Monday, May 5, 4PM | OIB - Book Talk | IFI Conference Room, 4th Floor
Abstract: This study is the first to examine the history and composition of the library of Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār (d. 1804), the famous governor of northern Palestine in the late eighteenth century, on the basis of the inventory of the library's holdings. The chapters in the first volume situate the library, one of the largest in Palestinian history prior to the end of the nineteenth century, in its historical context, examine the materiality of the collection based on a study of the extant manuscripts and other historical sources, and analyse the contents of the library. The second volume consists of a facsimile of the inventory, a critical edition and index.
Bio:
Konrad Hirschler is a Professor of Middle Eastern History and the director of the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures at the University of Hamburg. His research focuses on Northern Africa and Southwest Asia between
circa 1200 and 1500, with a particular emphasis on social and cultural history, including the history of reading, books, and libraries, with a strong focus on material culture. He is, amongst others, author of books such as
A Monument to Medieval Syrian Book Culture (2020),
Plurality and Diversity in an Arabic Library (2016),
The Written Word in the Medieval Arabic Lands (2012) and
Medieval Arabic Historiography (2006), and co-author of
Owning Books and Preserving Documents in Medieval Jerusalem (2023) and
Muʾallafat Yūsuf b. Ḥasan Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī (2021), as well as co-editor of
The Library of Ahmad Pasha al-Jazzar (2025),
Catalogue of the New Corpus of Documents from al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf in Jerusalem (2024), The Damascus Fragments (2020) and
Manuscript Notes as Documentary Sources (2011).
Jens-Peter Hanssen is the director of the Orient Institut Beirut and Professor of Arab Civilization, Middle Eastern, and Mediterranean History at the University of Toronto. He has held a SSHRC Insight Grant on “German-Jewish Echoes in 20th-century Arab Thought (2014-19);" and is author of Fin de Siècle Beirut (Oxford, 2005); co-editor (with Max Weiss) of Arabic Thought beyond the Liberal Age and Arabic Thought against the Authoritarian Age (CUP, 2016 & 2018), and co-author (with H. Safieddine) A Clarion for Syria: A Patriot's Call Against the Civil War of 1860 (Berkeley, 2019).
Poster