Glossary

artisan knowledge economy A term describing the ranks of professional copyists who produced vast numbers of manuscripts; the term is expressive of their non-specialist, non-scholarly grasp of the texts which they copied (the term was coined by Julia Bray, Stories of Piety and Prayer: Deliverance Follows Adversity. New York and Abū Dhabī: NYU Press/Library of Arabic Literature, 2019, p. xxvii).
autograph A text signed or authenticated by the author.
Codex (Plural: codices.) A collection of papyri, parchment or paper sheets folded in the middle, secured by sewing and usually housed between protective covers. Or a book before print. The word codex, derived from caudex, was first used for a bound collection of wooden writing tablets.
Collation Comparing two (or more) versions of a text. In its most straightforward form collation is the comparison of a copy with its original to check for mistakes. But as soon as works were copied over and over, to collate meant to make choices about numerous issues ranging from variant spellings to variant paragraphs. Should corrections be adopted, omissions repaired, glosses included? For the philologists of the 19th and 20th century, it was the method to try to recover “original text”. Today, collation is the most important tool needed to make a critical edition.
Convolute, majmūʿa A codex containing various texts, which may or may not be related, but are bound together as independent texts (without a collective title).
Custode Taʿqība, catchword, custode: the first word on the recto side of a new folium was copied in the lower left corner of the verso side of the preceding folium, allowing to restore the right order of foliums if necessary.
Ductus The speed, precision, vigour etc of an individual's handwriting, which may vary while the handwriting remains the same.
Earliest extant copy of the Shāhnāma Firdawsī completed the Shāhnāma in the year 400/1010, more than two centuries before the earliest Shāhnāma manuscript now at our disposal. The earliest dated manuscript that is extant is kept in Florence, in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, with shelf mark Magl. III. 24. It was produced in the year 614/1217.
Folium Folium (also folio): a sheet of writing material in a codex. A folium is half of a bifolium, a folded sheet of paper or parchment. A quadrifolium is a sheet folded to form two bifolia.
holograph A text hand-written by its author.
Hunayn b Ishaq's Risala See the recent edition by John C. Lamoreaux (Editor and Translator), "Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq on His Galen Translations: A Parallel English–Arabic Text." Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 2016.
Incipit The opening part of a book's text. In Arabic manuscripts usually begin with the Basmalah, then a praise of the Prophet (hamdalah); the incipit of the book is usually identified as the first passage following the Basmalah.
Incipit Page The page of a codex upon which the actual contents of the book's text begin. In Arabic manuscripts, the incipit page is usually the verso side of folio 1, i.e. the reverse side of the title page.
Many mss of al-qanun fi'l-tibb There are several bibliographies exclusively on the works of Avicenna: Anawati (1950, 196-204) lists 9 pages of manuscript shelf numbers. Ullmann (1970, 152, FN8) adds another 30 manuscripts to that list; the bibliography by Mahdavī (1954, 192-3, reproduced by Gutas 2014, 513), lists some 150 manuscripts of the five-book opus. More copies keep showing up. For instance, Mahdavī lists three manuscripts in Leiden (which he presents as Leid 1317 (I), 1318 (II), 1319 (III). They are catalogued as Or. 63, Or. 81 and Or. 7). The current digital catalogue of the library, however, features three more copies of parts of the Qanūn fī’l-ṭibb: Or. 8459 (book I), Or. 2071 a and b (the 2nd half of Book III, the 2nd half of Book IV and entire Book V).
Mistara An instrument to apply “blind” ruling to a folium. A piece of carton or wood on which string was attached to form horizontal lines. Blank folia were placed on the mistara and rubbed, so that the lines appeared in relief. Scribes often used one mistara for several books. The measures of the textblock and the distanc between lines can therefore sometimes help to identify a scribe.
Mughal empire The Mughal empire was established in 1526 in northern India by the Timurid prince Zahīr al-Dīn Muḥammad Bābur (r. 1526-1530) and lasted until 1858.
Muṣḥaf A written copy of the Qur’ān.
Nāsikh, nasākh Scribe, copyist.
Paratext All the text that is not part of the main text of a book or codex, but which informs us about scribal habits and the use and transmission of books. Paratextual notes include corrections and punctuation, glosses, owner’s notes, reading aids, licenses to teach and more, which all bear some relation to the main text; and paratext also includes additions which have no direct relation to the text.
Parchment Writing material made of goat, sheep or calf skin (from pergamena < Pergamom).
Rasm The body of the Arabic script, without the diacritical dots. ب , ن , ث , ت , ي are indistinguishable from each other and so are ص and ض, and خ, ح and ج and a few others. The oldest Arabic manuscripts testify to the fact that rasm was often enough to remind the reader of the text.
Script While "handwriting" refers to the style of writing that identifies an individual, the word script refers to the style of writing characteristic for a region an/or period, which determines the basic forms of letters and ligatures written by anyone in that region or period. Or: "The term 'script' refers to a set of distinctive and recurring palaeographic features learned spontaneously in the process of acquiring basic writing skills and often used unconsciously." (Andrea Brigaglia and Mauro Nobili, ‘Central Sudanic Arabic Scripts (part 2): Barnāwī’ in Islamic Africa, vol. 4, no. 2, 2013.
Taʿlīq Noun derived from the verb ʿallaqa; the verb is used in various contexts: in manuscripts it refers to either the making of marginal notes, or when the term appears in colophons, it refers to the transcribing of an entire manuscript itself.
Taʿqība Custode or catchword. The first word on the recto side of a new folium was copied in the lower left corner of the verso side of the preceding folium, allowing to restore the right order of folia if necessary.
Verses added to the Shāhnāma An extreme example is a nineteenth-century British Library manuscript copy of the Shāhnāma (Or. 2926 (1246-49/1830-33) which has over 20.000 extra verses.
Warrāq Bookseller