12. Digitisation of Islamic manuscripts and periodicals in Jerusalem and Acre (original) (raw)

p. 377-415

Texte intégral

1This chapter provides an overview of three digitisation projects supported by the Endangered Archives Programme (EAP). The first, EAP119, digitised the collection of historical periodicals in al-Aqṣá Mosque Library in Jerusalem (Al-Quds) in 2007.2 Two subsequent projects recorded manuscripts in al-Jazzār Mosque Library in Acre (ʿAkkā) (EAP399 in 2010) and al-Aqṣá Mosque Library in Jerusalem (EAP521 in 2012).3 After tracing a short history of the two libraries and outlining the development of the early Arabic press in Palestine, this contribution makes the case for the urgency of digitisation and provides a brief account of the digitisation process along with the challenges that the projects had to overcome.

The Mosque Libraries of al-Aqṣá in Jerusalem and al-Jazzār in Acre

2In Islam, books and book collections have always been seen as a mark of faith, learning and wisdom that lent prestige to their owners. Islamic rulers sought to outdo their predecessors by founding libraries with vast collections of magnificent quality, whilst mosques and madrasahs created impressive book collections in order to enhance their reputation as centres of learning, and scholars achieved fame for their private libraries.4 The late Ottoman Palestine was no different: the mosques and Muslim courthouses contained collections of religious literature and many large private collections were held in the city homes of distinguished families.5

3The older of the two libraries where the digitisation projects supported by the EAP took place is located in the northern city of Acre. Al-Jazzār Mosque Library (al-Aḥmadīyah) is a part of a waqf, a pious foundation of Ahmad al-Jazzār, the eighteenth-century Ottoman governor (pasha) of the provinces of Acre. Al-Jazzār’s waqf was the largest such endowment in the history of Acre. It was the only waqf in this city which was publicly administered under the Ottoman Ministry of Waqf and later, during the British Mandate rule, under the Supreme Muslim Council.

4The waqf was created in May 1786 and the endowment included: a mosque, Jami al-Anwar, “the Mosque of Lights”, an Islamic college with fifty rooms for the lodgings for students from the four schools of Islamic law, a large library, a public fountain, an underground water reservoir, a ritual bath, a sundial, a garden and 29 stores surrounding the mosque courtyard.6 The mosque and adjacent buildings, which were heavily damaged by Napoleon’s bombardment in 1799, underwent renovations in the early nineteenth century.7 Throughout the rest of the century the library attracted many visitors, not only from the Muslim community since — unlike in the case of other mosques — Christians were allowed to enter al-Jazzār Mosque and adjacent buildings.8

5Al-Jazzār Mosque was one of the many buildings damaged by the Egyptian bombardment of Acre in 1831-1832. The mosque’s library was looted and the Egyptian army used the yard as a camp.9 After the defeat of the Egyptians and the liberation of the city, the library was re-opened and remains open to this day.

6The newer of the libraries, al-Aqṣá, is located at the heart of the Old City of Jerusalem, in the southwestern corner of the al-Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary) complex. Founded in 1922 by the Supreme Muslim Council in Palestine under the leadership of the mufti of Palestine, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the library brought together the books that had been kept in al-Aqṣá and the Dome of the Rock buildings, and gradually also acquired books from private libraries in Jerusalem, in Palestine and even from abroad.10 In 1923, Adel Jabre became the first director of al-Aqṣá Library and, at the same time, the director of the Islamic Museum. The al-Aqṣá archive preserves his correspondence with the intellectuals in the Middle East and Europe he approached for book donations.11 The uniquely revered status of al-Aqṣá had brought it endowments of private book collections and book gifts, including publications on modern science and literature and donations of local journals.12

7Al-Aqṣá Library was first housed in Qubbat al-Nahwiyyah, a building that lies in the southwestern corner of the Haram al-Sharif compound and was once home to a thirteen-century school of literature. The library was subsequently moved to the sacred compound, and the manuscripts were stored in a building nearby.13 The development of the library was also stifled by the events of 1948 and their aftermath, when Palestinian libraries were closed, suspended or had their holdings divided among other institutions. Between May 1948 and the end of February 1949, the staff of the National Library of Israel and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Library collected some 30,000 books and manuscripts that had been left behind by the Palestinian residents of western Jerusalem.14 Of these, about 24,000 were disposed of because they were considered irrelevant or hostile material.15 The remaining 6000 books have not been returned, despite a clear statement by the 1954 Hague Convention for the Preservation of Cultural Property, and despite the fact that the National Library of Israel — an internationally leading cultural institution and the recipient of many books stolen in the Holocaust — is well-placed to recognise the importance of acts of restorative justice.16

8After a long period of inactivity from 1948 to 1976, the Waqf Administration decided to revive the library in early 1977. The library’s collection was moved from the Islamic Museum to the ground floor of the monumental fifteenth-century Ashrafiyya madrasa.17 In 2000, the library was relocated Digitisation of Islamic manuscript and periodicals 381 again to its current position, the building of “Jami‘ al-Nisa”, or “Women’s Mosque”, between al-Aqṣá Mosque on the east side and the Islamic Museum on the west.18 The most valuable part of the library’s collection consists of approximately 2,000 manuscripts and 74 historical Arabic newspapers and magazines titles from the region.19

The urgency of digitisation

9The digitisation of the holdings of al-Aqṣá Mosque Library and al-Jazzār Mosque Library was urgently needed in order to document the collection and preserve its content. The manuscripts and the newspapers have been deteriorating rapidly due to the poor environmental conditions in libraries which lack proper humidity and temperature control. The lack of a preservation programme, and the shortage of staff trained in conservation and preservation methods were also a serious threats.20 This issue has now been addressed by the joint project of UNESCO and the Waqf, Jordan’s Islamic authority, initiated in 2014 to restore al-Aqṣá Library’s manuscripts, old maps, Ottoman population and trade registers and hand-written documents from the Mamluk period.21

10The fragile condition of the documents has been aggravated by scholars and students handling the materials.22 Moreover, because of the unstable political situation in Jerusalem, the location of al-Aqṣá Library in the Old City presents not only a significant threat to the collection, but also makes access difficult. Palestinians from the West Bank or the Gaza Strip have to obtain permits from Israel to enter Jerusalem. Students and scholars are frequently unable to access the library because of the curfews imposed due to political unrest in the Old City.

11Consequently, all three digitisation projects supported by the EAP had a dual aim: to help the preservation of the materials by creating digital surrogates, and to facilitate access to the materials and make them available to scholars and students in Palestine and worldwide. Each of the three projects created digital photographs in TIFF format. One set remains in al-Aqṣá Library and al-Jazzār Mosque Library, while another has been transferred to the British Library and made accessible via the Internet to scholars worldwide.23

Digitising the collection of historical periodicals in al-Aqṣá Mosque Library

12Al-Aqṣá Library contains more than seventy Arabic language newspaper and journal titles, published in Palestine and other Arab countries as well as a selection of periodicals published by the Arab communities in Europe and North and South America. Copies of the historical Palestinian periodicals and newspapers are extremely rare and for many of the titles, the library holds the only copy available in the region.24

13The region’s first privately published journals appeared in Beirut in the third quarter of the nineteenth century. By 1880 new presses opened in Cairo, Alexandria and other Egyptian towns, reaching a total of 627 different newspapers with a circulation of perhaps 100,000 copies by 1908.25 In Palestine, printing was first undertaken by Christian religious institutions, starting with a Franciscan press established in Jerusalem in 1846. The Armenian and Greek churches followed suit, but in all these cases printing was limited to evangelising materials.26 The Arabic periodicals first appeared in Palestine only after the Young Turks rebellion in 1908, when political changes in the Ottoman Empire brought about the abolition of censorship.27 As many as fifteen periodicals appeared in 1908, another twenty were published before the outbreak of World War I, and nearly 180 more before the end of the British Mandate.28

14Launching a newspaper was easier than sustaining its publication for long, and the majority of papers started in Palestine and elsewhere in the region turned out to be ephemeral.29 Moreover, the presence of Egyptian and Lebanese publications throughout the region resulted in a weakening of local presses, which found it hard to compete with the quality of the products flowing from Cairo and Beirut.30 In 1936 Zionists attempting to set up an Arabic newspaper to counter anti-Zionist propaganda, acknowledged that it was difficult to compete with the quality of imported Egyptian publications like al-Ahrām [_The Pyramids_] and al-Jihād [_The Struggle_].31

