Editorials Stories
HMML Stories — Editorials
Curators and catalogers examine how specific themes appear across HMML’s collections.
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Women in the Courtroom: Legal Documents in Timbuktu
“Despite the vastness of Timbuktu’s digitized archives, it is a collection dominated by men...”
- Dr. Ali Diakite and Dr. Paul Naylor

Anna Roede and the Fight for Sovereignty
“When Martin Luther proclaimed his 95 Theses in 1517, the resulting shockwaves...”
- Dr. Jennifer Carnell

To Timbuktu From a Land Far Away: Migrating Manuscripts
“Texts in West Africa were highly mobile...”
- Dr. Ali Diakite and Dr. Paul Naylor

Migration of Ideas through Printmaking
“When discussing the idea of migration in European art history, attention is often focused on...”
- Katherine Goertz

Migrating Monastic Books in Minnesota
“On September 8, 1876, four boxes of books arrived...”
- Dr. Matthew Z. Heintzelman

The Lord’s Song in a Foreign Land
“In the middle of the 19th century, Arabic-speaking immigrants began to appear among the waves of newcomers arriving in the United States...”
- Dr. Josh Mugler

But Ask the Animals, and They Will Teach You
“Animals in scripts as symbols of meaning and the art of communicating a message...”
- Dr. Ani Shahinian

Instruments of Grace and Judgement
“The refrain “The Lord works in mysterious ways” is rarely truer than it is in the Ethiopic Miracles of Mary...”
- Dr. Jeremy R. Brown

Lions and the Grand Masters of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem
“Considered the king of animals, lions frequently appeared on coats of arms used by...”
- Dr. Daniel K. Gullo

Creepy Crawlies and Little Beasts
“Antwerp seemed, in the 16th century, to be the center of the Western world...”
- Katherine Goertz

Like a Dog
“In Arabic literature, as with many cultures, dogs are viewed with some ambivalence...”
- Dr. Josh Mugler

What Are The Animals Trying To Tell Us?
“In historical Timbuktu—as in any part of the pre-modern world—animals were...”
- Dr. Ali Diakite and Dr. Paul Naylor

What Does the Fox Say? A Hierarchy of Animal Voices
“For thousands of years, languages around the world have attempted to capture the sounds of animals...”
- Dr. Jennifer Carnell

The Mysteries & Rhythms of Nature, Seasons, and Time in the Armenian Liturgical Calendar
“Interwoven tapestry of the natural and spiritual worlds as observed through the Armenian liturgical calendar...”
- Dr. Ani Shahinian

Contesting Saint Paul’s Shipwreck
“The most famous weather event in Maltese history occurred in the first century CE when...”
- Dr. Daniel K. Gullo

Metaphorical Meteorology, or: When a Sunny Day Offers More Than Sunshine
“In describing printed books, a cataloger looks for subjects or areas of study where...”
- Dr. Matthew Z. Heintzelman

An Excerpt on the Properties of April’s Rain in a Curious Collection of Arabic Texts Found in One Manuscript
“The term “April showers” derives from the frequency of short and regular showers that are...”
- Dr. Celeste Gianni

Eclipses in Early Muslim History — Between Myth and Reality
“The best-known eclipse mentioned in Muslim sources was the solar eclipse that occurred on...”
- Dr. Ali Diakite and Dr. Paul Naylor

Remembering an Earthquake
“Many of the regions where HMML has worked are no stranger to earthquakes...”
- Dr. Josh Mugler

Let it Fall as Rain
“Few things can impact daily life in quite the way that weather does...”
- Dr. Jeremy R. Brown

The Frozen Tigris and Other Remarkable Weather Events Described in Syriac Colophons
“In the days before social media, how did people share a noteworthy weather phenomena...”
- Dr. James Walters

Music Awakens One’s Soul...
“An answer to the question of what it means to be human...”
- Dr. Ani Shahinian

Space Adventure: A Maltese Musical Fantasy for Children
“With their 1962 children’s musical Space Adventure...”
- Dr. Daniel K. Gullo

The Legacy of Mūrisṭus’ Hydraulic and Pneumatic Pipe Organs in the Early 20th-Century Arabic Literary Culture
“The organ is not the first musical instrument that comes to mind when...”
- Dr. Celeste Gianni

Visualizing the Audible: Depictions of Music in a Medieval German Manuscript
“Although music is an aural and tactile experience, human beings also have a...”
- Dr. Jennifer Carnell

I Know It When I See It (I Think…)
“I’m not a musicologist, but I am an avid fan of music from all times...”
- Dr. Matthew Z. Heintzelman

Deadly snakes and remedies against their venomous bites in the handy charts of a copy of the “Kitāb al-diryāq” (Book on antidotes)
“The Arabic manuscript tradition is rich in medical works discussing remedies and...”
- Dr. Celeste Gianni

Treatises of Consolation: Muslim Scholars Comfort Themselves and Others Who Have Lost Children
“The Black Death pandemic of the 14th century dramatically reshaped many cultures...”
- Dr. Josh Mugler

Grief on the Page
“How do you represent grief? For Marc Chagall, the Russian-born Jewish artist...”
- Dr. Catherine Walsh

Gone, but not Forgotten: the Office for the Dead in Books of Hours
“A choir of cowled monks around a shrouded casket, a body being laid into a coffin, a smiling skeletal figure, an old man sitting on a dung heap...”
- Dr. Matthew Z. Heintzelman

Khalīl Janāwī: Scribe, Collector, and Artist from al-Mīdān of Damascus
“Khalīl ibn Jirjis Janāwī was a scribe, a collector of manuscripts, and an artist who was...”
- Dr. Vevian Zaki

A Scribble of Scribes: Men, Women, and Children Copyists Across Mali’s Manuscript Collections
“...each manuscript is an artistic production and requires physical labor performed by a single individual—the scribe...”
- Dr. Ali Diakite and Dr. Paul Naylor

Build a Church, Build a Library
“If you want to establish a new church, you’re likely going to need some books...”
- Dr. Josh Mugler

Tracing Scribal Genealogies in Syriac Manuscripts: The Naṣro Family
“The act of hand-copying a manuscript requires specialized skills that...”
- Dr. James Walters

The Calligrapher Clément Perret
“In the mid-15th century, the invention of the printing press made books relatively easier to produce and...”
- Katherine Goertz

Learning to Write: Practical Aspects of Handwriting
“In 1492, the abbot of a Benedictine monastery in Sponheim, Germany, wrote a small paean to scribes and the act of writing...”
- Dr. Matthew Z. Heintzelman

Why so Many Fragments? Incomplete Manuscripts in the Timbuktu Collections.
“A large amount of the manuscripts digitized in Timbuktu, Mali, that we at HMML have cataloged are fragments...”
- Dr. Ali Diakite and Dr. Paul Naylor

Johann Wetzstein and the Qurʼan Fragments of Tübingen
“Johann Gottfried Wetzstein served as honorary Prussian consul in Damascus, Syria, from 1849 to 1861...”
- Dr. Josh Mugler

Poetry and Agriculture, a Fragmentary Scrapbook
“Manuscripts are known for their idiosyncratic nature...”
- Dr. Catherine Walsh

Identifying Syriac Fragments in the Digital Age
“What would you do if someone handed you a page that had clearly been torn out of a book...”
- Dr. James Walters

Poetic fragments at the Great ʿUmarī Mosque in Gaza
“The Great ʿUmarī Mosque in Gaza is the largest and oldest mosque in the Gaza Strip...”
- Dr. Celeste Gianni

Identifying Prohibited Books in Early Modern Malta
“Pope Paul IV (1476–1559) issued the Index Auctorum et Librorum Prohibitorum in 1559 to publicly identify books the...”
- Dr. Daniel K. Gullo

“This Book is Free From Banned Content” — Ottoman Censorship of al-Yāzijī’s Arabic Lexicon
“The Lebanese poet, journalist, and linguist Ibrāhīm al-Yāzijī (1847–1906) has gained fame as a...”
- Dr. Vevian Zaki

Censorship Without Censorship
“Maḥmūd ibn ʻUmar al-Zamakhsharī did not have an easy childhood. He was born in 1075 CE into a...”
- Dr. Josh Mugler

A Book You Would Love to Read...
“A book you would love to read is lost, altered, destroyed, buried, hidden, left unpublished, unwritten, banned.”
- Dr. Catherine Walsh and Margaret Bresnahan

Sandwiching a Forbidden Text
“The advent of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century led to...”
- Dr. Matthew Z. Heintzelman

Books that Survived the Ban — Syriac Manuscripts in India
“Christianity has a long, rich history in India. Some even trace the origins of Christian communities in India to...”
- Dr. James Walters

Khwājahʹzādah’s Treatise on the Rainbow
“Rainbows are optical illusions caused by the reflection, refraction, and...”
- Dr. Celeste Gianni

The Stars of Ben-Zion
“Born Ben-Zion Weinman in Starokostiantyniv, Ben-Zion came to New York City in...”
- Katherine Goertz

Between the Sun and Moon
“Today, depending on what communities you are a part of, your concept of a year may follow a calendar that is...”
- Ted Erho

Astronomical Technology and Religious Practice in Islam
“Astronomical observation is built into the most basic religious practices of the...”
- Dr. Josh Mugler

Signs in the Heavens — Astrological Books of Daniel in Eastern Christianity
“In Syriac Christian communities, astrological texts were sometimes appended to medical books and...”
- Dr. David Calabro

A Tale of Two Bears — Astronomy in Austrian Libraries
“When I was a boy, the night sky always fascinated me—stars, moon, planets, nebulae, comets, and...”
- Dr. Matthew Z. Heintzelman

