Research Plans/ Unit 6

Unit 6 Source Materials for the Study of Islamic Civilization

The Toyo Bunko (Oriental Library)

Unit Leader: KITAMURA Hajime Acting Leader: HAYASHI Kayoko

Islamic Area Studies Unit 6 Research Office

The Toyo Bunko (Oriental Library)

2-28-21 Honkomagome, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0021, Japan

Tel: +81-3-3942-0121 Fax: +81-3-3942-0258

E-mail: IAS6@toyo-bunko.or.jp

Unit 6: Research Themes and Activities

This year, Unit 6 will conduct activities based on the following themes:

Collection of materials, creation of a database, publication on the Internet:

This unit serves the IAS Project as its ﾒresource library.ﾓ Making use of the recent increase of publications in Islamic regions, we collect widely on topics spanning history, religion, literature, culture, and society. Such collections serve as starting points for Islamic area studies, and especially for research on recent times.

This year, we are concentrating on collecting material from North Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and China. The database is quickly updated to include new acquisitions. This database will be made available on the Internet. The collection will be kept at the Toyo Bunko, and made available to IAS Project scholars and other users.

Formation of a network linking Japanese libraries preserving Arabic-script resources:

In order to best aid Islamic area scholarship, it is necessary to efficiently organize all relevant resources that are available in Japan. Until recently, however, it was extremely difficult to computerize records of Arabic-script resources in the Arabic, Persian, Urdu, and Uighur languages. This explains the underdeveloped state of bibliographical databases associated with Arabic-script resources in Japan. Our unit will help remedy this by developing a database system (Macintosh) and creating a network of databases of Arabic-script resources that would allow cooperation among various libraries and collections throughout Japan. The online union catalogue of Arabic-script resources in Japan will be made widely available via the Internet.

Investigation of the use of historical resources on Islamic regions:

We will deepen our understanding of historical resources on Islamic regions, and conduct basic research on how to best make use of them. Four research groups, specialized by language or by region, have begun this work: the Persian Documents Research Group, the Ottoman Documents Research Group, the Arabic Manuscripts Research Group, and the Mughal Resources Research Group. The Persian and Ottoman groups, which primarily study archival sources, analyze a wide range of written documents from formal, stylistic, and functional perspectives. The study of documents enables the comparative analysis of the organization, policies, and customs of the societies that produced them. The Arabic and Mughal research groups, which deal primarily with descriptive texts, concentrate on understanding how history has shaped the traditions and customs of each cultural region.

Besides the activities of these four groups, a seminar will also be organized to deepen our understanding of common aspects of Islamic historical materials that transcend linguistic and regional borders. Two other seminars will focus on specific skills needed to interpret historical sources, and on helping young scholars. In the summer, we plan to offer an Arabic-language manuscript seminar, and in the autumn, a seminar on interpreting writings of Central Asia. Dr. Ayman Fu'ad SAYYID from Egypt and Dr. Asam URUNBAEV from Uzbekistan will be invited to Japan to instruct participants.

Unit 6: International Exchange

Scholars to be sent abroad

- KUROIWA Takashi (and one scholar to be decided) will collect materials on Chinese Islam. September 2000. China.

- TANIGUCHI Junichi will conduct research on Arabic-language manuscripts regarding court rituals. August 2000. Egypt.

Scholars invited from abroad

- Ayman Fu'ad SAYYID (former director of the National Library of Egypt) will lead the Arabic-language manuscript seminar.

- Asam URUNBAEV (Uzbek Academy of Sciences, Institute of Oriental Studies) will lead the Central Asian manuscript seminar.

Unit 6: From the Unit Leader

Our unit has, for the past three years, been building up a wide-ranging library of materials. From Chinese materials that mention the Islamic culture and religion to Moroccan novels, our collection includes approximately 5,500 works, or over 7,000 volumes. Already, much of the collection has been organized, and can be viewed at the IAS Reading Room of the Toyo Bunkoﾕs 4th floor. We invite you to make use of it, and of the helpful online catalogue. We hope however that you will take the opportunity to hold in your hands some of the works of this collection, and to experience the breadth and depth of the Islamic culture it represents.

The task of Unit 6 is not limited to collecting resources. We are also dedicated to making available the inheritance, in the form of writing, that has been left to us from the past. Thus, in our seminars, we focus on finding the logic particular to a certain genre of historical documents or manuscripts, rather than on the contents of specific texts. This year, we will also create a computer-based network of libraries preserving Arabic-script resources. (HAYASHI Kayoko)