Turkish Manuscripts: Cataloguing since 1960 and Manuscripts Still Uncatalogued, Part 4:

Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Great Britain, Ireland, The Netherlands, Belgium, France,
Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Finland, United States, Canada
Author(s): Eleazar Birnbaum
Source: Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 104, No. 2 (Apr. - Jun., 1984), pp. 303-
314
Published by: American Oriental Society
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 TURKISH MANUSCRIPTS: CATALOGUING SINCE 1960
AND MANUSCRIPTS STILL UNCATALOGUED*
PART 4: HUNGARY, CZECHOSLOVAKIA, POLAND, GREAT BRITAIN,
IRELAND, THE NETHERLANDS, BELGIUM, FRANCE, GERMANY, SWITZERLAND,
AUSTRIA, ITALY, FINLAND, UNITED STATES, CANADA
ELEAZAR BIRNBAUM
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
HUNGARY
THEORIES ON AN ANCIENT RELATIONSHIP between the
Hungarian and Turkish languages from the time when
both peoples lived in east central Asia, combined with
historical interest which grew from the 150 years of
Turkish occupation of Hungary that followed its con-
quest by Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent in the 16th
century, gave Turcology a special status in Hungary.
From the 19th century onwards, Hungarian scholars
have been among the world's leading figures in Tur-
kish studies.260While Turkish archival documents are
found in several Hungarian localities in Hungary, the
only important group of literary manuscripts is in the
Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. There
* Continued from JAOS 103.4 (1983), pp. 691-707. I wish
to express my gratitude to the librarians at many institutions
who gave me the information and access to the Mss in their
charge. My thanks are also due to the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the University
of Toronto Humanities and Social Sciences Research Board
for their financial assistance.
260 For an interesting general review, see Suzanne [
Zsuzsa] Kakuk, "Cents ans d'enseignement de philologie
turque a l'Universit6 de Budapest" in Studia Turcica, ed.
L. Ligeti, Budapest, 1971, pp. 7-28 ( = Bibliotheca Orientalis
Hungarica, t. VII). Books and articles by Hungarian Tur-
cologists are noted in all volumes of TurkologischerAnzeiger;
a selection of recent studies is cited by G. Kaldy-Nagy, in
"Bibliographie des travaux turcologiques en Hongrie, I," in
Turcica, t. XIII (1981) pp. 198-205; a full scale work, Hun-
garian Turcology, 1945-1974: Bibliography, by Zsuzsa Kakuk
(Budapest, 1981) has now been published by the Hungarian
Academy of Sciences.
303
is no published catalogue of its "Oriental Collection,"
but a considerable amount of information on many
individual manuscripts may be gleaned from the
Jubilee Volume of the Oriental Collection, 1951-1976.
Papers presented on the occasion of the 25th anni-
versary of the Oriental Collection of the Library of
the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.261 Particularly
valuable for Turcologists is the article by Anna Hor-
vath, "Turkish manuscripts in the Oriental Collec-
tion . . . 262 which not only tells how the library was
built up, but also gives the titles, authors and library
shelf numbers of quite a number of the more inter-
esting MSS. Amongst the 5,000 MSS in the Oriental
collection, there are 596 Turkish manuscripts, totaling
638 volumes,263of which 438 volumes were bequeathed
in 1886 by the bookseller Daniel Szildgyi (1830-1885),
who collected them when residing in Istanbul for 36
years. Other important gifts were the collections of
Arminius Vdmbery (43 MSS, of which over one-third
are in Chaghatay), and Jozsef Thu'ry. According to
Horvdth, most of the MSS are literary works (178 Mss),
of which two-thirds are poetry and the remainder
prose. The 31 linguistic works include 25 dictionaries,
and there are 73 historical works. Inca works consti-
tute the majority of the remaining MSS. Some further
information on the contents of the collections, supple-
menting that given by Horvdth, appears in the articles
in the same Jubilee Volume by Lajos Ligeti,264fva
261 Edited by Itva Apor. Budapest, Library of the Hungarian
Academy of Sciences, 1978.
262
Ibid., pp. 95-103.
263 Ibid., p. 95.
264
"La Bibliothbque de I'Academie et les etudes orientales,"
op. cit., pp. 7-21 passim.
304 Journal of the American Oriental Society 104.2 (1984)
Apor265and Zsuzsa Kakuk.266Several of the MSSin
the collection have been edited and published, in the
Jubilee Volume itself. I know of no plans to publish a
catalogue. The library itself uses "a handwritten cata-
logue in Hungarian showing numerical order [i.e., by
MSshelf-number] and a hand-written card-catalogue
of titles in alphabetical order."267
CZECHOSLOVAKIA
There are two major collections of Islamic MSSin
Czechoslovakia, in Prague and in Bratislava (earlier
Pressburg). The larger of them, at the National and
University Library in Prague, with over 350 MSSin
Turkish, remains without a printed catalogue, but the
115 at the University of Bratislava have been usefully
if summarily catalogued in German by Josef Blag-
kovits.268
POLAND
The Oriental section of the Polish Academy of
Sciences published an important co-operative venture
in 1967. The Turkish and Persian MSSin 21 public and
private libraries throughout the country were cata-
logued by six scholars under the supervision of
Tadeusz Majda.269 The entries are rather brief but
well done, and the references are thorough.
The few Turkish MSSin Krakow University Library
are described in its general catalogue.270
Not all Turkish MSSin Poland are in the Arabic
script. Karaite Turkish has traditionally been written
265 "Sandor Kegl's bequest and the Persian manuscripts
.." op. cit., pp. 35-42, especially p. 41.
266 "Ignac Kunos' Nachlass . . . ," op. cit.
267 Horvath, "Turkish manuscripts . . . ," p. 98.
268 Bratislava. Univerzita. Kniznica. Arabisehe, turkisehe
und persisehe Handschriften der Universitdtsbibliothek in
Bratislava. Unter der Redaktion Josef Blaskovics bearbeit
. . . die turkischen Handschriften Josef Blagkovi . .. Bratis-
lava, 1961.
269 Polskiej Akademii Nauk. Zaklad Orientalistyki. Katalog
r,ekopis6w tureckich i perskich. Opracowal Tadeusz Majda,
pod redakcja A. Zajtczkowskiego. Warszawa, 1967. ( =
Katalog rekopis6w orientalnych ze zbior6w Polskich. Tom
V, Czp962).
270 Krakow. Uniwersytetu Jagielloniskiej. Inwentarz rekopi-
s6w Biblioteki Jagielloniskiej. Krakow. (Turkish Mss: vol. 2.1
(1966), p. 42; vol. 3 (1967), p. 222).
in Hebrew script, although the Roman and Cyrillic
scripts have been used too in the present century. The
total number of Karaite Turkish MSS in Poland seems
to be less than 200, and some of these may in fact
perhaps be in Hebrew, not in Turkish. In a 1977
conference paper, Aleksander Dubinski27' estimated
that about 100 Karaite MSS were in the collection of
the late J6zef Sulimowicz (d. 1973), 25 more with the
Karaite priest Rafal Abkowicz in Wroctaw; and some
10 in Warsaw, in Dubinski's own possession (including
the oldest in Poland, dating from the second half of
the 18th century). He mentions also three small collec-
tions in Krakow, those of (i) W. ZajLczkowski,(ii) the
Krakow city library, and (iii) the late J. Grzegorzewski
(d. 1922).
