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From Fekhar (1971), p.394 |
I have an ongoing interest in private manuscript Ibāḍī libraries on the island of Djerba in Tunisia and have been compiling a preliminary list of those collections that were noted by other scholars in the 20th century. Some of the collections still exist, while others have been dispersed, relocated elsewhere in Tunisia, or lost to fire or pests. Oddly, one of the fullest lists of these libraries appears in a footnote in an article by Joseph Schact in the 1956 edition of Revue Africaine (Vol. 100, pp. 375-98).
[1] خزانة الباروني (حومة السوق)
[2] خزانة الشيخ سالم بن يعقوب (غيزن)
[3] خزانة البعطور (والغ)
[4] خزانة الباسي (آجيم)
[5] خزانة الساطوري (الماي)
خزانة الشيخ سليمان الجدوي (آجيم) [6]
[7] خزانة الشيخ رمضان الليني (آجيم)
[8] خزانة ابن تعريت
[9] خزانة عمرو بن مرزوق (؟)
[10] خزانة لقواج[؟[ ـ
[11] المخطوطات الإباضية في الغريبة (الكنيس اليهودي في الرياض)
The third library, belonging to the al-Baʿṭūr family, was the topic of a previous post earlier this year. I have recently written an article on the history and contents of this library and the next post will be related to a manuscript from the University of Naples that appears to have belonged to that collection at some point. The fourth library, belonging to the al-Basi family, has a fascinating history on which Dr. ‘Ali Boudjidi of the Jamʿiyyat al-tanshīṭ al-thaqāfī in Houmt Souq, Djerba, is currently carrying out research. [12]
Notes
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[1] This is by far the best known library on the island and the only one with a website and hand-list available online: http://elbarounia.com/
[2] The Bin Yaʿqūb libray is also well-known, though for two decades its collection has been largely inaccesible to researchers. I recently conducted an inventory of the collection in late 2015 and hope to publish the results of that inventory in 2017.
[3] Schacht, “Bibliothèques et manuscrits abadites,” Revue Africaine, 100, (1956) 276, fn. 2.
[4] Schacht specifically mentions that the al-Basi library was founded by the two al-Basi brothers in 1198, who were Djerbian merchants in Istanbul. The ‘ancien catalogue’ gave 225 volumes (Ibid)
[5] A partial inventory of the Ṣāṭūrī collection is given in a hand-list of manuscripts from private Djerbian libraries compiled in 1987: “Maktabat ʿāʾilat al-Ṣāṭūrī,” Maʿraḍ al-wathāʾiq al-jarbiyya (Houmt Souq, 1987).
[6] Schacht, “Bibliothèques,” 276.
[7-9] Ibid.
[10-11] These final two collections are mentioned by Brahim Fekhar in his doctoral thesis, Les commuautés ibadites en Afrique du Nord (Lybie, Tunisie, et Algérie) depuis les Fatimides (Université de Paris, 1971), 394. This was the first and last mention I have read of the synagogue holding a collection of Ibadi manuscripts.
[12] On Facebook at: جمعية التنشيط الثقافي جربة