A Neo-Fatimid Treasury of Books
Arabic Manuscripts among the Alawi Bohras of South Asia
Winner of the 2024 BASAS Book Prize
Explores communities, manuscripts and their spaces of dwelling
- Utilises extensive archival and ethnographic fieldwork including unique access to the Alawi Bohra treasury of books
- Shows that the manuscript transmission of Fatimid manuscripts is as much alive today as centuries ago
- Argues that the Alawi Bohra community’s manuscript collection is fundamental to the construction of its Neo-Fatimid identity
- Shifts the focus from the study of manuscripts as material objects to the social framework within which they gain meaning through their interaction with readers
This book tells the story of a manuscript repository found all over the pre-modern Muslim world: the khizanat al-kutub, or treasury of books. The focus is on the undisclosed Arabic manuscript culture of a small but vibrant South Asian Shi’i Muslim community, the Bohras. It looks at how books that were once part of one of the biggest imperial book repositories of the medieval Muslim world, the khizanat of the Fatimids of North Africa and Egypt (909CE-1171CE) ended up having a rich social life among the Bohras across the Western Indian Ocean, starting in Yemen and ending in Gujarat. It shows how, under strict conditions of secrecy, and over several centuries, one khizana was turned into another, its manuscripts gaining new meanings in the new social realities in which they were preserved, read, transmitted, venerated and copied into. What emerged was a new distinctive Bohra Ismaili manuscript culture shaped by its local contexts.
Prologue: Fatimid Encounters across the Indian Ocean
Introduction: Reading Sijistani in Gujarat: the Bohra Treasury of Books
Inside the Treasury of Books: Reflections on the Ethnography of Manuscripts
Chapter 1. Community
1.1 Shrine Custodians
1.2 Secret Manuscripts and their Social Lives
1.3 Everyday Documents and the Organization of the Da’wa
1.4 An Indian Muslim Caste
Chapter 2. The Treasury of Books
2.1. Neither Library nor Archive: the Khizana as a Treasury of Books
2.2. A Lost Fatimid Khizana in Gujarat?
2.3. A Treasury of Books across the Indian Ocean
2.4. A Neo-Fatimid Treasury of Books in Baroda
Chapter 3. Secret Universe
3.1. Bohra Spaces and their Modes of Access
3.2. Access I: a Profane Topography of the Bohra Universe
3.3. Access II: a Sacred Geography of the Bohra universe
3.4. Gender, Etiquette, and Access
Chapter 4. Manuscript Stories
4.1. Secret Khizana, Social Manuscripts
4.2. Manuscripts of Alawi Provence
4.3. Manuscripts of Non-Alawi Provenance
4.4. Practices of Borrowing, Lending, and Appropriation
Chapter 5. The Materiality of Secrecy
5.1. Codicology of the Treasury of Books
5.2. Anatomy of Bohra Manuscripts: Paratexts from Head to Tail
5.4. Occult Paratexts: Batini Manuscript Culture
5.5. Magical Marginalia: Zahiri Manuscript Culture
Chapter 6. Script and Scribal Politics
6.1. A Modern Isma’ili Manuscriptorium
6.2. Script and the Language of Secrecy
6.3. Khizana Scripts
6.4. Scribal Politics
Conclusion: A Jihad for Books
Epilogue: A Case for Social Codicology
Using extensive archival and ethnographic fieldwork, Akkerman not only traces the temporal and geographic distribution of Isma’ili Arabic manuscripts, but also elucidates the social life of the khizana within the Isma’ili Bohra community.
Recognizing her personal integrity and her skills as a codicologist, the Alawi Bohra community of Baroda admitted Olly Akkerman into the sacred space of their Arabic manuscript collection, where, as she assisted with curatorial tasks, she was introduced to the community’s distinctive textual culture. This resulting account is a unique study in what she refers to as "social codicology."
Granted unprecedented access to the daily life and rituals of the leadership of the tightly-knit Alawi Bohra community, in particular their practice of manually copying esoteric manuscripts harking back to the Fatimid Caliphate, Olly Akkerman soon found that she was not permitted to reveal the contents of the manuscripts. Out of her dilemma has emerged a remarkable book. In clear-eyed, keenly observant yet empathetic prose, Akkerman provides rich social and historical context for the manuscript culture of the Alawis. Further, by weaving into the book her embodied, often difficult, experience as a foreign woman scholar, she provokes conversation about secrecy, ethics, gender, and hierarchy in western scholarship while remaining in respectful dialogue with her subjects and their protocols of scholarship.
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