GREAT BRITAIN
The major British collection of Turkish manuscripts
is in London at the Department of Oriental Manu-
scripts and Printed Books at the British Library. (This
is the name of the institution set up in 1973, to receive
most of the books and manuscripts which were for-
merly administered by the British Museum's Depart-
ment of Oriental Printed Books and Manuscripts).
The collection of Turkish MSS described by Charles
Rieu in his outstandingly good Catalogue of the Tur-
kish Manuscripts in the British Museum, published in
1888, gave details of the 483 items then in the library.
Since then, over 1200 extra have been acquired, which
still languish without a formal catalogue. Visitors to
the Oriental Reading Room may, however, consult a
46-page typescript Temporary Handlist of Turkish
Manuscripts, 1888-1958 compiled by Glyn M.
Meredith-Owens in 1959, with occasional handwritten
marginal additions and corrections added at later
dates. Brief entries in it, mostly of one or two lines,
record about 950 manuscripts, which are divided into
three groups: (a) "Ottoman, Azeri, Turkmen" (pp. 1-
44); (b) "Turki" (pp. 44-46, mainly Chaghatay);
(c) "Judaeo-Turkish" (p. 46). The overwhelming ma-
jority are Ottoman, but there are 41 in the "Turki"
group (including six copies of Nava'T's DTvdn). The
one "Judaeo-Turkish" item is in a collection of reli-
gious poems in Hebrew by 'Asah-el ben Hanukah (Ms
OR. 12352). It includes one macaronic poem express-
ing longing for the coming of the Messiah. Each
271 A. Dubinski, "Karaimische Handschriften in polnische
Sammlungen," in Central Asiatic Journal, vol. 23 (1979)
pp. 147-150.
 BIRNBAUM: Turkish Manuscripts: Cataloguing Since 1960
Hebrew line is followed by a verse paraphrase in
Azeri Turkish (ff. 7a-b). The author's name appears
in verses 9 (Hebrew) and 10 (Turkish: Hanukah okli).
Both the Hebrew and Turkish are in the identical
18th-19th century Kurdic or Farsic mashait (non-
square Hebrew book-hand). Many MSS which have
Turkish content combined with Persian are also very
briefly noted in the relevant subject division of G. M.
Meredith-Owens' printed Handlist of Persian Manu-
scripts [in the British Museum], 1895-1966 (London,
1968). In general, the information given on these
bilingual MSS is essentially the same as in the Turkish
Temporary Handlist. Since 1958 about 300 more
Turkish MSS have been added to the collection. These
are recorded on fiches in an internal file ("blue slip
catalogue") in the Department of Oriental Manuscripts
and Printed Books.272 Brief details of some of them
are recorded from time to time under the rubric
"Recent acquisitions, Department of Oriental Manu-
scripts and Printed Books: Manuscript acquisitions
[year]" in the British Library Journal, (since 1975)
and its predecessor, the British Museum Quarterly.
The gap between acquisition and the report is often
about five years.
The 61 Turkish manuscripts with miniatures were
also transferredfrom the British Museum to the British
Library. Descriptions of all of the miniatures are
given by Norah M. Titley in Miniatures from Turkish
manuscripts: a catalogue and subject index of paint-
ings in the British Library and [the] British Museum.273
Although the emphasis is entirely on the artistic con-
tent, the work can act as a quasi-catalogue of the
manuscripts to the extent that authors, titles and
manuscript call-numbers are given for the miniatures.
It is not only art historians who will benefit from the
nine good indexes, including those for authors (p. 74),
titles (p. 75), costumes (pp. 76-78), occupations and
ranks (pp. 80-82), MS call numbers (pp. 83-84), and
an exhaustive subject index (pp. 85-139). 54 selected
illustrations in black and white complete this useful
book. Meredith-Owens has described some of the
same MSS in a small illustrated book, Turkish minia-
tures, published by the Museum in 1963, and in the
272 See British Library. Reference Division.
Guide to the
Department of Oriental Manuscripts and Printed Books.
Compiled by H. J. Goodacre and A. P. Pritchard. London,
1977, p. 34.
273 London, 1981. Titley includes descriptions of "four
important albums and some single paintings" which remain
at the British Museum (p. ix).
305
same year he gave some account of 14 extra manu-
scripts, which may be consulted in a typescript at the
Library.274Descriptions of individual manuscripts have
occasionally appeared in the British Museum Quar-
terly and in the British Library Journal.
Almost a century has passed since Charles Rieu's
catalogue was published. It will be seen that by now
some 1250 further Turkish manuscripts, many of
major importance and high quality, need full descrip-
tion. Scholars wait for a new Rieu with great impa-
tience. The same may be said about still uncatalogued
"Old Turkish" MSS in Kok Turk and Uygur now in the
British Library, brought by Sir Aurel Stein from his
third expedition to Central Asia, 1913-1915.27s
At least 45 Turkish manuscripts are kept in the
library of the School of Oriental and African Studies
(SOAS), University of London. There is no full cata-
logue but brief descriptions, on typed cards, of about
40 MSS are kept in the library and have been repro-
duced in the photo-offset edition of the SOAS cata-
logue.276 Durham University Library has a much
smaller collection: its 8 Turkish MSS (2 in Chaghatay)
were described in 1960 by Eleazar Birnbaum in a
typed catalogue kept in the library.277
Many other British libraries possess some Turkish
MSS. Those which have appeared in printed catalogues
before 1960 will not concern us here. Pearson's Orien-
tal manuscript collections (pp. 303-320) provides some
general information and occasional details of most,
and a few useful articles about several collections have
appeared in the past decade. The Keeper of Manu-
scripts at the John Rylands Library, in describing to
274 Work cited in note 272, p. 34.
275 Idem, p. 34, 65. "Preliminary list of manuscripts in the
languages of Central Asia and Sanskrit, from the collections
made by Sir Marc Aurel Stein.... Typescript by L. D.
Barnett. 18 pp." 6 Kok Turkish and about 60 Uygur items.
276 London. University of London. School of Oriental and
African Studies [SOAS]. Catalogue of the School.... Bos-
ton, G. K. Hall, 1963- . Vol. 22: Catalogue of manuscripts
and microfilms (pp. 71-73); 3rd Supplement. 1979 (p. 808).
The descriptions are minimal.
277 SOAS has a xerox copy. In the Sudan Archive of the
School of Oriental Studies of the University of Durham
there is some Turkish material, none of it literary. Details
will be found in the typed List of Turkish manuscripts and
lithographs (4 pp.), prepared by Richard L. Hill (revised
1973). It consists mostly of 19th and 20th century official
documents.
