Search

In the present article the word is used in the sense of a systematically arranged list of books, compiled for the benefit of those who need to know what has been written on a particular subject. The outstanding achievement in Islamic bibliography to appear before the adoption of printing in Islamic territories is the Fihrist . Its author, Ibn al-Nadīm [ q.v.], a bookseller ( warrāḳ ) in Bag̲h̲dād, compiled the work in 377/987-8 in the form of a bibliographical history of literature, arranged in ten books, the first six being concerned wit…

, library, is the word now normally used in the Arab world for this institution. In Iran kitāb-khāna is used (the entry-word for the article in EI2 ), and in modern Turkey kütüphane . Other equivalents are k̲h̲izānat al-kutub and dār al-kutub . With the zeal for literary pursuits and the ever increasing composition of books, after the period of conquests, men of literary tastes accumulated handsome private collections of books and from the example of the Kūfan philologist Abū ʿAmr al-S̲h̲aybānī we can reasonably assume that it was a cust…

(a.), the Muslim scripture, containing the revelations recited by Muḥammad and preserved in a fixed, written form. ¶ 1. Etymology and Synonyms a. Derivation and Ḳurʾānic usage. The earliest attested usage of the term ḳurʾān is in the Ḳurʾān itself, where it occurs about 70 times with a variety of meanings. Most Western scholars have now accepted the view developed by F. Schwally ( Gesch . des Qor ., i, 33 f.) and others that ḳurʾān is derived from the Syriac ḳeryānā , “scripture reading, lesson”, as used in Christian liturgy (see for example the 6th cent…