15The Zionist settlement represented an additional incentive for the emergence of Arabic publications, many of them opposed to the new Jewish presence in Palestine.32 The three leading papers of the pre-war period voiced Palestinian Arab emotions and they all were published by the Palestinian Christians. Jurji Habib Hananya’s al-Quds [The Holy, epithet for Jerusalem] was first published in that city from 1908, was moderate.33 Najib Nassar’s al-Karmil [Carmel, after Mount Carmel] which appeared in Haifa in the same year, and the Jaffa paper Filasṭīn [_Palestine_], established by the cousins Yūsuf al-ʿĪsá and ʿĪsá al-ʿĪsá in 1911, were outspokenly anti-Zionist.34

16With the outbreak of World War I publishing activities in Palestine were suppressed, but re-emerged in 1919 with the establishment of British control over Palestine, and two of the leading pre-war papers, al-Karmil and Filasṭīn, re-opened. Overall, the publication landscape in Palestine during the British Mandate (1917-1948) was more diverse than in the pre-war period. The press increasingly reflected rising national consciousness and different political factions.35 By the mid 1930s, according to one survey, over 250 papers in Arabic and 65 in other languages were in circulation throughout the country.36

17Most of the newspapers appeared weekly and their print run increased gradually. Rather than the few hundred copies of the pre-war era, individual papers in Palestine of the 1920s typically circulated at 1,000-1,500 copies. Filasṭīn, the most popular publication, reportedly sold circa 3,000 copies per issue towards the end of the decade.37 In the 1920s, some twenty papers were established in Jerusalem, most importantly Mirʾat al-Sharq [_Mirror of the East_] which Būlus Shihādah, a Christian, founded in September 1919, and al-Jāmiʿ al-ʿArabīyah [_Arab Union_], the voice of the Supreme Muslim Council, which appeared in December 1927, and was edited by Munif al-Husayni. Around five or six papers were founded in Jaffa in the 1920s in addition to Filasṭīn, and approximately twelve in Haifa, with some in Gaza, Tulkarm and Bethlehem.38

18Although the British adopted the Ottoman Press Law, which required licensing and submitting translations of press extracts to the government authorities, they rarely interfered until 1929.39 The Buraq Uprising of that year, which was followed by violent confrontations between Arabs and Zionists, brought a radicalisation of the Arabic language press. The most outspoken papers established in the 1930s in Jaffa, were al-Difāʿ [_Defense_], a voice of the Istiqlal Party, and al-Jāmiʿah al-Islāmīyah [_Islamic Union_] (Fig. 12.1) which appeared from 1932 to 1937. Al-Liwāʾ [_The Flag_] (Fig. 12.2), representing the dominant Arab Party, was established in Jerusalem in 1933.40

Fig. 12.1 Front page of al-Jāmiʿah al-Islāmīyah [_Islamic Union_] newspaper, 27 July 1937 (EAP119/1/12/480, image 1), CC BY.

Fig. 12.2 Front page of al-Liwāʾ [_The Flag_] newspaper, 16 December 1935 (EAP119/1/17/2, image 1), CC BY.

19The attitude of the British authorities to the vociferous Palestinian press was initially benign, as they assessed the public impact of newspapers to be minimal. Nevertheless, as the press’s radicalisation and impact grew, the British authorities responded with increasingly harsh measures. The new Publication Law, issued in January 1933, gave the authorities powers to deny or withdraw publication permits, suspend or close down papers, and punish journalists, was amended and new regulations were introduced which restricted the freedom of the press even further.41 Many major newspapers, Filasṭīn, al-Difāʿ, al-Liwāʾ and al-Ṣirāṭ al-Mustaqīm among others, were suspended from circulation for extended periods of time in 1937 and 1938.42 With the outbreak of World War II and the introduction of new emergency laws, the British ordered the closure of almost all newspapers. Only Filasṭīn and al-Difāʿ were able to survive by adopting a moderate nationalist tone and publishing closely censored news.43

