Scribal and Commentary Traditions at the Dawn of Print: The Manuscripts of the Near Eastern School of Theology as an Archive of the Early Nahḍa

Salam Rassi

doi:10.1163/24519197-bja10023

Abstract

Abstract This article focuses on the Arabic manuscript collection of the Near Eastern School of Theology (NEST). The NEST library contains several manuscripts that were donated, copied, or read by important Christian-born intellectuals of the nahḍa. Given these men’s role in the emergence of modern publishing in the Middle East, I examine the intersections between their scribal and printing activities. I also discuss works of grammar, logic, and rhetoric in the NEST’s collection. Most of these are by late medieval and early modern authors and contain extensive commentaries and glosses. This commentary culture was a key site of learning throughout the early modern Ottoman Empire and endured among Christian as well as Muslim intellectuals of the nahḍa movement. The persistence of these scribal and intellectual traditions reveals a longue durée of Islamicate scholarly traditions that is only beginning to be understood by historians of Arab modernity.

Highlights

Historians of the Arab nahḍa have commonly understood the movement in terms of ruptures and discontinuities.[1]
This article focuses on the Arabic manuscript collection of the Near Eastern School of Theology (NEST)
These traditions are readily discoverable in the NEST collection, which contains several manuscripts copied by figures who excelled as scribes as well as printers and litterateurs

Summary

Introduction

Historians of the Arab nahḍa have commonly understood the movement in terms of ruptures and discontinuities.[1]. Arab intellectuals working as printers in the 1800s experimented with decorative styles and literary conventions that were strongly—and intentionally—reminiscent of scribal traditions.[13] These traditions are readily discoverable in the NEST collection, which contains several manuscripts copied by figures who excelled as scribes as well as printers and litterateurs.

Results

Conclusion