306 Journal of the American Oriental Society 104.2 (1984)
Pearson the current status of the Oriental MSS in his
charge, noted that the Turkish ones total 183. Of
these, 166 were acquired in 1901 with the Bibliotheca
Lindesiana, and were more fully described in an un-
published catalogue (available at Rylands) than in the
published catalogue of 1898;27846 of the MSS were
recatalogued and described about ten years ago, in
more scholarly detail, by John Walsh of Edinburgh
University. His unpublished typescript is available at
the library. 16 Turkish MSS have never been catalogued.
In Oxford the vast majority of Turkish MSS are at
the Bodleian Library, and have been entered in the
excellent catalogue of E. Sachau and H. Ethe (1889-
1954).279 There are also a few Turkish MSS in various
Oxford Colleges. The 5 in Balliol College were briefly
described in the College's printed catalogue of 1963.280
Merton has 2 MSS and Christ Church just one.28' Most
of the Turkish MSS in Cambridge University Library
have long been catalogued, but 87 Turkish MSS still
remain to be described.282Of the 41 Turkish MSS in
the India Office Library of the Commonwealth Rela-
tions Office in London, 39 are described only on an
internal library handlist, but 2 (in Chaghatay) have
found a place in Ethe's printed Catalogue of the
Persian MSS.283
In the 1950s, before photo-copying machines became
easily available, Cyril S. Mundy, one of my former
teachers at the School of Oriental and African Studies
in London, would often lend his students MSS from his
rich private collection.284
278 Both by Michael Kierney: Catalogue of the Turkish
manuscripts belonging to the Earl of Crawford (1892: un-
published), and Bibliotheca Lindesiana: Handlist of Oriental
manuscripts, Arabic, Persian, Turkish. [Aberdeen] Privately
printed, 1898.
279 Twenty-four miniatures from several luxurious 15th and
16th century copies of Nava'Y's works now in the Bodleian
Library are reproduced in full colour in the album Ali~er
Navoil dostonlariga islangan rasmlar/ [Russian title] Minia-
tiury k poemam Alishera Navoi/[English title] Miniatures to
poems of Alisher Navoi, [ed.] Hamid Suleimon/Khamid
Suleiman. Tashkent, 1969.
280 Oxford University, Balliol College, Catalogue of the
manuscripts of Balliol College, Oxford. Comp'led by R. A. B.
Mynors. Oxford, 1963. (Mss nos. 269, 323, 324, 326, 374).
281 See J. D. Pearson, Oriental MSS, pp. 308-309.
282 Ibid., p. 311.
283 Ibid., p. 312.
284 "About 255 Turkish (including 23 non-Ottoman)" MSS
(ibid., p. 317). They are kept at his home in Tunbridge Wells,
England.
Small caches of MSS are also maintained in some-
times unexpected places in Britain. The Royal Library
at Windsor, has 2 MSS, both early copies of Chaghatay
works by Navd'T copied by the master-calligrapher of
the 15th and 16th centuries, Sultan 'AlT MashhadT.
They are included in a 3 page typescript List of
Manuscripts in the Royal Library compiled by G. M.
Meredith-Owens about 1967.285 A small seminary near
Durham, Ushaw College, possesses only one Turkish
MS but it is unique and important: a 16th century
group of five epic poems (jamse) by the early Otto-
man historian BihitT.286 The National Library of Scot-
land in Edinburgh has 8 MSS, and there are a few also
in Liverpool University Library and Selly Oak Col-
leges, Birmingham.287The MS collection at the Depart-
ment of Semitic Studies at Leeds University includes
seven Turkish MSS, described in the recent printed
catalogues,288and in more general terms, in an article
by their cataloguer, M. J. L. Young.289The Wellcome
Institute for the History of Medicine, London, has
"23 Turkish manuscripts, mainly on medicine, astrol-
ogy and magic.
Private collections of art sometimes contain Islamic
MSS with miniature paintings, and their printed cata-
logues sometimes include descriptions by experts: the
Turkish MSS in the Keir collection are analyzed by
285 They are NavVT's Hamsa (Ms A/8 copied 897/1492)
and his Drvan (undated). 20 other Islamic Mss (mostly
Persian) are included in this checklist which is kept in the
Royal Library, Windsor (copies with G. Meredith-Owens
and E. Birnbaum). A page of the Windsor Hamsa is repro-
duced in color as plate 5 of the album cited in note 279
above.
286 Identified by E. Birnbaum in 1954. A very detailed
description (1957) by V. L. Menage of the School of Oriental
and African Studies is available in typescript at Ushaw
College.
287 See Pearson, Oriental MSS, pp. 317-320.
288 Leeds University. Department of Semitic Studies. Cata-
ulogue of the Oriental manuscripts Fas. 1-9 Leeds, Dept. of
Semitic Studies, University of Leeds, 1958-80. The Turkish
MSS are described in fasc. 8 (1980) by M. J. L. Young.
289 M. J. L. Young, "Arabic and Turkish manuscripts in
the Leeds Oriental Manuscript Collection" in British Society
for Middle Eastern Studies Bulletin, vol. 7, no. 2 (1980),
pp. 123-131, particularly pp. 129-130. One additional MS,
partly in Turkish, is described on p. 126.
290 Allen Nigel, "The oriental collections in the Wellcome
Institute for the History of Medicine, London," in Journal of
the Royal Asiatic Society, 1981 no. 1, p. 13.
 BIRNBAUM: Turkish Manuscripts: Cataloguing Since 1960
G. M. Meredith-Owens, many accompanied by illu-
strations.29'
London is the major centre for auctions of Islamic
art. Turkish MSS which contain miniatures and other
illuminations are frequently auctioned by such firms
as Sotheby's (Sotheby Parke Bernet) and Christie's.
The illustrated catalogues of the auctioneers are well
worth examining since they often provide the only
printed information on such MSS. The descriptions in
them generally indicate enthusiasm, and sometimes a
greater knowledge of art than of Islamic studies and
Turkish. A number of British book dealers issue
catalogues offering Turkish and other MSS for sale
from time to time. Those issued by S. Ewart should
be singled out as being particularly informative, schol-
arly and well-illustrated.292J. Thornton and Son of
Oxford occasionally advertise Turkish manuscripts
for sale.293
Islamic MSS have also been sold from time to time
by the firm of Luzac, from their bookshop facing the
British Museum in London. The important private
collection of 446 MSS gathered by A. G. Ellis (1858-
1942), who had served as a librarian at both the India
Office Library and the British Museum, was offered
for sale in 1945 in a printed catalogue: in it each MS
was briefly described by A. J. Arberry. There were
some important items among the 21 Turkish MSS
included,293abut the collection was sold piecemeal.
291 The Keir collection: Islamic
painting and the arts of the
book. [By] B. W. Robinson, Ernst J. Grube, G. M. Meredith-
Owens ... Ed. B. W. Robinson, London, Faber, 1976 (par-
ticularly pp. 223-230 and plates).
292 S. Ewart, 3 Kensington Park Gardens, London, W. 11.
His catalogues: The Islamic world (issued ca. March, 1979);
East- West Miscellany (ca. January, 1980); Manuscripts, cal-
ligraphy, books and miniatures from Islam . .. (ca. March,
1982).
293 E.g., A catalogue of Turkish manuscripts and
books.
Catalogue no. 362. (December, 1973): 59 Turkish MSS, de-
scribed pp. 1-8.
