Overview
This symposium focuses on historic libraries as key spaces for the production and transmission of knowledge in Islamic societies during the medieval and early modern periods. It seeks to shed light on the mechanisms through which library collections were formed and expanded, as well as the ways written culture circulated and books were used within these institutions.
The symposium also examines the role of libraries, from al-Andalus and the Maghrib to Iraq and Bilād al-Shām, via Egypt, as arenas for the assertion of regional identities within a predominantly Arab-Islamic context. This approach will explore the preservation and appreciation of written heritage, as well as the questions surrounding the future of these institutions in both the eastern and western Islamic worlds. It will also examine the emergence, from the sixteenth century onward, of parallel collections of Arabic books and manuscripts in the West, often resulting from the dispersal or plundering of libraries in the Islamic world.
We will explore emblematic libraries, whether vanished or still standing, as case studies through which to assess their present condition. Cross-cutting approaches will be adopted to identify broader structural trends, yielding insights valuable not only to specialists in the Islamic world but also to historians of the book and the transmission of knowledge more generally.
Finally, this symposium offers a journey through history, between the pages of precious books and the corridors of ancient libraries, in an effort to draw lessons from the past and renew our commitment to preserving and revitalizing this heritage for future generations.
The symposium will feature the following speakers:
- Professor Konrad Hirschler, Professor of Middle Eastern History and Director of the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures at the University of Hamburg. He will discuss the transmission of knowledge by tracing the fate of books and manuscripts after the disappearance of libraries, exploring how they continued to circulate between cities and collections over the centuries.
- Tamer El-Gebaly, Researcher in Manuscript Studies and Critical Text Editing, will speak about the Al-Azhar Library as an archive of intellectual and social history, offering a quantitative analysis of its endowment structure and the transformations it reveals in the production and organization of knowledge.
The session will be moderated by Dr. Moez Dridi, Senior Archivist at Qatar National Library
Event location: Qatar National Library, Auditorium
