Read more
The Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences ‒ established in 1826 ‒ houses many small and still hidden collections. One of these, the most comprehensive Hungarian collection of Arabic manuscripts, is brought to light by the present catalogue. These codices are described for the first time in a detailed and systematic way. A substantial part of the manuscripts is either dated to or preserved from the 150 year period of Ottoman occupation in Hungary. The highlights of the collection are from the Mamluk era, and the manuscripts as a whole present a clear picture of the curriculum of Islamic education. The descriptions also give an overview of the many additional Turkish and Persian texts thereby adding to our knowledge about the history of these volumes.
About the author
Kinga Dévényi is curator of the Arabic manuscripts in the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and reader in Arabic and Islamic studies at Corvinus University of Budapest. She has published widely on various aspects of Arabic linguistics and Islamic civilisation.
Munif Abdul-Fattah, Ph.D. (2013), Eötvös Loránd University (Faculty of Humanities), is a lecturer in the Organisation of Muslims in Hungary. He has published monographs, translations and many articles on Islam, including
The Characteristic Economic Rules of Muslim Communities (JATEpress, 2014).
Katalin Fiedler (b. 1984) earned her MA in Arabic Studies from Eötvös Loránd University, where she also wrote her PhD thesis on the function of examples in Sībawayhi's Kitāb. Her latest publication is
Iyyāka wa-l-mas'ala z-zunbūriyya: On a Widely Debated Mediaeval Grammatical Issue (The Arabist, 2012).
