Asian and African studies blog

News from our curators and colleagues

Introduction

Our Asian and African Studies blog promotes the work of our curators, recent acquisitions, digitisation projects, and collaborative projects outside the Library. Our starting point was the British Library’s exhibition ‘Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire’, which ran 9 Nov 2012 to 2 Apr 2013. Read more

14 October 2024

Digital access to Malay and Indonesian manuscripts in the British Library

For the first time since the cyber-attack of October 2023, access has been restored to some of the British Library’s digitised manuscripts. Included in this pilot project are 23 Bugis manuscripts and a Qur'an manuscript from Madura, as listed here, and we hope more manuscripts will become accessible soon. In the meantime, this blog post highlights alternative paths of digital access to some Malay and Indonesian manuscripts from the British Library collections.

Entry for August 1800, from a Bugis diary from the court of Bone
Entry for August 1800, from a Bugis diary from the court of Bone for the years 1795-1812. British Library, Add MS 12357, f. 81v 

The British Library holds about 500 manuscripts from maritime Southeast Asia, and by September 2023 all had been digitised. The manuscripts are listed on project pages for Malay, Lampung, Arabic, Javanese, Old Javanese, Balinese, Bugis, Makasar and Batak. Although the hyperlinks on these pages to the digital images on the British Library website do not work at present, the links to blog posts are still accessible.

Thanks to a collaborative project with the National Library of Singapore supported by William and Judith Bollinger, all the Malay manuscripts from the British Library can be accessed through the Singapore National Library Online site, by searching in the ‘Documents and Manuscripts’ tab with the keywords ‘Malay British Library’. The manuscripts can be read online or downloaded in PDF form.

Malay letter from Sultan Muhammad Yasin of Ternate, 1802
Malay letter from Sultan Muhammad Yasin of Ternate, 1802. British Library, Add MS 18141, accessed via Singapore National Library Online 

The Library of Congress offers full access with downloadable PDFs to four British Library manuscripts in Arabic, Malay and Javanese:
Or 15227, an illuminated Qurʼan,19th century, from the east coast of the Malay Peninsula, Patani or Kelantan
Or 16126, Letter from Engku Temenggung Seri Maharaja (Daing Ibrahim), Ruler of Johor, to Napoleon III, Emperor of France, dated 1857
Or 14734, Sulalat al-salatin / Sejarah Melayu (Malay Annals), copied in 1873
MSS Jav 89, Serat Damar Wulan, with illustrations depicting Javanese society in the late 18th century

Qur’an manuscript from Patani/Kelantan, 19th century
Qur’an manuscript from Patani/Kelantan, 19th century. British Library, Or 15227, accessed via the Library of Congress

With the support of Mr S P Lohia, 76 Javanese manuscripts from Yogyakarta now held in the British Library were digitised. On completion of the project in 2019, complete sets of the 30,000 digital images were also presented to Sri Sultan Hamengku Buwono X, the National Library of Indonesia (Perpusnas), and the Libraries and Archives Service of Yogyakarta (Dinas Perpustakaan dan Arsip DIY), by the British Ambassador to Indonesia, Moazzam Malik. In April 2023, the digitised copies from the British Library were also provided to the Wikisource Loves Manuscripts (WiLMA) project, in readiness for the WiLMA proofread-a-thon 2023, a crowdsourcing project to automate the transcription of Javanese script, and these 76 Javanese manuscripts from Yogyakarta can now be accessed through Wikimedia Commons.

The 76 Javanese manuscripts in the British Library digitised in the Javanese Manuscripts from Yogyakarta project
The 76 Javanese manuscripts in the British Library digitised in the Javanese Manuscripts from Yogyakarta project can be accessed via Wikimedia Commons.

Following on from the Yogyakarta project of 2019, through the support of William and Judith Bollinger a further 120 Javanese paper manuscripts in the British Library were digitised in 2023. In addition, support was also extended to Yayasan Lestari (Yasri) for its Sastra Jawa website to romanise 25 Javanese manuscripts for presentation via the  British Library Bollinger Project webpage, and the project is currently halfway completed. The romanised Javanese text is accompanied by thumbnail images of each manuscript page, thus offering digital access so far to 12 Javanese manuscripts from the British Library, including some not available through Wikimedia Commons.

The British Library Bollinger Project on the Sastra Jawa website

The British Library Bollinger Project on the Sastra Jawa website.

Serat Maliawan, British Library, Add MS 12291
Serat Maliawan, British Library, Add MS 12291, accessed via Sastra Jawa  

Fortunately the cyber-attack did not affect access to the British Library's Endangered Archives Programme, which to date has supported 23 projects in Indonesia, listed here.

We hope that it will not be too long before full access is restored to all the digitised manuscripts in the British Library.

Annabel Teh Gallop, Lead Curator, Southeast Asia

08 October 2024

Access restored to a number of digitised manuscripts

For the first time since the cyber-attack on the British Library in October 2023, access has been restored to 1,000 digitised manuscripts, via a new webpage. On this site the manuscripts are listed in shelfmark order, with brief titles and dates. The hyperlinked shelfmark leads to the manuscript viewer which provides basic metadata, thumbnail view options, and IIIF manifests.

This first stage of restoration includes 46 manuscripts from Asian and African collections, in Arabic, Chagatai, Persian, Ethiopian and Bugis, listed below. We hope to make more digitised manuscripts available soon. In the meantime, finding aids to Asian and African Collections are listed here, while this blog post gives information on alternative links to Asian and African materials in the British Library. 

ARABIC, CHAGATAI and PERSIAN (5 manuscripts)

Screenshot 2024-10-04 135720
Illuminated panel from the opening page of a Chagatai manuscript, [Muntakhab-i] Dīvān-i Navā'ī, copied by Sultan 'Ali Mashhadi, 15th-16th century. Or 3493, f. 2v (detail)

Add MS 7914 Majmu'a / مجموعه 914/1508-9
Or 3493 [Muntakhab-i] Dīvān-i Navā'ī / منتخب ديوان نوائي 15th-16th century
Or 11249 Dīvān-i Fānī / ديوان فانى 916/1510-11
Or 15877 Quran, from Madura, East Java 19th century
Or 16058 Quran, from Dagestan 1821

ETHIOPIAN (18 manuscripts)

0181_562950054654306_f_88r
Illuminated page from ኦሪት The Octateuch, ( Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth), 14th-15th century. Or 480, f. 88r 

Or 480 ኦሪት The Octateuch, ( Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth) 14th century -15th century
Or 481 ኦሪት Octateuch, አርባዕቱ ወንጌል Gospels and Ecclesiastical works. Late 17th century
Or 485 መጽሐፈ ኩፍሌ መጽሐፈ፡ ኩፋሌ፡ Maṣḥafa kufāle Book of Jubilees . and መጽሐፍ ሄኖክ the Book of Enoch. 16th century
Or 533 አብቀለምሲስ, The Revelation of St. John . 1700-1730
Or 544 ግብረ ሕማማት, Lectionaries for Palm Sunday and Passion Week. Early 18th century
Or 584 ድጓ Dēggwä. Hymnbook of the Ethiopian Church for the whole year, with musical notes. 1735
Or 607 ነገረ ፡ ማርያም Nagara Māryām The Story of Mary . 1730-1755
Or 614 ድርሳነ ሚካኤል Homiliary in Honor of the Archangel Michael. 18th century
Or 641 ታምረ ማርያም, The Miracles of Mary. The second third of the 17th century
Or 645 ታምረ ማርያም The Miracles of Mary. 1700-1750
Or 711 ገድለ ገብረ መንፈስ ቅዱስ The Acts of Gabra Manfas Kedus. 15th century
Or 714 ገድለ ጊዮርጊስ The Acts of St. George. 18th century
Or 718 ገደለ ላሊበላ Gädlä Lalibla (The Acts of Lalibla) or History of King Lalibala of Lasta. 19th century
Or 721 ገድለ ተክለ ሃይማኖት Act of St. Takla Haymanot. 1700-1750
Or 739 ዮሐንስ አፈ ወርቅ The Commentary of John Chrysostom. 18th century
Or 790 መጽሐፈ መድበል Mestira Zaman, vol.1 1721-1730
Or 791 መጽሐፈ መድበል Mashafa Madbal Vol II. 18th century
Or 818 ክብረ ነገሥት Kebra Nagast, or the Glory of the Kings”. 1700-1750

