The Yemeni Manuscript Tradition contributes to the study of the manuscript codex and its role in scholastic culture in Yemen. Ranging in period from Islam’s first century to the modern period, all the articles in this volume emerge from the close scrutiny of the manuscripts of Yemen. As a group, these studies demonstrate the range and richness of scholarly methods closely tied to the material text, and the importance of cross-pollination in the fields of codicology, textual criticism, and social and intellectual history.

Contributors are: Hassan Ansari, Menashe Anzi, Asma Hilali, Kerstin Hünefeld, Wilferd Madelung, Arianna D’Ottone, Christoph Rauch, Anne Regourd, Sabine Schmidtke, Gregor Schwarb and Jan Thiele.

David Hollenberg (PhD University of Pennsylvania) is Assistant Professor of Arabic and Religious Studies at the University of Oregon. His recent publications include "The Empire Writes Back: Fāṭimid-Ismāʿīlī Taʾwīl (allegoresis) and the Mysteries of the Ancient Greeks” (in The Study of Shi'i Islam: The State of the Field, Issues of Methodology and Recent Developments, ed. F. Daftary and G. Miskinzoda, London, Tauris, 2014), and Neoplatonism in Early Fatimid Doctrine: A Critical Edition and Translation of the Prologue of the Kitāb al-fatarāt wa-l-qirānāt (The Book of Periods and Conjunctions) (Le Muséon 2010). He is the director of the Yemeni Manuscripts Digitization initiative, a scholarly collective devoted to preserving the manuscripts of Yemen.

Christoph Rauch is Director of the Oriental Department of the Berlin State Library. He studied Arabic and religion at the University of Leipzig. His research interests cover Islam, manuscripts in Yemen, and the history of Oriental collections in the Western world.

Sabine Schmidtke (D.Phil. University of Oxford) is Professor of Islamic Intellectual History at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. She has published extensively on Islamic and Jewish intellectual history. Her works include Theologie, Philosophie und Mystik im zwölferschiitischen Islam des 9./15. Jahrhunderts. Die Gedankenwelt des Ibn Abī Jumhūr al-Aḥsāʾī (um 838/1434-35 - nach 906/1501) (Leiden 2000), and, together with Reza Pourjavady, A Jewish Philosopher of Baghdad. ʿIzz al-Dawla Ibn Kammūna and his Writings (Leiden 2006).