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1,000-year-old manuscripts from medieval Islamic world on display in UAE

Collection of epic poetry highlights how Arabic and Hebrew poetry was written, read and circulated within the Jewish community thousands of years ago

For centuries, historians have relentlessly pursued the quest to uncover hidden secrets from the ancient world. However, one of the most profound discoveries was made a century ago when a scholar from Cambridge University in the UK discovered a thought-provoking collection of ancient manuscripts in a 1000-year-old synagogue in Egypt.

These manuscripts, which have been hidden for centuries in a Genizah, the Hebrew term for storeroom, include poetry ranging from classic works to previously unknown writings by Egyptian Jews during the Middle Ages and the Ottoman era.

Most importantly, the manuscripts reveal that while the Jewish community enjoyed reading poetry in their sacred language Hebrew, they would also read it in Arabic.

A team from the European Research Council-funded project ‘Arabic Poetry in the Cairo Genizah’, has been conducting workshops in Dubai and Abu Dhabi to bring this collection of epic poetry to the public’s attention, and to highlight the impact it has had on the study of the history of Arabic literature.

The project, based at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, has collaborated with the University of Cambridge’s Genizah Research Unit and hosts Al Maktoum College of Higher Education, Dundee, Scotland, to bring a rare selection of manuscript facsimiles for display in the Emirates.

New York University-Abu Dhabi will exhibit the delicately framed manuscripts until March 26, with the possibility of the project returning to Sharjah in the future.

“The important thing about these manuscripts is that it shows that there was always a dialogue taking place between Jews and Muslims and that they respected each other,” said Mirza Al Sayegh, chairman of the Al Maktoum College of Higher Education, created by the late Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, former Deputy Ruler of Dubai and Minister of Finance.

Jews and their interest in Arabic literature

Mohamed A. H. Ahmed, associate professor in Middle Eastern Studies, Trinity College. Dublin, who has been the driving force behind the project commented: “The fragments on display at the exhibition show how Arabic and Hebrew poetry was written, read, and circulated within the Jewish community thousands of years ago.

“What is most fascinating is to see how the Jewish community of that time was interested in reading and circulating this kind of Arabic literature. It also shows the shared culture and heritage between Muslim and Jewish people.”

“It also confirms the importance of the Cairo Genizah as a rich resource for Arabic literature and Arabic poetry and shows the need for further study of Arabic poetry there.

Dr Ben Outhwaite who has been head of the Genizah Research Unit in Cambridge University Library since 2006, added: “Genizah is Jewish studies. We know that Jews enjoyed poetry and that they wrote lots of it in Hebrew and used it in their prayer services. But we also knew that they took inspiration in the Middle Ages from some of the great Arab poets”

Over the past 140 years, researchers working in the manuscripts rooms at Cambridge University Library and Trinity College have been studying scriptures and literature from the medieval world.

Writings highlight co-existence

One of them is Sally Abed, who describes some of the exhibits at the exhibition as being ‘sacred objects.’

“The Cairo Genizah is all about communication and co-existence,” she said. “It’s about cultures, getting to know one another, and learning from those differences rather than fighting those differences. It is very profound.”

The collection includes works by Islamic scholars such as Al-Shafi'i, as well as those of the freethinking Al-Ma’arri, and it shows the diverse tastes and interests of this community at the heart of Islamic Egypt.

The Jewish community of Al-Fustat (Misr Al Qadima) was devout in observing the Genizah custom and they carefully preserved old liturgical scrolls, Bibles, prayer books, and other holy texts in a dedicated chamber within the Ben Ezra Synagogue.

In Jewish tradition, holy books containing the name of God cannot be destroyed or thrown away and must either be buried or stored away once they have reached the end of their natural life.

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