Workshop: Materiality of Sufi Manuscripts

Third workshop of the research network ‘Sufi manuscript cultures, 1200–1800’

The research network ‘Sufi manuscript cultures, 1200–1800’ aims to investigate the role of Sufism (Islamic mysticism) in the production and circulation of manuscripts. The core of the project is a series of three workshops that bring together international and interdisciplinary groups of scholars to discuss aspects of Sufi manuscripts such as their patrons and audiences, textual contents and materiality, provenience and provenance. In doing so, the project wishes to create a more sophisticated understanding of the nature of this pre-modern manuscript culture.

The third and final workshop focusses on the materiality of manuscripts that were created or used in Sufi contexts and/or relate to Sufism in their contents. ‘Material aspects’ are in the scope of this workshop understood as anything relating to the physical manuscripts and their artistic expressions, and might include bindings, paper or other carriers, calligraphy, painting, illumination, decoration etc. Invitees are asked to address one or multiple of the following questions in their papers: 

What are the relationships between Sufism and the materiality of manuscripts? 

Do Sufi convents as centres of manuscript production leave their hallmarks in manuscripts such as in manuscript sizes, choice of paper, page layouts or styles of painting?

How is Sufism represented in painting?

How are Sufi manuscripts embellished by illumination or decoration and how does this differ from other manuscripts? 

Is there a relationship between the patrons of and/or audiences for Sufi manuscripts and their materiality? 

What do later, material interventions in manuscripts have to say about their Sufi reception?