THE AZIZ S. ATIYA PAPERS: A REGISTER OF THE COLLECTION By Rebecca Airmet, Hermione Bayas, and Jane Chesley MANUSCRIPT COLLECTION (Accn 480) Manuscripts Division University of Utah Marriott Library Salt Lake City, Utah 1998 THE AZIZ S. ATIYA ARCHIVES Life Span: 1898-1988 Papers: 1927-1991 Accession Number: 480 Collection Processed by: Rebecca Airmet, Hermione Bayas, and Jane Chesley Register Prepared by: Rebecca Airmet, Hermione Bayas, and Jane Chesley Register Completed: April 1998 Linear Feet of Shelf Space: 26.0 Rights: Unless otherwise copyrighted, rights belong to the University of Utah Accompanying Material: Photographs were placed in the Manuscripts Division Multimedia Section (P0485). This collection was donated by the Middle East Library in 1997 (boxes 1-39, an internal library transfer); by Aziz and Lola Atiya in 1976 and 1991 (boxes 40 and 41), and 1997 (boxes 42-53); and by Ragai Makar in 1997 (boxes 54-58) and 1998 (boxes 59-60). Sarah Michalak, Director of Libraries Gregory C. Thompson, Assistant Director Nancy V. Young, Manuscripts Division Head Please cite from this collection in the following manner: The Aziz S. Atiya Archives, Accn 480, Box [___], Manuscripts Division, University of Utah Marriott Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. CONTENTS Page Content and Scope 1 Biography of Aziz S. Atiya 3 Inventory 5 Index. 32 Explanatory Notes: ‘Bx’ refers to box. ‘Fd’ refers to folder. ‘Bk’ refers to book. CONTENT AND SCOPE The Aziz S. Atiya Papers (1927-1991) contains documents relating to the life of Dr. Atiya (1898- 1988), a scholar in the areas of Medieval, Coptic, and Islamic studies, and founder and director of the University of Utah’s Middle East Center and Library. Materials include curriculum vitae, honorary documents, membership cards, contracts, royalty information, personal and academic correspondence, memos, reports, class schedules and materials, notebooks, lecture notes, academic and financial documents, articles, publications, newsletters, news clippings, research materials, offprints, book reviews, programs, memorial materials, biographies, and maps. The collection was donated in five separate sections. Boxes 1-39 were donated together in 1997 by the Middle East Library. Boxes 1-3, dating from 1931 to 1979, contain personal materials, including a curricula vita, honorary documents and memberships, employment contracts, Atiya’s degree certificate from the University of Liverpool, and information relating to royalties from some of his publications. Personal and academic correspondence, correspondence regarding Atiya’s year-long visit to America, and correspondence in Arabic are in boxes 4-10 and ate from 1931 to 1979. All personal and academic correspondence in English is arranged alphabetically according to the person who sent the letter or to whom Atiya wrote. All Arabic correspondence, however, is in chronological order due to the difficulty of translating or transliterating names. Materials concerning the University of Utah from 1936 to 1984 are in boxes 11-21, including news clippings, memos, correspondence, letters of reference, academic documents, contracts, class schedules, test questions, class materials, receipts, packing lists, and financial documents. All reference letters in English have been arranged alphabetically by the name for whom the letter of reference was written. Boxes 22-33 date from 1934 to 1978 and contain subject files with information on Baldwin Wallace College, Atiya’s expedition to Mount Sinai, various institutions and organizations, international congresses and meetings, Arab-Israeli relations, and some of Atiya’s research on the Coptic Church. Writings by Atiya and related materials are in boxes 34-37. These materials date from 1938 to 1979 and include manuscript drafts, correspondence, book reviews, offprints of articles by Atiya, and lectures and speeches. Materials relating to Atiya’s many speaking engagements are in box 38, while box 39 contains miscellaneous documents. These materials date from 1949 to 1979. The material in boxes 40 and 41, dating from 1959 to 1972, was donated in 1976 and 1991 and includes materials relating primarily to the Joseph Smith Egyptian papyri and Atiya’s role in making them public. While searching for Coptic and Arabic papyri in the Metropolitan Museum of Art storeroom in New York City, Atiya discovered the Joseph Smith Egyptian papyri, significant because they are the original documents used for research to write Facsimile No. 1 of the Book of Abraham, a scripture of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint. Since the Egyptian language could not be read in the 1830s and 1840s when the papyri were supposedly translated, this discovery provided the first chance to check Joseph Smith’s ability to translate the Egyptian papyri. Atiya functioned as the mediator between the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the First Presidency of the LDS Church. These boxes contain a transcribed interview of Atiya by Everett L. Cooley and Marian sheets; correspondence; photocopied material