A journey to search my soul

This is a blog of my personal collections. The purpose of this blog is to educate myself and public in regards to antiquities especially related to religion and calligraphy. I welcome everyone to input their feedback in this blog which they think would be helpful. I do not watermark the photos in this blog so everyone is free to use them as long as they are not used for illegal and unethical reasons. I appreciate if you could notify me if you plan to use any of the photos here. Enjoy browsing!!

Saturday, February 16, 2019

The Seventh International Society for Arabic Papyrology (ISAP) Conference - Berlin ( 20-23 March 2018)


In March 2018, I attended 4 days conference on Arabic Papyrology. It was held in Berlin in various museums & institutions.
It was an amazing conference with so many experts presenting their research especially on Arabic papyrus. In addition to that, we have the opportunity to access first hand papyrus collection in Berlin Papyrus Collection & the Manuscript Collection of the Berlin Staatsbibiotek.




Below are the conference program :











TUESDAY, 20 MARCH 2018

Venue: Bodemuseum, Gobelinsaal, Am Kupfergraben, 10117 Berlin
  • Matt Malczycki (Auburn University/ISAP), Andreas Kaplony (LMU Munich/ISAP): Opening
  • Julien Chapuis (Bodemuseum): Welcome
  • Friederike Seyfried (Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung): Welcome

  • Tomasz Barański (University of Warsaw): The Arabization of Lower-Rank Officials in Early Islamic Egypt: A Reconsideration of Two Bilingual Tax Receipts from the Heracleopolites/Ihnās
  • Jelle Bruning (Leiden University): Organizing the War Fleet in Early-Islamic Egypt
  • Lajos Berkes (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin): Greek as an Administrative Language in the 8th-century Caliphate

15:00 - 17:00 Session 3: Workshop on Arabic Documents (Papyrus Collection), Workshop on Arabic Manuscripts (Staatsbibliothek), Visit of Bodemuseum, Visit of Neues Museum



WEDNESDAY, 21 MARCH 2018


Venue: Freie Universität Berlin, Holzlaube, Fabeckstraße 23-25, 14195 Berlin
9:00 – 12:00 Session 4: Omayyad Imperial Documents II (Chair: Andreas Kaplony)

  • Beatrice Gruendler, Konrad Hirschler, Johannes Niehoff-Panagiotidis, Tonio Sebastian Richter (Freie Universität Berlin): Welcome
  • Nils Purwins (Freie Universität Berlin): The Noble Ones of Ērānšahr: About wuzurgān, āzādāz, dahīgān, šahrīgān
  • Said Reza Huseini (Leiden University): Thinking in Arabic, Writing in Sogdian: Diplomatic Relations Between the Arabs and the Local Rulers in Transoxiana in the Early Eighth Century
  • Esther Garel (IFAO Cairo): People of Edfu: Some Considerations on Onomastics and Prosopography in the Papyri from the Early Arab Period
  • Vincent Walter (Leipzig University): "For you know about my life and the prison I am in": The Late Coptic Paitos Dossier
  • Petra Sijpesteijn (Leiden University): "After God, I turn to you." Religious Expressions in Arabic Papyrus Letters

12:00 - 13:00 Session 5: Hands-On Discussion of Documents, Archives and Collections (Poster Session)

  • Ahmed Nabil Maghraby (Sadat City University): Fragment of a Lost Hadith Collection of al-Muʾtamar ibn Sulaymān al-Taymī Preserved on Paper
  • Alon Dar (Leiden University): Power or Persuasion: Qurra b. Sharīk's Letters
  • Ahmed Kamal Mamdouh (Cairo University): Two Unpublished Personal Letters from al-Ashmūnain
  • Tamer Mokhtar Mohamed (Helwan University): Four Arabic Inscriptions on Wooden Panels
  • Lahcen Daaïf (Université Lumière Lyon 2): The Archive of a Christian Wealthy Family from Ṭuṭūn
  • Andreas Kaplony, Daniel Potthast, Johannes Thomann, Sebastian Metz, Angélique Kleiner, Rocio Daga Portillo, Leonora Sonego, Michail Hradek (LMU Munich): The Arabic Papyrology Database
15:00-18:00 Session 6: Literary Documents (Chair: Beatrice Gruendler)

