Profession and Training in Islamic Chancery Practice (adab al-katib) or: Administration as the Crowning Discipline (C06)

• Subject Area: Islamic Studies, Arabian Studies, Semitic Studies
• Term: from 2011 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 178035969

At the centre of the C06 is the fourteen volume encyclopaedia of the chancery secretary Shihab al-Din al-Qalqashandi (1355-1418) Subh al-A' sha fi sina' at al-insha' ("Morning Dawn for a Sufferer of Night Blindness, Concerning the Chancery World"). During the first phase we mainly dealt with determining al-Qalqashandis' understanding of material dimensions of administration, more precisely, we looked at the tools of the trade and the function of writing and scripturality as well as the status of the chancery secretary. On the basis of this we will focus during the second phase on praxeological aspects, more specifically, on al-Qalqashandis' conception of an Islamic (or Islamicized) culture of writing.

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres
• Subproject of: SFB 933: Material Text Cultures. Materiality and Presence of Writing in Non-Typographic Societies
• Applicant Institution: Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg
• Project Head: Professorin Dr. Susanne Enderwitz