293 Luzac and Co. [booksellers]. A Catalogue of the
Library
of the late A. G. Ellis. London, Luzac. Pt. 1, 1943, pt. II,
1944; "pt. III, comprising a fine collection of manuscripts ...
and books, 1945" ( = Bibliotheca Orientalis, XLIII-XLV).
The MSS are described on pp. 4-35. The Turkish ones are: M
30, 31, 71, 76, 77, 87, 90, 97, 99, 100, 121, 127, 213, 227, 292,
315, 352, 353, 356, 393, 409. While the present survey takes
1960 as its approximate starting date, the Ellis catalogue,
though earlier, is noted here precisely because it has been
almost ignored in bibliographies.
307
IRELAND
Sir Alfred Chester Beatty assembled in Dublin a
huge collection of fine manuscripts, both western and
oriental, which he later presented to the people of
Ireland. Since he was especially interested in the book
arts and calligraphy, the Turkish MSS in the collection
are particularly rich in MSS with miniatures. Vladimir
Minorsky compiled a handsome Catalogue of Turkish
MSS in 1958 of 93 MSS, some in Persian and Arabic
but considered "Turkish" for reasons of their artistic
style, illumination or calligraphy.294A catalogue of
the remaining 65 Turkish MSS has not yet been printed,
but they are described in a typescript available at the
library, headed "Supplementary Handlist, second
draft"compiled by G. M. Meredith-Owens about 1967.
This includes details of 64 MSS in Ottoman Turkish
(some containing several works), and one in Chagha-
tay (a fine copy by Sultan 'AlT Mashhad! of Nava'T's
Gard'ib al-sikar) and there are 9 calligraphic speci-
mens.295
THE NETHERLANDS
Leiden University Library houses the vast majority
of Islamic MSS in the Netherlands (Holland) including,
on permanent loan, the oriental MSS of the Nether-
lands Academy. The collections have been built up
over a period of four centuries and continue to grow
steadily. Since the catalogues published by R. P. A.
Dozy and others between 1851 and 1877296 which
included descriptions of 209 Turkish MSS, and by
P. de Jong in 1862 giving details of another 37,297
294 Dublin. Chester Beatty Library. Catalogue of the Tur-
kish manuscripts and miniatures by V. Minorsky. Dublin,
1958. Six of the MSS are also described (more briefly but with
occasional additional details) in Selected manuscripts from
the Chester Beatty Library, exhibited by Princeton University
Library, February 28 to April 30, 1967.
295 According to J. D. Pearson, "from information supplied
by the Librarian, it can be stated that there are. . . 82
Turkish [MSs]which are not as yet catalogued." (J. D. Pear-
son, Oriental manuscripts, p. 248) The Meredith-Owens
Handlist also describes 16 Persian MSS and one Kurdish. The
total of Turkish, Persian and Kurdish MSS is therefore 82.
Pearson's statement should be corrected accordingly.
296 Leiden. Rijksuniversiteit. Bibliotheek. Catalogus codicum
orientalium Bibliothecae Academiae Lugduno Batavorum. 6
vols. Leiden, 1851-77.
297 Catalogus codicum orientalium Bibliothecae Academiae
Regiae Scientiarum ... ed. P. de Jong. Leiden, 1862.
 308 Journal of the American Oriental Society 104.2 (1984)
many Turkish MSShave been acquired and "the collec-
tion now comprises around 500 volumes" according
to J. J. Witkam, the Library's Keeper of Oriental
Manuscripts.298This library bought "the splendid col-
lection of Turkish manuscripts of Franz Taeschner
(1896-1967) which was offered for sale [by Brill] in
1970" and seems to comprise about 123 MSS.299
The famous orientalist bookselling and publishing
firm E. J. Brill of Leiden from time to time issues sale
catalogues which include Turkish MSS.Some of these
catalogues are excellently done by academics, and
may even be copiously illustrated.300The company is
willing to inform serious scholars who request infor-
mation on who purchased a particular MSor collec-
tion.
BELGIUM
Belgian libraries contain a small number of Turkish
MSS,the majority probably in the Bibliotheque royale
Albert ler in Brussels, where the total seems to be
about 50. In the reading room a typed list entitled
Bibliothque royale de Belgique. Cabinet des manu-
scrits. Manuscrits orientaux may be consulted. On
p. 33 the call numbers of supposedly Turkish MSS are
298 J. J. Witkam, "The Middle Eastern holdings of the
Library of the University of Leiden," in British Society for
Middle Eastern Studies Bulletin, vol. 8, no. 1 (1981), pp. 60-
64, particularly p. 162.
299 P. S. van Koningsveld and Q. al-Samarrai, (comp.),
Localities and dates in Arabic manuscripts. Descriptive cata-
logue of a collection of Arabic manuscripts in the possession
of E. J. Brill = Catalogue no. 500: A collection of Arabic
(and a few Turkish and Persian) manuscripts. Leiden, 1978,
p. vi and footnote 4. The Taeschner MSS bear accession
numbers Cod. Or. 12.338 through 12.464.
300 Particularly noteworthy are: (a) Catalogue 500 of 1978
(see preceding note) containing 271 MSS, the majority written
in Turkey but only a minority in Turkish. "This collection
was sold in its entirety to a purchaser who prefers to remain
anonymous" (Introduction to Catalogue 514 (see below),
p. 3; (b) Catalogue no. 510, Islamic collections, Majdmi'
isidmiyah for sale at E. J. Brill [1980]. It included 29 MSS of
fetvd collections, mostly by Turkish jurists, 47 poetical MSS
including 2 autographs and 2 dictionaries; (c) Catalogue
514, Oriental manuscripts offered for sale by E. J. Brill.
Leiden, 1981. It contains 128 MSS in Turkish, some rare
works with copy dates ranging from the 15th through the
20th century (pp. 59-96 plus plates, items 143-264).
given, but no details of author or title of the works.
The list functions as a kind of index to the library's
large general card catalogue, in which some minimal
information is given on the authors, titles, subject and
physical make-up of each MS. In fact, the card cata-
logue is quite unsatisfactory for these MSS. A compari-
son of the some of the MSS with their cards revealed
the latter to be not merely sketchy, but often mis-
leading when not quite wrong on major points such as
author or title. Some of the call numbers in the typed
list lacked the corresponding cards in the catalogue,
and others turned out to be not in Turkish. The
library staff knows of no plans to produce a printed
catalogue of the Turkish MSS.