20The periodical collection at al-Aqṣá Mosque Library consists of historical newspapers, journals and magazines in multiple formats. We selected 24 of these (thirteen magazines and eleven journals) for digitisation, on the grounds of their rarity and importance of the events they covered.44 In addition to Filasṭīn, we have digitised such papers as al-Jāmiʿah al-Islāmīyah, published by Shaykh Sulayman al-Taji al-Faruqi in Jaffa.45 The newspaper was deemed to be in opposition to the Supreme Islamic Council led by Muhammad Amin al-Husayni. The first issue of the newspaper was published on 16 July 1932, and by the begining of its second year, the newspaper, which had started on 5 July 1933, had reached issue number 297. Al-Jāmiʿah al-Islāmīyah continued to publish its eight-pages for a period of two years. At the end of the same year the newspaper closed with the issue 588, at the order of the British Mandate authorities. We have also digitised al-Jāmiʿah al-ʿArabīyah published in Jerusalem from 20 January 1927.46 The publisher and chief editor was Munif al-Husayni, who worked as a spokesman for the Supreme Islamic Council, which indicates that the Islamic Council was the funder for the newspaper. The slogan of the newspaper, which was written below the title, was a prophetic saying: “If the Arabs are humiliated, then Islam is humiliated (اذا تلذ برعلا لذ ملاسلاا)”. Amil al-Ghuri joined the editorial staff of the newspaper responsible for the foreign affairs section, and Muhammad Tahir al-Fityani for domestic news. The last issue of the newspaper appeared on 22 July 1934.

21The collection of historical newspapers in al-Aqṣá is an important source of information about Palestine, its history, and its people in the first half of the twentieth century. The newspapers constitute important sources on the Arab nationalist movement, Palestinian reactions to Jewish immigration and the establishment of a Jewish national homeland in Palestine. They cover many important historical events, such as the Balfour Declaration of 1917 (Fig. 12.3), the 1929 Buraq Uprising (Fig. 12.4), the al-Qassam unrest of 1931 (Fig. 12.5). They discuss Palestinians political parties (Fig. 12.6), the Palestinians armed forces, the 1936 strike, the 1936-1939 revolution (Fig. 12.7), British policy against Arab leaders, The British Mandate policy toward Palestinians journalism (Fig. 12.8) and the region’s social, economic and cultural development.

Fig. 12.3 Front page of Miraʾat al-Sharq [_The Mirror of the East_] newspaper, on the Balfour Declaration, 2 November 1917 (EAP119/1/24/1, image 1), CC BY.

Fig. 12.4 Front page of al-Jāmiʿah al-ʿArabīyah [_The Arab League_] newspaper, on the Buraq uprising, 16 October 1929 (EAP119/1/13/260, image 1), CC BY.

Fig. 12.5 Page three of al-Jāmiʿah al-ʿArabīyah [_The Arab League_] newspaper, on al-Qassam unrest, 22 November 1935 (EAP119/1/13/1504, image 3), CC BY.

Fig. 12.6 Front page of al-Iqdām [_The Courage_] newspaper, on political parties, 30 March 1935 (EAP119/1/23/34, image 1), CC BY.

Fig. 12.7 Front page of al-Difāʿ [_The Defence_] newspaper, on the great strike of 1936, 17 June 1936 (EAP119/1/21/169, image 1), CC BY.

Fig. 12.8 Page three of al-Jāmiʿah al-ʿArabīyah [_The Arab League_] newspaper, on the Palestinian press under the Mandate, 3 April 1930 (EAP119/1/13/338, image 3), CC BY.

Table 12.1 Selected titles and their publication dates

Fig. 12.9 Damaged page of Filasṭīn [_Palestine_] newspaper, 30 December 1947 (EAP119/1/22/1802, image 1), CC BY.

22Digitisation of newspapers is especially challenging because of the large format, complex page layout, and poor quality of print (Fig. 12.9). This often causes the libraries to outsource the scanning process.47

23The historical nature of the collection and the location of al-Aqṣá Mosque Library meant outsourcing was not an option and the digitisation had to be performed in-house. It is worth noting that due to this location the project had to overcome problems with environmental conditions as well as restrictions from the police at the al-Aqṣá gates. For the scanning process we have followed the guidelines of the National Digital Newspaper Program.48

Digitisation of manuscripts

24In 2010, with the support of the EAP, we initiated the project to digitise the historical manuscript collection in the holdings of al-Jazzār Mosque Library (al-Aḥmadīyah), in Acre. The materials selected for digitisation included a collection of 53 Arabic language manuscripts dating from the fourteenth to the twentieth century. The manuscripts cover aspects of the Islamic religion, but also Arabic literature, the Arabic language, logic, mathematics and Sufism (Figs. 12.10-14). They provide a unique insight into centuries of Arabic culture in Palestine. A catalogue of the manuscripts, published in 1983, documents circa ninety manuscripts in the library.49 The manuscripts are tightly bound and have been damaged through constant use. Due to preservation challenges — and because of their uniqueness and high value — digitisation had to be conducted on the premises of al-Jazzār Mosque Library. The project resulted in the creation of high-quality digital archival copies of 53 rare manuscripts, consisting of 17,965 pages.

Fig. 12.10 Damaged paper of Bāb sharḥ al-shamsīyah, work on logic, 1389 CE (EAP399/1/23, image 4), CC BY.

Fig. 12.11 Ashraf al-Wasāʾil, biography of the Prophet, 1566 CE (EAP39

Fig. 12.12 Khāliṣ al-talkhīṣ, on the Arabic language, seventeenth century CE (EAP399/1/42, image 5), CC BY.

Fig. 12.13 al-Wasīlah fī al-Ḥisāb, on mathematics, 1412 CE (EAP399/1/14, image 18), CC BY.

Fig. 12.14 Taṣrīf al-Šāfiyah, on the Arabic language, 1345 CE (EAP399/1/34, image 85), CC BY.

Table 12.2 List of selected titles (EAP399)

25In 2012 the 2012 EAP project digitised a collection of 119 manuscripts in al-Aqṣá Mosque Library, dating from the twelfth to the nineteenth century. The selection includes manuscripts from the collections of well-known Palestinian scholars, such as Fayd Allah al-‘ Alami, the Shaykh Khalil al-Khalidi and from the private collection of Shaykh Muhammad al-Khalili. The digitisation of manuscripts was carried out using the ATIZ BOOK Drive system, with two digital cameras to capture images of manuscripts. The initial output of the ATIZ BookDrive system is in RAW format, which required conversion to TIFF format for archiving purposes.50 The digitisation guidelines for the project assumed a use-neutral approach and are based on digital library standards, best practices, and general principles for building digital collections. The goal of the project was to build a repository of digital master files in TIFF format for archiving purposes and to provide derivative files in PDF format for current use. Digital, high-resolution (minimum 300 dpi) master files were created as a direct result of the scanning process. A consistent file naming convention was established in order to manage the project effectively.51 Derivative files in PDF format were created for access and are available for browsing and reading.

26The project resulted in the creation of high-quality digital archival copies of 119 rare manuscripts ranging in date from the thirteenth to the twentieth century consisting of 33,000 pages (Figs. 12.15-18).

Fig. 12.15 al-Rawḍah, on jurisprudence and matters of doctrine, 1329 CE (EAP521/1/90, image 4), CC BY.

Fig. 12.16 Maʿālim al-Tanzīl, exegesis, 1437 CE (EAP521/1/6, image 3), CC BY.

Fig. 12.17 Ṭabaqāt al-Shāfiʿīyah, on history, 1542 CE (EAP521/1/26, image 33), CC BY.

Fig. 12.18 al-Nawādir al-Sulṭānīyah, on the history and biography of Salaḥ al-Dīn al-Ayyūbī, 1228 CE (EAP521/1/24, image 29), CC BY.

27The physical condition of the manuscripts varies from volume to volume, but a significant number of selected titles are in poor condition.

28Both projects faced a number of challenges due to external factors, such as political upheavals, as well as those related to digitisation. Among the latter were issues such as quality of the original paper, irregular fonts, text density, torn or smudged pages, and a variation in layout. Although they posed many challenges to the digitisation process, we have been successful in overcoming them. We are proud that this important heritage has been preserved and made accessible to scholars.

Table 12.3 Description of the physical conditions of the manuscripts in EAP521

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