By Jonathan Brockopp
Twenty-five years ago, I was sitting in the office of Dr. Aḥmad Khalīfa Muḥammad ʿAlī, director of manuscripts at al-Azhar University Library. I was there to see a manuscript that I had worked on for years but had never seen in person, and I was trying to explain to Dr. Aḥmad why looking at a microfilm copy just was not good enough. I presented my credentials, including a letter from the Fulbright Commission. "I don't read English," Dr. Aḥmad said.
"I'd be happy to have it translated for you," I replied.
"No," he said, "translate it for me now."
He gave me pen and paper, and I dutifully did my best to translate—without a dictionary or smartphone—the formal English of the letter. When I was done, he looked it over, and then he and his friend (an army officer to whom I was never introduced) proceeded to quiz me about my religious beliefs. I have to admit, I enjoyed our wide-ranging conversation, which included a detailed discussion of Christian views of the trinity, but after a few hours I asked about the manuscript… "bukra, in shāʾ Allāh," he replied. So I left, uncertain of what I would find the next day.
For my guest essays this month, I will revisit four manuscripts from the Mālikī legal tradition that I have used in the past. As my work has progressed, I think about the meaning of manuscripts quite differently from thirty-five years ago, when I began my PhD research. Or, more accurately, I now have a better way of explaining the scholarly meaning of the wonder and awe that I experienced in the late 1980s when I examined my first Arabic manuscripts.
My training led me to see manuscripts mostly as bearers of text, a way of adding complexity to the simplistic history of Islamic law that was told in survey texts. That view is not wrong! The Mālikī tradition in particular has been greatly enriched by new texts that have come to light, many of them with unique witnesses in the Kairouan collection of manuscripts. These texts give us a far better understanding of the intellectual milieu in which Mālik b. Anas (d. 179/795), al-Shāfiʿī (d. 204/820) and others were writing and, importantly, what their students did with their texts and their ideas.
But there is far more information in a manuscript than simply its text. For example, by the time I arrived at al-Azhar University Library to see fiqh Mālikī 1655, otherwise known as Kitāb Sharh Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam al-Kabīr by Abū Bakr al-Abharī (d. 375/985),[1] I knew the text very well. I first encountered this manuscript in 1993, when Miklos Muranyi lent me his photocopy to use for my dissertation research. On the basis of that and other manuscripts, I produced an edition and translation of two chapters, as well as a study of the text as a whole.
Muranyi's photocopies were poor reproductions of an old microfilm, but the actual paper was modern, of course, with each page uniform in its size, color, and quality, neatly compiled in one of those big German binders—a product of modern technology and efficiency. But knowing the text was not the same as knowing the manuscript. When I returned to Dr. Aḥmad's office on March 11, 2000, the Azhar manuscript was in front of me and showed all the marks of time, use, and abuse.
As I sat with the manuscript alone in his office, it was smaller than I expected (22 x 18 cm). I had been fooled by the standard A4 paper size of the photocopy (29.7 x 20 cm). I also noted its disarray. Stored in an old red folder that showed signs of insect damage, the manuscript itself was inside a yet older cover, with significant insect damage and rot. Remnants of an old leather binding were still to be found on the spine of one of the sections, probably one of many attempts to conserve this artifact.
Of the more than 400 pages, there appeared to be seven distinct pieces with many loose leaves mixed in, and in at least two cases, pages had fallen out and had been inserted incorrectly into the text. There is some debate about whether old manuscripts should be put back in order, or whether they are better left alone, since the disorder itself is information about its use.[2] I left it alone. The paper was old but of a high quality (though some thicker paper was used at one point). The edges appeared to have been cut to remove signs of wear, but this also eviscerated some marginal remarks; others were buried under glued pieces of paper, meant to strengthen the manuscript. All of these details, apparent only upon direct examination, bore witness to the age and use of the manuscript over time.
