Traces of the Hand from Africa to Asia:
A Symposium on the Palaeography of Arabic-Script Languages
24 August 2015, King's College London, Strand Campus, London WC2R 2LS, UK
Abstracts
Books Penned in Arabic Script: The Present State of Palaeography and Avenues for Future Research
Adam Gacek
Retired Faculty Lecturer and Research Associate, Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
In his Islamic Codicology: An Introduction to the Study of Manuscripts in Arabic Script (2006), François Déroche wrote, ‘To put it bluntly, the palaeography of Arabic scripts remains two centuries behind the work done on Latin and Greek manuscripts’. Has the recent research narrowed this large gap? No doubt, since the early 1980s there has been a substantial increase in the number of publications in the field of Islamic manuscript studies. However, has palaeography per se received a commensurate share of scholars' attention?
This lecture will attempt to give an overview of the output produced in the West in the last 20 years or so on various aspects of manuscript studies, with a special focus on research done on Arabic scripts used in the production of manuscripts. It will also look into those areas of investigation in palaeography that need to be revived and/or further developed.
Arabic Palaeography: Lights and Shadows
Prof. Arianna D’Ottone
Associate Professor of Arabic Language and Literature, Institute of Oriental Studies and Junior Fellow, School for Advanced Studies, Sapienza-University of Rome, Italy
When studied with a palaeographic method, the Arabic script can become a precious historical source, whether it appears on manuscripts, papyri, or coins. Arabic palaeography is not limited to codices, nor to Arabic-Islamic manuscripts, but also includes Arabic-Christian materials. Additionally, digraphic and bilingual texts—in Greek and Arabic or Latin and Arabic—offer ideal meeting points for specialists of diverse linguistic and palaeographic skills.
This presentation aims to describe the results achieved by palaeographical research on Arabic manuscript production and to highlight the possibilities of the synergic investigation of varied handwritten objects. It will also identify some terminological misuses in historical, literary, and religious studies scholarship that reflect a basic ignorance of palaeography. Lastly, it will argue for a more solid teaching system for palaeography since cultivating new generations of scholars aware of the methods and objectives of the discipline is essential for it to get the scientific recognition it deserves.
The Calligraphic Empire: The Many Uses of Arabic Script in the Ottoman Empire
Prof. Hakan Karateke
Professor of Ottoman and Turkish Culture, Language, and Literature, University of Chicago, USA
This lecture will demonstrate how the Ottoman state apparatus made use of the Arabic script in various bureaucratic contexts and beyond. The functionality ascribed to various script types will be analysed by looking at the employment of certain scripts for designated purposes and contexts. The intricate relationship of the script type with language and contents will be one of the tools to flesh out this functionality. Furthermore, Ottoman inscriptions will be given special attention as public texts that were meant to convey messages not only by their contents, but also by the script types utilized and the composition with which the texts were written. The lecture will subsequently turn to modern scholarship and focus on the state of current research on Ottoman palaeography. It will propose possible directions that future studies may take and ponder how collaboration with neighbouring fields, such as Arabic and Persian palaeography, can be envisioned.
Jawi Palaeography
Dr Annabel Teh Gallop
Lead Curator, Southeast Asia Section, British Library, London, UK
Jawi is the name of the extended form of the Arabic script used to write Malay, which includes five letters not found in Arabic, namely ca, pa, ga, nga, and nya. Jawi was used throughout Islamic Southeast Asia, from Aceh on the northern tip of Sumatra through to Mindanao in the southern Philippines, an area the size of Europe. The earliest surviving Jawi manuscripts on paper are two letters dating from 1521 and 1522 from Ternate in the Moluccas, but probably around 90% of Malay manuscripts extant today date from the 19th century. Most published studies of Jawi have tended to focus exclusively on orthographical matters, with almost no attention paid to calligraphy or palaeography. As an initial step towards the study of Jawi palaeography, a corpus of 60 dated Malay manuscripts of securely identifiable geographical origins was recently published as ‘A Jawi Sourcebook for the Study of Malay Palaeography and Orthography’ in the March 2015 issue of Indonesia and the Malay World (vol. 43, no. 125). Early thoughts arising from a consideration of this data suggest that while it may be difficult to use palaeographical tools to help to date Malay manuscripts accurately, there appears to be much better scope for using palaeography to identify the regional origins of manuscripts.