New Open-Access Book: Reconstructing the Disiecta Membra of Köprülü, Mehmed Âsım Bey, 1 bis

 George Kiraz, Sabine Schmidke and Alexander Treiger, Reconstructing the Disiecta Membra of Köprülü, Mehmed Âsım Bey, 1 bis (Gorgias Press, 2026)

 

A facsimile edition of Ms. Istanbul, Köprülü Library, Mehmed Âsım Bey 1 bis, a composite Christian Arabic manuscript with contents including Arabic New Testament witnesses, a lectionary, and Christian Arabic doctrinal, legal, and canonical texts. Beyond its textual contents, the manuscript provides important evidence for the circulation, fragmentation, and reassembly of Christian Arabic books in the Ottoman period, as well as for the precarious survival of Christian Arabic materials within Islamic library collections.

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New Open-Access Book- Books Printed for Arab Christians in the 18th Century: A Descriptive Catalog

Archimandrite Policarp Chiţulescu and Yulia Petrova, Books Printed for Arab Christians in the 18th Century: A Descriptive Catalog (De Gruyter, 2026)

About this book

This catalog provides descriptive records of 54 Arabic books printed in Eastern Europe and the Arabic-speaking communities in the Ottoman East during the 18^th century. It offers a thorough overview of the connections established through printing between the Romanian principalities and Arabic-speaking Christians in the eastern Mediterranean during this period. The catalog emphasizes the social progress that the printing culture brought to the Near East, to which Romanians made a significant contribution. The catalog also addresses the historical context of these connections and the printing activities of several prominent political and ecclesiastical figures. The books presented here are pivotal to the cultural history of the Ottoman East. They have been particularly significant in the context of conserving Byzantine-based Christianity in Arabic-speaking provinces in the region. Additionally, these books contributed to the standardization of Arabic liturgical texts and greatly influenced Christian Arabic literature. This catalog will be of interest to historians of the Arabic printed book, researchers of Arab Christian communities under Ottoman rule, as well as librarians and antiquarians because it will enable them to accurately identify and describe the 18^th-century Arabic editions in their collections.

Author / Editor information

Policarp Chiţulescu, Romanian Patriarchate, Bucharest, Romania; Yulia Petrova, Krymskyi Institute of Oriental Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine

 

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