BUGIS (23 manuscripts)

Add_ms_12346_f002v-3r
Compendium of fourteen short Bugis poems, late 18th-early 19th century. Add MS 12346, ff. 2v-3r

Add MS 12346 Bugis poems 18th-early 19th century
Add MS 12348 La Galigo 18th-early 19th century
Add MS 12349 Bugis diary from Bone, 1780-5 1780-5
Add MS 12350 Bugis diary, 1808-1812 1813
Add MS 12353 Bugis poems 18th-early 19th century
Add MS 12355 Bugis diary from the court of Bone, 1774-1793 1774-1812
Add MS 12356 Copy of the Bugis diary of the Sultan of Bone, 1775-1795 1806-1814
Add MS 12357 Bugis diary from Bone, 1795-1812 1795-1814
Add MS 12358 Bugis treatises on fire-arms and gunnery 18th-early 19th century
Add MS 12359 Documents in Bugis and Malay Late 18th-early 19th century
Add MS 12360 Bugis notes on medicine, agriculture, etc. 18th-early 19th century
Add MS 12361 Bugis poem Early 19th century
Add MS 12362 Bugis version of Hikayat Cekel Wanengpati 18th-early 19th century
Add MS 12364 Hikayat Muhammad Hanafiah Late 18th-early 19th century
Add MS 12365 Bugis treatises on firearms and gunnery Late 18th-early 19th century
Add MS 12367 Mystical treatises in Arabic, Makasar and Bugis Late 18th-early 19th century
Add MS 12369 A Volume in Bugis, apparently a European Calendar for the Years 1714-1718, adapted to the Arabic months. 1714-1718
Add MS 12370 Bugis translation of Tanbih al-Ghafilin Late 18th-early 19th century
Add MS 12371 Akhbar al-akhira 1764
Add MS 12373 Bugis diary from the court of Bone, 1793-1799 1793-1799
Add MS 12374 Verses from the Quran in Arabic, with Bugis translation Late 18th-early 19th century
MSS Bugis 1 Bugis diaries, 1660-1714 Late 18th-early 19th century
MSS Bugis 2 Bugis diary, 1776-1794 Late 18th-early 19th century

 

30 September 2024

Rustam's war attire in Firdawsi's Shahnamah

Rustam, the most important hero of Firdawsi’s twelfth century epic the Shāhnāmah has always inspired writers, poets and artists. Nevertheless, many aspects of his life remain disputable. In this blog, I will discuss different views around Rustam's war attire.

Combat of Rustam and Burzū. Isfahan (Iran)  1590-1600. British Library  IO Islamic 3254  f.182v
Combat of Rustam and Burzū. Isfahan (Iran), 1590-1600 (British Library, IO Islamic 3254, f.182v).
Public domain

In the images of Rustam in the manuscripts of Firdawsi’s Shāhnāmah, Rustam usually wears a helmet made from the head of a tiger or sometimes a leopard, together with brown striped war attire. This interpretation is based on the phrase babr-i bayān, the name given to Rustam’s war clothing in the Shāhnāmah where it is described as fire-proof, water-proof, weapon-proof, dark-coloured and made out of leopard skin.

Some verses in the Shāhnāmah indicate a magical nature for the babr-i bayān. These verses, however, are later additions and contradict other descriptions of the clothing. Elsewhere, Firdawsi describes it as normal attire under which Rustam sometimes wears chain mail, and most of the time two pieces of armour. The babr-i bayān does not even make Rustam invulnerable — as demonstrated by the life-threatening injuries he suffered in his fight with Isfandiyar.

The Sīmurgh heals Rustam after his fight with Isfandiyar. India  1719. British Library  Add. Ms 18804  f.71
The Sīmurgh heals Rustam after his fight with Isfandiyar. India, 1719 (British Library, Add. Ms 18804, f.71r)
Public domain

The word ‘babr’ is used to refer both to the animal ‘tiger’, and to Rustam’s dress, leading to the general assumption that ‘babr-i bayān’ means clothes made of tiger skin. Hence the decision by most illustrators of the Shahnāmah to depict Rustam in brown striped clothing resembling tiger skin.

Bizhan rescued by Rustam. Samarkand (Uzbekistan)  1600. British Library IO Islamic 301  f. 142r
Bizhan rescued by Rustam. Samarkand (Uzbekistan), 1600 (British Library IO Islamic 301, f. 142r)
Public domain

In addition to his tiger skin jacket, Rustam usually wears a leopard-headed helmet. However the leopard/panther skin was not used exclusively for depicting Rustam as is shown by the image below of the White Demon who is typically portrayed as leopard-skinned.

Rustam kills the White Demon. Isfahan (Iran)  1630-1640. British Library  IO Islamic 1256  f.79r
Rustam kills the White Demon. Isfahan (Iran), 1630-1640 (British Library, IO Islamic 1256, f.79r)
Public domain

In some traditions, not directly derived from the Shāhnāmah, after Rustam had killed the White Demon, he crafted a helmet from his severed head. This had the effect of making him seem even more terrifying.

Rustam sees the dungeon- 1604. British Library  I.O. ISLAMIC 966  f.64v  copy
Rustam sees the dungeon. Iran, 1604 (British Library, IO Islamic 966, f.64v)
Public domain

Most scholars, like the illustrators, agree that ‘babr’ is an animal but, unlike the illustrators, there is no consensus among them about what animal the word refers to. One group associates ‘babr-i bayān’ with animals such as otters, beavers, and even dragons. In narratives such as the Farāmarznāmah and Gurani epic stories, ‘babr-i bayān’ is a dragon which is killed by Rustam and its skin is used as war clothing. The interpretation linking ‘babr-i bayān’ with beavers or otters relates to the garment of Anahita, the goddess of water in the Avesta. According to the Zoroastrian Avestan hymn Ābān Yasht, Anahita wears a garment made from the shining skin of three hundred ‘bauuri/bawri’ - believed to mean beaver or otter in Avestan. Some scholars, notably Mahmud Omidsalar believe that ‘bauuri/bawri’ evolved to ‘babrag’ in Middle Persian, then to ‘babr’ in New Persian, a second meaning, alongside ‘tiger’, which has since been forgotten. Other scholars, however, prefer the straightforward meaning ‘tiger’ while noting that the tigerskin is not unique to Rustam but is worn by other characters in the Shāhnāmah and throughout world mythology.

