Manuscript and Cultural Heritage Policies: From a Public Library of the Late Ottoman Empire to the Syrian National Library

INVITATION to a LECTURE

Manuscript and Cultural Heritage Policies: From a Public Library of the Late Ottoman Empire to the Syrian National Library

Prof. Dr. Konrad Hirschler

University of Hamburg

Thursday, 13th March 2025, 19:00 at the Orient-Institut Istanbul

The recent regime change in Syria is impacting the cultural field, including cultural heritage policies on state institutions such as museums and libraries. This talk will focus on the National Library in Damascus (the ‘Ẓāhiriyya’), one of the largest manuscript libraries in the Arab lands. The contours of how new policy directions will impact the library, which abolished its previous name of Al-Asad National Library in December 2024, are still in the making. The talk will trace the starting point of the library as the Public Library in the late 19th century in the framework of the Ottoman drive to claim a central place for the state in what was increasingly seen as cultural heritage, including the emergence of the ‘manuscript’ as a distinct category of this heritage. Becoming the National (ahlī) Library during the colonial Mandate Period, it turned out to be one of the central cultural institutions during post-colonial state-building, especially with the directorship of Youssef Eche. The library increasingly claimed a position as the depository of all ‘national’ (waṭanī) written heritage well beyond Damascus and started to absorb regional collections from across Syria. The library is thus a fascinating focal point for reflecting on how the meaning and function of such an institution has developed during the transitions from imperial regime via colonial rule to the nation-state.

Konrad Hirschler is Professor of Middle Eastern History and director of the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures at Universität Hamburg. He was previously a professor of Middle Eastern History at SOAS (London) and Freie Universität Berlin. His research focuses on Northern Africa and Southwest Asia between c. 1200 and 1500 with a focus on social and cultural history (history of reading, the book and libraries) with an emphasis on material culture. He is amongst others author of books such as A Monument to Medieval Syrian Book Culture (2020), Plurality and Diversity in an Arabic Library (2016), The Written Word in the Medieval Arabic Lands (2012) and Medieval Arabic Historiography (2006), co-author of Owning Books and Preserving Documents in Medieval Jerusalem (2023) and Muʾallafat Yūsuf b. Ḥasan Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī (2021), as well as co-editor of The Library of Ahmad Pasha al-Jazzar (2025), Catalogue of the New Corpus of Documents from al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf in Jerusalem (2024), The Damascus Fragments (2020) and Manuscript Notes as Documentary Sources (2011).

This event is free of charge, the event language is English. To join this invitation please register. Photos or videos will be taken during the event. By participating, you agree that these may be used on the OII website, newsletter and social media. The event will not be recorded.

VENUE

Orient-Institut Istanbul

Galip Dede Cad. 65, Şahkulu Mah., TR – 34421 Istanbul

Tel: +90 212 293 60 67 oiist@oiist.org www.oiist.org

REGISTRATION