A loan exhibition of Arabic MSS was held in the
library in 1968-69, and its printed catalogue describes
work in Arabic done by Turkish calligraphers, and
also gives information on an Arabic-Turkish MS bor-
rowed from Algiers.30'
FRANCE
The Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris has acquired
some 180 Turkish MSS since Blochet published the
catalogue in 1932-33.302 Those interested in finding
out more about them must consult the register of new
acquisitions, a handwritten ledger kept in the Biblio-
theque Nationale; they are accessioned as Suppl. turc,
nos. 1420 to 1599. Two of them contain illustrations
and are therefore briefly described in a recent article
by A. Berthier and D. Halbout du Tanney,303which is
30' Maktiub bilyad: manuscrits arabes a la BiblioWhque
Albert ler. Catalogue par Jan Bauwens, Bruxelles, Biblio-
theque royale, 1968, is an illustrated guide describing mainly
Arabic MSS but there are a few in Persian and other lan-
guages. The MSS were selected from six libraries, 3 in Belgium
and 3 abroad. The items of Turkish interest are a Qur'an
with Turkish translation from the Algerian National Library
(no. 17); the most notable item by Turkish calligraphers is a
Qur'an now in the Royal Library in Brussels, commissioned
by the Grand Vezir Sokollu Mehmed Pasha for his own
mosque in Istanbul (no. 12, illustrated pl. XIV-XV).
302 Paris. Bibliotheque Nationale, Catalogue des manuscrits
turcs, par E. Blochet. 2 vols. Paris, 1932-33.
303 Annie Berthier, and Dominique Halbout du Tanney,
"Liste des manuscrits a peintures du fond turc de la Biblio-
theque Nationale de Paris," in Turcica, t. XIII (1981), pp.
216-241. Only two are post-Blochet mss; they are musical,
and very brief details are given (pp. 219, 237).
 BIRNBAUM: Turkish Manuscripts: Cataloguing Since 1960
devoted entirely to a listing of all the 44 illuminated
Turkish MSSin the Bibliothbque Nationale. They give
more details about them than Blochet did in his
catalogue, and a valuable bibliography of writings on
the artistic aspects of each of these MSS,written by
specialists.
Some of the library's finest Turkish MSSwere in-
cluded in its 1983 exhibition, Vers l'Orient. . . , which
surveyed French contacts with the Turks from the
earliest times until the end of the 19th century. The
illustrated exhibition catalogue, addressed to the edu-
cated non-specialist, concentrated on the cultural
significance of the Turkish MSS.303a Only three of
those referred to were not described in Blochet's
catalogue. 303b
GERMANY
The Verzeichnis der Orientalischen Handschriften
in Deutschland (VOHD) plans to include ultimately
all previously uncatalogued MSSin Germany, whether
in the Federal Republic (Bundesrepublik, West Ger-
many) or in the German Democratic Republic (DDR,
East Germany). Volumes 1-4 of Tiirkische Hand-
schriften have been thoroughly evaluated in the first
portion of this article304and volume 5 (the second by
Dr. Hanna Sohrweide) will be reviewed in a later
issue of this journal.305All the MSScatalogued in these
5 volumes are in the Federal Republic, with the
exception of two MSS,still in the pre-World War II
Deutsche Staatsbibliothek in East Berlin. The vast
majority of MSSoriginally in that library were moved
during the war to Marburg and Tubingen for safe-
keeping, but have since been brought to West Berlin,
where they are housed in the Staatsbibliothek Preus-
sischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, much to the chagrin of
303a
Vers lOrient . . . [Paris], Bibliotheque Nationale, 1983.
(Exposition, Galerie Mazarine, 16 mars-30 avril 1983). The
introduction is signed by Annie Berthier, who organized the
exhibition. The catalogue included 21 reproductions from
Turkish MSS.
303b Only Suppl. turc 1449 is briefly described (catalogue
no. 173); no information is given on the contents of Suppl.
turc 1430 and 1508 (nos. 127k and 175a).
304 E. Birnbaum, JAOS, vol. 103, no. 2 (April-June 1983),
pp. 413-420.
305 She is presently working on yet another volume of this
catalogue. (British Society for Middle Eastern Studies Bul-
letin, vol. 8ii, p. 139-146).
309
East Berlin's Staatsbibliothek. That library now
possesses only a dozen Turkish MSS, of which just two
have been yet described in the volumes of Turkische
Handschriften published so far.306
Klaus Schwarz has recently described briefly 34
Turkish MSS acquired in the past few years by the
Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz in West
Berlin,306a and is presently compiling volume 6 of
Thrkische Handschriften for VOHD.30b
The present situation regarding Turkish manuscript
holdings in East Germany has been described by
Helmut Nowka307 in a rather general account of the
collections in East Berlin, Dresden, Gotha, Griefswald,
Halle (three libraries), Jena, Leipzig and Rostock.
The 19th and early 20th century printed catalogues
must still be used for those in Dresden (1831), Gotha
(1864), Halle (Deutsche MorgenlAndischenGesellschaft
[DMG] 1881), and Archiv der Franckeschen Stiftungen
[ = Bibliothek des Hallischen Waisenhaus, 1876], and
Leipzig (1906). Only handwritten lists in the respective
libraries record a few extra Turkish MSS in East Berlin,
Deutsche Staatsbibliothek (10 MSS, recently purchased),
Griefswald (2 MSS); Halle (Bibliothek der DMG, 59
MSS; UniversitAts- und Landes-bibliothek Sachsen-
Anhalt, 2 Mss); Jena (Universitatsbibliothek, 11 MSS of
which 5 are very briefly described by Nowka.308The
largest number of uncatalogued Turkish MSS is in the
University Library of Leipzig, which has acquired 100
more to add to the 48 described in the 1906 catalogue
by Vollers. Nowka also supplies information on the
number of MSS from these libraries destroyed or lost
during World War II.
Germany'smajor commercial dealer in Islamic manu-
scripts is the bookseller and publisher Otto Harras-
sowitz of Wiesbaden, who occasionally publishes good
sale catalogues of MSS, professionally compiled, though
306 Bd. 4 (Gotz, IV, p. IX).
306a
K. Schwarz, "Tfirkische Handschriften in der Staats-
bibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz: Kurzer Oberblick und
Neuerwerbungen," Turcica, t.xiv, 1982, pp. 257-267.
306b See Ottoman Studies Directory, 3 [Compiled by Alan
Fisher]. East Lansing, Dept. of History, Michigan State
University, 1983, pp. 64-65.
307 Helmut Nowka, "Turkische Handschriften in den Biblio-
theken der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik," in Turcica,
tome XIII (1981) pp. 206-215; Asien Afrika Lateinamerika,
Bd. 8, no. 4 (1980) pp. 683-689.
308 The second MS must be the dictionary of HallmT, not
Hilml.
310 Journal of the American Oriental Society 104.2 (1984)
less informative than those of their colleagues Brill in
the Netherlands. Sometimes their offerings appear in
the form of pamphlets called Spezial-Listen;309or as
part of a more general sale catalogue containing mostly
printed books: a recent issue described 57 Turkish MSS
in a special section.310Occasionally a more elaborate
sale catalogue devoted exclusively to Mss has been
issued, complete with coloured and black-and-white
illustrations and cross-references (though without the
indexes which distinguished Brill's offerings).3" The
firm has been willing to inform scholars of the pur-
chasers of particular manuscripts.
