No part of this book may be distributed, posted or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without Copyright © 2020 prior written permission of the FIRST PROOF Princeton University Press publishers Rediscovering the Islamic Classics • —-1 —0 —+1 125-82330_ElShamsy_Rediscovering_1P.indd 1 9/24/19 7:24 PM No part of this book may be distributed, posted or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without Copyright © 2020 prior written permission of the FIRST PROOF Princeton University Press publishers -1— 0— +1— 125-82330_ElShamsy_Rediscovering_1P.indd 2 9/24/19 7:24 PM No part of this book may be distributed, posted or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without Copyright © 2020 prior written permission of the FIRST PROOF Princeton University Press publishers Rediscovering the Islamic Classics • how editors and print culture transformed an intellectual tradition Ahmed El Shamsy prince t on u nive rsity pre ss prince t on and o xford —-1 —0 —+1 125-82330_ElShamsy_Rediscovering_1P.indd 3 9/24/19 7:24 PM No part of this book may be distributed, posted or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without Copyright © 2020 prior written permission of the FIRST PROOF Princeton University Press publishers Copyright © 2020 by Prince ton University Press Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to permissions@press . princeton . edu Published by Prince ton University Press 41 William Street, Prince ton, New Jersey 08540 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TR press . princeton . edu All Rights Reserved ISBN 9780691174563 ISBN (e- book) 9780691201245 British Library Cataloging- in- Publication Data is available Editorial: Fred Appel and Jenny Tan Production Editorial: Natalie Baan Text Design: Leslie Flis Jacket Design: Layla Mac Rory Production: Erin Suydam Publicity: Nathalie Levine and Kathryn Stevens Copyeditor: Hank Southgate Jacket/Cover Credit: Tis book has been composed in Linux LibertineO Printed on acid- free paper. ∞ Printed in the United States of Amer i ca 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 -1— 0— +1— 125-82330_ElShamsy_Rediscovering_1P.indd 4 9/24/19 7:24 PM No part of this book may be distributed, posted or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without Copyright © 2020 prior written permission of the FIRST PROOF Princeton University Press publishers For Hanna —-1 —0 —+1 125-82330_ElShamsy_Rediscovering_1P.indd 5 9/24/19 7:24 PM No part of this book may be distributed, posted or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without Copyright © 2020 prior written permission of the FIRST PROOF Princeton University Press publishers -1— 0— +1— 125-82330_ElShamsy_Rediscovering_1P.indd 6 9/24/19 7:24 PM No part of this book may be distributed, posted or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without Copyright © 2020 prior written permission of the FIRST PROOF Princeton University Press publishers فيا أَيها القاريء له والناظر فيه هذه بضاعة صاحبها المزجاة مسوقة إليك وهذا فهمه وعقله معروض عليك لك غنمه وعلى مؤلفه غرمه ولك ثمرته وعليه عائدته فإن عدم منك حمداً وشكراً فل يعدم منك مغفرة وعذراً وإِن أبيت إل الملم فبابه مفتوح Dear reader, these are the defcient wares peddled to you by the author; this is his understanding and his mind, laid out before you. Yours is the beneft, while the toil is the author’s; yours is the fruit, his the cost. So, even if he does not earn your praise or gratitude, do not deprive him of your forgiveness and excuses. And if you refuse even that and fnd only fault—so be it! Ibn Qayyim al- Jawziyya (d. 751/1350), Ṭarīq al- hijratayn —-1 —0 —+1 125-82330_ElShamsy_Rediscovering_1P.indd 7 9/24/19 7:24 PM No part of this book may be distributed, posted or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without Copyright © 2020 prior written permission of the FIRST PROOF Princeton University Press publishers -1— 0— +1— 125-82330_ElShamsy_Rediscovering_1P.indd 8 9/24/19 7:24 PM No part of this book may be distributed, posted or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without Copyright © 2020 prior written permission of the FIRST PROOF Princeton University Press publishers Contents • List of Illustrations9xi Acknowl edgments9xiii Introduction91 chapter 1)Te Disappearing Books)8 Te Book Drain to Eu rope910 Te Decline of Traditional Libraries919 Te Emergence of Modern Libraries924 chapter 2)Postclassical Book Culture)31 Scholasticism: Only Postclassical Books Mater931 Esotericism: Te Falling Prestige of Book Learning941 Countercurrents: Pushing back against Scholasticism and Esotericism954 chapter 3)Te Beginnings of Print)63 Early Printing in the Arabic World: Limited Horizons963 Te Evolution of the Publishing Industry: Expanding Possibilities971 How Printing Worked: Te Role of the Corrector979 chapter 4)A New Generation of Book Lovers)93 Te Egyptian Scholarly Society993 ʿAbd al- Ḥamīd Nāfʿ and the Race for Manuscripts997 Aḥmad Taymūr: New Intellectual