Islam and Modernism: the Iranian revolution of 1906 . By Vanessa Martin, pp. ix, 245. London, I. B. Tauris & Co., 1989. £29.50.

Abstract

description of the contents with appropriate philological or textual historical observations is followed by its provenance and physical description, with interesting remarks on owners' inscriptions and readers' notes or any other details relevant to its subsequent history. In the case of the more elaborately illustrated manuscripts, which demand often disproportionally long entries, some entries have benefited from thesis work by students of the Universities of Rome and Venice towards a degree in Oriental Studies. Where these have not been available for consultation, as in the case of a Khamsa of Nizaml, Shlraz c. 1540-80 in the Braidense in Milan (pp. 176-7, Fondo Castiglioni 22) Piemontese has limited himself to brief preliminary identifications. His remarks on condition are also relevant notably to cases of rebinding and consequent disordering of the sequence. These, however, bring up the curious fact that the most common damage to the paper is water-staining. Given the primitive interior lighting available to Muslim scribes and scholars one would prima facie expect burns or oil-stains from candles or lamps which had been knocked over to be far commoner. How did the manuscript get to the water or the water to the manuscript? Perhaps it was an Italian fire-brigade.