Islamic Stories
HMML Stories — Islamic
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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
To Timbuktu From a Land Far Away: Migrating Manuscripts
“Texts in West Africa were highly mobile...”
- Dr. Ali Diakite and Dr. Paul Naylor
Enlightened by One Lamp
“Hindu traditions and Islam share a deeply intertwined history in the Indian subcontinent...”
- Abdullah Ansar
Like a Dog
“In Arabic literature, as with many cultures, dogs are viewed with some ambivalence...”
- Dr. Josh Mugler
A Decade in Mali
“It began with a dinner in 2013...”
- Dr. Columba Stewart
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
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
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
Zaydī Manuscripts
“The story of the Zaydīs begins in approximately 740 CE, with a revolt along the...”
- Dr. Josh Mugler
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
Muḥammad Ṣādiq: A Scribe Between Manuscript and Print Cultures at the Beginning of the 20th Century
“A great opportunity to look at the interaction between manuscript and print cultures can be found in the Middle East...”
- Dr. Celeste Gianni
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
Postscript — Luqmān the Sage
“Luqmān the Sage (also known as Luqmān al-Ḥakīm, the wise) is a legendary character in Arabic and Islamic storytelling...”
- Dr. Celeste Gianni
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
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
ʻUmar al-Turūdī’s List of Unreliable Books
“ʻUmar ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr al-Turūdī, was a scholar from Kebbi, present-day northern...”
- Dr. Paul Naylor
Where We’re Working: Mali
“In the spring of 2012, the desert city of Timbuktu in northern Mali was attacked and...”
- Dr. Columba Stewart
Khwājahʹzādah’s Treatise on the Rainbow
“Rainbows are optical illusions caused by the reflection, refraction, and...”
- Dr. Celeste Gianni
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
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
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 Story of the Talking Camel and the Exploits of Ali Genre in West Africa
“While some elements of the story are fiction, others are clearly inspired by real events in Khaybar.”
- Dr. Ali Diakite and Dr. Paul Naylor
Ottoman Soap Operas and Other Stories
“HMML’s digital collections include entertaining stories from a wide range of linguistic and...”
- Dr. Josh Mugler
Four Family Libraries in Jerusalem
“At many points in its history, Jerusalem has been one of the world’s most important cultural crossroads...”
- Dr. Josh Mugler
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
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
Yeɗi Sanba Ɓooyi, a Fulani Scholar and Poet
“Yeɗi Sanba Ɓooyi was a scholar who belonged to the Fulani, a traditionally nomadic people who...”
- Dr. Ali Diakite and Dr. Paul Naylor
Hill Museum & Manuscript Library completes digital cataloging of Khalidi Library’s manuscript collection
“The Khalidi Library in East Jerusalem and The Hill Museum & Manuscript Library announce that the complete digitized manuscript collection...”
- Joe Rogers