Open Islamicate Texts Initiative (OpenITI)

OpenITI—Creating the digital infrastructure for the study of the premodern Islamicate world. PIs:
@sarahsavant1 @maximromanov
@M_T_Miller.

[Open Islamicate Texts Initiative (OpenITI) @Open_ITI]

Our manuscript reading groups continue this fall, with a few modifications from last year- as always these are wonderful opportunities for language learning, paleographic practice, and exploring new areas of Islamicate history and textuality! New participants are always welcome!

[Open Islamicate Texts Initiative (OpenITI) @Open_ITI]

Link: https://t.co/qLFeU9fYcg

[Open Islamicate Texts Initiative (OpenITI) @Open_ITI]

What do Paleolithic finger flutings on cave walls and early modern Western European and Islamicate practices of wall writing have in common? Maybe nothing, maybe a great deal- find the link to this week's essay in history of communication on this question below!

[Jonathan Parkes Allen 🌹 @Mar_Musa]

The siyāh mashq/kara-lāma tradition of calligraphy- or however it should be described- so typical of early modern into modern Islamic scribal culture is absolutely fascinating, feels like a great deal going on that I at least do not fully understand (McGill Arabic Calligraphy 24)

[Ahmed Shaker @shakerr_ahmed]

200 inscriptions and counting! QMI’s Early Islamic Inscriptions Platform (EIIP) continues to grow, expanding its catalogue of early Islamic epigraphic evidence. Visit: https://t.co/4pc8IfJwl6

[Open Islamicate Texts Initiative (OpenITI) @Open_ITI]

Link: https://t.co/H6RnxDCrnq

[Open Islamicate Texts Initiative (OpenITI) @Open_ITI]

The Arabic vita of St. Barṣawma the Naked dates to the 14th century but exists in copies going up to the modern era, it received some scholarly attention and a partial edition way back in 1907- it's overdue a new examination with contemporary tools and platforms. Link below:

[Ahmed Shaker @shakerr_ahmed]

🎉 The QMI Early Islamic Inscriptions Platform now features 160 inscriptions dated 32–132 AH, searchable and indexed to support digital research and studies of early Islamic epigraphy.

The catalogue: https://t.co/XupbMOlNxn

[Jonathan Parkes Allen 🌹 @Mar_Musa]

Two illumined pages from a gorgeously rendered Coptic Arabic Old Testament (partial- up to Chronicles) produced in Ottoman Egypt in 1760, that multicolored calligraphy is just wonderful (CAJS Rar Ms 166)

[Open Islamicate Texts Initiative (OpenITI) @Open_ITI]

Link: https://t.co/4LxsManoct

[Open Islamicate Texts Initiative (OpenITI) @Open_ITI]

What do Islamicate "occult" alphabets, Andean khipu boards, and the prayer writing system of Western Apache shaman and prophet Silas John have in common? Quite possibly more than first meets the eye! Read on, and come discuss on Tuesday via Zoom (10 am-12 pm Eastern US):

[Jonathan Parkes Allen 🌹 @Mar_Musa]

Don't know that I've seen something quite like this before: an Arabic text (Nathr al-laʾālī attributed to ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib) with not just a Persian interlinear translation (the first line below the Arabic) but also a Persian "amplification," bit like a sharḥ but not exactly:

[Open Islamicate Texts Initiative (OpenITI) @Open_ITI]

Link: https://t.co/jxC09cINod

[Open Islamicate Texts Initiative (OpenITI) @Open_ITI]

We have a really cool line up of articles for reading and discussion in our Tuesday session next week: an examination of rebus-renderings of the Heart Sutra in early modern Japan and an exploration of the special properties of scripts and alphabets in the Ottoman world:

[Open Islamicate Texts Initiative (OpenITI) @Open_ITI]

Link: https://t.co/U2rzLNN5zH

[Open Islamicate Texts Initiative (OpenITI) @Open_ITI]

Next week's installment of our Critical History of Communicative Technologies course promises to be an especially good one- we're looking at histories of introductions and uptakes of writing in early Japan and the colonial period Andes, with implications for Islamicate societies:

[Ahmed Shaker @shakerr_ahmed]

QMI is pleased to announce the Beta Edition of the Early Islamic Inscriptions Platform, featuring 55 dated inscriptions from the 1st Islamic century!

Give it a try:
https://t.co/fxdOWUxaeh

[Open Islamicate Texts Initiative (OpenITI) @Open_ITI]

Link: https://t.co/Xy4m3oHsfV

[Open Islamicate Texts Initiative (OpenITI) @Open_ITI]

New post describing our revised second half of the semester reading list in critical history of communicative technologies, we added readings on Andean literacy and orality, Western Apache topics, rebus writing in early modern Japan, Ottoman talismans- some fun stuff! Link below:

[invisible_east @invisible_east]

We are pleased to be showing the programme for this year's Rethinking History series. The sessions are held over Zoom and start 1PM Toronto time (18:00 GMT, 19:00 CET); we would love to see you there! scan the QR code below to register.

[Jonathan Parkes Allen 🌹 @Mar_Musa]

New essay tackling a set of questions about subjectivity, textual technologies, and the history of emotions that have occupied my mind off and on for a long while now, still lots of questions outstanding but I kind of like it that way tbh. Link below: