḥasan b. ʿAlī Wahrān and dated 1082/1671–72; see al-Wajīh, Maṣādir, vol. 2, p. 135 no. 17.

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MS Ḍaḥyān, Maktabat Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm, copied by Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. Ḥasan al-Ḍaḥyānī and dated 1336/1917–18; see al-Wajīh, Maṣādir, vol. 1, p. 435 no. 40; alWajīh, Aʿlām, vol. 1, p. 570.

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MS Ḍaḥyān, Maktabat Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm, copied by Yaḥyā b. ʿAbd Allāh Ḥasana and dated 1381/1961–62; see al-Wajīh, Maṣādir, vol. 1, p. 435 no. 40; al-Wajīh, Aʿlām, vol. 1, p. 570.

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MS Ḍaḥyān, Maktabat Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-ʿIjrī, “faṣl fī dhikr al-jihād maʿa ahl albayt manqūl min Irshād al-ʿAnsī,” included as item 2 in a multitext volume transcribed in 1030/1820–21; see al-Wajīh, Maṣādir, vol. 1, p. 302 no. 45.

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MS Hijrat Suwaydān, Maktabat al-Sayyid Majd al-Dīn al-Muʾayyadī, majmūʿa 86/2, containing a portion from the K. al-Irshād that in this codex is entitled Mansak al-ḥajj; see al-Wajīh, Maṣādir, vol. 2, pp. 261–262. The editor of al-ʿAnsī’s al-Risāla al-badīʿa almuʿlina (→ 12) mistakenly lists the Mansak al-ḥajj as an independent title among alʿAnsī’s writings in the introduction to his edition (p. 22 no. 24).

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MS Leiden, Leiden University Library OR 6699, dated 1058/1648; see https://catalogue.leidenuniv.nl/permalink/f/a8bnm1/UBL_ALMA21323573880002711. A facsimile is accessible via https://digitalcollections.universiteitleiden.nl/view/item/2433369 (accessed 25 January 2022).

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MS Leiden, Leiden University Library OR 23447, fols. 4r–222r, dated Rabīʿ I 1357/MayJune 1938, copied by Aḥmad b. Ḥusayn b. Ismāʿīl b. Ibrāhīm b. Ismāʿīl Suhayl.

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MS London, British Library OR 3926 [= Glaser no. 220], completed on 16 Dhū l-Ḥijja 1068/14 September 1658; see Rieu, Supplement, p. 221 no. 345. This is an incomplete copy covering only the final portion of the work (al-Irshād ilā l-taqrīb ilā llāh bi-l-ḥajj).

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MS Mecca, Jāmiʿat Umm al-Qurāʾ, copied by Zayd b. Yaḥyā b. ʿAbd Allāh at the behest of Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. Ismāʿīl al-Jabrī and dated 26 Dhū l-Qaʿda 1341/15 October 1663. For a brief description and a digital surrogate of selected pages of the codex, see https://dorar.uqu.edu.sa/uquui/handle/20.500.12248/112937 (accessed 2 January 2022).

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309

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MS Qum, Marʿashī 7274, copied by Saʿīd b. ʿAlī b. Aḥmad b. Ṣalāḥ al-Wāḥidī and dated 10 Jumādā II 1067/26 March 1657; see Maḥmūd Marʿashī et al., Fihrist-i nuskha-hā-yi khaṭṭīyi Kitābkhāna-yi ʿUmūmī-yi Haḍrat-i Āyat Allāh al-ʿUẓmā Najafī-yi Marʿashī, vol. 1–, Qum: Kitābkhāna-yi ʿUmūmī-yi Haḍrat-i Āyat Allāh al-ʿUẓmā Najafī-yi Marʿashī, n.d., vol. 19, p. 62; see also Dirāyatī, Fihristwāra, vol. 1, p. 675 no. 17713; Dirāyatī, Fihristigān, vol. 3, p. 78 no. 3.

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MS Qum, Markaz-i Iḥyāʾ 2681, copied by Aḥmad b. Ṣāliḥ b. Ṣāliḥ al-Ḥuraymī and dated 18 Rabīʿ II 1053/6 July 1643; see Dirāyatī, Fihristwāra, vol. 1, p. 675 no. 17712; Dirāyatī, Fihristigān, vol. 3, p. 78 no. 2.

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MS Riyadh, King Saud University 7887, dated 13 Rabīʿ I 1074/15 October 1663. For a description and a digital surrogate of the manuscript, see http://makhtota.ksu.edu.sa /makhtota/8559/4 (accessed 25 January 2022).

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MS Saʿda, Maktabat al-ʿAllāma Muḥammad b. Aḥsan al-Mutamayyiz, copied by Saʿīd b. Qāsim al-Ānisī and dated 1061/1650–51; see al-Wajīh, Maṣādir, vol. 2, p. 171.

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MS Saʿda, Maktabat Āl al-Hāshimī, dated 5 Dhū l-Qaʿda 1013/25 March 1605 (fig. 7); see al-Wajīh, Maṣādir, vol. 1, p. 380; al-Wajīh, Aʿlām, vol. 1, p. 570.

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MS Sanaa, Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt/al-Maktaba al-Gharbiyya 1653, copied at the behest of Yaḥyā b. ʿAlī b. Yaḥyā al-Dāyanī [sic], dated 11 Shawwāl 1089/26 November 1678. The codex was part of the personal library of Imam Yaḥyā Ḥamīd al-Dīn (ownership note dated 1353/1934–35); see Aḥmad Muḥammad ʿĪsawī et al., Fihris al-makhṭūṭāt al-yamaniyya li-Dār al-makhṭūṭāt wa-l-Maktaba al-gharbiyya bi-l-Jāmiʿ al-kabīr, Ṣanʿāʾ, Qum: Maktabat Samāḥat Āyat Allāh al-ʿUẓmā al-Marʿashī al-Najafī al-Kubrā, 1426/1384/2005, vol. 1, p. 851.

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MS Sanaa, Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt/al-Maktaba al-Gharbiyya 1654, undated copy; see ʿĪsawī et al., Fihris (2005), vol. 1, p. 851.

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MS Sanaa, Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt/al-Maktaba al-Gharbiyya 1658, copied by Muḥammad b. Ḥasan b. Ṣāliḥ b. Saʿīd b. Ibrāhīm “al-Zaylaʿī” and dated 29 Rabīʿ II 1084/13 August 1673; see ʿĪsawī et al., Fihris (2005), vol. 1, p. 852.

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MS Sanaa, Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt/al-Maktaba al-Gharbiyya 1663, copied at the behest of alḤusayn b. Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥūthī, dated 21 Ṣafar 1062/2 February 1652; see ʿĪsawī et al., Fihris (2005), vol. 1, pp. 851–852; cf. also al-Ḥibshī, Maṣādir, p. 323 (no shelf mark indicated); Ḥamīd al-Dīn, al-Rawḍ al-aghann, vol. 2, p. 63 (no shelf mark indicated).

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MS Sanaa, Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt/al-Maktaba al-Gharbiyya 2880, undated copy transcribed by Yūsuf b. Aḥmad b. Yūsuf al-ʿAnsī. The codex was purchased in 1353/1934–35 by Imam Yaḥyā’s son Sayf al-Islām Aḥmad from Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-ʿAnsī; see ʿĪsawī et al., Fihris (2005), vol. 1, p. 852.

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MS Sanaa, Maktabat al-Awqāf 2015, undated copy; see Aḥmad ʿAbd al-Razzāq alRuqayḥī, ʿAbd al-Allāh al-Ḥibshī, and ʿAlī Wahhāb al-Ānisī, Fihrist makhṭūṭāt Maktabat al-Jāmiʿ al-kabīr Ṣanʿā, [Sanaa:] Wizārat al-Awqāf wa-l-Irshād, 1404/1984, vol. 3, p. 1297.

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MS Sanaa, Maktabat al-Awqāf 2017 (old shelf mark: 43 kalām), dated Rajab 1353/October–November 1934. The copy belonged to Imam Yaḥyā’s personal library; see Fihrist kutub al-Khizāna al-Mutawakkiliyya, p. 109; al-Ruqayḥī et al., Fihrist, vol. 3, pp. 1296–1297; cf. also al-Ḥibshī, Maṣādir, p. 323, where a copy in the Maktabat al-Awqāf with the old shelf mark “108 kalām” is mentioned. According to Fihrist kutub alKhizāna al-Mutawakkiliyya, p. 109, there is no copy of the Irshād with this shelf mark, and it is likely that al-Ḥibshī refers here to MS Maktabat al-Awqāf 2017. The same codex seems to be meant in Ḥamīd al-Dīn, al-Rawḍ al-aghann, vol. 2, p. 63 (the shelf mark is given as “Jāmiʿ 108 raqm 17 kalām”).

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MS Sanaa, Maktabat al-Awqāf 2018, copied by Aḥmad b. ʿAlī b. Qāsim al-Ahnūmī and dated 1182/1768–69; see al-Ruqayḥī et al., Fihrist, vol. 3, p. 1297.

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MS Sanaa, Maktabat al-Awqāf 2022 (old shelf mark: 42 kalām), undated copy (naskhī qadīm), with the end missing. The copy belonged to Imam Yaḥyā’s personal library; see Fihrist kutub al-Khizāna al-Mutawakkiliyya, p. 109; al-Ruqayḥī et al., Fihrist, vol. 3, p. 1296. Cf. al-Ḥibshī, Maṣādir, p. 323, where it is stated that the copy is dated 620 AH. In view of the book’s completion in 632 AH this date is clearly an error; the same error is found in Ḥamīd al-Dīn, al-Rawḍ al-aghann, vol. 2, p. 63. Moreover, according to Fihrist kutub al-Khizāna al-Mutawakkiliyya, p. 109, “620” refers to the number of pages in the copy.161

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MS Sanaa, Maktabat al-Awqāf 2035, undated copy, transcribed by ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. ʿAlī al-Shaqqāqī; see al-Ruqayḥī et al., Fihrist, vol. 3, p. 1297.

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MS Sanaa, Maktabat al-Sayyid ʿAbd al-Malik b. ʿAlī al-Marwanī, copied by Ḥasan b. Ismāʿīl b. Ṣāliḥ al-Muʾadhdhin and dated 1293/1876; see al-Wajīh, Maṣādir, vol. 2, p. 548 no. 6.

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MS Sanaa, Maktabat ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm 71, dated 1068/1657–58; see ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad al-Ḥibshī, Fihris makhṭūṭāt baʿḍa l-maktabāt al-khāṣṣa fī l-Yaman, London: Muʾassasat al-Furqān li-l-Turāth al-Islāmī, 1994, p. 108 no. 236.

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MS Sanaa, Maktabat Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl al-Kibsī [no shelf mark], dated 1068/1658. A digital surrogate was prepared within the framework of the Yemeni Manuscript Digitization Initiative; see https://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/9978493943506421 (accessed 25 January 2022).

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MS Sanaa, Maktabat Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl al-Kibsī [no shelf mark], part of a multitext volume, dated between 1068/1658 and 1101/1690. A digital surrogate was prepared within the framework of the Yemeni Manuscript Digitization Initiative; see https://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/9978493923506421 (accessed 25 January 2022).

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MS Sanaa, Maktabat Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl al-Kibsī [no shelf mark], copied by Aḥmad b. ʿAlī b. Qāsim al-Ahnūmī and dated 1069/1659; see al-Wajīh, Maṣādir, vol. 1, p. 231. Cf., however, the aforementioned MS Sanaa, Maktabat al-Awqāf 2018, copied by Aḥmad b. ʿAlī b. Qāsim al-Ahnūmī and dated 1182/1768–69. If indeed both

161

A copy of this manuscript seems to have been produced for Riḍwān al-Sayyid in the 1990s and is now part of his personal library; see “al-Makhṭūṭāt al-Yamaniyya,” no. 209.

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copies were transcribed by the same scribe, the date provided in one of the catalogs is probably incorrect. •

MS Sanaa, Maktabat Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl al-Kibsī [no shelf mark]. A digital surrogate was prepared within the framework of the Yemeni Manuscript Digitization Initiative; see https://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/9978495303506421 (accessed 25 January 2022).

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MS Sanaa, Maktabat Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl al-Manṣūr 61, undated copy; see al-Ḥibshī, Fihris, p. 386 no. 923; Sabine Schmidtke, Traditional Yemeni Scholarship Amidst Political Turmoil and War: Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl b. al-Muṭahhar al-Manṣūr (1915–2016) and His Personal Library, Cordoba: UCOPress, 2018, pp. 84–85. A digital surrogate is accessible through the Zaydi Manuscript Tradition Project (ZMT) [= ZMT 01311] at Hill Museum & Manuscript Library; see https://w3id.org/vhmml/readingRoom/view/144225 (accessed 25 January 2022).

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MS Sanaa, Maktabat al-Sayyid Yaḥyā b. ʿAbbās ʿĀmir [no shelfmark], copied by ʿAbd alRaḥmān b. Muḥammad Jarād and dated 1331/1912–13; see al-Wajīh, Maṣādir, vol. 1, p. 260 no. 2.

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MS Sanaa, Maktabat Yaḥyā b. Muḥammad b. ʿAlī al-Mutawakkil [no shelfmark], copied by ʿAlī b. Yaḥyā al-Mawsimī al-Miḥrābī, dated 1346/1927–28. The copy includes in the margins Sabīl al-rashād ilā maʿrifat maʿānī al-Irshād. See al-Wajīh, Maṣādir, vol. 1, pp. 274–275; see also al-Wajīh, Aʿlām, vol. 1, p. 570.

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MS Sanaa, unidentified private library, copied in 1073/1662–63 and apparently entitled K. al-Hādī ila nājāt al-ʿibād. A copy of this manuscript (or of a surrogate of it) was produced for Riḍwān al-Sayyid in the 1990s and is now part of his personal library; see “al-Makhṭūṭāt al-Yamaniyya,” no. 208.

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MS Shahāra, Maktabat Jāmiʿ Mudān; see al-Wajīh, Maṣādir, vol. 2, pp. 405, 409. Al-Wajīh states that the copy was produced in 632 AH. This is doubtful; the date 632 AH is probably just mentioned in the author’s colophon.

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MS Shahāra, Maktabat al-Sayyid Sharaf b. Qāsim al-Wajīh, undated; see al-Wajīh, Maṣādir, vol. 2, p. 657 no. 17.

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MS Taʿizz (or possibly Thulā), Maktabat al-ʿAllāma Muḥammad b. Yaḥyā b. al-Muṭahhar, copied by al-Mahdī b. Aḥmad b. Abī Bakr and dated 1068/1657–58; al-Wajīh, Maṣādir, vol. 2, pp. 285–286 no. 20; al-Wajīh, Aʿlām, vol. 1, p. 570.

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MS Vienna, Austrian National Library, Cod. Glaser 111, dated 901/1495–6; see Max Grünert, Kurzer Katalog der Glaser’schen Sammlung arabischer Handschriften [unpublished manuscript, ca. 1894], p. 17 no. 30; http://data.onb.ac.at/rec/AL00161435 (accessed 25 January 2022). A digital surrogate is accessible through the ZMT [= ZMT 00360]; see https://w3id.org/vhmml/readingRoom/view/140443 (accessed 25 January 2022).

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MS Yemen (Bāqim and Ḍaḥyān), Maktabat Muḥammad b. Ḥasan b. ʿAbd Allāh alQāsimī, undated; see al-Wajīh, Maṣādir, vol. 2, p. 183.

312 •

HASSAN ANSARI AND SABINE SCHMIDTKE MS Yemen (possibly Ḥūth), Madrasat Ḥūth (see waqf note on the title page; fig. 34), dated Shawwāl 706/April–May 1307 or 760/August–September 1359 (fig. 35). This is apparently the oldest extant copy of the work, but it was not consulted by the work’s editors.

Figure 34. MS Yemen (possibly Ḥūth), Madrasat Ḥūth (title page of al-ʿAnsī’s Irshād).

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Figure 35. MS Yemen (possibly Ḥūth), Madrasat Ḥūth (end of al-ʿAnsī’s Irshād).

313

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HASSAN ANSARI AND SABINE SCHMIDTKE 5. al-Istibṣār

This lost work on law consisted of five volumes, and according to Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn (Mustaṭāb), al-ʿAnsī composed an autocommentary of about twenty volumes on it. The Istibṣār allegedly served as the basis for al-Muʾayyad bi-llāh Yaḥyā b. Ḥamza’s (d. 745/1344) K. alIntiṣār ʿalā ʿulamāʾ al-amṣār (partly published in an edition prepared by ʿAbd al-Wahhāb b. ʿAlī al-Muʾayyad and ʿAlī b. Aḥmad Mufaḍḍal, 6 vols., Amman: Muʾassasat al-Imām Zayd b. ʿAlī al-Thaqāfiyya, 2002). Whether indeed there is a relation between al-ʿAnsī’s Istibṣār and Yaḥyā b. Ḥamza’s Intiṣār still needs to be investigated in depth. For a legal opinion of alʿAnsī’s that may have been gleaned from the Istibṣār, see below, Appendix 4. (Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn, Mustaṭāb, fol. 82r; al-Ḥibshī, Maṣādir, p. 202; al-Akwaʿ, Hijar alʿilm, vol. 1, p. 504b; vol. 4, p. 1810b; see also Muḥammad Taqī Dānishpazhūh, “Dū mashīkha-yi Zaydī,” Nāma-yi Mīnuwī: Majmūʿa-yi sī wa hasht guftār dar adab wa farhang-i īrānī bih pās-i panjāh sāl taḥqīqāt wa muṭāliʿāt-i Mujtabā Mīnuwī, ed. Īrāj Afshār, Tehran: Chāpkhāna-yi Kāwiyān, 1350sh/1971, pp. 179–188, here p. 172 no. 21, where the work’s title is erroneously given as al-Intiṣār; al-Akwaʿ, Hijar al-ʿilm, vol. 4, p. 1810b) 6. Jawāb al-faqīh Yūsuf b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Shāfiʿī al-sākin bi-Dhahbān This tract, written during the imamate of Imam al-Mahdī Aḥmad b. al-Ḥusayn and completed in Rajab 648/November–December 1250, contains al-ʿAnsī’s responsa to four questions raised by Yūsuf b. ʿAbd Allāh, a Shāfiʿī scholar who was based in Dhahbān and had been appointed by Imam al-Mahdī to the position of muḥtasib. The responsa address predetermination versus free will (qaḍāʾ Allāh taʿālā wa-qadarihi) (MS Glaser 123, fols. 252vff.), the relation between the will of God and that of man (fols. 257vff.), the difference between ṭalāq al-bidʿa and ṭalāq al-sunna (fols. 263vff.), and other questions related to the legal issue of ṭalāq (fols. 265rff.). Al-ʿAnsī is identified as the mujīb on the tract’s title page (fig. 19). On one occasion, al-ʿAnsī also provides some autobiographical details that are not recorded elsewhere: he states that he spent some time in Mecca, where he attended the majālis of Shāfiʿī and Mālikī scholars and engaged in discussion with them. He mentions, in particular, a certain “al-faqīh al-Burhān” (most likely Burhān al-Dīn). He adds that he read with one of his teachers in Mecca the K. al-Irshād of Imām al-Ḥaramayn al-Juwaynī (d. 478/1085).162 At this time, it was still unusual for Zaydi scholars to study Ashʿarī kalām literature.163

MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Glaser 123, fol. 263v:3–7 (fig. 20): innī mimman qad jāwara l-Kaʿba waaqāma fī Makka muddatan wa-naẓara majālis al-Shāfiʿiyya zamān al-faqīh al-Burhān wa-majālis al-Mālikiyya muddatan min al-zamān wa-qaraʾa wa-samaʿa ʿalā kathīr minhum wa-ʿarafa aqwālahum wa-iʿtiqādahum wa-jarā baynī wa-baynahum murājaʿāt wa-qaraʾtu ʿalā baʿḍihim fī taʾlīf Abī ʿAbd Allāh al-Juwaynī al-kitāb al-maʿrūf bi-lIrshād fī l-iʿtiqād wa-ʿarafū maqālatī (wa-)aqarra jamāʿa minhum anna hāʾulāʾ alladhīna [sic] narwīhu ʿan ahl albayt ʿalayhim al-salām huwa l-ḥaqq . . . 163 For al-ʿAnsī’s debates in Zabid with Sunni scholars including the Ḥanafī Ashʿarī scholar Ibn Ḥankāsh, see below, Appendix 2. For the reception of Ashʿarī works among later Zaydis, see Gregor Schwarb, “Ms Munich, Bavarian State Library, Cod. Arab. 1294: A Guide to Zaydī Kalām-Studies during the Ṭāhirid and Early Qāsimite Periods (Mid-15th to Early 18th Centuries),” The Yemeni Manuscript Tradition, ed. David Hollenberg, Christoph Rauch, and Sabine Schmidtke, Leiden: Brill, 2015, pp. 155–202. 162

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Manuscripts •

MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Glaser 123, fols. 248r–266r; see Ahlwardt, Verzeichniss, vol. 9, p. 602 no. 10325. For a brief description and a digital surrogate, see https://stabikat.de/DB=1/XMLPRS=N/PPN?PPN=735444900 (accessed 25 January 2022). Edition

Al-Jawāb ʿalā l-faqīh Yūsuf b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Shāfiʿī li-l-faqīh al-ʿallāma ʿAbd Allāh b. Zayd b. Aḥmad al-ʿAnsī al-mutawaffā sanat 667h, ed. Jamāl al-Shāmī, [Sa‘da]: [private publication], 1438 [2016]. 7. al-Lāʾiq bi-l-afhām fī maʿrifat ḥudūd al-kalām The title suggests that this lost work contained definitions of theological terms. Al-Maswarī mentions an autograph of this tract written in 659 [1260–61] when al-ʿAnsī was sixty-six years old, and he cites the author’s introduction to the 659 AH copy, in which al-ʿAnsī mentions that he wrote the tract at a very young age (fī ḥāl al-dars wa-qabla nabāt al-liḥya). (al-Maswarī, Majmūʿ al-ijāzāt [see below, Appendix 2]; Ibn Abī l-Rijāl, Maṭlaʿ al-budūr, vol. 3, pp. 88–89; al-Ḥibshī, Maṣādir, p. 124; al-Shāmī, Tārīkh al-Yaman al-fikrī, vol. 3, p. 310 no. 9; Ḥamīd al-Dīn, al-Rawḍ al-aghann, vol. 2, pp. 62–63; al-Akwaʿ, Hijar al-ʿilm, vol. 4, p. 1811b; al-Ḥusaynī al-Ishkawarī, Muʾallafāt, vol. 2, p. 339 no. 2639; al-Ṣubḥānī, Muʿjam ṭabaqāt al-mutakallimīn, vol. 2, p. 391) 8. Māʾ al-yaqīn fī maʿrifat rabb al-ʿālamīn This concise credal tract is based primarily on ḥadīth material and is mostly concerned with the categories of believer, unbeliever, and grave sinner. The title and author are identified on the tract’s title pages (fols. 228r–v; fig. 21). (al-Ḥibshī, Maṣādir, p. 124; al-Wajīh, Aʿlām, p. 590; al-Shāmī, Tārīkh al-Yaman al-fikrī, vol. 3, p. 310 no. 8; Ḥamīd al-Dīn, al-Rawḍ al-aghann, vol. 2, p. 62; al-Ṣubḥānī, Muʿjam ṭabaqāt al-mutakallimīn, vol. 2, p. 391) Manuscripts •

MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Glaser 123, fols. 228r–241v; see Ahlwardt, Verzeichniss, vol. 9, p. 602 no. 10323. For a brief description and a digital surrogate of the tract, see https://stabikat.de/DB=1/XMLPRS=N/PPN?PPN=735444595 (accessed 25 January 2022). 9. al-Maḥajja al-bayḍāʾ fī uṣūl al-dīn

Al-ʿAnsī’s comprehensive theological summa consists of eight parts (qism, pl. aqsām) arranged in four codicological units (juzʾ, pl. ajzāʾ). The topics of the eight parts are [1] divine unicity (tawḥīd); [2] justice (ʿadl); [3] prophecy (nubuwwa); [4] revealed legislation (sharāʾiʿ); [5] the imamate; [6] commanding what is good and prohibiting what is reprehensible (al-amr bi-l-maʿrūf wa-l-nahy ʿan al-munkar); [7] the promise and the threat (al-waʿd wa-l-waʿīd); and [8] nouns and rulings (al-asmāʾ wa-l-aḥkām). Part (qism) 4 of the Maḥajja

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was completed on 20 Rabīʿ II 640/17 October 1242, and this date provides a rough indication when the work was composed. Al-ʿAnsī considered the Maḥajja the most important and detailed of his works in the field of theology, as shown by his description of the work in his Tamyīz (fol. 149r:9–12) (→ 20): al-Maḥajja al-bayḍāʾ fīhi l-nihāya fī l-daqīq wa-l-jalīl wal-khilāf wa-l-tafḍīl wa-ṣiḥḥat al-madhhab wa-l-rudūd ʿalā l-mukhālafa fī ʿilm al-kalām wahuwa l-khātima al-kubrā ʿalā ahl al-islām kāffatan. Although no witness of parts 6, 7, and 8 survives, there is no reason to doubt that al-ʿAnsī completed the work. Numerous references to and quotations from discussions in later parts of the Maḥajja, most likely in parts 7 and/or 8, are included in the K. al-Shams al-munīra al-zahrāʾ fī taḥqīq baḥth mā adkhalahu al-kuffār dārahum qahran wa-mā yattaṣilu min farāʾid al-fawāʾid by al-Ḥusayn b. Nāṣir b. ʿAbd al-Ḥafīẓ b. ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Muhallā al-Sharafī (d. 1111/1699–1700). (We consulted this work through a surrogate: MS Mecca, Maktabat Jāmiʿat Umm al-Qurāʾ 13613, pp. 36, 46, 51, 52, 58, 60.) Moreover, an apparent reference to part 5 (on the imāma) is included in Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm al-Wazīr’s al-Rawḍ al-bāsim (ed. ʿAlī b. Muḥammad al-ʿUmrān, vol. 1, pp. 244–245). Ibn al-Wazīr also cites the Maḥajja in his al-Awāṣim wa-l-qawāṣim (vol. 3, p. 33; vol. 6, p. 40). Further, al-Hādī b. Ibrāhīm al-Wazīr refers in his Nihāyat al-tanwīh fī izhāq al-tamwīh (ed. Aḥmad b. Dirham b. ʿAbd Allāh Ḥuriyya and Ibrāhīm b. Majd al-Dīn b. Muḥammad al-Muʾayyadī, Saʿda: Markaz Ahl al-Bayt li-l-Dirāsāt al-Islāmiyya, 2000, p. 81) to al-juzʾ al-thālith of the Maḥajja, referring to the book’s section on the imamate. (Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn, Mustaṭāb, fol. 82r:15; Ibn Abī l-Rijāl, Maṭlaʿ al-budūr, vol. 3, p. 83; Ibrāhīm b. al-Qāsim al-Shahārī, Ṭabaqāt al-Zaydiyya al-kubrā (al-qism al-thālith) wayusammā Bulūgh al-murād ilā maʿrifat al-isnād, ed. ʿAbd al-Salām b. ʿAbbās al-Wajīh, McLean, VA: Muʾassassat al-Imām Zayd b. ʿAlī al-Thaqāfiyya, 1421/2001, vol. 2, p. 612; alḤibshī, Maṣādir, p. 124; al-Shāmī, Tārīkh al-Yaman al-fikrī, vol. 3, p. 309 no. 4; Ḥamīd al-Dīn, al-Rawḍ al-aghann, vol. 2, p. 62; al-Akwaʿ, Hijar al-ʿilm, vol. 4, p. 1811b; al-Ḥusaynī al-Ishkawarī, Muʾallafāt, vol. 2, p. 433 no. 2744; al-Ṣubḥānī, Muʿjam ṭabaqāt al-mutakallimīn, vol. 2, p. 391) Manuscripts •

164

MS Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod. arab. 1286, comprising parts 1 through 4, transcribed by ʿAbd Allāh b. Zayd’s nephew, Muḥammad b. Asʿad b. Zayd al-ʿAnsī (with the exception of fol. 1v, which is written in a different, later hand) in Saʿda and completed on 14 Rabīʿ II 641/1 October 1243 (see colophon on fol. 225v). The codex also has a marginal note (in the upper margin of fol. 2r) in the hand of ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Ḥasan b. ʿAṭiyya al-Dawwārī (715–800/1315–1397 or 1378), the author of several works on theology and one of the teachers of the aforementioned Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm al-Wazīr. That the volume remained with the Dawwārī family in Saʿda for many generations is suggested by reading notes throughout the codex (e.g., on fol. 2r) in the hand of Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā b. Aḥmad (b.) Ḥābis al-Dawwārī al-Ṣaʿdī (d. 1061/1651).164 For a description of the codex,

He is the author of two works: K. al-Anwār al-hādiya li-dhawī l-ʿuqūl ilā maʿrifat maqāṣid al-Kāfil bi-nayl al-suʾl fī ʿilm al-uṣūl, which is a commentary on the K. al-Kāfil bi-nayl al-suʾl fī ʿilm al-uṣūl by Muḥammad b. Yaḥyā b. Aḥmad Bahrān (d. 957/1550) on legal theory, and K. al-Īḍāḥ ʿalā l-Miṣbāḥ, a commentary on the K. al-Miṣbāḥ by Aḥmad b. al-Ḥasan b. Muḥammad al-Raṣṣāṣ (d. 621/1224) (published as K. al-Īḍāḥ sharḥ al-Miṣbāḥ al-shahīr bi-sharḥ al-

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•

•

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see Florian Sobieroj, Arabische Handschriften der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek zu München unter Einschluss einiger türkischer und persischer Handschriften, vol. 1, Stuttgart: Steiner, 2007, pp. 433–433 no. 226. For a digital surrogate of the codex, see http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/0003/bsb00036424/images/index.html (accessed 25 January 2022). A facsimile edition of the codex has been published as Hassan Ansari and Sabine Schmidtke (eds.), Zaydī Theology in 7th/13th Century Yemen: Facsimile Edition of “Kitāb al-Maḥajja al-Bayḍā fī Uṣūl al-Dīn” of ʿAbd Allāh b. Zayd al-ʿAnsī (d. 667/1269) (MS Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod.arab. 1286), Tehran: Mīrāth-i Maktūb, 2016. MS Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod. arab. 1273, comprising parts 2 (beginning with al-kalām fī l-maṣāliḥ), 3, and 4, transcribed by Muḥammad b. Asʿad b. Zayd al-ʿAnsī and completed on 20 Rabīʿ II 640/17 October 1242, the same day that the author gives as the date of the work’s completion, which suggests that al-ʿAnsī dictated the work to his nephew (see colophon, fol. 152v). At the end of the codex (fol. 152v), al-ʿAnsī announces that volume 3 (al-juzʾ al-thālith) will begin with part 5, dealing with the imāma. For a description of the codex, see Sobieroj, Arabische Handschriften, pp. 406–408 no. 214. For a digital surrogate, see http://daten.digitalesammlungen.de/~db/0003/bsb00038411/images/index.html (accessed 25 January 2022). MS Hijrat al-Sirr, Maktabat al-Murtaḍā b. ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUthmān al-Wazīr [no shelf mark], containing part 5 on the imamate, dated 718/1318–19; the first portion was transcribed by al-Murtaḍā b. al-Mufaḍḍal al-Wazīr (d. 732/1331) and the remaining portion by ʿAlī b. Aḥmad b. ʿAlī b. Salāma al-Ṣuraymī. The codex represents the third codicological unit (al-juzʾ al-thālith) of the work, and its end carries an announcement of the next unit (al-juzʾ al-rābiʿ), to begin with part 6 of the work, on al-amr bi-l-maʿrūf wa-l-nahy ʿan al-munkar. That part 5 takes up the entire third unit indicates that the part covering the imamate must be very comprehensive. At the end of the codex, there are excerpts from two other works, which al-Wajīh describes as nuqūl min K. al-Mughnī li-l-qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār b. Aḥmad [al-Hamadhānī] wa-aqāwīl al-Zaydiyya fī l-imāma, and majmūʿa awrāq manzūʿa min K. al-Ṣiḥāḥ fī l-lugha (by al-Jawharī). See al-Ḥibshī, Fihris, p. 48 no. 80; and, with more details, al-Wajīh, Maṣādir, vol. 2, p. 385. This manuscript was not accessible to us.

Thalāthīn al-masʾala [sic]). See Ayman Fuʾād Sayyid, Sources de l’histoire du Yémen à l’époque musulmane = Maṣādir tārīkh al-Yaman fī l-ʿaṣr al-islāmī, Cairo: Institut français d’archéologie orientale, 1974, pp. 234–235 no. 19; al-Ḥibshī, Maṣādir, pp. 145, 185, 248, 345, 392; al-Wajīh, Aʿlām, vol. 1, pp. 208–221 no. 231.

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Figure 36. MS Ṣanʿāʾ, Maktabat al-Awqāf 758, fol. 2r (beginning of al-ʿAnsī’s Mudhākarāt al-Sirāj).

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Figure 37. MS Ṣanʿāʾ, Maktabat al-Awqāf 758, fol. 166v (final page of al-ʿAnsī’s Mudhākarāt al-Sirāj).

319

320

HASSAN ANSARI AND SABINE SCHMIDTKE 10. Manāhij al-bayān li-rijāl Sanḥān

This refutation of the Muṭarrifiyya is addressed to the people of Sanḥān. The title of the tract is identified on the opening page in the single extant witness of the tract (see below), and so is the name of the author, although the scribe was evidently uncertain about his identity and/or precise name. This is indicated by the correction of the author’s name to “Abū Muḥammad b. [sic] ʿAbd Allāh b. Zayd al-Midḥajī” (fig. 23). In the tract, the author mentions having written earlier on another text, which he had sent to the Banī Sharīf through (ʿalā yad) al-qāḍī al-fāḍil Futayṣ b. Yaḥyā (fol. 247r). (Ismāʿīl al-Baghdādī, Hadiyyat al-ʿārifīn: Asmāʾ al-muʾallifīn wa-āthār al-muṣannifīn min Kashf al-ẓunūn, ed. Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Qādir ʿAṭāʾ, Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2008, vol. 2, column 563; al-Ḥibshī, Maṣādir, p. 124; al-Akwaʿ, Hijar al-ʿilm, vol. 4, p. 1811b) Manuscript •

MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Glaser 123, fols. 242r–248r; see Ahlwardt, Verzeichniss, vol. 9, p. 592 no. 10287. For a brief description and a digital surrogate, see https://stabikat.de/DB=1/XMLPRS=N/PPN?PPN=735444781 (accessed 25 January 2022). 11. Mudhākarāt al-Sirāj

This is an autocommentary on al-Sirāj al-wahhāj (→ 17). Al-ʿAnsī lists the work among his earlier writings on theology in the beginning of the khātima to his K. al-Tamyīz (→ 20) (fol. 149a:7–8), where he describes it as kifāyatan fī maʿrifat al-khilāf wa-l-madhhab wa-l-dalāla. In the khātima the title is given as Mudhākarat al-Sirāj, whereas in the introduction to the commentary (fig. 36), al-ʿAnsī calls it Mudhākarāt. It is noteworthy that the term mudhākara or mudhākarāt is often employed among the Zaydis of Yemen in the sense of taʿlīq. (al-Ḥibshī, Maṣādir, p. 124; Ḥamīd al-Dīn, al-Rawḍ al-aghann, vol. 2, p. 62) Manuscript •

MS Sanaa, Maktabat al-Awqāf 758, 166 fols. (rather than 342 fols. as indicated in the catalog; see al-Ruqayḥī et al., Fihrist, vol. 2, p. 645, where the work is also misidentified as al-Sirāj al-wahhāj). The work was copied by what seem to be two different hands, and the copy is dated 16 Ramaḍān 771/13 April 1370 (see colophon on fol. 166v; fig. 37).

12. al-Risāla al-badīʿa al-muʿlina bi-faḍāʾil al-Shīʿa This is a work on the merits of the family of the Prophet, written in response to a Shāfiʿī scholar, most likely the aforementioned Yūsuf b. ʿAbd Allāh (→ 6). (al-Ḥibshī, Maṣādir, p. 124; al-Shāmī, Tārīkh al-Yaman al-fikrī, vol. 3, p. 309 no. 2; Ḥamīd al-Dīn, al-Rawḍ al-aghann, vol. 2, p. 62; al-Ḥusaynī al-Ishkawarī, Muʾallafāt, vol. 2, p. 403 no. 2656 [under the title al-Lafẓa al-badīʿa, which is certainly a confusion between al-ʿAnsī’s tract and Muḥammad b. Ṣāliḥ al-Samāwī’s al-Lafẓ al-badīʿ (or al-Lafẓa al-badīʿa) fī l-radd ʿalā al-sābb li-l-Shīʿa by the thirteenth/eighteenth-century scholar Muḥammad b.

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Ṣāliḥ al-Samāwī, who also quotes al-ʿAnsī165]; al-Ṣubḥānī, Muʿjam ṭabaqāt al-mutakallimīn, vol. 2, p. 391) Manuscripts • • • • •

• •

• •

MS Ḍaḥyān, Maktabat al-Sayyid Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm al-Hādī [under the title alMasāʾil al-badīʿa al-muʿlina bi-ʿaqāʾid al-Shīʿa]; see al-Wajīh, Maṣādir, vol. 1, p. 544. MS Hijrat Fallala, Maktabat ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Shāyim; part of a multitext volume, copied by ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Shāyim; see al-Wajīh, Maṣādir, vol. 2, p. 86. MS Hijrat Fallala, Maktabat ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Shāyim; part of an undated multitext volume; see al-Wajīh, Maṣādir, vol. 2, p. 125. MS Maktabat al-Sayyid Muḥammad b. Ḥasan al-Ḥūthī, dated 9 Ramaḍān 1100/27 June 1689 (see the introduction to Ḥajar’s edition, p. 33). MS Maktabat ʿAbd Allāh Ḥamūd al-ʿIzzī (see the introduction to Ḥajar’s edition, pp. 33– 34); the copy was accessible to the editor through a surrogate held in the Maktabat Ibrāhīm al-Darsī (on the latter, see al-Wajīh, Aʿlām, vol. 1, p. 83 no. 42). MS Sanaa, Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt/al-Maktaba al-Gharbiyya, majāmiʿ 3170; see ʿĪsawī et al., Fihris, vol. 2, p. 1432; cf. also al-Ḥibshī, Maṣādir, p. 124 (citing an older shelf mark). MS Sanaa, Maktabat Muḥammad b. Muḥammad al-Manṣūr. A digital surrogate is accessible through the ZMT [= ZMT 01480]; see https://w3id.org/vhmml/readingRoom/view/144202 (accessed 25 January 2022). MS Saʿda, Maktabat Āl al-Hāshimī; part of a multitext volume copied in 1078/1667–68, which also includes Risāla fī l-jamʿ bayna l-ṣalawāt (→ 14); see al-Wajīh, Maṣādir, vol. 1, p. 384. MS Saʿda, Maktabat Yaḥyā b. ʿAbd Allāh Rāwiya, dated 1348/1929–30 and copied by ʿAlī Ṣāliḥ al-Jamālī; see al-Wajīh, Maṣādir, vol. 2, p. 532. Edition

Ed. ʿAbd al-Raqīb b. Muṭahhar Muḥammad Ḥajar, Saʿda: Markaz Ahl al-Bayt li-l-Dirāsāt alIslāmiyya, 1423/2002 (prepared on the basis of two witnesses of the text in Maktabat al-Sayyid b. Muḥammad al-Ḥūthī and Maktabat ʿAbd Allāh Ḥamūd al-ʿIzzī, respectively; see above).

165

For Muḥammad b. Ṣāliḥ b. Hādī al-Samāwī “Ibn Ḥarīwa” (d. 1241/1825), the author of the K. al-Ghaṭamṭam alzakhkhār al-muṭahhir li-ḥadāʾiq al-azhār min nijāsat al-sayl al-jarrār, a refutation of al-Shawkānī, see al-Wajīh, Aʿlām, vol. 2, pp. 253–258 no. 1153; Muḥammad b. Muḥammad Zabāra, Nayl al-waṭar min tarājim rijāl al-Yaman fī l-qarn al-thālith ʿashar, 2 parts, Sanaa: Markaz al-Dirāsāt wa-l-Abḥāth al-Yamaniyya / Beirut: Dār al-ʿAwda, [1983], vol. 2, pp. 274–279; Bernard Haykel, Revival and Reform in Islam: The Legacy of Muhammad al-Shawkānī, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp. 101, 102, and passim. Al-Wajīh mentions two copies of the tract (Aʿlām, vol. 2, p. 257), held in the private libraries of Muḥammad b. Yaḥyā al-Dhāriḥī and Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl al-Kibsī, respectively. Digital surrogates of both copies were prepared within the framework of the Yemeni Manuscript Digitization Initiative and are accessible online; see https://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/9978491383506421 and https://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/9978492103506421 (both accessed 25 January 2022).

322

HASSAN ANSARI AND SABINE SCHMIDTKE 13. al-Risāla al-dāʿiya ilā l-īmān

This apparently lost text, possibly another refutation of the Muṭarrifiyya, is mentioned by al-Maswarī, who provides no further details. (al-Maswarī, Majmūʿ al-ijāzāt [see below, Appendix 2]; Ibn Abī l-Rijāl, Maṭlaʿ al-budūr, vol. 3, p. 88; al-Ḥibshī, Maṣādir, p. 124; al-Akwaʿ, Hijar al-ʿilm, vol. 4, p. 1811; Ḥamīd al-Dīn, al-Rawḍ al-aghann, vol. 2, p. 62; al-Ḥusaynī al-Ishkawarī, Muʾallafāt, vol. 2, p. 30 no. 1563 [who reports a manuscript of the work at the Maktabat al-Jāmiʿ al-Kabīr under the shelf mark “90,” but this could not be verified on the basis of the published catalogs]; alṢubḥānī, Muʿjam ṭabaqāt al-mutakallimīn, vol. 2, p. 391) 14. Risāla fī l-jamʿ bayna l-ṣalawāt The identity of this text, a unique witness of which is recorded by al-Wajīh (see below), remains uncertain. Whether it is a legal work in its own right or an excerpt from one of alʿAnsī’s comprehensive writings cannot be decided on the basis of the scant information provided by al-Wajīh. It is possible that this text is identical to MS. Sanaa, al-Maktaba alGharbiyya, majmūʿ 120/3 (Shams al-mashriqīn wa-l-maghribīn fī dalīl al-jamʿ bayna lṣalātayn, by one ʿAbd Allāh b. Zayd b. ʿUthmān al-Wazīr); see Aḥmad Muḥammad ʿĪsawī and Muḥammad Saʿīd al-Malīḥ, Fihris makhṭūṭāt al-Maktaba al-Gharbiyya bi-l-Jāmiʿ al-kabīr biṢanʿāʾ, Alexandria: Manshaʾat Dār al-Maʿārif, 1978, vol. 2, p. 771. The author’s name as given in the catalog is evidently wrong, since no such person is recorded in the sources. Manuscript •

MS Saʿda, Maktabat Āl al-Hāshimī; part of a multitext volume copied in 1078/1667–68, which also includes al-Risāla al-badīʿa al-muʿlina bi-faḍāʾil al-shīʿa (→ 12); see al-Wajīh, Maṣādir, vol. 1, p. 384. It is possible that a surrogate of the manuscript is part of Riḍwān al-Sayyid’s microfilm collection; see “al-Makhṭūṭāt al-Yamaniyya,” no. 346. 15. al-Risāla al-munqidha min al-ʿaṭab al-sālika bi-l-naṣīḥa ilā ahl Shaẓab

This is a refutation of the Muṭarrifiyya. Al-Maswarī had seen a holograph copy of the work, which concludes with an authorial colophon dated Rabīʿ II 660/November–December 1261 in Kuḥlān. (al-Maswarī, Majmūʿ al-ijāzāt [see below, Appendix 2]; Ibn Abī l-Rijāl, Maṭlaʿ albudūr, vol. 3, p. 88; see also ibid., vol. 2, pp. 56–57 no. 399; al-Ḥibshī, Maṣādir, p. 123; alShāmī, Tārīkh al-Yaman al-fikrī, vol. 3, p. 309 no. 1; Ḥamīd al-Dīn, al-Rawḍ al-aghann, vol. 2, p. 62; al-Akwaʿ, Hijar al-ʿilm, vol. 4, p. 1811; al-Ḥusaynī al-Ishkawarī, Muʾallafāt, vol. 2, p. 41 no. 1599. A lengthy quotation from the work, here entitled al-Risāla al-munjiya min al-ʿaṭab, is included in Ibrāhīm b. Yaḥyā al-Darsī al-Ḥamzī, “al-Qāḍib li-shubah al-munazzihīn li-l-Muṭarrifiyya,” unpublished book manuscript, http://althaqaleen.com/UploadedBooks/%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%82%D8%A7%D8%B6%D8%A8%20%D9%84%D8%B4 %D8%A8%D9%87%20%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%86%D8%B2%D9%87%D9%8A %D9%86%20%D9%84%D9%84%D9%85%D8%B7%D8%B1%D9%81%D9%8A%D8%A9 %D9%85%D9%86%20%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%86%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%B5%D8%A8 %20%D9%84%D9%84%D8%AF%D8%B1%D8%B3%D9%8A.pdf (accessed 25 January

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2022), pp. 110–111. Al-Darsī al-Ḥamzī specifies that the same passage was quoted by Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn in his Mustaṭāb through al-ʿAnsī’s Risāla al-munqidha. Indeed, the same passage can be found, nearly verbatim, in Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn’s entry on al-ʿAnsī in his Mustaṭāb (fols. 82r:28–82v:3). Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn does not state which of al-ʿAnsī’s works he is citing but only mentions risāla ukhrā qaraʾtu fī l-jawāb ʿalā l-Muṭarrifiyya watakfīrihim fī maqālatihim. Al-Darsī al-Ḥamzī’s reference makes it clear that Yaḥyā b. alḤusayn was referring to al-Risāla al-munqidha min al-ʿaṭab al-sālika bi-l-naṣīḥa ilā ahl Shaẓab). Manuscript •

•

MS Sanaa, al-Maktaba al-Gharbiyya, majāmiʿ 64, fols. 74–77, copied in 1091/1680–81; see Aḥmad Muḥammad ʿĪsawī and Muḥammad Saʿīd al-Malīḥ, Fihris makhṭūṭāt alMaktaba al-gharbiyya bi-l-Jāmiʿ al-kabīr bi-Ṣanʿāʾ, Alexandria: Manshaʾat Dār al-Maʿārif, 1978, vol. 1, p. 257; cf. al-Ḥibshī, Maṣādir, p. 123, according to whom the shelf mark is majāmiʿ 52, evidently an error; the shelf mark is given correctly as majāmiʿ 64 in alWajīh, Aʿlām, vol. 1, p. 571. An excerpt of two pages included at the end of a multitext codex (IZbACF library, CD no. 468); see https://al-majalis.org/books/wp-content/plugins/books-lib/readers/wptext-reader-iframe.php?id=1042&perpage=50&page=536 (accessed 17 January 2022). 16. al-Shihāb (al-thāqib) ʿalā madhāhib al-ʿitra al-aṭyāb [al-aṭāyib]

This lost theological summa was written before al-Maḥajja al-bayḍāʾ (→ 9), as is indicated by the frequent references to it in the latter work. The work is mentioned as K. al-Shihāb in Cod. arab. 1286, fols. 18r (margin), 19r:13, 35v:11, 91v:5, 126v:13 [= Cod. arab. 1273, fol. 5v:3–4], and 139v:13 [= Cod. arab. 1273, fol. 23v:4], and as K. al-Shihāb al-thāqib in Cod. arab. 1286, fols. 8v:11, 35v:13, 80r:20–21, and 150v:19 [= Cod. arab. 1273, fol. 39b:3–4]. AlʿAnsī also includes the book in the list of his earlier works on theology in the beginning of the khātima to his K. al-Tamyīz (fol. 149a:5f) (→ 20). In the list, the title is given as K. alShihāb ʿalā madhāhib al-ʿitra al-aṭyāb. See also Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn, Mustaṭāb, fol. 82r, where the title is given as K. al-Shihāb al-thāqib ʿalā madhāhib al-ʿitra al-aṭāyib. Al-ʿAnsī adds that the work consisted of a single volume (mujallad wāḥid). (Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn, Mustaṭāb, fol. 82r:22–23; al-Ḥibshī, Maṣādir, p. 202; al-Akwaʿ, Hijar al-ʿilm, vol. 4, p. 1811b; al-Ḥusaynī al-Ishkawarī, Muʾallafāt, vol. 2, p. 219 no. 2088; alṢubḥānī, Muʿjam ṭabaqāt al-mutakallimīn, vol. 2, p. 391; in the published edition of Jundārī [Tarājim al-rijāl, p. 21] the title is erroneously given as al-Najm al-thāqib) 17. al-Sirāj al-wahhāj al-mumayyiz bayna l-istiqāma wa-l-iʿwijāj This work is a concise (mukhtaṣar) theological summa. In the introduction, the author explains that he wrote the work at the request of jamāʿa min al-ikhwān who asked him to compose a mukhtaṣar fī l-wājib min uṣūl al-dīn ʿalā madhāhib al-aʾimma al-hādīn mimmā yashal ʿalā l-mubtadī ḥifẓuhu wa-tatajallā lahu maʿrifatuhu . . . (MS Glaser 123, fol. 180v). The work’s authenticity is certain, as al-ʿAnsī mentions the work among his earlier writings in his Tamyīz (→ 20), where he describes it as mukhtaṣar ḥasan ḍābiṭ. It is noteworthy, however, that the title page of MS Glaser 123 (fig. 8) ascribes the work to al-ʿAnsī’s father, Ziyād [sic] b. Aḥmad

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al-ʿAnsī. The text as preserved in MS Glaser 123 (see below) gives no date of completion. However, the fact that the author of al-Sirāj lists al-Manṣūr bi-llāh as the last imam (fol. 210r:11– 13: . . . wa-sāʾir al-aʾimma ʿalayhim al-salām ākhiruhum al-Mutawakkil ʿalā llāh Aḥmad b. Sulaymān thumma al-Imām al-Manṣūr bi-llāh ʿAbd Allāh b. Ḥamza ʿalayhim al-salām wa-lṣalawāt) suggests that he wrote the Sirāj before Imam al-Mahdī li-Dīn Allāh Abū Ṭayr Aḥmad b. al-Ḥusayn (612–656/1216–1258) rose to power in Ṣafar 646/May–June 1248. Al-ʿAnsī also wrote a commentary on the work, Mudhākarāt al-Sirāj (→ 11). (al-Ḥibshī, Maṣādir, p. 124; al-Shāmī, Tārīkh al-Yaman al-fikrī, vol. 3, p. 309 no. 6; Ḥamīd al-Dīn, al-Rawḍ al-aghann, vol. 2, p. 62; al-Akwaʿ, Hijar al-ʿilm, vol. 4, p. 1811b; alḤusaynī al-Ishkawarī, Muʾallafāt, vol. 2, p. 91 no. 1753; al-Ṣubḥānī, Muʿjam ṭabaqāt al-mutakallimīn, vol. 2, p. 391) Manuscripts •

MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Glaser 123, fols. 180r–228r. The text ends with a scribal colophon dated 10 [Dhū] al-Qaʿda 813/6 March 1411 (fig. 21). For a description, see Ahlwardt, Verzeichniss, vol. 9, p. 591 no. 10284; for a digital surrogate, see https://stabikat.de/DB=1/XMLPRS=N/PPN?PPN=735444374 (accessed 25 January 2022). The table of contents prepared on the basis of this manuscript (Appendix 1) shows that the manuscript has lacunae throughout: certain sections announced in work are not found in the appropriate locations (such cases are indicated in square brackets in Appendix 1, with additional comments in the annotation). Since the codex seems undamaged, the lacunae must have been present in the antigraph. The division of the text into eight parts (aqsām) is explained in the introduction to the work (fols. 180v–181r). Edition

Al-Sirāj al-wahhāj al-mumayyiz bayna l-istiqāma wa-l-iʿwijāj li-l-faqīh al-ʿallāma ʿAbd Allāh b. Zayd b. Aḥmad al-ʿAnsī al-mutawaffā sanat 667h, ed. Jamāl al-Shāmī, [Saʿda]: [private publication], 1438/2017 (2nd. ed. 1443/2022). The edition was prepared on the basis of MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Glaser 123. 18. Taḥrīr adillat al-uṣūl (alternative titles: Taḥrīr al-adilla, al-Taḥrīr li-adillat al-uṣūl, Taḥrīr al-uṣūl, Taḥrīr al-uṣūl fī uṣūl al-fiqh, and al-Taḥrīr fī uṣūl al-fiqh) This is a comprehensive work on legal theory. References to it throughout al-ʿAnsī’s alMaḥajja al-bayḍāʾ (→ 9) indicate that it was written prior to the Maḥajja, that is, before 641/1243. For these references, see MS Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod. arab. 1273, fol. 16r:12 = Cod. arab. 1286, fol. 135r:10 [Taḥrīr al-uṣūl]; Cod. arab. 1273, fol. 102r:14 = Cod. arab. 1286, fol. 193v [Taḥrīr al-adilla]; Cod. arab. 1273, fol. 111r:4 = Cod. arab. 1286, fol. 199r:9 [Taḥrīr al-adilla]; Cod. arab. 1273, fol. 132r:12–14 = Cod. arab. 1286, fol. 212r:22– 23 [Taḥrīr al-uṣūl fī uṣūl al-fiqh]; Cod. arab. 1273, fol. 140v:14–15 [Taḥrīr al-uṣūl fī uṣūl alfiqh] = Cod. arab. 1286, fol. 217r:20 [Taḥrīr al-uṣūl fī l-fiqh]; Cod. arab. 1273, fol. 143v:12 = Cod. arab. 1286, fol. 219r:13–14 [Taḥrīr al-uṣūl fī uṣūl al-fiqh]; Cod. arab. 1273, fol. 144v:17 = Cod. arab. 1286, fol. 219v:21 [Taḥrīr al-uṣūl]; Cod. arab. 1273, fol. 145r:5 = Cod. arab. 1286, fol. 220r:4–5 [al-Taḥrīr li-adillat al-uṣūl]; Cod. arab. 1273, fol. 149v:1–2 = Cod. arab. 1286, fol. 222v:13 [Taḥrīr al-uṣūl].

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325

(Ibn Abī l-Rijāl, Maṭlaʿ al-budūr, vol. 3, p. 83; al-Ḥibshī, Maṣādir, p. 179 [no manuscript listed]; al-Akwaʿ, Hijar al-ʿilm, vol. 4, p. 1811a [no manuscript listed]; al-Ḥusaynī alIshkawarī, Muʾallafāt, vol. 1, p. 253 no. 700 [no manuscript listed]; Ḥamīd al-Dīn, al-Rawḍ al-aghann, vol. 2, p. 63; al-Ṣubḥānī, Muʿjam ṭabaqāt al-mutakallimīn, vol. 2, p. 391) Manuscripts •

•

MS Sanaa, Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt/al-Maktaba al-Gharbiyya 838 (215 fols.). The manuscript, which according to the catalogue is very old (bi-khaṭṭ naskhī qadīm), is incomplete at the end; see ʿĪsawī et al., Fihris (2005), vol. 1, pp. 424–425. We were unable to consult this manuscript. MS Milan, Ambrosiana, Nuovo Fondo, D 479 ar., fol. 235r, containing a one-page extract from the work; see Oscar Löfgren and Renato Traini, Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, vols. 1–3, Vicenza: N. Pozza, 1975–1995; vol. 4, Milan: Silvana Editoriale, 2011, vol. 2, p. 371 no. 735/IV. We were unable to consult this copy. 19. al-Takmīl

This work on theology seems to be lost. References to it throughout al-ʿAnsī’s al-Maḥajja al-bayḍāʾ (→ 9) indicate that parts of it were written prior to the Maḥajja, that is, before 641/1243; see MS Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod. arab. 1286, fols. 68v:20, 86r:2, 86v:2, 88v:3, 108v:5, 119v:3, 155r:15, 19 [= MS Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod. arab. 1273, fol. 45v:6, 12], 199r:9 [= Cod. arab. 1273, fol. 111r:4], 201r:10 [= Cod. arab. 1273, fol. 114r:10], 204r:11 [= Cod. arab. 1273, fol. 119r:1]. Since al-ʿAnsī in most cases refers readers to the Takmīl for more detailed discussions on the topic at hand, the work must have been a comprehensive one. It is noteworthy that the references to the Takmīl occur mostly in part 2 (ʿadl) and occasionally in parts 3 (nubuwwāt) and 4 (sharāʾiʿ) of the Maḥajja, but not in part 1 (tawḥīd). The lack of references to the Takmīl in part 1 suggests that al-ʿAnsī had started the Maḥajja before the Takmīl and that he later continued writing the two works in parallel. Al-ʿAnsī also refers to the Takmīl in his Irshād for the definition of tawba; see al-ʿAnsī, Irshād, p. 286:4. 20. al-Tamyīz bayna l-Islām wa-l-Muṭarrifiyya al-ṭughām This is al-ʿAnsī’s most comprehensive tract against the Muṭarrifiyya. The text consists of three parts. The first introduction (al-muqaddima al-ūlā fī tafṣīl madhāhib al-jamīʿ) is arranged, with slight variations, according to the characteristic eight domains (al-uṣūl althamāniya) of theology: divine unicity (tawḥīd) (MS Muḥammad al-Sārī, fol. 1v), justice (ʿadl) (fol. 8v), prophecy (nubuwwa) and revealed laws (sharāʾiʿ) (fol. 10v), the imamate (imāma) and holy war (jihād) (fol. 12v), the promise and the threat (al-waʿd wa-l-waʿīd) (fol. 13v), and commanding what is good and nouns and rulings (al-asmāʾ wa-l-aḥkām) (fol. 14v). For each domain, al-ʿAnsī presents first the beliefs of the ahl al-islām and then those of the Muṭarrifiyya, which he refutes. The second introduction (al-muqaddima al-thāniya fī taḥqīq al-ḥaqq wa-ibṭāl al-bāṭil bi-īrād al-ḥujaj wa-l-barāhīn) (fol. 15r), which is by far the most extensive portion of the text, contains a detailed refutation of the Muṭarrifiyya organized in eighty sections (maʿārif, sg. maʿrifa). The work concludes with a khātima in which al-ʿAnsī explains his own theological positions. This third section of the text constitutes a

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theological summa in its own right, divided into eight parts (aqsām, sg. qism). Although the work is undated, it clearly belongs to al-ʿAnsī’s later period: he explains in the introduction that he has already written numerous works (taṣānīf kathīra) in the field of theology (uṣūl al-dīn), and he specifically refers at the beginning of the khātima (fol. 149r:5–10) to the following earlier writings: K. al-Shihāb (al-thāqib) ʿalā madhāhib al-ʿitra al-aṭāyib (→ 16), K. al-Sirāj al-wahhāj (→ 17), K. Mudhākarāt al-Sirāj (→ 11), and K. al-Maḥajja al-bayḍāʾ (→ 9). He also refers repeatedly in the khātima to the more detailed discussions provided in his Maḥajja (fols. 171r:9, 171v:21, 172v:8–9, 173r:17, 187r:10). (Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn, Mustaṭāb, fol. 82a:23–24; David Thomas Gochenour, “The Penetration of Zaydī Islam into Medieval Yemen,” PhD diss., Harvard University, 1984, p. 234 n. 168; al-Ḥibshī, Maṣādir, p. 124; al-Akwaʿ, Hijar al-ʿilm, vol. 3, p. 1608b; vol. 4, p. 1811a; Ḥamīd al-Dīn, al-Rawḍ al-aghann, vol. 2, p. 62) Manuscripts •

•

A copy of the text was preserved in the private library of Muḥammad al-Sārī in Sanaa and was located by al-Ḥibshī (see al-Ḥibshī, Maṣādir, p. 124; see also al-Akwaʿ, Hijar al-ʿilm, vol. 3, p. 1608b). However, the holdings of the library, including the K. al-Tamyīz, have since been destroyed, and only a microfilm copy of the codex remains. The manuscript is incomplete at the end.166 A digital surrogate of the microfilm is accessible through https://elibrary.mara.gov.om/en/imam-zaid-library/cultural-foundation-library/book/ ?id =12734 (accessed 25 January 2022). The surrogate offers no confirmation that it is indeed a copy of the manuscript that was reportedly held in the library of Muḥammad al-Sārī, since it contains only the work itself, without a title page. Still, it is likely that the surrogate is based on the copy in al-Sārī’s library, since no other copy of the text is known to have existed (with the exception of a modern transcription, described below). A second, partial copy of the text was transcribed by Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. Yaḥyā b. Luṭf al-Shāmī (1330–1407/1912–1986 or 1987) in 1393/1973, most likely from the abovementioned original. The manuscript copy comprises the first muqaddima and the beginning of the second. For the copyist, see al-Wajīh, Aʿlām, vol. 2, p. 316 no. 1232; his personal library seems to have been transferred to the Markaz Badr (figs. 39, 40). Edition

See below, Appendix 3, for an edition of portions of al-ʿAnsī’s introduction to the khātima of the Tamyīz.

166

A copy of this manuscript (or a surrogate of it) was also produced for Riḍwān al-Sayyid in the 1990s and is now part of his personal library; see “al-Makhṭūṭāt al-Yamaniyya,” no. 210.

Figure 38. An isolated item in a codex that is kept in one the private libraries in Yemen, containing a legal opinion by al-ʿAnsī.

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HASSAN ANSARI AND SABINE SCHMIDTKE

Figure 39. Copy of al-ʿAnsī’s K. al-Tamyīz transcribed by Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. Yaḥyā b. Luṭf al-Shāmī in 1393/1973 (first page).

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Figure 40. Copy of al-ʿAnsī’s K. al-Tamyīz transcribed by Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. Yaḥyā b. Luṭf al-Shāmī in 1393/1973 (beginning of text).

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APPENDIX 1: STRUCTURAL DIVISION OF AL-SIRĀJ AL-WAHHĀJ, MUDHĀKARĀT ALSIRĀJ, AL-MAḤAJJA AL-BAYḌĀʾ, AND AL-TAMYĪZ (AL-KALĀM FĪ L-KHĀTIMA) A comparison of al-Ansī’s major extant kalām works—the K. al-Sirāj; his autocommentary on the latter, Mudhākarāt al-Sirāj; his al-Maḥajja al-bayḍāʾ; and the khātima of the K. alTamyīz—reveals the remarkable consistency of his doctrinal thought over the course of his life. However, each of the four works has its own distinctive characteristics. Although their relative chronology can be only partly determined (see above), a close comparison reveals a symmetry between the Sirāj and the khātima of the Tamyīz, on the one hand, and between the Mudhākarāt and the Maḥajja, on the other. The structure of the Sirāj is identical with that of the khātima. Moreover, a closer examination shows that the khātima is essentially an enlarged version of the Sirāj; as a rule, the wording of the Sirāj is included verbatim in the corresponding segments of the otherwise much more detailed khātima. In both works, al-ʿAnsī refrains from entering into discussions on topics within the realm of laṭīf alkalām. He also avoids references to earlier Muʿtazilī thinkers and instead regularly mentions the views of Imams al-Qāsim and al-Hādī, which he endorses. In his commentary on the Sirāj, the Mudhākarāt al-Sirāj, al-ʿAnsī follows, by and large, the structure found in the Sirāj, although he often diverges from it to cover topics that are typically discussed in works of kalām but are not addressed in the Sirāj. In the Mudhākarāt, he routinely relates and discusses the positions of earlier Muʿtazilīs and scholars of other strands whenever applicable. In both the Mudhākarāt and the Maḥajja, al-ʿAnsī refers to al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111) as well as to al-mutaʾakhkhirīn min al-Ashʿariyya.167 In contrast to the Sirāj and the Tamyīz, al-ʿAnsī’s discussions in the Mudhākarāt are invariably divided into two mawāḍiʿ, the first one fī ḥikāyat al-madhhab wa-dhikr al-khilāf and the second one fī l-dalīl ʿalā ṣiḥḥat mā dhahabnā ilayhi wa-fasād mā dhahaba ilayhi l-mukhālif. A similar but even more refined structural approach characterizes the Maḥajja, in which al-ʿAnsī generally divides his discussions into three mawāḍiʿ: (1) fī ḥikāyat al-madhhab wa-dhikr al-khilāf, (2) fī l-dalīl ʿalā ṣiḥḥat mā dhahabnā ilayhi wa-fasād mā dhahaba ilayhi l-mukhālif, and (3) fī ibṭāl aqwāl al-mukhālifīn. The main difference between the Mudhākarāt and the Maḥajja lies in their respective lengths—the Maḥajja is by far the more comprehensive of the two. Moreover, al-ʿAnsī includes in the Maḥajja numerous cross-references to other works of his (see above), but he does not do so in the Mudhākarāt. Finally, the Mudhākarāt has come down to us in its entirety, whereas only parts 1 through 5 of the Maḥajja are extant. The symmetry between the Sirāj and the khātima of the Tamyīz, on the one hand, and the Mudhākarāt and the Maḥajja, on the other, should be taken into consideration in the preparation of any future critical edition of these four works, especially since three of the works are preserved in only a single witness.

167

MS Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod. arab. 1286, fols. 66v, 76v; al-ʿAnsī, Mudhākarāt, MS Sanaa, Maktabat al-Awqāf 758, fols. 40r, 42v.

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Abbreviations: Q = qism, B = bāb, F = faṣl, M = mawḍiʿ, J = janba, JH = jiha; Ḥ = ḥaythiyya al-Sirāj al-wahhāj (MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Glaser 123, fols. 180r– 228r [the corresponding locations and any variations in Mudhākarāt al-Sirāj as preserved in MS Sanaa, Maktabat al-Awqāf 758 are mentioned in square brackets in blue])

al-Maḥajja al-bayḍāʾ al-Tamyīz bayna l-Islām wa-l(MS Munich, Bayerische Staats- Muṭarrifiyya al-ṭughām: albibliothek, Cod. arab. 1286) Kalām fī l-khātima (MS Sanaa, Maktabat Muḥammad al-Sārī, fols. 147v– 200r)

Q1 wa-huwa fī l-ʿilm bi-llāh taʿālā wa-mā yastaḥiqqu min awṣāf al-kamāl (fol. 181r [fol. 5r])

Q1 al-tawḥīd (fol. 5r)

Q1 wa-huwa fī l-ʿilm bi-llāh taʿālā wa-mā yastaḥiqqu min awṣāf al-kamāl (fol. 149v)

B1 fī ithbāt al-ṣāniʿ al-ḥakīm (fol. 181r [fol. 5r])

Bāb al-qawl fī ithbāt al-ṣāniʿ taʿālā (fol. 5r)

B1 wa-huwa fī ithbāt al-ṣāniʿ alḥakīm (fol. 149v)

B2 fī asmāʾihi al-ḥusnā waawṣāfihi al-ʿulā (fol. 184v [fol. 17v])168

Bāb al-qawl fī ṣifātihi taʿālā wa- B2 fī asmāʾ Allāh al-ḥusnā waasmāʾihi al-ḥusnā (fol. 16r) awṣāfihi al-ʿulā (fol. 156r)

B1 al-ithbāt li-awṣāf al-jalāl wa-l- al-Kalām fī ṣifāt al-ithbāt kamāl (fol. 17r) (fol. 184v [fol. 17v])

B al-ithbāt li-awṣāf dhī l-jalāl wa-l-kamāl (fol. 156r)

F1 fī annahu qadīm (fol. 184v [fol. 17v])

F1 fī annahu taʿālā qadīm (fol. 156v)

Bāb fī anna ṣāniʿ al-ʿālam qadīm (fol. 17r) F1 wa-huwa fī maʿnā l-wujūd (fol. 17v) F2 wa-huwa fī bayān maʿnā almaʿdum (fol. 19r) F3 wa-huwa fī bayān mā yadull ʿalā anna llāh taʿālā mawjūd (fol. 22r)

F2 annahu taʿālā qādir (fol. 185r [fol. 21v])

Bāb al-qawl fī annahu taʿālā qādir (fol. 23r)

F2 fī annahu taʿālā qādir (fol. 157v)

F3 annahu taʿālā ʿālim (fol. 185r [fol. 22r])

Bāb fī annahu taʿālā ʿālim (fol. 24r)

F3 fī annahu taʿālā ʿālim (fol. 157v)

F4 annahu taʿālā ḥayy (fol. 185v [fol. 22v])

Bāb fī annahu taʿālā ḥayy (fol. 24v)

F4 fī annahu taʿālā ḥayy (fol. 158r)

Bāb fī annahu taʿālā samīʿ baṣīr (fol. 25r) Bāb fī kayfiyyat thubūt kawnihi taʿālā qādiran wa-ʿāliman waḥayyan (fol. 28r)

168

On fol. 181r, al-bāb al-thānī was announced as wa-thānīhā ithbāt mā yastaḥiqqu min awṣāf al-kamāl.

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Bāb fī kayfiyyat maqdūrātihi wa-maʿlūmātihi (fol. 37v) Bāb fī annahu taʿālā bāqin dāʾimun (fol. 40v) B2 fī l-nafy wa-fīhi khamsa fuṣūl (fol. 185v [fol. 22v])

al-Kalām fī awṣāf al-nafy (fol. 42r)

B2 fī l-nafy wa-fīhi khamsa fuṣūl (fol. 158r)

Bāb fī nafy mā lā yuʿqal wa-ldalīl ʿalayhi (fol. 42v) Bāb fī annahu taʿālā lā yajūzu ʿalayhi al-ʿajz wa-l-jahl wa-lmawt wa-l-ʿadam (fol. 43v) F1 annahu taʿālā lā yushbihu lBāb fī nafy al-tashbīh ʿanhu ashyāʾ min al-jawāhir wa-l-ajsām taʿālā (fol. 43v) wa-l-aʿrāḍ (fol. 185v [fol. 22v])

F1 annahu taʿālā lā yushbihu lashyāʾ min al-jawāhir wa-lajsām wa-l-aʿrāḍ (fol. 158r)

F2 annahu lā yushbihu l-jawāhir wa-l-ajsām wa-l-aʿrāḍ fī ṣifātihā wa-fīhi khamsa mawāḍiʿ (fol. 185v [fol. 24r])

F2 annahu lā yushbihu l-ashyāʾ min al-jawāhir wa-l-ajsām wa-laʿrāḍ fī ṣifātihā wa-fīhi khamsa mawāḍiʿ (fol. 158r)

M1 annahu lā yajūzu ʿalayhi alaʿḍāʾ wa-l-ālāt wa-lā al-awqāt wa-l-jihāt (fol. 186r [fol. 24r])

M1 annahu lā yajūzu ʿalayhi alaʿḍāʾ wa-l-ālāt wa-l-awqāt walā al-jihāt (fol. 158v)

M2 anna ṣifāt al-ithbāt fī llāh taʿālā laysat ka-ṣifāt almakhlūqīn min qudratihi wa-ʿilmihi wa-ḥayātihi wa-wujūdihi (fol. 186r [fol. 24r])

M2 wa-huwa anna ṣifāt alithbāt fīhi taʿālā laysat ka-ṣifāt al-makhlūqāt min qudratihi waʿilmihi wa-ḥayātihi wa-wujūdihi wa-qidamihi (fol. 159r)

M3 annahu qādir ʿalā jamīʿ ajnās al-maqdūrāt wa-ʿālim bi-jamīʿ almaʿlūmāt (fol. 187r [fol. 27r])

M3 wa-huwa annahu taʿālā qādir ʿalā jamīʿ ajnās almaqdūrāt wa-ʿālim bi-jamīʿ almaʿlūmāt (fol. 160v)

M4 fī kayfiyyat idrākihi li-lmudrakāt (fol. 187r [fol. 28r])

M4 wa-huwa fī kayfiyyat idrākihi li-l-mudrakāt (fol. 161v)

M5 fī kayfiyyat irādatihi li-lmurādāt wa-kirāhatihi li-l-makrūhāt (fol. 187v [fol. 30r])

M5 wa-huwa fī kayfiyyat irādatihi li-l-murādāt wa-kirāhatihi li-l-makrūhāt (fol. 162r)

F3 annahu lā yajūzu ʿalayhi alḥāja (fol. 188v [fol. 31v])

Bāb fī annahu taʿālā ghaniy (fol. 48v)

F4 annahu taʿālā laysa min qabīl Bāb al-qawl fī l-ruʾya (fol. 50v) al-maḥsūsāt wa-annahu lā yudraku bi-l-abṣār lā fī l-ākhira wa-lā fī hādhihi l-dār (fol. 189v [fol. 33v])

F3 annahu lā yajūzu ʿalayhi alḥāja (fol. 163r) F4 annahu taʿālā laysa min qabīl al-maḥsūsāt lā almasmūʿāt wa-lā al-mubṣarāt wa-annahu lā yudraku bi-labṣār fī l-ākhira wa-lā fī hādhihi l-dār (fol. 163v)

TOWARDS A RECONSTRUCTION OF ʿABD ALLĀH B. ZAYD AL-ʿANSĪ’S OEUVRE AND THOUGHT

F5 annahu lā thānī fī ilāhiyyatihi wa-lā sharīk lahu fī qidamihi (fol. 190v [fol. 35v])169

Bāb al-qawl fī l-waḥdāniyya (fol. 56r)

333

F5 annahu taʿālā lā thānī lahu fī ilāhiyyatihi wa-lā sharīk lahu fī qidamihi wa-rubūbiyyatihi (fol. 164v)

[M1 annahu taʿālā ilahun (fol. 190v [M1 fī ḥaqīqat alwāḥid, fol. 35v])]

M1 wa-huwa annahu taʿālā ilah (fol. 164v)

[M2 annahu lā sharīk lahu fī ilāhiyyatihi wa-lā fī qidamihi walā fī rubūbiyyatihi (M2 wa-huwa annahu taʿālā wāḥid fī ilāhiyyatihi wa-ṣifātihi wa-annahu lā sharīk lahu fī mujarrad dhātihi, fol. 37r)]

M2 wa-huwa annahu lā thānī lahu fī ilāhiyyatihi wa-lā sharīk lahu fī qidamihi warubūbiyyatihi (fol. 165r)

[Q2 fī l-ʿadl (fol. 39r)]170

Q2 min uṣūl al-dīn: al-ʿadl (fol. 65r)

Q2 fī l-ʿadl wa-fīhi khamsa abwāb (fol. 165v)

[B1 wa-huwa anna afʿālahu kull- al-Kalām fī anna llāh taʿālā ʿadl [B1 anna jamīʿ afʿālihi taʿālā uhā ḥasana wa-fīhi thalātha ḥakīm lā yafʿalu l-qabīḥ waḥasana wa-fīhi thalātha fuṣūl fuṣūl (fol. 39r)] afʿālahu kullahā ḥasana (fol. 165v)] (fol. 65v) [F1 annahu taʿālā lā yafʿalu lqabīḥ (fol. 39r)] [F2 annahu taʿālā lā yukhillu bimā yajibu maʿa l-ḥikma (fol. 41r)] [F3 anna afʿālahu taʿālā kullahā ḥasana (fol. 41v)]

B2 fī afʿāl al-ʿibād wa-fīhi arbaʿa fuṣūl (fol. 191v [fol. 41v])

F1 annahu taʿālā lā yafʿalu lqabīḥ (fol. 165v)171 F2 annahu taʿālā lā yukhillu bimā yajibu maʿa l-ḥikma (fol. 165v) Faṣl wa-ammā anna afʿālahu kullahā ḥasana (fol. 70r)

F3 anna afʿālahu taʿālā kullahā ḥasana (fol. 165v)

al-Kalām fī afʿāl al-ʿibād wa-mā B2 fī afʿāl al-ʿibād wa-fīhi arbaʿa yataʿallaqu bihā (fol. 71r) fuṣūl (fol. 166r) Bāb al-qawl fī l-afʿāl (fol. 71r) Bāb al-qawl fī l-istiṭāʿa (fol. 76v) Bāb al-qawl fī l-kasb (fol. 84v)

F1 fī l-dalāla ʿalā anna afʿāl alʿibād minhum lā min Allāh taʿālā

169

F1 fī l-dalāla ʿalā anna afʿāl alʿibād minhum lā min Allāh taʿālā (fol. 166r)

Neither of the two mawāḍiʿ announced in the introduction to this faṣl in the Sirāj are in fact included in the text, and there seems to be a major lacuna that begins on fol. 190v:10 (after rubūbiyyatihi). The following ammā l-mawḍiʿ al-awwal (fol. 190v:10ff.) must belong to the next part of the work, on ʿadl. The Mudhākarāt al-Sirāj contains the complete text here. 170 The beginning of Q2 and B1, including all of F1 and F2 and the beginning of F3, is missing from the Sirāj. Fols. 190v:10–191v:10 constitute the concluding part of F3. The titles of Q2, B1, and F1 through F3 have been gleaned from Mudhākarāt al-Sirāj. 171 The title of B1 is mentioned among the five abwāb in the introductory text to Q2, but what is then presented as title of B1 is in fact F1.

334

HASSAN ANSARI AND SABINE SCHMIDTKE

(fol. 191v [F1 wa-huwa l-kalām fī afʿāl al-ʿibād, fol. 41v]) F2 fī kayfiyyat qudrat al-ʿibād ʿalā maqdūrātihim (fol. 192r [fol. 42v])

F2 fī kayfiyyat qudrat al-ʿibād ʿalā maqdūrātihim (fol. 166r)

F3 fī l-qaḍāʾ wa-l-qadar (fol. 193r [fol. 46v])

F3 fī l-qaḍāʾ wa-l-qadar (fol. 166v)

F4 fī l-hudā wa-l-ḍalāl (fol. 193v [fol. 48r])

Bāb al-qawl fī l-hudā wa-l-ḍalāl F4 fī l-hudā wa-l-ḍalāl (fol. 85r) (fol. 167r) Bāb al-qawl fī l-qaḍā wa-lqadar (fol. 86v) al-Kalām fī l-irādāt (fol. 89r) F1 fī maʿnā kawnihi murīdan wa-kārihan (fol. 89r) F2 [M] fī bayān mā yurīduhu alqadīm taʿālā wa-mā lā yurīduhu wa-mā yakrahuhu wa-mā lā yakrahuhu (fol. 94r)

B3 fī l-taklīf wa-fīhi thalātha fuṣūl al-Kalām fī l-takālīf (fol. 96v) (fol. 195r [B3 min abwāb al-ʿadl wa-huwa l-taklīf wa-fīhi khamsa fuṣūl, fol. 49v])

B3 fī l-taklīf wa-fīhi thalātha fuṣūl (fol. 168v)

F1 fī ḥusn al-taklīf (fol. 195r [fol. 49v])

Bāb al-qawl fī annahu taʿālā munʿim bi-khalq al-ʿālam (fol. 97r)

F1 fī ḥusn al-taklīf (fol. 168v)

F2 annahu lā yukallifu ʿibādahu mā lā yaṭīqūn (fol. 196r [F2 wa-huwa fī qubḥ taklīf mā lā yuṭāq, fol. 54r])

Bāb al-qawl fī l-taklīf (fol. 98v)

F2 annahu taʿālā lā yukallifu ʿibādahu mā lā yaṭīqūn (fol. 169r)

F1 wa-huwa fī tamyīz mā yatanāwaluhu l-taklīf ʿammā lā yatanāwaluhu (fol. 110r) F2 wa-huwa anna l-ʿilm min fiʿlinā yaftaqiru ilā l-naẓar wa-listidlāl (fol. 111r) F3 wa-huwa anna l-naẓar fī maʿrifat Allāh taʿālā awwal alafʿāl al-wājiba ʿalā l-iṭlāq (fol. 119r) F3 annahu taʿālā qad arāda lṭāʿāt wa-shāʾahā wa-raḍīyahā wa-kariha l-maʿāṣī (fol. 196v [F3 wa-huwa annahu taʿālā lā yujāzī aḥadan illā bi-ʿamalihi, fol. 54v])

B3 wa-huwa annahu taʿālā lā yuʿadhdhibu aḥadan illā bidhanbihi wa-lā yuthībuhu illā bi-ʿamalihi (fol. 123r)

F3 annahu taʿālā qad arāda alṭāʿāt wa-shāʾahā wa-raḍīyahā wa-kariha al-maʿāṣī (fol. 169r)

TOWARDS A RECONSTRUCTION OF ʿABD ALLĀH B. ZAYD AL-ʿANSĪ’S OEUVRE AND THOUGHT

335

[—]172 F4 wa-huwa annahu taʿāla munʿim bi-khalq al-ʿālam (fol. 55r) [—]173 F5 wa-huwa fī irādatihi limā kallafa fiʿlahu wa-kirāhatihi li-mā kallafa tarkahu (fol. 55v) B4 fī l-amrāḍ wa-mā yajrī majrāhā wa-fīhi thalātha fuṣūl (fol. 196v) [from here until the end of Q2 the structure of the Mudhākarāt al-Sirāj is largely independent from that of the Sirāj]

B4 fī l-amrāḍ wa-mā yajrī majrāhā wa-fīhi thalātha fuṣūl (fol. 169v)

F1 fī annahā min Allāh taʿālā (fol. 196v)

F1 fī annahā min Allāh taʿālā (fol. 169v)

F2 fī ḥusn al-amrāḍ (fol. 197r)

F2 fī ḥusn al-amrāḍ (fol. 169v)

F3 fī wajh ḥusnihā (fol. 197v)

F3 fī wajh ḥusnihā (fol. 170r)

B5 fī l-maṣāliḥ wa-fīhi thalātha fuṣūl (fol. 198r [B4 fī l-maṣāliḥ wa-fīhi faṣlān, fol. 56r])

al-Kalām fī l-maṣāliḥ (fol. 123v) B5 fī l-maṣāliḥ wa-fīhi thalātha fuṣūl (fol. 171r)

F1 fī l-maṣāliḥ al-dunyāwiyya (fol. 198r [fol. 56r])

Q1 min al-maṣāliḥ wa-huwa al- F1 fī l-maṣāliḥ al-dunyāwiyya maṣāliḥ al-dunyāwiyya (fol. 171r) (fol. 123v)

F2 fī l-maṣāliḥ al-dīniyya (fol. 198v [fol. 57r])

Q2 fī l-maṣāliḥ al-dīniyya (fol. 128v)

F2 fī l-maṣāliḥ al-dīniyya wahiya al-alṭāf (fol. 171v)

al-nawʿ al-awwal min almaṣāliḥ al-dīniyya: al-qawl fī lamrāḍ wa-l-ālām (fol. 144v) al-nawʿ al-thānī min al-maṣāliḥ al-dīniyya: al-qawl fī l-ājāl (fol. 162v) al-nawʿ al-thālith min almaṣāliḥ al-dīniyya: al-ghalāʾ wa-l-rukhaṣ (fol. 163v) al-nawʿ al-rābiʿ min al-maṣāliḥ al-dīniyya: fī l-rizq (fol. 164r) F3 fī bayān mā yataʿallaqu bihi lmaṣāliḥ al-dīniyya (fol. 199v)

172 173

This chapter has no parallel in the Sirāj. This chapter has no parallel in the Sirāj.

F3 fīmā yataʿallaqu bi-l-maṣāliḥ al-dīniyya (fol. 172v)

336

HASSAN ANSARI AND SABINE SCHMIDTKE

[Q3 al-nubuwwat wa-fīhi khamsa fuṣūl (fol. 70v)]174

Q3 min uṣūl al-dīn wa-huwa al-nubuwwāt (fol. 167v)

Q3175 al-ʿilm bi-l-nubuwwāt wa-fīhi khamsa fuṣūl (fol. 173v)

F1176 fī maʿnā al-nabī wa-l-rasūl (fol. 200v [fol. 70v])

M1 wa-huwa fī maʿnā qawlinā rasul wa-nabī wa-ḥujjat Allāh taʿālā wa-mabʿūth (fol. 167v)

F1 fī maʿnā al-nabī wa-l-rasūl (fol. 173v)

F2 fī ḥusn irsāl Allāh taʿāla li-lrusul (fol. 200v [fol. 71r])

M2 fī ḥusn irsāl Allāh taʿālā li-lrusul (fol. 168r)

F2 fī ḥusn irsāl Allāh taʿālā li-lrusul (fol. 173v)

M3 fī ṣifat al-rasūl ʿalayhi lsalām (fol. 170v) F3 fīmā yakūnu ṭarīqan ilā M4 fī l-ṭarīq ilā maʿrifat numaʿrifat al-anbiyāʾ ʿalayhim albuwwat al-anbiyāʾ ʿalayhim alsalām (fol. 200v salām (fol. 172r) [F4 wa-huwa fī l-ṭarīq ilā maʿrifat nubuwwat al-anbiyāʾ ʿalayhim alsalām, fol. 72v])

F3 mimmā yakūnu ṭarīqan ilā maʿrifat al-anbiyāʾ ʿalayhim alsalām (fol. 174r)

F4 fī nubuwwat Muḥammad ṣallā llāh ʿalayhi wa-ālihi wa-sallam (fol. 201v [F5 wa-huwa fī taʿyīn rusul Allāh ṣalawāt Allāh ʿalayhim . . . M1 wa-huwa fī nubuwwat nabiyyinā Muḥammad, fol. 75r])

F4 fī nubuwwat Muḥammad ṣalā llāh ʿalayhi wa-ālihi wasallam (fol. 174v)

F5 nubuwwat sāʾir al-anbiyāʾ M5 wa-huwa l-kalām fī nuʿalayhim al-salām (fol. 202v buwwat rusul Allāh ṣalawāt [M2 wa-huwa fī nubuwwat sāʾir Allāh ʿalayhim (fol. 181r) al-anbiyāʾ ʿalayhim al-salām, fol. 77v])

F5 fī nubuwwat sāʾir al-anbiyāʾ ʿalayhim al-salām (fol. 176v)

Q4 anna mā jāʾa bihi Muḥammad ḥaqq wa-ṣawāb wa-fīhi fuṣūl (fol. 203r [Q4 al-ʿilm bi-l-sharāʾiʿ wa-fīhi arbaʿa fuṣūl, fol. 77v])

Q4177 anna mā jāʾa bihi Muḥammad ʿalayhi al-salām ḥaqq wa-ṣawāb wa-fīhi fuṣūl (fol. 176v)

Q4 min uṣūl al-dīn: al-sharāʾiʿ (fol. 201v)

F1 fīmā jāʾa bihi Muḥammad ḥaqq wa-ṣawāb ʿalā l-jumla (fol. 203r [fol. 77v])

F1 anna mā jāʾa bihi ʿalayhi alsalām ḥaqq wa-ṣawāb ʿalā ljumla (fol. 176v)

F2 fī naskh al-sharāʾiʿ (fol. 203v [fol. 78r])

F2 fī naskh al-sharāʾiʿ (fol. 177r)

174

There is no formal beginning to the third part in the text, even though it was announced in the introduction (fol. 181r). Although the transition from the discussion of al-maṣāliḥ al-dīniyya to prophecy (at the bottom of fol. 200r) suggests at first sight that nothing is missing here, some portion of the text, including at least the title of this new part, has been left out in this copy or, perhaps more likely, in its antigraph. 175 Al-Qism: al-faṣl in the manuscript. 176 Al-awwal: al-thālith in the manuscript. 177 The manuscript has al-faṣl al-rābiʿ rather than al-qism al-rābiʿ.

TOWARDS A RECONSTRUCTION OF ʿABD ALLĀH B. ZAYD AL-ʿANSĪ’S OEUVRE AND THOUGHT

337

F3 anna l-Qurʾān kalām Allāh taʿālā (fol. 203v [fol. 79v])

F3 anna l-Qurʾān kalām Allāh taʿālā (fol. 177r)

F4 anna l-Qurʾān muḥdath makhlūq (fol. 203v [fol. 85r])

F4 anna l-Qurʾān muḥdath (fol. 177r)

Q5 al-imāma wa-fīhi fuṣūl (fol. 204r [. . . wa-fīhi khamsa fuṣūl, fol. 87r])

[Q5 al-imāma]

Q5 al-imāma wa-fīhi fuṣūl (fol. 177r)

F1 fī maʿnā al-imāma (fol. 204r [fol. 87r])

F1 fī maʿnā al-imāma (fol. 177r)

F2 fī l-gharaḍ bi-l-imāma (fol. 204r [fol. 87r])

F2 fī l-gharaḍ bi-l-imāma (fol. 177r)

F3 fī wujūb al-imāma (fol. 204v [fol. 88r])

F3 fī wujūb al-imāma (fol. 177v)

F4 fīmā thabata li-l-imām (fol. 204v [fol. 90r])

F4 fīmā bihi tathbutu l-imāma (fol. 177v)

F5 fī taʿyīn al-aʾimma ʿalayhim alsalām (fol. 205r)

F5 fī taʿyīn al-aʾimma ʿalayhim al-salām (fol. 178r)

Q6 fī l-amr bi-l-maʿrūf wa-lnahy ʿan al-munkar (fol. 213r [fol. 114r])

[Q6 al-amr bi-l-maʿrūf wa-lnahī ʿan al-munkar]

B1 fī wujūbihā (fol. 213r [fol. 114r])

[Q6 al-amr bi-l-maʿrūf wa-lnahy ʿan al-munkar]178 [B1 . . .]

F1 fī ḥaqīqatihā (fol. 213r [fol. 114r]) F2 fī tamyīz mā yajibu ʿammā lā yajibu (fol. 213v [fol. 114v]) F3 fī l-dalāla ʿalā sharʿihā [sic; should be: sharʿihimā] (fol. 213v [fol. 114v]) F4 fī ṭarīq wujūbihā (fol. 214r [fol. 115r]) F5 fī kayfiyyat wujūbihā (fol. 214v [fol. 116r]) B2 fī shurūṭ wujūbihimā waḥusnihimā (fol. 214v [fol. 116r])

B2 fī shurūṭ wujubihimā waḥusnihimā (fol. 186v)

B3 fī kayfiyyat adāʾihā (fol. 215r [fol. 117v])

B3 fī kayfiyyat adāʾihā (fol. 186v)

Q7 al-waʿd wa-l-waʿīd (fol. 215v [fol. 118v])

178

[Q7 al-waʿd wa-l-waʿīd]

Fols. 184v–186r are missing in the digital surrogate of the microfilm.

Q7 al-waʿd wa-l-waʿīd (fol. 187r)

338

HASSAN ANSARI AND SABINE SCHMIDTKE

B1 wa-fīhi arbaʿa fuṣūl [sic; the correct title should be, as in the Tamyīz, fī bayān aḥkām al-afʿāl wa-māhiyyātihā wa-fīhi thalātha fuṣūl; see also the title given in the corresponding position in the Mudhākarāt al-Sirāj] (fol. 215v) [B1 fī bayān aḥkām alafʿāl wa-l-kalām minhu yaqaʿu fī mawḍūʿayn, fol. 118v]

B1 fī bayān aḥkām al-afʿāl wamāhiyyātihā wa-fīhi thalātha fuṣūl (fol. 187r)

F1 fī bayān aqsām al-afʿāl (fol. 215v)

F1 fī bayān aḥkām al-afʿāl (fol. 187r)

F2 fī l-dalāla ʿalā thubūt aḥkām al-afʿāl (fol. 216r)

F2 fī l-dalāla ʿalā thubūt hādhihi l-aḥkām (fol. 187v)

F3 fī bayān maʿānī al-afʿāl watawābiʿihā (fol. 216v)

F3 fī bayān maʿānī aḥkām alafʿāl wa-tawābiʿihā (fol. 188r)

B2 fī kayfiyyat thubūt al-aḥkām wa-suqūṭihā179 wa-lahu ḥaythiyyatān (fol. 217v [fol. 120r])

B2 fī kayfiyyat thubūt al-aḥkām wa-istiḥqāqihā wa-lahu janbatān [sic] (fol. 188v)

Ḥ1 fī kayfiyyat thubūtihā (fol. 217v [fol. 120r])

J1 fī kayfiyyat thubūtihā (fol. 188v)

Ḥ2 fī kayfiyyat suqūṭ al-madḥ wal-dhamm wa-l-thawāb wa-l-ʿiqāb (fol. 220r)

J2 fī kayfiyyat suqūṭ al-madḥ wa-l-dhamm wa-l-thawāb wa-lʿiqāb (fol. 190r)

M1 fī suqūṭ al-aqall bi-l-akthar (fol. 220r)

M1 fī suqūṭ al-aqall bi-l-akthar (fol. 190r)

M2 fī annahu yasquṭ min alakthar bi-miqdār al-aqall (fol. 220v)

M2 wa-huwa annahu yasquṭu min al-akthar bi-miqdār alaqall (fol. 190v)

M3 fī ḥukmihā ʿinda l-tasāwī (fol. 221r)

M3 wa-huwa fī ḥukmihimā ʿinda l-tasāwī (fol. 190v)

M4 fī l-tawba (fol. 221v)

M4 wa-huwa fī l-tawba (fol. 191r)

F1 fī ḥaqīqatihā (fol. 221v)

F1 fī ḥaqīqatihā (fol. 191r)

F2 fī annahā musqiṭa li-l-dhamm wa-l-ʿiqāb (fol. 221v)

F2 fī annahā musqiṭa li-ldhamm wa-l-ʿiqāb (fol. 191r)

F3 annahu baʿda l-tawba yaʿūdu taʾthīr asbāb al-madḥ wa-lthawāb bi-afʿālihi (fol. 222r)

F3 annahu baʿda l-tawba yaʿūdu taʾthīr asbāb al-madḥ wa-lthawāb bi-afʿālihi (fol. 191r)

M5 wa-huwa anna l-ʿafw yusqiṭu al-ʿiqāb dūn al-dhamm (fol. 222r)

M5 fī l-ʿafw fa-l-ʿafw yusqiṭu alʿiqāb dūn al-dhamm (fol. 191r)

B3 fī ḥukm al-dunyā wa-khātimat amrihā (fol. 223r [fol. 146r])

B3 fī ḥukm al-dunyā wa-khātimat amrihā (fol. 192r)

179

Wa-ṣuqūṭihā: w-s-q-ṭ-ū-h-ā in the manuscript.

TOWARDS A RECONSTRUCTION OF ʿABD ALLĀH B. ZAYD AL-ʿANSĪ’S OEUVRE AND THOUGHT

B4 fī l-ḥukm mā baʿda l-mawt wa-aḥwāl al-ākhira waʿaqībatuhā (fol. 224v [fol. 151v]) Q8 fī ijrāʾ al-asmāʾ wa-l-aḥkām ʿalā l-ʿibād (fol. 226r [fol. 159v])

339

B4 fī ḥukm mā baʿda l-dunyā wabaʿda l-mawt wa-aḥwal alākhira wa-ʿaqībatuhā (fol. 193r) [Q8 al-asmāʾ wa-l-aḥkām]

Q8 fī ijrāʾ al-asmāʾ wa-l-aḥkām ʿalā l-ʿabīd (fol. 195r)

M1 fī l-asmāʾ (fol. 226r [JH1 fī lasmāʾ al-dīniyya, fol. 159v])

M1 fī l-asmāʾ (fol. 195r)

M2 wa-huwa fī l-aḥkām (fol. 227v [JH2 al-aḥkām, fol. 165v])

M2 fī l-aḥkām (fol. 196r)

340

HASSAN ANSARI AND SABINE SCHMIDTKE

APPENDIX 2: AḤMAD B. SAʿD AL-DĪN AL-MASWARĪ’S (D. 1079/1668) NOTE ON AL-ʿANSĪ The following edition is based on a witness of al-Maswarī’s Majmūʿ al-ijāzāt that contains the note on pp. 27–28. The codex is held in an unknown library in Yemen, and a copy of it is preserved in the private library of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Shāyim in Hijrat Fallala. Another copy of al-Maswarī’s Majmūʿ al-ijāzāt, which is held in an unknown private library in Yemen and was accessible to us through a digital copy provided by the Imam Zayd b. ʿAlī Cultural Foundation, does not include this note. This suggests that it is not part of al-Maswarī’s Majmūʿ al-ijāzāt. ‫[ ذ�� للفقيه عبد ا�� ّٰ� �ن ز�� العن�� ر��ه ا�� ّٰ� آم�ن‬27]

‫ا���د �� ّٰ� و�ده‬

‫ذ�� الفقيه الع��مة ��ر ا���ن عبد ا�� ّٰ� �ن ز�� �ن أ��د �ن أ�ي ا����� العن�� ر��ه ا�� ّٰ� تعا�ی �ي ديبا�ة مؤلَفه ا��ي �ماه ال��ئق با��فهام‬

‫ وکتب هذه النس�ة وقد بلغ ستة وست�ن سنة‬،‫ ألفه �ي �ال ا��رس وقبل نبات ا���ية‬:‫�ي معرفة �دود الک��م ��ط ��ه ما لفظه‬

.‫من العمر بک���ن ا���روس سنة ��ع و��س�ن و���ائة وا���د �� ّٰ� و�ده وص��اته ��� ���د وآ�� ا���ی‬

‫��و��ه ر��ه ا�� ّٰ� ��� هذا سنة أربع أو ث��ث و��ع�ن و��سمائة ووفاة ا��نصور با�� ّٰ� �ليه الس��م والفقيه �ي ��و إ�دی وع���ن سنة‬ ‫����ا �ي سنة أربع ع��ة و���ائة وهو أسن من ا��مام أ��د �ن ا��س�ن س��م ا�� ّٰ� �ليه ��ذا القدر ��نه �ليه الس��م و�� سنة وفاة‬

‫ ک�ن الفقيه عبد ا�� ّٰ� �ن ز�� ا��ذکور‬.‫ا��نصور با�� ّٰ� �ل��م الس��م ��يعا ً ور��ة ا�� ّٰ� و��ک�ته أو �ي السنة ال�ي قبلها ��� اخت��ف ا��وايت�ن‬ ‫ ��اب �افل ��يط‬،‫ و�� ا��ؤلفات ا��لي��ک��اب ا����ة البيضاء �ي ��� الک��م‬.�ّٰ ��‫ر��ه ا�� ّٰ� من أوعية الع�� وأ�ل ���اء ا����يةک��هم ا‬

‫ وا���ل �افل ا��واية مت�ن ا��راية رائق ا��باحث دقيق النظر‬،‫ ��اب نفيس‬،‫ و�� ��اب التحر�� �ي أصول الفقه‬،‫أربعة ����ة و���ه‬ .‫أ�د ا��هاد ا����ور�ن بالورع‬

‫و�� �ي ن��ة ا��مام ا��عظم ا��هدي ���ن ا�� ّٰ� أ��د �ن ا��س�ن س��م ا�� ّٰ� �ليه اليد الطو�ی وال��م ا��ع�� ح�ی روي أنه �ليه الس��م‬

‫ک�ن �� ي َ ْعدِل به أ�دا ً و��ميه دا�ي أم�� ا��ؤمن�ن و يصفه با���ّن ا��ص�ن والورع ا��ت�ن وبعثه إ�ی صعدة ����ا ا�� ّٰ� تعا�ی سنة أربع‬ ‫و��س�ن و���ائة وکتب إ�ی ��ا�� أن يقفوا ��� رأيه فظهر ��عيه ا���� با��عروف وال��ي عن ا��ن�� وراسل ��ل� ��ال ��ران وکتب‬

182 ‫ا��صاص‬

‫ والشيخ أ��د �ن ���د‬181‫ و��ا ک�ن من السيد ا��سن �ن وه ّاس‬180‫رسا�� جيدة إ�ی قاضيه ا��ليل ���د �ن ا��ؤ�� ا��وّاري‬

‫ و���هم‬185 ‫ والفقيه حنظ�� �ن أسعد ا��ار�ي والقا�� إ��اه�� �ن فُلَيح‬184 ‫ والفقيه أ��د �ن ��� الضميمي‬183 ‫والفقيه أ��د �ن �نش‬

180

For the Banū l-Dawwārī, see al-Ḥajrī, Majmūʿ buldān al-Yaman wa-qabāʾilihā, vol. 2, p. 333. For one of the descendants of Muḥammad b. al-Muʾayyad al-Dawwārī, see al-Shahārī, Ṭabaqāt, vol. 1, p. 148 no. 55. 181 On him, see above, n. 123. 182 On him, see above, p. 291. 183 For Aḥmad b. Ḥanash al-Kindī al-Shihābī (d. ca. 670/1271–72), see Ibn Abī l-Rijāl, Maṭlaʿ al-budūr, vol. 1, p. 297 no. 113; al-Shahārī, Ṭabaqāt, vol. 1, p. 119; see also Ansari and Schmidtke, Studies in Medieval Islamic Intellectual Traditions, p. 181 no. 3. 184 For Aḥmad b. ʿAlī al-Ḍamīmī, see Ibn Abī l-Rijāl, Maṭlaʿ al-budūr, vol. 1, pp. 366–367 no. 156; al-Shahārī, Ṭabaqāt, vol. 1, pp. 174–175 no. 75; see also Ansari and Schmidtke, Studies in Medieval Islamic Intellectual Traditions, pp. 180–181 no. 2. 185 For Ibrāhīm b. Fulayḥ b. Asʿad b. Manṣūr b. al-Rāqī al-Murādī al-Jawfī, see Ibn Abī l-Rijāl, Maṭlaʿ al-budūr, vol. 1, pp. 159–160 no. 38.

‫‪341‬‬

‫‪TOWARDS A RECONSTRUCTION OF ʿABD ALLĀH B. ZAYD AL-ʿANSĪ’S OEUVRE AND THOUGHT‬‬

‫ما ک�ن �ي حق ا��مام ا��هدي س��م ا�� ّٰ� �ليه‪ 186‬من ا�����اض �ليه وا���الفة �� ��ج من صعدة إ�ی ا��مام �ليه الس��م إ�ی‬

‫مُد َع ‪187‬‬

‫ساعيا ً �ي إص��ح أ��هم وکتب إل��م رسا�� بليغة‪ .‬و��ا ک�ن ما ک�ن من قتل ا��مام ا��هدي �ليه الس��م �� ��ل الفقيه ��اجع ا��سن‬

‫�ن وه ّاس و��تظهر �ليه با���ج ح�ی فل�ه‪ .‬قيل أنه أورد �ليه ��سمائة إشک�ل فأ�� �مس ا���ن أ��د �ن ا��مام ا��نصور با�� ّٰ� من‬

‫��� ّدده ��ارا ً و�� ��د سبي�� ً إ�ی قت�� بع�� ظاهرة مع إرادته ذل� ��رج الفقيه ر��ه ا�� ّٰ� تعا�ی إ�ی ب��د خَو��ن سنة ست و��س�ن‬

‫و���ائة و�ي السنة ال�ي است��د ف��ا ا��مام ا��هدي �ليه الس��م فأقام بفلّ�� ‪ 188‬و��� الع�� هنال� وک�نت ��مته ديون �ي ن��ة ا��مام‬

‫ا��هدي �ليه الس��م تقارب ع��ة ]‪ [28‬آ��ف درهم و��و ّف مع ذل� من الغي�� فاضطر ّ به ا��ال إ�ی قصد سلطان ا���ن‬

‫ا��ظفّر ‪189‬‬

‫فتو�ّه ��ل� يوم �اشوراء من �ام ��ع و��س�ن و���ائة وک�نت طر يقه من �َ� َض‪ 190‬فتلقاه �املها ا��م�� ف��وز بالقبول وا����ام ف��‬

‫يأک� الفقيه من ذبا��هم وتقدّم إ�ی زبيد فک�نت بينه وب�ن ���ا��ا ک��ن حنک�ش‪�� 191‬اجعة ک�ن الفلح �� �ل��م ف��ا �� تقدّم إ�ی تعز‬ ‫وقد وصل إ�ی السلطان قب�� ��اب من بعض أ�دائه ينفّره عنه فأ�� �إ��امه و�� يت ّصل به و�� ق�� �� �ا�ة وأقام ��� ذل� مدّة‬

‫يک�تب السلطان بالنصا�ح ا��ينية وين�ّ�ه ��� العقا�� الصحي�ة وأ�ابه ��واب حسن فعاد الفقيه ر��ه ا�� ّٰ� وقد ضاقت به ا��ال �� َينه‬

‫وک��ة �ائلته فإ��م بلغوا ��و ��سة وع���ن وک�نت �� دار بصعدة �اف �ل��ا و��ه أن يأ�ذها ا����اف فهد��ا من ��� إذن أبيه‬

‫وفارقه ��ب��ا )؟( و��ا قام ا��مام ا��عظم ا��نصور با�� ّٰ� ا��سن �ن ��ر ا���ن ���د �ن أ��د �ن ��يی �ن‬

‫الفقيه ��عوته ال�� يفة ون��ته و��ل معه إ�ی‬

‫�َم َد‪193‬‬

‫ولعل عود الفقيه ر��ه ا�� ّٰ� من ا���ن ک�ن إ�ی‬

‫کتبته من خطه فإ��ا السنة ال�ي ��ل ف��ا إ�ی ا���ن وتو�ي ]‪. .‬‬ ‫��ور‪.‬‬

‫‪195[.‬‬

‫��يی ‪192‬‬

‫����ن‪194‬‬

‫�ليه الس��م ��ض‬

‫��� يقتضيه تار�خ ما‬

‫وق��ه بک���ن تاج ا���ن قب�� ال���� ال�ي ��می رحبة م��ور‬

‫و�� رسائل عظيمة ��� ا��طرفية أ��اهم ا�� ّٰ� تعا�ی و���ه‪ ،‬م��ا ا��سا�� ا��نقذة من العطب السال��� بالنصي�ة إ�ی أهل شظب رأ���ا ��طه‬ ‫وقال‪ :‬فرغت م��ا �ي ��ر ربيع ا���� من ��ور سنة ست�ن و���ائة با��صن ا���روس ����ن‪ .‬و�� ا��سا�� ا��اعية إ�ی ا����ان و�����ا‪.‬‬

‫و�� ا��رشاد ا����ور �ي ��� الطر يقة وا��هد‪ .‬ومن الشعر ا����ور عنه قو�� ]‪ [. . .‬ومن شيو�ه �ي الع�� ا��م�� ال�کب�� شيخ آل ا��سول‬ ‫��ر ا���ن ���د �ن ��يی �ن ��يی‪� 196‬ل��م الس��م‪.‬‬

‫‪ 186‬س��م ا�� ّٰ� �ليه‪ :‬إضافة ما ب�ن السطور‪.‬‬

‫‪187‬‬

‫‪For Mudaʿ, see Wilson, Gazetteer of Historical North-West Yemen, p. 299.‬‬ ‫‪For Fallala, see al-Ḥajrī, Majmūʿ buldān al-Yaman wa-qabāʾilihā, vol. 4, p. 639; al-Akwaʿ, Hijar al-ʿilm, vol. 3, pp.‬‬ ‫‪1618–1638 no. 323.‬‬ ‫‪189‬‬ ‫‪Referring to the second Rasulid sultan of Yemen, al-Muẓaffar Yūsuf (r. 647–694/1249–1295).‬‬ ‫‪190‬‬ ‫‪For Ḥaraḍ, see al-Ḥajrī, Majmūʿ buldān al-Yaman wa-qabāʾilihā, vol. 2, pp. 256–257.‬‬ ‫‪191‬‬ ‫‪For the Ḥanafī Ashʿarī scholar Abū Bakr b. ʿĪsā b. ʿUthmān al-Ashʿarī “Ibn Ḥankāsh” (d. 664/1265–66), see al‬‬‫‪Khazrajī, al-ʿUqūd al-luʾluʾiyya, vol. 1, p. 201 and passim; Muḥyī l-Dīn Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Qādir b. Muḥammad‬‬ ‫‪Ibn Abī l-Wafāʾ al-Qurashī, al-Jawāhir al-muḍiyya fī ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanafiyya, ed. ʿAbd al-Fattāḥ Muḥammad Ḥilw, 5‬‬ ‫‪vols., Cairo: Dār Hajar, 1413/1993, vol. 4, p. 22.‬‬ ‫‪192‬‬ ‫‪For al-Ḥasan b. Badr al-Dīn, see above, n. 126.‬‬ ‫‪193‬‬ ‫‪For Ḍamad, see al-Ḥajrī, Majmūʿ buldān al-Yaman wa-qabāʾilihā, vol. 3, pp. 553–554.‬‬ ‫‪194‬‬ ‫‪For Kuḥlān Tāj al-Dīn, see al-Ḥajrī, Majmūʿ buldān al-Yaman wa-qabāʾilihā, vol. 4, p. 663; Wilson, Gazetteer of‬‬ ‫‪Historical North-West Yemen, p. 281.‬‬ ‫‪195‬‬ ‫‪Al-Maswarī left some blank space here to add the missing information later on, but this never happened.‬‬ ‫‪196‬‬ ‫‪On al-ʿAnsī’s teacher Badr al-Dīn, see above, n. 11.‬‬ ‫‪188‬‬

‫‪HASSAN ANSARI AND SABINE SCHMIDTKE‬‬

‫‪342‬‬

‫‪APPENDIX 3: PORTIONS OF AL-ʿANSĪ’ INTRODUCTION TO THE‬‬ ‫‪KHĀTIMA OF HIS K. AL -TAMYĪZ‬‬ ‫الك��م �ي ا��ا��ة‬ ‫فإن قيل‪ :‬قد‬

‫ع�فنا ‪197‬‬

‫��ت وفهمنا ما فصلتَ من مذاهب ا��طرفية وكفر هذه الفرقة الغو ية وكون ديارهم دار ��ب وكون‬ ‫ما ذ َ‬

‫أ�ك���م أ�ك�م ال�كفّار‪ ،‬فب� ّن لنا مذاهب ا��ق من العدلية وما ��هب إليه ا����ية وتقو�� الع��ة ا��كية �ي أصول ا���ن وما ي��كب‬

‫��� ذل� من ا��د�� وال��اه�ن مما يكون فيه كفاية ً ل��س��شد�ن و��ك��ا ً للع��اء ا��اشد�ن ليكون ا����ان ��� بينة من أ��ه وبص��ة فيما‬

‫ي ْقد ُم �ليه �ي معاده آمنا ً من أن �����ّ� عن ا��ق ا��بط��ن‪.‬‬

‫قلنا‪ :‬ا��� أ��ك ا�� ّٰ� بتأييده و��اك بتوفيقه و��د��ه أن ا��نتداب ��ا ذ َ‬ ‫��ت وبيان ���ح ا��ق فيما طلبتَ فقد أ���� كث�� من ا��دّ��ن‬

‫كو��م من ا��و�ّد�ن ومال عن إيضاح ��قيقه أك�� الع��اء‪ ،‬م��م‬

‫ا��وجودون ‪198‬‬

‫�ي قطرنا هذا �ي هذه ا��يار‪ ،‬وذل� لعلل ��تلفة‬

‫وأسباب ��� مؤتلفة م��ا ��ج بع��م ��ذهب قد �� ّ� بقلبه واعتقاده ��عتقاد قد شغف ��ب ّه‪ ،‬وم��ا ��ستي�اش بع��م أن ��يل عن‬

‫مذاهب أس��فه وأن يفارق من ��سن به ظن ّه من أبائه وم��ا ‪�� 199‬افة بع��م أن يفارق د�ن ب��ه فيميل عنه من هو �ي ���� �دده‪،‬‬ ‫وم��ا ك��ة ميل بع��م �ي ا��ديان إ�ى العصبية وميل قلبه إ�ى ما هو من قبيل ا���ي ّة ��ي ّة ا��اهلية‪ ،‬وم��ا إ��ال بع��م للنظر ���‬

‫الو�ه الصحيح وطلب ا���ة ولو ب��ك البيع ا��بيح‪ ،‬وك� ذل� ز يغ �ي ا���ن والتفات إ�ى ما ك�ن من سنن ا��اض�ن مع ا��نبياء‬

‫ا��رسل�ن �ل��م ص��ات رب العا���ن‪[. . .] .‬‬

‫وأما إ��ال ا��نظار ��� الو�ه الصحيح فذل� دأب ا��بتد��ن مثل الف��سفة وا��هر ية والطبائعية من كفار ا��صل ومن أهل التأو يل‬

‫ض﴾ )هود ‪ ،(116‬فالبقية‬ ‫ن الْفَسَادِ �ِي ا ْ� �� ْر ِ‬ ‫ك������ ية وا��ش�ّ�ة وا��طر ّفية‪ .‬و�� ��ّ �ي ا��رض �ي ك� زمان ﴿أوْلُوا ْ بَق َِّية ٍ �َ�ْ�َوْنَ ع َ ِ‬ ‫�ي زماننا هذا و���ه‪ 200‬مما‪ 201‬تقدمه �ي هذه ا���� إ��ا هم أهل بيت ���د الطاهر�ن ومن تبعهم من شيع��م ا������ن ر�� ا�� ّٰ� ع��م‬

‫أ��ع�ن فهم التابعون ���ق ا��ب�ن والثابتون ��� ال��اط ا��ستق�� وال��هان القو��‪ .‬وأهل ا��س��م ا��نتسبون إليه فرق كث��ة وك�هم جهال‬

‫�ارجون عن حقيقة ما انتسبوا إليه من ا��س��م ومائ��ن عن عقيدة ���د �ليه الس��م إ�� فرقتان ز��ية وا��ع����‪ .‬وا����ية فرقتان‪،‬‬

‫م��م من سل� �ي العقيدة مسل� ا��ع���� ما �دا ا��مامة وهم كث�� من أ��ابنا �ي هذه ا��يار‪ ،‬وم��م من ب�� ��� مذاهب ا����ية‬

‫التابع�ن للع��ة ا��كية ص��ات ا�� ّٰ� �ل��م‪ 202‬إ�� أن أك��هم �� ي�� يظهر أك�� مذهبه و�� بلغ فيه إ�ى �اية غ�ضه ومطلبه ��افة إ�داث‬ ‫فرقة �ي ب��ه أو ما يقع من التقليل �ي �دده‪.‬‬

‫وقد صن ّفتُ تصانيف كث��ة بينتُ منا�ج ا��ق وما ��ب من اتباع أو�ي الصدق �ي قو�� تعا�ى ﴿وَكُونُوا ْ م َ َع ٱلصَّ �دِق ِ�نَ﴾ )التوبة‬

‫‪ (119‬و�رادته أهل بيت ���د الطاهر�ن ص��ات ا�� ّٰ� �ليه و�ل��م أ��ع�ن ������ آية ا��باه�� ��� ذل� و��اد��ا ��ا هنال�‪ ،‬وتل�‬

‫التأليفات م��ا ��اب ال��اب ��� مذاهب الع��ة ا��طياب ���� وا�د‪ ،‬وم��ا ��اب ال��اج الوهاج ��ت�� حسن ضابط‪ ،‬وم��ا ��اب‬ ‫مذا��ة ال��اج كفاية ً �ي معرفة ا����ف وا��ذهب وا������‪ ،‬وم��ا ��اب ا����ة البيضاء فيه ال��اية �ي ا��قيق وا��ليل وا����ف‬ ‫والتفضيل و��ة ا��ذهب وا��دود ��� ا���الفة �ي ��� الك��م‪ ،‬وهو ا���اية ]��ا[ ال�ك��ى ��� أهل ا��س��م ك�فة‪ .‬وعي ّنا هذه ال�كتب‬

‫لتكون هداية ً ل��س��شد إل��ا ]و[م�ى طلب معرفة مذاهب الع��ة �ل��م الس��م ��� التفصيل قصد إل��ا ��ن أ��تنا �ل��م الس��م و�ن‬

‫ذ��وا مذاهب ا��ق ف�� ���كنوا لشغل ا��هاد ��م من النقض ��� ا���الف�ن �ي ك� باب ول�كن ا��لتفت إ�ى مذاه��م وا��تد�ن �����م‬

‫‪ 197‬ع�فنا‪��� :‬نا )مع تصحيح(‪.‬‬ ‫‪ 198‬ا��وجودون‪ :‬ا��وجود�ن )مع تصحيح(‪.‬‬ ‫‪ 199‬آبائه‪ :‬ا��فة‪.‬‬ ‫‪ 200‬و���ه‪ :‬م��ر �ي ا��صل‪.‬‬ ‫‪ 201‬مما‪ :‬ممن )مع تصحيح(‪.‬‬ ‫‪� 202‬ل��م‪ + :‬أ��ع�ن ‪�) +‬اشية( زا��‪.‬‬

TOWARDS A RECONSTRUCTION OF ʿABD ALLĀH B. ZAYD AL-ʿANSĪ’S OEUVRE AND THOUGHT

343

ً ‫ هذا مع ما لنا من التعر ّض ��� ��الفهم وا��سائل ابتداء‬،‫��د �ي كت��م وتصانيفهم ما يُع ِ�ن ��� ا���اية ��ذه��م والنقض ��� ��الفهم‬ ً ��‫وجوابا ً ف�� يتوا�د ممن �الفهم �ي مبلغ ���نا إ�� وقد نقضنا �ل��م �ي ��يع عقا��هم ومسائلهم و��ينا حوز��م وذببنا عن د���م فض‬

.(43 ‫ا���ُ﴾ )ا��ع�اق‬ َّ ‫ ﻓ﴿ﺎ��� َْد ُ � َِّ�� ِ ا�َّ� ِي هَدَا� َا �ِ� َ�ذَا وَم َا � ُ� َّا لِ�َ� ْتَدِيَ لَوْ� َ� أ� ْن هَدَا� َا‬،‫من ا�� ّٰ� وهداية لنا ��بب ��ب��م‬

‫ �ي حجورهم وام��اج ��ومنا ودمائنا ���ب ّ��م ومودّ��م وليس معنا ��ل ��جو به ا��تصال‬203 ‫وسبب هذا إ��ا هو اغتذاؤنا بلبا��م و�� بيتنا‬

��‫ فا���د �� ّٰ� ��دا ً نبلغ به ا��ضا �� ّٰ� و��أ‬،‫با�� ّٰ� تعا�ى �ي ا���بوبات و�اية ا��ط��بات إ�� هذا فهو أر�أ ما يتقرب به إ�ى ا�� ّٰ� تعا�ى‬ ‫ و��ن‬،‫ و��تع�ن به �ي التوفيق والتسد�� وا��داية والتأييد‬،�����‫ فهو اللطيف ا��ل�� ا��ؤوف ا��ح�� ال��ّ ال‬،‫حسْن ا��ا��ة‬ ُ ‫ا��ستقامة و‬ ��‫رب العا���ن ��� ال��تيب ما يكون هداية ل��س��شد و����ة للعا‬ ّ ‫نأ�ي ا��ن ههنا من ��تيب أصول ا���ن وما ��ب معرفته من توحيد‬

.‫ ومن ا�� ّٰ� التوفيق وهو حسبنا ونعم الو��ل‬،‫ا��ستفيد‬

‫ا��� أ��ك ا�� ّٰ� تعا�ى وهداك بأن أصول ا���ن الواجبة ��� ��يع ا��ك� َّف�ن ��� مذاهب ا��ادي والقا�� وسا�� ا����ة ا��اد�ن �ل��م الس��م‬ ��‫ وثال��ا الع�� بنبوة ���د ص�� ا�� ّٰ� �ليه وآ‬،‫ وثا���ا الع�� بعد�� و���ته‬،‫ أ�دها الع�� با�� ّٰ� وما ��تحق من أوصاف ال����ل‬،‫��انية أقسام‬ ��‫ وساد��ا الع‬،‫ و�ام��ا الع�� با��مامة و��اتب ُأو�ي ا���امة‬،‫ ورابعها الع�� بصدقه فيما �اء به من عند ربه ع� و�ل‬،‫وس�� ورسالته‬

.‫ وثام��ا ما يلزم من إ��اء ا���ماء وا���ك�م ��� العبيد‬،‫ وسابعها الع�� بالو�د والوعيد‬،��‫��ا ��ب من ا���� با��عروف وال��ي عن ا��ن‬

APPENDIX 4: This text, which contains a legal opinion of al-ʿAnsī’s that was perhaps gleaned from his Istibṣār, is preserved as an isolated item (fig. 38) in a codex in a private library in Yemen. �ّٰ ��‫�ليه الس��م ��اب غ�يب �ديث رسول ا�� ّٰ� ص�� ا‬

205 ���‫با‬

ّٰ

��‫��� ا�� ّٰ� ا����ن ا��ح�� وص�� ا�� ّٰ� ��� ���د وآ�� وس‬

‫ ناولتُ مو��نا السيد ا��مام ا��نصور‬:204‫يقول ص��ح �ن أم�� ا��ؤمن�ن‬

‫ قدس ا�� ّٰ� رو�ه و�ليه الس��م وهو‬207�ّٰ ��‫ وأنا أرو يه عن مو��نا أم�� ا��ؤمن�ن ا��توک� ��� ا‬206‫�ليه وآ�� ���ي عبيد القا�� �ن س��م‬ ��‫ عن القا‬210‫ الشيخ ��ي ا���ن‬209[‫ عن ��ه ]شع�� ا��كوع عن‬208‫ أ�د��ا عن الفقيه إ��اه�� �ن ��� ا��کوع‬،‫��و يه من طر يق�ن‬

.‫ ��فعه إ�ی ا��صنف‬211 ‫�مس ا���ن عن القا�� قطب ا���ن ال�ک�ي‬

204

.(‫ و��ضيتنا )مع تصحيح‬:‫ و��بيتنا‬203

For Ṣalāḥ b. Ibrāhīm b. Tāj al-Dīn, see above, n. 88. We do not know of an Imam al-Manṣūr bi-llāh during the period in question, with the exception of al-Manṣūr bi-llāh al-Ḥasan b. Badr al-Dīn (on whom see above). It seems that a correction was intended for the two words al-Sayyid al-Imām in the manuscript, and a possible emendation, which would fit into the chronology of the chain of transmission, would be al-Sayyid walad al-Imām, unless a different correction was intended. 206 K. Gharīb al-ḥadīth by Abū ʿUbayd al-Qāsim b. Sallām (d. 224/838) (published). 207 For Imam al-Mutawakkil ʿalā llāh al-Muṭahhar b. Yaḥyā b. al-Murtaḍā (d. 697/1298), see above. 208 On him, see above, p. 284. 209 Something is missing in the manuscript, and the addition was made on the basis of the chain of transmission as given, for example, in Ibn Abī l-Rijāl, Maṭlaʿ al-budūr, vol. 1, p. 159 no. 37; see also above. 210 He is the aforementioned Muḥyī l-Dīn Muḥammad b. Aḥmad Ibn al-Walīd al-Qurashī. 211 Abū l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad b. Abī l-Ḥasan b. Aḥmad al-Kanī (d. ca. 565/1169–70), the renowned Iranian Zaydi scholar who was one of the teachers of Qāḍī Shams al-Dīn Jaʿfar b. Aḥmad b. ʿAbd al-Salām al-Buhlūlī al-Abnāwī (d. 573/1177); see Ansari and Schmidtke, Studies in Medieval Islamic Intellectual Traditions, passim. 205

344 ‫عن الفقيه حس�ن �ن ���د‬

HASSAN ANSARI AND SABINE SCHMIDTKE 212‫طم َيس‬ ُ

�ّٰ ��‫والطر يق ا����ی عن السيد الع��مة ��ال ا���ن بقية ا���دث�ن ��� �ن أ��د �ن عبد ا‬

.‫ عن الشيخ ��ي ا���ن عن القا�� �مس ا���ن‬214‫ عن أبيه‬213 ‫النحوي‬

‫ وأنا أرو يه عن القا�� العا�� رکن ا���ن‬،216 ‫ و��ل� ��اب الفائق �ي ا��ديث‬،‫ بالسند ا��ول‬215‫و��ل� غ�يب ا�ن قتيبة ا��ينوري‬ .‫ عن أبيه ��فعه بالسند ا��ذکور �ي أول النس�ة إ�ی ا��صنف‬219‫ شافع‬218‫ عن ا�ن‬217‫سليمان �ن ��يی‬

.�ّٰ ��‫وأ��ت �� رواية ذل� ��� ما ��طه السلف الصا�� ر��هم ا‬

‫ �معت �ي السيد�ن العا���ن الفاضل�ن ��ف ا���ن و��اد ا���ن مفضل و ��يی ا��ي منصور �ن‬:‫و يقول ص��ح �ن أم�� ا��ؤمن�ن‬ ‫��و يان عن الفقيه الع��مة حسام ا���ن عبد ا�� ّٰ� �ن ز�� ��وي عن ا��م�� ا��ا�ي إ�ی ا��ق ��ر ا���ن ���د �ن أ��د �ن‬

220 ‫العفيف‬

‫ �ل��م الس��م أن مذهب ا��ادي إ�ی ا��ق �ليه الس��م أنه ��وز ��ف کفارة ا����ان �ي ��� ا��ک� واحتج الفقيه‬221‫��يی �ن ��يی‬

‫حسام ا���ن ��ل� بأن ا��مة ���عة ��� أن من ��فت إليه کفارة أ��ان �� مات قبل أک�ها أ��ا تکون لورثته و�ن �� يکونوا من أهل‬

.‫ وأ��ت ��و��نا رواية ذل� ع�ي ��� ما تقدم‬،‫ال�کفارة فثبت أن ا��ک� ليس ���ط ف��ا‬ .ً ‫وص�� ا�� ّٰ� ��� ���د وآ�� وس�� ��ليما‬

APPENDIX 5: The following edition is based on two witnesses of al-Maswarī’s Majmūʿ al-ijāzāt. One witness is held in an unknown library in Yemen, and a copy of it is preserved in the private library of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Shāyim in Hijrat Fallala; the relevant passage is found on pp. 442–443 (abbreviated in the following as ‫)ه‬. The other copy is held in an unknown private library in Yemen and was accessible to us through a digital copy provided by the Imam Zayd b. ʿAlī Cultural Foundation (abbreviated in the following as ‫ ;)و‬the relevant passage is found on pp. 381–382. For an analysis of the chains of transmission, see above. ‫ الع��مة عبد ا�� ّٰ� �ن ز�� العن�� ال�ي كت��ا بيده وفرغ م��ا �ي آ�� ��ادى‬222 ‫كتب ا��مام ا��طهر �ليه الس��م �ي ���ة �ي الفقيه‬

‫ و��� ��خته أيضا ً ال�ي ��طه �ي ���وع ز�� ال�ي فرغ م��ا �ي ��ادى ا����ة ما صورته حسبنا‬،‫ا��و�ى سنة ست وع���ن و���ائة‬

.‫ و�ده‬223 �ّٰ ��‫ا‬

:‫وكتب عبد ا�� ّٰ� ا��توك� ��� ا�� ّٰ� أم�� ا��ؤمن�ن ا��طهر �ن ��يى �ن ا��ادي إ�ى ا��ق �ليه الس��م‬

212

For ʿAlī b. Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh Ṭumays, see Ibn Abī l-Rijāl, Maṭlaʿ al-budūr, vol. 3, p. 192 no. 846; al-Shahārī, Ṭabaqāt, vol. 2, pp. 694–695 no. 413. 213 For Ḥusayn b. Muḥammad al-Naḥwī, see Ibn Abī l-Rijāl, Maṭlaʿ al-budūr, vol. 2, pp. 217–219 no. 492; see, however, al-Shahārī, Ṭabaqāt, vol. 1, pp. 339–340 no. 194, where his name is given as “Ḥasan.” 214 He is Sābiq al-Dīn Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. ʿAlī b. Yaʿīsh al-Naḥwī. 215 K. Gharīb al-ḥadīth by ʿAbd Allāh b. Muslim Ibn Qutayba (d. 276/889) (published). 216 Al-Fāʾiq fī gharīb al-ḥadīth, by Jār Allāh al-Zamakhsharī (d. 538/1143) (published repeatedly). 217 He is al-qāḍī Abū Muṭahhar Sulaymān b. Yaḥyā b. Yūsuf; on him, see al-Shahārī, Ṭabaqāt, vol. 1, p. 481 no. 282. .‫ �ن‬:‫ ا�ن‬218 219 His identity is unclear. Compare, however, al-Shahārī, Ṭabaqāt, vol. 1, p. 481, where his name is rendered as Ibn Shāyiʿ. 220 For Mufaḍḍal b. Manṣūr and his brother Yaḥyā, see above. 221 On al-ʿAnsī’s teacher Badr al-Dīn, see above, n. 11. .‫ ه‬،(‫ العا�� )مشطوب‬+ :‫ الفقيه‬222 .‫ و‬،(‫ ونعم الو��ل )مشطوب‬+ :�ّٰ ��‫ ا‬223

‫‪TOWARDS A RECONSTRUCTION OF ʿABD ALLĀH B. ZAYD AL-ʿANSĪ’S OEUVRE AND THOUGHT‬‬

‫‪345‬‬

‫�مع ع�ي بطر يق القراءة الفقيه العا�� الصدر ��ف ا���ن ا��سن �ن عبد ا�� ّٰ� �ن ز�� العن�� أ��ه ا�� ّٰ� ��اب أصول ا���ك�م‬

‫��ذه‪224‬‬

‫النس�ة وأنا أرو يه بطر يق القراءة عن الفقيه العا�� ت�� ا���ن ���د �ن أ��د �ن أ�ي ا���ال ر��ه ا�� ّٰ� وهو ��و يه من طر يق�ن قراءة ً‬ ‫أ�د��ا ‪225‬‬

‫��� �ي ا��مام ال��يد ا��هدي أ��د �ن ا��س�ن �ن القا�� �ليه الس��م ��فعه �ليه الس��م بطر يق قراءته إ�ى �ي الشيخ‬

‫العا�� بقية ا���دث�ن شع�� �ن ���د ا��وا�ي‪ 226‬ر�� ا�� ّٰ� عنه ��و يه عن �ي الشيخ العا�� ��ي ا���ن ���د �ن أ��د �ن الوليد القر�� قراءة ً‬ ‫ع� و� ّ‬ ‫�ليه وهو ��و يه ر��ه ا�� ّٰ� عن مصنفه ا��مام ا��� ّ‬ ‫ل أ��د �ن سليمان �ليه الس��م مناو�� ً �� قراءة ً �ليه إ�ى‬ ‫ل ا��توكّ� ��� ا�� ّٰ� ّ‬ ‫��اب الوصايا‪.‬‬ ‫والطر يق‬

‫�ي‬

‫يع�ي‬

‫الثا�ي ‪:227‬‬

‫الفقيه ‪228‬‬

‫لشيخي ت�� ا���ن ر��ه ا�� ّٰ� قراءة ً ��� �ي الفقيه ��ف ا���ن ا��سن �ن البقاء ر��ه ا�� ّٰ� ��و يه بطر يق القراءة ���‬

‫���مة ا���ن ��يد �ن أ��د ا����� قدس ا�� ّٰ� رو�ه ��و يه بطر يق القراءة ��� �ي الشيخ ��ي ا���ن ���د �ن أ��د ا��نف‬

‫ا�ن ‪ 229‬الوليد ‪230‬‬

‫��و يه عن ا��مام ا��توك� ���‬

‫ا��� ‪231‬‬

‫ّٰ‬

‫�ليه الس��م قراءة ً إ�ى ��اب الوصايا والبا�ي مناو�� ً‪.‬‬

‫و��ل� �مع ع�ي ا��قام ال�� يف الع��مة ا��ما�ي الص���ي ص��ح ا���� وا���ن ص��ح �ن أم�� ا��ؤمن�ن إ��اه�� �ن تاج ا���ن والفقيه‬

‫العا�� ��ف ا���ن ا��سن �ن عبد ا�� ّٰ� ا��قدم ذ��ه قراءة ��اب ���وع الفقه ���� �ن ��� �ليه الس��م‪ ،‬وأنا أرو يه بطر يق القراءة عن‬

‫�ي الفقيه العا�� إ��اه�� �ن ��� �ن أ��د‪ 232‬ا��كوع وهو ��و يه بطر يق القراءة عن �ي ��ه شع�� ر��ه ا�� ّٰ�‪ 233‬عن الشيخ ��ي ا���ن‬ ‫���د �ن أ��د‪�� 234‬و يه قراءة ً عن القا�� �مس ا���ن يع�ي جعفر �ن أ��د ر�� ا�� ّٰ� عنه عن من أثبت سنده �ي هذا ال��اب‪.‬‬ ‫وأ��ت ��ما روايته ��� ا��د ا��ي ����طه الع��اء ا��اشدون وص�� ا�� ّٰ� ��� ���د وآ�� ا���ى‪.‬‬

‫�� كتب فوقه الفقيه حسن �ن عبد ا�� ّٰ� ا��ذكور ما صورته‪ :‬ك�ن ��ام �ما�ي ��ذ�ن ال��اب�ن ��� مو��نا أم�� ا��ؤمن�ن س��م ا�� ّٰ� �ليه �ي‬ ‫آ�� ��ر ربيع ا��ول سنة ��ع و��ان�ن و���ائة سنة با��يمة ‪ 235‬بتنع��‪ 236‬ا���روس ببقائه �ليه الس��م‪.‬‬

‫‪�� 224‬ذه‪ :‬هذه‪ ،‬و‪.‬‬ ‫‪ 225‬أ�د��ا‪ :‬إ�دا��ا‪ ،‬ه‪.‬‬ ‫‪ 226‬ا��وا�ي‪ + :‬ر��ة ا�� ّٰ� �ليه )مشطوب(‪ ،‬ه‪.‬‬ ‫‪ 227‬الثا�ي‪ :‬الثانية‪ ،‬ه و‪.‬‬ ‫‪ 228‬الفقيه‪�� + :‬يي ا���ن )مشطوب(‪ ،‬و‪.‬‬ ‫‪ 229‬ا�ن‪� :‬ن‪ ،‬ه و‪.‬‬ ‫‪ 230‬يع�ي ا�ن الوليد‪ :‬إضافة �ي هامش و‪.‬‬ ‫‪ ��� 231‬ا�� ّٰ�‪ ،- :‬ه‪.‬‬ ‫‪ 232‬أ��د‪ + :‬ا�ن‪ ،‬و‪.‬‬ ‫‪ 233‬ا�� ّٰ�‪ + :‬وهو ��و يه )مشطوب(‪ ،‬ه‪.‬‬ ‫‪ 234‬أ��د ‪ +‬وهو ��و يه قراءة عن الشيخ )مشطوب(‪ ،‬ه‪.‬‬ ‫‪ 235‬با��يمة‪ :‬با���يمة‪ ،‬ه‪.‬‬ ‫‪For al-Ḥayma, see al-Ḥajrī, Majmūʿ buldān al-Yaman wa-qabāʾilihā, vol. 2, p. 302.‬‬ ‫‪ 236‬بتنع��‪ :‬بتنع��‪ ،‬ه؛ بينبغ‪ ،‬و‪.‬‬ ‫‪In view of the different readings in the two manuscripts, it is uncertain which location is meant here. For Tanʿasim,‬‬ ‫‪see al-Ḥajrī, Majmūʿ buldān al-Yaman wa-qabāʾilihā, vol. 1, p. 156. For Tanʿam/Tanʿima/al-Tanāʿim, see Wilson,‬‬ ‫‪Gazetteer of Historical North-West Yemen, p. 109. No location by the name of Yanbagh is mentioned in al-Ḥajrī’s‬‬ ‫‪Majmūʿ, and the possibility that Yanbagh in Ḥijāz is meant here can safely be excluded.‬‬

FROM IRAN TO KAWKABĀN: THE TRANSFER OF SUNNĪ ḤADĪTH TO ZAYDĪ YEMEN A CASE STUDY OF MS. VIENNA, COD. GLASER 30* STEFANIE BRINKMANN Among the 282 manuscripts that the Austrian scholar Eduard Glaser (1855–1908) took from his fourth journey to Yemen (1892–1894) back to Austria1 was a manuscript containing

* This case study was carried out within the scope of the research project “Bibliotheca Arabica,” Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Leipzig. For their support, I would like to thank (in alphabetical order) Hassan Ansari, Boris Liebrenz, Friederike Schmidt, Sabine Schmidtke, and Sulamith Voppel. Apart from figure 3, all figures in this article are taken from the manuscript Glaser 30. I thank the Austrian National Library (Österreichische Nationalbibliothek) for granting permission to include reproductions of selected images of Ms. Vienna, Cod. Glaser 30 (http://data.onb.ac.at/rec/AC13944828). I also thank the University Library of Leipzig (Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig) for using the image of figure 3, Ms. Leipzig, B. or. 227 (https://www.islamic-manuscripts.net/receive/IslamHSBook_islamhs_00000404). 1 Eduard Glaser (1855-1908) was an Austrian Orientalist and archaeologist who undertook several journeys to Yemen in the nineteenth century, mainly for the study of South Arabian inscriptions. The collecting of manuscripts and their subsequent transfer to Europe were above all means to finance his research stays in Yemen. His first journey took place from 1882 to1884 and yielded twenty-three Arabic manuscripts today housed at the Staatsbibliothek Berlin (Berlin State Library); his second journey, from 1885 to 1886, resulted in 242 manuscripts, today likewise at the Staatsbibliothek Berlin; his third journey, from 1887 to 1888, produced 328 manuscripts that are today at the British Museum in London; and, finally, his fourth journey, from 1892 to 1894, ended with 282 manuscripts that became part of the collection of the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (Austrian National Library) in Vienna. The Glaser manuscript collections consist mainly of Zaydī and Muʿtazilī works. For an overview of Yemeni manuscript collections in general, see Sabine Schmidtke, “The History of Zaydī Studies: An Introduction,” Arabica 59 (2012), pp. 187–189, or the website of the Zaydi Manuscript Tradition Project, https://www.ias.edu/digitalscholarship/zaydi_manuscript_tradition (last accessed 30 August 2019). There are some minor discrepancies with the information given in Christoph Rauch’s article concerning the years of Glaser’s first journey to Yemen and the total number of the manuscripts he procured for the Staatsbibliothek Berlin, see Christoph Rauch, “Zaydī Scholars on the Move: A Multitext Manuscript by Yaḥyā Ibn Ḥumayd al-Miqrāʾī (b. 908/1503, d. 990/1582) and Other Contemporary Sources,” The Yemeni Manuscript Tradition, ed. David Hollenberg, Christoph Rauch, and Sabine Schmidtke, Leiden: Brill, 2015.

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Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl al-Bukhārī’s (d. 256/870) ḥadīth collection, al-Jāmiʿ al-ṣaḥīḥ. This manuscript is nowadays kept at the Austrian National Library (Österreichische Nationalbibliothek) in Vienna under the shelf mark Glaser 30.2 Max Grünert, then professor for Semitic languages at the University of Prague, acted as the expert for the transaction and prepared a handlist for the Glaser collection. In this handlist, he comments on the Glaser 30 manuscript as follows: “[. . .] ausgezeichnet geschrieben, geradezu unschätzbare Handschrift, vielleicht die schönste existierende!” (excellently written, almost an invaluable manuscript, maybe the most beautiful in existence!).3 Despite this enthusiastic statement, the manuscript was not among the twelve manuscripts from Yemen presented for the first time at the Völkerkunde Museum in Vienna in the exhibition “Jemen: Im Land der Königin von Saba” (16 December 1989–10 June 1990),4 and it has not received a closer analysis until now. The simple reason for this neglect might be that Glaser 30 is, strictly speaking, not a Yemeni manuscript: it was written in 804/14025 in, as I argue below, Timurid Iran and was transferred by the sixteenth century at the latest to Yemen, where it came into the possession of the Zaydī Imam al-Mutawakkil ʿalā llāh Sharaf al-Dīn b. Shams al-Dīn Yaḥyā (877/1473–965/1558).6 Henceforth, the manuscript remained within the larger family of Sharaf al-Dīn, which was centered in Kawkabān, until the nineteenth century, when Eduard Glaser got hold of it by unknown means. Furthermore, the primary text is a Sunni ḥadīth collection, not a work on Zaydī theology or law. The comparatively young research on Zaydī Yemen has obviously concentrated on Zaydī and Muʿtazilī works; the reception of the Sunni tradition within the Zaydī community

2

Unpublished handlist of Max Grünert (1894): Kurzer Katalog der Glaser’schen Sammlung arabischer Handschriften, p. 11, no. 12 (old shelf mark 229), new shelf mark Glaser 30 (for the digitized handlist, see https://www.ias.edu/sites/default/files/media-assets/Gruenert_Kurzer_Katalog.pdf [last accessed 30 August 2019]); Austrian National Library Cod. Gl. 30 (http://data.onb.ac.at/rec/AC13944828); Zaydi Manuscript Tradition no. 00279. The manuscript has been microfilmed by the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library (HMML) under the project number 25318 and can be accessed (in black and white) at https://www.vhmml.org/readingRoom/view/141692 (last accessed 30 August 2019). 3 See the Grünert handlist from 1894 (p. 11), and his statement repeated in Max Grünert, “Über Ed. Glaser’s jüngste arabische Handschriften-Sammlung,” Actes du dixième congrès international des Orientalistes, Session de Genève, 1894, part 1, Comptes rendus des séances, Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1897, section 3: Langues Musulmanes, pp. 35– 43. For the report by Wilhelm Hartel (1839–1907), including Grünert’s expert opinion, see https://search.onb.ac.at/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=ONB_alma71246577900003338&context=L&vid=ONB&lang=de_DE (last accessed 30 August 2019). 4 On the exhibition, see Tarif al-Samman, “Religion und Wissenschaft: Codices Glaser in der Handschriftensammlung der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek,” Jemen: Im Land der Königin von Saba, Museum für Völkerkunde Wien, 16.12.1989–10. 6.1990, ed. Alfred Janata with Herbert Karner and Renate Meissner, Vienna: Österreichisches Bundesministerium für Wissenschaft und Forschung, 1989, pp. 152–159. 5 Colophon on fol. 516r (Arabic foliation) or fol. 520r (European foliation). 6 ʿAbd al-Salām b. ʿAbbās al-Wajīh, Aʿlām al-muʾallifīn al-Zaydiyya, Amman: Muʾassasat al-Imām Zayd b. ʿAlī al-Thaqāfiyya, 1999, pp. 1134–1136, no. 1197; Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., vol. 7, p. 779 (J. R. Blackburn); J. Richard Blackburn, “The Era of Imām Sharaf al-Dīn Yaḥyā and His Son al-Muṭahhar (10th/16th Century),” Yemen Update 42 (2000), pp. 4–8, www.aiys.org/no-42-2000/78-the-era-of-imam-sharaf-al-din-yahya-and-his.son-al-mutahhar-10th16th-century.html; Manfred Kropp, “The Realm of Evil: The Struggle of Ottomans and Zaidis in the 16th–17th Centuries as Reflected in Historiography,” Yemen: Present and Past, ed. Bengt Knutsson, Viking Mattsson, and Magnus Persson, Lund, Lund University Press, 1994, pp. 87–95; Christoph Rauch, “Zaydī Scholars on the Move,” pp. 204-205.

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in Yemen, but also in the Caspian region of northern Iran, has received less attention so far— at least for the period before the “sunnification” of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.7 This case study analyzes Glaser 30 as an example of the transfer of books from Iran to Yemen and thereby the transfer and reception of Sunni ḥadīth literature to the local Zaydī community in Yemen. Although the manuscript’s main text, al-Bukhārī’s al-Jāmiʿ al-ṣaḥīḥ, as well as the marginal commentaries are Sunni texts, the entries of users and owners, which range from a first witness in the sixteenth century to the late nineteenth century, reflect a purely Zaydī Yemeni context. This paper discusses the possible origin of the manuscript from Iran, and its history among descendants of Imam al-Mutawakkil ʿalā llāh Sharaf al-Dīn between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, and tentatively tries to contextualize the studies on al-Bukhārī’s Ṣaḥīḥ carried out with this manuscript in the intellectual environment of Kawkabān in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In the end, this copy of al-Bukhārī’s Ṣaḥīḥ reflects the constantly growing influence of Sunni traditionalism within the Zaydī milieu.

SCHOLARSHIP ON ZAYDĪ YEMEN AND SUNNI ḤADĪTH Even though Yemen was a place of cultural and economic transfer from India in the east via the Red Sea region to Africa in the west and the Hijaz with its pilgrimage sites and other trade routes crossing the Arabian peninsula to the north, scholarship on the political and intellectual history of Yemen has been neglected for a long time. The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw the compilation of biographical works on Zaydī rulers, scholars, and sayyids, which have been a fundamental source for any research on Zaydī history until today. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the travelogues and expedition reports of scholars such as Carsten Niebuhr (1733–1815)8 and Eduard Glaser imparted important knowledge of Yemen and its geography, social and political structures, religious movements, and culture to a European audience. By the end of the nineteenth century, Ferdinand Wüstenfeld (1808–1899) had written his historical study on Yemen and its wars in the seventeenth century9 on the basis of historical accounts. The transfer of manuscripts from Yemen to Europe and the United States, mainly from the nineteenth century onward, and the cataloging of European and American collections as well as Yemeni holdings, offered the urgently needed material for the study of Zaydism and Zaydī history in Europe, which started in the early twentieth century. The continuous need to digitize and catalog manuscripts from Yemen as both cultural heritage and an academic resource is currently being addressed by the Zaydi Manuscript Tradition project.10 Studies written in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have mostly been dedicated to the long-neglected research fields of Zaydī and Muʿtazilī theology, Zaydī law, and Zaydī

7

For an overview of the history of Zaydī studies, see Schmidtke, “History of Zaydī Studies”; Jan Thiele, “Recent Scholarship in the Field of Kalām,” Studia Islamica 113 (2018), pp. 223–243, especially pp. 230–233. 8 Niebuhr was a member of a German-Danish scientific expedition to Arabia, which reached Yemen in 1763. Carsten Niebuhrs Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien und andern umliegenden Ländern, vol. 1, Copenhagen: Nicolaus Moller, 1774. 9 Ferdinand Wüstenfeld, “Jemen im XI. (XVII). Jahrhundert: Die Kriege der Türken, die Arabischen Imâme und die Gelehrten; Vorgetragen in der Sitzung der Königlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften am 2. August 1884,” Abhandlungen der Historisch-Philologischen Classe der Königlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen 32 (1885), pp. 3– 127, available online at https://archive.org/details/abhandlungen13gtgoog/page/n28 (last accessed 30 August 2019).

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history.11 Comparatively less attention has been given to the transmission and reception of the Sunni tradition in Zaydī communities. This is particularly the case for the twelfth through seventeenth centuries: although individual case studies address the use of Sunni ḥadīth in the Zaydī community, a systematic, broader overview is still missing. The “revival” of Sunni traditionalism in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries falls within the complex topic of “rethinking tradition” in the modern period and is, in the case of Yemen, concentrated on the figure of the influential reformer Muḥammad al-Shawkānī (1760–1834).12 He was, in fact, part of the intellectual milieu in which the Glaser 30 manuscript circulated. Research on Sunni ḥadīth in Zaydī Yemen touches on the huge transfer of knowledge that took place in the course of the rapprochement and the final unification of the Zaydī imamates of Yemen and the Caspian region of northern Iran, a process of knowledge transfer that peaked in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries. Books of both Zaydī and non-Zaydī literature reached Yemen and became part of rulers’ libraries, such as the library of Imam alManṣūr bi-llāh (r. 593–614/1197–1217) in Ẓafār, as well as private collections and public libraries. Beyond the inflow of books to Yemen, which continued over the following centuries, Yemeni scholars traveled abroad, to Mecca, Egypt, and other places, studying with Sunni scholars and bringing literature with them on their return to Yemen. “The transfer of a massive body of religio-cultural knowledge from Northern Iran and Iraq to Yemen stretched over a period of nearly three centuries and is without parallel in its intensity and comprehensive-

10

Due to physical and religio-cultural threats to Yemeni manuscripts, a number of projects have been dedicated to the preservation, digitization, and cataloging of Yemeni manuscripts. These include “Preserving Yemen’s Cultural Heritage: The Yemen Manuscript Digitization Project” (German Foreign Office, Freie Universität Berlin, and the Imam Zayd ibn Ali Cultural Foundation, 2009); “Yemen Manuscript Digitization Initiative” (a collective scholarly initiative led by David Hollenberg at the University of Oregon, 2012–2013); “Digital Bab al-Yemen” (Freie Universität Berlin, with the online library “The Glaser Collections: Bringing Together Islamic Heritage from Yemen” at the Google Cultural Institute, 2013–2014); and “The Zaydi Manuscript Tradition” (Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and Hill Museum and Manuscript Library in Minnesota, 2016). On the Yemen Manuscript Digitization Project and Yemeni collections, see also Sabine Schmidtke and Jan Thiele, Preserving Yemen’s Cultural Heritage: The Yemen Manuscript Digitization Project, Hefte zur Kulturgeschichte des Jemens, vol. 5, Sanaa: Botschaft der Bundesrepublik Deutschland and Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Orient-Abteilung, Außenstelle Sanaa, 2011, pp. 6–39. 11 Schmidtke, “History of Zaydi Studies.” 12 A recent important exception is Damaris Wilmers, Beyond Schools: Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm al-Wazīr’s (d. 840/1436) Epistemology of Ambiguity, Leiden: Brill, 2018, which focuses on the Yemeni traditionist al-Wazīr and analyzes the “Sunnisation of the Zaydiyya,” and Gregor Schwarb, “MS Munich, Bavarian State Library, Cod. arab. 1294: A Guide to Zaydī Kalām-Studies during the Ṭāhirīd and the Early Qāsimite Periods (Mid-15th to Early18th Centuries,” The Yemeni Manuscript Tradition, ed. David Hollenberg, Christoph Rauch, and Sabine Schmidtke, Leiden: Brill, 2015, pp. 155–202, which lists Sunni works quoted in a manuscript of Fakhr al-Dīn ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad al-Najrī’s (d. 877/1472–1473) Kitāb Mirqāt al-anẓār on Zaydī theology and mentions al-Najrī’s Sunni teachers, especially during his stay in Cairo. For the growing influence of traditionists, see Najam Haider, Shīʿī Islam: An Introduction, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014, pp. 113–122; Michael Cook, Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. 247–251. On Sunni traditionalism in the modern period, see Daniel Brown, Rethinking Tradition in Modern Islamic Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996; on Muḥammad al-Shawkānī, see Bernard Haykel, Revival and Reform in Islam: The Legacy of Muhammad al-Shawkānī, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

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ness. [. . .] [T]o date the details of the chronological dynamics of the extended and comprehensive process of knowledge transfer and its implications for the intellectual development of Yemeni Zaydism have been determined with respect to just a few case studies, which only scratch the surface of the rich and diverse source materials that are available for a more comprehensive study of the entire process in all its complexities.”13 Such research on Sunni ḥadīth in Zaydī Yemen, of which the present case study on Glaser 30 is but one small example, would have to take into account the many different routes by which Sunni ḥadīth reached Yemen: via traveling scholars, that is, by personal transmission; through books of Sunni ḥadīth collections (such as Glaser 30); and, finally, embedded within the literatures of the Muʿtazila, the Twelver Shiʿa (hence Imāmiyya), and the Zaydiyya.14 Even though the evaluation of the authenticity of ḥadīth, its impact on legal and theological reasoning, and the choice of ḥadīth material surely differed among religious movements and individual scholars, ḥadīth was an important source to be considered in any intellectual argument. In this way, it also served to bind together the different movements and schools of thought within the Muslim community. Despite the Shiʿi tendency to avoid explicitly anti-ʿAlid traditions and to foreground particularly pro-ʿAlid traditions, and the Muʿtazilī tendency to avoid traditions contrary to key Muʿtazilī concepts and to prefer traditions that were potentially compatible with Muʿtazilī views, Sunni ḥadīth was studied and transmitted in both of these circles, and Muʿtazilī scholars could be recognized by Sunni authorities as muḥaddithūn. A few case studies have examined the transmission of Sunnī ḥadīth in the literatures of the Muʿtazila, the Imāmiyya, and the Zaydiyya. Whereas the early Muʿtazila took a rather critical stance on ḥadīth, later scholars, especially from the eleventh century on, studied and used ḥadīth, mainly within the context of fiqh and their arguments concerning the schools of law, but also in other lines of argumentation and teaching. An example of such engagement is Abū Saʿd Ismāʿīl b. ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn al-Sammān al-Rāzī al-Ḥāfiẓ (d. 445/1053 in Rayy), who was a Muʿtazilī mutakallim, well versed in fiqh (especially Ḥanafī and Zaydī), and an acknowledged muḥaddith.15 His Amālī,16 which included collections of ḥadīth, were

13

Hassan Ansari and Sabine Schmidtke, “The Cultural Transfer of Zaydī and Non-Zaydī Religious Literature from Northern Iran to Yemen (Sixth/Twelfth Century through Eighth/Fourteenth Century),” Globalization of Knowledge on the Post-Antique Mediterranean, ed. Sonja Brentjes and Jürgen Renn, London: Routledge, 2016, p. 148. 14 See Hassan Ansari, “Un muḥaddiṯ muʿtazilite zaydite: Abū Saʿd al-Sammān al-Rāzī et ses Amālī,” Arabica 59, no. 3/4 (2012), pp. 267–290; Hassan Ansari and Sabine Schmidtke, “Between Aleppo and Ṣaʿda: The Zaydī Reception of the Imāmī Scholar Ibn al-Biṭrīq al-Ḥillī,” Journal of Islamic Manuscripts 4 (2013), pp. 158–198. On the inclusion of traditions on ʿAlī’s virtues (faḍāʾil) in Sunni traditionalism, see Wilferd Madelung, Der Imam al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhīm und die Glaubenslehre der Zaiditen, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1965, pp. 223–228. On the influence of Muʿtazilism, see Gregor Schwarb, “Muʿtazilism in the Age of Averroes,” Warburg Institute Colloquia 16 (2011), pp. 251–282. 15 Ansari, “Un muḥaddiṯ muʿtazilite zaydite”; Hassan Ansari, “Muʿarrifī-yi Amālī-yi yik muḥaddith-i muʿtazilī-yi madhhab,” Markaz-i Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif-i Buzurg-i Islāmī website, 16 Isfand 1395/6 March 2017, https://cgie.org.ir/fa/news/155601 (last accessed 15 August 2019). In “Un muḥaddiṯ muʿtazilite zaydite,” p. 270, Ansari mentions that Abū Saʿd was said to have met more than three thousand ḥadīth scholars. 16 One part of the Amālī is preserved in a multitext manuscript at the Biblioteca Ambrosiana: Oscar Löfgren and Renato Traini, Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, vol. 1, Antico Fondo and Medio Fondo, Vicenza: Neri Pozza Editore, 1975, pp. 144–146, no. CCLXXIII/C. The Sunni aḥādīth quoted by Abū Saʿd are not explicitly pro-ʿAlid or Muʿtazilī, but the material would have had to be compatible with Shiʿi and Muʿtazilī views.

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first circulated within the Zaydī community of the Caspian region and Rayy, and reached Yemen in the twelfth century, apparently as one of the many books taken by al-Qāḍī Jaʿfar b. ʿAbd al-Salām (d. 576/1180–81) from Rayy to Yemen.17 Besides transmission in Muʿtazilī texts, Imāmī works also served as conduits of the Sunni ḥadīth tradition to Zaydī Yemen, as illustrated by Ibn al-Maghāzilī’s (d. 483/1090) Manāqib ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib and the Kitāb al-ʿUmda fī ʿuyūn ṣiḥāḥ al-akhbār fī manāqib imām alabrār, written by the Imāmī mutakallim, muḥaddith, and faqīh Abū l-Ḥusayn Shams al-Dīn Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥasan b. al-Ḥusayn al-Asadī al-Ḥillī, “Ibn al-Biṭrīq” (d. 600/1203-1204 or 601/12041205).18 In his ʿUmda, Ibn al-Biṭrīq collected pro-ʿAlid traditions from Sunni ḥadīth collections, and his work had reached Yemen by the thirteenth century. “[T]he significance of Ibn alBiṭrīq’s ʿUmda for the Zaydīs of Yemen [. . .] was tremendous as it served them as a principal source for Sunnī traditions supporting the cause of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib and the ahl al-bayt in their battle against the Shāfiʿīs in Yemen who were polemicizing againts Shīʿism in a time when the Zaydīs had hardly any independent access to Sunnī works of ḥadīth.”19 In contrast to the Imāmī ḥadīth collections, which deliberately chose pro-ʿAlid traditions, Zaydī collections incorporated a broader range of Sunni ḥadīth beyond exclusively pro-ʿAlid material. However, this took place first in the northern imamate, while the Yemeni Zaydīs still had hardly any access to Sunni ḥadīth. This situation changed decisively in the course of the unification of the two communities. With regard to the personal transmission of Sunnī ḥadīth, a more systematic and large-scale collection of ijāzāt (certificates), samāʿāt (audition notes), and thabat works (list of teachers, and works studied with them) would enable us to obtain a more nuanced picture of the ḥadīth texts studied among the Zaydīs.20 Beyond personal transmission through scholarly networks and the transmission of Sunni traditions within the works of other confessions, Sunni ḥadīth circulated as independent works, transmitted either in manuscripts brought to Yemen from other places or copied in Yemen. If we were to combine knowledge of ḥadīth manuscripts in Yemen21 with the information of the manuscript notes contained therein, we could enrich the picture even more in

17

Ansari, “Un muḥaddiṯ muʿtazilite zaydite,” p. 277; al-Wajīh, Aʿlām al-muʾallifīn al-Zaydiyya, p. 278, no. 257, where Jaʿfar’s role in the transfer of books is mentioned explicitly. 18 Schmidtke and Ansari, “Between Aleppo and Ṣaʿda.” Ibn al-Biṭrīq’s ʿUmda has been published twice; see ibid., p. 160, n. 5. 19 Schmidtke and Ansari, “Between Aleppo and Ṣaʿda,” p. 161; see also Ansari and Schmidtke, “Cultural Transfer,” pp. 147–148. 20 A thabat work of the first owner of the Glaser 30 manuscript in Yemen, Imam al-Mutawakkil ʿalā llāh Yaḥyā Sharaf al-Dīn (d. 964/1557), which also includes ijāzāt from earlier scholars, is kept at the State Library Berlin as part of the Glaser collection (MS Glaser 16). 21 A problem encountered in such larger metadata research is that catalogue data do not always tell us whether a ḥadīth manuscript was copied in Yemen or transferred to Yemen from another region. For example, an undated manuscript with parts of al-Bukhārī’s Ṣaḥīḥ shows, according to the cataloger, a “rather old, fine eastern hand,” indicating a nonYemeni origin; see Oscar Löfgren and Renato Traini, Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, vol. 2, Nuovo Fondo: Series A–D, nos. 1–830, Vicenza: Neri Pozza Editore, 1981, p. 377, no. 751. But as long as we do not have the place of copying, an identifiable scribe, or enough information on the physical description to clearly identify a manuscript’s origin, the determination of whether a ḥadīth collection or text was copied in Yemen or imported from

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order to reconstruct the reception of the Sunni tradition in concrete spatial, temporal, and social contexts.22 The present case study may serve as an example of a Sunni ḥadīth text brought from Iran to Yemen, tracing its production, transmission, and reception through a preliminary codicological examination and the analysis of manuscripts notes and marginal commentaries.

GLASER 30 The main text of Glaser 30 is the Jāmiʿ al-ṣaḥīḥ by Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl al-Bukhārī (194256/810–870). In line with other ḥadīth manuscripts, Glaser 30 contains a number of paratexts, such as corrections, text variants, and marginal commentaries. Documentary manuscript notes include one qirāʾa entry, which is dated but without name or place (fol. 516r Arabic foliation/fol. 520r European foliation),23 the genealogy of the last owner (fol. 4r), owners’ notes (fols. 4r and 521r), and the vivid narrative of the manuscript’s loan to a man and the water damage it sustained (fol. 2r).24 The manuscript has 525 folios, two flyleaves in the beginning (fols. I–II) and at the end (fols. I*–II*), a table of contents (fols. 4v–5r), and the complete Jāmiʿ al-ṣaḥīḥ on fols. 1v516r/5v–520r. It measures 29 × 21 cm, with originally twenty-eight lines per page. It also contains catchwords. The text block of the first chapter, on the beginning of revelation (kayfa kāna badʾu l-waḥyī) has twenty-one lines and is headed by an illuminated headpiece with golden (and a few red and black) decorative elements on middle blue ground, with the Basmala in the middle. The golden frame around the text is bordered by thin black lines and a (pale) blue or red line outside them. The script is a neat naskh. Lemmata are given in gold, blue, and red and often have a larger font size (see fig. 1).

outside cannot be made with certainty. However, if we ignore this distinction, defining “Yemeni manuscripts” as manuscripts from Yemen, whether produced there or imported, and then simply look at the authors and titles of ḥadīth works that can be found in Yemeni holdings, it is possible to gain a preliminary picture of the reception of Sunni ḥadīth. 22 For the methodology of a comprehensive study of the Yemeni cultural heritage and the transfer of knowledge from northern Iran to Yemen, see Ansari and Schmidtke, “Cultural Transfer,” pp. 152–159. For an example of the analysis of manuscript notes for the reconstruction and social embeddedness of a private library, see Boris Liebrenz, Die Rifāʿīya aus Damaskus: Eine Privatbibliothek im osmanischen Syrien und ihr kulturelles Umfeld, Leiden: Brill, 2016. The Zaydi Manuscript Tradition project aims to collect such relevant data for the limited corpus of manuscripts from Zaydī communities. The Bibliotheca Arabica project (2018–2035) at the Saxon Academy for Sciences and Humanities in Leipzig, Germany, collects such data for Arabic texts in general, examining the history of Arabic literatures between 1150 and 1850 on the basis of manuscript evidence (https://www.saw-leipzig.de/ bibliotheca-arabica [last accessed 30 August 2019]). 23 For folios that do not have Arabic foliation (only the main al-Bukhārī text has Arabic foliation), the European foliation is given. In the case of folios with both Arabic and European foliation, the first folio number refers to the Arabic, the second to the European foliation. 24 There are additional annotations on fol. 1r and an added slip of paper between fols. 440 and 441. The doublure of the back cover has assumedly a Gujarati entry that would require further investigation.

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Figure 1. Austrian National Library, Glaser 30, f. 1v/5v.

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The binding is of brownish-red leather, with a mandorla and two pendants as the central ornament. The mandorla is filled with an interlace of stylized leaves and flowers. The margin has three blind-tooled frames, two double-lined borders, and between them a frame of s-stamps. It has four small corner pieces. The manuscript has undergone several repairs. Whereas the original paper is brownish with fibers and apparently displays no visible laid and chain lines, certain folios have been exchanged and written anew. This new paper is much lighter in color and shows lines. In addition, the new folios usually have twenty-nine lines per page, instead of the twentyeight of the original paper.25 (The paper of the manuscript still awaits closer examination, including investigation of the quires and bookmaking techniques in general, which could not be carried out yet. Therefore, the information given on the paper remains preliminary. The longer note on fol. 2r refers to water damage, which most likely happened at the end of the seventeenth century. The author of the note, discussed later, also states that he carried out some basic repairs.26)

IRAN: THE ORIGIN OF THE MANUSCRIPT Glaser 30 is not a Yemeni manuscript but rather was produced, in all likelihood, in Iran, most probably in Shiraz.27 The colophon (fol. 516r/520r) dates the manuscript to Sunday, 2 (?)28 Rajab 804/5 February 1402, but it gives neither the place nor the name of the scribe. However, Glaser 30 shows not only general features of Timurid manuscripts from Shiraz29 but also striking similarities with another Timurid manuscript today kept at Leipzig University Library in Germany: manuscript B.or.227 with al-Bukhārī’s Ṣaḥīḥ, copied in 800/1398 in Shiraz.30 Comparing these two manuscripts reveals that their formats are likely to have been the same (the margins have been trimmed because of partly new bindings); the mise-en-page of the first text page with a headpiece is the same in both, including the number of lines per page (twenty-one), which begins to differ only from the next folio onward (Leipzig B.or. 227 has twenty-seven, Glaser 30 twenty-eight). We have partly identical calligraphy in the illuminated cartouches (the headpieces as well as the tables of con-

25

The first folio of the new paper, fol. 417/422, has as many as thirty-three lines per page, but fol. 418/423 already has the usual twenty-nine. The new paper folios are 417–426/422–431, 428/433, 431/436, 434–436/439–441, 441/446, 444–458/449–463, 462–464/467–469, and 468–469/473–474. Other repairs are found, e.g., on fols. 207r– 208v/212r–213v and 514–516/518–520. The headpiece above the first chapter has also been renewed, and it is unclear what the original cartouche looked like. 26 The Austrian National Library has started in August 2019 to reconstruct the documentation of the Glaser 30 restoration, but results were not yet available at the time of this article’s submission. 27 Max Grünert does not identify it as such in his handlist, but the online catalog of the Austrian National Library does; see http://data.onb.ac.at/rec/AC13944828 (last accessed 30 August 2019). 28 The Austrian National Library has the date 15 February 1402, which would correspond to the 12 Rajab 804. The reading of the text after al-thānī is problematic, but I cannot identify the number as “12.” 29 Elaine Wright, The Look of the Book: Manuscript Production in Shiraz, 1303–1452, Washington, DC: Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, 2013. 30 See the catalog entry and digitized images at www.islamic-manuscripts.net.

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tents), and, crucially, the Leipzig manuscript and Glaser 30 share the same table of contents in terms of mise-en-page, titles, and selected (sub)chapters (with a very few exceptions in title names). Tables of content (TOCs) in general and TOCs in ḥadīth manuscripts in particular have received far too little attention in research.31 TOCs are not only an aid in organizing textual material and in navigating a manuscript; in ḥadīth, they can mirror the variety of titles given to chapters (kutub, sg. kitāb) and subchapters (abwāb, sg. bāb) in different recensions. In addition, they can be an expression of the personal interests of the people who produced them. Thematically organized ḥadīth collections usually have, as mentioned, chapters (kutub) and subchapters (abwāb). If we examine TOCs in ḥadīth manuscripts it becomes obvious that they often do not cover all chapters or subchapters but only a selection of them—especially in terms of subchapters. This selection can be motivated by personal interests or a specific target audience. Comparing the TOCs of Leipzig B.or.227 and Glaser 30 we get the following picture (see figs. 2 and 3). The mise-en-page and the format of the two TOCs are similar, partly identical. Both TOCs cover two pages facing each other, and both contain 110 boxes for chapters and subchapters (5 × 11 per page). The choice of chapters is the same, which might constitute a decisive argument not only for common origins in Shiraz but even for the same source workshop in the city: neither chapters nor all subchapters are mentioned, so the identical selections are rather telling.32 In terms of the titles of chapters and subchapters, the righthand pages of the two TOCs are identical. On the left-hand page, there are a few differences in the title headings.33 Both TOCs have a calligraphic cartouche at the top; the one on the right-hand page has nearly identical text and calligraphy in both manuscripts, while the cartouche on the left-hand page of the TOC differs. However, it should be noted that here a completely new text has been added at a later stage to Glaser 30.

31

See Beate Wiesmüller, “Tables of Content in Arabic Manuscripts Exemplified by the Damascene Private Library Refaïya,” Manuscript Cultures 17 (2022), forthcoming. 32 With regard to content, the choice of chapters shows a clear thematic weight on ʿibādāt (ritual). The chapters on maghāzī, the virtues of the Prophet’s companions, and on aḥkām (legal rulings) are kept comparatively short (not even all relevant chapters are mentioned). The Leipzig manuscript B.or.227 has a second TOC that has been added later, most likely in the Ottoman period, perhaps in the seventeenth century, when the manuscript reached Egypt, as the added ijāzāt show. Comparing the “original” TOC with the later one, the choice of chapters with regard to content differs decisively: in the new TOC, chapters on jihād, the companions, the maghāzī, and aḥkām-related matters (muʿāmalāt) are much more prominent than are chapters on the ʿibādāt. 33 The differences are found in the first four boxes from the right of the first row; in the sixth row, the box to the right; and in the last row, the box to the left.

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Figure 2. Table of content, Austrian National Library, Glaser 30, ff. 4v-5r.

Figure 3. Table of content, al-Bukhārī: Jāmiʿ al-Ṣaḥīḥ (dated 800/1398, Shiraz), Leipzig University Library, ff. IIIv-IVr (IVr=f.1r).

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But there are also differences. Even though both TOCs have a golden frame, B.or.227 has a more elaborate and ornamental framing system than does Glaser 30. In Glaser 30, gold and blue ink dominate the chapter titles, whereas B.or.227 uses various red colors and black ink. In the boxes, Glaser 30 gives the folio of the relevant chapter, while B.or.227 simply counts through the chapters and subchapters. In addition, unlike B.or.227, Glaser 30 does not have a cartouche with golden text and ornamentation below the TOC. As mentioned above, the paper of Glaser 30 could unfortunately not be examined yet; the paper of B.or.227 is most likely Iranian,34 and a comparison of it with Glaser 30 would be crucial to gain further evidence of the latter’s origin in Iran, possibly Shiraz. The headpiece in Glaser 30, though painted anew at a certain point in time, is still reminiscent of Timurid book art and features a middle blue that would be typical of fifteenth-century Timurid ornamentation. The production of these two manuscripts of al-Bukhārī, Leipzig B.or.227 and Glaser 30, falls within a period of political change and turmoil. At the beginning of the 1390s, Timur had conquered Iran and large parts of Iraq. His religious affiliation, though officially Sunni, was shifting and fluid. Already in 799/1397, Timur appointed his fourth son, Shāhrūkh (d. 850/1447), as governor of Khurāsān, Sīstān, and Māzandārān.35 After Timur’s death in 1405, Shāhrūkh eliminated a number of rivals, mainly from within Timur’s family, conquered Isfahan in 817/1414–15, and appointed one of his sons, Sultan Ibrāhīm (d. 838/1435),36 as governor of Fārs, with Shiraz as its center. The Timurid dynasty supported Sunni Islam (“iḥyāʾ al-sunna”) in the face of a number of Shiʿi and Sufi movements. Part of this agenda was support for the foundation of a number of Sunni educational institutions, including institutions for the study of ḥadīth. Patronage for scholars and artists became a significant factor in the blossoming of scholarship and art in this period.37 The Leipzig manuscript B.or.227 gives evidence of this historical moment, containing a number of samāʿāt and ijāzāt dating from 818/1415 to 829/1426.38 We have no such notes in Glaser 30; the only qirāʾa entry dates from 1211/1796–97 and is already situated in Yemen (see fig. 4).

34

The yellow-brown, polished paper shows traces of a mold with grass fibers. The laid lines (chain lines are not visible) are uneven here and there. Helen Loveday, Islamic Paper: A Study of the Ancient Craft, London: Don Baker Memorial Fund, 2001, pp. 59–64 (the paper of B.or.227 resembles fig. 8). 35 Beatrice Forbes Manz, Power, Politics and Religion in Timurid Iran, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, especially pp. 13–48, 79–110. 36 Ibrāhīm b. Shāhrūkh Abū l-Fatḥ Mīrzā Ibrāhīm Sulṭān (d. 838/1435). 37 Jean Aubin, “Le mécénat timouride à Chiraz,” Studia Islamica 8 (1957), pp. 71–88; Maria Eva Subtelny, Timurids in Transition: Turko-Persian Politics and Acculturation in Medieval Iran, Leiden: Brill, 2007; Maria Eva Subtelny, “The Timurid Legacy: A Reaffirmation and a Reassessment,” Cahiers d’Asie centrale 3,4 (1997), pp. 9–19; Maria Eva Subtelny and Anas B. Khalidov, “The Curriculum of Islamic Higher Learning in Timurid Iran in the Light of the Sunni Revival under Shāh-Rukh,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 115, no. 2 (1995), pp. 210–236. 38 Stefanie Brinkmann, “Die kulturelle Biographie einer Buḫārī-Handschrift,” Aus Buchwerkstatt und Bibliothek: Manuskriptkulturen des Mittelalters in Orient und Okzident, ed. Lorenz Korn, Birgitt Hoffmann, and Stefanie Stricker, Bamberg: University of Bamberg Press, 2014, pp. 123–172.

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Figure 4. Colophon and qirāʾa entry, Austrian National Library, Glaser 30, ff. 516r/520r.

FROM IRAN TO YEMEN We do not know when and how the Glaser 30 manuscript traveled from Iran to Yemen. The pilgrimage and thereby Mecca and Medina as important locations for the transfer of books from the north to the south and the west to the east might be an obvious possibility, but in the end, the manuscript does not yield any evidence of its exact route. The first witness we encounter is an owner’s note on fol. 4r, which states that the book belonged to the Zaydī Imam al-Mutawakkil ʿalā llāh Sharaf al-Dīn b. Shams al-Dīn Yaḥyā (b. 877/1473, d. 965/1558):39 “Min kutub al-Mutawakkil ʿalā Rabb al-ʿĀlamīn Amīr alMuminīn Sharaf al-Dīn b. Shams al-Dīn [. . .]” (see fig. 5). This owner’s note is on a folio that has been repaired, and the still-needed analysis of the book’s papers could provide more

39

On the imam, see footnote 6 above.

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answers regarding the note’s original place in the manuscript. But the existence of this owner’s entry in the manuscript is further supported by a reference in another manuscript note: writing at the end of the seventeenth century, Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Qādir, a sixthgeneration family member of Imam Sharaf al-Dīn, gives a detailed report about a man (rajul) who had borrowed the manuscript against Muḥammad’s will, carrying it with him on several journeys abroad before returning it bearing severe water damage to Muḥammad, who tried to carry out basic repairs. In this long note on fol. 2r, the owner’s note is mentioned: “rasm jaddinā al-Imām Sharaf al-Dīn,” jadd here meaning “ancestor.”

Figure 5. Owner’s note of al-Mutawakkil ʿalā llāh Sharaf al-Dīn Yaḥyā, Austrian National Library, Glaser 30, f. 4r. Al-Mutawakkil ʿalā llāh Sharaf al-Dīn’s dynasty was established in the area around Kawkabān, and as will be seen, all of the figures associated with the Glaser 30 manuscript have a connection to Kawkabān.40 Sharaf al-Dīn was known for his scholarship and his political leadership, which was weakened in his later age by the ambitions of his own son al-Muṭahhar (908-980/1503–1572). His reign as the Zaydī imam covered the period from 1506 to 1555, during which he had to face several political challenges. The SunniShāfiʿī dynasty of the Ṭāhirīs expanded from the southern highlands and finally captured Sanaa. By 1517, the Egyptian Mamluks had seized central power from the Ṭāhirīs, conquering Zabīd and Ḥudayda, and plundering Sanaa, while in the same year being defeated in Egypt by the armies of the Ottoman sultan Selim I. Whereas the remaining Mamluk troops in Yemen had to accept Ottoman sovereignty, al-Mutawakkil ʿalā llāh

40

The Damascene scholar Muḥammad Amīn Faḍl Allāh al-Muḥibbī (1061-1111/1651–1699) has an entry on some men of letters from the Sharaf al-Dīn family in his Nafḥat al-rayḥāna wa-rashḥa ṭilāʾ al-ḥāna, ed. ʿAbd al-Fattāḥ Muḥammad al-Ḥilw, vol. 3, Cairo: ʿĪsā al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī, 1388/[1968], pp. 271–326.

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Sharaf al-Dīn could expand his territory and regain power in many regions and cities (including Sanaa). By 945/1538, three political actors were striving for power: the Zaydīs with al-Mutawakkil ʿalā llāh Sharaf al-Dīn in the central and northern highlands, remaining Ṭāhirī pretenders in the mid-southern regions, and the new power of the Ottoman Empire, at this time especially in the southern Tihama. The Ottomans turned out to be the major adversary of the Zaydīs in the coming decades, as they had a keen interest in Yemen as strategic region for the trade via the Indian Ocean.41 Striving for control over the Red Sea and the key Yemeni harbor cities, they tried to limit the economic impact of Portuguese seafarers. In 945/1547, al-Mutawakkil ʿalā llāh Sharaf al-Dīn withdrew from political power, dedicating himself to scholarship and religious contemplation, first at Kawkabān with his son Shams al-Dīn and later at Kuḥlān Tāj al-Dīn and Ẓafīr. He was referred to as mujtahid by his contemporaries, and he even declined to appoint his son al-Muṭahhar as his successor because of al-Muṭahhar’s lack of qualification for ijtihād. Sharaf al-Dīn composed a number of works, among them an abridged version of a treatise on Zaydī law written by his grandfather Aḥmad b. al-Murtaḍā, the Athmār al-Azhār. The abridgment became the object of numerous commentaries.42 He died of the plague in 965/1558. The Glaser 30 manuscript must have come into his possession at some point during these events. The whereabouts of the manuscript for the next four generations after Sharaf al-Dīn are not known, but it can be assumed that it remained within his family.

THE OWNERSHIP OF GLASER 30: ʿABD AL-QĀDIR AND HIS FAMILY NETWORK The following owners and their intellectual network can partly be reconstructed from the owners’ notes (fols. 4r and 521r; see figs. 6 and 7) and the genealogy given on fol. 4r by the last Yemeni owner of the manuscript, Ḥamūd b. Muḥammad (Dhū l-Qaʿda 1267–Jumādā II 1344/September 1851–January 1926)43 (see table 1). His Ḥasanid genealogy runs over thirty-seven generations back to ʿAlī and Fāṭima, including the important links of ʿAbd alQādir b. al-Nāṣir (d. 1685–1686) in the seventeenth century, Imam al-Mutawakkil ʿalā llāh Sharaf al-Dīn in the sixteenth century, and Imam al-Hādī li-Dīn Rabb al-ʿĀlamīn Yaḥyā (as he is called in the manuscript, d. 298/911), the founder of the Zaydī state in Yemen.

41

J. Richard Blackburn, “The Ottoman Penetration of Yemen,” Archivum Ottomanicum 6 (1980), pp. 55–100. One of the commentators of this abridged version by Sharaf al-Dīn was the scholar Yaḥyā Ibn Ḥumayd al-Miqrāʾī (908–990/1503–1582), who was a close disciple and travel companion of al-Mutawakkil ʿalā llāh Sharaf al-Dīn; see Rauch, “Zaydī Scholars on the Move.” On Sharaf al-Dīn’s writings, see al-Wajīh, Aʿlām al-muʾallifīn al-Zaydiyya, pp. 1134–1136, no. 1197. 43 Al-Wajīh, Aʿlām al-muʾallifīn al-Zaydiyya, p. 406, no. 406. He was a scholar and a politician from Kawkabān. 42

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Figure 6. Owners’ notes, Austrian National Library, Glaser 30, f. 4r.

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Figure 7. Owners’ notes, Austrian National Library, Glaser 30, f. 521r.

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[?]

1

‫من فضل ا�� ّٰ� سب�ان ص��ورت‬

2

‫هذا السفر من ��يح الب�اري ا�ى‬

3

‫مل� افقر عباده اليه ��ود �ن ���د �ن‬

4

‫��يى �ن ���د �ن عبد ا����ن �ن ا��د �ن ���د �ن ا��س�ن‬

5

‫�ن عبد القادر �ن النا���ن عبد ا��ب �ن ��� �ن‬

6

‫�مس ا���ن �ن ا��توك� ��� ا�� ّٰ� ام�� ا��ؤمن�ن ��يى‬

7

�ّٰ ��‫��ف ا���ن �ن �مس ا���ن �ن ام�� ا��ؤمن�ن ا��هدي ���ن ا‬

8

‫ا��د �ن ��يى �ن ا��رت�� �ن ا��د ا��رت�� �ن‬

9

‫ا��فضل �ن منصور �ن ا��فضل �ن عبد ا�� ّٰ� ا��لقب با���اج‬

10

‫�ن ��� �ن ��يى �ن يوسف ا��ا�ي �ن ��يى �ن ا��د‬

11

‫�ن ام�� ا��ؤمن�ن ا��ادي ���ن رب العا���ن‬

12

‫��يى �ن ا��س�ن �ن القا�� �ن ا��اه�� �ن ا�معيل‬

13

‫�ن ا��اه�� �ن ا��سن �ن ا��سن �ن ام�� ا��ؤمن�ن‬

14

��‫��� �ن ا�ي طالب وام ا��سن �ن ��� فاطمة بنت رسول ا�� ّٰ� ���د �ن عبد ا�� ّٰ� ص��ات �ليه و��� آ‬

15

1306 ‫ ��ر صفر سنة‬23 ‫و��به ام�ن ا��ع�ن‬

In terms of politics, this genealogy represents the key doctrine of Zaydī leadership— namely, the imams’ descent from ʿAlī and Fāṭima. In terms of religious doctrine and scholarship, it spans the centuries in which a more explicit Shiʿi doctrine, the Hādawī school, was developed and systematized as well as those centuries in which the influence of Sunni

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Islam was ascendant and Sunni texts were widely studied within Zaydī circles. Whereas the first five Qāsimī imams still held Hādawī positions, adherence to Hādawī doctrine started to decline with the rule of Ṣāḥib al-Mawāhib (r. 1686–1718). The “classical” Zaydī leader was supposed to be a scholar as well as a military leader (“a man of the pen and a man of the sword”), but from this time onward political and military force was the primary characteristic of the rule of the Qāsimī imams. Scholarly duties and expertise were relegated to the religious scholars, especially the traditionists. This development found its most influential representative in Muḥammad b. ʿAlī al-Shawkānī (1173–1250/1760–1834)44, who grew up in a Zaydī-Hādawī family but rejected key tenets of Hādawī doctrine (as well as key tenets of traditional legal Sunni Islam). He was to become one of the key figures of “modern Islam,” and ḥadīth played a central role in his argumentation.45 Even though alShawkānī is not explicitly mentioned in the Glaser 30 manuscript, he enjoyed close contacts with a number of figures who owned this manuscript or were part of the larger family network of ʿAbd al-Qādir (d. 1097/1685-86),46 a descendant of Imam al-Mutawakkil ʿalā llāh Sharaf al-Dīn (d. 965/1558). The person of ʿAbd al-Qādir serves as a “common link” in the family network that constituted the intellectual milieu of Glaser 30 in Yemen (see table 2). ʿAbd a-Qādir was a scholar and a man of letters who was born and active in Kawkabān and eventually died there. Even though ʿAbd al-Qādir himself is not inscribed in the manuscript, one of his sons left a note in it: on fol. 2r, Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Qādir reports that an unnamed man (rajul) wanted to borrow the manuscript (see fig. 8 and table 3). This long note is not dated. Since Muḥammad’s father, ʿAbd al-Qādir, died in 1097/1685-86, the event happened most likely sometime at the end of the seventeenth century.

44

Al-Wajīh, Aʿlām al-muʾallifīn al-Zaydiyya, pp. 958–996, no. 1036. Brown, Rethinking Tradition, pp. 25–28; Haykel, Revival and Reform; Bernard Haykel and Aron Zysow, “What makes a Maḏhab a Maḏhab: Zaydī Debates on the Structure of Legal Authority,” Arabica 59 (2012), pp. 332–371. 46 Al-Wajīh, Aʿlām al-muʾallifīn al-Zaydiyya, p. 556, no. 559. As a man of letters he is also mentioned in al-Muḥibbī’s seventeenth-century adab work Nafḥat al-rayḥāna, vol. 3, pp. 301–302, no. 202. 45

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Table 2: Kinship and intellectual network of Glaser 30. The persons marked in red are registered in the Glaser 30 manuscript; the green lines show relevant contacts that al-Shawkānī had to members of the Sharaf al-Dīn family.

FROM IRAN TO KAWKABĀN

Figure 8. Note by Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Qādir, Austrian National Library, Glaser 30, f. 2r.

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ʿAbd al-Qādir’s son Muḥammad was apparently an owner, or at least a keeper, of Glaser 30, since this man, “who was not from our region” (min ghayr diyārinā, line 4), asked Muḥammad to lend him this copy (hādhihi l-nuskha) of the book. Muḥammad was hesitant, but once the man had asked Muḥammad’s father and brother al-Ḥusayn for support (fastaʿāna ʿalayya bi-mawlānā al-wālid riḍwān Allāh taʿālā ʿalayhi wa-bi-ṣinwī Sharaf al-Dīn alḤusayn ḥafaẓahu llāh taʿālā, lines 8–10), he finally handed the manuscript over to the man, with the result that it “left the place” (ilā khārij al-makān, lines 13–14). The man took the manuscript with him to al-Yaman al-aqṣā (line 16)47 and on a number of journeys (wa-ḥamala hādhihi l-nuskha fī baʿḍ asfārihi, line 23) for a period of more than four years (line 33), even claiming to be its owner (wa-akhbaranī baʿḍ al-nās annahu qāla inna hādhihi l-nuskha ḥaqquhu, lines 16–17). For this purpose, he placed a piece of paper (lines 15–16) on Sharaf al-Dīn’s ownership note (tamalluk) in order to hide it. Muḥammad’s letters to him requesting the return of the manuscript remained unanswered or were answered in a hand not the man’s own (bi-ghayr khaṭṭihi, lines 18–19). On one of the man’s journeys, the manuscript was part of a load carried by a donkey. Under heavy rainfall, the manuscript fell into a pond (ghadīr), from which the man extracted it by attaching it to his equipment. But in the following days he was not able to protect it against the rain (lines 23–27). After this journey, he found the manuscript in disorder (zumara) and heavily damaged (line 28) and could not open it beyond the beginning, where he tried to take away what he had used to cover the owner’s entry (rasm; that is, the name of Imam Sharaf al-Dīn, lines 29–30). Finally, he handed the damaged manuscript back to Muḥammad. With a small knife, Muḥammad slowly opened the pages of the manuscript, folio by folio. He also removed the paper that the man had added to cover Sharaf al-Dīn’s owner’s note. Although the marginal annotations (al-hawāmish) were apparently destroyed (mutalāshiyya, line 37), most of the main text had survived. Once he had separated the manuscript’s folios, he polished the manuscript with a polishing tool (bi-l-miṣqala, lines 40–41). Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Qādir’s son, ʿAlī, was apparently the manuscript’s next owner, although there is no entry specifying this change of ownership. But the entries on fol. 521r trace the passing down of the manuscript from ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Qādir over the next three generations (see fig. 7 and the genealogy in table 2). The first entry states that ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Qādir has sold “this book” (hādhā l-sifr) to Wajīh al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Rabb b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAbd al-Qādir b. alNāṣir al-Kawkabānī (1125–1176/1713–1763);48 the entry is dated to Rabīʿ II 1158/May 1745. (In the entries on fol. 521r, biʿtu/biʿnā min has to be translated as “selling.”)

47

This phrase refers most likely to an area outside of the Zaydī region toward Ta‘izz or Aden. Al-Shawkānī, al-Badr al-ṭāliʿ bi-maḥāsin man baʿd al-qarn al-sābiʿ, Cairo: Dār al-Kitāb al-Islāmī, n.d., vol. 2, Mulḥaq, p. 115, no. 200.

48

FROM IRAN TO KAWKABĀN Entry 1

369

�ّٰ �� ‫ا���د‬

1

‫وجيه ا���ن عبد ا��ب �ن ���د �ن ا��س�ن‬

3

‫فيما اختل وبطل وانا الفق�� ا�ى ا�� ّٰ� ��� �ن ���د �ن عبد القادر وفقه ا�� ّٰ� تعا�ى‬

5

‫وبعد فا�ي بعت هذا السفر ا��بارك من الب�اري من الو�� الع��مة‬ ‫ا�� ّٰ� �ليه‬

49‫رطوان‬

‫درك ا��بيع‬

50‫ظمان‬

�� ‫ض مستو�ى �منت‬ ٍ ‫ن مقبو‬ ٍ ���

1158 ‫بتار�خ ��ر ربيع ا���� سنة‬

2 4 6

The next entry referring to the legacy of Wajīh al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Rabb (1713–1763) is dated roughly twenty years after his death, in 1783. It is one of three entries that testify to a change in ownership, the first entry referring to the sale (bayʿ), the second to the buyer’s acceptance of the book (qabūl), and the third to witnessing of the transfer (ishhād). Despite the gap of twenty years between Wajīh al-Dīn’s death and the next entry, it is clear that the scribe of entry 2 bought the book from the overall inheritance that Wajīh al-Dīn left to his heirs. The scribe then sold the book (biʿnā min) to al-Qāsim ʿAbd al-Rabb (1174-1216/17611801),51 a son of Wajīh al-Dīn, for a price that corresponds to due payment resulting from the partition of the furniture (mimmā ʿindanā min qismat al-athāth) that was part of Wajīh al-Dīn’s inheritance. The entry is dated Shawwāl 1197/September 1783, but the scribe did not record his name. Entry 2

‫البيع‬

��‫ا���د �� ّٰ� وص�� ا�� ّٰ� ��� نبيه و آ‬

‫وبعد فإن هذا السفر ا��بارك صار الينا من قسمة‬

1

2

‫ا��موال ال�ي ��يناها لورثة سيدي الوجيه رضوان ا�� ّٰ� �ليه‬

3

‫ وذل� مما عندنا �� من قسمة‬52[...] ‫���ن قدره مستو�ى‬

5

1197 ‫بتار�خ ��ر شوال سنة‬

7

‫و��ا استقر مل��� لنا بعنا ذل� من الو�� الع َ�َ� الق�� عبد ا��ب اصل�ه ا�� ّٰ� تعا�ى‬

‫ا��ثاث ا��ي ��ج �� من وا��ه رضوان ا�� ّٰ� �ليه يعْ�َ� هذا‬

4

6

In entry 3, al-Qāsim b. ʿAbd al-Rabb states his acceptance of the transaction.

Read ‫رضوان‬. Read ‫و�من ْت �� �مان‬. 51 al-Qāsim b. ʿAbd al-Rabb b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn al-Kawkabānī (1174–1216/1761–1801) was a poet who was born, lived, and died in Kawkabān. ʿUmar al-Riḍā Kaḥḥāla, Muʿjam al-muʾallifīn, Beirut: Maktabat alMuthannā, 2010, vol. 8, pp. 104f; Khayr al-Dīn al-Ziriklī, al-Aʿlām, Qāmūs tarājim li-ashhar al-rijāl wa-l-nisāʾ min alʿarab wa-l-mustaʿribīn wa-l-mustashriqīn, Beirut: Dār al-ʿIlm li-l-Malāyīn, 1995, vol. 5, p. 177; al-Shawkānī, al-Badr al-ṭāliʿ, vol. 2, p. 45, no. 368. 52 Word scratched out. 49 50

370

STEFANIE BRINKMANN

Entry 3

‫قبول‬

�ّٰ �� ‫ا���د‬

1

��‫قبلت هذا البيع لنف�� ��ذا ا���ن وانا الفق�� ا�ى ا�� ّٰ� تع‬

2

‫�ام�� الع�� والعمل به بتار�خ‬

4

‫الق�� �ن عبد ا��ب ع�� ا�� ّٰ� عنه وعن ابو يه ام�ن‬

3

‫��ر شوال‬

5

1197

7

‫سنة‬

6

In entry 4 (ishhād), a person called ʿAbd Allāh [b.?] ʿĪsā bears witness to “his father’s sale” and the acceptance of the transfer by “al-Sayyidī al-ʿAlam,” which refers to al-Qāsim b. ʿAbd al-Rabb (al-ʿAlam for ʿAlam al-Dīn) (compare entry 2, line 4). Entry 4

‫ا��اد‬

‫��دتُ ��� البيع من >مو��نا< الوا�� ا��وح‬

1

‫كتبه عبد ا�� ّٰ� �ي�� لطف ا�� ّٰ� به‬

3

��‫والقبول من سيدي الع‬

2

I would argue that the signatory of this entry is ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿĪsā (b. after 1756 or 1757, d. 1224/1809),53 a cousin of al-Qāsim b. ʿAbd al-Rabb (see table 2). The entry is dated to Shawwāl 1197/ September 1783. The signature in entry 4 has no ibn between ʿAbd Allāh and ʿĪsā, which might be due to negligence or done deliberately. In manuscripts of the eighteenth century it can sometimes occur that the ibn in a name is skipped, a phenomenon that has become more widespread in the twentieth century. Since ʿAbd Allāh [b.] ʿĪsā refers to his father (mawlānā al-wālid) as the one who sold the book to al-Qāsim, it is likely that the scribe of entry 2 is in fact ʿĪsā b. Muḥammad (b. after 1717 or 1718, d. 1793)54, ʿAbd Allāh’s father and a brother of Wajīh al-Dīn. Accordingly, ʿĪsā b. Muḥammad would be one of the manuscript’s owners.55

53

According to al-Shawkānī, ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿĪsā b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Kawkabānī was born after 1170/1756–57 and died in 1224/1809; al-Wajīh has Rajab 1175/February 1762 as the date of his birth and Dhū l-Qaʿda 1224/December 1809 as the date of his death. Al-Shawkānī, al-Badr al-ṭāliʿ, vol. 1, pp. 391–392, no. 174; al-Wajīh, Aʿlām al-muʾallifīn al-Zaydiyya, pp. 606–607, no. 620. For the reason of uncertainty, the box around his name has a broken red line in table 2. 54 Kaḥḥāla, Muʿjam al-muʾallifīn, vol. 8, pp. 31f. 55 For this reason of uncertainty, the box around his name has a broken red line in table 2.

FROM IRAN TO KAWKABĀN

371

The next generation of owners can be traced on fol. 4r (see fig. 6). Somehow, the Glaser 30 manuscript must have changed hands from al-Qāsim b. ʿAbd al-Rabb to his cousin Sharaf alDīn [Abd al-Raḥmān] b. Aḥmad (1746–1825).56 From here, ownership of the manuscript was transferred (tamlīk) to Sharaf al-Dīn’s son Muḥammad b. Sharaf al-Dīn. Muḥammad received the book in 1242/1826, apparently as part of his inheritance, since the entry states that his brother al-Fakhrī b. Sharaf al-Dīn received weapons “and other things” instead (muqābil mā ṣāra ilā akhīhi sayyidī al-Fakhrī ʿAbd Allāh b. Sharaf al-Dīn min al-salāḥ wa-ghayrihi). Entry 5

�ّٰ �� ‫ا���د‬

1

‫من سيدي ��ف ا��س��م ��ف ا���ن �ن ا��د �ن ���د رضوان ا�� ّٰ� �ليه‬

3

‫صار هذا السفر لسيدي ع� ا��س��م ���د �ن ��ف ا���ن ]؟[ با���ليك‬ ‫مقابل ما صار ا�ى اخيه سيدي الفخري عبد ا�� ّٰ� �ن ��ف ا���ن‬

1242 ‫من الس��ح و���ه حسب ا���ليك بيده كتبه ]؟[ ��ر صفر سنة‬

2

4

5

After Muḥammad b. Sharaf al-Dīn, there are no further entries or notes of inheritance referring to single owners in the manuscript. But the genealogy of the last owner, Ḥamūd b. Muḥammad b. Yaḥyā b. Muḥammad b. Sharaf al-Dīn (1851–1926), given on fol. 4r (see table 1) provides a possible link between Muḥammad b. Sharaf al-Dīn in the early nineteenth century and Ḥamūd, who was his great-grandson. Whether Glaser 30 was in fact either inherited by or sold to Muḥammad b. Sharaf al-Dīn’s son, Yaḥyā b. Muḥammad, and subsequently Yaḥyā’s son Muḥammad b. Yaḥyā (see table 2) must remain hypothetical for now. And it remains unknown how the manuscript passed from the last mentioned owner, Ḥamūd b. Muḥammad, to Eduard Glaser.

STUDYING SUNNI TEXTS IN A ZAYDĪ MILIEU: GLASER 30 AND KAWKABĀN IN THE EIGHTEENTH AND EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURIES

The margin of a manuscript is a place in which literature could be produced, transmitted, and applied in different contexts and for different purposes (such as teaching or private study). New and original commentaries (complete or partial) could be drafted and already existing standalone commentaries could be quoted in the margin (in full or as excerpts). As far as we can tell so far, the latter case—the quoting of excerpts from existing commentaries (and other sources, such as dictionaries)—is the most common of these practices in ḥadīth manuscripts. It is also the type that we encounter in Glaser 30.57 The marginal commentary in Glaser 30 is very dense until fol. 4r/8r, features slightly less text on fols. 4v–8r/8v–9r, and appears more and more sporadically afterward. From

56

Sharaf al-Dīn [ʿAbd al-Raḥmān] b. Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAbd al-Qādir b. al-Nāṣir b. ʿAbd al-Rabb b. ʿAlī (1159–1241/1746–1825), see al-Shawkānī, al-Badr al-ṭāliʿ, vol. 1, pp. 274–276, no. 193. 57 On marginal commentaries in the B.or.227 manuscript, Leipzig University Library, see Stefanie Brinkmann, “Marginal Commentaries in Hadith Manuscripts,” Practices in Commentary, ed. Markus Stock, Christine Lechtermann, Frankfurt a.M.: 2020 [Zeitsprünge. Forschungen zur Frühen Neuzeit / Sonderband 24], pp. 6-44.

372

STEFANIE BRINKMANN

about fol. 30/35 on, single commentarial notes occasionally appear, but they no longer show an intense written interaction between the primary text and the margin. A change of place and ownership might offer an explanation, but on the other hand, the phenomenon of intensive annotation in the beginning of a book that decreases substantially after a while is quite typical. The marginal commentaries have been added in at least two main hands (a closer comparison of these hands with those recording corrections, lacunae, text variants, and collations with other copies is still needed). In line with typical scribal practices for marginal commentaries, each annotation usually opens with qawluhu, referring to the relevant word or passage in the primary text, or it simply quotes the qawluhu from the commentary it uses as reference. The end of most marginal comments is marked either by tammat or sometimes by different variations of the letter hāʾ, for intahā. In some cases, the scribes mention the shortened title of the source they quote. The layout of the marginal commentaries in Glaser 30, at least on the first eight folios, indicates that their addition was carried out as a shared, commonly planned undertaking—at least when it comes to the main sources quoted in longer passages. Since the marginal commentaries in Glaser 30 (and in general) are not dated, it is difficult to reconstruct the exact context of their application. But although precise dating is not possible because of the generally non-documentary character of such annotations, I tentatively assume that the marginal commentaries were added in the second half of the eighteenth century or the early nineteenth century. This hypothesis is supported by the following arguments. As mentioned earlier, Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Qādir describes the water damage that occurred sometime at the end of the seventeenth century in his detailed note on fol. 2r. He remarks that the marginal annotations (al-hawāmish), unlike most of the primary al-Bukhārī text, had been destroyed. In fact, the primary text has largely survived even though it clearly shows traces of water damage, mainly in the form of the imprint of script on facing pages. This has led, here and there, to scribal corrections, that is, the rewriting of words or passages anew. The marginal commentaries, by contrast, show no trace of water damage; furthermore, some margins have been repaired with new paper (see fig. 9). This material evidence suggests a terminus post quem in the eighteenth century. That the annotations were added in Yemen at a later stage is furthermore supported by the rather broad nib of the pen (qalam) used and the partly characteristic Yemeni script: some of the marginal annotations feature a caret (v-sign) above the letters ḥāʾ, rāʾ, sīn, ṣād, and ʿayn in order to mark them as un-pointed letters. The next argument is connected to the increase in ownership notes around this time and the qirāʾa entry beside the colophon on fol. 516r/520r, which is dated to the year 1211/1796–97. The ownership and inheritance notes date from 1158/1745, 1197/1783, 1242/1826, and 1306/1888.

Figure 9. Water damages and marginal commentaries, Glaser 30, f. 1v/5v (right, above), f. 2r/6r (right, below), f. 2v/6v (left, above), f. 3r/7r (left below).

FROM IRAN TO KAWKABĀN 373

374

STEFANIE BRINKMANN 2. The intellectual milieu of Glaser 30 and its owners in the eighteenth to early nineteenth century

Reconstruction of the manuscript notes of Glaser 30 opens up a vivid intellectual milieu in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with historical figures who either had family ties to the owners of Glaser 30 (all from the Sharaf al-Dīn family network) or were part of the scholarly circles that some of them joined. These personal and scholarly contacts were concentrated, at least partly, in the region of Kawkabān. The influence of the Sunni tradition and its scholars had grown immensely by this time. The most prominent figure in the “Sunnization” of Zaydism and a key thinker for the modernizing reform movements of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was the already mentioned Muḥammad b. ʿAlī alShawkānī (1173-1250/1760-1834). Ḥadīth played a crucial role in his argumentation. He held that since the normative sources—that is, the Qurʾān and the Sunna—had been collected and systematized, every Muslim could and should refer to them. According to alShawkānī, the argument that only the early generations had the knowledge and therefore the right to issue legal rulings was no longer valid, and as a consequence, the founders of the legal schools no longer enjoyed a special status. Their decisions should thus not be followed uncritically, and, in the ideal case, they should be adopted only if the believer fully understands and accepts their reasoning. Within this framework, scholarship in ḥadīth studies holds a prominent position.58 As already noted, al-Shawkānī had close personal contacts with several individuals within the family network of Glaser 30. A key source for these ties is his work al-Badr alṭāliʿ, in which he mentions scholars he studied with, works he read with them, and other colleagues with whom he had personal connections, exchanging letters, discussing scholarly works, or negotiating diplomatic issues. Al-Shawkānī’s contacts with members of the Sharaf al-Dīn family mentioned in Glaser 30 run through two lines of descendants of the “common link” ʿAbd al-Qādir b. al-Nāṣir (d. 1097/1685-86) (see table 2). The first of these is the line via ʿAbd al-Qādir’s son al-Ḥusayn (1061–1112/1651–1700) and al-Ḥusayn’s son Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAbd al-Qādir. Four of Muḥammad’s sons are also part of the manuscript’s network: Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad, Aḥmad b. Muḥammad (1122–1181/1710–1767, the father of Sharaf al-Dīn),59 Wajīh al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Rabb (1125– 1176/1713–1763, one of the manuscript’s owners),60 and ʿĪsā b. Muḥammad (d. 1207/1793, presumably also one of the manuscript’s owners).61 Ibrāhīm, with whom al-Shawkānī had contact, served as emir in Kawkabān. After his death, his eldest son, al-ʿAbbās, took over, but a power struggle between Ibrāhīm’s sons al-ʿAbbās, Yaḥyā, and ʿAbd Allāh took place, and the office of the emir eventually devolved to ʿĪsā b. Muḥammad when he was already of advanced

58

Brown, Rethinking Tradition, pp. 25–28. On al-Shawkānī as a mujtahid, his break with Zaydī tradition, and his views on ijmāʿ and taqlīd, see Haykel, Revival and Reform, pp. 81–108; Barbara Eisenbürger, Muḥammad b. ʿAlī ašŠawkānī (gest. 1250/1834)—der große jemenitische Reformer: Seine rechtlichen, ideologischen und pädagogischen Vorstellungen, Berlin: EB-Verlag, 2011. 59 Al-Shawkānī, al-Badr al-ṭāliʿ, vol. 1, p. 104, no. 63; al-Ziriklī, al-Aʿlām, vol. 1, p. 243. 60 On Wajīh al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Rabb b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAbd al-Qādir b. al-Nāṣir al-Kawkabānī, see alShawkānī, al-Badr al-ṭāliʿ, vol. 2, Mulḥaq, p. 115, no. 200. 61 Al-Shawkānī, al-Badr al-ṭāliʿ, vol. 2, pp. 517–518, no. 353.

FROM IRAN TO KAWKABĀN

375

age. He remained emir of Kawkabān until he died in 1207/1793, and the office was then taken over by his nephew (and al-ʿAbbās’s cousin) Sharaf al-Dīn b. Aḥmad in 1207/1792–93.62 Al-Shawkānī was connected to Sharaf al-Dīn [ʿAbd al-Raḥmān] b. Aḥmad b. Muḥammad (1159–1241/1746–1825)63 and his son Muḥammad b. Sharaf al-Dīn (see table 2): al-Shawkānī writes that he exchanged letters with Sharaf al-Dīn b. Aḥmad, discussing doctrinal matters (specifically, fasting), and he describes his involvement in the confrontation (fitna) between Sharaf al-Dīn and Imam al-Mutawakkil ʿalā llāh. After an eighteenday siege of Kawkabān, al-Mutawakkil ʿalā llāh asked al-Shawkānī to stay in Shibām in order to establish and finalize the peace process. When this task was completed, alShawkānī went back to Sanaa with one of Sharaf al-Dīn’s sons, ʿAbd Allāh.64 Sharaf al-Dīn b. Aḥmad and his son Muḥammad b. Sharaf al-Dīn were both owners of Glaser 30.65 As mentioned earlier, Sharaf al-Dīn had taken over the emirate from his uncle ʿĪsā b. Muḥammad. ʿĪsā’s son ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿĪsā66 was connected to al-Shawkānī via studies with his father ʿĪsā and, above all, with the central figure for ḥadīth studies in the manuscript’s network, ʿAbd al-Qādir b. Aḥmad b. ʿAbd al-Qādir (1135–1207/1723–1792) (see table 2). AlShawkānī mentions that ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿĪsā studied ḥadīth and adab, “being one of the scholarly notables of Kawkabān.”67 The two regularly exchanged letters and scholarly treatises, some of which became known works (rasāʾil) whose titles al-Shawkānī sometimes quotes. ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿĪsā is also supposed to have written a number of books, among them a work on contemporary poets and two abridged biographies (mukhtaṣar fī tarjama) of his grandfather, Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn, and his father, ʿĪsā b. Muḥammad. ʿĪsā was presumably one of the owners of Glaser 30, selling the manuscript to his cousin Wajīh al-Dīn, a transaction that was witnessed by ʿĪsā’s son, ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿĪsā (see table 2 and fig. 7). The second line of descendants from ʿAbd al-Qādir b. al-Nāṣir (d. 1067/1685-86) runs via his son Aḥmad b. ʿAbd al-Qādir (see table 2). In this line, we encounter the family’s most important ḥadīth scholar and an important teacher of al-Shawkānī,68 the abovementioned ʿAbd al-Qādir b. Aḥmad (1135-1207/1723-1792).69 He was a distinguished ḥadīth scholar who was born and died in Sanaa but who was active in Kawkabān and other places in Yemen and abroad. He was al-Shawkānī’s teacher in ḥadīth, and al-Shawkānī called him

62

See the entry on ʿĪsā b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn in al-Shawkānī, al-Badr al-ṭāliʿ, vol. 2, pp. 517–518, no. 353, and the entry on Sharaf al-Dīn in al-Wajīh, Aʿlām al-muʾallifīn al-Zaydiyya, p. 477, no. 471. 63 Al-Shawkānī, al-Badr al-ṭāliʿ, vol. 1, pp. 274–276, no. 193. 64 Al-Shawkānī, al-Badr al-ṭāliʿ, vol. 1, pp. 274–276, no. 193. 65 Glaser 30, fol. 4r. 66 ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿĪsā was a scholar, a man of letters, and a legal expert, and he studied with a number of prominent scholars of his time, among them his father and ʿAbd al-Qādir b. Aḥmad. Al-Shawkānī, al-Badr al-ṭāliʿ, vol. 1, pp. 391–392, no. 174; al-Wajīh, Aʿlām al-muʾallifīn al-Zaydiyya, pp. 606–607, no. 620. 67 Al-Shawkānī, al-Badr al-ṭāliʿ, vol. 1, pp. 391–392, no. 174. 68 Al-Shawkānī, al-Badr al-ṭāliʿ, vol. 1, pp. 360–368, no. 243. 69 Al-Ziriklī, al-Aʿlām, vol. 4, p. 37; Kaḥḥāla, Muʿjam al-muʾallifīn, vol. 5, p. 282; al-Shawkānī, al-Badr al-ṭāliʿ, vol. 1, pp. 360–368, no. 243.

376

STEFANIE BRINKMANN

al-imām al-muḥaddith al-ḥāfiẓ al-musnad al-mujtahid al-muṭlaq.70 Within the Glaser 30 network, al-Shawkānī also had contact with ʿAbd al-Qādir’s son Ibrāhīm (1756–1808), himself a faqīh who was born and died in Sanaa but lived and worked in Kawkabān (see table 2).71 In his al-Badr al-ṭāliʿ, al-Shawkānī dedicates eight pages to ʿAbd al-Qādir b. Aḥmad. Even though ʿAbd al-Qādir’s main place of activity was Kawkabān, he traveled a great deal, teaching and studying not only in the major centers but also in the smaller, remote, and protected locations (hijar) that were rather typical for Yemeni Zaydī scholarship.72 Beyond Yemen, he stayed in Mecca and Medina for approximately two years, studying with local scholars, from whom he noted down chains of transmission (asānīd) and ijāzāt. Of the scholars in Kawkabān who were ʿAbd al-Qādir b. Aḥmad’s disciples, alShawkānī mentions, first, Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn (see table 2) (1122– 1181/1710–1767), the brother of one of the owners of the Glaser 30 manuscript (Wajīh alDīn ʿAbd al-Rabb), and, second, ʿĪsā b. Muḥammad (see above). He also names ʿAbd alQādir’s son Ibrāhīm as a student. During their many discussions and teaching sessions, the students took notes and thus made ʿAbd al-Qādir’s teaching accessible in written form. In addition to these scholarly texts that al-Shawkānī and ʿAbd al-Qādir b. Aḥmad’s other students collected and organized, al-Shawkānī exchanged letters with ʿAbd al-Qādir in rhyme and prose (wa-baynī wa-baynahu mukātibāt adabiyya min naẓm wa-nathr).73 Al-Shawkānī followed ʿAbd al-Qādir b. Aḥmad’s teaching ḥadīth (wa-samiʿtu minhu). He mentions that he read the Ṣaḥīḥ of Muslim from beginning to end in ʿAbd al-Qādir’s presence (wa-qaraʾtu ʿalayhi), along with sections of al-Nawawī’s commentary. He also read parts of alBukhārī’s Ṣaḥīḥ (wa-baʿḍ Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī) with its commentary Fatḥ al-bārī,74 parts from Jāmiʿ al-uṣūl by Ibn al-Athīr, the complete Sunan of al-Tirmidhī, parts of Ibn Māja’s Sunan, parts of the Muwaṭṭaʾ, and parts of the Muntaqī of Ibn Taymiyya and the Shifāʾ of al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ. Al-Shawkānī further lists other works that he read in ʿAbd al-Qādir’s presence in fields such as fiqh, uṣūl aldīn, and language (e.g. the Ṣiḥāḥ and the Qāmūs).75 ʿAbd al-Qādir b. Aḥmad is said to have been familiar with the writings of the Egyptian scholar Jalāl al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Suyūṭī (d. 911/1505), and al-Shawkānī stresses the extent of ʿAbd al-Qādir’s knowledge about Egypt, much of which he had obtained from al-Maqrīzī’s al-Khiṭaṭ wa-l-āthār.76 The contents of the works that al-Shawkānī studied with ʿAbd al-Qādir b. Aḥmad bring us back to Glaser 30 and its marginal commentaries. Two of these commentaries are excerpts from commentaries on al-Bukhārī’s Ṣaḥīḥ, both of them from fifteenth-century Mamluk Egypt. The other two sources are dedicated to language, one being a dictionary and the other one a lexical commentary on ḥadīth (gharīb al-ḥadīth). The commentary on al-Bukhārī that is quoted most often in the margin of Glaser 30 is the Tawshīḥ of al-Suyūṭī 70

Al-Shawkānī, al-Badr al-ṭāliʿ, vol. 1, p. 360. Al-Ziriklī, al-Aʿlām, vol. 1, p. 48. 72 Wilferd F. Madelung, “The Origins of the Yemenite Hijra,” Arabicus Felix: Luminosus Britannicus; Essays in Honour of A. F. L. Beeston on His Eightieth Birthday, Reading: Ithaca Press, 1991, pp. 25–44. 73 Al-Shawkānī, al-Badr al-ṭāliʿ, vol. 1, p. 368. 74 Composed by the Egyptian Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī (d. 852/1449). 75 For the texts that al-Shawkānī read with ʿAbd al-Qādir, see al-Shawkānī, al-Badr al-ṭāliʿ, vol. 1, pp. 362–363. See also Eisenbürger, Muḥammad b. ʿAlī aš-Šawkānī, chap. 3.1,4. 76 Al-Shawkānī, al-Badr al-ṭāliʿ, vol. 1, p. 364. 71

FROM IRAN TO KAWKABĀN

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(d. 911/1505). The Tawshīḥ is a concise commentary: al-Suyūṭī states in the preface to his commentary that he wanted to write a comprehensive but “user-friendly” commentary that, even though much shorter than the big works such as the Fatḥ al-bārī, would still cover the most important aspects of al-Bukhārī’s collection. Such shorter commentaries became increasingly “fashionable” during the Mamluk period and beyond, a trend that is partly due to an improved educational situation in this period, including more educational institutions, more libraries, and more educated laymen who wanted to participate in scholarly debates or at least have access to religious knowledge (and other texts, of course).77 Some of the marginal quotations from the Tawshīḥ are relatively extensive, as on fol. 3v; other times the quotations are more succinct— depending, obviously, also on the density of al-Suyūṭī’s commentary.78 In fig. 10, the shortened title of the Tawshīḥ is visible at the end of the annotation. The second commentary is the abovementioned extensive commentary work Fatḥ albārī by the Egyptian scholar Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī (d. 852/1449). This commentary is considered a masterpiece that addresses the central issues of commentarial critique for each ḥadīth in al-Bukhārī’s Ṣaḥīḥ, covering language, transmitters, and content-related theological, ritual, and legal aspects and discussing other opinions and commentaries.79 Because of the comprehensiveness of the Fatḥ al-bārī, it is clear that the excerpts to be included in the margin of Glaser 30 had to be selected and planned carefully, taking into account the limited space. Looking at the codicological features, mise-en-page, and content of the comparatively few folios with marginal commentaries in Glaser 30, we can observe that al-Suyūṭī’s Tawshīḥ is the dominant commentary and the Fatḥ al-bārī serves as a supplementary source, with excepts added where additional information is desired or where al-Suyūṭī’s commentary is deemed too brief. We can detect a general pattern of two main hands, one copying from al-Suyūṭī’s Tawshīḥ and the other from Ibn Ḥajar’s Fatḥ al-bārī80 (compare the scribal hand in fig. 11, a quotation from the Fatḥ al-bārī, with the hand in fig. 12, quotations from the Tawshīḥ). The division of hands is, though, not always consistent, compare fig. 10 with a quotation from the Tawshīḥ, and fig. 11 with a quotation from the Fatḥ al-Bārī, apparently written by the same hand.

77

Konrad Hirschler, The Written Word in the Medieval Arabic Lands: A Social and Cultural History of Reading Practices, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013. 78 It should be noted, however, that the quotations in the marginal commentaries are not always completely identical with the text of the edited version of the quoted work, which may reflect the scribe’s use of a master copy of the commentary with such variants, a conscious choice by the scribe, or simple inattentiveness. In any case, the omission of longer passages of the commentary in the marginal annotation is most likely due to the choice of the scribe. 79 For an overview over the genre of ḥadīth commentary, see Encyclopaedia of Islam, 3rd ed., vol. 4, pp. 61–68 (J. Blecher); Jonathan A. C. Brown, Hadith: Muhammad’s Legacy in the Medieval and Modern World, Oxford: Oneworld, 2009, pp. 52–54. Ibn Ḥajar’s Fatḥ al-bārī is considered a sharḥ mutawassiṭ. On the Fatḥ al-bārī in different social and historical contexts and on al-Suyūṭī’s Tawshīḥ as a concise commentary, see Joel Blecher, Said the Prophet of God: Hadith Commentary across a Millennium, Oakland: University of California Press, 2018, esp. pp. 129–139. On Ibn Ḥajar’s work revising his own commentary, see Joel Blecher, “Revision in the Manuscript Age: New Evidence of Early Versions of Ibn Ḥajar’s Fatḥ al-Bārī,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 76, no. 1 (2017), pp. 39–51. 80 The scribe of the Fatḥ al-bārī annotations has a more edged script and uses fewer diacritics, whereas the scribe of the Tawshīḥ excerpts has a more rounded script and a thinner pen nib; compare the upper and lower margin of fol. 2r/6r with the outer left margin and with the more extensive Tawshīḥ quotation on fol. 3v/7v.

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Figure 10. Quotation from al-Suyūṭī’s Tawshīḥ, see Tawshīḥ as shortened title at the end, Glaser 30, f. 1v/5v.

Figure 11. Quotation from Ibn Ḥajar’s Fatḥ al-Bārī, Glaser 30, f. 2r/6r.

Figure 12. Quotation from al-Suyūṭīʾs Tawshīḥ, Glaser 30, f. 3v/7v.

FROM IRAN TO KAWKABĀN

379

Figure 13. Quotation possibly from al-Muttaqī’s Mukhtaṣar al-Nihāya, Glaser 30, f. 2v/6v. The third source quoted in Glaser 30 is a rather widely used dictionary: al-Qāmūs al-muḥīṭ by the Persian lexicographer Muḥammad b. Yaʿqūb al-Fīrūzābādī (d. 817/1415) (see fig. 9, above right, with the shortened title Qāmūs). Al-Fīrūzābādī lived in Shiraz, Wasit, Baghdad, Damascus, Egypt, and Jerusalem, traveled to Mecca and Medina, and spent some time in Delhi before arriving in Yemen and acting as chief qāḍī under the Rasulid dynasty. He died in Yemen (in Zabīd) in the year 817/1415. The identification of the fourth source is uncertain since the works in question have not been edited, and relevant manuscripts could not be consulted. The fourth work quoted in the margin of Glaser 30 appears to be an (unedited) abridgment of Ibn al-Athīr al-Jazarī’s (555–630/1160–1233) al-Nihāya fī gharīb al-ḥadīth, called Mukhtaṣar al-Nihāya (li-Ibn al-Athīr). The shortened title Mukhtaṣar Nihāya appears at the end of the excerpts quoted in the margin (see fig. 13). Three authors reported to have written a Mukhtaṣar alNihāya can be considered possible in this context. A Mukhtaṣar al-Nihāya work is attributed to the Indian faqīh and a ḥadīth scholar ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn ʿAlī b. Ḥisām al-Dīn al-Muttaqī al-Hindī who was born in the Deccan and died 975/1567 in Mecca.81 But it is only Hidayet Hosein who attributes a work with this title to al-Muttaqī.82 Another scholar who is reported to have written an abridgment of the Nihāya called Mukhtaṣar al-Nihāya li-Ibn Athīr is the Indian-born scholar ʿAlī al-Hindī (fl. around 81

Kaḥḥāla, Muʿjam al-muʾallifīn, vol. 7, p. 59, has his lifetime as 885–975/1480–1567; al-Ziriklī, al-Aʿlām, vol. 4, p. 271, has as date of death “after 952/1545.” 82 Kaḥḥāla does not mention a Mukhtaṣar work in the entry on al-Muttaqī. The date of death, 975/1567, and his Mukhtaṣar are mentioned in the entry in the Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., vol. 7, pp. 800–801 (M. H. Hosein). A Mukhtaṣar with another title is mentioned in ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad al-Ḥibshī, Jāmiʿ al-shurūḥ wa-l-ḥawāshī: Muʿjam shāmil li-asmāʾ al-kutub al-mashrūḥa fī l-turāth al-islāmī wa-bayān shurūḥihā, Abu Dhabi: al-Majmaʿ alThaqāfī, 1425/2004, p. 2038.

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952/1545).83 He was active in Mecca. (His name might be a reason for the attribution of the Mukhtaṣar work to al-Muttaqī.) The third possible author is ʿĪsā b. Muḥammad Quṭb al-Dīn Abū l-Khayr al-Ṣafawī (900–953/1495–1546). This Indian-Persian faqīh studied in Gujarat, resided for two years in Mecca, traveled, and finally settled in Egypt.84 His Mukhtaṣar alNihāya li-Ibn al-Athīr is also mentioned in al-Ḥibshī’s reference work on commentary literature, and in the Fihris al-shāmil.85 All possible authors were originally from India, lived in the sixteenth century, and spent at least some time in Mecca. It is not known how and when the works that are quoted in the margin of Glaser 30 first came to Yemen in general and to Kawkabān in particular. Surely, copies of these famous works—at least the Fatḥ al-bārī, the Tawshīḥ, and the Qāmūs—were available and intensively studied in the eighteenth century all over the Islamicate world. Less known today is the Mukhtaṣar of Ibn al-Athīr’s Nihāya, which most probably circulated among scholars in Mecca from the sixteenth century onward. Since we do not know who added the marginal commentaries, and where and when it was done, we can only roughly estimate the date of their integration into the Glaser 30 manuscript. On the basis of the arguments made above, I assume that the ḥadīth studies carried out with this manuscript took place (mainly?) in the region of Kawkabān within the intellectual milieu of the late eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. It is in the sixth, seventh, and eighth generations after the first registered owner, al-Mutawakkil ʿalā llāh Sharaf al-Dīn in the sixteenth century, that we can get a more vivid picture of the ḥadīth scholarship reflected in Glaser 30. The qirāʾa entry from 1211/1796–97 must fall between the period of al-Qāsim ʿAbd alRabb’s (1174–1216/1761–1801) ownership and that of Sharaf al-Dīn b. Aḥmad (11591241/1746-1825) (see table 2).

FROM YEMEN TO AUSTRIA In the end, the manuscript of al-Bukhārī’s work did not remain in Kawkabān. Rather, by the end of the nineteenth century, it had ended up in the Austrian National Library in Vienna. The last Yemeni owner who is registered in the manuscript is Ḥamūd b. Muḥammad b. Yaḥyā b. Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Sharaf al-Dīn (1267-1344/1851-1926), a scholar and politician from Kawkabān, who left his genealogy, dated to 23 Ṣafar 1306/29 October 1888, in the manuscript (fol. 4r). At some point in time, the manuscript landed in the hands of the Austrian scholar Eduard Glaser. Glaser, who was mainly interested in South Arabian inscriptions, mentions Arabic manuscripts in his travel reports only in passing; his writings give us no information on how he came into possession of the 282 manuscripts he collected during his fourth journey, and therefore no information on Glaser 30.

83

Kaḥḥāla, Muʿjam al-muʾallifīn, vol. 7, p. 258. Compare Ziriklī, al-Aʿlām, vol. 4, p. 271. Kaḥḥāla, Muʿjam al-muʾallifīn, vol. 8, p. 32. 85 ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad al-Ḥibshī, Jāmiʿ al-shurūḥ wa-l-ḥawāshī: Muʿjam shāmil li-asmāʾ al-kutub al-mashrūḥa fī l-turāth al-islāmī wa-bayān shurūḥihā, Abu Dhabi: al-Majmaʿ al-Thaqāfī, 1425/2004, p. 2038; al-Fihris al-shāmil lil-turāth al-ʿarabī al-islāmī al-makhṭūṭ, vol. al-Ḥadīth al-nabawī al-sharīf wa-ʿulūmuhu wa-rijāluhu, Amman: alMajmaʿ al-Malakī li-Buḥūth al-Ḥaḍāra al-Islāmiyya, 1991, p. 1416, no. 468. The Fihris also mentions an anonymous work of the same title (ibid., no. 469). 84

FROM IRAN TO KAWKABĀN

381

A manuscript like Glaser 30 illustrates that larger historical narratives can be reflected in a single material object: First, the Glaser 30 manuscript is but one example of the transfer of books – and thereby of knowledge – from Iran to Yemen. This occurred either still in Sunni-orientated Timurid times during the fifteenth century, or after the political and religious shift to the Twelver Shiʿi Safavid dynasty (1501-1722). The extent to which this change in political rule and religious orientation led to the transfer of Glaser 30 has to remain an open question. Second, Glaser 30 has become part of the local book culture and its intellectual network in Zaydi Yemen. As part of the library of the sixteenth-century Imam al-Mutawakkil Sharaf al-Dīn, it remained within this ruler’s family until the nineteenth century. Manuscript notes give evidence for the practice of selling and bequeathing books. The entry on fol. 2r, presumably from the seventeenth century, shows that such books could be borrowed, though rather reluctantly in this case. For a number of years, its then-owner (or keeper), Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Qādir, tried to trace the man who had borrowed the book and wrote him a number of letters. His detailed description of the manuscript’s water damage and his own repairs is a vivid example of the value of and treatment given to a manuscript such as Glaser 30. The third larger historical narrative that is reflected in Glaser 30 is the growing influence of Sunnism in Zaydi Yemen. By analyzing the ownership notes and marginal commentaries, it could be shown that this manuscript was part of the scholarly (and partly political) Zaydi circles of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. A number of owners of Glaser 30, all members of the Sharaf al-Dīn family, were in contact with one of the key figures of Islamic reform movements, Muḥammad ʿAlī b. al-Shawkānī (d. 1834). They had personal contact, exchanged letters, or studied together. This intellectual network of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that was part of the Sunnization of Zaydism in Yemen has left its imprint in the ownership marks and probably also the marginal commentaries: the latter are excerpts of central Sunni Mamluk Bukhārī commentaries, namely Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī’s Fatḥ al-Bārī and al-Suyūṭī’s Tawshīḥ. These commentaries were complemented by lexical annotations taken from al-Fīrūzābādī’s Qāmūs and an abridged version of Ibn al-Athīr’s al-Nihāya fī gharīb al-ḥadīth. Even though the authorship of this mukhtaṣar work cannot yet be fully identified, all three possible authors have an Indian background and spent some time in sixteenth-century Ottoman Mecca. The history of Glaser 30 thus encompasses Timurid and possibly Safavid rule in Iran, includes Yemeni Zaydism (especially in the region of Kawkabān) and its Sunnization, and alludes to the struggle with Mamluk and Ottoman powers. The European appetite for Arabic manuscripts finally had Glaser 30 find its way to Europe in the nineteenth century.

‫‪382‬‬

‫‪STEFANIE BRINKMANN‬‬ ‫‪Table 3: Note on the manuscript’s history by Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Qādir,‬‬ ‫‪Glaser 30, fol. 2r (see fig. 8):‬‬ ‫‪ 1‬ا���د �� ّٰ� وس��م ��� عباده ا���ن اصط��‬

‫‪ 2‬من ال���امات ال�ي اتفقت ��ذا ال��اب‬

‫‪ 3‬ا��ليل ��ك�ت ا��سول ص�� ا�� ّٰ� �ليه وآ�� وس��‬ ‫‪ 4‬و�ي أن ر��� ً من ��� ديارنا استعاره م�ي‬ ‫‪ 5‬فضجعت �ليه القول شفقه م�ي ��� هذه‬

‫‪ 6‬النس�ة وخوفا ً منه �� ��ف��ا و ���دها ف��‬

‫‪�� 7‬كن طل��ا بعد ذل� خوفا ً من ��ام لسانه‬ ‫‪ 8‬فاستعان ��� ��و��نا الوا�� رضوان ا�� ّٰ�‬

‫‪ 9‬تعا�ى �ليه وبصِ نوي ��ف ا��س��م ا��س�ن‬

‫‪ 10‬حفظه ا�� ّٰ� تعا�ى �� �اء�ي بتعر يفهما عقب السحور‬ ‫‪� 11‬ي رمضان ف��ا وصل إ�ي ��ل� �� استحسن‬

‫‪ 12‬ا���ارته إ�� أ�ي رجعت إ�ى ا�� ّٰ� سبحنه ودعوته‬ ‫‪ 13‬واستودعته النس�ة وشيع��ا ‪ 86‬با���� إ�ى �ارج‬ ‫‪ 14‬ا��ك�ن ف��ا ع�م ��ا ��م أنه �� ��ها ح�ى أنه‬

‫‪ 15‬جعل ��� ر�� �دنا ا��مام ��ف ا���ن �ادة‪�� 87‬ك�ته‬ ‫‪ 16‬بياضته وأغ�اها �� ع�م ��ا ا���ن ا��ق�� وأ����ي‬ ‫‪ 17‬بعض الناس انه قال ان هذه النس�ة حقه �� ا�ي‬

‫‪ 18‬ما زلت أك�تب إليه من أ�لها فقد �� ��يب وقد‬ ‫‪�� 19‬يب ��ا �� يكون �ليه ملزم وأيضا ً بغ�� خطه‬

‫‪ 20‬ومع ذل� فقل�ي مطم�ن ��ا ���ت من است�ابة ا���اء‬

‫‪ 21‬و��ك�ت هذا ال��اب وا��سول ص�� ا�� ّٰ� �ليه وآ�� وس��‬ ‫‪ 22‬فك�ن من ألطاف ا�� ّٰ� تعا�ى و�ي ال���امة ا��اص��‬

‫‪.‬شيعته ‪Read‬‬ ‫‪�.‬ادت ‪Read‬‬

‫‪86‬‬ ‫‪87‬‬

‫‪FROM IRAN TO KAWKABĀN‬‬

‫‪383‬‬

‫‪ 23‬أن هذا ا���ل جعل هذه النس�ة �ي بعض أسفاره‬ ‫‪�� ��� 24‬ار فوقع به مطر �اصب �� أن ا���ار وقع‬

‫‪� 25‬ي بعض الغدران فوقعت هذه النس�ة إ�ى الغد��‬ ‫‪ 26‬فأ��جها ذل� ا���ل وقد قطع أ��ا إ�ّ�ت و��‬ ‫‪�� 27‬كنه ��فيفها ل��طر والسفر فربطها ب�ن أداته‬

‫‪�� �� 28‬ا وصل إ�ى من��ى سفره و�دها ز ُ��ة مت��شية‬

‫‪�� �� 29‬كن فتحها فعزم أن � ُ�جعها و�� ���يل ا�ّ� �ي فتح‬ ‫‪ 30‬البياضة ا��ي ف��ا ا���� ليقلع ما أغ�ا فقط‬

‫‪ �� 31‬أنه وصل ��ا إ�ي و�ي ز��ة واعتذر ا��ا وقعت‬

‫‪� 32‬ي ا��اء بغ�� اختياره و�� �� ر�� أن تص�� إ�ى ذل�‬ ‫‪ 33‬وك�ن مدة بقاءها عنده فوق ا��ربع السن�ن‬

‫‪ �� 34‬أ�ي �ا��ت فتحها ف�� ��كن إ�� بالص�� وهو أ�ي أ�ذت مِقشطة‬

‫‪ 35‬و�� أزل أقطع البياض قطعا ً من أول بياضه وهو‬

‫‪ 36‬وص�� ح�ى ا���يت إ�ى ال�كتب ‪ 88‬و�ذا هو ��� مت����‬

‫‪ 37‬وه��ا إ�ى آ�� بياضه ��� ��� أل�� تعا�ى ا��وامش مت��شية‬

‫‪ 38‬و ال�كتب ‪ ��� 89‬مت���� إ�� �ي أشياء �� يُؤبَه ��ا فسب�ان‬ ‫‪ 39‬القادر ��� ك� ��ء ا��افظ لوديعة من استود�ه ��ك�ت‬ ‫‪40‬‬

‫ا��سول ص�� ا��� �ليه وآ�� وس�� �� أ�ي بعد أن ���ت فتح��ا‪90‬‬

‫ّٰ‬

‫‪ 41‬سقلت‪ 91‬ك� بياضه با��سق�� ‪ 92‬وكتب الفق�� إ�ى ا�� ّٰ�‬

‫سبحنه ‪93‬‬

‫‪��� 42‬د �ن عبد القادر ]��اده؟[ ا�� ّٰ� تعا�ى وخ�� �� بأحس ختام‬

‫‪; see also line 38.‬ال��اب ‪Read‬‬ ‫‪See footnote 3.‬‬ ‫‪90‬‬ ‫‪.‬فَتْحَها ‪Read‬‬ ‫‪91‬‬ ‫‪.‬صقلت ‪Read‬‬ ‫‪92‬‬ ‫‪.‬م ِصْ ق َ�� ‪Read‬‬ ‫‪93‬‬ ‫‪.‬سب�انه ‪Read‬‬ ‫‪88‬‬ ‫‪89‬‬

YEMENI MANUSCRIPTS OF DIVERSE PROVENANCE AT THE BERLIN STATE LIBRARY CHRISTOPH RAUCH The first association that researchers connect with Arabic manuscripts from Yemen at the Berlin State Library is most likely the output of the Austrian explorer and researcher Eduard Glaser (1855–1908) from his first and second journeys to Arabia Felix in the years 1883– 1884 and 1885–1886.1 The altogether 264 manuscripts procured by Glaser were the first Yemeni corpus of such scale to enter a European library. They were the last of a series of extensive acquisitions for the Royal Library in Berlin in the second half of the nineteenth century that Wilhelm Ahlwardt included in his voluminous catalog, published between 1887 and 1899.2 In addition to the Glaser collections, Berlin preserves many other manuscripts of Yemeni origin, some of them hitherto largely unknown to researchers, a few of them even still uncataloged. Thus, the aim of this article is to provide a brief overview of material scattered among the various Oriental manuscript collections at the Berlin State Library that is not per se labeled as being of Yemeni origin. I focus on the manuscripts’ provenance and especially on how they moved to Berlin. Attention to the manuscript notes, in particular, brings to light new information that enables us in some cases even to

1

Wilhelm Ahlwardt, Kurzes Verzeichniss der Glaser’schen Sammlung arabischer Handschriften, Berlin: Unger, 1887. For the history of the acquisition of the Glaser collection, see also Christoph Rauch, “‘Im Wettkampfe mit den Bibliotheken anderer Nationen‘: Die Erwerbung arabischer Handschriften an der Königlichen Bibliothek zu Berlin zwischen 1850 und 1900," Sammler – Bibliothekare – Forscher: Zur Geschichte der Orientalischen Sammlungen an der Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Frankfurt/M.: Klostermann, 2021, pp. 87-150, especially pp. 130-135. 2 Wilhelm Ahlwardt, Verzeichniss der arabischen Handschriften, 10 vols., Berlin: Asher, 1887–1899 [= Die HandschriftenVerzeichnisse der Königlichen Bibliothek zu Berlin, vols. 7–9, 16–22]. Within a period of less than four decades, between 1851 and 1886, the number of manuscripts in Arabic script in Berlin grew from eight hundred to more than eight thousand. The collections of Aloys Sprenger (1851), Johann Gottfried Wetzstein (1851 and 1859), Julius Heinrich Petermann (1855 and 1870), Carlo Landberg (1883) and Glaser comprise about 6,700 volumes. For the acquisition and cataloging history of the Oriental manuscript collection in Berlin, see Rauch, “‘Im Wettkampfe mit den Bibliotheken anderer Nationen‘: Die Erwerbung arabischer Handschriften an der Königlichen Bibliothek zu Berlin zwischen 1850 und 1900"; and idem, “Growing Collections and Rising Expectations: The Endeavour to Catalogue Manuscripts in Arabic Script at the Royal Library in Berlin,” Manuscripts, Politics and Oriental Studies: Life and Collections of Johann Gottfried Wetzstein (1815– 1905) in Context, ed. Boris Liebrenz and Christoph Rauch, Leiden: Brill, 2019, pp. 33–62.

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reassess the date and place of origin of the manuscripts. Sporadic acquisitions of manuscripts from Yemen continued from the time of the foundation of the library in the second half of the seventeenth century until the present day. A small collection of fourteen Zaydī manuscripts was purchased in 2018 from an antiquarian bookseller in London. The material under discussion in this article comprises roughly 140 volumes.3 Manuscripts from Yemen are not necessarily written in the Arabic language. Some of the specimens presented here are in Ottoman Turkish, Hebrew, or Arabic written in Hebrew script. A few of them might even have other places of origin, such as specimens from India, which prove the close relationship between the Arabian Peninsula and South Asia, and some manuscripts from Turkey are also included in this overview.

THE OLDEST EXISTENT COPY OF THE KITĀB AL-AZHĀR The manuscript from southern Arabia with the longest presence in the State Library originates from the collection of Christian Ravius4 and entered the library already in the latter’s founding period in the second half of the seventeenth century. It is a copy of the wellknown compendium on Zaydī fiqh, the Kitāb al-Azhār of Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā b. al-Murtaḍā (d. 840/1436), copied by Aḥmad b. ʿAlī b. Asʿad b. Fāʾid in Rajab 956/1549. This date is confirmed by Wilhelm Ahlwardt in his catalog5 as well as by a handwritten note by the previous owner, Ravius, next to the colophon on fol. 114a (see fig. 1).6 However, the stated year of copying, AH 956, is in heavy conflict with two notes on the same page that document the collation of the text. The first records the collation of the work in the presence of its author (balagha qaṣāṣatan [. . .] samāʿan ʿalā l-muṣannaf), that is, before 840/1436, and the second documents another collation carried out in the year 838/1434, two years before his death. The year 838 was written in numeral form and repeated later in alphabetic characters. Comparing the style of the figures in the year 838 of the collation note with the numerals of the colophon, we should interpret the latter as 806/1404 instead of 956/1549, thus making the copy 150 years older than initially thought and probably the oldest existent copy of the Kitāb al-Azhār.7 That this manuscript was copied during the lifetime of the

3

All manuscripts discussed or listed in this contribution are digitized and accessible via the Zaydi Manuscript Tradition Digital Portal (http://projects.ias.edu/zmt) and the digital collections of the Berlin State Library via the database http://qalamos.net. 4 Christian Ravius (or Raue, 1613–1677) spent the years from 1639 to 1642 in Turkey, where he not only learned Turkish in a very short time but also acquired manuscripts. After his return to Europe, he taught in the Netherlands and England before he was finally appointed to a professorship in Frankfurt an der Oder in 1672. Numerous volumes were acquired by the library in Berlin from his estate in 1691 and 1707. 5 Ahlwardt, Verzeichniss der arabischen Handschriften, vol. 4 [= Die Handschriften-Verzeichnisse der Königlichen Bibliothek zu Berlin, vol. 16], Berlin: Asher, 1892, pp. 314–316 (no. 4919). 6 I wish to thank Paul Babinski for his identification of the handwriting of Ravius. 7 According to the historical sources, Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā b. al-Murtaḍā completed this work during his stay in prison between the years 794/1392 and 801/1399, after his failed claim to the imamate. See Muḥammad b. ʿAlī al-Shawkānī, al-Badr al-ṭāliʿ fī maḥāsin man baʿd al-qarn al-tāsiʿ, Damascus: Dār al-Fikr, 1995, p. 143. See “al-Mahdī li-Dīn Allāh Aḥmad,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., vol. 5, p. 1241 (R. Strothmann, G. R. Smith, and J. R. Blackburn).

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Figure 1. Al-Azhār of Ibn al-Murtaḍā, copied in 806/1404, MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Ms. or. quart. 110, fol. 114a.

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Figure 2. Al-Azhār of Ibn al-Murtaḍā, title page with author’s certificate, MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Ms. or. quart. 110, fol. 3a.

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author is strongly supported by the eulogy on the title page on fol. 3a (see fig. 2) (mataʿa Llāh al-muslimīn bi-ṭūli ḥayātihī) and, even more strikingly, by a samāʿ certificate given by the author to the copyist.8 According to an ownership note on fol. 3a the manuscript was sold to a great-grandson of Ibn al-Murtaḍā in 981/1573–4. It seems very plausible that the new owner, Luṭf Allāh b. Muṭahhar b. Yaḥyā Sharaf al-Dīn, the father of the historian ʿĪsā b. Luṭf Allāh, was eager to acquire this copy, authorized by the author in person. The fact that the strip of paper containing this ownership note was glued over the important reading certificate from the author of the al-Azhār remains somewhat puzzling. We have to assume that the manuscript subsequently somehow made its way to Turkey, where it attracted the attention of Ravius. Ravius published a sales catalog of his manuscripts containing 380 numbers already in 1669, and in it he describes the Yemeni copy at number 78 as “Kitâb IlIßhâr fi foqha. Liber Introductorius in Jurisprudentiam Muhammedanam,”9 without referring to its Zaydī Yemeni origin, which he was probably not aware of. Another manuscript of possibly Yemeni origin in the same catalog, a copy of Kitāb al-Durr al-naẓīm fī faḍāʾil al-Qurʾān al-ʿajīm of ʿAbd Allāh b. Asʿad al-Yāfiʿī al-Yamanī, could not be identified among the manuscripts in Berlin.10 The majority of Ravius’s manuscripts was sold to other institutions. Another dispersed Yemeni Arabic manuscript that made its way to the Royal Library in Berlin deserves our attention. It is a collective manuscript containing poetry and several smaller treatises, excerpts, and notes (Ms. or. quart. 583). The first part is al-Sumūṭ al-tisʿa al-muʿallaqa min ashʿār al-ʿarab, copied by Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Saʿīd al-Habal in the year 1077/1667 (fol. 23a). This copy from the seventeenth century belonged to the German Semitist and Orientalist Emil Rödiger (1801–1874) and was purchased by the Royal Library together with other manuscripts from the estate of this scholar in 1879. In Ahlwardt’s description of the manuscript no explicit hint is given of its Yemeni provenance. On fol. 39b is a reading statement from the mosque in al-Rawḍa, a small town on the outskirts of Sanaa, dated 1078/1667 (see fig. 3). The name of the scribe, too, clearly shows the manuscript’s geographical connection for those who are familiar with Yemeni names, as do the entries of the previous owners on several folios (for instance on fols. 1a, 33a, 64b, and 72b). This example, which landed accidentally on my desk, illustrates the problem that we have with many catalogs that do not provide all available codicological, paleographic, or textual information related to a certain manuscript. We would, of course, not expect the specification of owners and readers in a catalog compiled at the end of the nineteenth century. Ahlwardt, however, occasionally provides the place of copying, if it is mentioned in the colophon. Among the 264 manuscripts in the Glaser collections in Berlin, the colophons of at least twenty-four indicate the place of copying. The problem is that Ahlwardt provides

8

The certificate is signed with al-Mahdī li-Dīn Allāh, the name under which Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā claimed the imamate in the year 793/1391 after the death of Imam Nāṣir Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn. 9 Christian Ravius, Spolium Orientis, Christiano Orbi Dicatum, Sive Catalogus MSSorum Orientalium in omni scibili Non sine crebris vitae periculis, Constantinopoli et alibi, per triennium multô aere conquisitorum, Kiel: Reumann, 1669. 10 Ravius, Spolium Orientis, no. 363. See http://resolver.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/SBB00018F4700000000 for a digital copy.

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Figure 3. Collection of poems and literary texts, reader’s statement dated 1078/1667 in al-Rawda, MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Ms. or. quart. 583, fol. 39b.

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this information only for ten of them.11 This erratic approach on the part of the cataloger is irritating. How can we determine those manuscripts with Yemeni provenance? In the Glaser collections, one can deduce already from the shelf mark that the material is of Yemeni origin. In the case of manuscripts incorporated into other subcollections, an analysis of the objects themselves would often be necessary to enable a precise allocation, and this can hardly be achieved systematically for thousands of already cataloged manuscripts. Before we will take a glance at larger collections that we know to contain a few Yemeni manuscripts let me mention another important single acquisition: The purchase of a volume with the first and second parts of al-Hamdānī’s al-Iklīl in 1905 from Sayyid Ali Bilgrami (1851–1911), who was at that time lecturer for Indian languages in Cambridge, was a kind of a sensation.12 Until this moment scholars assumed that only the eight and the tenth part of this important encyclopedia on ancient south Arabian history had survived.13 A facsimile edition in two-color printing of this manuscript was prepared by order of the German Foreign Office as a diplomatic gift for Imam Yaḥyā Ḥāmid al-Dīn during World War II.14

THE LANDBERG COLLECTION The Swedish orientalist Carlo Landberg (1848–1924) traveled several times to Syria, Egypt, and southern Arabia for various purposes. He studied Arabic and worked as a travel guide, a diplomat, and a manuscript collector. Probably during one of his journeys, he made the acquaintance of Amīn b. Ḥasan al-Ḥulwānī al-Madanī (d. 1316/1898), with whom he started a friendly relationship. Al-Madanī was a teacher at the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina and a manuscript dealer who traveled a lot.15 In 1883, he participated in the Colonial Exhibition in Amsterdam and attended the sixth Congress of Orientalists in Leiden.16 On this trip, he brought a collection of manuscripts to the Netherlands. Carlo Landberg compiled a vendor’s catalog for E. J. Brill, who acted as broker. In the introduction to this catalog, Landberg described the manuscripts as al-Madanī’s private library and emphasized the many important Yemeni works included in it.17 This collection

11

See Christoph Rauch, “Place Names in Colophons and Notes of Yemeni Manuscripts,” Journal of Islamic Manuscripts 13 (2022), pp. 81-116. 12 MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Ms. or. oct. 968. The manuscript was copied in 826/1423. 13 Oskar Löfgren, Ein Hamdānī-Fund: Über das Berliner Unicum der beiden ersten Bücher des Iklīl, Uppsala: A.-B. Lundequistska Bokhandeln, 1935. 14 Al-Ḥasan Ibn-Aḥmad Ibn-Jaʿqūb al-Hamdānī, al-Iklīl: Buch 1 und 2. Faksimile der Handschrift Ms. or. oct. 968 der Preußischen Staatsbibliothek, ed. Max Weisweiler, Berlin: Preußische Staatsbibliothek, 1943. 15 Arabic sources, however, connect him to dubious manuscript deals. See Werner Ende, “Medina und seine Bibliotheken in spätosmanischer Zeit: Eine Skizze,” Osmanische Welten: Quellen und Fallstudien; Festschrift für Michael Ursinus, ed. Johannes Zimmermann, Bamberg: University of Bamberg Press, 2016, pp. 129–150, here: p. 143. 16 On al-Madanī and his 1883 visit to Leiden, see Kathryn Anne Schwartz, “An Eastern Scholar’s Engagement with the European Study of the East: Amin al-Madani and the Sixth Oriental Congress, Leiden, 1883,” Muslim Reception of European Orientalism: Reversing the Gaze, ed. Susannah Heschel and Umar Ryad, London: Routledge, 2019, pp. 39–60. 17 Carlo Landberg, Catalogue de manuscrits arabes provenant d’une bibliothèque privée à el-Medîna et appartenant a la maison E. J. Brill, Leiden: Brill, 1883, p. vi.

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was purchased in its entirety by the Leiden University Library in the same year.18 The Garrett Collection at Princeton University Library acquired via Brill another bulk of manuscripts from the Landberg-Madanī connection in the years 1900 and 1904, among them, again, important Yemeni manuscripts.19 Yemen is also well represented in the 800 Landberg-manuscripts that came in 1900 to Yale University as a donation of Morris K. Jesup after lengthy negotiations with the Royal Library in Berlin failed. The Berlin library purchased its Landberg collection of 1,052 manuscripts already in 1884 via E. J. Brill in Leiden. The collection consisted of manuscripts Landberg had been able to obtain during his own trips in the Middle East and maybe of material provided by al-Madanī, too.20 Among the works of this collection about twenty manuscripts of Yemeni provenance have so far been identified.21 The oldest is the mystical work Kitāb Ṣawm al-qalb of ʿAmmār b. Muḥammad al-Badlīsī, copied in 603/1207. Another rare copy is the first part of a work by Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā al-Hādī ilā l-Ḥaqq, Shifāʾ al-uwām li-l-tamyīz bayna l-ḥalāl wa-l-ḥarām, copied in the year 757/1356 (see fig. 4). Carlo Landberg did not collect these manuscripts in Yemen. To the best of my knowledge, his first trip to southern Arabia occurred only in late 1894 or early 1895. 22 During his career he developed a strong interest in Yemeni culture and literature as well as in South Arabian dialects.23 When Ignaz Goldziher visited him at the castle in Tutzing at Lake Starnberg in the summer of 1895, he enjoyed listening to the songs and poetry of the two Hadhramis Saʿīd and Manṣūr, who had accompanied Landberg on his return to Bavaria from his recent journey.24 The life, networks, travels, and scholarship of this vibrant, among his contemporaries not undisputed scholar deserve more investigation. Such investigation could also contribute to a better understanding of his personal impact on the manuscript collections in Leiden, Princeton, New Haven, and Berlin that are today connected with his name.

18

See P. Voorhoeve, Handlist of Arabic Manuscripts in the Library of the University of Leiden and Other Collections in the Netherlands, Leiden: Leiden University Library, 1957. 19 Philip K. Hitti, Nabih Amin Faris, and Buṭrus ʿAbd al-Malik, Descriptive Catalog of the Garrett Collection of Arabic Manuscripts in the Princeton University Library, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1938. 20 See Wilhelm Ahlwardt, Kurzes Verzeichniss der Landberg'schen Sammlung arabischer Handschriften, Berlin: Schade, 1885. 21 These have the shelf marks Landberg 179, 183, 251, 435, 437, 438, 619, 626, 627, 678, 693, 744, 883, 888, 905, 906, 936, and 939. 22 See K. V. Zetterstéen, Carlo Landberg som Orientalist, Uppsala: Almqvist och Wiksells, 1942, p. 30. 23 Carlo Landberg, Études sur les dialectes de l’Arabie méridionale, vol. 1: Haḍramoût, Leiden: Brill, 1901. 24 Ignaz Goldziher, Tagebuch, ed. Alexander Scheiber, Leiden: Brill, 1978, p. 192. Goldziher’s highly readable account of his two visits to Tutzing during the summer months of 1894 and 1895 gives a very lively impression of the personality of Carlo Landberg. Landberg was married between 1884 and 1899 to Gabriele von Hallberger (1850–1915), the rich heiress of a Bavarian publisher.

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Figure 4. Shifāʾ al-uwām li-l-tamyīz bayna l-ḥalāl wa-l-ḥarām, copied in 757/1356, MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Landberg 251, fol. 1a.

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MANUSCRIPTS FROM THE PROPERTY OF HERMANN BURCHARDT After receiving an extensive inheritance, the German merchant Hermann Burchardt (1857– 1909) studied Arabic and other Oriental languages in Berlin and devoted his life to traveling in and photographing the Middle East and East Africa. He visited Yemen three times between 1900 and 1909.25 He did not return from his last journey. His tragic death happened near Ibb in December 1909, when he was killed by robbers. After his death, his immense photographic archive moved to the Ethnological Museum in Berlin. Some of Burchardt’s photographs, an album and several single prints, entered the collection of the Oriental department of the Berlin State Library some years ago as part of a larger photographic collection.26 Burchardt’s personal Oriental manuscripts were offered for purchase by the Buchhandlung Gustav Fock in Leipzig. A small sales catalog was printed in 1921, prepared by the Leipzig-based orientalist August Fischer (1865–1949).27 The Prussian State Library purchased the collection in 1939. Of its thirty-nine manuscripts, thirty-two are in Arabic and seven in Persian, and seventeen of the Arabic manuscripts are from Yemen.28 Among Burchardt’s manuscripts are several important and old copies from the seventh and eighth Islamic centuries, such as a part of the Sīrat al-Manṣūr bi-Llāh ʿAbd Allāh b. Ḥamza, copied still during the lifetime of this Zaydī ruler (Ms. or. quart. 2032). The collection’s copy of Ibn al-Murtaḍā’s Kitāb al-Azhār, copied in 1206/1792, is quite a rarity because of its full vocalization (Ms. or. oct. 3759). The illumination of the title page and the first double folio are also quite unusual for this standard work of Zaydī fiqh (see fig. 5). Several anthologies of Yaḥyā b. Ibrāhīm al-Jaḥḥāf (Ms. or. quart. 2027) and ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm al-ʿAnsī (Ms. or. oct. 3770) might be of interest for researchers on Yemeni poetry. Part of a commentary on the Taḥrīr of Ibn al-Hārūn al-Buṭḥānī with the title Kitāb al-Jāmiʿ fī l-sharḥ (Ms. or. oct. 3778) was already cataloged by Rudolf Sellheim in 1971.29 The place of copying is given in the colophon on fol. 270a. Sellheim reads Miska, a village near al-Raqqa, and suggests that the manuscript was copied for the library of the Baghdadi minister Naṣīr al-Dīn Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. al-Nāqid (d. 643/1245) twelve years after his death (see figs. 6 and 7). To my mind, it is much more likely that this Zaydī work was copied in Yemen and that the place is Mislit, a village in the

25

The account of his first journey was published in 1902: Hermann Burchardt, “Reiseskizzen aus dem Yemen,” Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Erdkunde zu Berlin, 1902, pp. 593–610. On his last journey in 1909, see Eugen Mittwoch, Aus dem Jemen: Hermann Burchardts letzte Reise durch Südarabien; Festgabe für den Vierten Deutschen Orientalistentag in Hamburg, Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1926. See also Ingrid Pfluger-Schindlbeck (ed.), Hermann Burchardt in Yemen: Photographical Journeys 1900–1909, Sanaa: Botschaft der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 2005. 26 Hs. or. sim. 8944. On his importance as a photographer, documenting the contemporary Middle East, see Annegret Nippa and Peter Herbstreuth, Unterwegs am Golf: Von Basra nach Maskat; Photographien von Hermann Burchardt/Along the Gulf: From Basra to Muscat; Photographs by Hermann Burchardt, Berlin: Schiler, 2006, pp. 34–44. 27 August Fischer, Arabische und persische Handschriften aus dem Besitz des verstorbenen Reisenden Dr. Burchardt, Leipzig: Gustav Fock, [1921]. See also the review of this small catalog by Rudolf Strothmann in Orientalistische Literaturzeitung 89 (1922), cols. 360–363. According to Strothmann, G. Caprotti helped Burchardt gather his small collection of Yemeni manuscripts. Caprotti also brought together the collection that is today known as the Munich Glaser collection as well as the extensive Yemeni holdings at the Ambrosiana Library in Milano. 28 They have the shelf marks Ms. or. quart. 2027, 2030–2034, and 2037–2040, and Ms. or. oct. 3759, 3762, 3769, 3770, and 3776–3778. 29 Rudolf Sellheim, Materialien zur arabischen Literaturgeschichte, part 1, Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1976, pp. 134–136.

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region of Bilād al-Ẓāhir in the tribal territory of Ḥāshid.30 The commissioner is not a Baghdadi minister but rather the Yemeni Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Mutamayyiz, who is mentioned in the Sīra of the Zaydī Imam al-Mahdī li-Dīn Allāh Aḥmad b. al-Ḥusayn b. al-Qāsim (r. 646– 656/1248–1258).31 A group of seven manuscripts that originate in the Indian region of Gujarat deserves our special attention. They are connected to the Ismāʿīlī Dāʾūdī Bohra community. In the eighteenth century ʿAlī b. Saʿīd al-Yaʿburī al-Hamdānī (ca. 1718–1798) emigrated from Yemen to India and established close relations between the Ismāʿīlī communities in these two regions.32 Several of the Ismāʿīlī manuscripts in the Burchardt collection were copied by descendants of the al-Hamdānī family (see fig. 8).33

Figure 5. Al-Azhār of Ibn al-Murtaḍā, copied in 1206/1792, MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Ms. or. oct. 3759, fols. 1b–2a.

30

See Ismāʿīl b. ʿAlī al-Akwaʿ, Hijar al-ʿilm wa-maʿāqiluhu fī l-Yaman, vol. 4, Beirut: Dār al-Fikr al-Muʿāṣir, 2003, pp. 2050– 2054. We have evidence that the commentary was studied here in this period. See Hassan Ansari and Sabine Schmidtke, “The Literary-Religious Tradition among 7th/13th Century Zaydis: The Formation of the Imām al-Mahdī li-Dīn Allāh Aḥmad b. al-Ḥusayn b. al-Qāsim (d.656/1258),” Journal of Islamic Manuscripts 2 (2011), pp. 165–222, here: p. 186. 31 See Sīrat al-Imām Aḥmad Abī Ṭayr, ed. ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad al-Ḥūthī, available at http://almajalis.org/books/wp-content/uploads/ebooks/��‫ط‬-‫أ�ي‬-‫س��ة‬.html. I am very grateful to Jan Thiele for his help in identifying this person. 32 See François de Blois, Arabic, Persian and Gujarati Manuscripts: The Hamdani Collection in the Library of the Institute of Ismaili Studies, London: I. B. Tauris, 2011, pp. xiv–xv. 33 They have the shelf marks Ms. or. quart. 2028 and Ms. or. oct. 3761, 3763, 3764, 3768, 3771, and 3775.

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Figure 6. Kitāb al-Jāmiʿ fī l-sharḥ, title page, MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Ms. or. oct. 3778, fol. 1a.

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Figure 7. Kitāb al-Jāmiʿ fī l-sharḥ, colophon, MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Ms. or. oct. 3778, fol. 270a.

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Figure 8. Al-Shihāb al-nabawī, copied in 1314/1897 in the village of Ṭūẓān near Surat by ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Ḥusayn b. Hādī al-Hamdānī, MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Ms. or. oct. 3763, fol. 39a.

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Figure 9. Collective manuscript, copied in 1306/1888, manuscript notes, MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Hs. or. 10864, fol. 54b.

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Figure 10. Al-Ghaṭamṭam al-zakhkhār of Ibn Ḥarīwa, copied in 1318/1900, MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Hs. or. 10479, fol. 2a.

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Rudolf Strothmann concluded his review of the sales catalog in 1922 by expressing the hope that the manuscripts of Burchardt’s estate would soon be accessible for researchers.34 They found a new home only in 1939, when they were acquired by the Prussian State Library for the price of 4,950 Reichsmark. This acquisition, however, is highly problematic. The merchant Leo Jolowicz (1868–1940) had become the owner of the Buchhandlung Gustav Fock already in 1906, when Fock retired. Because of Jolowicz’s Jewish descent, his antiquarian bookshop as well as his large publishing house, the Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft Leipzig, were aryanized by the German Nazi government in 1938. Although the price paid for the collection does not raise serious doubts at first glance, the circumstances of the acquisition after the liquidation of Jolowicz’s bookshop and publishing house need further investigation.35

ACQUISITIONS FROM THE LATE TWENTIETH AND EARLY TWENTY-FIRST CENTURIES Within the last decades several Arabic manuscripts of Yemeni origin have been purchased by the Berlin library on the antiquarian market from different owners, mostly between the years 1998 and 2005. Twenty-six Yemeni manuscripts copied between the seventeenth and early twentieth centuries have recently been described in detail by Rosemarie Quiring-Zoche in the Verzeichnis Orientalischer Handschriften in Deutschland (VOHD).36 The majority contain texts on Zaydī fiqh and dogmatics. The first folios of many manuscripts are filled with reading and collation statements as well as owners’ notes that Quiring-Zoche carefully records. A copy of Nahj al-balāgha, copied in 1107/1695 (Hs. or. 10919), is an example. It bears not only many notes of readings in al-Rawda, Sanaa, and Shahara but also an autograph poem by Imam Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā Ḥāmid al-Dīn (d. 1381/1962).37 Of special interest is a group of four manuscripts copied between the end of the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries.38 They belonged to Qāsim Abū Ṭālib al-ʿIzzī (d. 1380/1960), who also copied some of the texts. Al-ʿIzzī was the minister for endowments (nāẓir al-awqāf) and became a diplomat under the Mutawakkilite imams.39 In this position he played an important role in the negotiation of the Treaty of Daʿʿān that was signed in 1911 between Imam Yaḥyā (d. 1948) and the Ottoman sultan Mehmed V (d. 1918). The manuscripts show readership entries and collation marks by al-ʿIzzī as well as by later owners of the manuscripts, up to the middle of the twentieth century. These notes impressively demonstrate 34

See note 23. On Gustav Fock and Leo Jolowicz, see Andrea Lorz, “Dr. Leo Jolowicz und die Sortiments- und Antiquariatsbuchhandlung Gustav Fock,” Uns eint die Liebe zum Buch: Jüdische Verleger in Leipzig 1815-1938, Leipzig: Hentrich & Hentrich, 2021, pp. 77-89. On the aryanization of Jewish bookshops in Germany, see Werner Schroeder, “Die ‘Arisierung’ jüdischer Antiquariate zwischen 1933 und 1942,” part 1, Aus dem Antiquariat 7 (2009) 5, pp. 295–320, part 2, Aus dem Antiquariat 7 (2009) 6, pp. 359–386. 36 Rosemarie Quiring-Zoche, Arabische Handschriften Teil 7: Arabische Handschriften der Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin–Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Stuttgart: Steiner, 2015 (VOHD XVII B7). 37 Hs. or. 10919. See Quiring-Zoche, Arabische Handschriften 7, pp. 364–68. 38 Quiring-Zoche, Arabische Handschriften 7, pp. xiii–xvi. 39 Rosemarie Quiring-Zoche, “Der jemenitische Diplomat Qasim Abu Talib al-ʿIzzi (gest. 1380/1960) im Spiegel seiner Handschriften-Vermerke,” Manuscript Notes as Documentary Sources, ed. Andreas Görke and Konrad Hirschler, Beirut and Würzburg: Ergon, 2011, pp. 45–58. 35

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the continuity of traditional Islamic teaching in Yemen. The most recent note is a samāʿ from Muḥammad b. Yaḥyā al-Kibsī, who read the Kitāb al-Amālī with his father (?) Yaḥyā b. Muḥammad al-Kibsī in the mosque in al-Rawda in 1371/1952 (Hs. or. 10864, see fig. 9). Among the manuscripts is also a copy of Tuḥfat al-dhākirīn bi-ʿUddat al-Ḥiṣn al-ḥaṣīn (Hs. or. 10920), copied in 1279/1862 by probably the most influential figure of early nineteenthcentury Yemeni scholarship, Muḥammad b. ʿAlī al-Shawkānī (1760–1834). We find also a work by his fervent opponent Muḥammad al-Samāwī b. Ḥarīwa (d. 1241/1825). The latter’s al-Ghaṭamṭam al-zakhkhār al-muṭahhar fī radd ʿalā l-Sayl al-jarrār (copied in 1318/1900, Hs. or. 10479; see fig. 10) is a refutation of a book by al-Shawkānī that lead to Ibn Ḥarīwa’s death sentence. In view of the great influence the works of al-Shawkānī have had on reformist Islamic thinking, they are rarely found in Western collections. That al-Shawkānī’s ideas became popular especially in regions where book printing also soon enjoyed success, such as India and Egypt, could be an explanation for this.

THE QUARITCH COLLECTION Early in 2018, the Berlin State Library was able to purchase a small collection of fourteen Zaydī manuscripts from an antiquarian bookshop in London. A brief description of the characteristics and contents of the collection had already been published in 2014.40 The collection contains mostly well-known texts of Zaydī fiqh (see the chart in the appendix). Four of the manuscripts are volumes from the Kitāb al-Azhār and two are commentaries on the Baḥr al-zakhkhār. Twelve out of the fourteen manuscripts are dated. The oldest are five volumes dating back to the ninth–tenth/fifteenth–sixteenth centuries. The other nine were copied during the following centuries. As the previous owner of this small collection wished to remain anonymous, it is difficult to reconstruct its more recent provenance and its function.41 It seems that the last owner was more interested in voluminous and complete manuscripts than in the variety of their contents. The bindings of several of the codices have been repaired. One manuscript (Hs. or. 15086) contains a flyleaf made of Bayāḍ Abū Shubbāk paper that circulated in the first half of the twentieth century;41 another (Hs. or. 15078) has a flyleaf made from Reuters Daily Bulletin, dated Aden, 6 April 1940. The recent collective manuscript Hs. or. 15091, copied in 1315/1897, bears quite unusual animal-shaped notes on the margins (see fig. 11). Three manuscripts belonged to libraries in Shahara. The Majmūʿ al-Imām al-Hādī ilā lḤaqq Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn (Hs. or. 15079) was copied in 972/1564 in Huth and bears an ownership statement of the Qāsimī ruler al-Manṣūr bi-Llāh al-Qāsim b. Muḥammad (d. 1029/1620), dated 1022/1613 (fol. 176a). Since 1343/1925 this manuscript had been the property of ʿAbbās al-Wajīh in Shahara, who bought it from the library of the well-known Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl al-

40

M. al-Kaisi, “A Survey of Zaydī Fiqh and Tafsīr Manuscripts at Bernard Quaritch Ltd.,” Manuscripta Orientalia 20, no. 1 (2014), pp. 34–39. 41 The previous owner wished to make known only that he had acquired the manuscripts during the 1990s on the London antiquarian market. Information provided by Alex Day, Quaritch Ltd. London, via email communication in March 2018. 42 See Anne Regourd, “Manuscrits de la mer Rouge (première moitié du xxe siècle) : Papiers Abū Shubbāk du Yémen et d’Éthiopie,” The Trade in Papers Marked with Non-Latin Characters: Documents and History, ed. Anne Regourd, Leiden: Brill, 2018, pp. 81–140, here: pp. 91ff.

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Manṣūr (see fig. 12).43 A copy of the Ghāyāt al-afkār wa-nihāyāt al-anẓār al-muḥīṭa bi-ʿajāʾib alBaḥr al-zakhkhār (Hs. or. 15087) from 875/1470 likewise bears an ownership entry from Imām al-Manṣūr bi-Llāh al-Qāsim, as well as several entries from later times. The manuscript with the shelf mark Hs. or. 15090, a copy of the Kitāb al-Taḥrīr of al-Hārūnī, copied probably in the eighth/fourteenth century, entered the library of al-Qāsim’s son, Imam al-Muʾayyad bi-Llāh Muḥammad (d. 1054/1644), in the year 1033/1624. His daughter Dahmā inherited the book and endowed it to the grave (mashhad) of her father in Shahara in 1060/1650 (see fig. 13). Manuscripts that belonged to endowment libraries are extremely rare among the Yemeni manuscripts in Berlin. This may indicate that endowment libraries were still intact at the time of Glaser’s visit to Yemen and their property did not circulate on the local market. By contrast, manuscripts that appeared on the book market in Egypt or Syria in the middle of the nineteenth century often showed waqf stamps.44 Another observation concerns the existence of many books with ownership statements from the libraries of the Qāsimī rulers and their descendants in Yemen. In the small Quaritch collection we find three such works, but there are many more in the Glaser collection, indicating that the libraries of the Qāsimī rulers were not maintained permanently. The manuscript from the library of al-Muʾayyad Muḥammad presented here is only one example among many that demonstrates the splitting up of the libraries of the Qāsimī imams and many other family libraries through the sharing of inheritance (qisma) and sale. Reproductions of Quran manuscripts from Sanaa In 2019 the Berlin State Library was able to acquire the photographical archive from the Saarbrücken based German art historian Hans-Caspar Graf von Bothmer. Although consisting only of reproductions this collection may be of great significance for scholars working on the history of the Quran. The material contains microfilms with b/w-images of about 12,000 parchment folios of more than 900 early Quran manuscripts complemented by some thousand photographs and colour slides with close-ups. The photographs were made in the Eighties and Nineties of the 20th century by the German conservation and cataloging project in Sanaa.45 All material is currently being digitized and will soon be accessible at http://qalamos.net. The manuscripts themselves were discovered in 1972 during restauration works at the Western wall of the Great Mosque in Sanaa and are preserved in the Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt.

OTTOMAN PHYSICIANS IN YEMEN In the Berlin collection, we find many Ottoman manuscripts that are connected to Yemen and that mirror the political interest and military activities of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the nineteenth and in the early twentieth centuries. The Savq al-ʿaskar

43

On him and his library, see Sabine Schmidtke, Traditional Yemeni Scholarship amidst Political Turmoil and War: Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl b. al-Muṭahhar al-Manṣūr (1915–2016) and His Personal Library, Cordoba: UCOPress, 2018. 44 On endowment libraries and the trade in endowed books, see Boris Liebrenz, Die Rifāʿīya aus Damaskus: Eine Privatbibliothek im osmanischen Syrien und ihr kulturelles Umfeld, Leiden: Brill, 2016, pp. 124ff. 45 See Thomas Eich, "Die Wissenschaft, eine Revolution – und der Alltag: Das Jemen-Projekt an der Hamburger Orientalistik in den 1980er Jahren," 100 Jahre Universität Hamburg: Studien zur Hamburger Universitäts- und Wissenschaftsgeschichte in vier Bänden, ed. Rainer Nicolaysen, Eckart Krause, and Gunnar B. Zimmermann, vol. 2, Göttingen: Wallstein, 2021, pp. 489–508.

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al-jadīd dar ʿahd-i sulṭān majīd (Ms. or. fol. 4066) is an illustrated report of a military campaign in Yemen that was carried out in order to regain control over the Tihama in 1265/1849. Its author, Muṣṭafā Ḥāmī (d. 1295/1878), was a well-known physician, who accompanied the Ottoman troops to Yemen. The campaign started in Mecca under the command of Tevfīq Pasha. The author provides a report in the style of a diary and adds a detailed description of al-Hudayda and al-Mukha, their buildings, landscape, and vegetation and the customs and manners of their inhabitants (see figs. 14 and 15). The manuscript was acquired through Oskar Rescher (1883–1972), a German Arabist who lived in Istanbul permanently since 1928. Perhaps nobody was as familiar with the manuscript collections in Turkey as he was at this time. He constantly purchased Arabic, Ottoman, and Persian manuscripts from the book market in Istanbul for European libraries. The neglect of the written heritage after the foundation of the Turkish republic and the introduction of the Latin script created the ideal climate for European manuscript “hunters.” Muḥammad Shākir b. Ibrāhīm Qayṣarī (1851–1899) was another Ottoman physician who worked in hospitals in Istanbul before traveling widely on various official missions through the Middle East and South Asia.46 He compiled accounts of several aspects of the places he visited, including reports on their medical situation. They are autographs and were acquired in 1927. In three volumes (Ms. or. fol. 4136, I–III), dated between 1304/1887 and 1306/1889, he wrote down accounts of his visit to Yemen.47

Figure 11. Al-Dawwārī, Kitāb al-Iḍāḥ al-kāshif li-maʿānī daqāʾiq al-Miṣbāḥ, copied in 1315/1897, MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Hs. or. 15091, fols. 99b–100a.

46

For a short biography, see “Doktor Şakir Beg,” Servet-i Fünun 307 (1312/1897), pp. 325, 327–328. I am indebted to Güler Doğan Averbek, who recently discovered these manuscripts and provided me with this information. 47

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Figure 12. Majmūʿ al-Imām al-Hādī ilā l-Ḥaqq Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn, copied in 972/1564, MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Hs. or. 15079, fol. 6a.

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Figure 13. Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn al-Hārūnī al-Buṭḥānī, Kitāb al-Taḥrīr, MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Hs. or. 15090, fol. IIa.

Figure 14. Muṣṭafā Ḥāmī, Savq al-ʿaskar al-jadīd, view of al-Hudayda, MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Ms. or. fol. 4066, fol. 56a.

YEMENI MANUSCRIPTS OF DIVERSE PROVENANCE AT THE BERLIN STATE LIBRARY 407

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Figure 15. Muṣṭafā Ḥāmī, Savq al-ʿaskar al-jadīd, a coffee bench, MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Ms. or. fol. 4066, fol. 57a.

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MANUSCRIPTS FROM YEMEN IN HEBREW SCRIPT Finally, manuscripts from Yemen include also Hebrew manuscripts as well as Arabic manuscripts in Hebrew script. The majority of these came to Berlin via the Jerusalem-based art dealer and antiquarian Moses Wilhelm Shapira (ca. 1830–1884), a Russian Jew who converted to Protestantism. Today he is above all associated with the “Moabitica” forgery affair, which turned him into a tragic figure. The Prussian state purchased Moabite artifacts depicting texts referring to historical events of the ninth century BCE from him in 1873, but these soon turned out to be forgeries.48 Between 1873 and 1888, the Royal Library in Berlin acquired from Shapira and later from his widow altogether forty-six Hebrew codices, including some Karaite and Arabic manuscripts in Hebrew script. Some of them were donations. Approximately thirty volumes are of Yemeni provenance.49 However, some of the manuscripts that Shapira acquired in Yemen originated in other regions, such as the famous ninth-century Babylonian parchment Bible, one of the oldest and most interesting Hebrew manuscripts in the Berlin collection.50 Shapira traveled to southern Arabia in 1879. The catalog of manuscripts he brought back from this trip lists 126 books, only thirteen of which eventually entered the Berlin library. The catalog itself is also part of the collection. Besides the descriptions it contains an informative introduction on the current situation of Jews and their book culture in Yemen.51 Religious works dominate in the collection, including a Tora scroll on leather (Ms. or. 1209), an Arabic translation of the Tora by Seʿadyah Gaʾon (882–942) (Ms. or. fol. 1320), and a copy of the Sefer ha-mitsvot (Book of commands) of Maimonides (Ms. or. quart. 684) copied in 1531 (see fig. 16). Works of Jewish poetry from Yemen are preserved in several codices.52

48

These were clay vessels and terracottas with inscriptions in Old Canaanite, a dialect closely related to Hebrew. That they were forged was brought to light by the French Orientalist Charles Clermont-Ganneau (1847–1925). A few years later, Shapira offered the British Museum and other institutions fragments of biblical texts written on leather in pre-Christian times. Scholars regarded these, too, as forgeries and categorically rejected the offer. Totally discredited, Shapira took his own life in 1884. In view of the later Dead Sea finds (1947), which for the first time provided large-scale evidence of an Old Canaanite script and whose oldest artifacts probably go back to the third century BCE, the fragments presented by Shapira, who could not be shown to be a deliberate forger, could be seen in a different light. These fragments, however, later fell victim to a fire and have thus been irretrievably lost. See Fred N. Reiner, “C. D. Ginsburg and the Shapira Affair: A Nineteenth-Century Dead Sea Scroll Controversy,” British Museum Journal 21, no. 1 (1995), pp. 109–127. 49 Ms. or. fol. 1203–1209 and 1344–1347; Ms. or. quart. 566, 567a, 567b, 569, 572, 573, 575–579, 680–683, and 750; Ms. or. oct. 258, 338, and 398. 50 See Irina Wandrey, “TaNaKH: The Hebrew Bible,” Oriental Bible Manuscripts from the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin– PK, ed. Meliné Pehlivanian, Christoph Rauch, and Ronny Vollandt, Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2017, pp. 34–36. 51 The catalogue has the shelf mark Ms. or. fol. 1343. Paul. B. Fenton recently edited the small but very informative introductory text: “Moses Shapira’s Journey to the Yemen,” Yosef Mittuv: Yosef Tobi Jubilee Volume, vol. 2: The Jews of Yemen, ed. Ayelet Oettinger and Danny Bar-Maoz, Haifa: University of Haifa, 2011, pp. lxviii–lxxxi. 52 See Petra Werner (ed.), Kitwe Jad: Jüdische Handschriften; Restaurieren, Bewahren, Präsentieren, part 1: Jüdische Kultur im Spiegel der Berliner Sammlung, Berlin: Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, 2002, pp. 106–107 and passim for other Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic manuscripts from Yemen.

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Figure 16 (left). Moses Maimonides, Sefer ha-mitsṿot, MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Ms. or. quart. 684, fols. 8b–9a.

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Figure 16 (right). Moses Maimonides, Sefer ha-mitsṿot, MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Ms. or. quart. 684, fols. 8b–9a.

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The geographer and Yemen explorer Carl August Rathjens (1887–1966) sold in 1928 a similarly considerable set of twenty-two Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic manuscripts from Yemen to the library.53 The mobility of manuscripts is well illustrated by a note found in an anthology of Yemeni poetry, which states that a certain Meir Rabbinowitz bought the manuscript in Africa from a Yemeni traveler before gifting it to a Dr. Isaacs in Manchester in 1871 (Ms. or. oct. 395; see figs. 17 and 18). The Royal Library finally purchased the manuscript in 1884 from a book dealer in Frankfurt am Main. In 1888, Eduard Glaser also offered the manuscripts he had bought on his third journey to Yemen to the Royal Library in Berlin. Wilhelm Ahlwardt, who was asked by the Ministry of Culture for an expert evaluation, responded with reserve and did not recommend the acquisition of the collection as a whole.54 As shown at various points in this essay, this was not the last opportunity to enlarge the collection of Yemeni manuscripts at the Berlin State Library. The more than four hundred manuscripts from Yemen that are today preserved in Berlin reflect well the broad variety of manuscript traditions in southern Arabia as well as the manifold interests of researchers in studying them.

53

Ms. or. oct. 3310–3326 and Ms. or. fol. 4206–4210. See Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Handschriftenabteilung, Acta IIIC51, pp. 110ff. The collection was finally purchased by the British Museum. 54

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Figure 17. Anthology of Lyrics, Flyleaf with provenance information, MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Ms. or. oct. 395 (left). Figure 18. Beginning of a poem by the Yemeni poet Shalom Shabasī (seventeenth century), MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Ms. or. oct. 395, fol. 33b. All illustrations: © Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin–PK, Fotostelle (right).

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APPENDIX Chart 1: The Quaritch collection: Shelf mark Hs. or. 15078

Hs. or. 15079

Hs. or. 15080

Author ʿAbd Allāh b. Zayd b. Aḥmad al-ʿAnsī Yaḥyā b. alḤusayn al-Hādī ilā l-Ḥaqq ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. Abī l-Qāsim

Title

Folios, date, copyist

Kitāb al-Irshād ilā najāh alʿibāda

247 fols., copied 1232/1817 by ʿAlī b. Ismāʿīl b. Muḥammad al-Munqadhī 338 fols., copied 972/1564 in Huth by ʿAlī b. Aḥmad b. Ḥumayd al-Raṣṣāṣ 219 fols., copied 876/1471

Majmūʿ al-Imām al-Hādī ilā l-Ḥaqq Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn Tajrīd al-Kashshāf maʿa ziyādāt nukat liṭāf

Hs. or. 15081

ʿAbd Allāh b. Abī l-Qāsim b. Miftāḥ

Sharḥ al-Azhār al-muntazaʿ al-mukhtār min al-Ghayth al-midrār

319 fols., copied 1104/1692 by Ṣāliḥ b. Qāsim b. Fatḥ Allāh

Hs. or. 15082

ʿAbd Allāh b. Abī l-Qāsim b. Miftāḥ

Sharḥ al-Azhār al-muntazaʿ al-mukhtār min al-Ghayth al-midrār

Hs. or. 15083

ʿAbd Allāh b. Abī l-Qāsim b. Miftāḥ

Hs. or. 15084

ʿAbd Allāh b. Abī l-Qāsim b. Miftāḥ

Sharḥ al-Azhār al-muntazaʿ al-mukhtār min al-Ghayth al-midrār Sharḥ al-Azhār al-muntazaʿ al-mukhtār min al-Ghayth al-midrār

379 fols., copied 1065/1654 for ʿAlī b. al-Qāḍī Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn al-ʿAnsī 325 fols., copied 1310/1892

Hs. or. 15085

Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā b. al-Murtaḍā

al-Baḥr al-zakhkhār aljāmiʿ li-madhāhib ʿulamāʾ al-amṣār

299 fols., copied 1075/1664 in Ṣaʿda for Nūr al-Dīn ʿAlī b. Muḥammad al-Muntaṣir

Hs. or. 15086

Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā b. al-Murtaḍā

al-Baḥr al-zakhkhār al-jāmiʿ li-madhāhib ʿulamāʾ alamṣār (juzʾ 3)

241 fols., copied ca. ninth/fifteenth century

Hs. or. 15087

Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā b. al-Murtaḍā

Hs. or. 15088

al-Mutawakkil ʿalā Llāh Sharaf al-Dīn Yaḥyā

Kitāb Ghāyāt al-afkār wanihāyāt al-anẓār al-muḥīṭa bi-ʿajāʾib al-Baḥr alzakhkhār (juzʾ 2) Kitāb al-Athmār

315 fols., copied 875/1470, from the library of Imam al-Manṣūr bi-Llāh al-Qāsim b. Muḥammad (fol. 1a) 273 fols., copied ca. eleventh/seventeenth century

Hs. or. 15089

Yūsuf b. Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. ʿUthmān

al-Thamarāt al-yāniʿa wa-laḥkām al-wāḍiḥa al-qāṭiʿa al-muqtaṭafa min āyāt altanzīl

207 fols., copied 1079/1668 by ʿAlī b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad b. Ṣalāḥ alSharafī al-Qāsimī

398 fols., copied 1197/1783 by ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Yaḥyā b. Ṣāliḥ b. Yaḥyā al-Suḥūlī

YEMENI MANUSCRIPTS OF DIVERSE PROVENANCE AT THE BERLIN STATE LIBRARY Hs. or. 15090

Hs. or. 15091

Yaḥyā b. alḤusayn al-Hārūnī al-Buṭḥānī alImām al-Nāṭiq bil-Ḥaqq Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā al-Dawwārī

415

Kitāb al-Taḥrīr

200 fols., copied ca. 700/1300

fols. 1–133: Kitāb al-Iḍāḥ al-kāshif li-maʿānī daqāʾiq al-Miṣbāḥ; on the following folios some excerpts; on fols. 136a–139b an excerpt from Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm al-Wazīr, al-ʿAwāṣim wa-l-qawāṣim fī l-dhabb ʿan sunnat Abī l-Qāsim; on fols. 145a–152a Yaḥyā b. Ḥusayn b. al-Qāsim al-Hādī ilā l-Ḥaqq, Kitāb al-Bāligh

157 fols., copied 1315/1897 by Muḥammad b. Yaḥyā b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Madūmī

EDUARD GLASER’S PERSONAL NACHLASS IN ARCHIVES OF THE CZECH REPUBLIC JAN THIELE This chapter attempts to provide a preliminary sketch of the portions of Eduard Glaser’s personal Nachlass that are preserved in archives in the Czech Republic.1 Glaser’s Nachlass is scattered across archives and libraries in Europe and the United States. In 1911, the Kaiserliche Akademie der Wissenschaften in Vienna (since 1918 known as the Austrian Academy of Sciences) acquired the “Sammlung Eduard Glaser,” which contains, in addition to almost 1,000 squeezes of inscriptions, seventeen volumes of Glaser’s diaries (“Tagebücher”), written in his largely undecipherable shorthand. They were transcribed by Adolf Grohmann (1887–1977) and later systematically examined by Walter Dostal (1928–2011).2 Another significant portion of Glaser’s Nachlass, including his personal library of about 450 books, some correspondence, offprints of some of his publications, and three Judeo-Arabic manuscripts, was sold to the Dropsie College of Hebrew and Cognate Learning in Philadelphia (nowadays the Hebert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania). Yet the by far largest part of Glaser’s correspondence—letters and postcards in German, French, English, Italian, and Arabic—as well as personal documents, scholarly notes, drafts, and photographs from his travels is held in various archives in the Czech Republic, including the State District Archives in Louny, the Regional Museum of K. A. Polanek in Žatec, and the Náprstek Museum in Prague. These materials have not been consulted by any previous scholar of Glaser, and most of them remain either only rudimentarily inventoried or completely uncataloged. A great many of the items from Glaser’s personal Nachlass in the Czech archives consist of correspondence. These documents are an essential source for reconstructing Eduard Glaser’s personal and scholarly network.3 Judging from the evidence of the three 1

Sabine Schmidtke and I are currently working on a biography of Eduard Glaser. Dostal embarked on a critical edition and analysis of Glaser’s ethnographical as well as cultural and social anthropological materials (Walter Dostal, Eduard Glaser: Forschungen im Jemen; Eine quellenkritische Untersuchung in ethnologischer Sicht, Vienna: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1990; Walter Dostal, Ethnographica Jemenica: Auszüge aus den Tagebüchern Eduard Glasers mit einem Kommentar versehen, Vienna: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1993). 3 The correspondence will be edited by Valentina Sagaria Rossi, Sabine Schmidtke, and myself. 2

417

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Czech collections, Glaser maintained some of his most prolific letter exchanges with the personalities listed below with the relevant correspondence. Wilhelm Ahlwardt (1828–1909), professor of Oriental languages at Greifswald University; he cataloged the collection of Arabic manuscripts at the Königliche Bibliothek zu Berlin and also advised the library about the purchase of Glaser’s collection of Yemeni manuscripts: -

Regional Museum of K. A. Polanek, Žatec, Av 11/2-140 (one letter dated 1895) State District Archives, Louny, č 232/17 (four letters dated between 1888 and 1899) Náprstek Museum, Prague, ar Glaser 2/86 (1) to ar Glaser 2/86 (9), ar Glaser 2/86 (13) to ar Glaser 2/86 (20) (seventeen documents dated between 1886 and 1899)

Giuseppe Caprotti (1862–1919), Lombardian merchant who lived in Sanaa between 1885 and 1919 and built up an extensive collection of Arabic manuscripts that he later sold to the Münchner Hofbibliothek and the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan: -

-

Regional Museum of K. A. Polanek, Žatec, Av 11/1-39 to Av 11/1-57, Av 11/1-61 to Av 11/1-77, Av 11/2-160, Av 11/2-166 (thirty-eight documents dated between 1885 and 1907) State District Archives, Louny, č 232/13 (seven letters dated between 1891 and 1896) Náprstek Museum, Prague, ar Glaser 2/92 (9), ar Glaser 2/93 (47) (two documents dated 1897 and 1905)

Hartwig Derenbourg (1844–1908), professor at École Spéciale des Langues Orientales (today Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales [INALCO]) and later at École Pratique des Hautes Études: -

Regional Museum of K. A. Polanek, Žatec, Av 11/1-96 to Av 11/1-154 (sixty documents dated between 1881 and 1899) State District Archives, Louny, č 232/16 (three letters dated 1887) Náprstek Museum, Prague, ar Glaser 3/19 (34) (one document dated 1906)

Eugenio Griffini (1878–1925), one of the earliest European scholars of Zaydism, who also produced the first catalogs of significant portions of the Caprotti collection of Yemeni manuscripts in Milan; in 1922, he was appointed extraordinary professor of Arabic and Islamic civilization at Istituto di studi superiori, Florence (today the University of Florence) and later moved to Egypt to work as librarian for King Fuʾād I (r. 1917–1936): -

Regional Museum of K. A. Polanek, Žatec, Av 11/1-210 to Av 11/1-214, Av 11/3-19, Av 11/3-335, Av 11/3-336 (eight documents dated between 1896 and 1907) Náprstek Museum, Prague, ar Glaser 2/89 (1), ar Glaser 2/89 (2), ar Glaser 2/93 (44) to ar Glaser 2/93 (46), ar Glaser 3/25 (six documents dated between 1898 and 1906)

Max Grünert (1849–1929), professor of Semitic languages at Karls-Universität Prague and, after its split into a Czech and a German university in 1882, at the German Karl-FerdinandsUniversität; he advised the Austrian National Library in Vienna on the purchase of the Yemeni manuscripts collected by Glaser during his fourth journey to Yemen: -

Regional Museum of K. A. Polanek, Žatec, Av 11/1-195 to Av 11/1-197, Av 11/1-199 to Av 11/1-201, Av 11/1-204 to Av 11/1-206, Av 11/1-215 to Av 11/1-218 (fifteen documents dated between 1886 and 1895)

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Náprstek Museum, Prague, ar Glaser 2/92 (3), ar Glaser 2/92 (4), ar Glaser 3/19 (2), ar Glaser 3/22, ar Glaser 3/23 (five letters dated between 1887 and 1906)

Fritz Hommel (1854–1936), professor of Semitic languages at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich: -

Regional Museum of K. A. Polanek, Žatec, Av 11/1-219 to Av 11/1-246 (twentyeight documents dated between 1887 and 1899) Náprstek Museum, Prague, ar Glaser 2/92 (8) (one letter dated 1899)

Theodor Nöldeke (1836–1930), Orientalist and professor at the University of Kiel from 1864 and at the University of Strasbourg from 1872: -

Regional Museum of K. A. Polanek, Žatec, Av 11/1-346 to Av 11/1-348 (three letters dated between 1884 and 1886) Náprstek Museum, Prague, ar Glaser 3/26 (one letter dated 1906)

Franz Praetorius (1847–1927), professor of Semitic literature at the German University of Breslau (today University of Wrocław): -

Regional Museum of K. A. Polanek, Žatec, Av 11/1-358 to Av 11/1-360, Av 11/1-363, Av 11/1-369 to Av 11/1-371 (seven letters and postcards dated between 1886 and 1887) State District Archives, Louny, č 232/14 (two letters dated 1885 and 1895)

One al-ḥājj Aḥmad Saʿd Maʿqūl from Sanaa: -

-

Regional Museum of K. A. Polanek, Žatec, Av 11/3-153, Av 11/3-155, Av 11/3-157, Av 11/3-160 to Av 11/3-162, Av 11/3-165, Av 11/3-167, Av 11/3-170 to Av 11/3-178, Av 11/3-180 to Av 11/3-182, Av 11/3-184, Av 11/3-191 to Av 11/3-193, Av 11/3-195, Av 11/3-196, Av 11/3-198, Av 11/3-200, Av 11/3-201, Av 11/3-261, Av 11/3-275, Av 11/3-298, Av 11/3-306, Av 11/3-315, Av 11/3-323, Av 11/3-324, Av 11/3-326, Av 11/3-329, Av 11/3-330, Av 11/3-333, Av 11/3-334, Av 11/3-342, Av 11/3-350, Av 11/3-453 (twenty-nine letters dated between 1888 and 1898) Náprstek Museum, Prague, ar Glaser 2/92 (5), ar Glaser 2/93 (1), ar Glaser 2/93 (6) to ar Glaser 2/93 (8), ar Glaser 2/93 (10), ar Glaser 2/93 (12) to ar Glaser 2/93 (14), ar Glaser 2/93 (16), ar Glaser 2/93 (17), ar Glaser 2/93 (20) to ar Glaser 2/93 (22), letter without shelfmark, ar Glaser 2/93 (26), letter without shelfmark, ar Glaser 2/93 (29), ar Glaser 2/93 (30), ar Glaser 2/93 (33), ar Glaser 2/93 (35), letter without shelfmark, ar Glaser 2/93 (41), ar Glaser 2/96 (2), ar Glaser 2/96 (3), ar Glaser 2/96 (5), ar Glaser 2/96 (8) to ar Glaser 2/96 (11), ar Glaser 2/96 (14), ar Glaser 2/96 (18), ar Glaser 2/96 (21), ar Glaser 2/96 (23), ar Glaser 2/96 (29), ar Glaser 2/96 (31), letter without shelfmark, ar Glaser 2/96 (48) (thirty-eight letters dated between 1894 and 1900)

In addition, it is worth mentioning among the correspondence a message addressed to Eduard Glaser in Arabic, in which Carlo Landberg makes an appointment for lunch at the Ratskeller in Munich (Av 11/3-219), and a letter in which Ignaz Goldziher acknowledges his receipt of a copy of Glaser’s Altjemenische Nachrichten (ar Glaser 3/19 (3)). However, there is no evidence of regular exchanges of letters between either of these two and Eduard Glaser.4

4

The collection of Goldziher’s correspondence at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences also does not contain any letters by Glaser; I owe this information to Sabine Schmidtke.

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Beyond the correspondence, which makes up the bulk of the Czech collections, it is worth highlighting some additional items that are particularly relevant to Eduard Glaser’s collection of Yemeni Arabic manuscripts and his own scholarship in Yemeni Islamicate studies. Part of his correspondence with Wilhelm Ahlwardt was written during the negotiations with the Königliche Bibliothek zu Berlin, to which Glaser sold the manuscripts he collected during his first and second journeys to Yemen (fig. 1). In addition, the Žatec collection contains letters by the library’s deputy chief librarian (“königlicher Ober-Bibliothekar in Vertretung”) Dr. Rosen and the chief librarian (“königlicher Ober-Bibliothekar”) and general director (“Generaldirektor”) August Wilmanns (1833–1917), dated 1884, 1886– 1887, 1889, 1894 and 1897 (Av 11/2-60 to Av 11/2-61, Av 11/2-63 to Av 11/2-67, Av 11/2-69 to Av 11/2-70, Av 11/2-75, Av 11/2-79. Before selling these manuscripts to Berlin, Glaser had made an attempt to catalog the material. The Žatec collection contains a sheet of paper (Av 11/4-88) with Glaser’s notes on Revue d’assyrologie et d’archéologie orientale 1884–1885, pp. 58ff. on the recto5 and a thematic classification of his Yemeni manuscripts on the verso (fig. 2).6 Furthermore, the museum in Žatec preserves Glaser’s handwritten catalog of the manuscripts he sold to Berlin (Av 11/6-383, “Katalog meiner südarabischen Handschriften,” 16 pp.; fig. 3). Regarding Glaser’s third collection of Yemeni manuscripts, which was later sold to the British Museum, the Prague collection contains a letter by Charles Rieu, dated 5 July 1889, confirming safe receipt of the manuscripts (ar Glaser 2/92 (5); fig. 4). The British Museum had commissioned Rieu to assess the collection’s value, and four days later, on 9 July 1889, he submitted a positive report to the museum’s trustees, recommending the purchase of the manuscripts.7 The Žatec collection contains a letter from the British Museum’s Principal Librarian, dated 5 August 1889, confirming that the payment of £1,350— the price of the collection—had been authorized by the British Museum’s PaymasterGeneral (Av 11/3-100). Regarding Glaser’s fourth collection of Yemeni manuscripts, the Žatec Nachlass contains a letter to officially confirm that the Imperial and Royal ministry of culture and education received the “scientific collection”. The completeness of the collection was examined by Fritz Hommel and Max Grünert, and the latter also signed the letter (fig. 5).

5

Glaser’s notes refer to Joseph Derenbourg and Hartwig Derenbourg, “Nouvelles études sur l’épigraphie du Yémen: Les monuments sabéens et ḥimyarites de Paris. I. Le Louvre,” Revue d’assyriologie et d’archéologie orientale 1/2 (1884–1885), pp. 30-65. 6 This classification is similar to but not identical with that in Wilhelm Ahlwardt, Kurzes Verzeichniss der Glaser’schen Sammlung arabischer Handschriften, Berlin: Unger, 1887, pp. ix–x. 7 “Department of Printed Books: Keepers’ Internal Correspondence: Minutes and Reports, 1889, Section I, 13 July 1889,” London, British Library, DH 2/42.

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Figure 1. Letter from Ahlwardt to Glaser regarding the third collection of Yemeni manuscripts offered for sale to the Königliche Bibliothek. The negotiations with Berlin were fruitless and the manuscripts were later purchased by the British Museum; State District Archives, Louny, č 232/17.

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Figure 2. Thematic classification of Glaser’s Yemeni manuscripts (first and second collections); Regional Museum of K. A. Polanek, Žatec, Av 11/4-88.

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Figure 3. Glaser’s handwritten catalog of Yemeni manuscripts (first and second collections); Regional Museum of K. A. Polanek, Žatec, Av 11/6-383.

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Figure 4. Letter from Rieu to Glaser confirming safe receipt of his collection of Yemeni manuscripts; Náprstek Museum, Prague, ar Glaser 2/92 (5).

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Figure 5. Letter from Grünert to Glaser confirming safe receipt of his “scientific collection”; Regional Museum of K. A. Polanek, Žatec, Av 11/1–205.

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Figure 6. Handwritten inventory of the Ambrosiana subcollection A of Yemeni manuscripts; Regional Museum of K. A. Polanek, Žatec, Av 11/3-16.

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Figure 7. Handwritten inventory of the Ambrosiana subcollection B of Yemeni manuscripts; Regional Museum of K. A. Polanek, Žatec, Av 11/3-2.

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Figure 8a. Griffini reports in a postcard to Glaser about his work on the Ambrosiana subcollections C and D; Regional Museum of K. A. Polanek, Žatec, Av 11/1–211.

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Figure 8b. Griffini reports in a postcard to Glaser about his work on the Ambrosiana subcollections C and D; Regional Museum of K. A. Polanek, Žatec, Av 11/1–211.

Figure 9. Telegram from Caprotti to Glaser, inquiring about receipt of “the catalogs”; Regional Museum of K. A. Polanek, Žatec, Av 11/2-160.

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Figure 10. Glaser’s notes and excerpts from Ṭurfat al-aṣḥāb fī maʿrifat al-anṣāb by al-Malik al-Ashraf; Regional Museum of K. A. Polanek, Žatec, Av 11/4-351.

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Figure 11. Glaser’s translation of and commentary on al-Hamdānī’s (d. 336/947) Jazīrat al-ʿArab; Náprstek Museum, Prague, ar Glaser 3/1.

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Figure 12. Glaser’s unpublished essay on the Ismāʿīlī sect in Yemen; Regional Museum of K. A. Polanek, Žatec, Av 11/6-388.

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Figure 13. List of items from Glaser’s Nachlass sent to the “Königliche Bibliothek”; Regional Museum of K. A. Polanek, Žatec, Av 11/3-128.

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The Žatec Nachlass also contains items related to the Yemeni manuscripts that were acquired by the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan. These manuscripts were collected not by Glaser but rather by Giuseppe Caprotti. The museum in Žatec possesses handwritten inventories of subcollections A and B of these manuscripts, with Caprotti’s seal and handed over by Eugenio Griffini on 24 October 1906 (Av 11/3-2 and Av 11/3-16; figs. 6 and 7).8 Griffini later published a catalog of the manuscripts of the Milan collection in Rivista degli Studi Orientali.9 In a telegram, also preserved in Žatec (Av 11/2-160; fig. 9) and dated 8 April 1906, Caprotti inquires whether Glaser has received “the catalogs” (“ecrivez si recu catalogues caprotti”); this message may refer to the handwritten inventories.9a Finally, the Czech collections also preserve unpublished studies by Glaser on Yemeni Islamicate topics, some of them testifying to his own engagement with his manuscript collection. Žatec, Av 11/4-351 contains Glaser’s notes and excerpts from Ṭurfat al-aṣḥāb fī maʿrifat al-anṣāb by al-Malik al-Ashraf ʿUmar b. Yūsuf al-Ghassānī (d. 696/1296), taken from the copy contained in MS Glaser 22 that was later sold to Berlin (fig. 10); Prague, Náprstek Museum contains an unpublished manuscript of Glaser’s translation of and commentary on al-Hamdānī’s (d. 336/947) Jazīrat al-ʿArab (“Übersetzung und Commentar des Djezîrat al ’Aráb des Hamdânî,” in shorthand, written 1883 in Sanaa; ar Glaser 3/1; fig. 11);10 and Žatec, Av 11/6-388 contains an unpublished essay on the Ismāʿīlī sect (entitled “Die Secte der Batini oder Ismailia (Nedjran und Nejd),” 15 pp.; fig. 12) written by Glaser in Sanaa on 19 June 1883.11 The following survey of the three Nachlass collections attempts to provide a rough idea of the scope and quantity of the unexplored material preserved in the Czech collections.

STATE DISTRICT ARCHIVES, LOUNY The Eduard Glaser collection at the State District Archives of Louny consists of one box (shelfmark č 232) containing fifty-six folders. A handlist of the box’s contents was compiled

8

In a postcard to Glaser, dated 6 September 1906, Griffini reports about his work on subcollections C and D (fig. 8). Eugenio Griffini, “I manoscritti sudarabici di Milano: Catalogo della primera collezione (125 codici, 351 numeri),” Rivista degli Studi Orientali 2 (1908–1909), pp. 1–38, 133–166; 3 (1910), pp. 65–104; Eugenio Griffini, “Lista dei manoscritti arabi nuovo fondo della Biblioteca Ambrosiana di Milano,” Rivista degli Studi Orientali 3 (1910–1911), pp. 253–278, 571–594, 901–921; 4 (1911–1912), pp. 87–106, 1021–1048; 6 (1914–1915), pp. 1283–1316; 7 (1916– 1918), pp. 51–130, 565–628; 8 (1919–1920), pp. 241–367. These articles were later collected in Eugenio Griffini, Catalogo dei manoscritti arabi di Nuovo Fondo della Biblioteca Ambrosiana di Milano, Rome: Casa editrice italiana, 1910–1919. 9a For the Caprotti collection in Milan and Griffini’s catalogs, see Valentina Sagaria Rossi and Sabine Schmidtke, “The Beginnings of Zaydi Studies in Europe: The Eugenio Griffini Archive, Milan,” Shii Studies Review 6 (1922) [in press]. 10 Al-Hamdānī’s work was published one year later by David Heinrich Müller (1846–1912), whose classes Eduard Glaser had attended at University of Vienna; David Heinrich Müller (ed.), Al-Hamdânî’s Geographie der arabischen Halbinsel nach den Handschriften von Berlin, Constantinopel, London, Paris und Straßburg, 2 vols., Leiden: Brill, 1884–1891. 11 P. 16 contains the following note: “Diese Aufzeichnungen des Forschungsreisenden Herrn Dr. Eduard Glaser in Sana /:Südarabien:/ wurden mir im Monathe Juli 1883 durch Herrn Dr. Sigmund [sic] Glaser aus Prag Bruder des vorigen zur Kenntnisnahme gesendet. Drohowyže 12/3 1884 […] Logothetti […]” 9

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by Bohumír Roedl in 1989 (in Czech) and can be consulted on site. This handlist also includes a brief history of the acquisition and inventorying of the Nachlass, on which the following summary is based.12 The precise date on which the State District Archives of Louny acquired the Glaser Nachlass is unknown, since it is not mentioned in the archive’s acquisition records. However, it is highly probable that the collection was incorporated into the former district archive in Žatec at the time of the latter’s establishment in 1954. Eventually, the documents were transferred to the State District Archives in Louny after the state administration was restructured in 1960. The collection remained unchanged until 1988, when Roedl started to inventory and rearrange it. Because of their importance, it was decided that the documents would not be shredded. The collection is divided into two major parts. The first includes items related to Eduard Glaser himself, whereas the second pertains to Eduard Glaser’s relatives. Folders 1– 11 contain letters written by Eduard Glaser in German and addressed to his family in Žatec (each folder covering a specific year). They were sent between the years 1890 and 1904 mainly from Munich, where Glaser lived, but also from Sanaa, Aden, and al-Ḥudayda in Yemen as well as from Berlin and Vienna during the years 1893 and 1894. Folder 12 contains letters by Glaser to various addressees in French, German, and his own shorthand, written between 1881–1907 from Tunis, Istanbul, Prague, Berlin, Žatec, Munich, Sanaa, and Vienna. Folders 13–29 contain letters addressed to Eduard Glaser between 1880 and 1899. Folders 13–24 group letters by their senders. Folder 25 concerns a dispute with Max Nordau, folder 26 contains acknowledgments of receipt of Glaser’s book Südarabische Streitfragen, and folders 27–29 preserve miscellaneous correspondence from various senders. Folders 30–32 contain notes and drafts by Glaser, including a draft of a lecture given in Munich on 30 September 1890 as well as critical notes against the Orientalist A. Sprenger (dated 1891). Folders 33–35 contain official documents: a high school certificate, bills for the transportation of goods, and documents related to Glaser’s estate in Saaz/Žatec. Folder 36 contains documents in non-Latin scripts, including correspondence in Arabic, papers with copies of three Ancient South Arabian texts (two short and one long), and a newspaper cutting from Tercüman-ı Hakikat (3 March 1907). Folders 37–43 contain newspaper cuttings of articles by or about Eduard Glaser. The second part of the collection consists of documents that belonged to Eduard Glaser’s relatives. Their relevance for understanding Glaser’s role as a scholar and collector of Yemeni manuscripts is limited. Folder 48 contains correspondence with the antiquarian Gustav Fock of Leipzig regarding the sale of Eduard Glaser’s library.13 Unfortunately, however, there is no inventory of the books offered for sale.

12

Bohumír Roedl, “Okresní archiv v Lounech fond č. 232 pozůstalost Eduarda Glasera 1872–1931,” unpublished typescript, 1989. 13 Buchhandlung Gustav Fock also offered Hermann Burchardt’s collection of manuscripts for sale; the antiquarian bookshop was Aryanized by the German Nazi regime around 1937. For further details, see Christoph Rauch’s contribution to this volume.

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REGIONAL MUSEUM OF K. A. POLANEK, ŽATEC The by far largest portion of Glaser’s personal Nachlass is preserved today at the Regional Museum of K. A. Polanek in Glaser’s hometown, Žatec. A rough overview of the material is found in the archive’s register, which describes in very general terms the contents of the twenty-one boxes that constitute the collection. However, the material has not been inventoried in a comprehensive fashion, nor is its arrangement completely systematic. Box 1 (č 1 Av 11/1) contains correspondence addressed to Eduard Glaser between 1880 and 1907, comprising 485 items. The documents are arranged in alphabetical order according to the surnames of their senders, and the contents of the box are subdivided into seven folders: folder 1 covers the letters B and C; folder 2 the letter D; folder 3 the letters E, F, G, and H; folder 4 the letters J, K, and L; folder 5 the letters M, N, O, and P; folder 6 the letters R, S, and T; and folder 7 the letters V and W. The arrangement of box 2 (č 2 Av 11/2) is less systematic. It contains 487 items dated between 1879 and 1907, mostly consisting of correspondence, with only very few exceptions. The material is subdivided into six folders. Folders 1, 2a, 2b, and 3 contain correspondence addressed to Eduard Glaser (with the exception of Av 11/2-206, which was written by Glaser, as well as some letters addressed to Eduard Glaser’s brother Siegmund), arranged roughly in alphabetical order with a few inconsistencies. Folders 4 and 5 contain letters, postcards, telegrams, and envelopes sent by Eduard Glaser to his family from such places as Vienna, Kairouan, Port Said, Sanaa, ʿAmrān, Istanbul (“Constantinople”), Prague, Trieste, Berlin, Carlsbad, and Munich. In addition, these folders also include some (draft?) letters to other people.14 Apart from correspondence, folder 4 contains a draft by Eduard Glaser entitled “Eine wissenschaftliche Expedition nach Südarabien: zur Klarstellung” (Av 11/2-406a) and folder 5 two development plans for the family’s estate in Saaz/Žatec. Box 3 (č 3 Av 11/3) contains primarily material in non-Latin scripts, with a few exceptions.15 The largest part of this material is correspondence—letters, postcards, telegrams, short messages, and envelopes—in Arabic, including some written by non-Arabs such as Eugenio Griffini and Carlo Landberg. The box also contains Griffini’s abovementioned handwritten catalog of sections A and B of the Caprotti collection of Yemeni manuscripts, as well as one document of four pages in Ethiopian script (Av 11/3-5),16 a document in

14

Av 11/2-201 is a request for support of Glaser’s research made to the Austrian monarch (written in ʿAmrān, Yemen, on 12 December 1883), and Av 11/2-290 (dated 21 July 1905) is addressed to A. J. Hommel; the addressees of the other letters are not clearly identifiable since the letters are addressed to “Geehrter Herr” (Av 11/2-202), “durchlauchigster Fürst” (Av 11/2-275), “Herr Geheimer Legationsrath” (Av 11/2-277 and Av 11/2-278), and “Herr Geheimrat und Sectionschef” (Av 11/2-403). 15 The exceptions include a copy of the “Statuten der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft” and the abovementioned confirmation of the approved payment of £1,350 by the British Museum. The box also contains a list of items, dated 27 July 1908 (that is, after Glaser’s death), that were sent to the “Königliche Bibliothek” (Av 11/3128; fig. 13)—this refers probably to the Hofbibliothek in Munich. The list contains material that was later acquired by the Imperial Academy in Vienna, such as inscriptions, squeezes, and several volumes of Glaser’s diary. 16 The text appears to be from a treatise on statutes concerning gwelt—a type of landownership that existed in Ethiopia-Eritrea; it is either a fragment of a book of canon law or a local constitution concerning gwelt and how it is to be arranged. I am grateful to Aaron Butts and Denis Nosnitsin for their help with this manuscript.

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Judeo-Arabic with a copy of an Ancient South Arabian text, dated 1308/1890 (Av 11/3-260), and a list in Hebrew script (Av 11/3-280). Boxes 4 (č 4 Av 11/4; 437 items), 5 (č 5 Av 11/5; 38 items), 6 (č 6 Av 11/6; 392 items) and 7 (č 7 Av 11/7; 75 items) contain handwritten drafts and notes, most of them for studies that were later published; for some unpublished manuscripts related to Glaser’s collection of Arabic manuscripts and to Yemeni studies, see above. Box 8 (č 8 Av 11/8; 167 items) contains newspaper cuttings. Boxes 9 (č 9 Av 11/9; 42 items), 10 (č 10 Av 11/10; 10 items), 11 (č 11 Av 11/11; 40 items), 12 (č 12 Av 11/12; 50 items), 13 (č 13 Av 11/13; 28 items), 14 (č 14 Av 11/14; 22 items), 15 (č 15 Av 11/15; 49 items), 16 (č 16 Av 11/16; 6 items), 17 (č 17 Av 11/17; 41 items), 18 (č 18 Av 11/18; 40 items), 19 (č 19 Av 11/19; 22 items), 20 (č 20 Av 11/20; 27 items), and 21 (č 21 Av 11/21; 37 items) contain books from Glaser’s library, including Arabic literature (boxes 10–13, 15–19).

NÁPRSTEK MUSEUM, PRAGUE The collection at Náprstek Museum in Prague consists of three boxes. Two of these have been in the museum’s possession since the first half of the twentieth century, whereas the third was acquired in 2005 for Kč 45,000.17 Box 1 of the collection contains offprints, a copy of Eduard Glasers Reise nach Marib,18 and a sketch of Glaser’s biography by his brother Alois Glaser (ar Glaser 1/5). Box 2 contains photographs taken by Glaser during his travels to Yemen, showing people (Yemenis and Ottoman officials), horses, buildings, and an archeological excavation; one squeeze of a South Arabian inscription (ar Glaser 2/57); correspondence, including envelopes, letters, and postcards both addressed to Glaser and written by him (since the latter were not sent, they are likely duplicates or drafts); correspondence and notes in Arabic; and a document in Judeo-Arabic (ar Glaser 2/93 (32a)). Box 3 contains newspaper cuttings; correspondence, including letters and postcards addressed to Glaser, as well as letters written by Glaser during his travels to his brothers; offprints; business cards with notes; and documents related to the distribution of Glaser’s Altjemenische Nachrichten, including an exchange agreement with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, acknowledgments of receipt of copies by libraries and individuals, receipts, Glaser’s overview of invoices for dispatching Altjemenische Nachrichten, and filled order forms. Finally, this box contains Glaser’s abovementioned unpublished manuscript of a translation of and commentary on al-Hamdānī’s Jazīrat al-ʿArab.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This work was conducted under the aegis of the Ramón y Cajal grant RYC-2015-18346, funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and FSE “El FSE invierte en tu futuro.” My visit to Louny and Žatec in September 2016 was funded by the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ. I am greatly indebted to Dr. Josef Ženka, who generously provided me with digital images of the items contained in the Glaser Nachlass held at Náprstek Museum, Prague. I wish to thank Jan Mareš, director of the State District Archives, Louny, and Dr. Milada 17 18

Ar Glaser 3/1-74 contains the purchase agreement for and a handlist of the items contained in the box acquired in 2005. Edited by David Heinrich von Müller and Nikolaus Rhodokanakis, Wien: Alfred Hölder, 1913.

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Krausova at the Regional Museum of K. A. Polanek, Žatec, for their help while consulting the collections in Louny and Žatec. I am also most grateful to Sabine Schmidtke and Valentina Sagaria Rossi for providing helpful feedback on an earlier draft of this chapter.

OPENING YEMEN UP TO ITALY COFFEE, TEXTILES, AND ARABIC MANUSCRIPTS VALENTINA SAGARIA ROSSI ITALIAN TRAVELERS, TRADESMEN, AND PHYSICIANS IN YEMEN, MID-NINETEENTH TO TWENTIETH CENTURIES The history of Italian collections of Arab-Yemeni manuscripts is basically a story of sales and purchases, negotiations and agreements, and a bustle of adventurous journeys back and forth to Yemen, whose backdrop was Italy’s hunt for a strategic position in Eritrea and in Yemen. A closer examination of the circumstances in which manuscripts were brought to Italy as merchandise reveals important aspects of the history of the reception of Arabic texts; by concentrating on the last stage of their journey, one can gain information on the multifaceted and changing relationship between Europe, on the one hand, and the Middle East and North Africa, on the other. Italians first showed an interest in the Red Sea and strong aspirations in southwestern Arabia long before the First World War. As early as 1865, Giuseppe Sapeto, a former missionary who knew the Red Sea well, wrote in L’Italia e il canale di Suez (Genoa: Pellas, 1865) that the opening of the Suez Canal would benefit Italy more than any other colonial power and urged his government to establish a naval station south of the Red Sea. In 1869 Assab Bay was purchased for the Rubattino Shipping Company, the architect of the development of the Italian merchant navy, and in 1885 the towns of Assab and Massaua were occupied by Italian troops, thereby laying the foundation for the colony of Eritrea and the Italian interest in the Red Sea.1 Despite the colonial propaganda of the Fascist regime, pre-Fascist Italian governments took far more interest in southwest Arabia than Fascist writers admitted. In 1909, in a paper on Italian policies toward Yemen, the geographer and ethnographer Antonio Baldacci confessed the inadequacy of Italian politics in the Middle Eastern area: “Chi siamo veramente noi, in confronto degli inglesi e dei Tedeschi, nel mondo islamico, tra Adriatico e l’oceano indiano?” (“Who are we compared to the British and the Germans, in the Islamic world, between the Adriatic and the Indian Ocean?”). But he also identified the relevance

1

See John Baldry, “Anglo-Italian Rivalry in Yemen and ʿAsīr 1900–1934,” Die Welt des Islams 17 (1976–1977), pp. 155–193, here: pp. 157–160.

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of establishing a political program based on the development of a market and trade between Arabia, Eritrea, and Egypt. He furthermore acknowledged Yemen as a strategic region for the entire Red Sea basin, even defining it the “chiave dell’Arabia intera” (“key to the entire Arabia”), and he deplored the blindness of the Italian government, which declined to support any scientific or commercial initiative in Yemen, on the “Yemeni question.”2 From the very first Italian landing in Yemen, exploratory and commercial purposes were intertwined without any clear distinction between the two fields. As a matter of fact, the Italian approach to the political situation in Yemen between the last decades of the nineteenth and the first decades of the twentieth century was marked not by a clearly definable position but rather individual initiatives, embodying a typical Italian pattern. It is noteworthy that up until the first post-war period the Italians who took the road to Yemen and studied its cultural heritage (Manzoni, the Caprotti brothers, Benzoni, Ettore Rossi, Griffini), were Lombards, belonging to the entrepreneurial and cultured bourgeoisie of northern Italy, who had keenly detected the great potential of that geographical Eastern area, in part thanks to their language skills. The Italian traveler Renzo Manzoni, nephew of the famous novelist Alessandro Manzoni, explored Yemen three times between 1877 and 1880, traveling from Aden to Sanaa and vice versa. Devoted to learning Arabic, his travel account is a mine of insights on places and customs that enriched current knowledge of the history, geography, and ethnography of the country.3 The royal Italian consul, Giuseppe Bienenfeld, suggested that he visit Yemen and try to establish trade relationship. However, the effort was frustrated by the Milanese traders, who refused to trade with local merchants, including Greeks and Jews, as argued by the Africanist scholar Enrico De Leone.4 In 1879 Sapeto suggested that Assab might replace Jeddah as the central entrepôt of trade in the Red Sea, and by 1880 the Società Italiana di Commercio con l’Africa had an agent in Yemen for the export of coffee to Genoa. Two years later Eritrea became an Italian colony. Having consolidated its position on the western side of the Red Sea, Italy began to manifest a political interest on the opposite shore, threatening to undermine Turkish authority. In 1884 Luigi Caprotti (1858–1889), an adventurous and exploratory tradesman lured by the prospect of making a fortune, arrived in al-Hudayda after leaving the Società Italiana di Commercio con l’Africa and became an assistant of the Società d’Esplorazione Commerciale. Since 1880 he had traveled through Sudan and practiced trade in Abyssinia, where he obtained an exemption from customs duties thanks to the good offices of the explorer Gustavo Bianchi. Following the Mahdi uprising, he was forced to leave Metemma 2

Antonio Baldacci, La questione del Yemen e la nostra politica coloniale, Genoa: Tipografia Secolo XIX, 1909, pp. 8–13. 3 Renzo Manzoni, El Yemen: Tre anni nell’Arabia Felix, Rome: Tip. Eredi Botta, 1884. On Manzoni’s travels in Yemen, see also the work of another expert in Italian colonial law, Ernesto Cucinotta, “L’opera degli Italiani per la conoscenza del Yemen,” Rivista coloniale 21 (Sept.–Oct. 1926), pp. 414–426, here: pp. 416–418, and Enrico De Leone, “I fratelli Caprotti di Magenta nel Yemen,” Atti del Convegno di studi su la Lombardia e l’Oriente: Milano, 11–15 giugno 1962, Milan: Istituto Lombardo-Accademia di scienze e lettere, 1963, pp. 129–132, here: pp. 129–130. 4 See Enrico De Leone, “Le prime ricerche di una colonia e la esplorazione geografica politica ed economica,” L’Italia in Africa, vol. 2, Rome: Istituto poligrafico dello Stato, 1955, pp. 86–87.

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and all his assets. Like decades later in Libya, the Italian penetration in Yemen initially showed economic targets: the opening of an agency of the Società Italiana di Commercio con l’Africa and of a branch of the Italian firm Sante Mazzucchelli & Augusto Lopez Perera in the port of al-Hudayda,5 of which Luigi Caprotti became an agent. He was primarily a merchant, but he soon combined enterprise and an inventive spirit into a typical Italian attitude: the art of improvising. As Enrico De Leone has argued, Luigi Caprotti’s correspondence with his family shows that his main concern was to accumulate considerable capital in the shortest possible time; he appeared rather suspicious of his competition and asked his parents to maintain the utmost confidentiality on his business and his initiatives. However, his life in the Middle East was not focused exclusively on purely commercial relations; it also caused him to learn Arabic and to familiarize himself with the cultural and geographical aspects of the country, yielding short reports for the journals Corriere della sera and L’esporatore. He even set up a laboratory to examine gums and resins, developing skills in chemistry and working assiduously on his activities. He was described as a selfconfident businessman, friendly and hospitable to both locals and foreigners.6 Luigi Caprotti died of exanthematic typhus in Sanaa in 1889, at the age of just thirty years, and was buried in the small Christian cemetery outside Bāb al-Yaman in Sanaa. That same year, on 14 February, he was warmly commemorated in La riforma by his friend in Yemen, the Austrian Arabist and archeologist Eduard Glaser, who remembered him as “a man who honored his country and has worked to open up Arabia to Italian trade.”7 While Luigi Caprotti was the first Italian tradesman to settle in Sanaa, his brother Giuseppe was the European who stayed in Yemen the longest. Giuseppe Caprotti was born in 1862 in the small village of Podiga-Besana Brianza 20 km north of Milan. The brothers’ parents were farmers who early on moved to Magenta west of Milan, where the father, Antonio, became an administrator of ecclesiastical property. Giuseppe attended the high technical school of via Cappuccio in Milan, where he was taught by the historian Ludovico Corio.8 He served for two years in the Italian army. He was devoted to learning languages and eager to travel and obtain a position of his own.9 In August 1885, just a few months after the Italian occupation of the city, he sailed to Massaua and then continued to al-Hudayda and Ottoman-occupied Sanaa to join his brother. The French botanist Albert Deflers, who was hosted by the brothers in Sanaa in 1887, recalled their renowned hospitality shortly after Luigi’s death: “Pendant plus de deux mois j’ai vécu à leur foyer, témoin de leur vie laborieuse, ayant souvent recours à leurs bons offices. […] Ces deux hommes excellents, perdus sur une terre lointaine, font honneur à l’Italie” (“For 5

Mazzucchelli was the royal consular agent in al-Hudayda. De Leone, “Le prime ricerche,” pp. 152–156; De Leone, “I fratelli Caprotti,” pp. 130–131. 7 See the chronicle of a correspondent of the Corriere della sera, Salvatore Aponte, La vita segreta dell’Arabia Felice, Milan: A. Mondadori, 1936, p. 158. Glaser traveled in Yemen between 1883 and 1894 and brought back 858 manuscripts on several occasions (see below). 8 Lodovico Corio was the first to sketch a short biography of the Caprotti brothers in “Luigi Caprotti – Giuseppe Caprotti,” L’universo 7 (1897), pp. 5–6. 9 In contrast to that firsthand information, De Leone stated that Giuseppe hated to travel in “L’assedio e la resa di Ṣan‛ā’ del 1905 attraverso il carteggio inedito di Giuseppe Caprotti,” Oriente moderno 36 (Feb. 1956), pp. 61– 81. 6

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more than two months I lived in their home, witnessing their laborious life, often resorting to their good offices. […] These two excellent men, lost in a distant land, do honor to Italy”).10 After Luigi died, Giuseppe left the firm of Mazzucchelli & Perera and worked for seven years for the Ottoman Tobacco Régie Company, at the same time being active in the export of coffee and the import of commodities and consumer goods for which Yemen depended on trade. He carried out his activities with balance and financial acumen and contributed to knowledge of Yemen through reports sent to the Milanese Società d’Esplorazione Commerciale11 and published in L’esplorazione commerciale and L’universo, a Milanese journal dedicated to the dissemination of geographical knowledge, directed by his former teacher Ludovico Corio.12 In a short report in April 1889, Giuseppe criticized Italian trading companies for their lack of reliability and honesty with regard to purchasers. He also remarked that oil was imported to the United States in full loads and that coffee was the main Yemeni export although it was not used in Yemen, but Italian textile manufacturing was limited to very few companies.13 In 1891 he applauded the Turkish government for the new road built from Sanaa to the port of al-Hudayda and the introduction of the telegraph in that year; he even proposed the import of durra (sorghum bicolor) to Italy, expressing the hope that some transport companies might increase the traffic between the two countries and complaining of the conditions of local transport by camel only.14 In 1896, with Antonio Annoni, a geographer, member of the Società d’Esplorazione Commerciale, and shareholder in the Cassa di Risparmio di Milano, Giuseppe wrote a longer description titled “Sanaa e Hodeida (Yemen),” which first appeared in the Milanese journal Il Sole and was also published in 1897 in L’universo. It provided geographical, political, commercial, and cultural information about the country.15 Giuseppe Caprotti’s reputation also reached British scholars: the archaeologist David George Hogarth, later the president of the Royal Geographical Society, declared, “Western science has found its only informant in an Italian merchant, the courageous and devoted Giuseppe Caprotti”.16 In a significant passage of his description, Giuseppe reports that the local school in Sanaa had a good program of study, including the French language, and then comments on the fame of the manuscript treasures in the libraries of Sanaa: “Tutti i viaggiatori parlano delle ricchezze in manoscritti delle antiche biblioteche presso le moschee; sono tesori

10

Albert Deflers, Voyage au Jémen, Paris: P. Klincksieck, 1889, p. 76. The Società in Africa was created in 1879, with an agency in al-Hudayda. It was fully involved in the Italian industrial establishment. 12 A biography of Giuseppe Caprotti is provided by Maria Carazzi, “Caprotti, Giuseppe,” Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 19 (1976), http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/giuseppe-caprotti_%28Dizionario-Biografico%29/. 13 Giuseppe Caprotti, “[Corrispondenza da Sanaa, 20 aprile 1889],” L’esplorazione commerciale 6 (1889), pp. 201– 204, here: pp. 202–203. 14 Giuseppe Caprotti, “[Corrispondenza da Sanaa, 19 maggio 1891],” L’esplorazione commerciale 7 (1891), pp. 249–250. 15 Eugenio Griffini, in his obituary for Caprotti, emphasized that the informative material provided by Giuseppe had represented one of the earliest firsthand reports on Yemen at that time, after Glaser’s correspondence. See Griffini, “Necrologio: Giuseppe Caprotti,” L’esplorazione commerciale 34 (1919), p. 135. 16 David George Hogarth, The Penetration of Arabia: A Record of the Development of Western Knowledge concerning the Arabian Peninsula, New York: F. A. Stokes, 1904, p. 204. 11

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letterari ancora nascosti e che attendono ancora chi li studi e li riveli” (“All travellers talk about the richness in manuscripts of the ancient libraries at the mosques; they are literary treasures still hidden and still waiting for those who will study and reveal them”).17 Although he collected and sold the largest number of Arab-Yemeni manuscripts outside Yemen, this is his only published reference to them. We can assume that in view of the illegal character of his activities he did not wish to make them public. A simple hint to the Italian readers and scholars was enough. During his stay in Sanaa, which was interrupted only by short visits to Italy, Giuseppe established friendly relations both with the Ottoman authorities and with the Arab leaders. In this way he was able to safeguard his business even during the most troubled years of the Turkish-Yemeni conflict, in 1891 and 1904, when the Zaydī rebellions placed the capital under siege. He managed to do good business with the Turkish, although after the conflict of 1904–1905 his positive assessment of the Turkish administration no longer held. Simultaneously, he enjoyed good relations with the rebels thanks to the imam, who guaranteed his security. In his interactions with the two sides, he revealed a rare talent for diplomatic relations and political skills.18 He also had contacts with the government of Eritrea, providing it with coffee seedlings and introducing the cultivation of coffee to the opposite shore of the Red Sea. The broad support he received from all sections of Sanaa’s population earned him the name “Sīdī Yūsuf al-Ṭālyānī,” ‫سيدي يوسف الطاليا�ي‬,19 which he was originally given in a pass issued by the Imam Muḥammad b. Yaḥyā Ḥamīd al-Dīn in 1893.20 Giuseppe Caprotti’s relations with his motherland reflected the ups and downs of the Italians’ colonial ambitions in the Red Sea and their attempts to control the port of alHudayda during the Italian-Turkish war in 1911–1912.21 He was rather disappointed by the Italian intervention in Yemen because of his standing with both the Ottomans and the imam, getting to the point that he was expelled from the Eritrean colony. He enjoyed the imam’s confidence so much so that in 1905 Imam Yaḥyā b. Muḥammad Ḥamīd al-Dīn charged him with a diplomatic mission to the Ottoman sultan, although this had no actual effect in part because of the hesitant position of Ferdinando Sola, consul general in al-

17

Antonio Annoni and Giuseppe Caprotti, “Sanaa e Hodeida (Yemen),” L’universo 7 (1897), pp. 6–9, 24–27, here: p. 26. 18 The siege of Sanaa in 1905, attested by his correspondence, and his role in the struggle between the Turks and the Zaydīs are reported in De Leone, “L’assedio e la resa.” 19 This name was recorded by Fascist writers such as the journalist Salvatore Aponte, who traveled in Yemen and mentioned the popularity of Caprotti in his account, La vita segreta, p. 158. The first account citing “Yusuff” was that of Giovanni Battista Rossi, Nei paesi d’Islam, in Barberia, in Egitto, il pellegrino d’Islam, El Yemen: Impressioni e ricordi, Rocca San Casciano: Licinio Cappelli, 1897, p. 179. 20 See Pier Francesco Fumagalli, “Giuseppe Caprotti (Pobiga di Besana Brianza, 1862–Magenta 1919): Quelques notes biographiques,” Chroniques du manuscript au Yémen 9/28 (2019), pp. 40–45, here: pp. 42–43, where Fumagalli emphasizes Giuseppe Caprotti’s role in supporting the Jewish community in Sanaa and mentions a manuscript copy of the Torah that the community donated to him in 1898, without specifying either the holding or the collection in which the copy is kept. 21 On this conflict, see John Baldry, “The Turkish-Italian War in the Yemen,” Arabian Studies 3 (1976), pp. 51–65.

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Hudayda.22 In view of British interests in Yemeni ports, Giuseppe was in favor of an Italian countermove of expansion beyond the Red Sea, but also in this case Italian irresolution, together with the hypothesis of political power-sharing with Great Britain, prevented the launch of any wider-ranging programs. The names of the Caprotti brothers appeared in many European travel books from the late 1880s onward, and they were always depicted as pioneers in penetrating Yemen.23 The journalist Giovanni Battista Rossi, correspondent of the Genoese newspaper Caffaro, traveled to Yemen in 1891 during the local rebellion against the Turks. He reports having been hosted for three months by Giuseppe Caprotti at his house in Sanaa, “trattato come un amico carisssimo e rifornito di danaro per rimpatriare” (“treated like a dear friend and supplied with money to repatriate”).24 The same generous treatment was given to the botanists Deflers, mentioned earlier, to Georg August Schweinfurth, and other travelers.25 In 1909 the Marquis Gaetani Benzoni from Mantua was sent as the consular agent in Mokha to recruit Yemenis for service in the Eritrean army. A son-in-law of the writer Ferdinando Martini, who had served as governor of Eritrea from 1897 to 1907, Benzoni was eager to travel and for this purpose joined the German explorer Hermann Burchardt on a trip into the interior of Yemen. The two were killed on their way to Ibb on December 19, 1909, just as Imam Yaḥyā’s movement of revolt against the Turks and for autonomy flared up.26 A traveler and photographer, Burchardt first arrived in Sanaa in 1901 and was often hosted by Caprotti. [fig. 1] On his third extensive journey in the Middle East, he joined up with Benzoni in Mokha in December 1909 and escorted the latter to Sanaa via Taʿizz and al-ʿUdayn. On 23 December 1909 Giuseppe Caprotti wrote a letter from al-Hudayda to Burchardt’s relatives and concluded it with these words (in French): “Our poor, unfortunate friend was, by all who knew him, sincerely loved. The poor of Sanaʾa certainly weep over his tragic death. God will remember his kindness and charity. I know very well what he had done to comfort the poor”.27 Caprotti instructed Burchardt’s Arab secretary and Arabic teacher,

22

See De Leone, “L’assedio e la resa,” pp. 75–77; see also Marco Lenci, Eritrea e Yemen: Tensioni italo-turche nel Mar Rosso, 1885–1911, Milan: Franco Angeli, 1990, pp. 101, 106–107. The Italian consular office in al-Hudayda was opened in 1904 under Sola, and shortly afterward a vice-consulate was established in Mokha as well. The British had opened a vice-consulate in al-Hudayda in 1884; see Cucinotta, L’opera degli Italiani, pp. 418–419, and Baldry, “Anglo-Italian Rivalry,” p. 159. 23 See Hugh Scott, In the High Yemen, London: Routledge, 2011, pp. 230–231. Scott was a British entomologist who gave a fascinating account of an expedition to Yemen in 1937–1938, when the country was closed to Europeans by order of the imam. 24 Rossi, Nei paesi d’Islam, pp. 179–181. In addition to articles on his travels, Rossi published, first in 1897 and later in 1927, detailed accounts of Yemen and its customs, with many photos. The latter publication was reviewed by Giuseppe Caprotti’s teacher Lodovico Corio: “Il passato, il presente e l’avvenire della Società italiana di geografia commerciale,” L’esplorazione commerciale 42 (1927), pp. 233–235. See also De Leone, “L’assedio e la resa,” pp. 64–65. 25 Rossi, Nei paesi d’Islam, pp. 21–22. 26 Giovanni Battista Rossi, El Yemen: Arabia felix o Regio aromatum; Appunti di geografia, storia, usi e costumi, Turin: Industriale artistica di M. & G. Rossi Editrice, 1927, pp. 22–23; Cucinotta, L’opera degli Italiani, pp. 419–420. 27 Michael Friedländer, “Hermann Burchardt: Mitteilungen aus seinen letzten Briefen,” Ost und West: Illustrierte Monatsschrift für das Gesamte Judentum 2 (1910), pp. 105–110, here: pp. 109–110.

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Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Jarādī, who had accompanied the two unfortunate travelers, to draw up a report on the trip on the basis of Burchardt’s rough travel notes. Caprotti ordered two copies, sending one to Berlin and the other to Griffini in Milan.28

Figure 1. Giuseppe Caprotti and Hermann Burchardt at Caprotti’s house in Sanaa. In 1889–1890 another Giuseppe Caprotti, a distant relative of the abovementioned brothers Giuseppe and Luigi and a native of the village of Monte Albiate in Lombardy, had tried to carry out his own trade in Yemen independently of the Società d’Esplorazione Commerciale, as he had done in Egypt. He had previously, in 1885–1886, attempted to export his fabrics to Aden, but without success. This time, he took advantage of the first Giuseppe’s presence in Sanaa and, thanks to the latter’s mediation, achieved quite substantial sales, although the quality of the fabrics sold in Yemen was not always the best. The relationship between the two Giuseppes, as it emerges from the archives of the second Giuseppe’s family, was purely commercial in nature. It was active during the years 1888–1891 but then broke down, possibly as a result of the second Giuseppe’s

28

Eugen Mittwoch, Aus dem Jemen: Hermann Burchardts letzte Reise durch Südarabien, Leipzig: Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft & F. A. Brockhaus, 1926, pp. 6–7: the German scholar edited the report and translated it into German.

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unscrupulous commercial strategy.29 The second Giuseppe was a keen collector of books and antiquities: he possessed a large quantity of coins, stuffed birds, and exotic objects, and even a whole room furnished in the Arab way, provided to him by the first Giuseppe in 1889.30 Although we can see a substantial difference in the interests of the two homonyms, the first Giuseppe combined commercial ambitions with linguistic and exploratory activities, whereas the second Giuseppe was an experienced businessman with no knowledge of the culture, language, or history of Yemen, there is no question that their business relations should be investigated more closely within the framework of the sales and exchanges of Yemeni art and manuscripts in their time. As reported by Eugenio Griffini in his obituary of the first Giuseppe, the latter was also a collector of ancient Aksumite coins and Sabean ethnographic materials, “a worthy successor to Glaser,” who had in his house in Magenta a collection of jewelry, seals, idols in pure gold, and molds of Sabean inscriptions—a treasure so precious that Griffini feared it would be exported out of Italy like others had been before it.31 Incidentally, the first Giuseppe was still in Sanaa in early 1911, when he and the English traveler A. J. B. Wavell were the only Western Europeans in the city during its three-month siege by the imam.32 During the Italian-Turkish war of 1911–1912 Italy supplied Muḥammad ʿAlī al-Idrīsī with arms for use against the Turks, and it also provided other assistance: at the conclusion of the war an Italian medical hostel was established in al-Hudayda. Italy’s attempts to assert itself in Arabia manifested in many subtle ways during the First World War; these efforts were not limited to Yemen but were apparent also in ʿAsir.33 Giuseppe remained in Sanaa throughout the war until 1918, despite the efforts of the Turkish officials then governing the country to eject him. At the end of the war, when he was the only Italian in Sanaa, he came under suspicion from the imam and was forced to repatriate; he returned to Magenta in 1919 and died on 16 May that year. Thanks to the first Giuseppe Caprotti, Italian penetration in Yemen began in the form of commercial ventures but rapidly developed into a firm political relationship between the two governments. After the war, Benito Mussolini made a strong bid for influence on the eastern shore of the Red Sea, seeking economic advantage, and Italy turned its attention to Yemen in pursuit of this policy. The imam’s acquisition of the Tihama ports in 1925 was followed by great Italian interest in the country. When the Idrisis ceased to be independent rulers, Italy lost an ally of some years’ standing, but this loss was compensated by the removal of a

29

See Roberto Romano, I Caprotti: L’avventura economica e umana di una dinastia industriale della Brianza, Milan: Franco Angeli, 1980, pp. 177–179, 248–253, outlining the history of the second Giuseppe’s branch of the Caprotti industrial dynasty from Brianza. The family is the current owner of the first supermarket chain (Esselunga) established in Italy, still active in northern Italy. 30 The collection’s European books and 1,168 Roman and Greek coins were sold at auction in 1908 and 1910: see Romano, I Caprotti, pp. 248, 253. For a very brief notice on the two Giuseppes, see Arianna D’Ottone Rambach, “Giuseppe Caprotti et son double: Entre manuscripts et monnaies yémenites,” Chroniques du manuscrit au Yémen 9/28 (2019), pp. 45–54. 31 Griffini, “Necrologio.” 32 Wavell wrote a report entitled A Modern Pilgrim in Mecca and a Siege in Sanaa in 1912; see Scott, In the High Yemen, p. 231. 33 On Italian interests and intrigues in Yemen and ‘Asir during this period, see Baldry, “Anglo-Italian Rivalry,” pp. 161–164.

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source of friction with the imam. In the hope of improving Eritrea’s always weak financial position, its governor Jacopo Gasparini had strengthened relations between Italy and Yemen, implementing an economically aggressive policy and seeking oil and mining concessions in the country. His bold policy was not without risks, because it impinged on English interests in the strategic region of the Bab el-Mandeb strait; however, after three years of patient and secret work he persuaded the old Imam Yaḥyā to entrust Italy with the task of lifting the biblical country out of underdevelopment. In doing so, he beat all the other competitors, the English, the French, the Germans, and the Egyptians. On 2 September 1926 in Sanaa, Gasparini and Imam Yaḥyā signed a treaty of friendship and economic collaboration, which the Italian minister of the colonies, Pietro Lanza Branciforte di Scalea, did not hesitate to define, in a letter to Mussolini, as “the first imperial word of our colonial policy”.34 The Italian-Yemeni agreement was not to everyone’s liking: the Italian recognition of Imam Yaḥyā as king of Yemen in the treaty (the first international agreement to acknowledge him as such) and the formation of an Italian-Arabian company for the export of petroleum products to Yemen provoked serious complications in Anglo-Italian relations.35 The treaty was followed in mid-1927 by the visit to Rome of an official Yemeni delegation consisting of the imam’s son Sayf al-Islām Muḥammad b. Yaḥyā al-Ḥuṣayn, the foreign secretary Qāḍī Muḥammad Rāghib, and others, which was received by the king and by Mussolini. The visit featured a program arranged for the visitors that emphasized Italy’s naval, air, and military strengths; the Yemenis were received with hospitality befitting royalty and were granted official decorations. In 1937 Gasparini was in Sanaa again on a diplomatic mission to renew the treaty for a period of twenty-five years. Many scholars have considered the Italian-Yemeni treaty one of the best results of the political competition between Italy and Great Britain in the Arabian Peninsula: it generated increased trade in products both from Yemen (in particular coffee, spices, pearls, and amber) and to Yemen (in particular vehicles, machinery, and refined petrol), and it also provided a boost to the field of communications through the establishment of radio stations in the ports of alHudayda and Mokha and a telegraph between Mokha and Sanaa. In addition, it has been reported that Italy gave the imam annual subsidies of money and arms. After the evacuation of northern Yemen by the Turks in 1918 and the rise of Fascism in Italy, the imam refused to allow permanent foreign diplomatic or consular representatives, and so the Italians established a small colony of strongly Fascist medical men along with a few engineers and other technicians, who set up a medical clinic in the capital; the Italian personnel came mainly from the military. A number of doctors lived together in one large establishment, and single medics were also stationed in al-Hudayda and Taʿizz. These doctors did much work, despite their political bias; they were credited, inter alia, with the introduction of vaccinations against smallpox. From 1929 there were also civilian doctors, such as Dr. Cesare Ansaldi, who was sent to Sanaa to supervise the hospital. He served as personal physician to the imam and treated all classes of people, and he traveled

34

See Giancarlo Mazzucca [with Gianmarco Walch], Mussolini e i musulmani: Quando l’Islam era amico dell’Italia, Milan: Mondadori, 2017, chapter 17. 35 On this topic, see Baldry, Turkish-Italian War, pp. 175–186.

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extensively;36 he returned to Italy in 1932. Other notable Italian doctors in Yemen were Lamberto Cicconi, Mario Livadiotti, and Tommaso Sarnelli. The Italian community was the largest foreign establishment in the country, whether in groups or as solitary outposts. Many of these individuals, including Ansaldi and Sarnelli, gathered collections of antiquities that the benevolence of Imam Yaḥyā allowed them to bring to Italy. Dr. Sarnelli (d. 1972) was an Africanist scholar of native Arabic medicine and Berber linguistics as well as a medical officer. He carried out health and scientific missions to Libya and Yemen, staying in Sanaa from 1930 to 1932 as a medical officer and establishing excellent relations with the local population thanks to his dual expertise as a doctor and an Arabist. After leaving the army, he had taught for several years at the same Neapolitan Oriental Institute at which he had trained.37 Thereafter, as the traveler Hugh Scott emphasizes, among the external powers Italy enjoyed paramount influence in Yemen for some time. The Italians occupied two buildings in Sanaa, a larger and a smaller one, within a big walled garden in Biʾr al-ʿAzab, close to the open Sharara.38 It has been documented that the operators of these facilities, including military doctors, were connected to the Italian SIM (Servizio Informazioni Militare), the military intelligence organization of the Royal Army. From 1926 to 1938, the captain and then major Dr. Emilio Dubbiosi served as the local “resident” of the SIM and was an advisor and good friend of the imam, as well as his personal physician.39 After twelve years’ service, Dubbiosi retired to Italy and was succeeded by Dr. Passera. Scott describes in his travel account several kindnesses that he received from Dubbiosi when he was in Sanaa with Dr. Patrick W. R. Petrie; Dubbiosi’s aptitude for languages, including French and German; and their careful avoidance of any reference to political matters affecting Britain, Italy, and Yemen.40 Outside the medical and military circles, the Orientalist scholar Ettore Rossi (1894– 1955) also undertook two scientific missions into Yemen between spring 1936 and autumn 1937 after becoming an advisor to the Ministry of the Colonies. On the basis of his linguistic research the Yemeni dialects, Rossi wrote the first systematic grammatical description on the dialects of Sanaa. The introduction to his book L’arabo parlato a Ṣana῾āʼ acknowledges “il dottor E. Dubbiosi, Capo della Missione sanitaria italiana” (“Dr. E. Dubbiosi, Head of the Italian medical mission”) for his warm welcome during Rossi’s two trips to Sanaa, “insieme al Governo di sua Maestà l’Imam e ai medici italiani dottori Dagnino e Merucci” (“together with the Government of His Majesty the Imam and the Italian doctors Dagnino and Merucci”).41 In connection to Dubbiosi we also find the Yemeni Jewish photographer

36

See his account in Cesare Ansaldi, Il Yemen nella storia e nella leggenda, Rome: Sindacato Italiano Arti Grafiche, 1933. 37 Among his contributions is a chapter on Arab medicine (“Medicina araba”) in the volume Caratteri e modi della cultura araba, published in 1943 by the Reale Accademia d’Italia. 38 See Scott, In the High Yemen, pp. 137, 231. 39 See Andrea Vento, In silenzio gioite e soffrite: Storia dei servizi segreti italiani dal Risorgimento alla Guerra fredda, Milan: Il Saggiatore, 2014, pp. 216–217; Mazzucca, Mussolini e musulmani, pp. 99–101. 40 See Scott, In the High Yemen, p. 138. 41 Ettore Rossi, L’arabo parlato a Ṣana῾ āʼ: Grammatica, testi, lessico, Rome: Istituto per l’Oriente, 1939.

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Yiḥye Ben-Yosef Ḥaybī, who, before becoming a photographer, used to work in the Italian clinic as a medical assistant to various doctors, including the head physician.42 In such a geopolitical situation, Mussolini’s apparently pro-Islam policies were clearly aimed at fueling anti-British politics and alarming British intelligence with the flow of arms from Italy to the Red Sea. The ups and downs of the relationship between Italy and Yemen were closely observed by all international powers, with special attention to events concerning Aden.43 In the late 1920s and the first half of the 1930s, Italian relations with Yemen experienced a series of setbacks. The activism of Gasparini was replaced by the prudence of the new governor of Eritrea, Corrado Zoli, who was more interested in geographical exploration in North Africa than in pursuing Gasparini’s strategic objectives. Riccardo Astuto di Lucchese, who succeeded Zoli in 1930, resumed the politics of Gasparini, but in the meantime the friction with Great Britain had grown. Another long visit by the imam’s son al-Ḥuṣayn to Italy in 1938 encouraged Yaḥyā to strengthen his claims on Aden; by this time, the long love story between Mussolini and “King Yaḥyā” (“re Giovanni”) was destined to end. Early in 1943 Yaḥyā had interned some Italians, though not all the doctors, and closed two pro-Axis radio stations, which had been broadcasting propaganda. Though the Italians living in Yemen had been well situated to collect information for their government and had hoped to gain much from the treaties, Italy never succeeded in seriously influencing the imam’s policies. On the whole, although the Italian government did not benefit much from its foreign policy with Yemen, the Italians who settled or stayed in Yemen greatly expanded their cultural and linguistic skills in their various capacities. Much more than the representatives of any other Western power, they took advantage of the implicit immunity they enjoyed in the supply of archaeological goods. Thanks to the corruption of the Turkish administration,44 the Caprotti brothers from Magenta paved the way for the massive transfer of cultural property from Yemen, starting the illegal export of manuscripts to Italy.

ITALIAN COLLECTIONS OF ARAB-YEMENI MANUSCRIPTS The keen entrepreneurial spirit of the first Giuseppe Caprotti and his activities as a manuscript dealer have been summarized very effectively by Giuseppe Gabrieli, who outlines how Caprotti secretly bought manuscripts in Yemen and smuggled them to Italy: “I Caprotti, specialmente e più a lungo Giuseppe, dimorando per molti anni a Sanà, quali commercianti di caffè, comperavano di nascosto nel Jemen, di nascosto e alla ventura, i manoscritti che poi spedivano copertamente in Italia cuciti entro i sacchi o le balle di caffè:

42

Ester Muchawsky-Schnapper, “Rare Photographs from the 1930s and 1940s by Yiḥye Ḥaybi, a Yemenite Jew from Ṣana῾āʼ: Historical Reality and Ethnographic Deductions,” Proceedings for the Seminar for Arabian Studies 37 (2007), pp. 135–155, here: pp. 136, 148; a photo (fig. 20) taken in an Italian doctor’s household (Dubbiosi’s?) gives a historical framework to this period in Sanaa, including an Italian poster of Mussolini that shows the strong Fascist orientation of the Italian medical delegation. 43 For details on these relations, see Vento, In silenzio gioite e soffrite, pp. 219–221. 44 See Romano, I Caprotti, p. 249.

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acquistavano si può dire a occhi chiusi, sebbene con fiuto intelligente” (“Having long resided in Sanaa as coffee merchants, the Caprottis, and especially for a longer time Giuseppe, secretly bought manuscripts in Yemen at random and then sent them covertly to Italy, sewn into sacks or bales of coffee; they purchased manuscripts with their eyes closed, though with a sharp flair”).45 Caprotti’s clever instinct to locate worthy collections and bargain with their local owners was the most original feature of his approach, which amounted to a real art. But that is not all: the manuscripts he acquired cover every field and discipline of Arab-Islamic knowledge and manuscript culture transmitted in the Yemeni lands between the beginning of the Islamic era and the nineteenth century. For this reason, it is hardly believable that he collected manuscripts at random. To the contrary, it can be assumed that his selection of items was enlightened and followed fairly systematic criteria relating to their content, age, and relevance, if not codicological features. Unfortunately, Caprotti left no evidence of his selection process, his negotiations with local Yemeni book suppliers, or the mediators he may have worked with. However, it is clear that he did not collect manuscripts solely for the purpose of trade, for trade in manuscripts would not have been as immediately profitable as trade in other commodities such as coffee or textiles, and the sale of manuscripts would certainly have entailed a longer and more arduous process. Identifying European amateur collectors and buyers able to understand the value of Yemen’s unique heritage would have required much time and effort. Therefore, Caprotti preferred to maintain a relatively low profile in this area, and he refrained from venturing into the world of Orientalist and Arabist scholars. Given his 1897 note, in which he reported widespread interest among travelers of the time in the “hidden manuscript treasures in Yemeni libraries and mosques,”46 it could be supposed that he collected manuscripts not so much for commercial reasons but rather for their extraordinary cultural value, although he was clearly aware of their monetary worth and experimented with manuscript dealing as a new form of trade. However, it is likely that the two aspects coexisted. As a cultured and talented businessman he recognized the potential value of the manuscripts in the European antiques market or in the eyes of private collectors, but he was also attracted to them as cultural artifacts thanks to his appreciation and knowledge of their context and significance. A case that anticipated Caprotti’s later collection of manuscripts on a large scale was a sale he made in 1892. Through the mediation of the Prefetto (Head) of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Monsignor Antonio Maria Ceriani (who was also self-taught in the Oriental languages), Caprotti sold to the Biblioteca Braidense in Milan a manuscript containing the Dīwān of the prominent Ayyubid poet Bahāʾ al-Dīn Abū l-Faḍl Ibn Zuhayr al-Muhallabī (d.

45

Giuseppe Gabrieli, “Gian Bernardo De Rossi collezionista di manoscritti ebraici,” Rassegna mensile di Israel 7 (1932), pp. 167–175, here: p. 167. 46 Annoni and Caprotti, “Sanaa e Hodeida,” p. 26. 47 I am grateful to Agostino Soldati for pointing out to me the existence of this manuscript, which is not mentioned either in the main repertoires or in the catalogs; see Agostino Soldati, “I manoscritti arabi, persiani e turchi della Biblioteca Braidense,“ Istituto Lombardo – Accademia di Scienze e Lettere – Rendiconti di Lettere 150 (2016), pp. 139–141.

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1258). The codex was of Yemeni origin, dating back to the late seventeenth century.47 The codex was the first Yemeni exemplar sold by Caprotti to a Western institution.48 The year 1897 saw a decisive event in Caprotti’s manuscript career: he met a nineteen-year-old fellow countryman, Eugenio Griffini,49 a promising Lombard Arabist who came to play a key role in the fate of Caprotti’s manuscripts. Their destinies were joined thanks to a common acquaintance, the abovementioned Corio, who had been Giuseppe Caprotti’s teacher and, fifteen years later, taught Griffini history and geography. In the course of his classical studies, Griffini had studied Arabic by himself for four years and started on Hebrew and Sanskrit. Passionate about Arabic civilization and steeped in its history and literature, he traveled to Magenta, where Corio brought him to Caprotti’s house and tested his knowledge of Arabic. The tradesman showed Griffini his collection of artifacts imported from Sanaa. Later, Griffini conveyed his impressions of this first visit to his maternal cousin, the architect and senator Luca Beltrami: La casa è una quintessenza di Arabia Felix, il paese degli aromi e degli Homeriti […]. Tappeti yemenici e persiani […], pellicce e piume. Fiale con profumi ed alambicchi. Armi e bronzi. Merci di ogni genere, europee ed indiane. Ma per me, lucciolavano come astri nel nulla […] libri, libri, oh, quanti libri! Tutta una mora, lungo una parete, e tutti manoscritti, in arabo. (The house is a quintessence of Arabia Felix, the land of aromas and Homerites […]. Yemeni and Persian carpets […], furs and feathers. Vials with perfumes and alembics. Weapons and bronzes. All kinds of goods, European and Indian. But for me, fireflies like stars in nothing […] books, books, oh, how many books! An entire shelf, along a wall, and all manuscripts, in Arabic.)

The young Arabist went on to describe enthusiastically the age, writing, supports, and bindings of these books: Volumi sottoscritti, datati […], firmati! Molti di quei codici, su grossa carta giallo-scura di cotone, mi dicevan subito della loro età: cinque, sei, sette, secoli. Di altri, me la diceva la forte pergamena, la grossa scrittura cufica, la solida rilegatura con tavolette di legno — all’abissina —: dieci secoli, un millennio! Fuori, quasi sempre forti rilegature in cuoio, con risvolto […].50

48

Caprotti obtained and sold a further three copies of the work to the Ambrosiana in 1909: MS Ambr., A 111, dated 725/1361, for which see Oscar Löfgren and Renato Traini, Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, vol. 2: Nuovo Fondo: Series A–D (Nos. 1–830), Vicenza: Neri Pozza, 1981, p. 57, no. 111:iii; MS Ambr. E 39, dated 1098/1687, for which see Oscar Löfgren and Renato Traini, Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, vol. 3: Nuovo Fondo: Series E (Nos. 831–1295), Vicenza: Neri Pozza, 1995, p. 19, no. 869:i; and MS Ambr., E 96, dated 1035/1625, for which see Löfgren and Traini, Catalogue, vol. 3, p. 49, no. 926. 49 The Griffini Nachlass has recently brought to light in the Biblioteca Comunale of Palazzo Sormani in Milan. As part of a wider program of research into the archival materials of Arabists and Islamicists involved in the history and culture of Yemen between the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, the Griffini Fund is going to be investigated and published by Sabine Schmidtke and myself. 50 Luca Beltrami, Eugenio Griffini Bey, 1878–1925, Milan: Tipografia Umberto Allegretti, 1926, pp. x–xi.

452

VALENTINA SAGARIA ROSSI (Subscribed, dated […], signed volumes! Many of those codices, on a thick and dark yellow cotton paper, told me immediately about their age: five, six, seven centuries. Of others the rugged parchment, the large kufic script, the strong binding with wooden boards—in the Abyssinian way—told me about it: ten centuries, a millennium! Outside, almost always strong leather covers, with flap).

He was equally fascinated by their contents: E dentro? Di tutto, di tutto. Un materiale informativo di primissimo ordine: raccolte sistematiche di tradizioni maomettane, […] opere originali arabe classiche e medioevali, note e nuove, complete ed in tronco, di filosofia musulmana, di medicina, di veterinaria; ricettarî, […] vastissime enciclopedie e dizionari di zoologia e di botanica; e superbi canzonieri […] vastissime cronache di annali; raccolte alfabetiche di biografie con appendici antologiche; dizionari di nomi di religioni e di sètte ed esposizioni di dottrine religiose e filosofiche, teistiche e pagane; […] opere astronomiche, trattati di algebra e di geometria, di logica formale, o di diritto successorio e testamentario musulmano, i più allegrî manuali di indiavolati e di miracoli di prestidigitazione. (And inside? Everything, everything. Informative material of the very first order: systematic collections of Muslim traditions, […] original classical and medieval Arabic works, renowned and new, complete and not, of Muslim philosophy, of medicine, of veterinary science; cookbooks, […] very large encyclopedias and dictionaries of zoology and botany; and superb poetical works […] huge chronicles of annals; alphabetical collections of biographies with anthological additions; dictionaries of names of religions and of sects and expositions of religious and philosophical doctrines, theistic and pagan; […] astronomical works, treatises on algebra and geometry, formal logic, or succession law and Muslim testamentary law, the most cheerful manuals of demoniacs and of miracles of prestidigitation).

Griffini further noted that some of the books included diagrams, tables, drawings, and miniatures, and that all were “in excellent condition,” a situation that he attributed to the dry air of the Yemenite highlands, which was well suited to preserving such a perishable material as paper.51 This was not the only crucial meeting and visit that Griffini made that year. The already mentioned Arabist Eduard Glaser invited him to Munich, where the young Italian could examine study materials, photographic reliefs, and casts of Sabean and Himyarite inscriptions gathered by the Austrian scholar in Yemen. In this time Griffini was attending the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, and in 1897–1898 he obtained a diploma in the Arabic language at the Istituto Orientale in Naples. He was also able to explore the Ambrosiana’s Ancient Fund of Arabic manuscripts thanks to the support of Monsignor Ceriani. Griffini pursued his dream of dedicating himself to the study of these manuscripts and their culture through years of study and travel in Egypt, France, and Great Britain (1899–1902) as well as Tunisia and Algeria (1905, 1907), where he came into contact with the fervent world of Oriental studies and became aware of the scientific progress and the powerful activity of

51

Eugenio Griffini, “La grande raccolta di antichi manoscritti arabi donata alla Biblioteca Ambrosiana,” Corriere della sera, 10 January 1910, reprinted in L’antichità classica e il Corriere della sera: 1876–1945, ed. Margherita Marvulli, Milan: Fondazione Corriere della sera, 1990, pp. 369–376, here: pp. 370–373.

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collecting promoted by the great European institutions and the libraries of Berlin, Munich, Leiden, London, Paris, Budapest, and Cambridge. Later Griffini became member of the Arabic academies al-Majmaʿ al-ʿilmī al-ʿarabī, founded in 1919, and al-Majmaʿ al-lughawī, established in Cairo in 1921, and he was one of the founders of the Jāmiʿa al-rābiṭa alsharqiyya, born in Cairo in 1922.52 Griffini reconnected with Giuseppe Caprotti in 1903, right after graduating in law from Genoa in 1902 with a study on the legal institution of the waqf. Before starting on their joint adventure, in July 1899, Caprotti had proposed to the Ambrosiana the purchase of a first group of manuscripts: “È in mie mani una raccolta di circa 80 grossi volume manoscritti arabi quasi tutti antichi […] che portai con me dall’Arabia” (“In my hands is a collection of about eighty large-volume Arabic manuscripts, almost all ancient […] that I brought with me from Arabia”). Shrewdly, he added that he had already begun negotiations with a German royal library for the same pieces, and he relied on Griffini’s support: “l’Egregio Nob. E. Griffini, potrà dar referenze su di me” (“the nobleman E. Griffini may give a reference for me”).53 We do not know the outcome of this first offer, but it is certain that in 1897 Caprotti had sent an initial lot of twenty manuscripts to Eduard Glaser in Munich, as he wrote to Griffini a day before they met at his house: “Li spedii un mese fa a Monaco di Baviera ad un orientalista mio amico, il quale ne curerà la vendita. […] molto voluminosi, tutti antichi, alcuni di grande valore” (I sent them one month ago to Munich in Bavaria to an Orientalist friend of mine, who will take care of their sale. […] very voluminous, all ancient, and some of great value”).54 In 1902, 157 Arabic manuscripts from the Caprotti collection, mostly of Yemeni origin and of great antiquity, were purchased by the Bavarian State Library (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek) through Glaser’s mediation.55 In a letter dated 23 May 1903, the merchant Caprotti made an unusual offer to the young book-lover Griffini: to send his entire manuscript collection to Griffini’s house in Milan so the latter could find either a depository or a purchaser for it. He acknowledged Griffini’s unrivaled competence with regard to these manuscripts and the great work he had already undertaken on them, and he specified no particular price in advance: Mi preme farle una proposta che ancora non le ho fatto a viva voce […] e questo in merito ai Manoscritti. Io so benissimo che non sarei en même di trovare un collocamento senza

52

Carlo Alfonso Nallino, “Eugenio Griffini,” Rivista della Tripolitania 2, no. 2 (1925), pp. 124–132, here: p. 130, n. 2; p. 131. 53 Letter from Magenta dated 22 July 1899: Milan, Ambr., W 8 inf., no. 232; Pier Francesco Fumagalli, “Raccolte significative di manoscritti: Mosè Lattes, fondo Trotti, Giuseppe Caprotti,” Storia dell’Ambrosiana: L’Ottocento, Milan: IntesaBci, 2001, pp. 167–211, here: pp. 198–199. 54 On this letter, see the report of Griffini’s student Angela Codazzi, “Eugenio Griffini e l’Ambrosiana,” Atti del Convegno di studi su la Lombardia e l’Oriente: Milano, 11–15 giugno 1962, Milan: Istituto Lombardo–Accademia di Scienze e Lettere, 1963, pp. 80–89, here: pp. 81–82. 55 See Sabine Schmidtke, “Preserving, Studying, and Democratizing Access to the World Heritage of Islamic Manuscripts: the Zaydī Tradition,” Chroniques du manuscrit au Yémen 23 (2017), pp. 103–165, here: pp. 105–106. Unlike what Fumagalli claims in “Raccolte significative,” p. 199, the manuscripts were not donated but rather sold to the German library. It is noteworthy that the manuscripts that Glaser sold to the Munich State Library on behalf of Caprotti are known as the Glaser Collection, whereas the collection at Ambrosiana is named after Caprotti, not the intermediary, Griffini.

454

VALENTINA SAGARIA ROSSI essere coadiuvato da una persona competente. Nel caso attuale la persona competente è lei […], le propongo semplicemente di ricevere lei in consegna tutta la raccolta […], di cercare di collocarla al meglio senza fissare una cifra da parte mia. (I would like to make you a proposal I have not yet mentioned to you […] with regard to the manuscripts. I know very well that I would not be able to sell them without being assisted by a competent person. In the present case the competent person is you […], I simply propose that you receive delivery of the entire collection […], and try to sell it in the best way, without a price being fixed on my part.)

Caprotti offered Griffini a modest percentage on the sale and tried to frame the issue as a business deal: “Il lavoro, qualunque esso sia deve essere retribuito, e tanto più il suo, che ben difficilmente potrebbe essere fatto da un altro. […] Questo dei Manoscritti deve essere un lavoro proficuo, dunque vediamo di intavolarlo come un vero affare di commercio” (“Any work, whatever it may be, must be remunerated, and especially your work, which could hardly be done by anyone else. […] This work with the manuscripts must be profitable, so let’s enter into it as a real business deal”). But although Griffini agreed to house the manuscripts arriving from Yemen, he categorically refused any remuneration and accepted as his only reward the chance to study the manuscripts and publish catalogs and writings on them. The agreement between Caprotti and Griffini included a search for potential buyers for the manuscripts in Italy and abroad.56 Despite Caprotti’s claims, it is strange that a prudent businessman such as Caprotti would entrust the sale of his manuscripts to a novice Arabist without any experience in marketing and negotiation—one who was instead dedicated to the study and cataloging of manuscripts. Several questions arise: What were Caprotti’s real intentions in entrusting his manuscript legacy to Griffini, and what expectations could he have had of the ability of the young Lombard to obtain a reasonable profit on his precious merchandise? Was his choice dictated by a patriotic attachment to their common region of provenance? Why did Caprotti’s choice fall on Griffini rather than on the more accredited Glaser, thanks to whom he had already sold a set of manuscripts to the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek? Did Griffini play any role in the search for manuscript texts from Yemen? Had he ever recommended or suggested to Caprotti the purchase of any specific manuscript works useful for his research on Zaydī law and history? Whatever lay behind Caprotti’s decisions and choices, hundreds of Yemeni manuscripts, wrapped in palm mats and coffee bags and stored in large boxes, entered Griffini’s house on via Dante in Milan, starting with the first group he saw in Magenta, which was followed by six regular shipments from 1903 to 1906, usually sent each spring and autumn. In April and November 1903 Griffini received altogether 256 manuscripts (Ambr. A 1–124, B 1–132), in May and November 1905 he received 574 manuscripts (Ambr. C 1–219, D 1–355), in June 1905 he received 465 manuscripts (Ambr. E 1–465), and in 1906 the last 315 manuscripts (Ambr. F 1–315) reached Milan. The total of 1,610 volumes contained “circa

56

Codazzi, “Eugenio Griffini e l’Ambrosiana,” p. 83.

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cinquemila e seicento opere” (“about 5,600 works”), as Griffini estimated in articles published in the Corriere della sera and the Rivista degli studi orientali in 1910.57 The last shipment of manuscripts was accompanied by the gift from Caprotti of an ancient and rare copy of Min kashf al-asrār al-bāṭiniyya wa-ghawār madhhabihim by Abū l-Qāsim Ismāʿīl Aḥmad al-Bustī (GAS I, 626, not in GAL), a disciple of ʿAbd al-Jabbār, according to the friendly dedication on f. 1r: “G. Caprotti da Sanaa all’amico carissimo Dr. E. Griffini a Milano. Sanaa 8 febbr. 1906” (“G. Caprotti from Sanaa to the very dear friend Dr. E. Griffini in Milan. Sanaa, 8 February 1906”).58 Once this impressive shipping operation was complete, the relationships between Caprotti, Griffini, and Glaser changed, and the balance between them deteriorated dramatically. Writing to Glaser from Tunis in 1907 in response to some research requests, Griffini expressed a hope that the relations between the three of them could always be as good as they had been. This statement comes across as an implicit reaction to Glaser’s disapproval of the entrustment of the Caprotti collection to Griffini rather than to him. Glaser’s hostility is confirmed in a letter sent by Griffini on 9 June 1907 to the commander Giovanni Roncagli (secretary-general of the Società Geografica Italiana), who had asked him to direct an ethnographic and botanical expedition to Yemen: Riguardo lo Yemen in particolare, esistono tuttora difficoltà che paralizzerebbero la mia collaborazione: ineffettuabile almeno è la parte a me destinata nel programma della missione, per difficoltà che si possono più chiaramente chiamare intrighi, gelosie e insidie, che persone senza scrupoli – come per esempio il dott. Glaser di Monaco, perfettamente informato dei vostri progetti – non esiterebbero a tenderci, ricorrendo a qualunque mezzo. (With regard to Yemen in particular, there are still complications that would hinder my cooperation: at least the part designated for me in the mission program is impossible because of difficulties that can be more clearly called intrigues, jealousies, and snares that unscrupulous people—such as Dr. Glaser of Munich, perfectly informed of your plans—would not hesitate to set us, using whatever means).59

Though the expedition did not take place, the old friendship between the young Italian Arabist and the experienced Austrian scholar was irreparably damaged. During these years, before the publication of his first catalog of the Caprotti manuscripts in 1910, Griffini also drew up an inventory of seven big notebooks, regrettably arranged not by subject matter but by order of arrival, determined as the manuscripts were pulled out of the boxes: “I codici, dopo qualche mese di viaggio e di peripezie, venivan fuori 57

Griffini, “La grande raccolta,” p. 373; Griffini, “Una lieta notizia: Il Nuovo Fondo arabo dell’Ambrosiana (1610 codici),” Rivista degli studi orientali 3 (1910), pp. 105–107, here: p. 107; see also Fumagalli, “Raccolte significative,” pp. 198–199, who anticipated in November 1904 the reception of series D, which in fact arrived at Griffini’s house one year later (see Griffini’s letter to Caetani below). 58 MS Ambr., X 61 sup. (Griffini 41): Oscar Löfgren and Renato Traini, Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, vol. 1: Antico Fondo and Medio Fondo, Vicenza: Neri Pozza, 1975, p. 137, no. 258. The codex is a factitious multiple-text and contains two texts. On this manuscript, see Valentina Sagaria Rossi, “Eugenio Griffini and Zaydi Studies in the light of his correspondence with Ignaz Goldziher, 1908–1920,” Shii Studies Review 5 (2021), pp. 139-199. 59 Beltrami, Eugenio Griffini Bey, pp. xxvii–xxviii; a draft of the letter is contained in the diary of Griffini’s second trip to Tunisia.

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di sotto le stuoie, saturi, all’uso yemenico, del forte profumo delle foglie secche d’assenzio” (“The codices, after several months of travel and troubles, emerged from under the mats saturated with the strong scent of the dry leaves of absinthe, according to Yemeni custom”).60 Once the collection arrived in Milan, its fame spread among Italian and foreign scholars. It became known as “la collezione di Milano” (“the collection of Milan”),” “la collezione milanese” (“the Milanese collection”) or “I manoscritti arabi di Milano” (“the Arabic manuscripts of Milan”); Griffini made a point of stressing the collection’s connection to the city of Milan.61 As it grew in size to encompass around fifty boxes weighing a total of fifteen quintals, Griffini committed himself to describing the manuscripts in a vast catalog organized by subject matter. He focused his attention on the first group of manuscripts to arrive in Italy, a set of 124 codices containing 315 texts, though only a short description of the first 82 codices were published.62 The task Griffini was undertaking was heavy and onerous, and not only because of the amount of work it entailed. As he wrote in the introduction to his first Catalogo, many of the works were anonymous or written by hitherto unknown authors, sometimes acephalous or mutilated, and unaccompanied by any notices that might have facilitated identification either on the edges of the volumes or inside in the headings: “Insomma muti a tutte le domande, per quanto insistenti, del catalogatore, né tali da poter essere confrontati altrove per l’identificazione. Occorse sfogliarli ad uno ad uno, allo scopo di trarne elementi per indicarne pur sommariamente il contenuto” (“In short, they are silent on all the questions, however incessant, of the cataloger, nor can they be compared with others for identification. They must be browsed one by one in order to draw out elements to give a summary of their contents”). He highlighted the great number of a special type of codex, the miscellaneous, “dalla loro forma allungata e dall’esasperante eterogeneità dei materiali caoticamente stipati in ogni angolo usufruibile […], raccolti in una regione che si è distinta per aver avuto per secoli a Zabīd, a Ṣa‘da, a Ṣan‘ā’, a Ḥūṯ, ecc., grossi nuclei non solo di bibliofili, ma anche di eruditi” (“having an elongated shape and the exasperating heterogeneity of materials chaotically crammed in every usable corner […], collected in a region that has for centuries distinguished itself with its large clusters not only of bibliophiles but also scholars in Zabid, Sa‘da, Sanaa, Huth, etc.”). Griffini described these meticulously assembled codices, heterogeneous by nature or by the will of their owners, as “grossi mazzi di carte isolate, e di quaderni indipendenti gli uni dagli altri, o di frammenti d’una cosa, spaccati e mischiati con quelli d’un’altra, ed il tutto rilegato e inamovibile, come un libro a sé” (“large clusters of isolated papers and notebooks independent of each other, or fragments of one thing, split and mixed with those of another, the

60

Eugenio Griffini, “I manoscritti sudarabici di Milano: catalogo della prima collezione (125 codici, 315 numeri),” part 1, Rivista degli studi orientali 2 (1908–1909), pp. 1–38, 133–166; part 2, Rivista degli studi orientali 3 (1910), pp. 65–104, here: part 1, pp. 1–2; Codazzi, “Eugenio Griffini e l’Ambrosiana,” p. 84; the inventory was delivered to the Ambrosiana (MSS Ambr. H 177–184) in 1955, in execution of Griffini’s last wishes. 61 Griffini, “La grande raccolta,” p. 373. 62 Griffini, “I manoscritti sudarabici.”

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whole bound and irremovable, like a book in itself”).63 Having devoted himself to the manuscripts, he replied to queries and research requests from many European Arabists and Islamists. The Orientalist scholars who turned to him for information on the collection and its individual codices and who acknowledged its extraordinary relevance included Ignazio Guidi, Carlo Alfonso Nallino, Giorgio Levi Della Vida, Carl Brockelmann, Hermann Reckendorf (with whom Griffini engaged in an extensive correspondence that is today kept at the Ambrosiana Library),64 Ignác Goldziher, Cornelis van Arendonk, Rudolf Strothmann, Will Heffening, and Ugo Monneret de Villard. In Griffini’s death notice, Levi Della Vida, who had judged some of Griffini’s linguistic works severely, acknowledged Griffini’s unparalleled generosity in helping others in their scientific work: he usually provided news, extracts, and photographs of “his” manuscripts to any scholar, known or unknown, who requested them. Levi Della Vida also praised Griffini’s excellent edition of the Zaydī Majmūʿ al-fiqh (Milan, 1919), a text of great importance on Zaydī Muslim law.65 In late 1908 Griffini decided to move from his apartment in via Dante to via Borgospesso 23, and he found himself forced to return the manuscripts to their owner because he had no room to house them. This event stimulated once more his patriotic vein, as he feared that the huge collection might fall into the hands of foreign buyers, as reported by his cousin Beltrami: Sebbene avesse avuto dal Caprotti l’autorizzazione di trattarne la vendita […], il Griffini non aveva mai preso l’iniziativa di cercarne un acquirente, ma vi era sempre il pericolo che una richiesta di cessione fosse rivolta direttamente al Caprotti, tanto più che con vari scritti il Griffini aveva cominciato a mettere in valore ed a far conoscere all’estero la esistenza di quella collezione, mentre nel Yemen continuava la incetta dei mss da parte di studiosi stranieri […]: fra questi il dott. Hermann Burchardt, che era stato ospitato dal Caprotti a Sana. (Although he had been authorized by Caprotti to deal with the sale […], Griffini had never taken the initiative to seek a buyer, but there was always the danger that a request for transfer would be addressed directly to Caprotti, especially since Griffini had, with various writings, started to enhance the value of the collection and make its existence known abroad, while in Yemen the hoarding of manuscripts by foreign scholars continued […], among them Dr. Hermann Burchardt, who was hosted by Caprotti in Sanaa.)66

Beltrami’s claim was not entirely true. Griffini made at least one attempt to publicize the existence of the precious collection and to find an influential admirer (and a wealthy buyer)—to none other than the renowned Islamist Leone Caetani, prince of Teano; on 17 January 1905, just after Griffini had received the series A, B, and C, he wrote a letter to Caetani to fulfill an earlier promise and to convey his hope that the collection could be preserved in Italy: È mia premura ripetere e riconfermare la promessa già fatta alla E.V. in novembre, di inviare, non appena saranno pronti, i cataloghi o i sommari dei cataloghi seguenti; B (132

63

Griffini, “I manoscritti sudarabici,” part 1, p. 2. See Codazzi, “Eugenio Griffini e l’Ambrosiana,” pp. 84–85. 65 See Giorgio Levi Della Vida, “Eugenio Griffini (26 dicembre 1878–3 maggio 1925),” Rivista degli studi orientali 10 (1925), pp. 726–730, here: pp. 728–730. 66 Beltrami, “Eugenio Griffini Bey,” pp. xxix–xxx. 64

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VALENTINA SAGARIA ROSSI mss.); C (220 mss.) e D (354 mss.). Quest’ultima numerosa collezione D è tutt’ora in viaggio, la credo però a Genova. […] Allorché V.E. conoscerà dai miei cataloghi sommari o generali, o de visu, la grande importanza delle collezioni (alle quali altre seguiranno, e spero possano rimanere tutta in Italia presso il Governo o presso privati) vedrà quanti e quali altri studii non meno ponderosi potrebbe compiere valendosi di questa vera biblioteca orientale che nessuno ha ancora studiata. (It is my concern to repeat and reconfirm the promise already made to His Eminence in November to send, as soon as they are ready, the following catalogs or summaries of catalogs: B (132 MSS), C (220 MSS), and D (354 MSS). This last collection, D, is still en route, but I believe it is in Genoa. […] When His Eminence learns, though my general or summary catalogs or directly, of the great importance of the collections (which will be followed by others, and I hope they can all remain in Italy in governmental or private hands), he will see how many studies and what other, no less ponderous analyses could be carried out using this true oriental library that no one has studied yet.)67

We do not know what Caetani replied, but it is safe to assume that the collection aroused a shared interest among Italian Orientalists and that the scholarly community strove to retain it within the country. Documents from the Caetani archive also reveal that the Italian government, and in particular the ministry of education, initiated negotiations for the purchase of the manuscripts. On 6 July 1909, another eminent Arabist, Carlo Alfonso Nallino, wrote to Caetani: Sa Ella se, come pare, e perché siano arenate le pratiche per l’acquisto, da parte del Ministero dell’Istruzione Pubblica, dei circa 2000 volumi manoscritti arabi raccolti dal Caprotti nel Yemen e depositati provvisoriamente in casa del Griffini a Milano? Il Caprotti, che mantiene il prezzo di 80000 lire per l’estero, si contentava del Ministero italiano di 30000 lire, pagabili anche in due o tre annualità. Sarebbe un vero peccato se si perdesse questa occasione unica d’avere una raccolta yemenita assai più cospicua di quella di Berlino e del British Museum. Già le monete ḥimyarite ecc., i calchi d’iscrizioni, i magnifici vasi e oggetti di bronzo della dinastia dei Rasūliti che nel Yemen chiamano bronzi ghassāni, ecc., raccolti in molti anni dal Caprotti a Ṣan‛ā hanno cominciato a prendere il volo per l’estero. Possibile che per le indecisioni del Ministero si debbano perdere anche i manoscritti? (Do you know whether, as seems likely, and why the arrangements for the purchase by the Ministry of Public Education of the approximately 2,000 Arabic manuscripts collected by Caprotti in Yemen and temporarily located in Griffini’s house in Milan are being run aground? Caprotti, who maintains a price of 80,000 liras for foreign buyers, would accept 30,000 liras from the Italian ministry, payable over two or three years. It would be a real shame if we missed this unique opportunity to retain a Yemeni collection much more substantial than those of Berlin and the British Museum. Ḥimyarite and other coins, plaster casts, magnificent vessels and bronze objects of the Rasulid dynasty that are called Ghassānī bronzes in Yemen, etc., collected over many years by Caprotti in Sanaa, have already started to flow abroad. Is it possible that the manuscripts, too, will be lost because of the ministry’s indecision?).68

67

Paola Ghione and Valentina Sagaria Rossi, L’Archivio Leone Caetani all’Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Rome: L’Erma di Bretschmeider, 2004, p. 223. The letter is kept in the Leone Caetani Archive, folder “Ignazio e Michelangelo Guidi” (Rome, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, ALC, folder no. 38). 68 Ghione and Sagaria Rossi, L’Archivio Leone Caetani, pp. 322–324; Rome, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, ALC, folder no. 844, “Carlo Alfonso Nallino.”

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It appears that these attempts to find a place for the collection never went far and because of this they were most likely ignored. On the one hand, Ignazio Guidi, who introduced Griffini to Caetani, may have encouraged the young scholar to reach out to the prince, well knowing the latter’s interest in Arab sources and his substantial financial means. At the same time, Nallino, the most authoritative Italian Arabist of his period and a supporter of the public management of cultural heritage in Italy, may have been pleading for the purchase of the Caprotti collection by the ministry of education in order to prevent the manuscripts from emigrating to foreign countries. The available evidence indicates that although negotiations with the ministry were opened, the process stalled and there was no more news of it. In his July 1909 letter to Caetani, advocating the ministry’s intervention,69 Nallino showed he didn’t know at all the fact that the collection was being acquired by the Biblioteca Ambrosiana; the acquisition was completed later in 1909. No one had seemingly informed him of the negotiations between Caprotti and the Ambrosiana that had been going on since the end of 1908, while Nallino was still hoping for the ministry’s intervention to secure public safekeeping of the manuscripts. The great reported difference in price depending on whether the collection was to be acquired by foreign buyers (80,000 liras) or Italian ones (30,000 liras) implies that the owner strongly favored a domestic sale. In any case, Caprotti’s role in these events and negotiations remains in the dark, as the final decision to leave the collection to the Ambrosiana was his; Griffini’s preference for the Ambrosiana could not have been the sole factor, especially for a shrewd and sharp businessman such as Caprotti. Was he perhaps motivated by his patriotic ties to Lombardy and Milan, which he shared with Griffini?70 Griffini’s Catholic education may also have predisposed him to favor the most prestigious religious institution in northern Italy. Indeed, the link between Griffini and the Ambrosiana had its roots in the crucial role that the Milanese library had played since the beginning of his education as an Arabist. Through the efforts of Cardinal Federico Borromeo, the Ambrosiana71 had, since its foundation in 1609, acquired a wealth of manuscript texts in Semitic languages—Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, and Syriac—belonging to both Christian Arabic and Islamic Arabic literature. In particular, thanks to the impulse provided by Antonio Giggi (Antonius Giggeius), who was enrolled in 1609 among the Ambrosiana Dottori as “Hebraicae, Syriacae, Chaldaicae, Arabicae linguae multum peritus” (“very skilled in the Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, and Chaldean languages”), the study and collection of Oriental codices was strongly encouraged.72 The Austrian Orientalist and diplomat Josef von Hammer-Purgstall produced the first summary list of the Arabic manuscripts of the most ancient Fondo in 1839,73 marking the revival of Arabic studies in Milan in the first half of the nineteenth century. The Antico Fondo consists of 224 Arabic manuscripts, of which 36 are Christian works and 188 Islamic ones. The oldest is dated 621/1224 and contains three ancient texts on

69

From 1909 to 1913 Leone Caetani served as an elected member of the Italian Parliament, and his influence over the heads of the ministry could have been decisive in pushing the purchase through. 70 The library is named after Ambrose, the patron saint of Milan. 72

Giggi authored a four-volume Thesaurus linguae Arabicae (Milan, ex Ambrosiani Collegij Tipographia, 1932); see Fumagalli, “Raccolte significative,” pp. 182–183. 73 Catalogo dei codici arabi, persiani e turchi della Biblioteca Ambrosiana (Milan, 1839).

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medicine (MS Ambr., C 59 inf.).74 About one-sixth of the works do not appear in the common repertoires or are mentioned only with their titles. A few works are entirely unknown (such as MS Ambr., & 110 sup.); others are unica (e.g. MS Ambr., & 197 sup.:ii, containing a mirror for princes) or autographs (e.g. MS Ambr., D 272 inf., dated 805/1402, and & 80 sup., dated 1006/1598). In 1975, the then-Prefetto of the Ambrosiana, Angelo Paredi, though not an expert on the Arabic manuscript tradition, provided an introduction to this collection that highlighted its value and described it as a prelude to an even more outstanding one: The Milanese collection, like other larger collections, points up some constants of literature in the Arabic language and of Muslim inspiration, namely the preponderance of the religious motif, Arabic language study, and the speculative approach to the scientific investigation of nature and to the interpretation of supernatural phenomena. Thus, on the one hand, the “Islamic sciences,” that is the Qurʾān, Ḥadīth or tradition, law and theology, and on the other, poetry, philology, grammatical treatises, narrative and stories; in addition, writings on medicine, mathematics, astronomy, geography, the natural sciences and magic. These texts belong mostly to post-classical literature, that is to the XI century onwards, and they bear witness to the activity that generations of learned men devoted to working over the fruits of classical Arab learning and to systematising its theory.75

In the case of the Caprotti collection, a conjunction of factors led to the final outcome: the tradesman from Sanaa was keen to find a worthy buyer for his books; the manuscripts needed a new suitable location as an alternative to Griffini’s new house; and there was a growing fear that an appealing offer would reach Caprotti from Germany, in particular from the Berlin library through Hermann Burchardt. The relationship of trust between Griffini and the Ambrosiana’s previous Prefetto, Ceriani, continued with Ceriani’s successor Achille Ratti, who served as Prefetto of the Ambrosiana from March 1907 to 1914, then as Prefetto of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, and finally as pope, under the name Pius XI, from 1922 onward. As Prefetto of the Ambrosiana, Ratti, who had been born in Brianza (Lombardy), proved an enlightened supporter of a worldwide and open-minded cultural policy. In late 1908, through the mediation of Griffini, Caprotti was telegraphed and offered the sum of 30,000 liras for his manuscripts, the same amount mentioned by Nallino in his letter to Caetani six months later. On 11 December 1908 Caprotti sent a reply to Ratti from Sanaa, complaining that the offer was too low but expressing gratification that his collection would remain in Italy: La somma di 30 mila franchi […] è molto inferiore al valore reale, visto che io ho potuto acquistare una buona parte della raccolta in condizioni eccezionali e […] non rappresenta che il costo e le spese incontrate da me, senza contare tutte quelle sostenute in

74

Oscar Löfgren has been working on the identification and cataloging ex novo of the Antico Fondo since the end of the 1950s, and since 1972 he has been joined by Renato Traini. The Fondo is described in Löfgren and Traini, Catalogue, vol. 1, pp. 3–130, where the manuscripts of the Antico and the Medio Fondo (the most recent, despite its name) are distinguished in the catalog’s number order. Instead, the Christian Arabic manuscripts are numbered I–XXXVbis. This catalog and the subsequent three volumes were inspired by the description criteria used in Levi Della Vida’s Elenco of the Vatican’s Islamic manuscripts: Giorgio Levi Della Vida, Elenco dei manoscritti arabi islamici della Biblioteca Vaticana: Vaticani, Barberiniani, Borgiani, Rossiani, Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1935. 75 Löfgren and Traini, Catalogue, vol. 1, p. x (foreword).

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Italia […]. Vorrei essere in uno stato finanziario più solido per poter provare la mia deferenza a Lei, e alla venerata memoria dell’ottimo abate Ceriani, ma purtroppo un quarto di secolo in Jemen non mi permette ancora di fare il Mecenate non solo, ma l’acquisto dei manoscritti mi mise alle strette, e invece di ottenere un grosso profitto ho ottenuto tutto il contrario, ma di ciò non mi lagno affatto, perché sono oltremodo soddisfatto che la mia raccolta sia restata in Italia, e per di più in Milano all’Ambrosiana. (The sum of 30 thousand francs […] is much lower than the real value, since I was able to purchase a large part of the collection under exceptional conditions and […] it represents only the cost and expenses incurred by me, excluding all those incurred in Italy […]. I would like to be in a more solid financial state so as to prove my deference to You and to the blessed memory of the excellent Abbot Ceriani, but unfortunately a quarter of a century in Yemen does not allow me to be solely a patron, as purchasing the manuscripts put me on the spot, and instead of making a big profit I got the opposite; but I do not complain at all, because I am exceedingly satisfied that my collection has remained in Italy, and what is more in Milan at the Ambrosiana.)76

Caprotti saw himself as a patron and was proud to leave his manuscripts in Italy, especially to the prestigious Milanese Ambrosiana. It remains unclear where the manuscripts were between the end of 1908 and 1909, since most of the codices were no longer in Griffini’s house at that time; they were probably transferred to Caprotti’s house in Magenta, from whence forty-seven crates were dispatched to the Ambrosiana between 24 November 1909 and 8 January 1910. Since the institution did not have the financial means to pay for the manuscripts but nonetheless wished to keep the Caprotti collection within the boundaries of the Italian state, Ratti, with the essential support of Beltrami, devised a non-public subscription scheme, according to which the amount needed was divided into ten equal parts, to be covered by ten donors. Within a few days twenty-five Milanese donors77 joined the scheme, and the Banca Commerciale Italiana decided to complete the donation to bring the total to 30,000 liras, the amount requested by Caprotti as the price of the manuscripts. Thanks to the farsightedness and network of Ratti, who was sympathetic to the modernist movement in the liberal and progressive Milan, the acquisition of this remarkable new fund of Arabic manuscripts of Yemeni provenance was applauded and celebrated as a special gift to the Ambrosiana from the city on the third anniversary of the library’s foundation on 8 December 1609. On the anniversary, 8 December 1909, Ratti officially announced the purchase of the entire Milanese Arab library, totaling sixty-one crates of books, as Griffini disclosed to the general public in his already mentioned article in the Corriere della sera on 10 January 1910 and in his subscription call addressed to Milanese citizens published in the Rivista degli studi orientali in the same year.78 Ratti also placed a memorial plaque at the entrance to the reading hall of the library 76

Ambr., W 8 inf., no. 252. In his long letter, Caprotti also announced the shipment of other manuscripts as gifts to Ratti and Griffini; see Fumagalli, “Raccolte significative,” pp. 199–201. 77 Among the subscribers we find a variety of illustrious citizens: prelates, nobles, bankers, the newspaper Corriere della sera, the mayor of Milan, and Beltrami. The donors are listed on a plaque displayed at the library; Renato Traini, Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, vol. 4: Nuovo Fondo: Series F–H (Nos. 1296–1778), Cisinello Balsamo: Silvana Editoriale, 2011, p. xiv. 78 Griffini, “La grande raccolta,” pp. 374–375; Griffini, “Una lieta notizia.” The first catalog or short description of at least one-third (550) of the manuscripts of the Nuovo Fondo (series A–F) was accomplished by Griffini during

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on 7 December 1909. For its opening he chose a ḥadīth from Sufyān b. ʿUyayna, inscribed in Kufic characters: ‫( إذا د�لت ��انة فاج��د أن ����رج م��ا ح�ى تعرف ما ف��ا‬If you enter a library try not to get out of it without knowing what is inside). A commemorative inscription in Latin follows, written in capital letters: “Commendat Ambrosiana Bibliotheca in aevum illorum nomina qui ei tria ab ortu exacta saecula gratulati Arabicos libros M.DC.X manu scriptos e Iemenica regione a I. Caprotti advectos aere suo collaticio doctoris E. Griffini iuvante sollertia coëmentes munificentissime donaverunt” (“The Ambrosiana Library honors for all eternity the names of those who exactly three centuries after its foundation donated 1,610 Arabic manuscript books brought at his own expense by G. Caprotti from the Yemeni region with the help and support of Dr. E. Griffini”). A dedicated ex libris was affixed to each codex of the Caprotti collection that entered the Ambrosiana. [fig. 2] There were further offers from and negotiations with Caprotti, with Griffini continuing to argue for the purchase of works such as the compendium of Zaydī law by Zayd b. ʿAlī, to whose study Griffini had dedicated himself. He presented the work to Ratti, justifying himself in a letter for showing interest in the codices before negotiating: “È stato più furbo del solito, e mi ha preso alla sprovvista facendosi così dire in anticipo se sono o no quello che si cerca” (“He was shrewder than usual, and he caught me off guard, making me tell him in advance whether or not they were what was sought”). Griffini suggested paying no more than 50 liras for the two codices.79 We can assume that during this late period Griffini was searching for Zaydī works and had commissioned Caprotti to find them, keeping some dozens of manuscripts for himself. At least one manuscript was donated by Griffini to the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in this period according to a note written by Ratti and dated 28 July 1912, on the last page of a rather old exemplar of Yemeni provenance containing the Dīwān of Dhū l-Rumma.80 Donations of manuscripts collected by Caprotti continued. On 12 May 1914 the generous benefactor Luca Beltrami donated to the Ambrosiana 180 further codices in Arabic (156 MSS), Turkish, and Hebrew that Caprotti had acquired in Sanaa, Najran, and Iraq during the years 1910–1913 and brought to his home in Magenta. These manuscripts were added to the Nuovo Fondo, series H.81 [figg. 3-5]

the years 1908–1920: Eugenio Griffini, “Lista dei manoscritti sudarabici Nuovo Fondo della Biblioteca Ambrosiana di Milano,” Rivista degli studi orientali 3 (1910), pp. 253–278, 571–594, 901–921; 4 (1911–1912), pp. 87–106, 1021– 1048; 6 (1914–1915), pp. 1283–1316; 7 (1916–1918), pp. 51–130, 565–628; 8 (1919–1920), pp. 241–367. In 1960 Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Munajjid, director of the Maʿhad al-makhṭūṭāt al-ʿarabiyya in Cairo, published some notes about 220 MSS of series D (D 220–440): al-Munajjid, Fihris al-makhṭūṭāt al-ʿarabiyya fī l-Ambrūziyānā bi-Mīlānū, vol. 2, part 1: Dāl, min raqam 220–420, Cairo: Jāmiʿat al-duwal al-ʿarabiyya, Maʿhad al-makhṭūṭāt al-ʿarabiyya, 1960. 79 The letter is dated 11 September 1911 (Ambr., W 20 inf., no. 111). 80 MS Ambr. G 2; Traini, Catalogue, p. 191, no. 1610. On the same date Griffini wrote to Ratti announcing his intention to give to the library the ancient and correct copy of the Dīwān as a travel souvenir (letter dated 28 July 1912: Ambr., W 20 inf., G.III, no. 120). 81 They are described in Eugenio Griffini, “Die jüngste ambrosianische Sammlung arabischer Handschriften,” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 69 (1915), pp. 63–88.

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Figure 2. The Latin label affixed over each manuscript purchased by Caprotti and kept in the Ambrosiana Library displays the following words: «Once collected the money from the wealthiest citizens, Pius IX wisely provided the Ambrosiana library, of which he was then prefect, a great abundance of Islamic codes brought to Milan from Extreme Arabia by the merchant Giuseppe Caprotti. – In the year 1909».

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Figure 3. MS. Milan, Ambrosiana, C 85 (ff. 8v-9r): Rules from prognostics from an untitled astronomical and astrological work, probably autographed by ‘Abd al-Mun‘im al-Nabtītī al-Ḥanafī in 1072-3/1662-3. Next in the chronological order of acquisitions and donations of Caprotti manuscripts, in April 1922, shortly after Caprotti’s return to Magenta and his death at home in 1919, another 280 codices were sent by Senator Beltrami to the Vatican Apostolic Library as a tribute to the newly elected Pope Pius XI, Achille Ratti.82 If we assume that Caprotti had not given up his book-trading activities, the events surrounding Beltrami’s acquisition of the last Caprotti manuscripts remain unclear. Levi Della Vida simply stated that this batch was the last remaining stock of the huge assortment of manuscripts put together by Caprotti in Sanaa.83 The 280 codices contain about 520 texts: fragmentary Qurʾāns and commentaries, prayers, works on ḥadīth, logics, grammar, Zaydi furū‘ (practical law) and poetics, for the most part duplicating what was already preserved in the Ambrosiana. The most ancient exemplar is dated 537/1143, al-Muntakhab min al-fiqh, the responses by the Zaydi Imam al-Hādī Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn al-Rassī to Muḥammad b. Sulaymān al-Kūfī (MS Vat.Ar.1071). As was the case with the Caprotti manuscripts of the Ambrosiana an ex libris was affixed to each codex collected by Caprotti and donated by Beltrami to the Vaticana. [fig. 6] It is noteworthy that neither the Caprotti manuscripts preserved at the Ambrosiana nor those at the Vatican library bear his stamp of possession (fig. 7), suggesting that they were intended for sale and not to be kept in his personal possession.

82

The Caprotti manuscripts at the Vatican Library have been incorporated into the Codici Vaticani Arabi (nos. 946–1206, 1357–1375) and catalogued by Levi Della Vida in Elenco dei manoscritti: MSS Vat.Ar. nos. 1357-1375 are fragmentary texts. 83 Levi Della Vida in Elenco dei manoscritti, pp. viii–ix.

