Convenor: Project team "Nomads' Manuscripts Landscape"

This webinar series explores the role of manuscripts as part of the FWF START project NomansLand and is designed to address the history of Iran and Central Asia seen from the prism of manuscript production and circulation. We are particularly interested in the ways in which manuscripts can alert us to previously under explored aspects of the cultural, intellectual, and political heritage of this region, especially with respect to the relationship between nomadic rulers and the sedentary elite of Ilkhanid Iran and Central Asia.

Visit our YouTube channel to watch recordings of past lectures:

https://www.youtube.com/@IFI_Media

Eight lectures have been scheduled throughout the academic year 2025–2026. This year, our seminar lectures are organised In collaboration with the Institut für Orientalistik (Universität Wien) as part of the Lecture series "Beyond the Codex: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Manuscript Cultures."

Lectures are free of charge and in this occasion, registration will not be required and they can be attended in Person at:

Campus of the University of Vienna, Institute's Auditorium

All lectures will be accessed via this Zoom link:

ZOOM

NOTE: Lectures will be broadcasted live but not all of them will be later uploaded to the IFI YouTube channel.

15 October 2025, 5 pm
Yaḥyā b. Ādam’s (d. 203/818) Kitāb al-kharāj (Paris, BnF Arabe 6030) revisited: Reflections on the textual and editorial history of an early Islamic compilation of legal ḥadīth
Katharina Ivanyi | University of Vienna

29 October 2025, 5 pm
The Question of Authorship and Religious Authority in Alevi Manuscripts
Rıza Yıldırım | University of Vienna

12 November 2025, 5 pm
Preaching, Books, and Community in Ottoman Hungary: Browsing Through the Library Collection of Süleyman Efendi, the Vaiz of the Grand Mosque of Buda (c. 1643-1655)
Tijana Krstić | Central European University

26 November 2025, 5 pm
A Thousand and One Arabic Medical Manuscripts
Elvira Wakelnig | University of Vienna

10 December 2025, 5 pm
Elite Translation Projects in the Tulip Period: Material Evidence and Cultural Context
Philip Bockholt | University of Münster

17 December 2025, 5 pm
Scribes without Scriptoria: Towards a Social History of Armenian Manuscript-Making in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire
Polina Ivanova | Institute of Iranian Studies, ÖAW

14 January 2026, 5 pm
Sufi Teaching in the Margins: Ritual, Pedagogy, and Intertextuality in a Kubrawi Manuscript from 15th c. Badakhshan
Bruno De Nicola | Institute of Iranian Studies, ÖAW

21 January 2026, 5 pm
How to read a genealogical text: The Persianate nasab tradition as cultural archive and social practice
Daniel Beben | Nazarbayev University

For past lectures from the academic years 2021-22, including abstracts and recordings, please see https://www.oeaw.ac.at/ifi/veranstaltungen/veranstaltungsarchiv/webinar-series-pre-modern-islamic-manuscripts-2021-22

For past lectures from the academic years 2022-23, including abstracts and recordings, please see https://www.oeaw.ac.at/ifi/veranstaltungen/veranstaltungsarchiv/webinar-series-pre-modern-islamic-manuscripts-2022-23

For past lectures from the academic years 2023-24, including abstracts and recordings, please see https://www.oeaw.ac.at/ifi/veranstaltungen/veranstaltungsarchiv/webinar-series-pre-modern-islamic-manuscripts-2023-24

For past lectures from the academic years 2024-25, including abstracts and recordings, please see https://www.oeaw.ac.at/ifi/veranstaltungen/veranstaltungsarchiv/webinar-series-pre-modern-islamic-manuscripts-2024-25