  • Mathieu Tillier (Université Paris IV-Sorbonne) / Naïm Vanthieghem (CNRS Paris): A Quranic Manuscript on Papyrus From the End of the 7th Century and the Beginning of the 8th Century in the Hamburg Staatsbibliothek
  • Ursula Bsees (University of Vienna/University of Cambridge): Some from the Zabur, some from the Prophet: Religious Advice Collected as Seen in P.Vind.inv. A.P. 1854a+b
  • Hazem Hussein Abbas Ali (Beni-Suef University): Reconstructing Dhū r-Rumma's Poem Through an Unpublished Document from the P.Cair.Arab. Collection
  • Edmund Hayes (Leiden University): The Epistolary Imam: Comparing the Correspondence of the Shii Imam with Documentary Letters
  • Samer Ben Brahim / Mahmoud Kozae / Rima Redwan (Freie Universität Berlin): Digital Approaches to a Mutable Textual Tradition: Kalīla wa-Dimna in Manuscripts from the 13th to 19th Centuries
  • Yousry Elseadawy (Freie Universität Berlin): Scribes and Manuscripts: The Scribes of Arabic Manuscripts: A Historical and Codicological Approach
  • Fred Donner (University of Chicago): The Earliest Extant Arabic Letter? Several Puzzles in Search of a Solution


THURSDAY, 22 MARCH 2018

Venue: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Grimm-Zentrum, Auditorium, Geschwister-Scholl-Straße 1-3, 10117 Berlin
9:00 – 12:00 Session 7: Economic Documents (Chair: Lajos Berkes)

  • Lajos Berkes (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin): Welcome
  • Cecilia Palombo (Princeton University): Power, Exaction, and Paternalism in the Enforcement of Taxation: The Egyptian Monastic Context, 2nd‒3rd Centuries
  • Janneke de Jong (Leiden University): Who Did What in Eighth-Century Aphrodito? Some Observations on Tax Documents and Prosopography
  • Saied el-Maghawry Mohamed (Sadat City University): Wheat Through Arabic Papyri in the World Wide Collections: Rare Unpublished Texts
  • Matt Malczycki (Auburn University): Livestock Sales and Social History
  • Mohamed N. Abdelrahman Gad (King Faisal University): An Unpublished Arabic Document from Mamluk Jerusalem: Ḥaram Šarīf no. 646
  • Rocio Daga Portillo (LMU Munich): Writing in Arabic After the Christian Conquest: Toledo Documents Comparing Islamic and Christian Arabic Documents

15:00-18:00 Session 8: Scribal Culture (Chair: Konrad Hirschler)

  • Abdullah al-Hatlani (Leiden University): What’s in a Name? Names, Kunyas, and Nisbas in Islamic-Era Inscriptions from Arabia
  • Eline Scheerlinck (Leiden University): "We will not require anything of you, except for...": Permits, Protection and Problem Solving in Early Islamic Egypt
  • Eugenio Garosi (LMU Munich/University of Basel): An Early Islamic Validity Cause: P.Ness. 56 Revisited
  • Maher A. Eissa (Fayoum University): More Late Coptic Texts from the National Archive of Egypt
  • Daisy Livingston (SOAS London): Late-Mamlūk Archival Practices on Ice: The View from Sultan al-Ghawrī's Waqf Archive
  • Tarek M. Muhammad / Noha A. Salem (Ain Shams University, Cairo), Tārīkh Mulūk al-Qusṭanṭīniyya (The History of the Kings of Constantinople): An Attempt to Know its Author and Sources

FRIDAY, MARCH 23RD, 2018

Venue: Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Einsteinsaal, Jägerstrasse 22/23, 10117 Berlin

9:00-12:00 Session 9: Sciences and Wrap-Up (Chair: Michael Marx)


  • Michael Marx (Berlin-Brandenburg Academy): Welcome
  • Gideon Bohak (Tel Aviv University): Arabic Manuals of Twitch Divination from the Cairo Genizah and from Qusayr
  • Johannes Thomann (University of Zurich): Scientific Texts-Books and their Application in Practice: Interdependencies of Literary and Documentary Evidence of Scientific Activities
  • Wrap-up
  • ISAP General Meeting

This conference really enriched with some knowledge of Arabic papyrus. In addition to that I get to enlarge my network with experts in Papyrology. I was blessed to have met some prominent figures during this conference. To name fews :
Dr. Petra Sijpesteijn
Dr. Andreas Kaplony
Dr. Fred Donner
Dr. Beatrice Gruendler