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Figure 4. MS. Milan, Ambrosiana, E 208 (f. 61r): Secondary title-page of the third juz’ of al-Tibyān li-yāqūtat al-īmān wa-wāṣiṭat al-burḥān, by Ḥasan b. Muḥammad b. Ḥasan al-Raṣṣāṣ, showing a list of the books (about fifteen) which belonged to the copyist, who transcribed the text in 620/1223.

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Figure 5. MS. Milan, Ambrosiana, F 178 (f. 21r): Anonymous jadwal to be used for knowing the qibla, in each of the twelve regions, according to the mediaeval cosmography (Qawl ‘alā ma’rifat jihāt al-qibla min al-buldān), transcribed in the mid-12th/18th century.

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Figure 6. MS. Milan, Ambrosiana, H 138 (f. 77r): The beginning of the bāb on the zakāt of Jāmi‘ al-aḥkām, by al-Hadī ilā al-Ḥaqq Yaḥyā b. Ḥusayn b. Qāsim (d. 298/911), transcribed in 418/1027 in a very ancient naskhī.

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Figure 7. The Latin ex libris on the manuscripts given by Luca Beltrami as a gift to the Vatican Library, and formerly collected by Caprotti: «The senator Luca Beltrami, with his sister Maria Bossi, his nephew Clelia Rosini, the physicians Giovani Carbonelli and Cesare Seroni, the prefect of the Ambrosiana Luigi Gramatica, and the accounting administrator Antonio Grandi gave [to the Vatican Library] about three hundred and thirty surviving books from the Caprotti collection, in April 1922, shortly after the Pope [Pius XI]’s election».

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In total, the collection of Arab-Yemeni manuscripts assembled by Caprotti over the course of almost thirty years from 1890 to 1919 consists of 2,215 manuscripts (2,267 if we do consider also the fifty-two manuscripts he gave to Griffini). These have been divided among three libraries: the Staatsbibliothek in Munich (157 MSS),84 the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan (1,778 MSS) and the Apostolica Biblioteca Vaticana (280 MSS) in Vatican City. One last batch of Arab manuscripts of Yemeni provenance was given to the Ambrosiana after Griffini’s premature death in Cairo in 1925. His mother fulfilled his wish by arranging for his Oriental books and manuscripts, in all probability provided by Caprotti over the latest decades, to be donated to the Ambrosiana; his archive and study materials entered the library later.85 The fifty-two Yemeni manuscripts collected by Griffini were ignored by scholars (even by Brockelmann in his Supplementbände) until Löfgren uncovered them and included them in the first volume of the catalog of the Ambrosiana Arabic manuscripts and designated them as part of the Medio Fondo,86 together with forty-two other codices (from Tripoli in Libya and northern Africa) donated in 1927 by the Milanese patron Gustavo Adolfo Noseda (1870–1951) and another thirty-eight manuscripts from various donors dating from the 1930s. With its 1,830 Arab-Yemeni manuscripts (1,778 from Caprotti and 52 from Griffini) the Biblioteca Ambrosiana holds the largest and most relevant collection of Zaydī Yemeni manuscripts outside Yemen. The Nuovo Fondo87 is entirely of Yemeni origin,88 and it offers wide-ranging documentation of Zaydī and Yemeni literature in general, reflecting the extremely peculiar culture established in the region since the end of the third/ninth century. The legal rigor of the Zaydī branch of Shiʿism, its ethical puritanism, and the theological rationalism derived from Muʿtazilism have stimulated its prodigious textual production, whose character appears to be more technical than literary, even in its handwritten layout; it has endured for more than a millennium, with peaks of particular intensity between the seventh/thirteenth and eleventh/seventeenth centuries. The Nuovo Fondo’s enormous corpus of texts also includes religious works of the Shāfiʿi school and secular scientific works together with South Arabian and Sufi poetry, which flourished luxuriantly despite Zaydī opposition. It is worth recalling Traini’s inspiring description of these works

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The Caprotti Arabic manuscripts in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich have been incorporated into the main library collection with the signatures Cod. arab. 1179–1334/2. Of the codices, 70% contain works on Zaydī law, traditions, dogma, and poetry; Florian Sobieroj, Arabische Handschriften der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek zu München unter Einschluss einiger türkischer und persischer Handschriften, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2007, pp. 267–511. 85 Angela Codazzi published a catalog of this donation, following Beltrami’s initiative: Catalogo dei libri a stampa ed elenco sommario dei mss. dal Dr. Griffini legati alla Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan: Tipografia Umberto Allegretti, 1926. 86 They were marked with X sup. signatures, denoting later donations; Löfgren and Traini, Catalogue, vol. 1, pp. xxix (concordances of the Medio Fondo), 27, 130–162 (nos. XXV, CCXLIII–CCXCIV). 87 The manuscripts of the Nuovo Fondo retain the signatures assigned by Caprotti: series A–D (Löfgren and Traini, Catalogue, vol. 2, nos. 1–830); series E (Löfgren and Traini, Catalogue, vol. 3, nos. 831–1295); series F–H (Traini, Catalogue, vol. 4, nos. 1296–1778). 88 There are a few exceptional manuscripts not transcribed in Yemen, but these codices were brought to Yemen by owners who integrated them into Yemeni collections. An example is MS A 80 (Löfgren and Traini, Catalogue, vol. 2, pp. 42–43, no. 80), a unicum text of ancient Arabic proverbs (Kitāb al-amthāl) by an Isfahani traditionist scholar, Abū l-Shaykh al-Iṣbahānī (d. 369/979), dated 708/1309 and seemingly copied in Syria.

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as “testi che sono testimonianze di una cultura, quella dell’antica Arabia Felice nella sua posteriore stagione, segnata dall’Islam, la cui ‘pietas’ combinò singolarmente, sul suolo del Yemen, asprezze di lotta politica con rigori di mistica ascesi, la minuziosa elaborazione del sapere giuridico con una razionale disciplina di speculazione teologica” (“texts that are evidence of a culture, that of the ancient Arabia Felix in its later season, marked by Islam, whose ‘piety’ singularly combined on the soil of Yemen the harshness of political struggle with the rigors of mystical asceticism, and the meticulous elaboration of legal knowledge with a rational discipline of theological speculation”).89 Unfortunately, Löfgren and Traini’s meritorious Catalogue, which has played a crucial role in opening up this large body of texts, does not record notes or stamps of previous owners or paleographic features that would allow glimpses into their places of production; indexes of dates and subjects are provided instead. Paleographically, the codices exhibit a general severity in their graphic and textual features with few decorative artifices, though the clarity and solidity of the archaic Yemeni script produce an irresistibly attractive, austere elegance, particularly in the most ancient exemplars. The oldest dated manuscript of the Ambrosiana Yemeni collection is a basic treatise on Zaydī law, Jāmiʿ al-aḥkām fī l-ḥalāl wa-l-ḥaram by Hādī Yaḥyā b. Ḥusayn b. Qāsim (the founder of the Zaydī imamate in Sanaa), dated 418/1027.90 Another group of fifty-one codices are dated to the seventh/thirteenth century or earlier. The eleventh/seventeenth century is the best represented among the dated codices, with 78% originating in this century. In the content of the Caprotti collection, the Zaydī strand decisively prevails, especially in works on theology and law (which make up 43% of the collection); in these two areas Zaydī works account for 75% and 90% of the total, respectively. Nearly half of the material thus falls within the realm of the religious sciences, including also texts on ethics and Sufism. The other half, pertaining to profane knowledge, addresses the “Arab sciences” of grammar, lexicography, history and historiography, poetry, and various scientific subjects. The collection’s value is further strengthened by the originality, if not the absolute rarity, of a considerable number of its texts: about 230 are otherwise unknown, about 300 are unique, and 32 are autographs. In terms of their codicological structure, the 1,830 Ambrosiana codices (the Caprotti and Griffini collections) contain more than 2,700 identified texts, with 46% of the codices consisting of a single text each and about 43% being composite multitext codices. The latter include both single-block manuscripts, produced in a single working session, and multiple-block manuscripts, produced in several distinct working sessions (whether organized or factitious). The collection also contains other miscellanies (majmūʿāt), such as poetic anthologies or medleys of various texts, at times by the same authors. When we consider the orientation revealed by Caprotti’s choice of manuscripts from the beginning to the end of his activity in Sanaa, it is possible to detect a shift in tastes and interests, likely due to Griffini’s influence. The first manuscripts he sold to the Staatsbibliothek in Munich were mostly on Zaydī law, whereas his later acquisitions, which were

89

I am indebted to my teacher Renato Traini for sharing with me the typewritten draft of his address on the occasion of the presentation of the third volume of the Catalogue on 19 November 1996 at the Biblioteca Ambrosiana. 90 MS Ambr. H 138; Traini, Catalogue, vol. 4, pp. 294–295, no. 1760.

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shipped to Griffini in Milan and later ended up in the Ambrosiana, show an expansion in the areas of knowledge covered and in the associated disciplines. The fifty-two Griffini codices, although limited in number, deal with a wider range of subjects: religious sciences (thirty texts, including only two on Zaydī law), ethics and politics (six texts), the sciences (ten texts), history (eight texts), the Arabic language (nine texts), poetry (thirteen texts), and adab and prose literature (twelve texts).91 Beltrami’s 1922 donation of 280 codices to the Vaticana after Caprotti’s death represented Caprotti’s final contribution, although it is not known when and how these texts were acquired in Sanaa nor when they were sent to Italy. The Vatican’s Yemeni collection comprises 520 individual works, with a higher percentage being preserved in multitext codices, and the distribution of subjects is quite heterogeneous, with works related to Zaydism (114 texts on law and 34 on theology) and poetry (134 texts) predominating, followed by works on language (56 texts), the sciences (54 texts), history (42 texts), the Qurʾānic sciences (38 texts), prayers (36 texts), and other subjects. Beyond quantitative analysis, the Caprotti collection as a whole constitutes an extraordinary 360-degree observatory on the prodigious cultural transfer and propagation in Yemen from the third/ninth century onward, and on Yemeni manuscript production, whose historical, literary, codicological, paleographic, and material aspects are still in need of systematic study.92 Seven years after Caprotti’s death, in 1926, the abovementioned doctor and advisor to the imam, Emilio Dubbiosi, landed in Yemen, where he collected 225 Arabic manuscripts, mainly with medical and zoological content.93 In 1990 the Dubbiosi family donated his collection of manuscripts and books to the library of the Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente (IsMEO) in Rome. The IsMEO’s holdings were subsequently transferred to the Istituto Italiano per l’Africa e l’Oriente, with which the IsMEO merged in 1995, and they are currently conserved by the National Central Library of Rome (BNCR).94 Dubbiosi’s collection is a treasure trove of unique and rare texts on medicine, pharmacology, and astronomy, [figg. 8-11 ] recently discovered and soon available to scholars through the Zaydi Manuscript Tradition (ZMT) project initiated jointly by the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, thanks to Sabine Schmidtke, and the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library

91

The subject index of the Griffini collection has been included in the general classified index of the Nuovo and Medio Fondo (Löfgren and Traini, Catalogue, vol. 1, pp. 239–250). 92 It is unfortunate that the Caprotti manuscripts at the Ambrosiana, although fully digitized in recent years, have so far not been included in the ZMT project; those kept at the Vatican Library have so far not been digitized. 93 Dubbiosi was interested in zoology to the point of gathering a collection of reptiles, the first of its kind, collected around Sanaa between 1928 and 1929; it was donated to the School of Military Health in Florence, which sent it to the zoologist Giuseppe Scortecci. See Giuseppe Scortecci, “Rettili dello Yemen,” Atti della Società Italiana di Scienze Naturali e del Museo Civico di Storia Naturale in Milano 71 (1932), pp. 39–49, here: p. 39. 94 I am very grateful to Adriano Valerio Rossi, president of the new IsMEO-Associazione Internazionale di Studi sul Mediterraneo e l’Oriente, who enabled the inclusion of the Dubbiosi manuscripts in the ZMT project early this year, and to Lorenzo Declich, librarian at the IsMEO, who has been very cooperative and helpful in implementing the project.

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Figure 8. MS. Rome, BNCR-IsIAO, Dubbiosi 50 (ff. 45v-46r): Practical guidebook of medicines arranged alphabetically, copy of the 12th/18th century.

Figure 9. MS. Rome, BNCR-IsIAO, Dubbiosi 71 (ff. 3v-4r): The title page of the Sharḥ Dīwān Abī l-Ṭayyib al-Mutanabbī, by Abū l-Ḥasan ‘Alī b. Aḥmad al-Wāḥidī al-Nīshābūrī (d. 468/1067), copy of the mid-11th/17th century.

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Figure 10. MS. Rome, BNCR-IsIAO, Dubbiosi 137 (ff. 4v-5r): Illuminated front page of the systematic handbook of medicine Tadhkira fī l-ṭibb (Tadhkira ulī al-albāb wa-ljāmi‘ li-l-‘ajab al-‘ujāb), by Dā’ūd b. ‘Umar al-Anṭākī al-Ḍarīr (d. 1008/1599), transcribed in 1149/1736.

Figure 11. MS. Rome, BNCR-IsIAO, Dubbiosi 226 (ff. 16v-17r): Astrological correspondence table from the eschatological work on the meaning of astrology Tafrīj al-mahmūm fī ‘ilm al-nujūm (Faraj al-mahmūm fī ma‘rifat nahj al-ḥalāl wa-lḥarām min ‘ilm al-nujūm), by the Shī‘ī Raḍī al-Dīn Abū al-Qāsim ‘Alī b. Mūsā b. Ja‘far Ibn Ṭāwūs al-Ṭāwūsī al-‘Alawī (d. 664/1266), copy of the 12th/18th century.

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Figure 12. The Emilio Dubbiosi dry stamp, which he embossed on some of his manuscripts collected in Sanaa (MS. Rome, BNCR-IsIAO, Dubbiosi 5, f. 151v). (HMML) at Saint John’s University, Collegeville, Minnesota, and since 2018 successfully extended to Italian libraries.95 In rare cases we have found a dry stamp with the name “Emilio Dubbiosi” embossed on manuscripts in his collection. [fig. 12] The name of another physician mentioned earlier, Tommaso Sarnelli, is associated with the partly uncatalogued collection of Arabic manuscripts at the University of Naples “L’Orientale,” which includes manuscripts, mostly on medicine, that Sarnelli himself brought back from Yemen in 1932 and donated to “L’Orientale” in 1950,96 as well as later acquisitions. His manuscripts are marked by his decorated Arabic ex libris on the pastedown of their front plates [fig. 13]. Thanks to the ZMT project I was able to locate the forty-two manuscripts transcribed or produced in Yemen within the library’s entire Arabic Fund, which consists of 259 codices from northern Africa, Egypt, Turkey, Syria, Central Asia, and Yemen; 256 items have been digitized in 2019 and are going to be available in the HMML’s virtual reading room.97 Noteworthy among the Sarnelli manuscripts is a particularly ancient and rare exemplar, first uncovered and reported by Sarnelli himself: a unique and unedited Kitāb al-Lumʿa al-kāfiya fī l-adwiya al-shāfiya [fig. 14], which is an autograph by the author, al-Malik al-Afḍal al-ʿAbbās b. ʿAlī b. Dāwūd al-Ghassānī, the Rasulid king

95

ZMT encompasses an online digital platform of digitized Yemeni Zaydī manuscripts from all participating institutions; with regard to Italy, see Valentina Sagaria Rossi and Sabine Schmidtke, “The Zaydi Manuscript Tradition (ZMT) Project: Digitizing the Collections of Yemeni Manuscripts in Italian Libraries,” COMSt Bulletin 5, no. 1 (2019), pp. 43–59, and, more generally, Sabine Schmidtke, “The Zaydi Manuscript Tradition: Virtual Repatriation of Cultural Heritage,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 50 (2018), pp. 124–128. 96 Sixteen of Sarnelli’s manuscripts have been described by Giuseppe Celentano and Clelia Sarnelli Cerqua in “I manoscritti di medicina araba dell’Istituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli,” Studi in onore di Francesco Gabrieli nel suo ottantesimo compleanno, ed. Renato Traini, Rome: Università di Roma “La Sapienza,” Dipartimento di studi orientali, 1984, pp. 211–236. 97 I wish to thank Roberto Tottoli, Rector of the University “L’Orientale,” Stefania Castanò and Antonella Muratgia of the library system’s Asiatic section for their fundamental and generous collaboration that allowed the library to join the project.

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Figure 13. The label with the Arabic ex libris created by Tommaso Sarnelli and affixed on his manuscripts donated to “L’Orientale”: «�ّ�‫»من ���� كتب ا��ك�� ��ن‬.

Figure 14. MS. Naples, Università “L’Orientale”-SiBA, ARA 49 (f. 1r): Title page of the medical and hygiene compendium Kitāb al-lum‘a al-kāfiya fī l-adwiya al-shāfiya, by al-Malik al-Afḍal al-‘Ābbās b. ‘Ālī b. Dā’ūd Ibn Rasūl al-Ghassānī (who ruled in Yemen from 764/1363 to 778/1377), copied at the end of the 8th/14th century (autograph?), and dedicated to Sarnelli from the ‘āmil in Sanaa al-Sayyid Muḥammad b. Ḥusayn b. ‘Abd al-Qādir in 1350/1931 (upper left).

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Figure 15. MS. Naples, Università “L’Orientale”-SiBA, ARA 10 (ff. 10v-11r): Decorated front page of the compendium of pharmacology Kitāb al-muʿtamad fī l-adwiya almufrada (Kitāb al-muʿtamad fī l-mufradāt fī l-ṭibb), by al-Malik al-Ashraf Mumahhid al-Dīn ‘Umar b. Yūsuf b. ‘Umar b. ‘Alī b. Rasūl al-Ghassānī (who ruled in Yemen from 694/1294-5 to 696/1296-7), dated 1154/1741. who ruled from 764/1363 to 778/1377).98 The work is a compendium on medicine and the hygiene of food, drinks, and pharmacology, and it betrays the influence of Ibn Sīnā’s Qānūn. The manuscript was a gift to Sarnelli by the ʿāmil of Sanaa, Muḥammad b. Ḥusayn b. ʿAbd alQādir in 1931, as we read in the dedication on f. 1r. The Yemeni manuscripts of the “L’Orientale” can be mostly dated back to the eleventh/seventeenth and twelfth/eighteenth centuries. [figg. 15-17] While exploring for the first time the Italian libraries to discover Yemeni manuscripts, I found other codices given by Sarnelli as gifts to his friends: two to Alfonso Gallo, founder of the Italian Institute for the Restoration of Books and Archives (ICRCPAL), and two to the scholar of the history of medicine Adalberto Pazzini, who later became director of the Institute for the History of Medicine at the University of Rome “La Sapienza” (BSM); these manuscripts are currently held by their recipients’ respective institutions.99 The first two codices are on religious subjects: an ancient copy of al-Nawawī’s commentary on the Ṣaḥīḥ

98

Naples, UNIOR-SIBA, MS ARA 49: see Tommaso Sarnelli, “Il Kitāb al-lum‘ah al-kāfiyah fī ’l-adwiya aš-šāfiyah di al-‘Abbās b. ‘Alī b. Rasūl al-Ġassānī, re del Yemen (sec. XIV),” Rivista degli studi orientali 24 (1949), pp. 78–91; Celentano and Sarnelli Cerqua, “I manoscritti di medicina araba,” pp. 226–227. 99 Their respective signatures are Rome, ICRCPAL, Bib. 1058, and Mus. 770-65; Rome, BSM, Rari 19, and Rari 20.

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of Muslim, dated to the early eighth/fourteenth century, and a collection of Shiʿite prayers dated to the eleventh/seventeenth century (recently subjected to diagnostic analysis and restored). The latter two manuscripts at the library of the Institute for the History of Medicine, contain rare works on medicine (sixth/twelfth century) and were transcribed during the eleventh/seventeenth century. None of these four are mentioned in the repertoires, but each one has now become part of the ZMT project. The renowned Arabist Carlo Alfonso Nallino (1872–1938) also collected a few manuscripts, which are today part of his legacy at the homonymous Istituto per l’Oriente “Carlo Alfonso Nallino” (IPOCAN) in Rome. To his six Arab-Yemeni manuscripts can be added the six codices collected in Yemen by the abovementioned Orientalist Ettore Rossi during the years 1937–1938, which were purchased by IPOCAN in 1958. The thirty-two Islamic manuscripts of the IPOCAN have been recently cataloged,100 and in 2019 the twelve Yemeni exemplars among them were included in the ZMT project. The IPOCAN’s Arab-Yemeni manuscripts are almost entirely modern copies of the thirteenth/nineteenth and fourteenth/twentieth centuries, containing texts on Zaydī law and polemics, history, genealogies, and poetry. [fig. 18]

Figure 16. MS. Naples, Università “L’Orientale”-SiBA, ARA 10 (ff. 1v-2r): Front page of the treatise on pharmacology Kitāb majma‘ al-khulāṣa fī l-ṭibb (Majma‘ al-ḥikam), by al-Sayyid Fatḥī al-Mukharriz al-adīb, dated 1114/1702 (unicum ?). 100

Laura Bottini, Islamic Manuscripts from the Library of the Istituto per l’Oriente Carlo Alfonso Nallino (Rome), Rome: Istituto per l’Oriente, 2017. The Arab-Yemeni exemplars are marked by catalog numbers 3, 4, 9, 10, 11, 15, 16, 18, 20, 21, 28, and 31.

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Figure 17. MS. Naples, Università “L’Orientale”-SiBA, ARA 214 (ff. 161v-162r): Last page and colophon of the treatise of Zaydi theology Kitāb al-khulāṣa al-nāfi‘a (bi-ladilla al-qāṭi‘a fī fawā’id al-tābi‘a), by Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad b. al-Ḥasan b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Raṣṣāṣ (d. 621/1224), dated 733/1333.

Figure 18. MS. Rome, IPOCAN, RR Ar. I, 46 bis, 14 (ff. 58v-59r): Explicit of the chronicle of early Ottoman southern Yemen al-Iḥsān fī dukhūl mamlakat al-Yaman taḥta ẓill ‘adālat āl ‘Uthmān, by Shams al-Dīn ‘Abd al-Ṣamad b. Ismā‘īl b. ‘Abd alṢamad al-Mawza‘ī (d. after 1031/1621), transcribed in 1318/1900.

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Figure 19. MS. Rome, IPOCAN, CAN Ar. I, 46 bis, 20 (f. 1r): Dīwān by an unknown author, with Caprotti’s round red stamp (upper left), in Italian and Arabic, «Giuseppe Caprotti – Sanaa – Yemen-Arabia – ‫»يوسف قا��و�ي صنعاء‬.

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A fairly unexpected discovery was that a couple of Caprotti’s manuscripts found their way to Rome, as evidenced by his red stamp of possession with his name in Arabic, impressed on two copies [fig. 19] that had belonged to Nallino.101 They contain short, fragmentary poetic texts transcribed in the eleventh/seventeenth century and supposedly given to Nallino by Griffini or directly by Caprotti himself. In Rome, the Biblioteca dell’Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei preserves another group of sixty-eight manuscripts attesting to the heterogeneity of the manuscript culture flourishing in Yemen. The Lincei Yemeni collection was mostly built up by two already mentioned figures, the Orientalist Rossi102 and the physician Cesare Ansaldi; the latter stayed in Yemen from late 1929 to May 1932 and is author of a historical outline of the country.103 Rossi collected fiftyfive Arabic manuscripts in Sanaa and donated them to the Accademia in 1938; another eight manuscripts were sold by Ansaldi to the Accademia in 1953; two were donated in 1933 by Benito Mussolini, who had received them as a gift from Ansaldi; and a further two codices were from unknown owners.104 The oldest dated codex is a copy of the first part of the Majmūʿ fī l-Muḥīṭ bi-l-taklīf [fig. 20] by al-Ḥasan b. Aḥmad Ibn Mattawayh (d. 469/1076), dated 691/1292, on Muʿtazilī theology, but about half of the texts date from the eleventh/seventeenth to thirteenth/nineteenth centuries. Twenty-eight of the texts are devoted to Yemeni political history and biography, sixteen to Zaydī law, ten to Zaydī theology, seven to Qurʾānic sciences and traditions, and two to ethics; many are rasāʾil by the Zaydī imams, and there are also a few Muʿtazilī treatises, one work on geography, one on veterinary science, and some poetical and narrative texts. In addition, seventeen codices contain general works and texts not specifically related to the Yemeni milieu on grammar, law, medicine, and the natural and occult sciences, as well as encyclopedias and well-known poetical texts. [figg. 21-23] Last but not least, Leone Caetani gave to the Accademia a rare manuscript of Yemeni origin (BANLC, Or. 78a) containing the seventh juzʾ of one of the most important grammatical Qurʾān commentaries, al-Tafsīr al-basīṭ by ʿAlī b. Aḥmad al-Wāḥidī al-Nishābūrī (d. 468/1076), dating back to the mid-eighth/fourteenth century. Caetani had purchased it during one of his travels in the Middle East, seemingly without knowing that it had a Yemeni origin and had been transcribed by a Yemeni hand.

101

Their signatures are Rome, IPOCAN, CAN Ar. I, 46bis, 19 (f. 7v), and CAN Ar. I, 46bis, 20 (f. 1r); see Bottini, Islamic Manuscripts, pp. 93–95. 102 Ettore Rossi graduated in Greek in 1920, but after meeting Griffini and attending his courses at the University of Milan in 1917 and 1918, he reoriented his interests toward the Arab-Muslim world. In those years, Griffini, in conflict with the Italian academic world, moved to Egypt in 1920, and he provided Rossi a post as translator and interpreter to the government of Tripolitania (not yet Libya) for two years, which allowed Rossi to improve his knowledge of the Arab world and its language. 103 Ansaldi, Il Yemen nella storia e della leggenda. 104 Their signatures are Rome, BANLC, MSS Or. 301–365, 371–372, 78a; see Renato Traini, I manoscritti arabi di recente accessione della Fondazione Caetani, Rome: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 1967, pp. 1–109, 114–115, and Carlo Alfonso Nallino, “Due manoscritti arabi di storia del Yemen appartenenti alla Fondazione Caetani,” Rendiconti della Reale Accademia dei Lincei, Classe di scienze morali, storiche e filosofiche 4, no. 9 (1933), pp. 669– 684, who described Or. 264 and 265, given to the Accademia by Mussolini. The Lincei manuscripts were the first in Italy to join the ZMT in 2018 and are fully available on vHMML (http://hmml.org/digital-copies-rossi-ansaldicaetani-yemeni-manuscript-collections-now-available-vhmml-reading-room/).

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Figure 20. MS. Rome, BANLC, Or. 320 (ff. 42v-43r): Front page of the third juz’ of the treatise on Mu‘tazili theology and metaphysics Majmū‛ fī l-Muḥīṭ bi-l-taklīf, by Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan b. Aḥmad Ibn Mattawayh (d. 469/1076), dated 691/1292.

Figure 21. MS. Rome, BANLC, Or. 3351 (ff. 1v-2r): First page of the exposition of Zaydi doctrine Kitāb al-bisāṭ, by al-Imām al-Nāṣir li-l-Ḥaqq al-Ḥasan b. ‘Alī b. al-Ḥasan b. ‘Alī al-Uṭrūsh (d. 304/916), dated 1052/1642 (rare copy).

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Figure 22. MS Rome, BANLC, Or. 321 (f. 1r): Title page of the well-known Arabic grammar al-Mufaṣṣal fī ‘ilm al-‘irāb, by Abū al-Qāsim Maḥmūd b. ‘Umar alZamakhsharī (d. 538/1144), dated 786/1384, the second oldest exemplar of the work.

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Figure 23. MS. Rome, BANLC, Or. 332 (ff. 1v-2r): First page of the rare Mu‘tazili work of Qur’anic exegesis al-Radd ‘alā al-jabriyya al-qadariyya fī-mā ta‘allaqū bihi min mutashābih āy al-Qur’ān al-karīm, by al-qāḍī Abū ‘Umar Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Ḥafṣ al-Khallāl al-Baṣrī (d. after 377/988), transcribed at the end of the 6th/12th century.

FROM THE EYRIES OF YEMEN TO THE PASTURES OF HOLLAND THE ACQUISITION AND PRESERVATION OF YEMENI MANUSCRIPTS AT LEIDEN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY KARIN SCHEPER AND ARNOUD VROLIJK In a well-established institution such as Leiden University Library in the Netherlands, the term “collection” evokes the image of consistent efforts directed toward a defined goal. Alas, this is hardly the case with the two hundred-odd Zaydī/Yemeni manuscripts preserved there. To begin with, it is by no means certain what a Yemeni manuscript is. Is it a manuscript containing a text by a Yemeni author or about Yemeni history, religion, or culture? Or is it a manuscript originating in Yemen containing any text? Below, Karin Scheper shall explore the latter category by focusing on the physical categories that define a “Yemeni” manuscript. But in the first place Arnoud Vrolijk will trace the provenance of Arabic manuscripts in the Leiden collections that are related to the coastal plain of the Tihāma and the highlands of Yemen rather than the more distant lands of Hadhramaut. From a political and religious point of view, we shall give precedence to the areas where Zaydī Islam was—or is—dominant or influential. For the same reason, we shall ignore the important Jewish heritage of Yemen. The recent digitization in 2018–2019 of the bulk of the Yemeni collection in Leiden with the support of The Zaydi Manuscript Tradition project, coordinated by Professor Sabine Schmidtke (IAS, Princeton), presents an excellent opportunity to devote more attention to the subject.

LEVINUS WARNER COLLECTION The beginnings of a Yemeni collection at Leiden were modest indeed, and it developed only at a snail’s pace. Although the Dutch East India Company traded with Yemeni port cities such as Mocha from the early seventeenth century onward, this trade did not lead to official diplomatic or cultural ties until the second quarter of the twentieth century. As a matter of fact, the first manuscript on a Yemeni and Zaydī subject ever to enter Leiden was a history of the Ottoman conquest of the fortified town of Kawkaban in 1598 by Ḥasan Pasha, who on ac-

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count of this victory gained the sobriquet Yemenli, “the Yemenite.” The author of this history, a certain ʿĀmir b. Muḥammad al-Duʿāmī, negotiated the surrender on behalf of the Yemenis but afterward astutely entered the service of the Ottoman pasha. The pasha, to whom the manuscript was dedicated, died in 1607. About fifty years later the manuscript passed into the hands of Levinus Warner (ca. 1618–1665), the Dutch envoy in Istanbul, who in the course of his twenty-year stay in the Ottoman capital collected about a thousand Oriental manuscripts, which he left to Leiden University upon his death.1 Although the manuscript is a work on Yemeni history by a Yemeni author, it belongs firmly to the classical Ottoman tradition in terms of its binding, script, and illumination (see fig. 1).

Figure 1. Opening pages of an Ottoman manuscript on Yemenli Ḥasan Pasha and the fortress of Kawkaban, early seventeenth century (Or. 477). Another precious and probably unique manuscript in the Warner collection goes back to the Sunni dynasty of the Rasulids, who ruled part of Yemen from their capital, Zabid, between 1229 and 1454. It is a copy of Jamharat al-Islām dhāt al-nathr wa-l-niẓām (The gathering of the Muslim [poets], containing prose and poetry), an anthology of Arabic poetry from the Islamic era by Muslim b. Maḥmūd al-Shayzarī, who died in Mecca in 1229. This ancient manuscript is dated 23 Shawwāl 697/9 August 1298, and an inscription on the title

1

MS Leiden, University Library, Cod. Or. 477, al-Rawḍ al-ḥasan fī akhbār siyar Mawlānā Ṣāḥib Saʿādat al-Bāshā Ḥasan fī ayyām wilāyatihi bi-iqlīm al-Yaman (The fair meadow on the news about the life and times of Our Lord, His Grace Ḥasan Pasha in the days of his governorship of the province of Yemen); see A. Vrolijk, J. Schmidt, and K. Scheper, Turcksche Boucken: The Oriental Collection of Levinus Warner, Dutch Diplomat in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul, Eindhoven: Lecturis, 2012, pp. 113, 116, 118; Brockelmann, GAL S II 549; see also J. J. Witkam, Inventory of the Oriental Manuscripts of the Library of the University of Leiden, Leiden: Ter Lugt Press, 2006–, vol. 1, p. 210, available online at http://www.islamicmanuscripts.info/inventories/leiden/.

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page reveals that it was once housed in the royal library of the Rasulid sultan of Yemen, alMalik al-Muʾayyad Hizabr al-Dīn Dāwūd b. Yūsuf (r. 1296–1321).2

AMĪN B. ḤASAN AL-MADANĪ In 1883, more than two centuries after the Warner acquisition, a few Yemeni manuscripts landed in Leiden almost by chance when Amīn b. Ḥasan al-Madanī, a scholar and bookseller originally from Medina, traveled to Amsterdam to attend the International Export and Colonial Fair. In his luggage he brought about 650 Arabic manuscripts, which were eventually sold to Leiden University with the mediation of the Swedish Orientalist Carlo Landberg.3 Among al-Madanī’s collection we find the oldest dated Zaydī manuscript extant at Leiden, containing the second volume only of al-Iḥāṭa ([The book of] comprehension), a rare and perhaps even unique work on Zaydī doctrine by the imam of Tabaristan, Iran, al-Muwaffaq bi-llāh Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥusayn b. Ismāʿīl al-Ḥasanī, who died after 1029. The volume in question is dated 605/1208 or 1209, and it was once held in the private library of the Zaydī imam of Yemen al-Manṣūr bi-llāh ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ḥamza (r. 1197–1217; see fig. 2a, b).4 Of equal interest in the Madanī collection is an undated but unique copy of a supercommentary on a very early work on Muʿtazilī dogma by Abū ʿAlī Ibn Khallād, who flourished in the second half of the tenth century. The intermediate commentary in this work is by the Zaydī imam al-Nāṭiq bi-l-Ḥaqq Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn al-Buṭḥānī from Daylam, Iran (951–1033).5

CHRISTIAAN SNOUCK HURGRONJE Yemeni manuscripts are also known to exist in the collection of Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje (1857–1936), who in 1884–1885 traveled to Jeddah and Mecca to observe local life and customs. Between 1889 and 1906 he lived in the Netherlands East Indies (present-day Indonesia), where he was official advisor to the colonial government on matters of “Arab and indigenous Muslim” policy. In this capacity he was in close contact with the important and numerous Ḥaḍramī community of Batavia (now Jakarta). Snouck Hurgronje may have obtained his manuscripts either through his Arabian contacts or from his Ḥaḍramī associates in the East Indies. Generally speaking, the Yemeni element in his collection still awaits further scholarly research.6

2

MS Leiden, University Library, Cod. Or. 287; see Witkam, Inventory, vol. 1, pp. 116–117; Brockelmann, GAL G I 259. L. Mols and A. Vrolijk, Western Arabia in the Leiden Collections: Traces of a Colourful Past, Leiden: University Press, 2016, pp. 10–12. For al-Madanī’s own account of his voyage to the Netherlands in 1883, see C. Snouck Hurgronje (ed.), Het Leidsche Oriëntalistencongres: Herinneringen van een Arabisch congreslid, Leiden: Brill, 1883. 4 MS Leiden, University Library, Cod. Or. 8409, formerly in Or. 2584; see Witkam, Inventory, vol. 3, p. 165; vol. 9, p. [153]. 5 MS Leiden, University Library, Cod. Or. 2949; see Witkam, Inventory, vol. 3, p. 234; see also S. Schmidtke and C. Adang, “Islamic Rational Theology in the Collections of Leiden University Library: The ‘Supplements’ of the Zaydī Imām al-Nāṭiq bi-l-Ḥaqq (d. 1033) to the Theological Summa of Abu ʿAlī ibn Khallād (fl. Second Half of 10th Century),” Omslag: Bulletin van de Universiteitsbibliotheek Leiden en het Scaliger Instituut 5/3 (2007), pp. 6–7. 6 On Yemeni MSS in the Snouck Hurgronje collection, see Witkam, Inventory, vol. 7, sub Codd. Or. 6980, 6999, 7000, 7094. For a brief description of Snouck Hurgronje’s life and career, see A. Vrolijk and R. van Leeuwen, Arabic Studies in the Netherlands: A Short History in Portraits, 1580–1950, Leiden: Brill, 2014, pp. 117–150. 3

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Figure 2a. Title page of al-Iḥāṭa, a work on Zaydī doctrine by the imam of Tabaristan; the oldest Zaydī manuscript in the Leiden collections, dated 605/1208–1209 (Or. 8409).

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Figure 2b. Opening page of al-Iḥāṭa, a work on Zaydī doctrine by the imam of Tabaristan; the oldest Zaydī manuscript in the Leiden collections, dated 605/1208– 1209 (Or. 8409).

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In 1907 Snouck Hurgronje took up the chair of Arabic at Leiden, where he became deeply involved in the education of civil servants and administrators for the East Indies. At the same time, he retained his right to advise the government on colonial policy. His insistent call for Indonesians’ participation in their own government—within the boundaries of Dutch colonial rule, of course—attracted many students but estranged him from conservative political circles. Nevertheless, he managed to have his pupils appointed to high office in the colonial administration and the Dutch diplomatic service in Muslim countries.

CORNELIS ADRIAANSE From the second half of the nineteenth century onward, the Dutch maintained a diplomatic representation at Jeddah, the main port of call on the way to Mecca for Indonesian pilgrims, who were formally Dutch subjects. The Dutch envoy and his staff not only provided consular assistance to these pilgrims but also tried to gain intelligence about their movements in the holiest city of Islam in an era that witnessed the birth and growth of Indonesian (proto-)nationalism. Between 1931 and 1939 the post of acting chargé d’affaires and consul in Jeddah was occupied by Cornelis (Cees) Adriaanse (1896–1964), a pupil of Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje. Adriaanse was born in Middelburg, Zealand, but spent most of his childhood in Amsterdam. From 1913 until 1916 he attended the national school for the education of East Indian civil servants (Rijksopleiding tot Indisch ambtenaar) in Leiden. In 1919–1924 he was appointed to various junior positions in the colonial administration in Menado and Gorontalo (Sulawesi) and later in Amboina. Perhaps dissatisfied with his prospects, he returned to the Netherlands and in 1925 continued his education as a student of “Indology” at the University of Leiden, where he was taught by Snouck Hurgronje.7 This graduate course would give him access to the higher echelons of the civil administration in the colonies. He obtained his degree in 1927 and returned to the Indies in 1928. In 1931 he received his diplomatic appointment in Jeddah, where he would remain until 1939. During the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands he and his wife found shelter in Leiden at the former home of Snouck Hurgronje, who had passed away in 1936, and contributed to A. J. Wensinck’s voluminous register of ḥadīth, Concordance et indices de la tradition musulmane. After the end of the Second World War he continued his career at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he rose to the rank of director. He mostly withdrew from active service in 1951, and in 1957 he finished the three-volume edition of Snouck Hurgronje’s collected memorandums to the government (Ambtelijke Adviezen). He retired altogether in 1961 and died in The Hague in 1964.8

7

“Indology” was the name of an academic discipline taught at Leiden University which covered the entire spectrum of the religions, languages, cultures, history, law, and administration of the Netherlands East Indies. It was created especially for the education of the higher ranks of the colonial civil service. 8 Cornelis Adriaanse’s papers are preserved in the Nationaal Archief, The Hague, Collectie 406 Adriaanse, archiefinventaris 2.21.205.01. For his life and career, see folders 23 (typescript obituary by Professor G. W. J. Drewes, 1965), 37 (curriculum vitae and survey of his career), 38 (obituaries in newspapers and periodicals, 1964), and 87 (career at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs). See also the archival description by J. A. A. Bervoets, Inventaris van het archief van C. Adriaanse en aanverwanten [levensjaren 1896–1964], 1926–1960; P. M. Adriaanse [geboren 1898], 1946–1983, The Hague: [Algemeen Rijksarchief], 1983.

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During his term of office in Jeddah, Consul Adriaanse traveled at least six times to Sanaa with the purpose of concluding a treaty with the ruler, Imām Yaḥyā, at the initiative of the Dutch government. He made the arduous journey in five successive years between 1932 and 1936 and again in 1939 for the renewal of the treaty. In 1934–1935 he was accompanied by Gellius Flieringa (1884-1946), a Dutch consulting civil engineer who drew up a plan for the development of port facilities at al-Hudayda. The most practical consideration behind the treaty was to open up a new market for Dutch products. The negotiations with the government of Yemen were never held in the presence of Imām Yaḥyā but rather with Qāḍī ʿAbd Allāh al-ʿAmrī, minister of the interior, and Qāḍī Muḥammad Rāghib b. Rafīq, minister of foreign affairs. A treaty of friendship was signed in Sanaa on 12 March 1933 and renewed in Sanaa on 12 April 1939. It is still in force.9 As a sideline, Adriaanse bought a total of sixty-one manuscripts in Yemen, and it appears that he initially did so at his own initiative. It is quite possible that his interest had been roused by the Lebanese-American writer Amin Rihani’s romantic 1930 account of a manuscript dealer in Sanaa, a certain Ḥasan b. ʿAlī al-Ḥujrī, “a man with [. . .] a sparkling eye, a broad forehead, and a contour as delicate as a profile on a Roman coin.” Al-Ḥujrī would go to Rihani’s house every day with his book bag on his shoulder, offering him priceless treasures.10 Between 1932 and 1936 Adriaanse always returned to Leiden during his annual leave, bringing a number of Yemeni manuscripts to Cornelis van Arendonk, the curator of Oriental manuscripts at Leiden University Library and an expert on the Zaydiyya (see also below). Disappointingly, only a few letters on the dealings between the two men and some lists of original manuscripts or newly made copies are preserved in the National Archives in The Hague, but it appears that Adriaanse profited from Van Arendonk’s feedback.11 The most important document is Adriaanse’s handwritten copy of a letter from the governor of Sanaa, dated 22 Dhū l-Qaʿda 1351 (19 March 1933), in which the governor provides a list of manuscripts to be had in Sanaa, informing Adriaanse that he has instructed his son to find them for him. This letter, in any case, implies that Adriaanse’s collecting activities found place in broad daylight and were sanctioned by the Yemeni authorities. The person formally in charge of the Leiden Oriental collections, however, was Adriaanse’s old professor Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje, and the decision to purchase the manuscripts rested with him in spite of his retirement as professor in 1927. In his letters to Snouck Hurgronje, Adriaanse made only scant reference to his Yemeni manuscripts. On 6 June 1933 he wrote: “I haven’t yet asked you if the financial means of the Library would allow the purchase of the manuscripts I have brought from Yemen? To the best of my recollection [. . .] I spent about 120 guilders on them.” This suggests not only that Adriaanse had bought the manuscripts at his own risk, but also that the amount paid for them was 9

See the text of the treaty, available online at https://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBV0005908/1950-04-04; for Adriaanse’s official reports to his superiors, see Nationaal Archief, archiefinventaris 2.21.205.01, nos. 65–79, and Bervoets, Inventaris van het archief van C. Adriaanse, pp. 14–15; see also MS Leiden, University Library, Or. 23.062, in Witkam, Inventory, vol. 24, p. 13; see also W. de Vlieger-Moll, Gellius Flieringa in Jemen: op bezoek bij de Imam in 1934, 1935 en 1939 [No place, privately published], 2021. 10 A. Rihani, Arabian Peak and Desert: Travels in al-Yaman, London: Constable, 1930, pp. 206–214, here: 206–207. 11 Nationaal Archief, archiefinventaris 2.21.205.01, no. 66 (correspondence of C. Adriaanse and C. van Arendonk on the acquisition of Yemeni manuscripts); see also Bervoets, Inventaris van het archief van C. Adriaanse, p. 15.

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negligible—at least from a Dutch point of view. Snouck Hurgronje showed little interest in them, for on 11 July Adriaanse enquired “if he had already formed an opinion about them?”12 The twenty-two manuscripts in twenty-four volumes were indeed acquired by Leiden in July 1933 (Codd. Or. 6348–Or. 6370, Or. 6359 canceled), and if the figure of 120 Dutch guilders for the entire set is correct, this would mean an average price of five guilders per volume. From a Yemeni perspective, however, this was by no means a disadvantageous deal. Amin Rihani, who visited Yemen in 1922, noted that “houses from four to six stories high in the best residential section, with belvederes and alabaster windows and decorative zones,” could be rented for four Maria Theresia thalers per month, the equivalent of eight shillings (£0.40) or roughly 4.60 Dutch guilders, still less than the average price of one manuscript volume.13 Writing from Sanaa the next year on 12 February 1934, Adriaanse informed Snouck Hurgonje that he had again obtained “a few manuscripts together with some Himyaritic statuettes,” remarking that the export of these pre-Islamic antiquities was strictly forbidden. We have already seen above that old Islamic manuscripts were unaffected by any such ban.14 The last Yemeni manuscript that Adriaanse brought to Leiden in June 1936 was a modern copy of Nafaḥāt al-ʿanbar bi-fuḍalāʾ al-Yaman alladhīna fī l-qarn al-thānī ʿashar (The whiffs of ambergris over the eminent Yemenites from the twelfth century [AH]), a biographical dictionary by Ṣārim al-Dīn Ibrāhīm b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥūthī (dates unknown).15 This manuscript in three volumes is written on fine paper in a bold, accomplished hand using delicate colors, which makes it an eloquent witness to the high standard of book production in the mid-1930s. The first volume has an exquisite contemporary Oriental binding with elaborate stamped decorations; the other two were probably bound in Jeddah or perhaps Cairo in the modern Afrangī or European style. The last volume is dated 17 Muḥarram 1355 (9 April 1936), which can only have been a few days before Adriaanse’s departure from Yemen (see fig. 3). Table 1: List of Adriaanse MSS from Yemen registered by Leiden University Library: 1932: 1933: 1934: 1935: 1936: 1941: 1966:

12

Codd. Or. 6326–Or. 6337 Codd. Or. 6348–Or. 6370 Codd. Or. 6632–Or. 6643 Codd. Or. 6695–Or. 6700 Cod. Or. 6760 Codd. Or. 6833–Or. 6835 Codd. Or. 11.077–Or. 11.078 Total:

12 items 22 items (Or. 6359 canceled) 14 items 6 items 1 item 3 items (Hebrew MSS, purchased during the war) 2 items (bought at Adriaanse auction) 61 items

C. Adriaanse to C. Snouck Hurgronje, 6 June and 11 July 1933, MS Leiden, University Library, Cod. Or. 8952 A: 18. According to Rihani, Arabian Peak, p. 87, four thalers were worth eight shillings. In 1922, when Rihani was traveling in Yemen, eight shillings converted into 4.60 Dutch guilders; see Historical Currency Converter: Test Version 1.0, available online at https://www.historicalstatistics.org/Currencyconverter.html. 14 C. Adriaanse to C. Snouck Hurgronje, 12 February 1934, MS Leiden, University Library, Cod. Or. 8952 A: 20. 15 Cod. Or. 6760; see Witkam, Inventory, vol. 7, p. 287. 13

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Figure 3. Title page of vol. 1 of Nafaḥāt al-ʿanbar, the last manuscript the Dutch envoy Adriaanse acquired from Yemen (Or. 6760).

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ADRIAANSE PHOTOGRAPHS Various albums in the Leiden collections preserve a total of about 220 photographs, or rather snapshots, of Cornelis Adriaanse’s trips to Yemen’s interior. Apart from picturesque photographs of the landscapes, villages, and cities of Yemen, they also contain pictures of Adriaanse himself, invariably wearing the rather incongruous-looking Turkish-style kalpak or Astrakhan hat which was prescribed for official foreign guests. Albums Or. 26.373 and Or. 26.374 contain photographs by Adriaanse himself from 1932 and 1933; album Or. 26.375 from 1934–35 is by the engineer Gellius Flieringa, with contributions by A. G. Hartman. Or. 8912 furthermore contains Flieringa’s full report on his expeditions to Yemen in 1934–1935, with detailed technical drawings of the projected port facility at al-Hudayda, together with a selection of forty-eight photographs. Most of these photographs were digitized in 2019 with the generous support of the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (see fig. 4a, b).

CORNELIS VAN ARENDONK After the Second World War, in 1947, Leiden University Library received the bequest of Cornelis van Arendonk (1881–1946), curator of Oriental manuscripts at Leiden University Library. His scholarly fame rests mainly on his groundbreaking doctoral dissertation from 1919, De opkomst van het Zaidietische Imamaat in Yemen (The emergence of the Zaydī imamate in Yemen), a work that was translated into French in 1960 by the Belgian scholar Jacques Ryckmans.16 Nevertheless, Van Arendonk’s collection, covering the codex numbers Or. 8261–Or. 8305 (forty-five items in all), does not contain any original Yemeni manuscripts, consisting as it does of a large number of study notes and (photostatic) copies of Arabic manuscripts on Zaydī and other Yemeni subjects preserved in various libraries in Europe and Egypt. Apart from his dissertation, Van Arendonk’s scholarly output was meager.17

PAUL SPIJKER Cornelis Adriaanse’s collection of Yemeni manuscripts came to Leiden University Library in the 1930s as an offshoot of his diplomatic activities, but it clearly reflects the interplay between diplomacy and Oriental scholarship against the overall background of prewar colonialism. The next collection followed six decades later in the 1990s, and by that time European colonialism had been succeeded by mass tourism. The collector, Paul Spijker, was born in Hong Kong in 1957 as the son of an employee of a Dutch shipping line. He read history at the Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam and in 1989 started working as a tourist guide in Yemen in a period when it was still safe to do so. Six or seven times a year he would take groups of tourists across the country, which required him to live semipermanently in Yemen during the holiday season. Until 1997 he worked for a tour operator, but then he established himself independently as an art dealer and opened Galerie Toguna, a highend shop in Amersfoort specializing in African art. He continued his visits to Yemen, though much less frequently than in the past, and simultaneously explored other countries, such as Ethiopia.

16

C. van Arendonk, Le début de l’imāmat Zaidite au Yémen, trans. J. Ryckmans, Leiden: Brill, 1960. For an obituary of Cornelis van Arendonk, see J. H. Kramers, “Levensbericht van Cornelis van Arendonk,” Jaarboek, Koninklijke Nederlandsche Akademie van Wetenschappen, 1946–1947, pp. 145–149, available online at https://www.dwc.knaw.nl/DL/levensberichten/PE00004617.pdf.

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Figures 4a-b. Photographs of Dutch envoy Adriaanse: a moment’s repose near Kuḥlān, and signing the treaty with Qāḍī Rāghib, the Yemeni minister of foreign affairs, 1933 (Or. 25.374: 23 and 42).

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Every year, Paul Spijker’s work took him several times to the northern town of Sa‘da, and at a certain point in the early 1990s a local dealer in jewelry and other antiques, a certain Ṣāliḥ, offered him eight old Arabic manuscripts for sale. Intrigued by their appearance and contents, he bought them and in the autumn of 1993 approached Jan Just Witkam, curator of Oriental manuscripts at Leiden, in order to learn more about them. Witkam purchased all eight manuscripts from him and encouraged him to continue acquiring from the same source. By December 2000, Paul Spijker had sold a total of seventy-six Yemeni manuscripts to Leiden, the largest single collection from Yemen.18 Table 2: List of Spijker MSS from Yemen registered by Leiden University Library: Dec. 1993: Mar. 1994: June 1995: Oct. 1995: Sep. 1997: June 1998: Dec. 1998: Apr. 2000: Dec. 2000:

Codd. Or. 23.255–Or. 23.262 Codd. Or. 23.267–Or. 23.270 Codd. Or. 23.406–Or. 23.415 Codd. Or. 23.444–Or. 23.450 Codd. Or. 23.971–Or. 23.980 Codd. Or. 25.174–Or. 25.183 Codd. Or. 25.279–Or. 25.295 Codd. Or. 25.660–Or. 25.665 Codd. Or. 25.735–Or. 25.746 Total:

8 items 4 items 10 items 7 items 10 items 10 items 9 items (mixed with other provenances) 6 items 12 items 76 items

THE ADRIAANSE AND SPIJKER COLLECTIONS COMPARED A brief and very imperfect comparison between the collections of Cornelis Adriaanse and Paul Spijker suggests that there is little difference between them in spite of the time gap. Both collections contain the usual works of Zaydī doctrine or fiqh, for instance the original text of, and commentaries on, al-Azhār fī fiqh al-aʾimma al-aṭhār (The flowers on the fiqh of the pure imams) by Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā Ibn al-Murtaḍā (d. 1437)19 and commentaries on the work by the aforementioned Imam al-Nāṭiq bi-l-Ḥaqq.20 Both collections are mixed with works of a nonreligious nature, such as the popular grammatical texts of ʿUthmān b. ʿUmar Ibn al-Ḥājib (d. 1249). In both collections very old manuscripts are rare. As expected, most manuscripts have turned out to date from the nineteenth or twentieth centuries. There is also an unexpectedly large number of manuscripts from the seventeenth century, but this may be explained by the flourishing state of literature and Islamic studies during the heyday of the Qāsimī dynasty. There is one striking difference between the two collections, however: the latest manuscript in the Spijker collection is dated 1372 AH (1952–1953 CE), more than forty years before its acquisition (Or. 23.407).21 By contrast, we noted above that in the 1930s Adriaanse had no trouble obtaining a well-made copy of an old manuscript by a competent professional scribe. This would suggest that the manuscript tradition in 18

This information was provided by Paul Spijker, who kindly agreed to an interview by the authors of the present contribution in October 2019. 19 Brockelmann, GAL G II 187. 20 Brockelmann, GAL G I 402. 21 Witkam, Inventory, vol. 24, pp. 86–87.

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Yemen had become defunct by the 1990s, but much more information on the subject will be needed to arrive at a reliable conclusion. After this brief survey of the provenance of the Yemeni manuscripts extant at Leiden, we will now investigate various aspects of their preservation, highlighting the unique character of the Yemeni manuscript tradition.

PRESERVING PAST PRACTICES When relatively young manuscripts are well-thumbed and damaged or have repair patches on their paper and binding, they show clear signs of extensive use despite their short lives, and the conservation of such items must then begin with a careful consideration of the approach to take. The manuscripts from Yemen collected by Cornelis Adriaanse and Paul Spijker are a case in point. Several of the manuscripts that Adriaanse brought to Leiden in the 1930s had been made only shortly before he purchased them, and Spijker’s acquisitions more than half a century later show that manuscripts from the same period were still available. In addition to normal traces of wear, these books are sometimes extremely soiled and tattered, and their condition raises several questions. What caused their poor condition? And what does it mean—how does the material and physical appearance of these manuscripts speak to us? It is only after reflecting on the circumstances, importance, and purpose of the manuscripts that we can decide on the aim of our conservation approach. The available materials and techniques define the initial appearance of a book. Even in the first centuries of bookmaking, peoples and cultures had different materials at hand, and as a result their specific bookbinding traditions developed in distinctive ways. For example, when paper was first made in the Far East, paper makers used the long, strong fibers of the mulberry tree, which were mashed and processed into thin, soft sheets of writing material. As paper-making techniques spread, this primary substance needed to be replaced because mulberry trees did not grow in Central Asia or the Middle East. Paper makers thus started to use the fibers of flax and hemp to make pulp. These fibers required a different type of sieve, and the resulting product had a different feel and density to it. In addition, the sheets needed to be processed differently to allow the scribe to use them; in order to close the paper surface, the papers were sized and burnished, so that the scribe’s qalam or nib touched a smooth surface and the ink did not bleed into the fibers. Differences in the available writing materials have contributed to changes in the development of the codex and its sewing structure and binding between regions and cultures. In general, the choice of materials and attachment methods suitable for the binding to the textblock was based on technical and economic factors. For instance, in Byzantium, where scribes continued to use parchment as a writing substrate for a much longer time than did their colleagues in the Islamic world, we can relate the development of the bookbinding tradition to this practice. The parchment gatherings required a more thorough sewing method and heavier boards for the binding to keep the volumes in shape, as well as metal clasps to secure the bindings when closed and to prevent the parchment from responding to moisture. In the Middle East, where scribes started to use paper from the eighth century onward, we see a change in the choice of board material: instead of wood, bookbinders started to make boards by pasting together sheets of (waste) paper. Metal

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fastenings or straps to close the book were no longer needed, either. An extension to the lower board that could be folded over the fore-edge and tucked in under the front board was sufficient to keep the manuscript closed and protected. These changes resulted in a lighter and more flexible bookbinding, which was easier to travel with and quicker to produce. Thus, different bookbinding traditions developed, and we see that material characteristics and properties partly dictate the appearance of the artifact. On the basis of the Leiden collection alone we cannot give a comprehensive account of the bookbinding developments or types in Yemen; exploration of the available bound manuscripts offers only a rough sketch of how the manuscript tradition and bookbinding practices developed. Yet when the items from Yemen are compared with manuscripts from other parts of the Islamic world, the evidence at least points convincingly to a change in methods and recognizable stylistic features.

BOOKBINDING IN THE ARABIAN PENINSULA It has been noted before that within the bookbinding tradition in the Islamic world at large, we find different trends and developments in different regions.22 The important role of the materials helps explain these differences. Evidently, fashion and the social milieu in which a manuscript originated are also factors of influence, and we have to keep in mind that geographical particularities may have played a part in all aspects involved. The manuscripts produced in the southernmost part of the Arabian Peninsula form a distinct category, stylistically and materially. In the course of the centuries, technical changes occurred that may help scholars to trace the origin of a manuscript back to Yemen, provided they are aware of such characteristics. When we look at the Yemeni manuscripts in Leiden as a group, the predominant use of leather as a covering material catches the eye. Throughout medieval times, all manuscripts were bound in leather. Early in the sixteenth century, however, the art of marbling paper conquered the major centers of book production in the Middle East, and bookbinders started to use these decorative papers for covering. The spine of the binding and the fore-edge flap continued to be covered in leather for reasons of strength and flexibility in the joints, but the colorful papers were used to cover the boards and sometimes to make the doublures as well. The lack of decorative papers on the Yemeni bindings is remarkable. Did this type of paper not come into fashion in Yemen? Was it unavailable, or was there no interest in the material? Since trade routes brought blank paper for writing to Yemen via distribution centers such as Constantinople and Cairo, it should have been possible to introduce these decorated papers as well. The same is true for block-printed papers, made in Italy in large quantities and frequently used in bookbindings of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but not in specimens bound in Yemen. This absence is particularly noteworthy since a large portion of the writing paper imported to Yemen was produced in Italy.23 Although colored paper began to be used in Yemen eventually, it mostly consisted

22

See K. Scheper, The Technique of Islamic Bookbinding, 2nd ed., Leiden: Brill, 2018, pp. 353–358 and 364–367. The predominance of imported Italian paper is visible throughout the centuries. The wide use of tre-lune watermarked papers is well known, and Yemeni manuscripts from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries show the

23

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of monochrome dyed papers. It was only in the later nineteenth century that other decorated papers, both handmade and industrially produced, came into fashion. But even then, many full leather bindings were still made. Yemen has a long and well-documented tradition in the manufacturing of leather.24 The level of craftsmanship of the bookbinders was high and the leather was beautifully decorated with blind tooling.25 Gold was not often included in these tooled patterns, nor was gold used to further embellish opening pages in the fashion practiced in other parts of the Islamic world, and the reason for this may be that the use of gold was frowned upon in Yemen. This was at least what Cornelis Adriaanse experienced. After it was suggested to him that he bring gold watches engraved with the coat of arms of the Netherlands as a diplomatic gift on his next visit to Yemen, he wrote that they would not be well received, as the people of Yemen took a conservative stance toward the material. For example, he continued, his servants encountered the greatest reluctance when they wanted to exchange gold sovereigns; merchants preferred to carry the heavy silver Maria Theresia thalers instead.26 For stylistic and technical reasons, a distinction is usually made between medieval bindings, in which fine, small tools were used to create an intricate pattern or design, and later bindings, which were decorated with larger stamps, each stamp shaped to form a separate part of the design of the binding, such as the central medallion, the pendants, or corner pieces. In Yemen, this development is visible as well. The medieval full leather bindings also share another common feature with bindings made in Egypt and Syria: the boards are often lined with block-stamped leather doublures. However, the postmedieval bindings have their own characteristics (see figs. 5–6).

use of a variety of Abū Shubbāk and other watermarked papers, many of them manufactured in Italy. See A. Regourd, “Manuscrits de la Mer Rouge (première moitié du XXe siècle): Papiers Abū Shubbāk du Yémen et d’Ethiopie,” The Trade in Papers Marked with Non-Latin Characters/Le commerce des papiers à marques à caractères nonlatins, ed. A. Regourd, Leiden: Brill, 2018, pp. 81-140. 24 See, for example, Th. Arnold and A. Grohmann, The Islamic Book: A Contribution to Its Art and History from the VII–XVIII Century, Paris: Pegasus Press, 1929, pp. 30–31; G. Bosch, J. Carswell, and G. Petherbridge, Islamic Bindings and Bookmaking: A Catalogue of an Exhibition, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981, pp. 58–59. 25 See U. Dreibholz, “Some Aspects of Early Islamic Bookbindings from the Great Mosque of Ṣana, Yemen,” Scribes et manuscrits du Moyen-Orient, ed. F. Déroche and F. Richard, Paris: Bibliothèque nationale de France, 1997, pp. 15–34. See also A. D’Ottone, “Some Remarks on Yemeni Medieval Bookbindings,” Arabica 2007, ed. A. Arioli, Rome: Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza”/Facoltà di Studi Orientali, 2007, pp. 42–55. 26 C. Adriaanse to C. Snouck Hurgronje, 15 September 1932, MS Leiden, University Library, Cod. Or. 8952 A: 17.

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Figures 5a-b. Or. 23.410 (n.d.), full leather medieval binding with elaborate blindtooling. The cover decoration is executed with fine tools; the leather doublures are worked with a block-stamp.

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Figure 6. Or. 25.181 (before 1317/1899), full leather postmedieval binding with blind-tooling; the cover decoration is executed with individual stamps.

TYPICAL YEMENI FEATURES While the older manuscripts seem to share their structure and binding characteristics with books made in other parts of the Islamic world, changes become apparent in manuscripts from the later seventeenth century onward. Most notable, perhaps, is the adaptation of the endband. Endbands are crucial in the composite Islamic book structure. The unsupported link-stitch sewing of the gatherings often uses only two stations, and though the full-length spine-lining of leather or cloth provides a lot of stability to the textblock, it is the additional sewing station of the tiedowns (the primary endband sewing), close to head and tail, that connects all the materials of the construction.27 The endband is therefore an important structural element. The Yemeni adaptation reduces the number of tiedowns and thus impacts the cohesion of the traditional textblock, lining, and sewing. It introduces, however, a thread that connects the gatherings in a different manner. Two version that occur in roughly identical numbers can be identified. The first endband type still

27

Though leather and cloth are both very common as spine-lining material, it should be noted here that in Yemen we only seem to find cloth linings.

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makes use of a leather core, over which the primary endband is sewn. The extending sides of this strip of leather are not cut at the joints but rather folded over onto the textblock gutter and tied to the sides with a piece of thread, through a hole stabbed diagonally through the outer gatherings toward the spine or, alternatively, through the whole stack of gatherings. The second version does not include a leather core. Instead, a groove is cut in the edge of the textblock a few millimeters from the spine, and a thread is laid in this incision and connected to the sides of the textblock through stabbed holes. This thread then serves as an anchor for the primary endband. This alternative method led to a reduction in the number of tiedowns, too. In both cases, the stabbing causes a decrease of the opening angle of the gatherings close to head and tail. The alteration therefore breaches the traditional functionality of the book’s structure. For the secondary endband weaving, the chevron is still the prevalent pattern.28 It is most frequently made with cream-colored and red thread, though a combination of cream and dark blue or black is used as well. It is noteworthy that beyond a few manuscripts that appear to have been repaired around the same time in one particular workshop and in which orange and green thread was used, other colors of thread seem absent (see figs. 7–9).29 The full leather bindings are usually made with a fore-edge and envelope flap, which is known to be typical for the Islamic tradition. However, in the Ottoman world the presence of such a flap decreases over the centuries, whereas in Yemen its presence seems relatively stable. Two things catch the eye. The fore-edge flap of the Yemeni bindings is often quite a bit wider than the textblock. Even though the board in the fore-edge flap is sometimes smaller than the width of the textblock (or altogether absent) and the joint between back board and fore-edge flap is proportional, the bookbinder has left a substantial stretch of leather for the joint adjacent to the envelope flap. Thus, the flap is fairly flexible and always sufficiently long to protect the textblock against sand and dust. The other noteworthy feature in several bindings is an envelope flap with a small hole in the point of the flap.30 The function of this is clear: a leather strap used to be laced through and connected to the tip of the flap’s board, which indicates that the flap was folded over the front board so that the strap could be wrapped around the volume, although traditionally the envelope flap used to be tucked in under the front board (see fig. 10). Apart from the full leather specimens with such strapped flaps, there is also one volume with a neatly stitched fabric cover that has a leather strap attached (see fig. 11).31

28

For a detailed description of the exact making of the chevron pattern and other variant patterns, see K. Scheper, “Endband Varieties in the Islamic World,” Suave Mechanicals: Essays on the History of Bookbinding, ed. J. Miller, vol. 5, Ann Arbor, MI: Legacy Press, 2019, pp. 352–430. 29 The repaired manuscripts with the green and orange endbands are Or. 23.267, Or. 23.408, Or. 23.409, Or. 23.410, Or. 23.413, and Or. 23.413. 30 Nine leather-bound volumes with a strapped envelope flap were identified: Or. 23.255, Or. 23.257, Or. 23.260, Or. 23.448, Or. 25.179, Or. 25.281, Or. 25.282, Or. 25.283, and Or. 25.735. 31 Or. 23.258, a collective volume with several dates in 1188/1774; see also K. Scheper, “A Silk Binding from Yemen,” blog post, Leiden Special Collections Blog, 7 June 2019, https://leidenspecialcollectionsblog.nl/articles/a-silk-binding-from-yemen.

