From the Caucasus to USA: Dagestani Islamic Manuscripts in Princeton University
Abstract
Abstract Views: 108
This article describes the Dagestani Islamic manuscripts collection of Imam Shamil’s library, housed in Firestone Library of Princeton University in the Garrett Yahuda Collection. It is the purpose of this paper to present a sense of the Arabic literary culture in the Caucasian region. The material based here, on nineteen original scholarly works of Dagestani authors from the 12th to the 19th centuries, allows us to reveal how a longstanding Islamic intellectual culture played an important role in the emergence of original scholarly works of local authorship. One more specific feature of the epistolary tradition that must be taken into consideration
is, that a considerable portion of Dagestan’s cultural heritage existed in the form of Arabic and Ajamic manuscript collections that were destroyed by the Soviet regime in its significant efforts to make the mountainous people really “unwritten” under the slogan of fighting with imaginary nationalism and Islamic “backwardness.”
Downloads
References
Program on the spot during the academic year 2010-2011. My special gratitude goes
to Michael Reynolds, Professor of the Department of Near Eastern Studies, who
invited me to carry out the research work and cooperated with me from the very
beginning. Through the Fulbright Scholar Program I enriched my scientific potential
and personal experience making different contacts with American colleagues, which
turned out to be very fruitful and sustained.
2
The Princeton Firestone Library website: http://firestone.princeton.edu/
3
Princeton has the largest collection of Islamic manuscripts in North America and one
of the finest such collections in the Western world.
4
The volume contains the description of Arabic manuscripts in the collection that
originally belonged to Abraham S. Yahuda (1877-1951). This collection was
acquired by Princeton University Library in 1942 through the generosity of two
graduates of Princeton, the late Robert Garrett, Class of 1897, and his brother, the
late John Garrett, Class of 1895.
5
Rudolf Mach was curator of the Near East Collections, Princeton University Library
(1955-1977) and a professor in the Department of Near Eastern Studies until his
death in 1981.
6
Rudolf Much, Catalogue of Arabic Manuscripts (Yahuda Section) in the Garret
Collection Princeton University Library Princeton Studies on the Near East:
Princeton University Press, 1977.
7
M.S. Saidov, Dagestan literature in the 18th-19th centuries in the Arabic language //
Works of 25-th International congress of the Orientalists, Moscow, 1963 (In Arabic);
I. Krachkovskii. Arabian literary in the North Caucasus, in: Izbraniye Sochineniya.
М., 1960.Vol.6; M. Gaidarbekov, Anthology of the Dagestan scholars (unpublished)
1970-71 // Manuscript Library of the Institute of History of Dagestan Scientific
Center of the Academy of Sciences of Russia (In Arabic) F.3 Op.1. D. 129; M.
Gaidarbekov, Anthology of the Dagestan poetry in Arabic (unpublished) 1965 //
Manuscript Library of the Institute of History of Dagestan Scientific Center of the
Academy of Sciences of Russia (In Arabic) F.3 Op.1. D. 170; A.R. Shikhsaidov,
T.M. Aitberov, G.M. Orazaev. Dagestanskiye istoricheskiye socineniya (Dagestan
Historical works), Moskva, 1993; Kh. Omarov. 100 pisem Shamily (100 letters of
Shamil)//. Vvedenie, teksti, per. s Arab. Kmmentarii, primechaniya, I ukazateli.
Makhachkala, 1997; D. Alkhasova, Dawud-khajhi al-Usishi: Jhizn I tvorcheskoye
naslediye (Dawud –khadjhi al-Usishi: Life and creative legacy), Makhachkala, 2005
8
Magomed Gizbulaev, Abu Bakr-khajhi iz Aymaki: Jhizn, tvorchestvo I nauchnoye
naslediye (Abu Bakr from Aymaki: Life, Creative activity and Scholarly legacy),
Makhachkala, 2005.
9
M. Kemper, A. Shikhsaidov, N. Tagirova, The library of Imam Shamil, in Princeton
University Library Chronicle. Vol. LXIV. Number I. Autumn, (2002): 121-140;
Michael Kemper und Amri R. “Sixsaidov Die Islamgelehrten Daghestans und ihre
arabischen Werke,” in: Muslim Culture in Russia and Central Asia, Vol. 4. Berlin,
2004
10 See Stefan Reichmuth, “The Interplay of Local Developments and Transnational
Relations in the Islamic World: Perceptions and Perspectives,” in Muslim Culture in
Russia and Central Asia from the 18 to the Early 20 Centuries. Vol.2: Inter-Regional
and Inter-Ethnic Relations, Ed. by Anke von Kugelgen, Michael Kemper, Allen J.
Frank. Berlin, 1998.
11 Willard Sunderland, “The Caucasian Tangle,” in Kritika 7 (2006) : 111-122.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work’s authorship and initial publication in this journal.
.png){kind=icon}
