Zaydani Library
The Zaydani Library (Arabic: الخزانة الزيدانية, Al-Khizaana Az-Zaydaniya) or the Zaydani Collection is a collection of manuscripts originally belonging to Sultan Zaydan Bin Ahmed that were taken by Spanish privateers in Atlantic waters off the coast of Morocco in 1612. The collection is held to this day in the library of El Escorial.
The manuscripts are of great academic importance, and represent one of the most famous library collections in the history of Morocco. The collection is composed of works from the personal libraries of Sultan Zaydan Bin Ahmed and his father Sultan Ahmed al-Mansur, his brother Sheikh al-Ma'mun, and Abu Faris. The library contained treatises in different fields and in a number of different languages, among them Turkish, Persian, and Latin.
Moroccan diplomats had been asking for them from the beginning of the 17th century until 2009, when Spain allowed Morocco to make
History
When
Zaydan took another ship, one from Holland, for himself and his servants and followers, as well as some of his loyal knights. The two ships arrived in Agadir together on June 16, 1612, and Zaydan left the Dutch ship the same day accompanied by his wives and his servants. De Castellane refused to unload his ship until receiving 3000 gold dirhams. On June 22, after waiting for 6 days for the arrival of the money, which was delayed due to the instability, de Castellane left the port of Agadir for Murcia carrying the sultan's library, crown, staff, clothes, and other belongings.[2]
Castellane's ship was intercepted by a squadron of four Spanish ships from Admiral
Abu Zakriya al-Hahi (أبو زكرياء الحاحي) also came into possession of some of the works of the library when leaving Marrakesh for the Sous after having gone to Marrakesh to protect Sultan Zaydan from the revolting Ahmed ibn Abi Mahalli. What remained of the Zaydani library was scattered throughout the kingdom, settling in different private and public libraries.[citation needed]
In 1671, a fire engulfed El Escorial, burning a large portion of the manuscripts. Only approximately 2,000 were saved, and these are what remain of the Zaydani library today.
Indexing
The Spanish government invited
This catalog was translated into
French orientalists
The French orientalist Hartwig Derenbourg completed a catalog in 1884 entitled "Les manuscrits arabes de l’Escurial ," and in 1928 the orientalist Évariste Lévi-Provençal published Derenbourg's inventory of the manuscripts in 3 volumes.[3]
Demands for the return of the library
Moroccan
After the collapse of Saadi Dynasty, Moroccans continued to press for the return of the books through the Alawite Dynasty.
The Spanish Arabist Nieves Paradela Alonso (es) mentioned that most Arab travelers to Spain addressed the importance of the Arabic books and manuscripts found in El Escorial. Among the most prominent of these voyageurs were three Moroccan diplomats who visited Spain in succeeding historical periods, going there to negotiate with the Spanish monarchs Carlos II and Carlos III over the matter of the numerous Moroccan manuscripts present in El Escorial and their return to Morocco.[citation needed]
These ambassadors are the vizier Muhammad Bin Abd el-Wahab Al-Ghassani Al-Fassi whose diplomatic mission went to Spain in 1011هـ hijri /1690 the period of Sultan Ismail and who recorded his journey in his book The Journey of the Vizier to Release the Captive (رحلة الوزير في افتكاك الأسير) in which he described the wing of the library where Zaydan's books and manuscripts were kept and his negotiation with Carlos II for the release of Muslims held prisoners and the return of some manuscripts to Morocco. The Spanish king conceded to the first request, but not the request for the books, which he claimed had been burned.[4]