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Figure 7. Or. 6348 (last part dated 1075/1647), resewn, a typical Yemeni endband, including a leather core with extending sides, which are connected with a stabbed stitch to the textblock and through the tabby weave spine-lining.

Figure 8. Or. 6640 (n.d.), a typical Yemeni endband, without a leather core; the thread that serves as an anchor for the tiedowns passes through the incision and is stab-stitched, together with the threads of the chevron pattern, to the textblock sides. The part of the tiedowns visible on the bare spine shows they are fewer in number than the number of gatherings.

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Figure 9. Or. 6698 (1258/1842), detail of a typical Yemeni endband, with a saw-cut incision of the edge right in front of the endband; the use of a leather core is omitted.

Figure 10. Or. 25.281 (1314/1896–1897) and Or. 25.282 (1311/1893), two volumes with an envelope flap to which a leather strap was affixed; the hole is indicated by the arrow.

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Figure 11. Or. 23.258 (1188/1774), a cloth binding with decorated paper doublures and a leather strap sewn onto the flap.

Figure 12. Or. 23.412 (791/1389), a dot-punched full leather binding, with repair patches to head and tail of the fore-edge flap.

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Figure 13. Or. 23.449 (1337/1919), full leather binding with decorative cut paper ornaments pasted onto the leather, not tooled or stamped. Note the wide joint on the left side of the board in the fore-edge flap and the regular, small joint between that board and the back board.

Figure 14. Or. 6698 (1258/1842), full leather blind-tooled binding, with red paper onlays pasted onto the stamped leather.

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Figure 15. Or. 6370 (above, 1033/1624) and Or. 6337b (below, n.d.), full leather bindings with an outer border dyed black, the central stamp further decorated with a paper onlay, and some of the ruled lines accentuated with yellow pigment.

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Figure 16. Or. 25.180 (n.d.) and Or. 25.182 (1311/1893), full leather bindings with blind-tooled decorative borders and a central ornament, made with small tools.

Figure 17. Or. 6336 (n.d.), partial leather binding with purple paper on the covers and the boards and flap further decorated with cut paper ornaments; large cloth repair patches to spine and fore-edge.

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DECORATION The full leather bindings can be grouped according to their decoration and finishing. The oldest, late medieval covers form a separate group, as their detailed patterns made with small tools are so different from the later bindings. Though some of the intricate patterns resemble contemporary bindings from Egypt and Syria (see fig. 5b), there are also those that are quite different. These bindings have been punch-tooled in a distinctive pattern. None of these medieval bindings retain the original sewing structure, and they all have repair strips of leather applied to the board edges, spine, and fore-edge flap. These repair strips are not worked in the most delicate fashion and their colors often do not match the old leather, either, though it is hard to say whether no attempt was made to do so or whether the newer leather has simply discolored in a different way than the original because of different chemicals and colorants (see fig. 12). Many of the later full leather bindings have a few blind tooled lines only but are adorned with paper-cut ornaments. A piece of paper was folded twice, a design was cut out of the paper which appeared after unfolding it again, and this decorative onlay was pasted onto the leather. These onlays have a lacy, decorative shape but are not tooled, and most of them have rather coarse patterns of natural-colored paper. The leather of these bindings is usually brick-colored and relatively thick, with a pronounced grain pattern. In several instances this paper-cut technique was used to decorate the interior of the binding as well (see fig. 13). Another group also involves the use of paper onlays, but in a distinctive manner. These leather bindings have a slightly more elaborate stamped pattern, with a center stamp or corners, and thin, colored paper is pasted over these stamped areas and treated with the same tool. The quite delicate paper pieces needed to be cut, sometimes with lobbed edges, but they do not have the lacy pattern. Blueish green, greyish silver, and red papers were used. It seems in these bindings the leather is dark and often of a finer quality, with a less distinctive grain pattern (see fig. 14). A third group consists of reddish-brown leather bindings that have a broad border close to the edges of the boards that has been dyed black. These black parts of the leather are outlined with blind ruling, and most of these bindings have a central stamp as well, sometimes with a colored paper onlay quite similar as those described above (see fig. 15). Several full leather bindings have neither paper onlays nor dyed borders and are embellished with blind tooling only. The tooling may be very modest and consist merely of a few ruled lines, but others have decorative designs that involve the use of small tools rather than stamps in the shape of a central medallion or corner piece (see fig. 16). It is interesting that this manner of decoration is still found on late nineteenth-century bindings. A few of these bindings have even been worked further, with yellow pigment painted in the tooled parts. Technically, there is a remarkable consistency in the method of covering. In the Islamic bookbinding tradition two techniques are used equally: a method using one piece of leather (as is also common in other bookbinding traditions), and a method in which the leather is applied in two pieces, with an overlap on the spine (which is specific to Islamic

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bookbinding).32 For those who are not familiar with these general methods of bookbinding in the Islamic world, it would go unnoticed that the two-piece technique seems to be very rare in Yemen. From the nineteenth century onward, we find various partial leather bindings. A few of these have a textile covering on the boards, but most of them have a blue or greyish paper covering. Quite often, these bindings are decorated with a paper-cut ornament in the center, pasted onto another paper in an additional color to enhance the effect. With this partial leather technique, the choice of materials seems to point at lower-budget binding; nevertheless, it appears to have been important that some sort of decoration is applied (see fig. 17). Some of these partial leather bindings were made without a flap, and some of them do not conform to the Islamic layout—which involves leather strips along the board edges— and instead show apparently Western influence, as only the board corners are covered with leather. It is interesting to compare these manuscripts with a group of about thirty codices now part of the Oriental section of the Biblioteca Nazionale dei Lincei e Corsiniana in Rome. The group consists mainly of nineteenth- and twentieth-century manuscripts that were collected in the late 1930s, only a few years later than Cornelis Adriaanse’s manuscripts.33 Colini, di Bella, and Rubino, who examined the Rome manuscripts, report a similar occurrence of the divergent endband, which lacks a leather core and involves the making of a saw-cut incision in the textblock edge. They also noticed that the color red is often used for the secondary woven endband. Their observations support the idea that it is typical for Yemeni bindings to have an envelope flap that hinges on a relatively wide joint, while the joint adjacent to the left board is much smaller. Colini et al. categorize the bindings as “traditional,” “intermediate,” and “fashionable” and suggest that in the early twentieth century “traditional” bookbindings were made for Westerners, whereas Yemeni patrons wanted fashionable bindings that showed a clear European influence. This is an interesting thought, and it may actually have been the case in certain instances, but the Leiden specimens show that traditional, full leather bindings with various decorative techniques were still being made in the first decades of the twentieth century and continued to be used in the region. Indeed, if such “traditional” late bindings had been made exclusively for newly copied manuscripts intended for export to Europe, they would hardly have had any traces of use, damage, and dirt. These bindings would certainly not have had any repairs to the joints and spine. Such bindings should have been rather pristine, but in fact the Leiden volumes are well used.

32

A large survey pointed out that of all the full leather bindings in the Leiden Arabic collections, half were made with the two-piece technique, resulting in an overlap of neatly pared leather on the spine. See Scheper, Technique, pp. 306–309. 33 These manuscripts were collected by Ettore Rossi in 1937–1938. Though the set comprises fifty-five volumes, only thirty retain an original, local binding. C. Colini, M. di Bella, and M. Rubino, “Bound by Tradition: New Ways and Old Paths in Yemeni Bookbinding Workshops between XIXth and XXth Centuries,” Chroniques du manuscrit au Yémen 20 (2014), pp. 38–63.

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REPAIRS AND REPURPOSED BINDINGS All who were involved in the making of manuscripts must have been aware of the importance of their role. They were part of a long and valuable tradition. The Islamic method of bookmaking had found a balance in textblock manufacture and bookbinding that combined relative speed of production with flexibility, functionality, and sufficient durability. In addition, every bookbinder must have known that books would eventually wear out and that the protective bindings would need repair or replacement; mending damaged manuscripts was part of their profession. They were familiar with paper repair, resewing, and repair of bindings. Local mends display similar degrees of perfection as the manuscripts inside them. Sometimes bindings were repurposed. However, next to these professional repairs we find many volumes with paper mends and binding repairs that appear to have been carried out by a nonspecialist, quite possibly the owner or someone in his or her circle who was adroit with needle and thread. Both types of repair are interesting. The first shows us what kind of material and techniques bookbinders utilized; the second may indicate that such a craftsman was not available and underlines the value that a damaged manuscript still had (see fig. 18).

Figure 18. Or. 6368 (1341/1922), full leather binding with elaborate sewn repairs in both cloth and leather. Repairs to the textblock structures are especially noteworthy. Many of the manuscripts do not show repairs to the paper in the damaged spine-folds after which the gatherings could have been sewn with the traditional unsupported link-stitch. Instead, the damaged paper remains untreated, and the gatherings are reconnected by means of sidesewing. This involves the stabbing of the paper margin close to the spine, twice or more. A fairly thick thread was then laced through these stabbed holes, keeping the whole stack of gatherings together. This certainly is a quick method of repair, but it interferes with the accessibility of the volume. For one thing, it makes it more difficult to have the book lay

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open in a certain position, and in several cases the decreased opening angle hampers the legibility of the text close to the spine-fold. Would economic incentives have overruled concern for the functionality of the book? Had the knowledge of bookbinding eroded to such an extent that the historic techniques were quite forgotten? Or were the texts so well known that this drawback was not actually a problem? However, not all stabbed repairs were executed in the same manner. There are several examples of manuscripts in which smaller sets of leaves were individually stabbed, using multiple stations and a thinner thread so that the accessibility of the text was not compromised (see figs. 19–20). A few of the resewn manuscripts have composite bindings made with boards that once belonged to a different manuscript. These boards were cut to fit the current textblock; the overall lack of balance in the decoration and the bare edges or repair strips now covering these boards tell us that the material has been repurposed. The tooling and even the tactile quality of the leather suggest an Ottoman origin, but of course manuscripts traveled and bookbindings could be recycled. This fairly common reuse of materials holds interesting information as well, as it makes us think about the value of goods, the cost of materials and labor, and the importance—or lack thereof—of a patron’s preference for a certain “look” in a book. After all, the adjustment of old covered boards to match the format of a different manuscript involved work and a certain skill as well. Some of the manuscripts from Yemen are so badly damaged and soiled that their physical state seems to indicate that they have undergone a phase of neglect. Excessive insect infestation, water damage, broken boards, and missing corners suggest that the object was once stored in an unfrequented place. Perhaps these manuscripts were put away because the damage was already considered beyond repair, and though the manuscript culture continued until well into the twentieth century, it is also true that printed books became increasingly available and supplanted manuscripts in readers’ demand.

Figure 19: Or. 25.183 (n.d.), a resewn textblock, for which thick thread and only two stabbed stitches were used; in the spine-fold (in the shadow of the gutter) the old link-stitch sewing thread is still visible.

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Figure 20. Or. 25.181 (1314/1896–1897), a resewn textblock; several sets of damaged leaves are connected with a stabbed sewing method, using multiple sewing stations and relatively thin thread.

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SOME CONCLUDING REMARKS Though some sixty years passed between Adriaanse’s acquisitions and the period in which Spijker traveled and bought manuscripts in Yemen, the manuscripts each took to Leiden show many material similarities. We know that Adriaanse acquired his collection mostly from Sanaa, whereas Spijker did business with a dealer from Sa‘da; yet the same variety in full leather binding types and a rarer occurrence of partial leather bindings is evident in both sets of manuscripts. It is also noteworthy that the manuscripts Spijker was able to buy were not significantly worse in terms of condition; they display the same kinds of repairs and degrees of use, dirt, and, sometimes, neglect. We have seen that the physical appearance of the Yemeni manuscripts is defined by several characteristics. The bindings can be grouped according to different styles and features, and their technical and material qualities render them distinctively Yemeni. The occurrence of a significant number of bindings with a leather closing strap attached to the envelope flap is remarkable and seems a strong indication of a local tradition. It is important to note that at least a few of these manuscripts that formerly had a strap were almost certainly purchased in Harar, Ethiopia. Of course, this does not prove that the manuscripts were produced or bound in Ethiopia, but this particular feature is much more common in Islamic manuscripts originating in Africa, where wrapper bindings with leather straps were made for loose-leafed manuscripts. A cross-fertilization of cultural traditions and characteristics is what one would expect between the two adjacent coastlines of the Red Sea, where people traveled back and forth, carried their portable valuables with them, and traded possessions and products. Furthermore, it is likely that the craftsmen themselves traveled and temporary or permanently relocated the place of their practice. In this manner they brought their expertise and methods, and almost certainly also their materials and tools, to different places. When we are immersed in a book, we may temporarily forget the physical object and its appearance. Yet when manuscripts are studied in the reading rooms of research libraries, the physical object matters a great deal. The texts are studied and interpreted in the light of their history, which is partly revealed through material evidence. The artifact itself is a means to understand the context and informs us about its historical use. The preservation of the original object, with all its tactile and material qualities, is therefore crucial. Conservation specialists are eminently aware of this interest in the artifact, and their approach has developed far beyond what used to be known as “restoration,” which aimed at restoring the artifact to its original state. In fact, the conservation specialist now tries to be as invisible as possible. To phrase it differently: the conservator’s footprint should be as small as possible, and it should not change the perception of the object but only prolong its survival. The tattered condition of many of the Yemeni manuscripts certainly posed problems in that respect, and a balance had to be found in which dirt and dysfunctional or damaging repairs could be removed without changing the physical appearance too much. For reasons of accessibility, it was sometimes necessary to cut the stabbed sewing threads, but even when such threads had to be removed, the evidence of the previous stabbed structure remained visible because of the pierced holes in the paper. However, on the whole, it was evident that the old repairs had to be integrated into the conservation process as much as possible. In this manner the manuscripts will continue to speak to us

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through their physical properties, and they will remain available to researchers who want or need to work with the originals, despite the availability of digital copies.

AL-SAYYID MUḤAMMAD B. ʿABD AL-RAḤMĀN AL-ʿUBAYKĀN (1899–1993) A SAUDI OFFICIAL AND HIS YEMENI MANUSCRIPT COLLECTION BERNARD HAYKEL Yemen’s cultural heritage, whether in the form of manuscripts, jewelry, textiles, or archeological artifacts, has been the object of sale to foreigners since at least the nineteenth century. Yemen’s relative poverty has meant that outsiders with financial means have been able to buy cultural items on the Yemeni market, especially in Sanaa, over a long period of time. European and American libraries (e.g., the Ambrosiana, Leiden University Library, Princeton University’s Firestone Library, Beinecke Library) have been the beneficiaries of such trade, but so have libraries in India and elsewhere that acquired manuscripts from Yemeni merchants. I have consulted Yemeni manuscripts in the Raza Rampur Library, the Khuda Bakhsh Library in Patna, and the Aligarh Muslim University Library. In the nineteenth century, Yemeni scholars visited India and provided manuscripts to scholars such as Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān (d. 1890), the nawwāb of the princely state of Bhopal.1 More recently, libraries (both private and public) in the Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC) in Arabia have also acquired considerable quantities of Yemeni materials, especially manuscripts.

YEMENI ARTIFACTS AND MANUSCRIPTS IN SAUDI ARABIA The two oil booms, the first in the 1970s (ca. 1973–1985) and the second in the 2000s (ca. 2004–2014), accelerated the transfer of Yemeni materials to Saudi Arabia because of the massive discrepancy in wealth between Yemen and the oil-rich countries of the Gulf. The ever-increasing poverty as well as the more recent and tragic wars that have afflicted Yemen since 2004 have hastened the sale of cultural artifacts. During my own fieldwork in Saudi Arabia over the last decade, it was commonly reported to me that Yemenis were selling large quantities of materials belonging to their cultural heritage to collectors and

1

“Khān, Ṣiddīq Ḥasan,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, 3rd ed. (Claudia Preckel).

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institutions in the Kingdom. This claim is not easy to verify, but it is not implausible. And the sale of such items is unlikely to be unique to Yemen, as I imagine the same dynamic is at play in the purchase by Saudis and rich Gulf Arabs of cultural items from other relatively poor countries in the region, such as Egypt, Syria, and Iraq. In the last few decades, the Kingdom’s libraries and government institutions have made a considerable effort to collect Islamic manuscripts and documents, whether in the original or in the form of copies. Such investment of resources is probably related to the state’s character as the guardian of Islam’s two holiest mosques and its claim to be the keeper of Islamic religious tradition. This effort has included items from both the Sunni and the Shiʿi tradition as well as documents from a variety of theological and legal schools, not just the “orthodox Sunni”. Private institutions, such as the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, and public ones, such as King Saud University in Riyadh, have significant collections of original manuscripts and offer good copying services on site for visiting researchers. Also, scholars can obtain access in Riyadh to copies of works from libraries from around the world because Saudi institutions have bought microfilm copies of entire manuscript collections (e.g., the British Library, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, and the Chester Beatty Library). Online access to the catalog of the King Faisal Center is not available, but researchers can make online requests and digital copies are then provided. The King Saud University Library’s online catalog (http://makhtota.ksu.edu.sa/search/0) is cumbersome, and it is better to be on site to obtain access to the manuscripts and to copies. However, it appears that most of the manuscripts at the King Saud University Library have been digitized and can be obtained through the site https://www.al-mostafa.com. The former general secretary of the King Faisal Center, Dr. Yahya Bin Junaid, was proud to mention to me in 2007 that Riyadh has become a one-stop shop for obtaining copies of manuscripts from around the world, and there is no longer a need to travel from one European library to another or to order copies from them at huge expense.

THE COLLECTION OF MUḤAMMAD AL-ʿUBAYKĀN The manuscript collection under review was assembled by the late Saudi merchant, civil servant, and diplomat Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-ʿUbaykān (d. 1993). The collection appears to be presently located in the King Salman Manuscript Library at King Saud University in Riyadh. How it ended up there is not clear, and it appears that not all of its manuscripts have been listed in the library’s online catalog. This particular collection represents a Saudi effort at collecting before the massive influx of oil wealth in the 1970s and on the eve of the establishment in the Kingdom of public libraries and institutions. What we know about the collection comes from a memoir that al-ʿUbaykān penned and that was later compiled and published by his son Khālid, himself an amateur genealogist and historian. The memoir can be read online,2 and it is interesting in that it offers an official Saudi view on Yemeni political developments in the 1950s, a period just before the 1962 republican revolution, which would end a millennium of Zaydi rule over the country. For nearly four years al-ʿUbaykān was Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the court of Imam Aḥmad Ḥamīd al-Dīn (d. 1962), the penultimate king of the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen (1948–1962).

2

See http://www.obaikan.net.

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Muḥammad al-ʿUbaykān is a descendant of a sedentary tribal family of the Najd—the plateau in central Arabia—and claims to belong to the ʿAnaza tribe that was dominant in the region in the eighteenth century. The family comes from the Wādī Ḥanīfa region, which is also the origin of the ruling Āl Saʿūd dynasty. As such, the Āl al-ʿUbaykān consider themselves to be members of an elite group of families, similar in social status to the ruling family, and to have played an important role in the construction of the Saudi state.3 This family is perhaps better known for its business enterprises, especially because of the large bookstore in Riyadh and the publishing house that carry its name—Maktabat al-ʿUbaykān. The Āl al-ʿUbaykān family has been based in Riyadh for nearly a century, and Muḥammad states in his memoir that its members were close allies of King ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz (Ibn Saud), the founder of the present Saudi state, and helped with the establishment of the country. According to the memoir, Muḥammad was described to the late King Faisal (then crown prince) as being one of “his father’s [Ibn Saud’s] men.” Like a number of Najdis of the early twentieth century who sought fortune overseas, Muḥammad al-ʿUbaykān began his life as a merchant, working with his father and uncle in the textile and pearl trade. He traveled extensively within Arabia and then to Bahrain, Oman, India, and the Horn of Africa. After his father’s death, however, he returned to the Kingdom. He became a retainer at the royal court and eventually was appointed governor (amīr) over the region of Bīsha. He can be considered a mid-level bureaucrat or administrator who belonged to one of the numerous Najdi families upon which the Āl Saʿūd royal family depended for extending and implementing its rule over the breadth and length of the country. Al-ʿUbaykān held several positions after the governorship of Bīsha, including as a member of the “consultative assembly” (majlis al-shūrā). In 1957, he was appointed ambassador to Yemen and arrived at the port town of al-Hudayda in late August of that year. In Yemen, he lived in Sanaa but often visited the capital city of the time, Ta‘izz, where Imam Aḥmad was based. Al-ʿUbaykān served in Yemen for nearly four years, being dismissed eventually, it appears, at the urging of Imam Aḥmad. He left the country on 24 March 1961. He would later also serve as Saudi ambassador to the Sudan.4 During his time in Yemen, al-ʿUbaykān socialized with the intellectual, administrative, and religious elite of Sanaa. He counted among his social acquaintances such men as the prince Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn Ḥamīd al-Dīn, the historian Muḥammad Zabāra, Aḥmad and Muḥammad al-Shāmī, and a number of other notables and sayyids (those who claim descent from the Prophet Muhammad and form a distinct social group in Yemen). From his memoir, we can glean that al-ʿUbaykān was politically and religiously conservative and disapproved of the republican, Arab nationalist, and socialist ideologies that were spreading into Yemen from Egypt and later also from Syria and Iraq. Such ideas came with Yemeni military officers who had trained overseas, in the contents of journals and magazines as well as through Egypt’s radio station, Voice of the Arabs. Al-ʿUbaykān was sympathetic to

3

See http://www.obaikan.net/AlFAHRAS.htm, where the Āl al-ʿUbaykān genealogical tree is given along with those of other major families, including the Āl Saʿūd and the Āl al-Shaykh. 4 Most of the biographical information about Muḥammad al-ʿUbaykān is drawn from his online autobiography (see http://www.obaikan.net), and the general information about the family and its Najdi social setting is based on the author’s fieldwork interviews in Riyadh.

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the Muslim Brotherhood because he claims to have refused to shake hands with Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egypt’s president, on an official visit he made to Egypt in the company of Prince Faisal. The reason for his refusal was, he states, that Abdel Nasser’s “hands were sullied with the blood of the Muslim Brotherhood,” in particular that of al-ʿUbaykān’s two personal friends, the constitutional jurist ʿAbd al-Qādir ʿAwda and Muḥammad Farghalī. Both were accused by the Cairo regime of involvement in a plot to kill Abdel Nasser and were subsequently tried and executed in 1954.5 This is the period when Saudi Arabia began to patronize the Muslim Brothers and promoted their ideology as a counterweight to Egypt’s pan-Arabism and socialism. In terms of sectarian affiliation, al-ʿUbaykān was evidently a Wahhabi, but in his memoir he expresses no hatred or disapproval of Zaydism, describing it as a “moderate Shiʿi sect” (madhhab shīʿī muʿtadil), which has become a common trope among Sunnis and one that the Zaydis themselves have promoted. He also acknowledges and praises both Imam Yaḥyā and Imam Aḥmad as scholars in their own right who produced precedent-setting legal opinions (ikhtiyārāt). However, al-ʿUbaykān evidently took some pleasure in the fact that a Sunnifying and Salafi-oriented tendency had emerged among the Zaydis, led by the “reformist” scholars Ibn al-Wazīr (d. 1436), Ibn al-Amīr al-Ṣanʿānī (d. 1769) and Muḥammad al-Shawkānī (d. 1834), and he claims that by the 1950s “the dominant school [in Yemen] was the Shawkānī school.”6 One factor that might help explain this phenomenon is the transformation of the imamate into a dynastic state, a process which began in the 1920s when Imam Yaḥyā officially designated his son Aḥmad as crown prince.7 In this period, Yemen became a monarchy similar to Saudi Arabia, and the Sunnifying scholars sanctioned this development while rejecting the traditional form of Zaydi rule. For centuries, the latter had doctrinally shunned kingship as being contrary to true Islamic faith and maintained that only the most qualified sayyid could become the ruler or imam. Al-ʿUbaykān claims that the Yemeni elite he frequented in Sanaa shared his apprehensions about the dangers of leftist and republican ideological winds blowing south into Arabia. It is noteworthy that al-ʿUbaykān offers a Saudi perspective during a period of heightened tension in what the late Malcolm Kerr called the “Arab Cold War,” a political and ideological rivalry that encompassed the Arab Middle East, pitting Nasserist and “progressive” Egypt against monarchical and “reactionary” Saudi Arabia. Al-ʿUbaykān claims that Imam Aḥmad was initially convinced of the wisdom of rejecting Nasserism but that his son and successor, Muḥammad al-Badr (d. 1996), unfortunately succeeded in influencing the imam in favor of “Communist ideas.” Al-ʿUbaykān explains that al-Badr was naïve and influenced by Nasserist propaganda and would end up paying a heavy price for his

5

Sympathy for the Muslim Brotherhood seems to have endured in the family, since Maktabat al-ʿUbaykān in Riyadh has become known for publishing books by members of the Muslim Brotherhood in Saudi Arabia. Perhaps the most famous and most widely sold of these is the work Lā taḥzan (Don’t be sad) by the popular preacher ʿĀʾiḍ al-Qarnī. The book is a self-help guide on how to achieve emotional upliftment through religious ethics and exhortations. 6 See http://www.obaikan.net. 7 For more information on the Sunnification of the Zaydi school in Yemen, see Bernard Haykel, Islamic Revival and Reform: the Legacy of Muhammad al-Shawkani, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

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views because soon after the death of Imam Aḥmad in 1962, the Egyptians fomented a revolutionary coup by the military and toppled al-Badr from power. This view is an oversimplification of the internal dynamics within the royal family of Yemen and especially of Imam Aḥmad’s ideological orientation. The latter’s views were shaped by a desire to ensure the survival of his regime rather than by a commitment to a fixed set of ideological principles. Nonetheless, it is worth quoting from al-ʿUbaykān’s memoir his perception of these dynamics: I need to mention that the [Yemeni] elite had a unified view about the reigning order in Yemen at the time. There was a consensus among them that the situation was extremely dangerous, and all were angry about the new and imported political orientation. They all felt that Imam Aḥmad was committing an error by following his son al-Badr, who had adopted a rash political path and pursued Communist aspirations, thinking that this would preserve his pathetic throne. I tried my utmost to connect and discuss with the Yemeni elite, men such as Aḥmad al-Shāmī, [Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh] al-ʿAmrī, and Yaḥyā al-Nahārī, and would deliberate with them about the condition of the Arab and Islamic countries and the history of the [Arabian] Peninsula. Imam Aḥmad was aware of and supported these conversations and he was pleased; this [for a while] blocked alBadr’s efforts against [my] campaign. God knows that I was motivated in this by my belief [in Islam] and by love for my country and for brotherly Yemen, which I consider a Muslim Arab country and with which we have religious, fraternal, historical, and genealogical ties.8

It appears that al-Badr ultimately managed to persuade Imam Aḥmad to have al-ʿUbaykān recalled by the Saudi government and to have him replaced as ambassador. This might have been because of the ideological differences between the two men, although this is difficult to ascertain with certainty. A little over a year after al-ʿUbaykān departed, Yemen’s monarchy was indeed overthrown by a military coup, led by ʿAbd Allāh al-Sallāl, a graduate of a military academy in Iraq and someone al-Badr had elevated to high office upon acceding to the throne. Al-ʿUbaykān details al-Sallāl’s rise to power from his humble beginnings as an orphan, and thanks God for allowing him to leave Yemen before the “volcano erupted.” Al-ʿUbaykān mentions that while in Yemen he collected some 247 manuscripts in addition to archeological artifacts.9 Although we know that the bulk of these manuscripts are in the King Saud University Library, I have not been able to determine what happened to the archeological objects or what they consisted of. In his memoir, al-ʿUbaykān attributes his collecting desire to pride in what he terms “our heritage and civilization” (iʿtizāzan biturathinā wa-ḥaḍāratinā). In fact, he appears to have known little about Yemen’s Islamic traditions and had simply made a general request to dealers of manuscripts and antiques in Sanaa to procure for him anything and everything they could find, and at any cost. The 8

See http://www.obaikan.net (“Naqlī min manṣibī fī l-Yaman”). Only 227 manuscript volumes are listed in the catalog of the library. See Fihris al-makhṭūṭāt bi-maktabat Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-ʿUbaykān al-khāṣṣa, Riyadh: Markaz al-Khadamāt wa-l-Abḥāth al-Thaqāfiyya, 1390/1970. The fate of the further twenty manuscripts that are not listed remains unknown. For the published works that belonged to the Maktabat al-ʿUbaykān up to the year 1987, see Fihris al-kutub al-maṭbūʿa bi-maktabat Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-ʿUbaykān al-khāṣṣa, Riyadh, 1987.

9

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price appears to have mattered little, which perhaps indicates that the cost of these items was very low and that the ambassador had relatively ample financial means at his disposal. It is worth providing the entire passage from his memoir in which he describes these collecting efforts: It pleases me to mention here at the end of my narrative on Yemen that I was fortunate during my stay in the country because I was able to accomplish my desire to collect a number of Arabic manuscripts and archeological objects. [I did this] out of pride in our heritage and civilization. I had this desire for a long time and I was able to fulfill it—with God’s help—during my stay in Yemen, where I commissioned many of the dealers (samāsira) and those with knowledge to buy any manuscript or antique object they could find and at any price, and I was prepared to give them a fee. After returning to the homeland [i.e., Saudi Arabia], I sorted and organized into a large library what I had collected by way of manuscripts and precious and rare books. A Sudanese university professor helped me catalog the library, and I then published a catalog of the manuscripts in the various sciences and arts so that it would be easier to use and benefit from the books. The library contains a great deal, including 247 manuscripts, among which are three manuscripts of the Holy Qurʾān, the most important of which is a copy that is 1,300 years old. There are other manuscripts, some of which date to the year 606 AH [1209–10 CE]. In addition, there are ancient and unique Himyarite objects and swords that the Ayyubid king Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn (may God have mercy upon him) had used when liberating noble Jerusalem from the Crusaders.10

I could not identify the 1,300-year-old copy of the Qurʾān mentioned in the published catalog nor where it is presently located. I doubt such a copy actually exists. By contrast, the manuscript that allegedly dates to 606 AH appears from the title to consist of the section on the principles of jurisprudence (uṣūl al-fiqh) in the book titled Maʿālim al-dīn wa-malādh al-mujtahidīn by the famous Twelver Shiʿi scholar Ḥasan b. Zayn al-Dīn al-ʿĀmilī (d. 1011/1602–3).11 However, given the author’s death date, it is impossible that this manuscript was copied in 606 AH, and thus the cataloger has made an error. And since no work under this title is available in the catalog of the King Saud University Library, I have not been able to check its contents. One possibility is that the cataloger mistook the title and the work is possibly the Maʿālim of the Sunni theologian and jurist Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, who died in 606 AH.12 The aforementioned work by al-ʿĀmilī has been edited and published, as have many of the other manuscripts in the alʿUbaykān collection. Such errors can be found throughout the catalog and are revealing of its overall poor quality. For example, a number of names are misspelled, manuscripts are misattributed, and the classification categories are often not relevant to the works listed. It is noteworthy, however, that al-ʿUbaykān, a committed Wahhabi, would take pride in a collection that contained several Shiʿi manuscripts. This indicates that he may not have realized these works’ sectarian origin and that he probably knew little about the authors and books in his collection. He admits as much when he writes that he gave a blanket order to the local dealers in 10

See http://www.obaikan.net. Unfortunately, the Sudanese university professor mentioned in this passage is not identified in the catalog or in the autobiography. 11 See Fihris al-makhṭūṭāt, p. 84, no. 83 (al-ʿUbaykān collection no. 201). 12 This work has been edited by Reza Pourjavady and Sabine Schmidtke and can be accessed at https://albert.ias.edu/handle/20.500.12111/55.

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Sanaa to purchase anything that came on the market. Among the Shiʿi manuscripts in the collection I was able to identify were Ibrāhīm al-Qummī’s al-Qawānīn al-muḥkama fī ʿilm al-uṣūl (no author mentioned; Fihris al-makhṭūṭāt, p. 34, no. 81, al-ʿUbaykān collection no. 189) and the seventh treatise of the Ikhwān al-Ṣafā, an Ismaili text (Fihris al-makhṭūṭāt, p. 6, no. 4, alʿUbaykān collection no. 92). There is also a Zaydi work of poetry in praise of the Prophet’s family titled Simṭ al-Āl fī shi‘r al-Āl by Ismā‘īl b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan (Fihris al-makhṭūṭāt, p. 75, no. 198, al-ʿUbaykān collection no. 41). Finally, it is most unlikely that the swords al-ʿUbaykān had acquired in Yemen were the personal property of Saladin. Still, such claims make for a good story and no doubt elevate the value of the collection in the eyes of his readers. As stated earlier, most of the manuscripts in this collection are now in the King Saud University Library and were apparently donated by al-ʿUbaykān.13 The university’s online library catalog is unwieldy and makes it difficult to find the manuscripts listed in the alʿUbaykān catalog. An easier, though indirect, way to identify and locate copies of these works is through the online site Maktabat al-Muṣṭafā al-Iliktrūniyya, which seems to have Adobe Acrobat files (.pdf) of many of the manuscripts in the King Saud University Library.14 Unfortunately, I have been unable to identify who runs the website al-mostafa.com, which contains a trove of manuscript copies from all over the world.

IʿJĀZ AL-QURʾĀN BY ABŪ RASHĪD AL-NĪSĀBŪRĪ In terms of historical value, perhaps the most important manuscript in the al-ʿUbaykān collection is one that, according to its introduction, appears to consist of a section of the theological work Iʿjāz al-Qurʾān by Abū Rashīd (Saʿīd b. Muḥammad) al-Nīsābūrī (see Figure 1).15 The author is the famous Muʿtazilī scholar who flourished in the tenth to eleventh centuries CE and was a student, and successor, of the Qāḍī l-quḍāt ʿAbd al-Jabbār (d. 415/1095) and a leading proponent of the Basran school of theology. The manuscript might be a unique copy, because I was not able to identify this title in the bibliographies of Abū Rashīd’s works in the various sources I consulted. This hypothesis requires further study and confirmation. But if the manuscript is indeed a newly discovered text, it deserves to be edited and studied, and I was informed by Dr. Hassan Ansari that this is now being done in Iran and the edition is likely to be published in 2023. The presence of this text in the al-ʿUbaykān collection yet again underscores the important role the Zaydis of Yemen played in preserving the Muʿtazilī theological tradition.

13

See Sabine Schmidtke, “The Zaydi Manuscript Tradition: Virtual Repatriation of Cultural Heritage,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 50 (2018), pp. 124–125, and Geoffrey Roper (ed.), World Survey of Islamic Manuscripts, London: al-Furqan Islamic Heritage Foundation, 1994, vol. 3, p. 38. 14 See https://www.al-mostafa.com. 15 See Fihris al-makhṭūṭāt, p. 11, no. 17 (al-ʿUbaykān collection no. 112; King Saud Library no. 7752). The work can be downloaded from al-mostafa.info/data/arabic/depot/gap.php?file=m018096.pdf. See also “Abū Rašīd Nīsābūrī,” Encyclopædia Iranica, I/4, pp. 367–368 (D. W. Madelung). A more detailed study of Abū Rashīd, again without reference to this work or the manuscript, is included in Hassan Ansari and Sabine Schmidtke’s Studies in Medieval Islamic Intellectual Traditions, chapter 1, available at https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv2dswqs.6.

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Figure 1. Cover page of Iʿjāz al-Qurʾān by Abū Rashīd al-Nīsābūrī.

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Aside from this gem for the history of Islamic thought, the overall value of the al-ʿUbaykān collection lies in the fact that it constitutes a representative sample of the books that the learned elite in Sanaa were reading and studying over the last few centuries. We can glean which disciplines were deemed particularly important for their education. For instance, there is a critical mass of books on grammar, ḥadīth (especially as it pertains to legal rulings), principles of jurisprudence (uṣūl al-fiqh), Qurʾānic exegesis (tafsīr), and theology (kalām). The collection is also valuable for revealing what it does not contain. Thus, for example, there are no books in the Sufi sciences, and this lack is perhaps illustrative of the fact that both the Zaydi and the Salafi-inclined scholars of the Yemeni highlands were largely uninterested in Sufism. The collection can also be described as “ecumenical” in that it contains both Shiʿi and Sunni books. There is also a large representation of books by ḥadīth-oriented scholars of the so-called Shawkānī school. These are in fact Salafi scholars who had abandoned traditional Zaydi teachings and instead adhered to Ḥanbalism in matters of theology and considered themselves members of the Ahl al-Ḥadīth. In questions pertaining to law, they were advocates of leaving behind the teachings of all the established madhāhib (Sunni and Zaydi) in favor of the practice of independent legal elaboration (ijtihād). Thus, we find al-ʿAwāṣim wa-l-qawāṣim of Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm al-Wazīr, al-ʿAlam al-shāmikh of Ṣāliḥ b. Mahdī al-Maqbalī, Ḍawʾ al-nahār of Aḥmad al-Jalāl, and numerous works by Ibn al-Amīr al-Ṣanʿānī and Muḥammad al-Shawkānī. These were the leading scholars of the Sunnifying trend among the Zaydis of the Yemeni highlands, and the substantial presence of such manuscripts shows that the ḥadīth-oriented methodologies and teachings of these Yemeni scholars had become quite prominent and influential.

QURʾĀNIC EXEGESIS In terms of Qurʾānic studies, the collection contains tafsīrs by both Sunni and Zaydi scholars, but also some by scholars who can be described as Muʿtazilī. So, for instance, we note the tafsīr of the Zaydi scholar Aḥmad b. ʿAlī al-Aʿqam (d. 9th/15th c.).16 For the Sunnis, we find the tafsīr of the Shāfiʿī scholar Maʿīn al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Ṣafī l-Dīn al-Ījī (d. 906/1500) titled Jāmiʿ al-bayān fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān, but none of the more famous ones such as alBayḍāwī’s tafsīr. The best represented by number among the Qurʾānic commentaries is alZamakhsharī’s (d. 538/1144) Kashshāf, of which five partial copies are found in the collection (see Figure 2). This commentary was highly prized by the Zaydis because of its emphasis on grammar and the author’s Muʿtazilī views. The oldest of the five copies dates to 661 AH, a little more than a century after the author’s death.17 Otherwise, Zaydi commentaries on the legal verses of the Qurʾān are also well represented, with several copies of ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad al-Najrī’s (d. 877/1472) Sharḥ al-khamsumāʾat āya al-mutaḍammina liaḥkām al-sharīʿa.18 16

See Fihris al-makhṭūṭāt, p. 11, no. 18 (al-ʿUbaykān collection no. 209). Here the author’s name is incorrectly given as Muḥammad. 17 See Fihris al-makhṭūṭāt, p. 23, no. 23 (al-ʿUbaykān collection no. 190). I was unable to find this work in the King Saud University Library. 18 See Fihris al-makhṭūṭāt, p. 14, no. 21 (al-ʿUbaykān collection no. 52). This work is also known as and published under the title Shāfī l-ʿalīl sharḥ al-khamsumāʾat āya min al-tanzīl.

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Figure 2. Cover page of volume two of Zamakhsharī’s Kashshāf.

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THEOLOGY The study of theology was also important in the Yemeni highlands, and we have in this collection a sample of the standard works that were studied and taught. Below is a selected list of some of these. Zaydi works Imam al-Manṣūr ʿAbd Allāh b. Ḥamza (d. 614/1217), Kitāb al-Shāfī. This is a classical polemical text by one of Yemen’s most important Zaydi imams. It deals with Zaydism as a theological sect and includes heresiography and history. It has been published. Muḥammad b. ʿIzz al-Dīn al-Muftī (d. 1049 or 1050/1639–1641), al-Badr al-sārī sharḥ wāsiṭat al-darārī fī tawḥīd al-Bārī. This work has not been published. Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Sharafī (d. 1055/1646), ʿUddat al-akyās fī sharḥ maʿānī l-Asās. This is an abridgment of a larger work by the author titled Shifāʾ ṣudūr al-nās fī maʿānī lAsās, which is a commentary on the important theological work Kitāb al-Asās by Imam alQāsim b. Muḥammad (d. 1029/1620), the founder of the Qāsimī dynasty. An important figure and scholar of this later period in Zaydi history, al-Sharafī worked for and supported the efforts of Imam Qāsim as well as those of his son and successor al-Muʾayyad bi-llāh Muḥammad (d. 1054/1644). Ḥanafī works Abū Saʿd al-Muḥsin b. Muḥammad b. Karāma al-Bayhaqī al-Jishūmī (d. 494/1101), Sharḥ ʿUyūn al-masāʾil. This is an important text that has not been edited. Salafi works Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl al-Amīr al-Ṣanʿānī (Ibn al-Amīr, d. 1182/1769), al-Anfās al-raḥmāniyya al-yamaniyya fi abḥāth al-ifāḍa al-madaniyya and Īqāẓ al-fikra li-murājaʿat al-fiṭra. These have been published, as have all the other works by Ibn al-Amīr in this collection.

ḤADĪTH AND THE LAW The culture of scholarship in the Yemeni highlands was heavily focused on the law and the proof texts that supported legal rulings, especially those from the corpus of ḥadīth and its attendant sciences. The al-ʿUbaykān collection confirms this emphasis through the number of manuscripts it contains on these topics. Again, these include both Zaydi and Sunni texts. By way of illustration, I provide below a list of the authors and works in these fields represented in the collection. Most have been edited and published. Zaydi works Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn al-Hārūnī (d. 424/1033), Amālī Abī Ṭālib (several copies, nos. 8 and 65 in al-ʿUbaykān’s catalog). This work has been published. Imam al-Mutawakkil Aḥmad b. Sulaymān (d. 566/1171), Uṣūl al-aḥkām al-jāmiʿ fī ḥadīth sayyid al-anām. This is a work by another of Yemen’s most important Zaydi imams. It has been edited and published.

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ʿAlī b. Ḥumayd b. Aḥmad al-Qurashī (d. 635/1237 or 1238), Shams al-akhbār almuntaqā min kalām al-Nabī al-mukhtār. This is a published work. Al-Amīr al-Ḥusayn b. Badr al-Dīn Muḥammad (d. 662/1263 or 1264), Shifāʾ al-uwām fī aḥādīth al-aḥkām li-l-tamyīz bayna l-ḥalāl wa-l-ḥarām. This is an important Zaydi attempt, completed by several authors over time, to bolster the legal rulings of the Zaydi-Hādawī school through reference to ḥadīth as proof texts. The Shifāʾ al-uwām was first published by the Yemeni ministry of justice because of Muḥammad al-Shawkānī’s scathing commentary on the work, titled Wabl al-ghamām, and thus formed part of an anti-Zaydi campaign by the republic’s religious institutions. It has since been published separately. ʿĀmir b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Shahārī al-Hādawī (d. 1111/1699 or 1700), Niẓām akhbār Uṣūl alaḥkām al-mumayyiza bayna l-ḥalāl wa-l-ḥarām wa-Shifāʾ al-uwām (see Figure 3).19 This is a compilation of ḥadīth proof texts that combines the aforementioned Imam al-Mutawakkil Aḥmad b. Sulaymān’s Uṣūl al-aḥkām and al-Amīr al-Ḥusayn b. Badr al-Dīn Muḥammad’s Shifāʾ al-uwām. It remains unedited and unpublished and can be seen as part of an attempt to defend the traditional Zaydi-Hādawī school through the use and citation of prophetic traditions.

Figure 3. Cover page of Nizām akhbār uṣūl al-aḥkām by ʿAmir b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Hādawī.

19

See Fihris al-makhṭūṭāt, p. 21, no. 45 (al-ʿUbaykān collection no. 42).

AL-SAYYID MUḤAMMAD B. ʿABD AL-RAḤMĀN AL-ʿUBAYKĀN (1899–1993)

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Sunni works Muḥammad b. Salāma al-Quḍāʿī al-Shāfiʿī (d. 454/1062), al-Shihāb al-mushtamil ʿalā jawāmiʿ al-kalim wa-maḥāsin al-ādāb min kalām sayyid al-mursalīn. This is a well-known work in the field and has been published. Ibn Daqīq al-ʿĪd (d. 702/1302), Iḥkām al-aḥkām sharḥ ʿUmdat al-aḥkām. This is the author’s most famous and widely studied book and has been published. It is a commentary on ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Maqdisī’s (d. 600/1203) ʿUmdat al-aḥkām, which focuses on the legal traditions in the Ṣaḥīḥayn ḥadīth compilations of Bukhārī and Muslim. Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm al-Wazīr (d. 840/1436), Tanqīḥ al-anẓār fī ʿulūm al-āthār. This is a published book on the ḥadīth sciences by the first, and intellectually most formidable, of the Sunnifying scholars among the Zaydis of Yemen. Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī (d. 852/1449), Bulūgh al-marām min adillat al-aḥkām. This is a widely and repeatedly published work and constitutes a classic in the field of ḥadīth-based legal rulings. It enjoyed great popularity in Yemen among both Zaydis and Sunnis, and several commentaries were written on it, including the famous work of Ibn al-Amīr mentioned below. Ibn Daybaʿ ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAlī al-Shaybānī (d. 944/1537), Taysīr al-wuṣūl ilā jāmiʿ al-uṣūl min ḥadīth al-rasūl. This is a published work by the historian and Shāfiʿī scholar from the Yemeni town of Zabīd in the Tihāma. Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl al-Amīr al-Ṣanʿānī (Ibn al-Amīr, d. 1182/1769), Subul al-salām and Thamarāt al-naẓar fī ʿilm al-athar. Ibn al-Amīr’s books have been published. Subul alsalām is an important commentary on Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī’s Bulūgh al-marām min adillat al-aḥkām. It has become a classic that is widely taught throughout the Muslim world today and perhaps constitutes the most influential work by the Sunnifying scholars of highland Yemen. Muḥammad b. ʿAlī al-Shawkānī (d. 1250/1834), Wabl al-ghamām ʿalā Shifāʾ al-uwām. This published book, mentioned above, consists of a systematic critique of Zaydi-Hādawī legal teachings and rules.

PRINCIPLES OF JURISPRUDENCE (UṢŪL AL-FIQH) The study of the principles of jurisprudence was equally a major preoccupation of the highland scholars, and the period from the tenth/sixteenth to the eleventh/seventeenth century witnessed a noteworthy efflorescence of this field among the Zaydis. The most important and representative Zaydi texts in the al-ʿUbaykān collection are listed below, as are certain Sunni classics that were in circulation in the highlands. Zaydi works Muḥammad b. Yaḥyā Ibn Bahrān al-Ṣaʿdī (d. 957/1550), al-Kāfil bi-nayl al-sūl fī ʿilm al-uṣūl. This is the main introductory text for later Zaydis in the field of the principles of jurisprudence. It has been published. Aḥmad b. Muḥammad Ibn Luqmān (d. 1039/1629–30), al-Kāshif li-dhawī l-ʿuqūl. This is one of the principal commentaries on Ibn Bahrān’s al-Kāfil (mentioned above), and it has been edited and published.

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Al-Ḥusayn b. al-Manṣūr bi-llāh al-Qāsim b. Muḥammad (d. 1050/1640), Hidāyat alʿuqūl ilā Ghāyat al-sūl fī ʿilm al-uṣūl. This has been published and constitutes the main commentary text in this field of study. There are three copies of this text in the al-ʿUbaykān collection. One of these, with the relatively early date of 1080 AH, is well worth consulting. Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā Ibn Ḥābis al-Dawwārī (d. 1061/1651), al-Anwār al-hādiya li-dhawī lʿuqūl ilā maʿrifat maqāṣid al-Kāfil bi-nayl al-sūl fī ʿilm al-uṣūl. This is an important commentary on Ibn Bahrān’s work al-Kāfil and remains popular among Zaydis. It has not been edited or published. Sunni works Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111), al-Mankhūl fī ʿilm al-uṣūl. This text has been published, as has his classic later work in the same field titled al-Mustaṣfā, which is also included in the al-ʿUbaykān collection in manuscript. Zakariyya al-Anṣārī (d. 926/1520), Ghāyat al-wuṣūl ilā sharḥ Lubb al-uṣūl. This is a popular Shāfiʿī text in this field and was recently published in Hadramawt. In it, the author provides a commentary on his own work Lubb al-uṣūl, which is itself based on Tāj al-Dīn Subkī’s Jamʿ al-jawāmiʿ. Twelver Shiʿi works Al-Muḥaqqiq al-Qummī (d. 1231/1815–16), al-Qawānīn al-muḥkama fī ʿilm al-uṣūl.20 This is a highly regarded and published late text of the Twelver Imāmī tradition. It is noteworthy that a copy of this book was found in Yemen. In this vein, another Twelver work can also be found in the collection. This is Ḥabīb Allāh Mirzā Jān al-Shīrāzī’s (d. 994/1585) Ḥāshiya ʿalā Sharḥ al-ʿaḍudī ʿalā Mukhtaṣar Ibn al-Ḥājib, a gloss on ʿAḍud al-Dīn al-Ījī’s commentary on Ibn al-Ḥājib’s classic work in uṣūl al-fiqh titled Mukhtaṣar muntahā l-Suʾūl wa-l-amal fī ʿilmayy al-uṣūl wa-l-jadal.21 A study of how and why Zaydi-trained scholars studied and used Imāmī works is a desideratum in the field of Yemeni intellectual history.

LAW (FIQH) The al-ʿUbaykān collection contains a good sampling of texts from the Zaydī-Hādawī as well as the Shāfiʿī school of law, the two madhhabs that predominated in Yemen during the last millennium. The Zaydis constitute the majority of the population in the Upper Highlands while the Shāfiʿīs are the majority everywhere else in Yemen (e.g., Lower Yemen, Tihāma, Aden, Yafi‘, Lahj, Abyan, Shabwa, Hadramawt, Mahra). The writings of the Zaydis provide ample evidence that they studied and were well versed in the teachings of the Sunni madhhabs, especially those of the Shāfiʿī school. Yet it is noteworthy that this particular manuscript collection contains no legal texts of the other Sunni schools, i.e., Ḥanafī and Ḥanbalī, despite the presence of the former in the Tihāma and of the latter just north of the border in central Arabia. What is fully represented in the collection are many of the principal Zaydi texts, including, for example, the canonical works of Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā al-

20 21

See Fihris al-makhṭūṭāt, p. 34, no. 81 (al-ʿUbaykān collection no. 189). See Fihris al-makhṭūṭāt, p. 34, no. 82 (al-ʿUbaykān collection no. 83).

AL-SAYYID MUḤAMMAD B. ʿABD AL-RAḤMĀN AL-ʿUBAYKĀN (1899–1993)

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Murtaḍā, such as Kitāb al-Azhār and its numerous commentaries and glosses. Below is a list of selected legal titles in the al-ʿUbaykān collection. All of these have been published, except for the first work in the list, which was produced by a Zaydi from the Caspian region of Iran. Zaydi works Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad b. Yaʿqūb al-Hawsamī (d. 424/1032), Kitāb fī l-fiqh.22 This work of the Caspian Zaydis has not been published and would be worth consulting to determine how extensive the manuscript is. Al-Muʾayyad Yaḥyā b. Ḥamza (d. 749/1349), al-Intiṣār ʿalā ʿulamāʾ al-amṣār. This is an important work by one of the towering imams of medieval Yemen. Several volumes of the work have been published, and this appears to be volume 3. Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā al-Murtaḍā (d. 840/1436), al-Baḥr al-zakhkhār and Kitāb al-Azhār. The collection has a number of commentaries on the latter, which is the standard text for the Zaydi school; the commentaries include Ibn Miftāḥ’s al-Muntazaʿ al-mukhtār, among others. Yaḥyā b. Aḥmad Ibn Muzaffar (d. 875/1470–71), al-Bayān al-shāfī al-muntazaʿ min alBurhān al-kāfī. An important work of Zaydi fiqh that has been published. Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Nāẓirī (d. 920/1514), Jawharat al-farāʾiḍ. This is the standard Zaydi text on inheritance law and has been published several times. Shāfiʿī works Aḥmad b. al-Ḥusayn Abū Shujāʿ (fl. 5th/11th c.), Mukhtaṣar Abī Shujāʿ. This is a popular and short Shāfiʿī legal text, which is often referred to by the title al-Taqrīb. It has been published. Abū Zakariyya Yaḥyā al-Nawawī (d. 676/1277), Rawḍat al-ṭālibīn wa minhāj al-muftīn and Minhāj al-ṭālibīn. The latter is a short legal work that is very popular in the Shāfiʿī regions of Yemen. Sharaf al-Dīn Ismāʿīl Ibn al-Muqrī (d. 837/1433), Irshād al-ghāwī and al-Tamshiya ʿalā Irshād al-ghāwī. These are important legal works by the Yemeni scholar Ibn al-Muqrī, and both have been published. Ibn Ḥajar al-Haytamī (d. 973/1566), al-Manhaj al-qawīm bi-sharḥ masāʾil al-taʿlīm and Tuḥfat al-muḥtāj sharḥ al-Minhāj. These are standard Shāfiʿī legal texts and have been published.

OTHER DISCIPLINES There are several other disciplines that are well represented in this manuscript collection. For example, we find works on ethics, on the Prophet Muḥammad as a paragon of virtue, by both Zaydi and Sunni authors. There are also books that relate to Arabic in areas such as grammar, morphology, syntax, and rhetoric. These include a text by the Persian Sunni

22

See Fihris al-makhṭūṭāt, p. 81, no. 215 (al-ʿUbaykān collection no. 50). This is part of a compilation that contains al-Dhahabī’s Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ and other works.

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scholar Mullā Jāmī titled al-Fawāʾid al-ḍiyāʾiyya bi-ḥall mushkilāt al-Kāfiya. This work consists of a dense scholastic grammar, commenting on Ibn al-Ḥājib’s famous work, and it was perhaps circulated in Yemen during the period of Ottoman rule in the tenth–eleventh/sixteenth–seventeenth centuries, since it formed part of the Ottomans’ core educational curriculum. The collection also contains literary and historical works on Yemen and the wider Islamic world. There are several biographical dictionaries of scholars and poets as well as geographical works. Two manuscripts are worth highlighting here. The first consists of two volumes of poetry, ʿAlī b. Ḥasan al-Khafanjī’s (d. 1180/1766–67) Salāfat al-ʿadas wa-lubb albalas fī l-muḍḥikāt wa-l-dalas and the Dīwān of Aḥmad b. Sharaf al-Dīn al-Qāra (d. 1295/1878).23 These are perhaps the two most important Yemeni poets of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries CE, respectively. Each wrote poems using both the classical and the vernacular (ḥumaynī) Arabic, and their verse touches on topics that encompass the bawdy and the transgressive, the religious and the social, often in a mocking fashion. The two collections offer an important window onto the debates and polemics that took place in Sanaa’s literary salons in the period after the zenith of Qāsimī dynastic rule. Neither collection has been fully edited or published. The second manuscript is an autograph by Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Ḥajrī (d. 1380/1960) titled Majmūʿ yashtamil ʿalā fawāʾid ʿan buldān al-Yaman wa-qabāʾilihā wa-makhālifihā.24 The author was a historian, genealogist, and bibliographer, and this work is likely to be the unexpurgated version of his published geographical and tribal dictionary of Yemen titled Muʿjam buldān al-Yaman wa-qabāʾilihā. The published edition was heavily bowdlerized by republican officials and scholars, especially by the late Qāḍī Ismāʿīl al-Akwaʿ, because it was deemed offensive and politically unacceptable for its ancien régime content.

CONCLUSION The al-ʿUbaykān library is an important collection of Yemeni manuscripts that contains a few gems—such as the Iʿjāz al-Qurʾān by Abū Rashīd al-Nīsābūrī—that have not been edited or published. It is also valuable in that it constitutes, as noted earlier, a representative sample of the books that were circulating and being read, studied, and copied by the learned elite of Sanaa over the last few centuries. Luckily, most of the manuscripts have been preserved at the King Saud University Library in Riyadh and appear to be accessible online and adequately reproduced in digital form. It is also fortunate that this Saudi university and the governmental authorities in Riyadh have not censored or denied access to these works on the basis of their sectarian origin and content. For scholars who wish to work on law, jurisprudence, theology, history, and literature produced in Yemen, this collection should be surveyed and will prove rewarding.

23

See Fihris al-makhṭūṭāt, p. 64, no. 166 (al-ʿUbaykān collection no. 102). There is also another dīwān of poetry by Yaḥyā b. Ibrāhīm al-Jaḥḥāf (d. 1117/1705–6) titled Durr al-aṣdāf that includes both classical and ḥumaynī poems and that is worth consulting; see Fihris al-makhṭūṭāt, p. 76, no. 202 (al-ʿUbaykān collection no. 102). 24 See Fihris al-makhṭūṭāt, p. 83, no. 219 (al-ʿUbaykān collection no. 183).

CONTRIBUTORS HASSAN ANSARI is a visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton, NJ). He received his PhD from EPHE (Sorbonne-Paris) in Islamic studies. Prior to EPHE, he studied Arabic literature, Qurʾanic exegesis and hadith, Islamic theology, philosophy, mysticism, and law in Qom and Tehran. He has published various books and many articles in Persian, Arabic, French, and English, including L’imamat et l’occultation selon l’imamisme: Étude bibliographique et histoire des textes (Leiden: Brill, 2017); Studies in Medieval Islamic Intellectual Traditions (with Sabine Schmidtke; Atlanta: Lockwood Press, 2017); Al-Šarīf al-Murtaḍā’s Oeuvre and Thought in Context: An Archaeological Inquiry into Texts and Their Transmission (with Sabine Schmidtke; Cordoba: UCOPress, 2022); and Caliphate and Imamate: Selected Political Works from the Islamic Tradition (with Nebil Husayn; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming). STEFANIE BRINKMANN is a research fellow at the Bibliotheca Arabica Project at the Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Leipzig. She holds a PhD in Arabic and Islamic studies from the University of Göttingen and has held acting professorships at Freiburg and Hamburg Universities. Her main research interests are manuscript studies, hadith, material culture (especially the history of food and drink), and classical Arabic poetry. GABRIELE VOM BRUCK is a reader in anthropology with reference to the Middle East (emerita) and a research fellow at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. She earned her PhD in Anthropology from the London School of Economics & Political Science, and held teaching posts at the LSE and the University of Edinburgh. She has conducted extensive field research in Yemen and published on elites, religious movements, gender, consumption, memory and history, and photography. Her major publications are Islam, Memory and Morality in Yemen: Ruling Families in Transition (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005) and Mirrored Loss: A Yemeni Woman’s Life Story (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018). BERNARD HAYKEL is a historian of the Arabian Peninsula and a scholar of politics, Islamic law, and Islamist movements. He is professor of Near Eastern studies at Princeton University, where he is also the director of the Institute for the Transregional Study of the Contemporary Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia. He earned his DPhil in Oriental studies from the University of Oxford. BRINKLEY MESSICK is professor of anthropology and of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African studies at Columbia University, and director of the Middle East Institute. In 2009, he 533

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received the Outstanding Senior Scholar Award from the Middle East section of the American Anthropological Association. His Calligraphic State (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993) was awarded the Albert Hourani Prize of the Middle Eastern Studies Association; he coedited Islamic Legal Interpretation: Muftis and Their Fatwas (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), and his Sharīʿa Scripts: A Historical Anthropology was published by Columbia University Press in 2018. CHRISTOPH RAUCH studied Arabic and Islamic studies and religion at Leipzig University (MA) and also holds an MA in information and library science from the Humboldt Universität Berlin. Since 2010 he is head of the Oriental department at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin. He is particularly interested in and publishes from time to time on Arabic manuscripts and the history of Oriental studies and collections. ANNE REGOURD reached Yemen for the first time in 1992. Her initial fieldwork was on divination and magic, a theme at the intersection of textual studies and anthropology, “texts in practices and practices in text.” This was her first contact with manuscripts in Yemen. In 2001 she became the scientific director of the Program for Safeguarding Manuscripts of Private Libraries in Zabid, a cooperative program based on the training of a Zabidi team. She directed the compilation of four catalogs of Yemeni manuscripts, one of them on digitized watermarked papers (2008). When the war between the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Houthis started in 2015, she organized and took part in numerous events to draw attention to the endangered heritage of Yemen. She has published extensively on Yemeni manuscripts and codicology, including The Trade in Papers with Non-Latin Characters (Leiden: Brill, 2018). She has been the director of the online journal Nouvelles Chroniques du manuscrit au Yémen, originally the Chroniques du manuscrit au Yémen, since 2006. VALENTINA SAGARIA ROSSI is (since 1990) the curator of the Oriental Manuscript Collection of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei in Rome. She dedicates her research and publications to the study of the transmission of classical Arabic texts (works on amthāl, dictionaries, lexicographies) and the Arabic manuscript tradition, with particular reference to the Yemeni heritage. She has coordinated research projects on Italian collections of Arabic manuscripts, and since 2018 she has been collaborating with Sabine Schmidtke to integrate Italian collections into the ZMT (Zaydi Manuscript Tradition) project. KARIN SCHEPER was trained as a book and paper conservator in Amsterdam, and she heads the Leiden University Library’s conservation studio. She completed her PhD in 2014 with a dissertation entitled “The Islamic Bookbinding Tradition: A Book Archaeological Study.” For her research into the development of Islamic book structures she received the scholarly honor of the De la Court Prize awarded by the KNAW (the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences) in 2017. She was a Bahari Fellow and studied the Persian collections at Oxford, and she teaches courses on the materiality of books and book history. SABINE SCHMIDTKE is professor of Islamic intellectual history at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ. Her research interests include Shīʿism (Zaydism and Twelver

CONTRIBUTORS

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Shīʿism), intersections of Jewish and Muslim intellectual history, the Arabic Bible, and the history of the book and libraries in the Islamicate world. Her recent publications include Traditional Yemeni Scholarship amidst Political Turmoil and War: Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl b. al-Muṭahhar al-Manṣūr (1915–2016) and His Personal Library (Cordoba: UCOpress, 2018), Jewish-Muslim Intellectual History Entangled (with Camilla Adang, Bruno Chiesa, Omar Hamdan, Wilferd Madelung, and Jan Thiele; Cambridge: Open Book, 2020), Al-Šarīf al-Murtaḍā's Oeuvre and Thought in Context: An Archaeological Inquiry into Texts and their Transmission (with Hassan Ansari; Cordoba: UCOPress, 2022), and The Beginnings of Shīʿī Studies in Germany: Rudolf Strothmann and His Correspondence with Carl Heinrich Becker, Ignaz Goldziher, and Eugenio Griffini, 1910 through 1923 (American Philosophical Society, in press). JAN THIELE is a scholar of Islamic intellectual history based at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) in Madrid. He is the author of Kausalität in der muʿtazilitischen Kosmologie (Leiden: Brill, 2011) and Theologie in der jemenitischen Zaydiyya (Leiden: Brill, 2013) and the coeditor of Philosophical Theology in Islam: Later Ashʿarism East and West (with Ayman Shihadeh; Leiden: Brill, 2020), Jewish-Muslim Intellectual History Entangled (with Camilla Adang, Bruno Chiesa, Omar Hamdan, Wilferd Madelung, and Sabine Schmidtke; Cambridge: Open Book, 2020), and the journal Intellectual History of the Islamicate World. DANIEL MARTIN VARISCO is an anthropologist and historian who conducted ethnographic fieldwork on traditional water resource use in central Yemen in 1978–1979 and historical research on Yemeni manuscripts in Cairo in 1983, Sanaa in 1985, and Istanbul in 1989. He has written about the history of Yemeni agriculture since the tenth century. He is currently writing a history of Rasulid-era agriculture with a translation of the agricultural treatise of al-Malik al-Ashraf ʿUmar (d. 696/1296). ARNOUD VROLIJK (PhD Leiden, 1998), is Interpres Legati Warneriani and curator of Oriental manuscripts and rare books at Leiden University Libraries. He has published extensively on the Leiden collections and the history of Arabic scholarship in the Netherlands. ZAID BIN ALI AL-WAZIR is a scholar, poet, politician, historian, former diplomat, and editor who from a young age was tutored by leading Yemeni men of literature and Islamic sciences (ʿulamāʾ). He has published many books, including Autocracy: Political Jurisprudence Crisis among Muslims (al-Fardiyya: Baḥth fī azmat al-fiqh al-siyāsī ʿindā l-Muslimīn), An Attempt to Correct the Path (Muḥāwala li-taṣḥīḥ al-masār), and An Attempt to Comprehend the Yemeni Problem (Muḥāwala li-fahm al-mushkila al-yamaniyya), as well as numerous scholarly articles. In the late 1950s and early 1960s he was a founding member of the so-called Third Force and the Union of Popular Forces party (Ittiḥād al-Quwā al-Shaʿbiyya). He was one of the founders and main contributors to al-Shoura newspaper. In 1999 he established the Yemen Heritage and Research Center (Markaz al-Turāth wa-l-Buḥūth al-Yamanī), which publishes the journal al-Masār, focusing on Yemeni issues.