As with ‘babr’, different roots and interpretations have been proposed for ‘bayān’. Khaleghi-Motlagh suggests that Bayān is a place in India while Māhyār Navābi proposes that it is the New Persian form of the Old Persian genitive plural ‘bagānām’ and Middle Persian ‘bayān’ meaning ‘of the gods.’ These, and other etymologies suggested at various times can be followed up in the reference sources cited below.

Last words

Considering Firdawsi’s description of the babr-i bayān in the Shāhnāmah and descriptions of Rustam’s clothes in other sources alongside the clothes of heroes, gods, and goddesses in world mythology, it seems clear that it is a tiger’s skin and its colour, as seen in many manuscripts, is red-brown. Elsewhere, the word ‘bawr/būr’ has been used in the Shāhnāmah as an adjective for red-brown horses. Rakhsh, Rustam’s horse, is also described as bawr/būr.

Rustam captures his hirse Rakhsh. Iran  1604. British Library  IO Islamic 966  f. 62r
Rustam captures his horse Rakhsh. Isfahan (Iran), 1604 (British Library, IO Islamic 966, f. 54v)
Public domain

It seems that in depicting Rustam's war attire, the artists of the Shāhnāmah were inspired by other narratives including folkloric stories, as well as Firdawsi's descriptions. This can be seen in illustrations in which Rustam wears a helmet made of a leopard or demon's head while he does not have such a helmet according to the text of the Shāhnāmah. Dressed in this war attire Rustam appears even more powerful and frightening.

 

Alireza Sedighi, Curator, Persian Collections, British Library
With thanks to my colleagues William Monk, Michael Erdman and Ursula Sims-Williams
CCBY


Further reading

Sajjād Āydinlū, “Rūykardī digar bih Babr-i Bayān dar Shāhnāmah”, Nāmah-i Pārsī 4.4 (1378/1998).
Dj. Khaleghi-Motlagh, “Babr-e bayān”, in Encyclopaedia Iranica online, 1988, updated 2011.
Mahmoud Omidsalar. “The beast Babr-e Bayān: Contributions to Iranian folklore and etymology”, Studia Iranica 13.1(1984), 129–42.
Mukhtariyan, Bahar، “Babr-i bayān va jāmah-ʼi  bavrī-yi Ānāhīt”, Justār’hā-yi Adabī 186 (1393/2014).

23 September 2024

The Hidden Mughal Princess-Poet Zebunnisa 'Makhfi'

For over three centuries scholars have been intrigued with the life and poetry of the Mughal princess, Zebunnisa (1639-1702), the eldest daughter of Aurangzeb (r. 1658-1707). True to her name which means ‘Ornament of Women’, she was learned, and an active patron of poets and scholars. She collected books and corresponded with prominent Sufis of the time.[1]  That she would have composed verses in Persian would have been natural since many elite women in Persianate societies did so, but the attribution to her of a substantial body of poetry in the form of a dīvān, comprising about five hundred ghazals and some other poems, actually dates to a few decades after her death and later. In keeping with the spirit of the spurious and suggestive portrait below that was meant to represent Zebunnisa, along with poems attributed to her, over time her biography was spiced up with the inclusion of scurrilous stories of romantic escapades.[2]

A Bejeweled Maiden with a Parakeet  2011.585  Metropolitan Museum of Art
A Bejeweled Maiden with a Parakeet (Metropolitan Museum of Art 2011.585)
Public domain

The corpus of poems known to be composed by Zebunnisa is known as the Dīvān-i Makhfī (makhfī means 'the hidden one'). This was thought to be an appropriate penname (takhallus), a common convention in premodern Persian and Persianate poetry, for a Mughal princess. It is true that female poets particularly used pennames such as makhfī, nihānī, and ‘ismat, and often there were multiple poets who wrote under the same name. Among Mughal women, Salima Begum (granddaughter of Humayun by his daughter Gulrukh Begum), Salima Sultan Begum (Akbar’s wife), Nur Jahan (Jahangir’s wife), and Zebunnisa are all said to have chosen the penname Makhfī, but there are only a few lines attributed to the first two. To complicate matters, there were also at least two male poets who also wrote as Makhfī: one was Makhfi Rashti, who flourished in Safavid Iran in the sixteenth century, and the other was Makhfi Khurasani, an Iranian émigré in Mughal India in the seventeenth century.[3]  A close examination of the poems would suggest that some or many of them were by the second of these two male Makhfis and not by Zebunnisa. This, however, is a complicated philological problem that cannot be solved here.

Writing a few decades after she lived, Mughal men of letters of the mid-eighteenth century such as Azad Bilgrami in his biographical dictionary, Yad-i bayz̤ā (IOL Islamic 3966, ff. 112-263), and Lachhmi Narayan Shafiq in his Gul-i ra‘nā (IO Islamic 3692 and 3693 and Or. 2044), only mentioned a few verses by Zebunnisa Begum.

Entry on Zebunnisa in Shafiq's Gul-i ra'na
Entry on Zebunnisa, Lachhmi Narayan Shafiq, Gul-i ra‘nā (British Library Or. 2044, ff. 79v-80r)
Public domain

Interestingly, it is in early nineteenth century Iran that a Qajar prince, Mahmud Mirza, who in his Nuql-i majlis, first mentions seeing a copy of Zebunnisa's dīvān that someone had brought to Iran from India. By the nineteenth century, anecdotes about her witty exchanges and dalliances with male poets appeared in works such as Muhammad Riza Abu’l-Qasim Tabataba’s miscellany, Naghmah-yi ‘andalīb (British Library Or. 1811), as well as in published anthologies of Persian and Urdu poetry composed by women. By the end of the century, several short biographies of her became popular which provided romanticized narratives of her as a learned but lonely princess who ended her life as a prisoner due to her father’s cruelty. As far as her poetry was concerned, serious scholars such as Shibli Numani and Abdul Muqtadir did not accept the attribution of the Dīvān-i Makhfī to Zebunnisa.

The British Library Or. 311, an eighteenth-century Mughal copy, is the oldest manuscript of the Dīvān-i Makhfī. The text of this manuscript forms the basis of the most recent edition of the poems.[4]

Zebunnisa's Divan, Or311, ff. 19v-20r-2
Dīvān-i Makhfī, 18th century (British Library Or. 311, ff. 19v–20)
Public domain


This manuscript includes these autobiographical verses from a ghazal:

garche man Layla-asasam dil chu Majnun dar nava-st
sar ba-sahra mizadam likan haya zanjir-i pa-st …
dukhtar-i shahim likan ru ba-faqr avarda’im
zeb o zinat sukhtim o nam-i ma Zebunnisa-st

Although I am Layla-like, my heart is plaintive Majnun-like,
I traverse the desert, but my feet are in chains of modesty.
I am a king’s daughter, but I am beset with poverty,
I discarded all ornaments—my name is Ornament of Women!

These verses do seem to be in Zebunnisa’s authentic voice.

The first printed edition of the Dīvān-i Makhfī appeared as a lithograph in 1268/1852 in Kanpur:

The Diwan of Zeb-un-Nissa
Dīvān-i Makhfī.
Kanpur, 1268/1852 (British Library VT138(g))
Public domain

The book was popular and was reprinted frequently in Kanpur, Lucknow and Lahore, most famously by the Naval Kishor Press in 1293/1876, in whose edition the author of the book is described as Makhfi Rashti, the Iranian émigré poet, an attribution that disappeared in subsequent editions.

