A Handbook and Reader of Ottoman Arabic

490 Pages·2021·66.606 MB·English

by  Esther-Miriam Wagner (ed.)

Cambridge Semitic Languages and Cultures
A Handbook and Reader of
Ottoman Arabic
E E -M W
DITED BY STHER IRIAM AGNER
9
A HANDBOOK AND READER
OF OTTOMAN ARABIC

A Handbook and Reader of
Ottoman Arabic
Edited by Esther-Miriam Wagner
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Semitic Languages and Cultures 9. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2021, https://
doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0208
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ISBN Paperback: 9781783749416
Semitic Languages and Cultures 9.
ISBN Hardback: 9781783749423
ISSN (print): 2632-6906
ISBN Digital (PDF): 9781783749430
ISSN (digital): 2632-6914
DOI: 10.11647/OBP.0208
Cover images: Upper left, T-S 10J16.26 (Hebrew script); upper right, CUL Or.1081.2.75.2
(Syriac script), both reproduced with kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge
University Library. Image below, from box HCA 32/212 from the The National Archives.
Cover design: Anna Gatti
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...................................................................... xi
I. HANDBOOK
Michiel Leezenberg
1. Vernacularisation in the Ottoman Empire: Is
Arabic the Exception that Proves the Rule? ..................... 1
Necmettin Kızılkaya
2. From Means to Goal: Auxiliary Disciplines in the
Ottoman Madrasa Curriculum ....................................... 23
Guy Burak
3. On the Order of the Sciences for He Who Wants
to Learn Them ............................................................... 39
Guy Burak
4. Rumi Authors, the Arabic Historiographical
Tradition, and the Ottoman Dawla/Devlet ..................... 43
Christopher D. Bahl
5. Arabic Grammar Books in Ottoman Istanbul: The
South Asian Connection ................................................ 65
E. Khayyat
6. Bastards and Arabs .................................................... 87
II. READER
Dotan Arad and Esther-Miriam Wagner
1. Bodl. Ms. Heb. C. 72/18: A Letter by Isaac Bayt
ʿAṭṭān to Moses B. Judah (1480s) ................................ 143
vi Handbook and Reader of Ottoman Arabic
Benjamin Hary
2. The Purim Scroll of the Cairene Jewish
Community .................................................................. 149
Dotan Arad
3. Appointment Deed of a Cantor in the Karaite
Community, Cairo (1575) ............................................ 155
Naḥem Ilan
4. Aharon Garish, Metsaḥ Aharon ................................. 161
Humphrey Taman Davies
5. Kitāb Hazz al-Quḥūf (1600s) ..................................... 173
Boris Liebrenz and Kristina Richardson
6. A Weaver’s Notebook from Aleppo (10th/16th
century) ....................................................................... 193
Michael Erdman
7. Selections from Arabic Garshūnī Manuscripts in
the British Library ........................................................ 197
Liesbeth Zack
8. Excerpt from Yūsuf al-Maġribī’s Dafʿ al-iṣr ʿan
kalām ahl Miṣr (1606) .................................................. 209
Jérôme Lentin
9. Lebanon: Chronicle of al-Ṣafadī (early 17th
century [?]) ................................................................. 227
Werner Diem
10. A Jew’s Testimony Regarding a Statement Made
in His Presence by a Muslim, Testified on Monday
20th Kislev 5418 (1657) .............................................. 233
Contents vii
Werner Diem
11. A Jew’s Testimony Regarding a Statement Made
in His Presence by a Muslim (1681) ............................ 237
Omer Shafran
12. A Basra Passover Haggadah with Judaeo-Arabic
Translation (ca. 1700) ................................................. 239
Ghayde Ghraowi
13. Qahwa ‘Coffee’ (16th–17th centuries) .................... 243
Jérôme Lentin
14. Egypt: Damurdāšī’s Chronicle of Egypt (first half
of 18th century) .......................................................... 251
Ani Avetisyan
15. Matenadaran Collection MS No.1751: A Medical
Work (1726) ................................................................ 255
Esther-Miriam Wagner and Mohamed Ahmed
16. A Clerical Letter by Rafael al-Ṭūḵī from the Prize
Papers Collections (1758) ............................................ 261
Esther-Miriam Wagner and Mohamed Ahmed
17. A Christian Mercantile Letter from the Prize
Papers Collections (1759) ............................................ 267
Feras Krimsti
18. Ḥannā al-Ṭabīb, Riḥlat al-Shammās Ḥannā
al-Ṭabīb ilā baldat Istanbūl (1764/65) .......................... 275
Jérôme Lentin
19. Syria 1: Chronicle of Ibn al-Ṣiddīq (1768) ............. 283
viii Handbook and Reader of Ottoman Arabic
Ahmed Ech-Charfi
20. A Letter Transmitted by Ambassador Hajj Mahdī
Bargash from Sultan Muḥammad Bin ʿAbdallah to
Sultan Abdul Ḥamīd (1789 CE) .................................... 289
Boris Liebrenz
21. Arab Merchant Letters from the Gotha Collection
of Arabic Manuscripts .................................................. 293
Matthew Dudley
22. A Judaeo-Arabic Letter from the Prize Papers
Collection, HCA 32/1208/126.2 (1796) ...................... 307
Olav Ørum
23. The Cairo-Ramla Manuscripts, or the Ramle
KAR, 13 (1800s) .......................................................... 315
Magdalen M. Connolly
24. A 19th-Century Judaeo-Arabic Folk Narrative ....... 333
Jérôme Lentin
25. Libya 1: Ḥasan al-Faqīh Ḥasan’s Chronicle
Al-Yawmiyyāt al-Lībiyya (early 19th century) ............... 349
Jérôme Lentin
26. Libya 2: Letter from Ġūma al-Maḥmūdī (1795–
1858) to ʿAzmī Bēk, Daftardār of the ʾIyāla
(Province) of Tripoli (undated) .................................... 353
Geoffrey Khan and Esther-Miriam Wagner
27. T-S NS 99.38 (1809) .............................................. 359
Esther-Miriam Wagner and Mohamed Ahmed
28. Rylands Genizah Collection A 803 (1825) ............. 365
Contents ix
Jérôme Lentin
29. Syria 2: Chronicle of Muḥammad Saʿīd
al-ʾUsṭuwānī (1840–1861) ........................................... 371
Jérôme Lentin
30. Arabia: A Letter from Abdallah Ḥiṣānī to
ʿAbdallah Bāšā (1855) ................................................. 375
Liesbeth Zack
31. Excerpts from Yaʿqūb Ṣanūʿ’s Abū Naḍḍāra Zarʾa
and ʿAbd Allāh al-Nadīm’s al-Ustāḏ ............................. 381
George Kiraz
32. A Disgruntled Bishop: A Garshūnī Letter from
Bishop Dinḥā of Midyat to Patriarch Peter III.............. 399
Alex Bellem and G. Rex Smith
33. Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Jarādī: Sīrat al-Ḵawāja
al-ʾAkram al-Marḥūm Harmān al-ʾAlmānī ..................... 415
Esther-Miriam Wagner
34. Ora ve-Simḥa (1917) ............................................. 427
Charles Häberl
35. A ‘Mandæo-Arabic’ Letter from Lady Drower’s
Correspondence ........................................................... 431
Tania María García-Arévalo
36. An Anecdote about Juḥā (1920s) .......................... 441
REFERENCES ....................................................................... 445