A.S Yahuda and Islamic Manuscripts
A. S. Yahuda (1877–1951) was among the twentieth century’s most influential collectors and dealers in Islamic manuscripts.
Born in Jerusalem, Yahuda was a notable scholar of Judaism and Islam who also applied his vast erudition to collecting and trading Islamic manuscripts. Yahuda sold important Middle Eastern manuscripts to the University of Michigan Library, the Chester Beatty Library, the British Library and Dropsie College (now the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania). The largest group of his manuscripts — an estimated 5,100 volumes — he sold to the collector Robert S. Garrett (1875–1961) on behalf of Princeton University, where they are now housed; thousands more manuscripts were sold to the National Library of Medicine (then the U.S. Army Medical College). On his death, Yahuda bequeathed his remaining collection (including Islamic, Jewish and Latin manuscripts and rare books), as well as his personal archive, to the National Library of Israel.
Although he played a central role in shaping several of the world’s major Middle Eastern manuscript collections, his impact is little known today. Yahuda’s personal and institutional contacts, and the sheer number and quality of manuscripts he acquired, make him a key figure in the modern history of the manuscript trade and of the Islamic book.
Join us this spring to explore Yahuda’s collecting and collections. Bringing together historians and library professionals from key institutions, this workshop is a first step toward reconstructing Yahuda’s networks and the libraries he purchased, and a window onto a fascinating and tumultuous period in the history of knowledge and of power relations among the Middle East, Europe and the United States.
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.
Participating Institutions:
Chester Beatty (Dublin, Ireland) | The National Library of Israel (Jerusalem, Israel) | The National Library of Medicine (Bethesda, Maryland, USA) | Princeton University Library (Princeton, New Jersey, USA) | The University of Michigan Library (Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA) | The University of Pennsylvania Library (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA)