The Royal Danish Library: A Case Study in the History of European Islamic Manuscript Collections

Paul Babinski, PhD

Friday, April 25, 2025, 12:00 - 1:30 pm EST

This talk examines the provenance of Islamic manuscripts held in the Royal Library in Copenhagen, tracing the genesis of the collection and its historical contexts from the library’s founding in the seventeenth century to the present. Copenhagen’s oriental collections mirror broader European trends, and they preserve papers, manuscripts, and letters from a number of significant early modern and modern scholarly libraries. These offer an exceptional view into the activities of orientalists and some perspective on basic questions in the history of European oriental studies. Where and how were Islamic manuscripts collected? How did orientalists work together with Muslim and Eastern Christian scholars? What can manuscripts tell us about evolving understandings of cultural difference?