The second ambassador was Ahmed ibn Al-Mahdi Al-Ghazzal Al-Fassi, representative of Sultan Mohammed III ben Abdallah to King Carlos III 1179 hijri 1766.[5] Al-Ghazzal authored the book The Result of the Discretion Between Armistice and Jihad (نتيجة الاجتهاد في المهادنة و الجهاد). The case of the manuscripts held an important place in this visit, as the ambassador visited El Escorial and the Spanish king gave him some of the manuscripts:
The king of Spain ordered the collection to be taken out and we added to what we had brought from Granada. We left with this bundle after having delivered 300 prisoners, exchanging each for a book of the books of Islam, may God save them from the lands of the infidels. |
The third ambassador was Muhammad Bin Othman Al-Maknasi, ambassador of Sultan Muhammad III to the court of Charles III, who visited Spain somewhere between 1193 and 1194 (هـ) or 1779–1780 to sign an agreement to renew relations between the two countries and release Algerian prisoners held in Spain. Like his predecessors, he didn't forget to visit the El Escorial Monastery, where he stopped for a long time at the Arabic manuscripts. In his book The Book of Elixir in Freeing the Captive (كتاب الإكسير في فكاك الأسير), Al-Maknasi noted:
The king of Spain gave the ambassador a number of Arabic manuscripts, but they were not from the El Escorial collection.[6]
2009 Agreement
After Omar Azziman's 4 years of negotiations in Madrid, when Bensalem Himmich was head of the Moroccan Ministry of Culture, an agreement of Scientific Cooperation between the National Library of the Kingdom of Morocco and the Library of El Escorial in December 2009 allowed the reproduction of a number of Arabic manuscripts and especially those of the Zaydani collection as microfilm copies.[7] The reproduction would also comprise the manuscripts originally kept in the public library in Tetuan, which were taken during the period of the Spanish protectorate in Morocco. This will help the situation for Moroccan researchers who will no longer have to go to Madrid to study the manuscripts and documents of this library.[8]
The ceremonial presentation of the digital copy of 1939 manuscripts took place on Tuesday, July 16, 2013. The ceremonies were presided by King
Contents
Among the contents of the Zaydani Collection at El Escorial there are:
- The original Arabic text of Ibn al-Khatiib's Muqni'at al-Sā'il 'an al-Maraḍ al-Hā'il (مقنعة السائل عن المرض الهائل), a treatise from c. 1362 about the Black Death MS Arabic 1785 [10]
References
- JSTOR 44204814.
- ^ "الصحافة بأسفي - Presse de Safi". www.safipress.com. Retrieved 2019-05-10.
- ^ Derenbourg, Hartwig (1844-1908) Auteur du texte (1928). Les Manuscrits arabes de l'Escurial. Tome III, Théologie. Géographie. Histoire / décrits d'après les notes de Hartwig Derenbourg ; revues et mises à jour par E. Lévi-Provençal.
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: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ^ رحلة سفارية إلى اسبانيا في عهد المولى إسماعيل دعوة الحق 116 العدد Archived 16 September 2016 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "التراث العربي المخطوط بين المغرب والأندلس - أحمد شوقي بنبين - مجلة مركز ودود للمخطوطات". wadod.org. Retrieved 2019-05-10.
- ^ تابع للمقال السابق: مكتبة الأسكوريال والتراث العربي الإسلامي رواق المذهب المالكي، تاريخ الولوج 21 أبريل 2013 Archived 23 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ الخزانة الزيدانية من أشهر الخزائن العلمية في تاريخ المغرب إيلاف، تاريخ الولوج 19 أبريل 2013 Archived 1 December 2017 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ المكتبة الوطنية بالرباط تحصل على صور المخطوطات العربية المحفوظة بإسبانياهسبريس، تاريخ الولوج 19 أبريل 2013 Archived 19 July 2014 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "ألف بوست : اسبانيا تهدي المغرب 1939 مخطوطا أندلسيا ومغربيا منها مخطوطات السلطان المولى زيدان". ألف بوست (in Arabic). Retrieved 2021-07-19.
- ^ M. W. Dols, The black death in the Middle East, New Jersey, 1977, 322. M. Aguiar Aguilar, "Aproximación al léxico árabe medieval de la epidemia y de la peste", Medicina e Historia (2014) http://issuu.com/fundacionuriach/docs/m_h_2_2014_v7_r