F O R A S I A N S T U D I E S I N E U R O P E

Bibli ogrsphical Resources for theStudy of Islomic Manuscripts inCollections in the Netherlands

B y J a n f u s t W i t k a m ;:,,.r.j :.,r:,.-, tffi not going to enumerate a bibliogra-

;.'.,,,,-- phy of manuscript catalogues for collec-.-,iriif tions of Islamic manuscript materials in the

1..1.. ' Ne therlands) nor will I offer a soporific list.ii l, i- with dates and figures.t-'.r,t-, That is already on the record. I have

itilr published it in the World. Swrvey of Islarnic

:...,1 ir.. ',.,,., , Manwscripts, in I993, volume II, pp. 345-' j ' 1 ; ' : : ; : : r : " : r 383. That Survey , wh ich is be ing pub-lished by the Al-Furqan Foundation in London, is thefirst ever attempt to gain an insight into the bibliograph-ical wealth of the Islamic manuscript in all countries ofthe world. My survey for the Netherlands was based onresearch conducted in the course of 199L. Arranged byinstitution it gives an insight into the range and size oftheir holdings with information about the cataloguingof Islamic manuscript materials done to date. TheNetherlands have known a tradition of Oriental studiesof over four centuries, and this, of course) has been re-flected in the contents of its library holdings andarchives. In the fcrllowing I will address a few general is-sues, and mention some recent developments.

ized ijazahs, scholarly diplomas, which form a promi-nent feature of Islamic literatures, does certainly belongto the manuscript legacy as well. Although many ofthese are nowadays released in printed form, they haveretained many aspects of the manuscript era. In additionto the enormous geographical scope (from Morocco tothe Philippines, from China down to sub-SaharanAfrica), to the historical scope of many centuries (somefourteen in the Middle East, considerably less on the pe -

riphery), and to the tremendous variety of materials(everything written, for which only the German word'Schrifttum' is adequate ), one must consider the enor-mous linguistic variety of the materials: not only Arabic,Persian, and Turkish for the heartlands of Islam, but alsoBerber, Kurdish and several languages from the Balkans.Beyond the heartlands the linguistic variety becomeseven more dazzling and seems to defy enumeration.

Before the question of bibliographical control ofsuch a wide range of materials can be addressed at all, itshould be asked whether or not it is justified to treat theIslamic manuscript as one self-contained field of biblio-graphical study. 'Islamic' meaning here not only litera-

archivcs. In the following I will addrcss a fcw gcncral is-sues, and mention some recent developments.

D efr,nition oJ' th e I s I n rui c ru n n us n,i p tTl-rc Is la ' ic rrrrruscr ipt is givc'r a broad dcf i ' i t io ' here .It is r-rot only thc entire handwritten legacy of the Mid-dle Eastern Islamic culture of some fourteen centurics.The traditional Islamic scholarly ourput of sub-SaharanAfrica, the Indo-Pakistan-Bangladesh subcontinenr,Central Asia, China, and Southeast Asia is also coveredby this term. In all these regions, the printing press hasonly relatively recently replaced handwriting as a meansof disseminating knowledge. In the Middle East, India,and Indonesia, to name but the regions from wheremost texts originate, this process developed in the tgthcentury. It was a gradual process of transition, and dur-ing the entire century manuscripts were indeed made,though in-decreasing numbers, alongside the produc-tion of printed books. In all three aforementioned rc-gions one sees the development of the lithography as anintermediate fiorm between the manuscript and theprinting of the modern age. It could even be argued thatone should include the numerous lithographic printingsas part of the manuscript legacy, or at least as an addi-tional dimension of it.

Not only book texts are involved, when we speakabout the handwritten legacy. Archival materials, letters,documenrs, and such items are all part of that legacy.One could even maintain that collections of epigraphicalnature) such as photographs or rubbings of Islamictombstones, shawahid, belong to the manuscript legacyas well. One could even stretch this argumellt and main-tain that all rare and unique materials, such as old pho-tographs, sound recordings and objects of material cul-ture should be included. Interesting, and rewarding, asthis may be , it must fall outside the scope of this paperpresented in the company of librarians.

