Ibadi MSS at the Univ. of Naples "L'Orientale" | المخطوطات الإباضية في جامعة نابولي الشرقية

I apologize for the delay in posting. It actually had nothing to do with the holiday season but was rather due to a trip to Algiers this month during which I had limited access to the internet. That trip yielded a handful of interesting things and I hope to gather my notes together and write a post about it, too. Right now, however, I wanted to talk about a recent trip I took to Naples (Italy) in November to take a look at the handful of Ibadi manuscripts in the university library's collection used by Italian Orientalist Roberto Rubinacci in 1948 [1]. Surprisingly, no one has gone back since then to take a look at these manuscripts. I was there to write up some codicological descriptions of three of them for the dissertation, but actually discovered that the library holds a handful of manuscripts not mentioned by Rubinacci [2]. They all appear to be from the same place in Tripolitania, Libya. With the help of the librarian at the university, I am currently writing an article in which I hope to include descriptions of each of the new manuscripts (including watermarks) for the use of other researchers, as well as a description of the recent efforts to restore these and other manuscripts in the university’s collection. Briefly, however, I thought I would add the list of the Ibadi manuscripts not mentioned by Rubinacci that I had a chance to examine:

(1)  MS ARA [No shelfmark]; “Fiqh Ibāḍite” (titled from the paper sleeve in which the fragment is stored); Author unknown; 3 folios; 18^th c.(?); contains a handful of responsa and a poem

(2)  MS ARA 50; Kitāb al-waḍʿa; Abū Zak. Yaʿqūb b. al-Khayr b. Abī al-Khayr al-Jannāwanī; 157 folios; late 17^th c.; Ibadi fiqh

(3)  MS ARA 71; Composite containing Kitāb al-shafaʿ, Kitāb al-hiba; Kitāb al-waṣāya; Abū Sākin ʿĀmir b. ʿAlī al-Shammākhī; 56 folios; 18^th c.; Ibadi fiqh

(4)  MS ARA 259; Mukhtaṣir al-ḥiṣāl; attributed to Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm b. Qays; unknown number of folios [due to fragility of MS, I was unable to count them]; Ibadi fiqh

Rubinacci actually did provide a brief description of this last manuscript but neglected to mention that it also contains a few manuscript fragments in Latin (see photo), which I hope to spend some time with and whose contents I hope to determine for the article. At first blush, it looks like a work of theology. Many of the manuscripts also contain handwritten notes (presumably by Rubinacci, although some clearly from the late 20^th century) on their contents, as well as page markers. All of this will hopefully make it into the article.

أعتذر للتأخر في وضع "بوست" جديد هذا الشهر. كنت في الجزائر ولم يكون لدي اتصال جيد للإنترنت. سأكتب عن البحث هناك أيضا ولكني أردت أن أكتب شيئا صغيرا اليوم عن رحلتي لنابولي (إيطاليا)  في شهر نوفمبر حيث حلّلت بعض المخطوطات الإباضية التي وصفها المستشرق الإطالي روبرتو روبيناتشي في مقال معروف بعام [1] ١٩٤٨ . خلال التحليل، أكتشفت أنّ مكتبة جامعة بابولي الشرقية لها عدة مخطوطات إباضية لم يذكرها روبيناتشي في مقاله[2]. بمساعدة مديرة المكتبة الجامعية، أنا حاليا أكتب مقالة قصيرة فيها معلومات أكثر عن هذه المخطوطات. ولكنّي أردت أن أضع قائمة من المخطوطات غير المذكورة في مقال روبيناتشي للناس الآخرين (فوق). في الحقيقة، ذكر المخطوط الرابع ولكنّه لم يذكرالأوراق من مخطوط باللغة اللاتنية التي توجد مع المخطوط العربي (انظر الصورة). إن شاء الله سنكتب مقالة فيها معلومات كثيرة عن المخطوطات الإباضية في مكتبة نابولي بشكل خاص والمخطوطات العربية هنالك بشكل عام.   

[1] Rubinacci, Robert, “Notizia di alcuni manoscritti ibāḍiti esistenti presso l’Instituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli,” Rome (1948), 429-439.

[2] The university’s collection is searchable online: http://www.unior.it/ateneo/9/1/libraries.html