The Earliest Manuscripts of Kairouan (9th-11th Centuries): New Approaches for a More Accurate Dating

Based on the close examination of 32 manuscripts produced in Kairouan between the 9th and the 11th centuries, this article reassesses the content and function of their paratext and interrogates some diagnostic features of their scripts and page layout. In the first part, we demonstrate that some dated notes can refer to auditions and readings that occurred decades before the production of the manuscripts on which they appear, and therefore cannot be used as termini ante quem for dating them. In the second part, we discuss some key palaeographic parameters for a better understanding of Ifrīqī scripts, their origin, and their development, with a view to establishing a set of reliable criteria for a more accurate dating and contextualisation of this little-known material.