The very specific literature of fatwas, juridicalopinions on all sorts of matters, and the highly personal-

Islarnic nanuscript as one self-contained field of biblio-graphical study. 'Islamic' meaning here nor only litera-ture of theologictrl natllre but all l itcraturc, irrespectiveof thc srrbjcct, or iginl t ing fronr aclhcr"cl . l ts () f Is lanr, bethcy in thc minority in thcir counrry of origin or in themajority. The fact that I use the term .Islamic manu-script'in this context and in the meaning as defined hereshould indicate that I, for onc, have answered that ques-tion positively. Islam as a religion and a civilization is thecommon denominator, and for Muslims this is sufficientfor treating the manuscript literature as a compact andself-contained category of material by which their fbre-fathers have preserved their cukure . That should sufficefor the bibliographer, although he, or she, more thananyone else, realizes that where the Islamic element uni-fies, the linguistic and geographical variety in the mater-ial is at the same time a divider.

To put the question in a more concrete form, andby way of example: are marginal notes in a Koranic man-uscript from'Canton, China, meaningful to .ulama' inKano, Nigeriaf Or another, but similar question: Whatwould be the interest of a Berber-speaking faqnh fromthe South Moroccan Sousse in literary outpur in Sasak,the language of the Muslim population of the island ofLombok, one of the Lesser Sunda islands east of |avafOr the other way aroundf In such cases) and more suchfar-fetched examples can easily be devised, the most ex-pected answer would be that there is no connection atall between such diverse literary and scholarly expres-sions as given in the rwo examples. On the other hand,the Koran from Canton would be immediately recog-nized in Kano, strange as the Chinese style of Arabicscript and illumination may seem to the Kanoese. Suchslightly subversive questions do not put the basic unityof the Islamic materials into jeopardy, instead theyrather illustrate the extreme complexity of the stare ofaffairs. Notwithstanding, the fact that there is no one on'earth) Muslim or not) who has linguistic command overall languages in which Islamic literature is expressed,

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questions of the bibliography of Islamic manuscript lir-erature as a whole cannot but be addressed in the com-prehensive global way as I do here .

C o lle cti ons of Islaru.i c rnnteri n lsIt is from the perspective of the former colonizers,Britain, France , the Netherlands, that this enormous va-riety of Islamic manuscript literature presents itself inthe clearest way. A stude nt of manuscripts on the islandof Lamu, off the Kenian coasr) will hardly ever be con-fronted with the Cantonese Koran, but he would easilyrecognize similarities berween elements of calligraphyand illumination in his own manuscripts and those com-ing from, say the Malay world in Southeast Asia, if hewere ever confronted with these. By that sort of siniilari-ty in style, in outward appearance, often also includingthe use ofArabic script adapted to local needs, it is justi-fied to speak of an' Islamic style which transcends rheboundaries berween different regions. It lies outside thescope of this paper to discuss the explanation for suchsimilarities, of which many can be formulated. Suffice itto say that there is a large and complex body of Islamicmanuscript materials, and that the greatest variety ofthem is found in the collections in countries such asBritain and the Netherlands, which have an interestinglydiverse colonial and commercial history.

I do not mention these two countries without rea-son. In their libraries and museums they have, morethan any other country in the world (though GermangFrance and the US are close runners- up), amassed anenormous variety of Islamic manuscript materials. Thesecome from very diverse origins, and have often survivedwith a much longer lifespan than they would have had,had they remained in their own cultural environment.That, by the way, is yet another aspect which makes theOrientalist collections different from the collections insita.We would never have known.what palm-leaf manu-scripts in l6th century Java or Bali would have looked

least it is the home town of the International Institute ofAsian Studies. So much for chauvinism!

For a long time , the Leiden University Library hasconsidered it to-be one of its tasks to include the manu-script holdings of all other institutions in the country inits printed catalogues, not for expansionist reasons obvi-ously, but as a service to its readers. A number of themanuscript collections of other institutions have, in fact,been physically transferred ro the premises of the Leidenlibrary and are kept there on permanent loan underagreement. The most important of these are the collec-tions of the Royal Netherlands Academy ofArts and Sci-ences in Amsterdam and the thre e separate collections ofIndonesian manuscripts belonging to the Dutch BibleSociety in Haarle m.

