Social Codicology - (Leiden Studies in Islam and Society) (Paperback)

About the Book

This study includes a wide range of contributions on the materiality and social practices of book copying, consuming, collecting, storing, venerating, discarding and preserving, both in historical and contemporary societies, stretching from Mauritania to Yemen, Kerala, and Malaysia.

Book Synopsis

This study includes a wide range of contributions on the materiality and social practices of book copying, consuming, collecting, storing, venerating, discarding and preserving, both in historical and contemporary societies, stretching from Mauritania to Yemen, Kerala, and Malaysia. The volume consists of contributions made by academics, curators, and librarians both from the global North and the global South (India, Kenya, Syria, South Africa).

About the Author

Olly Akkerman is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Islamic Studies, Freie Universität Berlin. She is a specialist on Arabic manuscripts and Shi'i Islam. Her research examines the social life of manuscript repositories, and other forms of material culture among the Bohras in South Asia and the larger Western Indian Ocean. Her publications include The Bohra Manuscript Treasury as a Sacred Site of Philology: a Study in Social Codicology and a monograph: A Neo-Fatimid Treasury of Books in Gujarat. Arabic Manuscripts among the Alawi Bohras of South Asia (EUP, 2022).