Organiser Dr Lucy Deacon writes:
The University of Edinburgh’s Manuscripts of the Islamicate World and South Asia collection (MIWSA) includes over 700 manuscripts, a significant number of which are rare examples of their kind. All are valuable as tangible cultural heritage. They are largely in Persian and Arabic, but the collection includes texts in Turkish, Sanskrit, Urdu and other South Asian languages, and encompasses a significant number of paintings from Mughal India. Over the last year provenance research has shown that, despite the collection having been slightly augmented through purchase, the vast majority of its contents came to the University through donations from the collections assembled by Scottish East India Company officials and soldiers, many of whom were alumni/ae. Some acquired dozens of manuscripts during their time in South Asia. Indeed, the collection evidences the weighty role played by the Scots in the British Empire. It is the legacy of the colonial period. This is not an unusual story; it is shared by most UK institutions that hold similar manuscript collections. Acquisitions made in colonial contexts include a spectrum of transactions with the host population, from presents and purchases, to plunder.
How can those of us working with such manuscripts and artworks today take the care and study of such materials into the future in a manner that acknowledges the multiple levels of history to which they are testament, and facilitates their relevance as a global resource? A symposium on May 11th and 12th, 2023, convened by Drs Mira Xenia Schwerda and Eleanor Lucy Deacon and held between the University of Edinburgh’s Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH) and the Centre for Research Collections (CRC), aimed to address just that. The first day of the event included the panels “Curating and Preserving Islamic Manuscripts Today”, “Buying, Selling and Dismembering Islamicate Manuscripts”, and “Colonial Contexts: Questions of Provenance and Related Material Evidence.” The panels of the second day looked at “The Texts and Subtexts of Early Islamicate Manuscripts” and “Creating and Reading Manuscripts as Devotional Materials.”
There were a total of nineteen presentations given by speakers from institutions across the British Isles, Ireland, continental Europe, the Middle East, and United States, independent researchers, and an antiquarian bookseller. The discussions dealt with the challenges encountered in this field, as well as sharing discoveries, strategies, solutions, and visions of what can and should be done. The event was hybrid and over the two days we were joined by 200 online participants in countries including Turkey, Indonesia, India and Japan.
Each day included a manuscript viewing, themed around the topics of the day, and featuring a range of items from amongst the Manuscripts of the Islamicate World and South Asia collection. This was a great privilege, enabling us to refer to concrete objects in our discussions, to examine them together, and learn from each other’s expertise. The atmosphere of the symposium was supportive and constructive, energizing all present to return to tackling their work with renewed vigour, and an improved network upon which to draw. The event was made possible through the support of the Susan Manning Workshop Fund, with additional financial support kindly being given by CRC, the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies (UoE), the Alwaleed Centre, and the Iran Society. As a future output, several of the researchers involved will create short videos, looking at the items in MIWSA collection for Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online, “...a free and open-access online platform of digital resources to aid the teaching of Islamic art, architecture, and visual culture.”
Image credit: Or Ms 729: Ottoman Pocket Rūznāmah (almanac) c. 1091 A.H. (1680 C.E.), Heritage Collections, University of Edinburgh Library, photographed by Mira Xenia Schwerda.