SWITZERLAND
Swiss libraries possess rather limited numbers of
Turkish MSS.Pearson gives a useful conspectus in his
Oriental manuscripts in European and North Ameri-
can libraries.3"2Two libraries in Berne possess a few;
the single Turkish MS at the Bernische Historische
Museum was described somewhat vaguely in the
printed catalogue by M. D. Moinfar.313 Basel's Uni-
versitatsbibliothek boasts the largest collection: some
289 Turkish Mss of which 232 came in 1961 from the
collection of Professor R. Tschudi. A new survey of
all manuscripts at Basel3'14supplements Pearson's in-
formation: we are told that detailed descriptions of
309 A particularly rich example is Liste 12: Turkische Hand-
schriften (1968) which offered 137 MSS, some of considerable
rarity, copied between the 15th and 20th centuries.
310 Harrassowitz, firm. Wiesbaden. Islamic Studies. Har-
rassowitz Catalog 600 (1982): pp. 49-54: "Turkish Manu-
scripts."
311 Harrassowitz,firm. Wiesbaden. OrientalischeHandschrif-
ten. Turkische, persische und arabische HSS des XIV. bis
XIX. Jahrhunderts. Katalog 500. Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz
(1966). Includes 123 Turkish MSS (pp. 1-37), some of great
interest.
312 Pp. LI-LV; 282-284.
313 Mohammad Djafar Mofnfar [Muhammad Ja'far Mu'ln-
far], "Catalogue des manuscrits orientaux" in Jahrbuch des
Bernischen Historischen Museums in Bern, XLIII and XLIV
Jahrgang, 1963-1964, pp. 489-514. The Turkish MS, a prayer
book, is item 40, MS T 1, described p. 514; illustrated p. 513.
314 Martin Steinman. Die Handschriften der Universitats-
bibliothek Basel. Ubersicht uber die Bestande und deren
Erschliessung. Basel, 1979. (Publikationen der Universitats-
bibliothek Basel, 1) pp. 26-27. Tschudi had acquired most of
the MSS in Turkey before the First World War.
the Tschudi MSS were prepared between 1970 and 1973
by Hedwig Usbeck (now Djeddikar); the 57 previous
Turkish MSS were catalogued in 1944-45 by Fritz
Meier and completed by Gertrud Spiess. Plans to
publish a catalogue are not mentioned. About 14
Turkish MSS are included in an inventory made of
manuscripts at the Bibliotheque publique et universi-
taire of Geneva about a century ago by Theophile
Dufour.3"' Full descriptions of the 19 Turkish MSS at
the Zentralbibliothek of Zurich were made by Ludwig
Forrer, but remain unpublished.3'16
AUSTRIA
Since Gustav Fltigel's great catalogue of the Arabic,
Persian and Turkish MSS in the "Imperial and Royal
Court Library" of Vienna appeared in 1865-67, many
more Turkish manuscripts have been acquired, but
only now is a catalogue of them in preparation.3'7
Descriptions of some individual MSS have been cited
by scholars from time to time in scholarly articles in
various publications. There are also occasional exhibi-
tion catalogues. A recent example is that of an exhibi-
tion in the Austrian National Library (the successor
to the Imperial Library) describing 165 MSS, some
Turkish;3"8it includes many illustrations, but none of
the MSS are the new uncatalogued ones.
ITALY
Since the outstanding description of the Turkish
MSS in the Vatican collections by Ettore Rossi3"9only
one catalogue including Turkish MSS in Italy has been
published. In it Sergio Noja gives sketchy details of
the few Turkish items in the National Library of
315 Pearson, op. cit., p. LIV; 283.
316 Ibid., p. 284.
317 This good news is brought in the introduction to the
new Arabic catalogue: Vienna. Osterreichisches National-
bibliothek. Katalog der arabischen Handschriften .... Neu-
erwerbungen, 1868-1968. T1. 1. Von Helene Loebenstein.
Wien, 1970, p. [IX].
318 Vienna. Osterreichisches Nationalbibliothek. Kultur des
Islams. Ausstellung der Handschriften und Inkunabelsamm-
lung der csterreichischen Nationalbibliothek, 12 Juni- 11
Oki. 1980, Wien.
319 Vatican. Elenco dei manoscritti turchi delta Biblioteca
Vaticana... [By] Ettore Rossi. CittAdel Vaticano, 1953.
 BIRNBAUM: Turkish Manuscripts: Cataloguing Since 1960
Turin:320they are mostly works well-known from
other collections.
FINLAND
Finland has been linked with Turkish studies since
the development of the Finno-Ugrian theory. It has
more recently become the home of more than 1000
Kazan Tatar immigrants. A general survey of all the
"oriental" material in Finnish institutions has recently
been published by Harry Halen,32' a librarian in the
Asian and African section of Helsinki University
Library. It describes all the known Turkish MSSand
inscriptions. The grand total of only 21 items includes
not only MScodexes, fermans and letters in Ottoman,
Chaghatay and other Muslim Turkish languages, but
also some pre-Islamic tombstones and rubbings in
Old Turkish, and (Old) Uygur Buddhist texts.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
The most useful starting point for locating MSSin
the United States and Canada is Thomas J. Martin's
North American collections of Islamic Manuscripts.322
In it institutions are listed state by state, and for
Canada, province by province, and within each state
320 Turin. Biblioteca Nazionale di Torino. Catalogo dei
manoscritte orientali... 1. I manoscritti arabi, persiani e
turchi, red. da Sergio Noja. Roma, 1974.
321 Harry Hal6n, Handbook of Oriental collections in Fin-
land. (Manuscripts, xylographs, inscriptions and Russian
minority literature). Bangkok, London, 1978. (= Scandi-
navian Institute of Asian Studies, Monograph series, no. 31).
322 Boston, G. K. Hall, c. 1977. Details of a small number
of Islamic MSS (including very few of Turkish interest) in six
American collections, which were not mentioned by Martin,
are given by Miroslav Krek, "More Islamic manuscripts in
North American collections," pp. 5-13. Martin did report 12
Turkish MSS in the Lilly Library at Indiana University in
Bloomington, Ind., without details of titles. Robert Dankoff
has kindly given me brief information on two of them. (1)
Misc. Mss 1631/1632. "Tezkire-i 5errf Baba TUrki"; copy
1041/1631-32. Contents: short mewnevis and kasTdes; (2)
Misc. Mss 1655. Mulld Misklin. Ma'aric un-nubuvve. Kitdb-z
Alti Parmak. [Translated from Persian by Mehmed Alti
Parmak (d. 1033/1624). The second work is a well known
biography of Muhammad; cf. Topkapt Palace's Catalogue of
Turkish Mss, Nos. 1064-1071].
311
or province, city by city. The number of MSS (sub-
divided by language) is indicated by the compiler; the
few existing published catalogues are usually men-
tioned. Martin obtained his information by sending
questionnaires to the North American libraries listed
in J. D. Pearson's Oriental Manuscripts in Europe
and North America323seven years earlier but he has
not entirely superseded the American section of Pear-
son's work. Among several useful features of the latter
which Martin excluded is information on private col-
lections. Further, he sometimes fails to note already
published information on collections which he does
mention; for example, the checklist of Harvard Uni-
versity's Turkish MSS was in fact printed in 1975.324
The most remarkable case of growth in North
America is at the Research Library of the University
of California at Los Angeles, for which Martin records
"Turkish 902; uncatalogued 2397, mostly Turkish."
That library's Near Eastern bibliographer, Dunning S.
