Series | Medieval and Modern Philologies
Edited book | Authors as Readers in the Mamlūk Period and Beyond
Chapter | 3 • al-Ṣafadī: The Scholar as a Reader
3 • al-Ṣafadī: The Scholar as a Reader
Abstract
Ḫalīl b. Aybak al-Ṣafadī (d. 764/1363) was a famous author of the Mamlūk period. He was a renowned scholar, especially for his great literary culture and for his encyclopedic knowledge, chiefly of biographies. This article approaches him as a reader and focuses on the link between his readings and his scholarly production. The sources of information tackled here are three-fold. First, the ownership statements found on manuscripts title pages are tracked and analysed, put in relation to his contemporaneous writings and life events. Second, his reading journal (taḏkira) is investigated and its various roles are specified; its extent, original number of volumes, contents and uses are all discussed and the preserved manuscripts are also cited. Third, the manuscripts preserved in his hand, whether holographs or copies of other authors’ works, are investigated. Indeed, these are part of his inner library, even if some of them were offered to others.
Submitted: July 23, 2021 | Accepted: Dec. 13, 2021 | Published March 8, 2022 | Language: en
Keywords Books circulation • Arabic manuscripts • Mamlūk period • History of reading • Authors’ methodology
Copyright © 2022 Élise Franssen. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
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