On the History of the Princeton University Library Collection of Islamic Manuscripts

Abstract

Princeton University’s collection of Islamic manuscripts is by far the largest collection of its kind in the Western hemisphere and one of the most valuable collections in the world. It consists of some 13,500 manuscripts with diverse origins in public and private libraries from the Western to the Eastern Islamic lands. The collection is not only notable for its size and diversity, but also its quality, containing a large number of autograph and otherwise unique manuscripts. Despite its importance, its histories and provenances have not been the subject of an in-depth study. This paper begins to fill this lacuna. Drawing on a number of previously unstudied archival and documentary sources, including personal correspondence and paratextual manuscript notes, the article traces the development of the sub-collections, studies the collectors who built them, their methods and sources, and tells the stories of their collections’ journeys to Princeton.