Two small volumes of English translations of Zebunnisa’s poems appeared, astonishingly, in the same year, 1913. One of them was in the series, “Wisdom of the East”, translated by Magan Lal and Jessie Duncan Westbrook.

The Diwan of Zeb-un-Nissa
The Diwan of  Zeb-un-Nissa, translated by Magan Lal and Jessie Duncan Westbrook. New York, 1913
Photograph from the author’s library

In the introduction, Westbrook provides some enigmatic information about the Dīvān-i Makhfī’s transmission history that is not corroborated by  other sources: “In 1724, thirty-five years after her death, what could be found of her scattered writings were collected … [The book] contained four hundred and twenty-one ghazals and several rubais. In 1730 other ghazals were added.” A contemporary reviewer wrote in appreciation of the translations: “The book is particularly valuable at the moment when a great movement is drawing the women of the nations into closer touch and fuller understanding.”[5]  Another reviewer emphasized the mystical quality of the poems: “Miss Westbrook supplies an interesting biographical sketch and some useful remarks on the poetry. She is mistaken, however, in saying that the poems have a special Indian flavor of their own, derived from ‘the Akbar tradition of the unification of religions.’  The doctrine that, notwithstanding the difference of rites and objects of worship, all religions are essentially one occurs repeatedly in Sūfī literature of a much earlier period.”[6]  Given the ambiguity with regard to the object of devotion inherent in the premodern Persian ghazal, it is not surprising that the poems were read in a predetermined mystical way.

The second book, The Tears of Zebunnisa, was published in the same year and had translations by Paul Whalley, a retired Indian civil servant who also translated some quatrains of Omar Khayyam.

The Diwan of Zeb-un-Nissa
The Tears of Zebunnisa
, translated by Paul Whalley. London, 1913 (British Library 757.aa.9)
Public domain

In a poetic invocation, Whalley addresses the Mughal princess, who “belonged to the mystical school of which the most eminent exponents were Fariduddin Attar and Jalaluddin Rumi”:

INVOCATION
Rise from the far dim East and the mouldered pomp of the Moguls,
Daughter of Aurangzeb, priestess and martyr of Love!
Dawn as a lone bright star in the infinite gloom of the heavens,
Throbbing with love and shedding around thee the music of night.
Sweet as the voice of the bulbul that whispers its woes to the twilight
Come to us out of the ages the echoes of songs thou hast sung.

Like other translators of his time Whalley also preferred a romantic pseudo-mystical reading of Persian poetry. In addition to forty-nine translated poems, he also included five “imitations” and seven “examples of Persian metres”, showing his deep engagement with Persian poetry. His translation of the entire Dīvān-i Makhfī, whose unpublished manuscript is a typescript held by the British Library (IO Islamic 4587), was an immense project that included his fascination with the metres of Persian poetry. Below is his rendering of Zebunnisa’s autobiographical poem discussed above:
Paul Whalley's translation of Makhfi's divan
Typescript copy of Paul Whalley's translation (British Library IO Islamic 4587, f. 94)
Public domain

Whalley’s translations were literal and furnished with extensive notes. He also prepared a detailed concordance of metaphors and allusions to people and places in the Dīvān-i Makhfī. He considered Zebunnisa to be an important poet of the Persian tradition because of  “her sex and rank and social environment” as well as “the intrinsic beauty” of her poems.

Even if Zebunnisa did not compose all the poems in the Dīvān-i Makhfī, her persona as a poet has been crucial to bolstering the existence of a female textual tradition that is ephemeral at best until the twentieth century. In an interesting parallel with her poetry, the site of her final resting place has also been a matter of uncertainty. Although in the mid-nineteenth century Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan recorded in his Ās̱ār al-sanādīd that a railway line was built over her grave near the Kabuli Gate in Old Delhi, there is also a small memorial tomb in Lahore, tucked away in a bustling commercial part of the city near Chauburji, that has been connected to her name. It seems as if Zebunnisa is fated to remain a mystery in more ways than one.

Zebunnisa's tomb, Lahore
Zebunnisa's supposed tomb in Lahore.
Photograph by the author

 

Sunil Sharma, Professor of Persianate and Comparative Literature, Boston University
CCBY Image


Notes

[1] Muzaffar Alam, The Mughals and the Sufis (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2021), 301-3.
[2] See my article, “Forbidden Love, Persianate Style: Re-reading Tales of Iranian Poets and Mughal Patrons,” Iranian Studies 42 (2009): 765-79.
[3] Ahmad Gulchin-Ma‘ani, Kārvān-i Hind (Mashhad: Astan-i Quds-i Razavi, 1369/1990), 1263-64.
[4] Divan-i Zebunnisa, ed. Mahindokht Seddiqiyan and Sayyed Abu Taleb Mir ‘Abedini (Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1381/2002).
[5] The Indian Magazine and Review (January 1915), 62.
[6] The Athenaeum (August 9, 1913), 131.

18 September 2024

Song of Resistance: Iraqis’ Response to British Occupation

In early March 1917, British forces led by Lieutenant-General Fredrick Stanley Maude captured the Vilayet (province) of Baghdad, which had been under Ottoman control since the sixteenth century. On March 19, Maude made his famous Proclamation of Baghdad in which he addressed the Iraqi people in the name of the British King and assured them that the British troops roaming their towns and cities were there not “as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators”.

Points 1 & 2 of Maude’s Proclamation (IOR/L/PS/18/B253, f 122r)
Points 1 & 2 of Maude’s Proclamation (British Library IOR/L/PS/18/B253, f 122r).
Public domain

Maude spoke as if the Empire he represented had acted on behalf of Iraqis themselves, casting the Ottoman Empire in the role of a villain. “Your lands have been subject to the tyranny of strangers,” he proclaimed, “your wealth has been stripped from you by unjust men and squandered in distant places.”

Point 3 of Maude’s Proclamation (IOR/L/PS/18/B253, f 122r)
Point 3 of Maude’s Proclamation (British Library IOR/L/PS/18/B253, f 122r).
Public domain

He went on to portray Ottoman rule of Iraq as a reign of “oppression and division,” in contrast to a narrative of friendship between Great Britain and the people of Baghdad.

Points 5 & 6 of Maude’s Proclamation (IOR/L/PS/18/B253, f 122r)
Points 5 & 6 of Maude’s Proclamation (British Library IOR/L/PS/18/B253, f 122r)
Public domain

Flattering the people of Baghdad, Maude called on the need for the “Arab race” to “rise once more to greatness and renown among the peoples of the earth.”

Points 8 & 9 of Maude’s Proclamation (IOR/L/PS/18/B253, f 122v)
Points 8 & 9 of Maude’s Proclamation (British Library IOR/L/PS/18/B253, f 122v).
Public domain

The British Government praised Maude’s Proclamation seeing it as unlike any previous wartime speech. The Proclamation was regarded as another chapter to The Thousand and One Nights (initially translated to English as The Arabian Nights). 

Government praise of Maude’s Proclamation IOR/L/PS/10/666, f 148r
Government praise of Maude’s Proclamation (British Library IOR/L/PS/10/666, f 148r).
Public domain

Over the three years following Maude’s Proclamation, the British broke their promises and inflamed sectarian divisions among the Iraqis. Iraqis rose up against the British occupiers in what has since been commemorated as Thawrat al-‘Ishrin (the Revolution of 1920). Iraqis refused British occupation of their land, their harassment of Iraqis’ lives, and their attempts to dictate how Iraqis would be governed.