Outlooks9102 Aḥmad al- Ḥusaynī’s Return to the Classics9111 chapter 5)Te Rise of the Editor)123 Aḥmad Zakī’s Early Scholarship and the State of the Field9123 Engagement with Orientalism9128 Te Systematic Collection and Preservation of Manuscripts9131 Te Role of the Editor (Muḥaqqiq)9137 chapter 6)Reform through Books)147 Muḥammad ʿAbduh as a Reformer of Language9147 —-1 Te Multifaceted Activism of Ṭāhir al- Jazāʾirī9158 —0 —+1 125-82330_ElShamsy_Rediscovering_1P.indd 9 9/24/19 7:24 PM No part of this book may be distributed, posted or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without Copyright © 2020 prior written permission of the FIRST PROOF Princeton University Press publishers x9•9CONTENTS chapter 7)Te Baclash against Postclassicism)172 A Transnational Network of Book Collectors9173 Ibn Taymiyya as a Model of Broad Erudition9182 Contesting the Power of Saints9191 chapter 8)Critique and Philology)199 Historical Criticism9200 Pseudophilology9208 Textual Criticism9217 Conclusion)236 Bibliography$243 Index$000 -1— 0— +1— 125-82330_ElShamsy_Rediscovering_1P.indd 10 9/24/19 7:24 PM No part of this book may be distributed, posted or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without Copyright © 2020 prior written permission of the FIRST PROOF Princeton University Press publishers Illustrations • Figure 1.1.9Ulrich Jasper Seetzen912 Figure 1.2.9Endowment inscription in Paris Qr an fragment918 Figure 1.3.9Te Khedival Library in Cairo, 1904 or 1905928 Figure 2.1.9A manuscript page with a commentary and a gloss933 Figure 2.2.9Al- ʿAṭṭār’s note on a manuscript of Ibn Taymiyya’s Minhāj al- sunna955 Figure 3.1.9Cover pages of Zākhūr’s Italian- Arabic dictionary, Bulaq, 1822968 Figure 3.2.9An early print of Te Tousand and One Nights, Bulaq, 1863975 Figure 3.3.9Rifāʿa al- Ṭahṭāwī976 Figure 3.4.9A corrector’s colophon980 Figure 4.1.9A signed marginal note by Nāfʿ on a commissioned manuscript999 Figure 4.2.9Aḥmad Taymūr9103 Figure 4.3.9A page from al- Ḥusaynī’s Dalīl al- musāfr9120 Figure 5.1.9Aḥmad Zakī9124 Figure 5.2.9Zakī’s footnotes in al- Sakhāwī’s Kitāb al- Tibr9130 Figure 5.3.9Beyazıt Library in Istanbul, 1880s9134 Figure 5.4.9Cover page of Ibn al- MuqaFaʿ, Adab al- ṣaghīr9139 Figure 6.1.9Muḥammad ʿAbduh9149 Figure 6.2.9Employees at Manār Press, 19269152 Figure 6.3.9Ṭāhir al- Jazāʾirī9159 Figure 7.1.9Jamāl al- Dīn al- Qāsimī9179 Figure 7.2.9Muḥammad Naṣīf9181 Figure 7.3.9Te reading room of the Ẓāhiriyya Library, 1920s9186 Figure 7.4.9Worshippers at the shrine of al- Sayyida Zaynab in Cairo, 20149192 Figure 8.1.9Maḥmūd Shākir9201 Figure 8.2.9Muḥammad Zāhid al- Kawtharī9213 Figure 8.3.9A Lachmannian stemma9219 Figure 8.4.9Aḥmad Shākir9230 —-1 —0 —+1 125-82330_ElShamsy_Rediscovering_1P.indd 11 9/24/19 7:24 PM No part of this book may be distributed, posted or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without Copyright © 2020 prior written permission of the FIRST PROOF Princeton University Press publishers -1— 0— +1— 125-82330_ElShamsy_Rediscovering_1P.indd 12 9/24/19 7:24 PM No part of this book may be distributed, posted or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without Copyright © 2020 prior written permission of the FIRST PROOF Princeton University Press publishers Acknowl edgments • My writing of this book was made pos si ble by two yearlong sabbaticals, the frst in 2014–15 at the Zentrum Moderner Orient (now Leibniz Zentrum Mod- erner Orient) in Berlin with funding from the Volks wagen Foundation, and the second in 2017–18 at Harvard Law School’s Islamic L egal Studies Program: SHARIASource (now the Program in Islamic Law). I am grateful to the di- rector of the ZMO, Ulrike Freitag, and the director of the Program in Islamic Law, Intisar Rabb, for their generous welcome and their support of my research. Back home at the University of Chicago, I have benefted from the insights and friendship of my colleagues and students in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. I would especially like to thank the students in my “Islamic Classics and the Printing Press” and “Critical Arabic Philology” seminars for their close reading of several key texts with me. I have had the chance to pre sent aspects of my research in numerous con- ferences, workshops, and lectures, and I am thankful for the comments and suggestions I have received on these occasions. In par tic u lar, the workshop on Islamic print culture that I or ga nized at the ZMO in May 2015 and the conference on Islamicate book history or ga nized by Maribel Fierro, Sabine Schmidtke, and Sarah Stroumsa in March 2015 provided opportunities for illuminating discussions on aspects of my proj ect. Over the years, countless exchanges with colleagues near and far have helped me refne the arguments and check the evidence presented in the fol- lowing pages (even when said colleagues vehemently disagree with me), and I am im mensely grateful for the generosity with which they have shared their time and knowledge.