Wilson, wrote in 1980 that there were "approximately
3000 Turkish manuscripts. A bibliographic checklist
. . . is now in the process of final editing prior to
publication. The checklist is a listing of works by title,
with an author index. Each entry will contain basic
information identifying the work, author, and a de-
scription of the text copy itself."325
J. D. Pearson reported that there were 178 Turkish
manuscripts at Yale University Library (incorporating
also the small collection of the American Oriental
Society). A few years later, in 1977, Martin reported
323 See above p. 310.
324 He noted (p. 35): "In 1974 Mrs. Emel Tekin prepared a
typescript checklist of 37 Turkish MSS in Houghton" Library
at Harvard University, but did not apparently know that it
had appeared in published form in MELA [Middle East
Librarians' Association] Notes, no. 5, April 1975, pp. 4-6.
David Partington, Middle East Librarian at Harvard, men-
tions that "a few additional (Turkish) mss. have been sub-
sequently acquired." (D. H. Partington, "Turkish collections
in the U.S.: The Harvard College Library"in Turkish Studies
Association Bulletin, vol. 5, no. 2 (1981), pp. 20-21.
325 D. S. Wilson, "Turkish collections in the U.S.: The
UCLA Research Library" Turkish Studies Association Bul-
letin, vol. 4, no. 2 (1980), p. 17. In 1974 Muhammad TaqT
DAnishpazhuh of Tehran University Library prepared a rapid
listing of most of the Mss and it is now being rechecked and
revised before printing. Those MSs which he did not have
time to list will probably not be included in the forthcoming
checklist (private letter from D. S. Wilson, Feb. 16, 1981).
312 Journal of the American Oriental Society 104.2 (1984)
415, including "206 uncatalogued, mostly Rescher col-
lection." Yale had recently bought the Islamic MSS of
Oskar Rescher (1883-1972). Leon Nemoy published a
limited but workmanlike checklist of the Rescher MSS
in 1972, and remarked that the Turkish "group has
been growing particularly rapidly in recent years and
is now nearing the three hundred mark" (p. 65).326
Nemoy's list gives only the barest details essential for
identification (to the extent that they appear on the
Mss): Author, title, date of copy, reference to other
copy recorded in a standard bibliography. The Turkish
MSS are listed in a separate sequence (though arbi-
trarily by accession number), but there are cumulative
indexes of authors, and of titles, in which Turkish MSS
and their authors are marked "T." Nemoy's introduc-
tion includes three paragraphs on special features of
these Turkish Mss: (a) "uncommon (some possibly
unrecorded) works"; (b) early dated copies (before
A.H. 1000/ 1591); (c) some noteworthy texts."
The University of Michigan Library's collection of
some 120 Turkish MSS is largely but not entirely listed
in an ancient typed "inventory"compiled in 1925 and
available in the library.327
Princeton University Library possesses at least 336
Turkish manuscripts of which only 35 were included
in a printed catalogue in 1939.327a In the introduction
326 Leon Nemoy, "The Rescher collection of Arabic, Persian
and Turkish manuscripts"in Yale University Library Gazette,
vol. 47 (1972) pp. 57-99; particularly p. 60 (special features
of the Turkish MSS);pp. 79-87 (Turkish MSS checklist); 87-99
(indexes). During his lifetime, Rescher had sold many MSS to
major libraries (e.g., Vienna, Berlin, the Vatican, the Uni-
versity of California at Los Angeles). The working collection
that he had built up during his more than half a century's
residence in Istanbul was bought for Yale University Library.
327 Catalogue of the Oriental manuscripts in the Library of
the University of Michigan. First report: An inventory of the
Abd al-Hamid collection of Arabic, Persian and Turkish
manuscripts, nos. 162-450 of the Oriental MSS in the Library
of the University of Michigan. June 1925. [Compiled by]
W. H. Worrell. Turkish MSS, nos. 367-418; Mixed [largely
Turkish] nos. 419-428; Arabic-Turkish, nos. 443-446; Arabic-
Persian-Turkish, 447-448; Persian-Turkish, no. 449; Turki
[i.e., Chaghatay] no. 450. The library also possesses another
9 Turkish and quite a number of mixed (Arabic with Turkish
or Persian with Turkish) MSS. See Martin North American...
pp. 40-41.
327aPrinceton,New Jersey. Princeton University Library.
Descriptive Catalog of the Garrett Collection of Persian,
to his masterly yet incredibly concise catalogue (1977)
of the Yahuda MSS327b at Princeton, Rudolf Mach (d.
1981) noted that this particular group contained 301
Turkish MSS327c but he did not include them in his
catalogue. It is possible that there are further Turkish
MSS among some 2,000 MSS acquired since 1942.327d
Mach's catalogue includes quite a number of Arabic
texts which are accompanied by Turkish translation
or commentary, but these can only be located by
reading through the catalogue as a whole. Although it
is a catalogue of Arabic MSS, C. F. Beckingham has
rightly pointed out that Princeton's Yahuda "collec-
tion is of particular importance for the study of
Ottoman Islam and of Arabic culture in the Turkish
speaking provinces of the Ottoman Empire. Many of
the authors represented have nisbes like Anqarawl,
Bosnawl, Bursawl, Edirnewl, Tuqdti, etc."327e At the
1964 meeting of the American Oriental Society, Jon
E. Mandaville read a paper entitled "A preliminary
survey of the Ottoman MSS at Princeton," in which he
gave an account of a selection from those in the
Yahuda collection, and distributed a three-page list
containing some 50 MSS with call numbers, grouped
by subject. The paper seems never to have been
printed.
The New York Public Library has, it seems, no
more than three Turkish Mss:catalogue cards describ-
ing them are published in photocopy in the N. Y.
P. L.'s catalogue of manuscripts, reproduced in the
usual G. K. Hall format.328
Turkishand Indic Manuscripts ... by Mohammad E. Mogha-
dam and Yahya Armanjani. Princeton, 1939.
327bOnthe present location of other MSS from Yahuda's
collection, see the section "Israel and Palestine," noted in Part
3 of this series of articles, JA OS, vol. 103.4 (1983), pp. 704-06.
327CPrinceton,New Jersey. Princeton University Library.
Catalogue of Arabic Manuscripts (Yahuda section) in the
Garrett Collection... by Rudolf Mach. Princeton, 1977,
p. [vii].
327dSeeEric Ormsby, "Princeton University microfilming
project" in MELA Notes, 17 (May 1979), p. 12, and T. J.
Martin, North American Collections, p. 50.
327eC.F. Beckingham's review of Mach's catalogue in Jour-
nal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1978, no. 1, p. 79.
328 New York. New York Public Library. Research Libra-
ries. Dictionary catalog of the Manuscript Division. 2 vols.
Boston, 1967. Vol. 2, p. 406 (one illuminated DTvdn of
Navd'i, copied 982/1574-75; Ahmedi's Iskenderndme,copied
15- 16th century; T&Tr6-iIskender by 'Abdfirrahman el-
KddirT).
