Arabic, Persian and Gujarati Manuscripts: The Hamdani Collection in the Library of the Institute of Ismaili Studies

The Muhammad Ali Hamdani Collection in the Library of the Institute of Ismaili Studies represents a large segment of the library collected over seven generations by an eminent family of scholars from the Da'udi Bohra community in India and the Yemen. The largest part of the manuscripts are of Ismaili religious writings, but there are also a good number of interesting books of general Islamic, or indeed secular content, and these give a rare insight into the whole range of culture of a learned family of Indian religious scholars. The overwhelming majority of the books are written in Arabic, but there are also a small number in Persian and in Bohra Gujarati (Gujarati in Arabic script). Most of the manuscripts were produced in India, but some of the most interesting ones are from the Yemen, the ancestral home of the Hamdani clan. Francois de Blois here provides an invaluable catalogue of the collection. He provides detailed descriptions of the manuscripts and of their contents and features. His introduction offers a comprehensive history of the Hamdani family. This is a major contribution to Islamic textual studies.