The Iraqi refusal of the British occupation is commemorated in an Iraqi folk song Chal Chal ‘Alayya al-Rumman which stands out as a coded song of resistance. Not much is known about its writer or composer, but it is believed that the song goes back to the early 1920s, and could also have appeared during the Revolution itself. The song is popular for its metaphorical lyrics, which alludes to Iraq’s political realities.

Its first stanza says:

 چل چل عليَّ الرُّمان، نومي فزع لي
Chal chal ‘alayya al-rumman, numi fiza‘li

هذا الحلو ما ريده، ودُّوني لاهلي
Hadha el-hilu ma ridah, wadduni lahli

The literal meaning is:

Pomegranate has loomed above me for too long, lime came to my aid
I do not want this sweet/fine one; take me to my people

The pomegranate in the stanza refers to the Ottomans who are associated with the colour red, either as a metonym of the colour of the fez usually worn by Ottoman officials and effendis, or as a metaphor of the fruit itself which had long been associated with Ottoman court decoration, and Sultan’s outfits.

The poet’s use of the lime as a metonym for the British is often interpreted as a reference to their light skin colour, though it may be related to the more famous pejorative ‘lime-juicer’ or ‘limey,’ used to describe British naval personnel (whose rations included citrus to help stave off scurvy). The line says that after long being occupied by the Ottomans, the British came to my aid. I want neither of these—the pomegranate or the citrus—I want to rule myself.

The second stanza says:

يا يُمَّه لا تنطرين بطلي النطارة
Ya yumma la tnutreen, batli l-intara

ما جوز أنا من هواي ماكو كل شارة
Ma juz ana min huwai, maku kul shara

The literal meaning is:

Oh mother, stop waiting for me
I am not going to give up on my beloved, there is no way I would do that

The ‘beloved’ in the stanza is Iraq; meaning that those who revolted against the British would never give up on their demand to free their homeland.

One of the earliest recordings of the song was made by Iraqi Maqam singer Yusuf Umar. A digital version of the recording is available on Soundcloud.

The song continues to be a reminder of Iraqis’ resistance to the occupation of their land. That this notion continues to resonate is evidenced by the fact that various artists from Iraq and across the Arab World continues to record and perform it. Some examples include:

 

Ula Zeir, Content Specialist/ Arabic Language and Gulf History
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Further reading:

British Library, India Office Records, ‘Baghdad’, IOR/L/PS/18/B253 ('Baghdad' | Qatar Digital Library (qdl.qa)

British Library, India Office Records, File 978/1917 Pt 1 'Mesopotamia: administration; occupation of Baghdad; the proclamation; Sir P Cox's position', IOR/L/PS/10/666 (File 978/1917 Pt 1 'Mesopotamia: administration; occupation of Baghdad; the proclamation; Sir P Cox's position' | Qatar Digital Library (qdl.qa)

Dhafir Qasim Al Nawfa, ‘Jaljal ‘Alayya al-Rumman Numi Fiza‘li’, Azzaman newspaper, 21 Jan 2017.

Ula Zeir, ‘Baghdad in British Occupation: the Story of Overprinted Stamps’ British Library,' in Untold lives blog.

05 August 2024

87 more Arabic scientific manuscripts on the Qatar Digital Library: The British Library/Qatar Foundation Partnership, Phase Three

Portrait orientation of single page of deep yellow paper with Arabic script writing on it in black ink in various directions
Colophon to an anonymous compendium of medicine (Or 9007, f. 134r).
CC Public Domain Image

 

The British Library/Qatar Foundation Partnership (the ‘Qatar Project’) is a collaborative digitisation and cataloguing project, the primary output of which is the Qatar Digital Library (https://www.qdl.qa/en). This fully bilingual (Arabic/English) online resource makes available a wealth of historical documentation relating to the Gulf region, as well as Arabic manuscripts on scientific topics and short articles relating to the contents and contexts of these archives and manuscripts.

Phase Three of the Qatar Project began in January 2019 with the addition of a new member of the manuscript team. We could little have imagined how much our working practices would be upended by the impact of the Covid pandemic, which struck a little over a year later.

 

Portrait orientation of single page of deep yellow paper with Arabic script writing on it in black and red ink in various directions
Page from Anwār Khulāṣat al-ḥisāb by ʻIṣmat Allāh ibn Aʻẓam al-Sahāranfūrī (IO Islamic 1582, f. 13r).
CC Public Domain Image

 

Covid impacts

At the best of times, the progression of a single manuscript, from the moment it is retrieved from the basement shelves, through all the stages of conservation assessment, cataloguing, digitisation, image quality control, editorial checks, translation of the catalogue record, and the final integration of images, catalogue text, and metadata ultimately culminating in upload to the site, can take up to a year. The impact of Covid increased these timescales even further.

 

Portrait orientation of single sheet of deep yellow paper with red ink boxes and multicoloured ink circles inside the four quadrants. The circles themselves enclose boxes containing multicoloured lines and Arabic-script writing. The circles themselves have black and red boxes with rows and Arabic-script writing
Diagram of four of the seven ‘degrees’ (بحور), a type of modal structure, from Kitāb al-inʿām bi-maʿrifat al-anghām by Shams al-Dīn al-Ṣaydāwī (Or 13019, f. 12r).
CC Public Domain Image

 

Working remotely necessitated various modifications to our workflow, primarily in swapping the order in which cataloguing and imaging take place, so that cataloguing teams could remotely access images captured by the digitisation team. In the confusion of spring 2020, these altered ways of working took a while to get in place, and while they facilitated continued cataloguing, they also depended on imaging colleagues being physically on site. Requirements for social distancing within the enclosed environment of the imaging studio also drastically reduced the amount of work the imaging team could achieve. Furthermore, no new manuscripts were able to enter the workflow without undergoing conservation assessment- another job that cannot be done from home! We are very thankful to the imaging and conservation teams, as well as all other colleagues who opted to come on site when permitted, for facilitating progress of the many subsequent stages within the Qatar Project’s workflow

 

Portrait orientation of paper with Arabic-script writing in rows at the bottom and a snail's shell spiral in red in with boxes around the edges containing Arabic script writing
Diagram accompanying Chapter Nine: Construction of ‘the Spiral' (al-ḥalzūn), from Mukhtaṣar fī ṣanʿat baʿḍ al-ālāt al-raṣadīyah wa-al-ʿamal bihā by al-Birjandī (IO Islamic 4419, f. ‎43v).
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We were able to gradually return to the offices in autumn 2020. Manuscript curators were eagerly anticipating the joys of getting out their light sheets and tape measures and inhaling the smell of aged paper.

 

Portrait orientation of single page of deep yellow paper with Arabic script writing on it in black and red ink in various directions
Part of contents list from al-Mukhtār min kutub al-ikhtiyārāt al-falakīyah by Yaḥyá ibn Jarīr al-Takrītī (Or 5709, f. 6r). 
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Despite all these challenges, the Qatar Project as a whole was able to celebrate the upload of the two millionth image to the Qatar Digital Library towards the end of Phase Three, which wrapped up in June 2022.

 

Portrait orientation of single page of deep yellow paper with a table of boxes in red ink Arabic script writing in black ink inside the boxes
Summary of locations the author journeyed to during his mission in Spain, from Natījat al-ijtihād fī al-muhādanah wa-al-jihād by Aḥmad ibn al-Mahdī al-Ghazzāl (Add MS 9596, f. 1v).
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Phase 3 Arabic scientific manuscripts

In the third phase of the Qatar Project the manuscript team continued to catalogue and digitise classic texts, including many volumes dating to the 13th-15th centuries CE. These included copies of Rasāʼil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʼ (Epistles of the Brethren of Purity), Jāmiʻ li-quwá [or, li-mufradāt] al-adwīyah wa-al-aghdhīyah, a handbook of medical materials by the Andalusian botanist Ibn al-Bayṭār (d. 1248), Chief Herbalist to the Ayyubid sultan al-Malik al-Kāmil (reg. 1218-38), and Ḥayāt al-ḥayawān, an extensive zoological encyclopaedia by Muḥammad ibn Mūsá al-Damīrī (d. 1405).

 

A light yellow sheet of paper with black ink Arabic-script writing at the bottom and a sketch of the Kaaba in black ink surrounded by Arabic script writing and other objects enclosed inside a double red ring with Arabic-script text between the two rings
Representation of the Kaʻbah and directions of prayer towards it, from a copy of Kharīdat al-ʻajāʼib wa-farīdat al-gharāʼib by Sirāj al-Dīn Abū Ḥafṣ ʻUmar Ibn al-Wardī (IO Islamic 1734, f. 59r).
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We also continued to make available manuscripts exemplifying the robust and lasting commentary tradition on the exact and medical sciences in Arabic, such as mathematical teaching handbooks designed to clarify abstract theory for the benefit of students, and a copy of al-Jurjānī’s Sharḥ al-tadhkirat al-naṣīrīyah fī ʻilm al-hayʼah, a commentary on Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī's treatise on Ptolemy's Almagest.

 

A light beige sheet of paper with a hand-drawn map in taupe ink and containing Arabic-script text in black ink
Map of Iraq, showing the courses of the Tigris and Euphrates and their outlets at the Gulf, from Kitāb al-masālik wa-al-mamālik, by Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad al-Iṣṭakhrī (Or 5305, f. 23r).
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Many treatises included in Phase Three illustrate the richness of enquiry into more technical subjects, such as geography and travelogues, psychology, military science, agriculture, cookery, and music. One notable early manuscript is a fragment of a miscellany produced around 1000 in a Christian monastic context, of which a larger portion is held by the Bibiloteca Ambrosiana in Milan.  

 

Portrait orientation of single page of deep yellow paper with Arabic script writing on it in black and red ink
Beginning of a section entitled ‘Knowing the exaltation and fall of the Planets’, from a fragment of an astrological text (Or 8857, f. 2v).
CC Public Domain Image

 

Besides cataloguing, the team produced blog posts and articles that provide further context to some of the manuscripts digitised in Phase Three (and before), and address their textual content, scribal and ownership histories, and later provenance stories. Links to these articles can be found in relevant sections of the attached downloadable list which summarises the output of Phase Three. (Download QDL Phase 3 Listing of Arabic Scientific Manuscripts)

 

A portrait oriented sheet of beige paper with Arabic-script text in black and red ink and an image of a bow and arrow with the arrow pointing down, drawn in red, green, yellow and black ink
Illustration of a bow and arrow, from al-Wāḍiḥ fī al-ramy wa-al-nushshāb by ʻAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Aḥmad al-Ṭabarī (Or 3134, f. 32r).
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Ranging in scale from voluminous tomes and illustrated or illuminated presentation copies, through to intimate, palm-sized notebooks probably never intended for circulation; from manuals of practical instruction to works of theoretical systematisation; and written between ca 1000 CE and the late 19th century, this group of 87 volumes illustrates some of the immense diversity and longevity of scientific scholarship in the Arabic language. The impact of Covid on the world during this period demonstrated ever more clearly the value of digitisation projects accompanied by enhanced cataloguing and translation, which support and encourage global research into the Arabic manuscript field, as so many others.

 

A portrait oriented sheet of yellow paper, torn on left side, with rows of text in Arabic script starting on the right in red ink and ending on the left in black ink
Page from the contents list of Kitāb al-ishārāt fī ʻilm al-ʻibārāt by Khalīl ibn Shāhīn al-Ẓāhirī (Add MS 9690, f. 6r).
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Jenny Norton-Wright, Arabic Scientific Manuscripts Curator
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Asian and African Studies blog post summaries of manuscripts digitised by the British Library/Qatar Foundation Partnership during the first two phases

First 40 (Phase 1)

Second 40 (Phase 1)

Next 125 (Phase 2)

Download QDL Phase 3 Listing of Arabic Scientific Manuscripts

 

A cream coloured page of paper, portrait orientation, with black-ink Arabic-script text enclosed in a gold box and a floral-themed decoration at the top in gold, blue, black and green
Illuminated opening of Kitāb al-ṭabīkh by Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Karīm al-Baghdādī (Or 5099, f. 2v).
CC Public Domain Image

 

A cream-colour portrait oriented piece of paper with Arabic-script text in black ink and a series of concentric circle in red ink drawn at top-right of page
Diagram of the planetary spheres, from a copy of Rasāʼil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʼ (Or 8254, f. 196r).
CC Public Domain Image

29 July 2024

Islam Aly: a new acquisition of contemporary artist’s books at the British Library

In 2020, The British Library acquired The Square = al-Maydān (2015, edition of 40) by the Egyptian book artist Islam Aly. In this artist’s book, he takes inspiration Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the focal point of Egypt’s 2011 revolution. A map is laser-engraved onto the wooden covers and the painted fore-edges of the book, which is bound in traditional Coptic and Ethiopian styles with linen thread. The slogan “الشعب يريد إسقاط” (“The people want to bring down the regime”) appears in Kufic script laser-cut into the quires of the book in an ascending sequence of words reflecting the polyphonic echoes of protest chants. It culminates with the statement “الشعب أسقط النظام” (“The People have brought down the regime”) together with the time and date of the fall of Hosni Mubarak and his regime.

 

Engraved wooden boards of a book seen from atopBook open as a fan with considerable space between each leaf

Islam Aly, The Square (2014). (ORB.30/8948). © Islam Aly. (Supported by Art Fund)

 

Islam Aly is both an artist and art educator lecturing at Helwan University's College of Art Education in Cairo, Egypt. He developed his passion for artists’ books at the University of Iowa where he earned an MFA in Book Arts and a PhD in Art Education. Aly’s artistic practice merges historical and traditional forms of bookmaking and binding with more experimental and digital techniques such as laser cutting. As he explains: “The traditions and history of bookbinding inspire my artistic practice, and I am constantly exploring new ways to incorporate these techniques into contemporary book forms and ideas… Ultimately, my goal as a book artist is to push the boundaries of contemporary book art while remaining true to the rich legacy and traditions of the book form.” 

 

For over a decade, Aly has developed a substantial body of work using the artist’s book to explore diverse subjects, including politics, migration, ecology, language, literature, heritage, religion and the production of knowledge, as well as the form, structure and nature of the book itself. Aly explains: “Through my work, I use book art to reflect on our contemporary time and explore the intersections between past and present. Books have a rich legacy in approaching social justice issues and giving voice to marginalized groups, and I strive to create books that promote empathy and belonging.” Through novel constructions that push the boundaries of the book, Aly experiments with space and the performance of reading. In their study of book arts and sacred texts, S. Brent Plate notes that Aly’s work connects “books with larger forces of space, culture, and identity… book space and geographical space coincide; the book becomes a landscape, an embodied world that connects with the bodies of the audience.”

