Islamic Stories
HMML Stories — Islamic
Looking for a story? Search Our Stories

Where We’re Working: Sarajevo
“The 1990s were chaotic and violent in the Balkan federation then known as Yugoslavia...”
- Dr. Columba Stewart

To Timbuktu From a Land Far Away: Migrating Manuscripts
“Texts in West Africa were highly mobile...”
- Dr. Ali Diakite and Dr. Paul Naylor

Enlightened by One Lamp
“Hindu traditions and Islam share a deeply intertwined history in the Indian subcontinent...”
- Abdullah Ansar

Like a Dog
“In Arabic literature, as with many cultures, dogs are viewed with some ambivalence...”
- Dr. Josh Mugler

What Are The Animals Trying To Tell Us?
“In historical Timbuktu—as in any part of the pre-modern world—animals were...”
- Dr. Ali Diakite and Dr. Paul Naylor

An Excerpt on the Properties of April’s Rain in a Curious Collection of Arabic Texts Found in One Manuscript
“The term “April showers” derives from the frequency of short and regular showers that are...”
- Dr. Celeste Gianni

Eclipses in Early Muslim History — Between Myth and Reality
“The best-known eclipse mentioned in Muslim sources was the solar eclipse that occurred on...”
- Dr. Ali Diakite and Dr. Paul Naylor

Remembering an Earthquake
“Many of the regions where HMML has worked are no stranger to earthquakes...”
- Dr. Josh Mugler

Nasheeds from West Africa: Uniting Texts and Sound
“All of Timbuktu’s family libraries that were digitized by HMML include numerous compositions that...”
- Dr. Ali Diakite and Dr. Paul Naylor

Where We’re Working: Lucknow
“HMML’s preservation work in India began in 2008 with the manuscript collections of...”
- Dr. Josh Mugler

The Legacy of Mūrisṭus’ Hydraulic and Pneumatic Pipe Organs in the Early 20th-Century Arabic Literary Culture
“The organ is not the first musical instrument that comes to mind when...”
- Dr. Celeste Gianni

Deadly snakes and remedies against their venomous bites in the handy charts of a copy of the “Kitāb al-diryāq” (Book on antidotes)
“The Arabic manuscript tradition is rich in medical works discussing remedies and...”
- Dr. Celeste Gianni

Zaydī Manuscripts
“The story of the Zaydīs begins in approximately 740 CE, with a revolt along the...”
- Dr. Josh Mugler

Where We're Working: Gaza
“The Gaza Strip is the smallest of the two Palestinian territories in...”
- Dr. Celeste Gianni

A Scribble of Scribes: Men, Women, and Children Copyists Across Mali’s Manuscript Collections
“...each manuscript is an artistic production and requires physical labor performed by a single individual—the scribe...”
- Dr. Ali Diakite and Dr. Paul Naylor

Muḥammad Ṣādiq: A Scribe Between Manuscript and Print Cultures at the Beginning of the 20th Century
“A great opportunity to look at the interaction between manuscript and print cultures can be found in the Middle East...”
- Dr. Celeste Gianni

Why so Many Fragments? Incomplete Manuscripts in the Timbuktu Collections.
“A large amount of the manuscripts digitized in Timbuktu, Mali, that we at HMML have cataloged are fragments...”
- Dr. Ali Diakite and Dr. Paul Naylor

Postscript — Luqmān the Sage
“Luqmān the Sage (also known as Luqmān al-Ḥakīm, the wise) is a legendary character in Arabic and Islamic storytelling...”
- Dr. Celeste Gianni

Censorship Without Censorship
“Maḥmūd ibn ʻUmar al-Zamakhsharī did not have an easy childhood. He was born in 1075 CE into a...”
- Dr. Josh Mugler

ʻUmar al-Turūdī’s List of Unreliable Books
“ʻUmar ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr al-Turūdī, was a scholar from Kebbi, present-day northern...”
- Dr. Paul Naylor

Where We’re Working: Mali
“In the spring of 2012, the desert city of Timbuktu in northern Mali was attacked and...”
- Dr. Columba Stewart

Khwājahʹzādah’s Treatise on the Rainbow
“Rainbows are optical illusions caused by the reflection, refraction, and...”
- Dr. Celeste Gianni

Smoking in the Desert — Between Supporters and Opponents of Tobacco
“The use of tobacco in the Sahel, whether smoking, chewing, or taking as snuff, was widespread and...”
- Dr. Ali Diakite and Dr. Paul Naylor

The Hard Work of a Market Inspector in Preventing Food Frauds at the Market of Tinnīs, Egypt
“There are several manuals in the Arabic literary tradition describing the profession of the...”
- Dr. Celeste Gianni

The Story of the Talking Camel and the Exploits of Ali Genre in West Africa
“While some elements of the story are fiction, others are clearly inspired by real events in Khaybar.”
- Dr. Ali Diakite and Dr. Paul Naylor

Ottoman Soap Operas and Other Stories
“HMML’s digital collections include entertaining stories from a wide range of linguistic and...”
- Dr. Josh Mugler

Four Family Libraries in Jerusalem
“At many points in its history, Jerusalem has been one of the world’s most important cultural crossroads...”
- Dr. Josh Mugler

Travelers and Texts Crossing the Sahara
“Mobility was a central feature of individuals, societies, and texts within Muslim West Africa’s...”
- Dr. Ali Diakite and Dr. Paul Naylor

Medical Texts From Timbuktu — Local Pharmacological Remedies with Qur’anic Verses
“In West Africa knowledge of the Qur’an was often combined with local pharmacological traditions to...”
- Dr. Ali Diakite and Dr. Paul Naylor

Postscript — A Fāʼidah
“Along with the direct physical resistance to this unjust trade, the text shows...”
- Dr. Ali Diakite and Dr. Paul Naylor

Hill Museum & Manuscript Library completes digital cataloging of Khalidi Library’s manuscript collection
“The Khalidi Library in East Jerusalem and The Hill Museum & Manuscript Library announce that the complete digitized manuscript collection...”
- Joe Rogers