Arabic Manuscripts
The John Rylands Research Institute and Library’s Arabic manuscript collection comprises nearly 900 codices covering roughly 1,000 years and a wide range of subjects. These include many Qur'anic codices, other religious works, texts relating to history, law, science, medicine, geography, cosmography, astronomy, astrology, philosophy and literature. Though the vast majority of the collection is Islamic, it also features a handful of Christian religious texts. The collection also includes fragments on papyri, parchment and paper, but these are currently not represented in the digital collection.
The present digital collection contains only a small fraction of the Arabic manuscripts held at the John Rylands Research Institute and Library, and focuses mostly on Quranic manuscripts, in particular a 14-volume trilingual Muṣḥaf (Qurʿanic codex, Arabic MSS 760-773). Other items that feature have been digitised either on account of going on display or being subjects of scholarly interest. They include fables, religious, ethical, legal, and scientific works, poetry, a collection of calligraphy, and a Coptic calendar. This digital collection will be added to as part of the Library’s continuing digitisation and retrospective cataloguing programme.
The origins of the Rylands’ Arabic manuscript collection
The majority of the Arabic codices were acquired by Enriqueta Rylands in 1901 with the purchase of the Earls of Crawford collection, the Bibliotheca Lindesiana. The Crawford collection was rich in Islamic volumes, especially on account of two purchases in the 1860s. In 1866, when Persian scholar Nathaniel Bland (1803–1865)’s collection came to the market, bookseller Quaritch purchased 204 Arabic manuscripts for the Earl of Crawford (together with a large number of Persian and Turkish volumes). Another important acquisition for the Bibliotheca Lindesiana came about in 1868, when 303 Arabic manuscripts (as well as Persian and Turkish items) were bought from Colonel George William Hamilton’s (1807-1868) collection upon his death. Hamilton served in India between 1823 and 1867, and built a significant collection of Islamic manuscripts.
Further codices were acquired by gift and purchase and through merger with the University Library in 1972. These later acquisitions include manuscripts formerly belonging to Syrian and Arabic scholar Alphonse Mingana (1878-1937), Chetham’s Library and to Dr Moses Gaster.
Further information
The bulk of the Arabic manuscript collection was catalogued by Alphonse Mingana in the early 1930s. Later acquisitions were described by C.E. Bosworth in the Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester in 1973-1974. For more information on these catalogues and access to the digitised versions, see here.
The records accompanying the digital surrogates, though slightly expanded and revised, are based on these printed catalogue descriptions. The transliteration of the Arabic follows the Library of Congress’ Arabic romanization table.
For an overview of the collection, see Arabic Manuscripts within the Guide to Special Collections.