 

Man wearing glasses in blue polo shirt seated at a desk and inclined over an engraved wooden board with a threaded needle in his hand. Various professional implements are in the foreground and out of focus. Behind him is an exposed brick wall with various framed pictures hanging on it, and a plastered wall with a large wooden bookcase. In front of the exposed brick wall is a carved dark wood chest of credenza with various small objects atop it.

Islam Aly binding Fantastic Fauna (2017). © Islam Aly.

 

Aly has exhibited his work in numerous group and solo shows and at art book fairs in Egypt, the United Kingdom, Japan, Sharjah and North America. His artist’s books are included in prominent museum and library collections worldwide, including the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art in Washington DC, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and Harvard Fine Arts Library, among others. 

 

Thanks to Art Fund’s generous support through the New Collecting Award programme, the British Library has added eight more of Aly’s artist’s books to its collection. Reflecting on this new acquisition, Aly writes: "I am profoundly honored to have my work included as part of the ‘Collecting Arab Visual Cultures (1960 to Today)’ project at The British Library. This inclusion represents a significant milestone in my artistic journey, affirming the importance of the narratives I seek to convey through my book art. My artist’s books are deeply rooted in the rich and diverse heritage of Arab culture and Islamic art, and being part of The British Library collection allows me to contribute to the ongoing dialogue about history, identity, and expression. It is an immense privilege to have my artist’s books recognized alongside other esteemed artists who have shaped and continue to shape the landscape of Arabic visual arts I am excited and humbled to share my perspective and to be part of this vibrant and dynamic narrative."

 

This blog provides an overview of this recent acquisition.

 

Marginalia 1 and Sequence 1

 

In these two works, Aly uses the artist’s book to explore the Arabic language, textuality and transmission of knowledge. Sequence 1 (2013, edition of 20) focuses on the Arabic letter ض (ḍ). With this letter’s distinctive emphatic /d/ sound, early Arab grammarians referred to Arabic as “lughat al-Ḍād” (“the language of the ḍād”) because the sound was believed to be unique to the language. This book features 40 different forms of letter in various calligraphic styles, laser-cut into handmade flax paper pages and bound with engraved wooden boards and linen thread in a Greek-style binding.

 

Book open as a semi-circle fan with large laser engraved wooden covers showing and the textile binding

Islam Aly, Sequence 1 (2013). © Islam Aly. (Supported by Art Fund)

 

Marginalia 1 (2013, edition of 20) is inspired by handwritten commentaries and glosses often found in the margins of Arabic and Islamic books and manuscripts. These marginalia typically have varied shapes and layouts that contrast with the more formalised mise-en-page. Aly laser-cuts marginalia into the quires of the book which are attached to plexiglass covers sewn together using a two needle Coptic link stitch with sewed the end bands. Aly explains: “Commentaries played an important role in the transmission and transformation of knowledge. I wanted to show the beauty of their calligraphy on the handmade flax paper.”

 

Off-white cover of book with blue binding seen from aboveDouble-page spread of a book seen the perspective of someone standing in front of it

Islam Aly, Marginalia 1 (2013). © Islam Aly. (Supported by Art Fund)

 

Fantastic Fauna and Inception

 

In these two books, Aly draws inspiration from literature and Islamic art. Fantastic Fauna = Ḥaywānāt rāʼiʻah (2017, edition of 40) is made from laser-cut mold-made Johannot paper and laser-engraved wooden boards, featuring Coptic binding with leather straps connecting to five miniature books. This bilingual book in English and Arabic draws on the tradition of using animal characteristics to caricature humans, inspired by the collection of fables Kalilah wa-Dimnah by Ibn al-Muqaffaʻ (died 759) and George Orwell’s Animal Farm. The animal characters symbolise aspects of social inequality and oppression, with imagery taken from medieval Islamic artworks depicting both imaginary and real animals. The main book’s text is hidden within the attached miniature books, encouraging the reader to explore connections between images and words, and between animal and human characteristics. The book culminates in a quote from Orwell: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

 

Light wooden cover of large book engraved with 36 images of animals attached with red leather straps to five smaller items with same wooden covers and engravings

Islam Aly, Fantastic Fauna (2017). © Islam Aly. (Supported by Art Fund)

 

Inception = Bidāyah (2019, edition of 30) is made from laser-cut Fabriano paper and tracing paper, plexiglass mirror, and laser-engraved wooden boards, featuring a Coptic binding with leather wrappings connected to seven miniature accordion books. This bilingual book in English and Arabic is inspired by the stories and journeys of refugees. Based on the twelfth-century Persian poem Manṭiq al-Ṭayr (The Conference of the Birds) written by the Sufi poet Farīd al-Dīn al-ʻAṭṭār (c. 1145-1221) the book parallels the refugee's quest for self-discovery with the birds' search for their perfect king, guided by the hoopoe. The poem, which culminates in the birds’ realisation that their king is within themselves, is adapted from Afkham Darbandi's English translation and Badīʿ Muḥammad Jumʿah’s Arabic translation. It features images of birds taken from medieval Islamic artworks and Arabic calligraphy by Abdul Karim and Sabri.

 

Large number of small round engraved plexiglass mirror items attached by various colour leather strips to a largely obscured round wooden cover of a book

Islam Aly, Inception (2019). © Islam Aly. (Support by Art Fund)

 

Astral Projections (2022) and The Tapestry of Dreamweaver (2023)

 

Talismans and amulets are a recurring theme in Islam Aly’s artist’s books. Astral Projections (2022, edition of 30 variants + 5 proofs) and The Tapestry of the Dreamweaver (2023, edition of 30 variants + 5 proofs) are inspired by talismanic shirts, astrology and the world of dreams. Astral Projections is an accordion book made from cyanotype and laser-cut pages featuring talismanic shirts and constellations, with intricate cyanotype illustrations which make use of religious texts, sacred invocations, symbols, magic squares, and seal impressions. Pushing the boundaries of what can be considered a book, The Tapestry of Dreamweaver is a 99 cm x 84 cm talismanic shirt enclosed in a cloth-covered box, crafted from cyanotypes on fabric, paper, and maps sewn onto cotton cloth. It explores dreams and talismanic symbolism, featuring cyanotype prints with sacred texts, invocations, symbols, magic squares, and seal impressions, intertwining the tangible symbols of protection and power with the ethereal blue hues of cyanotype.

 

Accordion book in dark blue open and standing up behind three folded books lying down

Islam Aly, Astral Projections (2022). © Islam Aly. (Supported by Art Fund)

 

 

Large shirt-shaped item made of multiple pieces of material in many different shades of blue atop a largely obscured cover 

Islam Aly, The Tapestry of the Dreamweaver (2023). © Islam Aly. (Supported by Art Fund)

 

Mare Nostrum (2022) and Kinship (2024)

 

The title Mare Nostrum = al-Mutawassiṭ (2022) (2022, edition of 50 + 5 proofs) is a play on words with Latin term (meaning ‘Our sea’), used by the Romans to refer to the Mediterranean Sea, and L’Operazione Mare Nostrum, a year-long naval and air operation by the Italian government to rescue migrants in the Mediterranean and arrest traffickers. The book addresses perilous Mediterranean migration, which, according to the Missing Migrants Project, has resulted in more the disappearance of 67,078 migrants missing at sea since 2014 at the time of writing this blog. The book consists of leather wrappings connected to brass cut pieces, silk-screened book cloth, inkjet printed text, handmade paper, linen thread, book board, museum board, and laser-cut Canson paper, with Coptic binding and five brass boats in a compartment. The book includes images of boats and quotes from migrants who survived the perilous Mediterranean crossing, drawn from interviews and video clips. Images of boats are inspired by predynastic Egyptian pottery, symbolizing a journey from life to afterlife, paralleling the migrant’s quest for freedom and stability. The book's colours reflect the Mediterranean Sea, alternating from light to dark blue. Viewers can interact with the book by moving brass boats within laser-cut circles, simulating the migrants’ journey.

