Mobile Manuscripts: Arabic Learning Across the Early Modern Western Indian Ocean (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781009359726)

In this essential new work, Christopher D. Bahl departs from the established historiography on trade, shipping, and pilgrimage to argue for the emergence of Arabic learning as a crucial form of transoceanic mobility from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries. From Egypt to the Hijaz, Yemen and further on to Gujarat and the Deccan, networks of manuscript circulation created shared social and cultural spaces across the early modern western Indian Ocean, in which South Asia was a key node of connection. Largely unstudied Arabic manuscripts from collections in eight different archives offer a new source base to explore the region as a hub of Arabic scholarly culture, while marginalia and notes provide an empirical treasure trove for the study of social spaces and cultural practices. This is the first book to trace these truly transoceanic encounters between scholars, sultans, scribes, readers, and librarians.

Author: Christopher D. Bahl
ISBN-10: 100935972X
ISBN-13: 9781009359726
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Published: 01/31/2025
Pages: 350
Format: Hardcover