Peeking through the Bookshelves

Embedded in a lively research trend in the Arabic manuscript studies, this contribution aims at providing a preliminary picture of the library of the Beiruti physician Yūsuf Ṣayfī. The latter’s manuscript collection, currently kept at the University of Leeds, will be thoroughly analysed with regard to its codicological and palaeographical features as well as its thematic arrangement. Whereas Yūsuf Ṣayfī’s library can be consistently classified as a specialised collection of medical texts, his approach to book culture as exhibited in the collection is heterogenous. Through the evidence of the manuscripts, a partial profile of this unknown man and his library will be sketched. The specificities identified in this case study will be then mirrored into its reference framework, that is, 13th-/19th-century Bilād al-Shām, thereby enabling us to contextualise Yūsuf Ṣayfī’s library into the book and literary culture of this fascinating (and revolutionary) period in the history of the Arabic-speaking world.