Access the full text.
Sign up today, get DeepDyve free for 14 days.
References for this paper are not available at this time. We will be adding them shortly, thank you for your patience.
by Some years ago I made up my mind to ascertain how many manuscripts there are in the libraries of Istanbul. I walked from library to library and bade the librarians to give me the exact official numbers of the manuscripts entrusted to their care. They did, and after I had finished with all the libraries, I added up the figures given to by the librarians. The total sum was about 124,000. This is an enormous figure. No capital in the East nor the West can boast to preserve such an amount of manu- scripts. Istanbul is the first center of Arabic, Persian and Turkish manuscripts in the world, and it is one of the incontestable merits of the Turkish conquerors of Constantinople to have saved these rich treasures of Islamic Culture in their new capital from destruction and dispersion. The history of the individual libraries of Stambul remains to be written. Most of them are pious foundations of the sultans, of vezirs, secretaries of state, shaikhulislams and others. The selection made by these great collectors proves in many cases that they were possessed of a remarkably high standard of connoisseurship and scholarship. One of the higly learned
Oriens – Brill
Published: Jan 1, 1953
Read and print from thousands of top scholarly journals.
Already have an account? Log in
Bookmark this article. You can see your Bookmarks on your DeepDyve Library.
To save an article, log in first, or sign up for a DeepDyve account if you don’t already have one.
Copy and paste the desired citation format or use the link below to download a file formatted for EndNote
Access the full text.
Sign up today, get DeepDyve free for 14 days.
All DeepDyve websites use cookies to improve your online experience. They were placed on your computer when you launched this website. You can change your cookie settings through your browser.