 BIRNBAUM: Turkish Manuscripts: Cataloguing Since 1960
Manuscripts of Turkish interest are sometimes to
be found in unexpected places. In the Library of the
Jewish Theological Seminary of America, in New
York City, there are at least two MSS containing
Turkish poetry in Hebrew script. There is no catalogue,
but they are entered in one of the brief checklists to
the microfilms of the library's wonderful manuscript
collections.328aJTS MS no. 1317 contains about 39
songs in Turkish, in most cases headed by a note of
the musical mode. The script, Sefardi mashait (semi-
cursive), was written by several different hands, prob-
ably in the 17th and 18th centuries. The songs are to
be found on scattered blank pages in a 17th century
Hebrew MS of She 'erit Yisrael mi-Zemirot Yisrael,
Hebrew religious poems by the 16th century Jewish
poet, hymn-writer and religious scholar, Israel Najdra
(born Damascus, died Gaza). There is no indication in
the Turkish poems that he was their author. The
rendering into Hebrew script is purely phonetic, and
there is every indication that the Turkish was not
transcribed from a written text in Arabic script, e.g.,
Arabic /1/ and /h/ are routinely rendered by Hebrew
he, and zd by Hebrew zayin. A thorough study of
these texts could contribute to a knowledge of the
historical phonology of Turkish. Linguistically they
indicate a mixture of dialects, e.g., the first person
singular pronoun appears as both /myn/ and /bynl.
It remains to be established whether these are Jewish
compositions in a Jewish Turkish or merely Muslim
Turkish verses in Hebrew script.328b
The other JTS MS, no. 1412, is an oblong notebook
consisting of 12 leaves entirely in the cursive mashait
Hebrew script called Kurdic, used in northern parts of
Iran and Iraq. (I am indebted to my father Dr.
Solomon A. Birnbaum for the paleographic examina-
tion.) Several hands have written down poetry, notes,
and occasional jottings. Some are in Persian, but the
majority are in a south-western (i.e., non-Central
Asian) form of Turkish. On one page there is a dated
note about the conversion of a Jew to Shicite Islam in
1702.328c
328a New York. Jewish Theological
Seminary of America.
Library. A Reel Guide to the Poetry and Belles Lettres
Collection, Reels 1-26, from the Library of The Jewish
Theological Seminary of America. Ann Arbor, University
Microfilms International, 1977.
328b The Turkish poems appear on pp. 231-238, 252-258,
261-269.
328c Fol. lOb, (bottom) bears a note in the Hebrew language:
"Me'ir [?}-Babli [the Babylonian, i.e. Iraqi] entered the
313
Many illuminated Turkish MSShave been acquired
by North American public and private collections, in
particular by museums and art galleries, and by private
art collectors, as the auction catalogues of prestige
houses show. Some items have been described in art
periodicals and there are references also in Martin's
North American collections. It is difficult to track
down these MSS,even by devoting time and effort. The
great art collections have been particularly remiss in
publishing catalogues of their Islamic MSS.329
Among private collectors, Edwin Binney, 3rd has in
recent years amassed a large number of Turkish MSS
and objects d'art, and issued three descriptive exhibi-
tion catalogues between 1973 and 1979.330 These are
hardly substitutes for formal academic catalogues of
the contents rather than the form, but they are still
welcome in making the location of these MSSknown.
CANADA
Turkish and Islamic studies were not taken up
seriously in Canada until after World War II, although
a few Turkish and other Islamic MSShad found their
way into several libraries earlier. Even now, the num-
ber of Turkish MSSremains quite small. The University
idolatory (cabodah zarah) named Imam, which was on the
10th of the month of Heshvan, in the year 5463 of the
Creation" [= November 2, 1703]. Presumably this refers to a
Jewish convert to Imami Shicite Islam, the majority religion
of Persia.
The Reel Guide mentioned in note 328a above describes
another JTS MS, no. 1351, as a "Collection of poems in
Judeo-Turkish ... 20th century." An examination of the MS
showed not a Turkish text, but religious poems in Hebrew
(some with authors' names and tunes indicated); the script is
very cursive 20th century Sefardic.
329 New York Metropolitan Museum of Art's Catalogue of
the collection of Persian manuscripts, including also some
Turkish ... prepared by A. V. Williams Jackson ... New
York, 1965, is merely a reprint of the 1914 catalogue. (It
describes two Nava'! Mss). There is no mention of the
additional MSS acquired since 1914.
330 Edwin Binney, 3rd. Turkish treasuresfrom the collection
of Edwin Binney, 3rd. Text and catalogue by E. Binney, 3rd.
Portland, Oregon, Portland Art Museum, 1979. Edwin Bin-
ney, 3rd, Turkish miniature paintings from the collection of
Edwin Binney 3rd. New York, Metropolitan Museum, 1973,
and a supplement, Edwin Binney, 3rd. Other Turkish trea-
suresfrom the Binney Collection. Los Angeles, 1974.
314 Journal of the American Oriental Society 104.2 (1984)
of Toronto Library has about 15,33' the Royal Ontario
Museum in Toronto a few illuminated pages,332and
McGill University some 31 MSS, divided among three
"'3 Fourteen Turkish MSS are represented in a card cata-
logue in the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library of the
University of Toronto Libraries. 5 of these are 20th century
hand copies of older MSS. A large uncatalogued collection of
Arabic MSS includes at least one more in Turkish, and there
may be a handful of others in it.
332 Two fragments of MSS in Turkish: (1) MS 970.4.3, a
"Turkishtranslation of the Shah Nameh," miniature "Rustam
mounting Rakhsh"; 1 leaf, including text; miniature from
about second half of the 16th century; (2) uncatalogued
Nava'!, Drvan. 2 leaves containing 2 miniatures and small
portion of the Chaghatay text, from gazels. A Turkish copyist,
Mehmed b. Huseyn, pupil of the famous calligrapher Mehmed
Rdsim (d. 1169/1765-6), was the scribe of an illuminated
Arabic MS of Dala'il al-hayrat by Muhammad al-JazulT(Ms
967.271). I thank my colleague, Professor Lisa Golombek,
West Asian curator at the Royal Ontario Museum for this
information.
libraries.333None of these MSS are described in printed
catalogues.
The largest collection in the country belongs to the
writer of these lines (Eleazar Birnbaum, Professor,
Department of Middle East and Islamic Studies, Uni-
versity of Toronto). It contains about 100 Turkish
items, some rare, in copies from the 14th to the 20th
century. It is hoped that a handlist will be published
at some time in the future. In the meantime, several
individual MSS have been cited by the writer in various
scholarly articles, and one complete MS has appeared
in a facsimile edition.334
.33 Martin records 24 Turkish MSS ("mainly history") at the
Institute of Islamic Studies, 5 at the McLennan Library (plus
5 framed leaves), and two in the Osler (Medical) Library.
334 "The Book of Advice" by King Kay-Kd'Qs ibn Iskandar.
The earliest Old Ottoman Turkish version of his Kdbtisname.
Text in facsimile from the unique 14th century manuscript,
together with a study of the text and a select vocabulary, by
Eleazar Birnbaum. [Cambridge, Mass.] Harvard University
Printing Office, 1981 (Sources of Oriental Languages and
Literatures, 6).