Owning Books and Preserving Documents in Medieval Jerusalem
The Library of Burhan al-Din
Konrad Hirschler author Said Aljoumani author
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Edinburgh University Press
Published:30th Nov '24
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
This book discusses the only known private book collection from pre-Ottoman Jerusalem for which we have a trail of documents. It belonged to an otherwise unknown resident, Burhān al-Dīn; after his death, his books were sold in a public auction and the list of objects sold has survived.This list – edited and translated in this volume – shows that a humble part-time reciter of the late 14th century had almost 300 books in his house, evidence that book ownership extended beyond the elite. Based on a corpus of almost fifty documents from the Ḥaram al-sharīf collection in Jerusalem, it is also possible to get a rare insight into the social world of such an individual. Finally, the book gives a unique insight into book prices as it will make available the largest such set of data for the pre-Ottoman period.
Hirschler and Aljoumani transform a seemingly humble library inventory into a window on a lost written culture - a window that allows us to glimpse a wide network of social exchange. The important findings of this book and the provocative questions it raises will keep historians busy for a long time. -- Ahmed El Shamsy, University of Chicago
Aljoumani and Hirschler present an intervention in current scholarship that builds masterfully on their earlier achievements and that at the same time allows them to penetrate in unprecedented depth beyond the classical master-narratives of state, archive, and library, and into the intriguingly rich processes that made for everyday urban life in the medieval Middle East. -- Jo Van Steenbergen, Ghent University
All in all, Owning Books and Preserving Documents in Medieval Jerusalem is a tour de force, and Said Aljoumani and Konrad Hirschler have done an admirable job in editing, discussing, and analysing the Sale Booklet and its documentary network, with results that reach far beyond Burhan al-Din and his estate and are of utmost value in understanding literacy, book culture, documentary and archival culture, and the socio-economic position of scholars at the lower end of the scale. Few books are able to get so much out of so little, and the two authors deserve our sincerest thanks for producing this exemplary piece of scholarship. -- Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila, University of Edinburgh * Journal of Islamic Studies *
By consistently examining books and documents as material objects and as components of social action, Aljoumani and Hirschler demonstrate how closely intertwined knowledge, possessions, and economic advancement were in late 14th-century Jerusalem. The work is not only a historical interpretation but also a comprehensive edition of primary sources, paving the way for future research in social and economic history. -- Stephan Conermann * Sehepunkte *
Owning Books and Preserving Documents in Medieval Jerusalem is a clear and engaging read that has something to offer to both specialists and non-specialists and is particularly attractive for use in teaching: its methodological considerations and the caveats of micro-histories are laid out very transparently and may serve to guide students in developing their own sense of methodologies. -- Leonie Böttiger * Orientalistische Literaturzeitung *
ISBN: 9781474492072
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
394 pages