14th century hanafi law manuscripts harar

[Midas]

I found out about this manuscript from an article. This is the oldest arabic manuscript in the region discovered so far. It obviously was brought to harar since harar didn't exist in the 1300s. I can't tell if there is a identifiable somali name in the author section. But it's intresting to see how we have evidence for what is most likely hanafi somalis .

 

[Midas]

Here is the link for anybody interested.

EMIP 01539 - Ethiopia - Hārar - Sherif Harar City Museum - Reading Room - vHMML

Resources and Tools for Manuscript Studies

www.vhmml.org

 

[Idilinaa]

Its a work written in 1200s and copied in the 1300s.

It's hard to ascertain what an author and copiest ethnic/national origins are on manuscripts in Harar because they wont use a Nisba as they are local. It could be a Somali seeing the date of it , harar didn't exist at time this was copied and how at that time Somalis were known has hanafi jurispridence scholars. We know that some of the antique manuscript collections when Burton visited was in the private hands of Somalis as well, so it's a possibility.

It also goes to prove what i said before that Harar was a central collection place for binding and preserving manuscripts.

But nonetheless this is an important find , this is connected to the regions scholarly history.