This history of use is also legible in the paratextual remarks. For example, two suggest that the manuscript may have been written in AH 405, two centuries earlier than the catalogue date of AH 604.[3] As I have come to understand, paratextual remarks are some of the most important aspects of a manuscript.[4] These notes from students, authors, owners, and other users give us a sense of the meaning of these texts for the community that produced and preserved them. Among the dozens of such notes in this manuscript, the two that are found in the margin of folio 328a, just before and after the title Kitāb al-Nikāḥ, tell us that Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. ʿĀqaba al-Andalusī collated and corrected this manuscript on the first day of Shaʿbān of the year 405 (January 30, 1015).[5]
A manuscript's importance does not necessarily correspond with its age, but in this case, a date of 405/1015 would mean that this manuscript was very likely compared with either al-Abharī's autograph, or with a copy made under his tutelage, since he died only forty years earlier. It would make this the oldest fiqh manuscript in al-Azhar's collection by far, and one of the oldest dated examples of literary paper in Egypt, where papyrus had only fallen out of fashion in the mid fourth century of the hijra. It seems unlikely, however, that this manuscript was produced in Egypt, not only because of the high quality of the paper, but because AH 405 was during the height of Fatimid power, the reign of al-Ḥākim bi-ʿAmr Allāh (r. 386–411/996–1021). Another paratextual remark offers some help here.
On the title page of each of the four sections, there is a note of endowment which is dated 604/1207–8. This is apparently the source of the catalog dating of the manuscript. The note states that this manuscript was given by al-Faqīr Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn b. Muḥammad b. Manṣūr b. Muḥammad b. Maʿṣūm al-ʿAṣimī "to the library (khizānat al-kutub) of the madrasa, known as al-Mālikiyya in the vicinity of the ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ mosque (al-masjid al-ʿatīq) in Cairo."[6] It was not to be sold or moved from its location.
Of course, this manuscript was moved, since it is now in al-Azhar's library, but its history is a bit clearer. One possibility is that it was first composed in Iraq, where al-Abharī was active, and in the circle of his students. For two hundred years, it may have remained in private hands within the small community of Mālikīs who remained active in Baghdad. By 604/1207–8, it found its way to Cairo. The endowment to the Mālikī madrasa near the ʿAmr mosque in 604/1207–8, during the reign of al-Mālik al-ʿĀdil al-Ayyūbī, suggests that this manuscript might have been part of an explicit Ayyūbid program of establishing libraries and madrasas for the four Sunnī schools of law in Cairo. How did this manuscript get to al-Azhar University Library? I do not know, but it is likely the result a more recent move to consolidate old manuscripts.
In my next essays, I will reflect more on the meaning of paper as an early writing support and on the modern caretakers of these manuscripts.
Notes:
[1] Fihris al-kutub al-mawjūda bi'l-maktabat al-Azhariyya (Markaz al-khidmat waʼl-abḥāth al-thaqafīya, 1990), 2:368; Fuat Sezgin, Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums (Brill, 1967), 1:468.
[2] I thank Kristine Rose-Beers and Davidson McLaren for our fruitful conversations on this topic.
[3] Fihris 2:368 states "qabla sannat 604," which Sezgin repeats (GAS 1:468).
[4] I am currently working on a collaborative project with Dr. Afef Hennachi to publish her survey of these remarks in the Kairouan collection of manuscripts.
[5] It has not been possible to further identify this scholar. At least one marginal remark (fol. 120b, unfortunately partly effaced) appears to be a result of al-Andalusī's work, as it notes a diversion (khilāf) from a different recension; here, the word khilāf is written with the dot below the fā, following typical maghribī style, in contrast with the rest of the manuscript.
[6] I also have not found any mention of this scholar in the standard sources.
Suggested Bluebook citation: Jonathan Brockopp, Four manuscripts from the Mālikī tradition: Al-Azhar, fiqh Mālikī 1655, Islamic Law Blog (Nov. 6, 2025), https://islamiclaw.blog/2025/11/06/four-manuscripts-from-the-maliki-tradition-al-azhar-fiqh-maliki-1655/.
Suggested Chicago citation: Jonathan Brockopp, "Four manuscripts from the Mālikī tradition: Al-Azhar, fiqh Mālikī 1655," Islamic Law Blog, November 6, 2025, https://islamiclaw.blog/2025/11/06/four-manuscripts-from-the-maliki-tradition-al-azhar-fiqh-maliki-1655/.
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