Article Series
A summary of the seventh of Shaykh Salih al-Azhari's courses in manuscript studies, titled "The Study of Manuscript Copies: Paths and Skills". The course covers missing portions in manuscripts and their causes and types, copies assembled from different sources, establishing the title and the author's name, checking catalogue data critically, the stages of a text from draft to fair copy to released version, and finally ranking manuscript copies and the editor's task in weighing them.
Series parts
The first lecture of the seventh course, in which Shaykh Salih al-Azhari analyzes lacunae in Arabic manuscripts, from missing volumes and leaves to blank spaces, and shows how quires, audition certificates and endowment notes help the editor detect and document them.
In the second lecture of the seventh course, Shaykh Salih al-Azhari discusses copies left incomplete by their writers, composite copies assembled from several manuscripts, and how to establish a book's correct title and author.
In the third lecture of the seventh course, Shaykh Salih al-Azhari explains the stages through which texts develop in Arabic manuscripts, distinguishing drafts, fair copies and successive authorial recensions, and shows how to rank copies accordingly.
In the fourth lecture of the seventh course, Shaykh Salih al-Azhari sets out the aim of textual editing, the editor's duties toward the author's text, and a critical method for ranking manuscript copies that goes beyond rigid conventional rules.