Texts as Living Objects
Reconsidering Dhayls as a Means for the Study of Authorship and Knowledge Transmission in the Manuscript Age
The conference “Texts as Living Objects” at the Institut d’études avancées de Paris from November 14th to 16th, organised by Philip Bockholt and Sacha Alsancakli, aimed to examine how texts remained relevant throughout the pre-modern and modern periods in the Islamic world, with a focus on the phenomenon of dhayl (pl. dhuyūl) in Arabic, or ẕayl/ẕeyl in Persian and Turkish. As a prominent feature of Islamic manuscript transmission, the term dhayl refers to the act of continuing the narrative of a given text, typically a historical chronicle, up to the time of the amendment.
In addition to the fruitful discussions at the conference venue, the Hôtel de Lauzun, a Parisian city palace from the 17th century, the participants had the opportunity to see a selection of dhayl manuscripts in the Bibliothèque nationale de France.
Programme
Tuesday, November 14
17:00 –17:30 Welcome & Introduction
- Maria Szuppe (CNRS/CeRMI)
- Sacha Alsancakli (Paris) & Philip Bockholt (Münster)
17:30 Keynote
- Christoph U. Werner (Bamberg): Adding Supplements to Tradition: Reflections on Persian Historiography
18:30 Reception
Wednesday, November 15
10:30 –11:30 Panel I: History I (discussant: Marc Toutant)
- Maria Szuppe (Paris): Two Ẕayls to a Topographic Guide of Holy Places in Timurid Herat
11:30 –12:00 Coffee break
12:00 –13:00 Panel II: History II (discussant: Maria Szuppe)
- Philip Bockholt (Münster): A Total Flop after a Bestseller: the Ẕayl-i Ḥabīb al-Siyar by Amīr Maḥmūd
- Melis Taner (Istanbul): Recontextualizing Soḳolluzāde Ḥasan Paşa’s Universal History
13:00 –14:00 Lunch
14:00 –15:30 Panel III: History III (discussant: Ani Sargsyan)
- Josef Ženka (Prague): It is Time to let it Go and Start Again: Was Ibn al-Khaṭīb’s Iḥāṭa the Final Blow to Andalusi Ṣila Histories?
- Sacha Alsancakli (Paris): Relics or Revival? On Ẕayls of Bidlīsī’s Sharafnāma Produced in the Ardalān Emirate
- Roy Marom (Tel Aviv): Continued Pasts: Samaritan Toleda Extensions and Self-Reflections on History
15:30 –16:00 Coffee break
17:00 –19:00 Visit of the BnF
19:30 Dinner
Thursday, November 16
10:30 –11:30 Panel IV: Biography & Geography (discussant: Renaud Soler)
- Zeynep Tezer (Florence): Genre-Specificity and Cross- Referencing in Nevʿizāde ʿAṭāʾī’s Ḥadāʾiḳu’l-Ḥaḳāʾiḳ fī Tekmīleti’ş-Şeḳāʾiḳ
- Fikret Turan (Istanbul): Ẕeyl Works of Şeyḫī Meḥmed b. Ḥasan in Ottoman Turkish and his Cihānnümā-yı Avrūpā on the Geography and Peoples of Europe and the New World
11:30 –12:00 Coffee break
12:00 –13:00 Panel V: Lexicography & Adab (discussant: Aïda El Khiari)
- Colinda Lindermann (Berlin): Acknowledging the Addition? The Dhayl in Arabic Lexicography
- Johannes Stephan (Berlin): Co-Writing Tales: An Appendix to an Eighteenth-Century Kalīla wa-Dimna Manuscript
13:00 –14:00 Lunch
14:00 –15:00 Panel VI: Encyclopaedia (discussant: Hülya Çelik)
- Guglielmo Zucconi (Vienna): Knowledge Compiled, Knowledge Circulated: The Shifting Shapes of the Majmaʿ al-Gharāʾib
15:00 –15:30 Coffee break
15:30 –16:30 Panel VII: Law (discussant: Justine Landau)
- Hakkı Arslan (Münster): Dhayl-Literature in Islamic Law – Supplements to al-Marghinānīs (d. 1196) al-Hidāya fī Sharḥ al-Bidāya as a Case Study
16:30 –17:00 Concluding discussion
19:00 Dinner