Hybride lecture by Katharina Ivanyi | University of Vienna

Abstract

This paper will investigate the textual transmission and editorial history of a compilation of legal ḥadīth found in a unique manuscript held at the French National Library in Paris (BnF Arabe 6030). The text constitutes a collection of traditions regarding the nature and distribution of spoils of war, the cultivation, ownership and taxation of land, as well as other, related matters, attributed to Abū Zakariyā Yaḥyā b. Ādam b. Sulaymān al-Qurashī al-Umawī (d. 203/818), an early Muslim ḥadīth transmitter and jurist from Kūfa, best known in recent scholarship for his contribution to the science of Qurʾānic readings. The manuscript held in the Bibliothèque Nationale stems from the collection of Charles-Henri-Auguste Schefer (1820- 1897), a renowned nineteenth-century orientalist, writer and academic administrator, who combined a career in the French Foreign Service with the pursuit of scholarship and the collection of manuscripts. The paper will examine the transmission of Yaḥyā b. Ādam’s Kitāb al-kharāj, in light of both textual and paratextual evidence from the manuscript, as well as the editorial history of text and paratext (mainly in the form of transmission certificates), from the late nineteenth century onwards. The aim is to reflect on larger questions regarding the study of manuscripts, the transmission of Islamic legal knowledge in the premodern era and the edition of texts such as the Kitāb al-kharāj in the modern context.

POSTER (PDF)

Attendance in person at:

Campus of the University of Vienna
Department of Near Eastern Studies' Auditorium

Or online:

ZOOM

This is the first lecture in the webinar series for the academic year 2025-26, this year organised by the NoMansLand research project (FWF Y 1232) dedicated to the study of Islamic manuscripts in pre-modern Iran and Central Asia in collaboration with the Institut für Orientalistik (Universität Wien) as part of the Lecture series "Beyond the Codex: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Manuscript Cultures."

Visit our YouTube channel to watch recordings of past lectures:

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

For a list of upcoming lectures in the webinar series, please see Webinar series "Pre-modern Islamic manuscripts"