Exhibit on Islamic Science on Display at the Rare Book and Manuscript Library: October 18th, 2022-March 3rd, 2023

“Science, Nature and Beauty: Harmony and Cosmological Perspectives in Islamic Science” is an exhibit which showcases over 90 manuscripts, instruments and objects focused on the Islamic sciences broadly conceived, many of which have never been on display before since they entered our collections in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at the Columbia University Libraries, […]

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Writing in Spanish and Portuguese among the Dutch: Jewish Sephardim in Amsterdam

In 1892, Temple Emanu-el, a Jewish Reform congregation in New York City, donated a collection of rare Judaica books and manuscripts to Columbia University. Richard James Horatio Gottheil, the son of Temple Emanu-el’s rabbi and Columbia’s newly established professor of Rabbinical Literature (his title would change many times over the next few decades) was instrumental […]

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“Strategies of Presenting Text and Illustrations: Turning the Pages of a Sixteenth Century Book of Wisdom”: An Interview with Seher Agarwala

  Last week, I “sat” down via Zoom with Seher Agarwala, a PhD student in the Art History and Archeology Department at Columbia , and asked her a few questions related to Indo-Persian manuscripts, the Muslim World Manuscript project and her own dissertation, which addresses the politics and ethics of 16th c. aesthetics in the […]

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Finding the women in Columbia’s Judaica collections

When searching for women in early manuscript collections, it may seem as if they are only found without agency; adjacent to the men in their lives.  However, when I began looking for traces of women in Columbia’s rare Judaica collection, I was delighted to discover that they have a presence throughout the collections. I began […]

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The MWM Project: An Interview with Shabbir Agha Abbas; Poring over Manuscripts for a broader and more vibrant understanding of Islamic Studies

This past week, I interviewed Shabbir Agha Abbas, a graduate student at Columbia University (MEI/MESAAS) working on Islamic Law and Shari’a Studies. Shabbir holds an MA in Religious Studies from Rutgers University and has been involved in the Muslim World Manuscript project, helping to catalog and describe manuscripts in the RBML collection. Our lively conversation, […]

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The MWM Project: An Interview with Sadegh Ansari: Music as Science: Pythagoras in Baghdad

As part of a series of interviews with faculty, researchers and students who are participants in our Muslim World Manuscripts (MWM) project, I sat down with Sadegh Ansari, a graduate student in the Department of History at Columbia University, and asked him a few questions about his dissertation and his use of the MWM collection. […]

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The MWM Project: Space, Text and Narrative: An interview with Dr. Manan Ahmed

Dr. Manan Ahmed is Associate Professor of History, and Member of the Committee on Global Thought at Columbia University. Manan Ahmed ‘s areas of interest and specialization include Muslim intellectual history in South and Southeast Asia; critical philosophy of history, and material culture;  the relation between text, space and narrative with a special focus on […]

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The Muslim World Manuscript Project: A Codicology Workshop

On September 20th, sixteen students, along with a number of faculty members and librarians, gathered in the Chang Seminar Room of RBML to attend a full-day workshop on codicology led by Dr. Kelly Tuttle, the Muslim World Manuscript (MWM) Project Cataloger at UPenn. The workshop was supported by the Center for the Study of Muslim […]

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The Muslim World Manuscript Project: A great Pedagogical tool! What can manuscripts teach us?

The summer months at Columbia University allow more mental space and time to savor enjoyable conversations and delve into the numerous treasures that the Columbia University Libraries offers to the scholarly community. Last week, I sat down with Prof. A. Tunç Şen, (who just had a baby) and asked him a few questions about his […]

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The Muslim World Manuscript Project

How do archives get activated? The Muslim World Manuscript Project at the Columbia University Libraries On the shore where Time casts up its stray wreckage, we gather corks and broken planks, whence much indeed may be argued and more guessed…. Anonymous   One question that fascinates me is how the power of archives gets activated. […]

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