Since being housed in a new building since 1983,the Leiden University Library has its own Oriental de-partment, headed since 1980 by the present speaker. Ithas its own publication programme for catalogues, intwo series of catalogues. Cod.ices Manusniqtti, with aLatin title as it was founded in the early years of this cen-tury when Latin was still in use as a language of manu-script catalogues (the last catalogue of Oriental holdingsin Leiden written in Latin is the volume by Th.W. Iuyn-boll published in 1907; the last caralogue in Latin ofWestern manuscripts was published less than twentyyears ago) is meant as a catalogue series of serious di-mensions. Entire languages are usually treated in its vol-umes of Oriental catalogues. When I took over the edi-torship of this series for the catalogues of Oriental hold-ings in the Netherlands, my'ideal and example was theimpressive series of manuscript catalogues of the Ger.man cataloguing project, the Wrzeichnis OrientalischerHnndschriften in Deutscbland..It prove d to be an unat-tainable ideal, and still is, mainly for financial reasons.Still, in the past twenty-five years a number of Islamicmanuscript catalogues have been published in the series,most recently the catalogue by P. Voorhoeve describing

sitw.We would never have known what palm-leaf manu-scr ipts in I6th ccl l tury Java or l la l i would have lookcdlike, if there had not been some of these preserved in theUniversity libraries of Oxford and Leiden. All other suchmaterials have perished, or so it might seem. It is thisfunction of the Orientalist collections of serving as atime capsule that should not go unremarked.

B i b li og r a p h i, c n I r e s o ur c e scrnceyning the in house collections

A number of the libraries and museums in Europe andthe US have never ceased collecting Islamic manuscriptmaterials. They are in fact abundantly to be had on themarket, and are usually not very expensive - meaningthat it is mostly the librarian or museum curator with hisexpert knowledge who is able to give the added value tothe material. In the Netherlands, the Leiden Universityis the only institution which has, during its existence ofmore than four centuries, continued to purchase Islamicmanuscript materials of the whole range and diversitydiscussed here. They comprise some 5000 MS volumesfrom the Islamic Middle East, and some 8000 Islamicmanuscripts from the Indonesian Archipelago. To a less-er extent, the library of the Royal Institute of Linguisticsand Anthropology in Leiden has continued to accom-modate a modest influx of Islamic manuscript materials,usually of Indonesian provenance. Apart from these twoinstitutions, numerous other public institutions in theNetherlands have static collections, often of quite con-siderable size (up to several hundreds), which are nolonger being expanded. Often they are the legacies ofprivate scholars. This means, that the Leiden Libraryfulfils, albeit unofficially, the task of a national library forOrientalist collections. This fact is also reflected by theresearch facilities in the Netherlands. In Leiden rhereare more faculty departments for branches of Orientalstudies than in all other universities of the'country com-bined. Leiden has its Research School CNWS forAfrican, Asian, and Amerindian Studies, and last but not

J r - r u ) r r l I r l c [ ) i r s r . t w c r r t y - t l v c y c : r r s a i l t

manuscript catalogues havc bccn prubl ishcd in thc scr ics,most rcccntly thc cataloguc by l'. Voorhoeve describingall Acehnese manuscripts preserved outside Aceh (In-donesia).

The other series of catalogues is much morecphemeral. It is the series of minor and occasional publi-cations series of the library (Kleine publikaties van deLeidse Universiteitsbibliotheek), which was instituted,mainly, in order to accommodate catalogues of exhibi-tions in the library and to publish bibliographies. It is anin-house produced series of limited bibliographical im-portance . Never the less it has its use and there are sever-al publications in it on Islamic subjects. This has to dowith the annual Ramadan exhibition in the Leiden li-brary. This is a phenomenon in itself'. Every year, duringthe month of Ramadan, an exhibition of Islamic natureis organized. That is done in order to serve the consider-able Muslim community, and especially their imams, inthe Netherlands during the Fasting month. The Islamicnature of these exhibitions is widely defined. Last yearthere was an exhibition of editions, translations andmanuscripts of the Arabian Nights. The added value tothe catalogue, which was written by members of thestaff of the Oriental department and which was pub-lished in this minor series of the library, lies in the cata-logue which it also contained of the full library holdingsconcerning the theme of the Arabian Nights, and in thereproduction of some of the illustrations from the trans-lations of the Arabian Nights in it. In 1995 (Fe bruary-March) the subject will be 'Photographing Iran a Cen-tury Ago'. The basis for that exhibition is provided bythe Hotz collection of old photographs. A catalogue byCorinne Vuurman and Theo Martens will accompanythe exhibition. This smaller, occasional series of publica-tions, which is usually written in Dutch, thereby fulfilsits function as a witness to activities for the internal useof the Leiden academic communiry whereas the re-spectable series Codices Manuscripti every now andthen produces a catalogue in one of the international

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scholarly languages that is meant for generations ofscholars to come. It now contains some ten volumes ofcatalogues of a variety of Islamic manuscript materials,both from the Middle East and Indonesia.

