The Long Road to Samarqand: Reverse-Engineering the Travels of a 12th-Century Andalusi Muslim (T-S Ar.53.39) (2023)
Over the last 5 years, I have written about several different Cairo Genizah manuscripts for our Fragment of the Month series. Most of the time, I pick a fragment that I’ve spent many days studying to identify what it is and where it came from. These manuscript mysteries often lead to new discoveries that can be fun to figure out, but not every Genizah fragment is so mysterious. The truth is, many tell us exactly what they are.
The trick is recognising how any fragment we’re looking at fits into the wider story of the Genizah and the Middle East. Does it tell us something new about an understudied historical phenomenon? Is the text from a lost work or does it survive in other manuscripts? Are there records of the author elsewhere or is this the only reference to them? Is it an original document or a copy taken out of context? This month’s fragment is one of those manuscripts that is exactly what it says on the tin. It offers us a glimpse into the 12th-century intellectual world and the long journey of a forgotten Muslim scholar from southern Spain.
Cite this work: Posegay, Nick. 2023. “The Long Road to Samarqand: Reverse-Engineering the Travels of a 12th-Century Andalusi Muslim (T-S Ar.53.39).” Fragment of the Month (October). Cambridge: University Library Genizah Research Unit.