Why was Esau so Hungry? Genesis 25 in Arabic Manuscripts
“Among the well-known biblical narratives is that of the twins Jacob and Esau, and...”
- Dr. Vevian Zaki

Smoking in the Desert — Between Supporters and Opponents of Tobacco
“The use of tobacco in the Sahel, whether smoking, chewing, or taking as snuff, was widespread and...”
- Dr. Ali Diakite and Dr. Paul Naylor

Soup, with a Side of Reform
“A group of women cluster together, several clutching the handles of lidded pots...”
- Dr. Catherine Walsh

The Hard Work of a Market Inspector in Preventing Food Frauds at the Market of Tinnīs, Egypt
“There are several manuals in the Arabic literary tradition describing the profession of the...”
- Dr. Celeste Gianni

The Gouda Life
“Between 1585 to 1600 Maarten de Vos designed 141 engravings depicting hermits.”
- Katherine Goertz

A Syriac Poem on Wine
“Who doesn’t love a good glass of wine? White, red, or something in between, authors throughout history...”
- Dr. James Walters

The Travels of the Ebony Horse
“The history of Arabian Nights stories in Christian communities is still imperfectly understood.”
- Dr. David Calabro

Arabian Nights of the Christian East
“On a shelf in the Syriac Orthodox Church of Saint George in Aleppo is a manuscript copied in Arabic Garshuni...”
- Dr. David Calabro

Parabiblical Literature in the Horn of Africa
“Biblical narratives often leave the audience wanting to know a bit more.”
- Ted Erho

Tracing Folktales in Magic Texts — The Story of Umm al-Ṣibyān
“Despite having been contested in Islamic history by powerful groups rejecting them as illegitimate practices, magic and...”
- Dr. Celeste Gianni

Grave Tales, Engraved (and Etched)
“While many artists have provided illustrations for books, some works in the Art & Photographs collection at HMML were inspired by stories...”
- Katherine Goertz

Ottoman Soap Operas and Other Stories
“HMML’s digital collections include entertaining stories from a wide range of linguistic and...”
- Dr. Josh Mugler

The Book of Laughable Stories — A Medieval Joke Book
“Have you ever heard a great joke, but then later when you tried to recount it for someone else, you couldn’t remember it?”
- Dr. James Walters

Malta Envisioned by an English Clergyman
“The highlights of the island included the harbor of Valletta, an elaborate and protective harbor famous for...”
- Dr. Catherine Walsh

Travelers and Texts Crossing the Sahara
“Mobility was a central feature of individuals, societies, and texts within Muslim West Africa’s...”
- Dr. Ali Diakite and Dr. Paul Naylor

When in Rome...
“Rome has long been a destination for travelers from around the world.”
- Dr. Matthew Z. Heintzelman

Protecting Travelers and Maritime Contacts in the Eighteenth-Century Mediterranean
“The great Age of Sail conjures in our minds vast stretches of ocean populated by...”
- Dr. Daniel K. Gullo

From Cairo to Mardin, Manuscripts on Camelback
“This note is the sole testament to the manuscript’s remarkable journey from Egypt to Mardin, a city in...”
- Dr. Vevian Zaki

Traveling to France on Paper
“In the mid-19th century, a group of French artists began to reevaluate the art of...”
- Katherine Goertz

Crossing the Red Sea in the 1640s
“In September 1647 CE, al-Ḥasan al-Ḥaymī left the port of al-Mukhā (Mocha) in...”
- Dr. Josh Mugler

Medicine, Ritual, and Magic in Ethiopia
“Towards the middle of the 15th century, the Ethiopian Emperor Zar’a Yā‘eqob, a prominent theologian and scholar, faced...”
- Ted Erho

Quarantine in Malta, a Print of the Lazaretto from the Mużew Nazzjonali tal-Arti
“The increased activity of Malta’s ports after the Aragonese conquest in 1283 led to a...”
- Cláudia Garradas

Medical Texts From Timbuktu — Local Pharmacological Remedies with Qur’anic Verses
“In West Africa knowledge of the Qur’an was often combined with local pharmacological traditions to...”
- Dr. Ali Diakite and Dr. Paul Naylor

A Tale of Two Herbals, From Medicine to Food in the 16th Century
“Herbals—books describing the medicinal use of plants—have been important scientific sources for...”
- Dr. Matthew Z. Heintzelman

Accounts on Plague and Infectious Diseases from Three Arabic Manuscripts
“The disastrous impact of plague epidemics in the Middle East has been documented in numerous accounts...”
- Dr. Celeste Gianni

Remedies in the Margins of Syriac Manuscripts
“People in past centuries would sometimes use the blank flyleaves and margins of manuscripts to...”
- Dr. David Calabro

Medical Care for the Enslaved Mustafa Osmon in 18th-Century Valletta, Malta
“The Archivum de Piro in Valletta, Malta preserves a small invoice and...”
- Dr. Daniel K. Gullo