Off the Record: On Studying Lost Arabic Books and their Networks

Abstract

In this paper we discuss the notion of Arabic literary works which, to the best of our knowledge, have been lost over the course of history. We examine factors contributing to the likelihood of transmission, address current interdisciplinary debates, and discuss digital tools applied to estimating the loss of literary heritage or to retrieving information on lost works. Our aim is to highlight the potential that bio-bibliographical works hold for the study of lost texts and manuscripts. Three possibilities are presented for studying lost books mentioned in Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa's History of Physicians (ʿUyūn al-anbā ̉ fī ṭabaqāt al-aṭibbā ), and these include the identification of lost works in bio-bibliografical reference works, the encoding of attestations for manuscripts written by the authors themselves, and the reconstruction of scholarly networks which contributed to a certain lost work. The examples discussed demonstrate the advantages prosopographical networks can offer if they include works and manuscripts. Therefore, we put a particular focus on the use of machine-readable assertions which involves encoding the claims and statements from primary sources in a format that enables computer systems to process and analyse them.