regarding the Book of Abraham; a paper on Atiya’s Mount Sinai expedition; a biography of Dr. Libib Habuchi, a noted Nubian scholar; copies of the issue of the Improvement Era that features Joseph Smith and the papyri in English and other languages; programs from Atiya’s lectures and displays, and Dr. Philip B. Price’s “Ethiopian Journal,” recording his journey to Ethiopia. The materials in boxes 42-53, as well as folder 4 of box 60, were donated in 1997 upon cleaning out the campus office of Atiya’s widow, Lola Atiya. Boxes 42-43, dating from 1962 to 1990, contain personal materials, primarily correspondence, relating to Atiya’s death in 1988. Included are letters of condolence, letters regarding gifts to the University in memory of Atiya, a memorial tribute, Atiya’s honorary Ph.D. from Baldwin-Wallace College, and a copy of Joseph Smith’s Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar. Materials relating to Atiya’s various book and article publications, including manuscript drafts, correspondence, news clippings, notes, essays, reports, book reviews, publisher’s galleys, and articles, are in boxes 44-49 and date from 1951 to 1977. Boxes 50-53 contain notebooks and class materials from Atiya’s scholarly work at the University of Liverpool in England, and date from 1927 to 1929. Folder 4 of box 60 holds oversize certificates, diplomas, and other items related to Atiya’s education. Boxes 54-58 were donated in 1997 by the Middle East Library, and originated in Atiya’s personal office files. The materials date from 1928 to 1990 and include primarily papers by students, offprints and publications by a variety of scholars, and materials relating to the Coptic Encyclopedia. Also included are correspondence, a grant proposal, news clippings, travel documents, reports, funeral programs, and newsletters. Box 59 and folders 1-3 of box 60 were donated by the Middle East Library in 1998. Dating from 1929 to 1991, the personal and academic materials contained in these two boxes include honorary degrees, certificates, travel documents, book reviews, correspondence, offprints and publications, and materials relating to the Coptic Encyclopedia. Photographs donated with these materials have been separated from the collection and transferred to the Multimedia Section of the Manuscripts Division (P0485). An index was created for boxes 1-39 and is located at the end of the inventory. BIOGRAPHY OF AZIZ S. ATIYA Aziz Suryal Atiya (1898-1988) was a prominent scholar, writer, historian, and librarian whose expertise spanned the fields of the Crusades and Islamic and Coptic studies. Born in a small village in Egypt in 1898, Atiya was sent at the age of five to a school in Cairo. In 1927, at the age of 29, he received a diploma from the Higher Training College in Cairo and moved on to the University of Liverpool in England to continue his studies. In 1931 he earned a B.A. with first- class honors in Medieval and Modern History and transferred to the University of London, where he completed his Ph.D. in Arabic and Islamic Studies in 1933. By the time of the publication of his indispensable work on the Crusades, Atiya could also speak Egyptian, English, Arabic, French, German, Italian, Latin, and to a lesser extent, Spanish, Greek, Coptic, Turkish, Welsh, and Dutch. In 1936, Atiya began his career in publishing with The Crusade of the Nicopolis. His monumental study of the Crusades, The Crusade in the Later Middle Ages, was published in 1938. In the same year, the University of Liverpool awarded him a D.Litt. (Doctor of Letters). He was the first non-Briton from the Middle East ever to be granted that distinction. From 1935 to 1939, Atiya served as Docent and Honorary Professor of Medieval (including Oriental) History for Kahle’s Orientalisches Seminar in Bonn, Germany. In 1939, however, he returned to Egypt and became First History Inspector of the Secondary Schools for the Ministry of Education. He also began a tenure as Professor of Medieval History at Cairo University, which lasted until 1942. In that year, he moved to Alexandria University, where he held a foundation chair in Medieval History until 1952, and served as Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Arts (1949-1950) and as Chairman of the History Department (1952-1954). During this period in Egypt, Atiya married, became the father of two children, and participated in many academic expeditions. After an extensive lecture tour in the United States in 1950-1951, Atiya felt the desire to go abroad again. For the 1955-56 session, he served the University of Michigan as Medieval Academy Visiting Professor of Arabic Studies, and then accepted a position at the Union Theological Seminary and Columbia University. In 1957, he was Patten Visiting Professor and Lecturer at Indiana University. That year’s lectures became his two books Crusade, Commerce and Culture, and Crusade Historiography and Bibliography. He then spent two years at Princeton as Professor of Arabic and Islamic History (1957-1958) and then as a member of the Institute for Advanced Study (1958-1959).