The Arabic Manuscript Tradition: A Glossary of Technical Terms and Bibliography.

• Author: Bauden, Frederic
• Position: Book Review

The Arabic Manuscript Tradition: A Glossary of Technical Terms and Bibliography. By ADAM GACEK. Handbook of Oriental Studies: sect. 1, Near and Middle East, vol. 58. Leiden: BRILL, 2001. Pp. xvi + 269. Eur 57.

Orientalists are more and more aware of the importance of codicology and paleography, sciences that have developed recently in connection with oriental studies. However, notwithstanding the weight of the manuscript tradition in Islamic civilization, few of us are able to take advantage of both of them. Nowadays, as research is more devoted to specific themes instead of critical editions of texts, students in our field are less accustomed to work with manuscripts, which were once a part of the curriculum of our predecessors of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Although some students are able to read manuscripts, which is even yet a tour de force, most of the time they do not know how to apprehend them properly, I.e., as a codex. There is no doubt therefore that this book will help to fill this gap.

Adam Gacek has divided it into two parts. The first is devoted to the technical terms of the subject arranged in...