It can sometimes be observed that manuscript col-lections are formed where the manuscripts form the onlyfocus of attention. This is, of course, a mistake. Manu-script materials, although they may need extra care andspecial attention, are not a category of their own as far asthe contents of the materials are concerned. After theclosure of the manuscript era, which happened quite re-cently for Islamic manuscripts as we have seen, the dis-semination of knowledge went on with the printed bookin a seam.less continuation. In addition, numerousscholarly and commercial editions of works written dur-ing the manuscript era have been published. It is obvi-ous that for sensible research on manuscript materials alibrary should maintain a collection of subject-relatedprinted materials as well. It is with these that the schol-arly study of manuscripts can be accomplished. It fol-lows that bibliographical and library resources for man-uscripts and printed materials go hand in hand. It is im-possible to separate the one from the other.

B i b li. og r a p h i c n I r e s o u?" c e sbeyond. the Library's lwn collectioyr.s

Yet another aspect needs attention. Islamic manuscriptsare preserved in virtually all countries of the world. Asfar as they were not produced there during the manu-script era) they migrated there later. The extent of thisphenomenon is unequalled by any other categories of

.' manuscripts in the world. Each study on manuscriptholdings necessarily has a comparative aspect. To reviewmanuscripts of a certain text in their proper perspectiveit is an unavoidable circumstance that holdings of differ-ent institutions are compared. To prepare research andtravelling,fi tnlnb al-'ilrn, in search ofknowledge, as themedieval Arabic expression goes, it is imperative to have. . . , ^ : l ^ l - 1 , , ^ . . * , , ^ L i - f ^ - - ^ + i ^ - ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ - : k r ^ ^ L ^ , . r L ^ r r

microfilms of mostly Islamic manuscripts from bothpublic and private collections from all over the world inthe Leiden library. They have been selected because oftheir relevance for the study of originals kept in Dutchcollections in anticipation of firture research. Or theywere acquired as source materials in philological and his-torical research conducted by Dutch scholars and or-dered at their special request. In this way the manuscrip-tural basis of much re search in the Netherlands is beingpreserved in a public holding. Or putting it in a moreconcrete way: references in footnotes or bibliographiesin a considerable number of Dutch academic publica-tions in which Islamic manuscripts are involved, can bechecked with the help of microfilms kept in the LeidenUniversity Library. An additional aspect of importance isthat microfilms are usually better kept in a public collec-tion than by scholars at home. One of the main differ-ences being in this respect the fact that the Leiden li-brary always makes a copy of each microfilm and that theoriginal film is kept as a mother copy in the microfilmarchive and is never used by the researcher. In this wayvulnerable materials of uncertain lifespan are kept in away that warrants survival for the next generations ofscholars. <

oR t72 [2]Letter, doted 22 lune I 824, of L.C.

Graof von Ronzow to the Ponembohan

of Sumonep, Moloy in Jowi (Moloy-

Arabic script)

travelling,fi talab ol-'ilrn,in search of knowledge, as rhemedieval Arabic expression goes, it is imperative ro haveavai lable as mnch inf i rrmation as possiblc about holcl-ings of other libraries. This can only bc achicvccl [-ry rn:rk-ing col lcct ing catalogues - both prubl ishccl l r rc l unpub-lishcd - of institutions lvlrich holcl Islamic manuscriptmaterials, a task of primary importance. With the nu-merous rationalizations and budget cuts which duringthe past ten years the research librarics in the Ncther-lands have undergone, the category of catalogues ofother collections would, in my view be the very last oneto be abandoned. It is, in fact, the backbone of the inter-national research on manuscripts. To have such re-sources available is absolutely indispensable for thestudy of manuscripts.

To provide its readers a full service of recent publi-cations within the terms of its collection profile, the Lei-den library not only collects the scholarly production onIslamic literatures which is published in Europe and theUS, but it also tries to have a good and up-to-date col-lection of publications directly imported from Islamiccountries. Although these are often addressed to a localaudience and are usually based on locally available man-uscript sources only they are never the less of vital im-portance. Nowadays especially numerous text editionssee the light of day, and even if they may not always meetthe international standards of textual criticism, theymust be considered as valuable additions to what we al-ready know.

Yet another category of study material should bementioned here . As already said, catalogues of other col-lections are of prime importance for the comparativestudy of manuscripts. And due to their dispersion overthe world, Islamic manuscripts cannor but be studiedcomparatively. I have therefore felt it necessary to havefunds available for the acquisition of copies on microfor-mat, and maybe before long in a digitalized form as well,of originals from other collections. In this way over thepast twenty years, I have collected some two thousand

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