Formen und Funktionen des Layouts in arabischen Manuskripten anhand von Abschriften religioser Texte: Al-Biisiris Burda, al-bazulis Dala'il und die Sifa' von Qadi Hydd.

• Author: Bockholt, Philip

Formen und Funktionen des Layouts in arabischen Manuskripten anhand von Abschriften religioser Texte: Al-Biisiris Burda, al-bazulis Dala'il und die Sifa' von Qadi 'Iyad. By FREDERIKE-WIEBKE DAUB. Arabische Studien, vol. 12. Wiesbaden: HARRASSOWITZ, 2016. Pp. ix + 229, illus. [euro]68 (paper).

Frederike-Wiebke Daub's slightly revised PhD thesis (Jena, 2015) analyzes layout features and their functions and developments in manuscript copies of three well-known and widely distributed Arabic works: Qasidat al-Burda by al-Busiri, Dala'il al-khayrat by al-Jazuli, and Kitab al-Shifa' by Qadi 'Iyad. Her monograph is a contribution to the fields of manuscript studies, Islamic history, and historical anthropology. It especially benefits those whose work heavily relies on codicological aspects of manuscripts. Daub provides her readers with 208 illustrations of manuscript examples, which makes her work even more comprehensible and enhances the value of her analysis.

The samples of text in Daub's study are strategically chosen: for a quantitative survey of the layout of manuscripts, the number of extant copies of a single work must be large, which is indeed the case in regard to all three works covered. These texts are still held in high esteem by Muslims and have therefore attracted the attention of Western scholars for decades. In the introduction (pp. 1-9), Daub briefly acquaints the reader with and discusses publications that deal with the content and use of the three works (e.g., Asian 2008; Schimmel 1985; Stetkevych 2006, 2010) as well as major contributions to manuscript studies (Deroche 2006; Gacek 2009). Hers is the first monograph to be written exclusively on the codicological aspects of all three works.

Daub's focus is on the Sufi Sharaf al-DIn Abu 'Abdallah Muhammad b. Sa'id al-Busiri's (d. 1294 or 1297) Qasidat al-Burda (Ode of the mantle), a poem of praise for the Prophet, which takes up two-thirds of the book (pp. 10-132). Al-Busiri's al-Burda was disseminated across the Islamic world, becoming one of the most popular texts in Muslim households. This massive distribution led to considerable variety in the layout of manuscripts copied from the time of composition to the nineteenth century. Daub's analysis, which pays close attention to the different uses of the reproduced work, shows clearly the variety at hand.

In her examination of 105 copies of Qasidat al-Burda, Daub establishes a typology of manuscripts (types I, II, and HI) based on layout features as well...