The Ismaʿili Manuscripts in University Library Tübingen: An Inquiry into Provenance

Abstract

The article is written in the framework of provenance research and focuses on the special, mostly precarious situation of Ismaili manuscripts. It sheds light on the history of a group of 42 Ismaili manuscripts, some of them stolen from the famous Hamdani Collection in Surat/Gujarat, India, and the circumstances of their acquisition by the University Library Tübingen between 1970 and 1972. When the manuscripts were acquired, the true origins and disposition of these manuscripts were still completely shrouded in darkness. More than fifty years after these events, I would like to put some pieces of the mosaic together and follow the history of the displaced manuscripts from their place of origin in Surat via Beirut to their final destination, Tübingen. My sources are: Archival material from Tübingen University Archive, dispersed documents, oral and written accounts of contemporary witnesses, further informants—and last not least, the manuscripts themselves.