 

A long, narrow navy blue box with its lid open and a view of various items contained within itA book with a royal blue cover lying flat in front of an open navy blue box with its lid open. Atop the book are various smaller objects of different sizes, shapes and constructions

Islam Aly, Mare Nostrum (2022). © Islam Aly. (Supported by Art Fund)

 

In Kinship (2024, edition of 40 + 5 proofs), Aly explores the relationship between colonial and colonised artifacts, emphasising the importance of repatriation for safeguarding cultural heritage. Enclosed in a large box with a plexiglass top, the book features Coptic binding, ebony covers, laser-cut Canson paper, linen thread, book board, museum board, laser-etched plexiglass, Japanese metallic gold paper, and various woods. Like a miniature museum display, the project consists of three compartments. The first compartment houses nested boxes culminating in a golden-covered box with an ebony-covered book containing quotes from The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant, a work dating back to the Middle Kingdom (2040-1750 BCE) that depicts a peasant's plea to the Chief Steward of the crown after being robbed, addressing themes of social and divine justice, alongside hieroglyphic symbols representing concepts like renewal, protection and eternity. The second includes slides with quotes on repatriation and a colonial map of Africa. The third compartment features ten hieroglyphic symbols cut into wood, symbolising the absence of amulets found in ancient Egyptian tombs. Kinship engages viewers in reflecting on artefacts’ historical contexts and the ethical considerations of repatriation, fostering a deeper understanding of these cultural implications.

 

A light coloured box in the shape of a drawer with an open top; the box has various compartments each filled with materials. A box shaped like a drawer with multiple compartments behind an assortment of different objects of varying shapes, sizes and thicknesses arranged in front of it

Islam Aly, Kinship (2024). © Islam Aly. (Supported by Art Fund)

 

Daniel Lowe, Curator of Arabic Collections

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Supported by Art Fund

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Further reading

Aly, Islam. Using Historical Bindings in Producing Contemporary Artists' Books. MA thesis, University of Iowa, 2013.

 

Aly, Islam. Historical book structures and artists' books as a teaching tool. PhD thesis, University of Iowa, 2016.

 

Aly, Islam. “Islam Aly.” Islam Aly, Accessed 12 Jul. 2024, www.islamaly.com

 

Lowe, Daniel. "Art Fund New Collecting Award: Collecting Arab Visual Cultures (1960 to Today)." Asian and African Studies Blog, British Library, 24 Jun. 2024, https://blogs.bl.uk/asian-and-african/2024/06/art-fund-nca.html.

 

Plate, S. Brent. “What the Book Arts Can Teach Us About Sacred Texts: The Aesthetic Dimension of Scripture”. Postscripts: The Journal of Sacred Texts, Cultural Histories, and Contemporary Contexts, vol. 8, no. 1-2, Aug. 2017, pp. 5-25.

15 July 2024

Ilana Tahan, 1946-2024

Ilana Tahan OBE

Ilana Tahan receiving her Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to scholarship in 2009. All rights reserved

 

It saddens us deeply to inform you that Ilana Tahan passed away peacefully on Saturday 6 July 2024.

 

Ilana Tahan joined the British Library as the Curator of Hebrew Collections in 1989. She soon began to collaborate with colleagues across the UK on organizing and systematizing Hebrew librarianship and curation. In 2004, the British Library published her book Memorial volumes to Jewish communities destroyed in the Holocaust: a bibliography of British Library holdings. Ilana was part of the curatorial team behind the Library's flagship exhibition Sacred in 2007, working alongside Colin Baker, Kathleen Doyle, Vrej Nersessian, and Scot McKendrick. In 2008, she published her guide to the British Library's Hebrew collection, Hebrew Manuscripts: The Power of Word and Image. In 2009, she was awarded the Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) for her scholarship and work in making the collection more accessible. 

 

Ilana became the Lead Curator for Hebrew and Christian Orient Collections in 2012, overseeing the Library's holdings of Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopian, Hebrew, Jewish-language, and Syriac manuscripts and printed books. In this role, she was exceptionally active in reaching out to communities and scholars. She published many articles and chapters on the Hebrew collections and undertook dozens of public workshops and presentations to bring the manuscripts closer to audiences. Her work on the Samaritan manuscripts in particular prompted the Samaritan Community to award her the Samaritan Medal. 

 

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Ilana with colleagues Dr. Colin Baker, then Head of Middle East and Central Asia, and Dr. Michael Erdman, then Turkish and Turkic Curator, at a show and tell for doctoral students in 2018. All rights reserved

 

Most recently, Ilana curated the very successful exhibition Hebrew Manuscripts – Journey of the Written Word. She worked tirelessly on this project, collaborating with several colleagues at the Library and keeping a close dialogue with academics and religious figures in the Jewish community. Due to the pandemic, the exhibition was open in St Pancras only for a very short period of time, but Ilana was able to find alternative ways to promote the items in the exhibition. She contributed to the development of a virtual tour of the display, which now stands out as a wonderful legacy of her work on the project, and promoted the exhibition online through high profile events, public lectures and private views. In October 2023, the exhibition traveled to the State Library of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, enabling visitors to experience some of the best known Hebrew manuscripts in the British Library’s collection. 

 

The exhibition coincided with the end of one of our major documentation, conservation and digitization projects – the Hebrew Manuscripts Digitisation Project. The first phase of the project, supported by the Polonsky Foundation and many other supporters, including the Rothschild Foundation Hanadiv Europe, was carried out between 2013 and 2016, with a second phase completed in 2020 - and supported by the National Library of Israel - which Ilana led to a successful completion. Thanks to this remarkable project the whole collection of Hebrew manuscripts at the British Library is now available to researchers and the wider public.

 

Throughout her career Ilana was fully committed to her work at the Library and passionate about promoting and making accessible the Hebrew collections to specialists and wider audiences. To this end, she published and lectured extensively, and took a very active role on social media channels. She regularly posted blogs on the Asian and African Studies blog, and offered an engaging series of threads on the AAS and Hebrew Manuscripts Twitter/X accounts. 

 

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Ilana explaining the intricate decoration and composition of a Hebrew manuscript at a 2019 Show and Tell. All rights reserved

 

Ilana was a much respected and esteemed colleague, and on several occasions she received recognition and appreciation for her expertise and her many achievements. She will be remembered for her expert knowledge, dedication and sustained commitment in the field, but also for being such a kind and generous person.

 

Ilana leaves behind her husband, son, daughter, and two grandchildren. Our thoughts are with them and with all those whom Ilana touched and inspired over her long and impactful career. Together, we celebrate Ilana’s profound and lasting legacy on Hebrew and Jewish Studies scholarship in the United Kingdom and around the world. 

 

The Asian and African Collections Department

 

Dr. Luisa Elena Mengoni, 

Head, Asian and African Collections

 

Dr. Michael Erdman

Head, Middle East and Central Asia

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